I wish I were making this up

by E. A. Bourland

a woman I knew
said
I needed too long to shit

she would stand
outside the door
and scold me

one time she poked
her head and shoulders in
while I was shitting —
I wasn’t even reading —
and shouted: “hey!”

one time she said,
“I need in there!”
and busted in
while I was
doing my shit

I wish I were making
this up; I’m not

when I emerged
she stood mocking me

I looked
in her face and said,
“did what had to be done”

my confidence
made her giggle
nervously

the next day she walked
around telling me
“obey my dick”

I never saw her again

there was another woman
previously
who had felt
the same unpleasant way
about my shits

if she were
on the premises, even the idea
of taking a dump
made me so anxious
I stopped eating

she snarled,
“if you can’t shit, you can’t live here”

I left

I am completely
unembarrassed
regarding my old,
shit-covered love-stories

rather!
I’m filled up with
the spirit of
discovery

these days I’m working on a project to blast off
using
my own shit
for my rocket

I intend to squat naked
in the middle
of the city
and crap so powerfully
that, following a vector,
I blast upward
on a
column
of feces

ha! ha, ha, ha!

rising past skyscrapers

greeting the people
in their windows

“HI!”

bowels
thrusting

reaching lower orbit
then
escape velocity

a harness to brace me
against the wind

an antique fishbowl for a helmet,
good thick
American glass, slightly greenish

crapping my way
to the stars
carrying a little, thrifted umbrella
to block the huge, silent sun

dear disquieted
long-ago partners maybe
you did not know
how to love
a shoestring voyager
like me

spacefaring,
dauntless

. . . except nobody
will notice me, right?
flying away?

NYPD might scold me
about lifting off
from midtown
without a permit

but who looks up
from her phone
anymore,
or his own troubles?