(to be given at my performance of songs that don’t exist)
this next song is about love and loss and longing
and it comes from one morning
that was the morning after another morning
where the same thing happened
but where the true depths of that thing
were not realized until the second morning
it comes from me being in the shower
and realizing my neutrogena oil-free acne wash soap
you know the orange kind that comes in a pump-bottle
and is the the truest male distillation of all that is neutrogena
in that it is the most utilitarian and functional and basic
of the ever-expanding universe of neutrogena products
was sitting out on the bathroom sink
so far out of reach that there was no consideration
about getting out of the shower
and doing that small side arcing diagonal shuffle step
with the bathmat under both of my feet
stuck out towards the edges
so i wouldn’t need to take
too many shuffle scooches over to the sink
so i wouldn’t drip all over the bathroom floor
or lose too much of the shower warmth
i had fought so long and hard already to soak up
and so there it was
sitting there on the far right edge of the sink ledge
for the second day in a row
because we were both somehow able to struggle through
the jarring reality of the initial separation on the first day
and its jarringness was so complete
that any possible thought about some kind of remedy
to this situation
say like moving the soap back into the shower
onto the fourth tier of the simplehuman stainless showercaddy
was not even the remotest of possibilities
we found ourselves there again on that second day
having scraped by the first day without feeling its sweet caress
without its ephemeral texture and gentle cleansing action
without its purifying and preventative powers
and then to find ourselves in that same situation
knowing we should have known better
knowing somehow we should have found the strength
or the foresight to somehow do something
to avoid this groundhoggian reprise
and that we had failed
and our separation was a compounded sort of bitterness
with a garnish of regret and self-chastening
and as I saw my neutrogena face soap looking back at me
with as much ennui as a pump-dispenser of soap can muster
through its fatalistic anguish and defeat
i could see a small fragrance-free orange tear of soap forming at its spout
and my initial response was one of sweet kindredness
since i had just begin to weep as well
but just as the tear of soap had softened the edge of my despair
that same despair turned from a rounded edge that once was sharp
into a vast and torrid whirlpool of infinite regress and regret
because in that moment i understood
that though i knew we were both expressing our sadness
in exactly the same manner
at exactly the same moment
the neutrogena face soap was unable to distinguish my tears
from the water cascading over my face
from the chrome moen rainfall five setting showerhead
and its currently wall-mounted but hand-wieldable counterpart
on the opposite wall of the shower with their mutual full-blastedness
and in that moment i lived and learned
the true nature
of what it means to love
and what it means to long for the presence of another
and what it means to see their heart breaking
without them being able to witness my exquisitely
complementary anguish
that, my friends, is what this song is all about.
