Funny

It's funny how it ended,
Over a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich.
And by funny I mean funny like
The guy who lives across the street from the park
And drives a big white van with no windows
Or the taste of milk vomit
When I say funny I mean funny like slamming your face
Into a concrete wall
With a mouth full of thumbtacks
That kind of funny.

It's funny because we made it through madness, addiction
Methamphetamines, cocaine
Infidelity, betrayal, robbery, suicide
Two countries, three states, and four years
Tears enough to drown a hippo
But a god damn peanut butter and jelly sandwich
Was somehow too much to handle.
It's funny,
your favorite movie was
Natural Born Killers
I always knew you were a snake.

I thought I lost you in Germany
When I sat you down to say
That if I couldn't have you all to myself,
I didn't want you.
But then you came back two days later
To tell me that you were pregnant
Two more weeks found us
Nursing coffee in Dieter's Gasthaus
Too ashamed to let our eyes meet
Or talk about how we could have kept it
If things were different
And you told me how you lost your first baby
When your dad kicked you in the stomach
But you didn't mind
Because you didn't want to give birth
To your own sister.

It's funny.
I never thought I'd pay for an abortion
And I wasn't even sure that it was mine
But I trusted you and I knew
That I'd go to prison if your husband found out.

You still said you loved me
When you lied to the doctor
So you could be the first one to visit me in ICU
When I ruptured my kidney while stage diving.
But I knew you were there for the story.

I was there
For you to flee to
Two years later
When your latest victim started getting wise
Hitting you.
I swore I'd never fuck you again
But you smelled....so....good
You always knew how to look at me
You knew how to light up
When I came into the room
I couldn't resist it
It's funny how much I'd hated you
How much we loved to fuck
You told me I was your best
I believed it
I still do
I know it's true.
Nobody ever loved you like I did, I do.

It's funny.
Even after you got us thrown out
Fighting with the land lord
I kept my word
Maybe I did fuck her once
When you weren't in the room
But you were the one who invited her
Got us all worked up
Announced you had a headache
Did you expect us to play Monopoly?

After a three-day meth binge
Spanning seventeen hundred miles of interstate
With a hundred bucks to our name
I confessed
Took handfuls of pills with whiskey
Settled into the bathtub to sleep
You pulled me out
Brought me to the hospital
Made me drink the charcoal
Washed the black streaks
Out of my underwear
For the next couple weeks
Told me you forgave me.

I just wanted you to know I was sorry.
But that was before the peanut butter.

I only hit you once
And you know it was an accident
If you hadn't been screaming
Through that flimsy bed room door
At point blank range
About how much of a man I wasn't
When all I wanted was to collapse on the floor and cry
About whatever it was we were arguing about
(the money you stole, the meth you hid, the dicks you sucked)
But you wouldn't stop yelling
I had to do something
The door seemed strong enough
I didn't know my fist would go straight through
Or knock you on your ass when it connected with your jaw
But it shut you up.

It's funny,
I never thought I'd be a wife beater.
Once was enough.

So when you came at me with the knife
Because I told you that since
We'd spent our last two hundred dollars
On party supplies for your son's birthday
And I had spent all night making
Spongebob Squarepants cardboard cutouts
That maybe you should stop cutting the crusts
Off of the peanut butter and jelly sandiches
So we'd have four per two slices of bread
Instead of just two
And maybe the bread would last till payday
I didn't hit you.

I took the knife and pushed you
And then I smashed the barstool
And you ran into the living room
And I ran along behind you
And asked you what your problem was
And you told me to go to hell
And I ran from you and hit the wall
And the hole was big enough to stick your head in
And then I did collapse
On the bathroom floor
And I cried
And I knew that it was over

All because of that god damned peanut butter and jelly sandwich
and then you left.