Your Mouth Is Wide Open Poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

I am not interested in you.
Nor will I ever be interested in you.
I'm suppose to be attracted to you?
Because you have a suit on?
You ain't even the kind I like.
So you're wasting your time here...
Mister-wish-I-was-somebody-important!

'All I am doing is waiting for the bus!
That's all!
Nothing more. Nothing less.'

I've heard those lines before.
'Nothing more. Nothing less.'
You don't have to get technical about it!
I met my 4th husband at a bus stop.
He thought he was 'all that' too!
Yeah...
He died from a puncture wound.

'Sorry to hear that! '

I'm over it now!
I was paroled two weeks ago!

'Paroled? '

YEAH!
He snatched my weave off my head.
Trying to tell me I didn't look like Beyoncé!
And I paid Two Hundred Dollars too?
He'll never do that again.
Fourty-eight times I punctured him in self defense!
And...
HEY! ?
Why you running?
The bus ain't got here yet!

And he calls himself a man?
Ain't no more men around.
I ain't found one yet...
To let me complete the entire story.

Well...
I'll tell you.
Since you ain't said nothing...
And your mouth is wide open.
Anyway...
I had to wrestle a gun from him!
Yes!
He said I looked like a muskrat.
And he was going to shoot it off my head!
Well...
I snapped.
Killed him and the muskrat!
Oh...here comes the bus.
And don't be looking at me like I'm crazy.
YES...
These are my eyes!
Natural blue.
And this platinum hair? ? ?
It's mine...
Okay?