Homeless Shelter Lamentation 

by D.C. Buschmann

You come to me drunk,

expect me to pretend

I like your drunk self.

I don’t

know how to pretend

you aren’t drunk,

that you don’t remember

what I just told you

five minutes ago,

that you don’t repeat

what you just said

four or five times.

I don’t know how to

pretend I don’t notice

your alternate personality

IQ’s 80 points lower.

You say I’m to blame.

I tear into you 

when you’re the one

tearing.

I don’t know how to 

pretend I don’t notice

you’ve gone into a rage

because I’m watching

a show you don’t like.

Why not just ask me

to turn it?

You expect me to pretend

I don’t have a threshold

and this isn’t beyond it.

You expect me to pretend

with you 

that you don’t drink.

You expect me to pretend

I like you drunk.

I don’t.

* * * * *

D.C. Buschmann is a retired editor and reading specialist. She was a finalist in the 2018 Poetry Society of Indiana’s Ogdon Award. Her poem, “Death Comes for a Friend,” was the Editor’s Choice in Poetry Quarterly, Winter 2018. In 2016, she was a finalist in the Alex Albright Creative Nonfiction Prize contest and the Pride in Poetry Prize contest. She has been published in literary magazines in the US, the UK, Australia, Iraq, and India. She lives in Carmel, Indiana, with husband Nick and miniature schnauzers Cupcake and Coco. Her first full collection of poetry will be published in 2020.