Make Me Feel

The dictionary had words

With the thesaurus

And now she’s taking me

Out dancing

Along the broken keyboards

I put on my best plastic

And swiped my waltz card

Promising the subway tokens

I’d be home by May

Along the way

To the ball hall

I saw a butterfly

Made of that new

Kind of butter

That’s twice as bad for you

That’s how I knew

Spring was around us

And when I checked

My internal calendar

I was told that two more blizzards

Would hit that night

Before turning into

The hottest night

Of the year

I thought about texting

The dictionary to ask

If the ball hall has air conditioning

But as the thought

Crossed my drive

A rickshaw drove into me

And the driver yelled

For me to move

Saying that androids

Had turned this city

Into a non-stop traffic stop

Out of the corner

Of my hip eyes

I saw a mailbox

Down the street

And the next thing I knew

My gears had begun

Turning in all the wrong directions

Since my manufacture

I had never felt myself

Emotionally impacted

By another contraption

But this mailbox

Was newfangled

And so old-fangled love

Had no place for me

The postal model

Had wheels

Allowing it to wheel around

And collect letters

And packages

And love letters

And brown paper packages

And Dear John letters

And packages for people named Pete

I sent out a sonic signal

At a frequency only boxed mechanics

Can comprehend

Sure that the mailbox

Would deliver itself to me

And though I felt bad

About my certain ghosting

Of the dictionary

I understood that love

Doesn’t wait

And neither does the mail

The signal went out

But nothing came back

As disappointed as I was

It didn’t deter me

From running into a nearby store

To purchase a stamp

And an envelope

As soon as I had

Something to mail

The box was out of order

And I understood

Why it chose to rebuff

My decoration of dedication

Once you’re offline

There’s no getting

Your love in line

I moved on to my original date

But my heart was not in my steps

And though we won

A ball hall trophy that evening

For our winnebago foxtrot

We parted ways

With the dictionary taking ownership

Of the trophy for itself

I had no interest

In polish

After the heartache

I’d experienced earlier

The walk home was long

And on the way

I found myself

Thinking of mailboxes

All over the world

With wheels and without

And how I could love any of them

But there was only one I wanted

And that one was probably scrap metal

Because they’re very swift

When it comes to repurposing

Those sorts of things

In a store window

I spotted the reflection

Of one of those butterflies

And I was reminded

That new things

Are being invented everyday

I might love something new

Any day now

As my inventor said

While he was installing

My disposal system--

Anything can happen