The sad dramas of the Flesh

explaining a triangle
of relationships to A___
how T___ was in love with L____
but L___ was still in love with me
as a consequence
T___ disliked me
as she believed
we were in competition
with each other
for the affections of L___
however
as I now told A___
I wanted no part of it
and as far as I was concerned
there was no romantic relationship
between myself and L___
she and I had come to an understanding
and all of this tired drama
was fabricated by T___
as a way of explaining to herself
why L___ was not returning her affections
and I
as I explained to A___
was sick to death of the whole misunderstanding
it was precisely the sort of drama
I wanted to no longer
be any part of
the end result being
my distancing and detachment
from the social world
A___ said
so that's why you've been treating us all
like horses
I didn't understand
if anything
I've been thinking of myself
as a wolf
a solitary creature
who no longer found comfort within the herd
who longed to be solitary and lone
then I thought of Animal Farm
and told her
in many of my jobs over the last 20 years
I have always seen myself as the horse
in that allegory
the creature who works himself to death
we were sitting in a kitchen
similar to the one at Inwood
my grandparent's house
where I grew up
she was across the table from me
maybe I am still the horse
I told her
but I've just wandered off
and no longer want to live in the barn
what is troubling me
as the solitary horse
is the absence of any farmer
or other humans around
those would be the gods
the fugitive gods who have left this world
all of us lesser animals
remain behind
tending to the ceremonies of the farm
a pantomime of acting as if
there were still a reason for the farm
to exist as a farm
but without the farmer and his family
there is no longer any reason
it would be better for us
to return to the wild
that's what I am feeling
that 's what it troubling me
and making me intolerant
of the sad dramas of the Flesh