Auf Wiedersehen

A sudden funk just soused me

like an Indian Summer rain, quick

and humid, narcissistically denying blame – 

It said I was a nonsense rhyme – in sickly thick 

molasses purgatory – with fuck-all left to do: 

arguably thus to misconstrue whatever

had been holding me, ostensibly to reassure: 

it turned out to be luckless you. Why had you

come back, Frau Schadenfreude? –

(“why should I avoid her?” I was wont to say once,

meaning you.) But back then how excruciatingly

you entertained! – your schadenfreude measure

of dissociative pleasure, grimly laughing,

at your leisure, at misfortunes of whoever

wasn’t you. That had once been my taste, too:

indulging the exultant false guffaw – giggling

at the saccharine taste of any show of caring.

How daring and sophisticated it felt then

to think it was the truest view, the most

authentic taste of Being. How illuminating now

to know that I’d been seeing, tasting nothing.

Bitte, meine lieber Frau: auf wiedersehen.

Good riddance to your hell

with all its hollow comedy of pain.

.