Of course, I feigned outrage, telling him that I would never write angst-filled poetry, and even if I did, I was a teenager, so I could totally be forgiven. This, of course, was me lying through my teeth, as I’d already written the following on the back of an old protest flyer with a gnawed-on Bic pen, my soul poured into and piercing every single word:

Consternation, Thy Name Is Me

A Poem of Epic Proportions That Signifies My Current Life

(And Destroys Any Hopes For A Happy Future)

By Tyson Thompson

Oh, like the flowers in a field

my heart has unfurled for you.

Please take me as I am,

Something, something do-do-do

(I was having rhyming issues on that last part. Shut up.)

I’ll be there for you with all that I have.

For every moment of every single day.

It would be very helpful, though (for both our sakes)

if you could be like me, a super awesome gay.

(That last part was written to make me feel better. It worked. I am super awesome.)

It’d make life so much easier,

if only you could look at me see

that I am already gay for you (and everyone else).

So why can’t you be gay for me?

(Yes, I went there. Sorry. It’s not like my life is a book with chiseled headless torsos gracing the cover. I’m not chiseled, and I am pretty sure my torso is shaped funny. Which, as a side note, why are there always muscled men with abs and no heads? Don’t they own clothing? Can’t they stand far away enough from the camera to get their faces in the shot too? Don’t they ever get tired of doing crunches and sometimes just want to sit in a recliner in front of a TV and eat cookie dough straight out of the tube? It’s not like you look at it and go, “Wow. I am so glad that guy has an eight-pack and is standing in an awkward pose. Also, I am happy to know what his chin looks like but not the rest of his face. That’s going to let me enjoy the story more.”)

But alas! It is too much to ask.

You have spent your seed inside a female!

And now your loins have produced an heir!

That, per my estimate, is an extraordinary fail.

(Nothing against Ben, of course. Except for the fact that he exists.)

I curse and rue the day I met you!

My trust and love have been shattered!

Maybe we’re better off apart.

Woe! How I wish I could have mattered!

(Yikes, that.)

So here I sit, in my room,

my flower heart yet unfurled.

It has taken all of this for me to know

that I am all alone in the world.

If you thought that my poetry skills would have gotten better with age, well, then… I am glad you’re correct. My epic is epic.

But.

But!

I wasn’t playing any Mary Chapin Carpenter. I’m not that much of a lonely loser.