A Burger Called Drama Queen

By C.E. Hoffman

Some say, I don’t know what they say, kids make no sense to me these days, they’re
awkward, or I am, but aren’t I young? A fumbling deer, a baby dove pecking at my pretty cage,
or tumbling out, down, never up but near, and here, I bet you’d know what to say if you saw your
ex who raped you (at least) once when you were a kid and thought he was cool.
If you saw him at that actor’s bar he brought you to once to bitch, I bet you’d play it cool,
ignore him or shake his hand, look him straight in his steel blue eye.
Pretend Love Will Tear Us Apart played and you remembered you wore your red panties
with the period stain because nobody would see it because sad and single half a week from
Valentine’s Day.
Say he walked in, walked up to you, used your Deadname because he never knew you by
any other.
What would you say?
“Fuck off.”/“Hey.”?
Would you become distracted by the guy who declared his friend’s hair “Fabulous!” in
the way that makes you wish you had more (male) gay friends?
What if the song changed and you couldn’t name the band even though it all felt so
familiar, and your veggie burger came out too hot to touch, and maybe the server could tell you were uncomfortable, but maybe not, ‘cause your ex wasn’t there, just someone who (kind of)
looked like him (maybe it was the eyes) and you could wait for your burger to cool without
incident, ‘cause any one of us could freak out in a booth for one with nothing but our heart/head
to depend on, and you know what they say about those…
Don’t you?

The End

C.E. Hoffman is a grant recipient, Elgin Award nominee, and winner of the 2022 Defunct May Day Chapbook contest. They edit Punk Monk Magazine/Press and host the podcast Scribbles & Spills. Find more weirdness at cehoffman.net