{"id":18612,"date":"2023-12-14T06:56:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-14T11:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/?p=18612"},"modified":"2023-12-14T07:11:18","modified_gmt":"2023-12-14T12:11:18","slug":"placeholder-text","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/fiction\/placeholder-text\/","title":{"rendered":"placeholder text"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lily: I know you hate exes sliding into your DMs. But when we broke up, I thought we\u2019d stay in touch. At that brunch with your parents, after you had quaffed half a carafe of mimosa and then turned to me, while your parents were busily discussing how to redecorate their upstate lake house, and said, \u201cThis is it, Alex. It\u2019s over.\u201d And you then went on with your eggs benedict, asking the waiter for another round of toast so that you could mop up the pool of yolky hollandaise. Perhaps for a second your father seemed to think something had gone down. He ignored your mother, who was droning on about the feature wall in the master bedroom. He looked at you then made eye contact with me and asked if I were okay. You waved your hand in midair and announced to the table, \u201cAlex has to go. An appointment with his therapist.\u201d I tried to think of something to say to your father, but the words wouldn\u2019t come. I just stared at the oversized YALE on his sweatshirt and knew that you saw me as a step down for having attended a state school in Indiana. \u201cYou\u2019re running late,\u201d you said to me. \u201cYou better run along.\u201d Then you turned away and asked your mother about converting the garage into a writer\u2019s studio. I tossed a few dollars onto the table, which you pocketed, then I left the restaurant and walked in a daze through Carroll Gardens. I drifted by some clothes boutiques and our favorite coffee shop. I even stopped to look in the window of that fancy store, where I helped you choose that vetiver cologne for your father. You had no idea what to get him for his sixtieth. You kept saying your relationship was \u201cfraught,\u201d that he expected more of you. Later on at his birthday party, I talked to him on your behalf. I know I never told you this. I walked with him to the lake, just the two of us, and asked what the issue was. He motioned to a white yacht skimming across the dark water. \u201cNothing in life is free,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes, my daughter is under the opposite illusion.\u201d He talked for a while longer: he wanted you to have more of a plan for your life. He worried about your aimlessness. He never envisaged his daughter as a poet. \u201cShe\u2019d be a great lawyer,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can never have too many lawyers in the family.\u201d I told him you had a preternatural talent for lyrical language, that you were a finalist for a poetry fellowship, even had poetry forthcoming in some online magazines. I might have even foolishly asserted that your work was sui generis. Your father smiled, said he was glad I stuck up for his daughter. \u201cGo find her back at the house, Alex,\u201d he said. I left him, still unsure of how he viewed me, my IT job and its prospects, my love for you. I searched the packed marquee and then the living room and kitchen. Outside a guest bedroom, I saw you curled up on the bed, on the phone with someone else. Even after a year of dating, I was unsure who was on the other end and why you looked so joyful. I thought about that moment again on the day of our breakup. I had walked for miles and finally found myself far away from Carroll Gardens, in an electronics store browsing new cellphones. And I bought a sleek, overpriced Android. I ditched my old phone and changed my number and created new social media accounts and started to follow your friends, then you. I hope this is okay. Or at least understandable. I wanted to know who this other person was. There were some Brooklyn-based men I didn\u2019t recognize: Jacob, Daniel, Theodore, Dylan, Frederico. But I never solved the mystery. But it doesn\u2019t matter that much. I\u2019m writing to you because I realize now that I had upset you the night before the brunch with your parents. I didn\u2019t fit in at Ingrid\u2019s dinner party and even less so when we all said our pronouns, and I stupidly\u2014though in White Claw-infused jest\u2014said mine were fuck and you. I am not a misanthrope or hater of trans rights, as Marcel accused me of being. All night I eavesdropped on his conversations with Ingrid and Noah, and when he wasn\u2019t pontificating about L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry, he\u2019d glance my way and shake his head. It was a mistake, Lily. You know that. I don\u2019t want to be the subject of your group chats anymore (so I\u2019ve heard): Alex is into Black men now. Like his boss. Did you hear Alex lost his job? He fucked over his colleagues. Alex has joined up with some TERFs in the UK and is pitching articles to The Guardian<\/em>. Who was ever even friends with Alex? Alex is always being defensive. He\u2019s so insecure. So Indiana. So doesn\u2019t belong here. And so on. I don\u2019t mean to slide into your DMs, Lily. Not like this. As you\u2019ve never checked in with me, I thought I\u2019d let you know that I\u2019m doing okay. I\u2019ve even had a few dates. Nice girls, not MFA types. They have office jobs and 401(k)s and don\u2019t want to change the world. They curate online designs of latte art and cute pictures of misbehaving pugs, and maybe when vanity strikes they dream of being Instafamous. For wheels of macarons and unicorn cookies and orchid crowns. All of this is to say, Lily, is that I\u2019ve \u201cgrown,\u201d as you always wished. I really have. Maybe it\u2019s only a small amount so far. And I understand that I have some issues to work out. Maybe you can appreciate that I\u2019ve stopped drinking so much and cut back on my work hours and even Zoomed with a therapist. It\u2019s not much, but it\u2019s a start. I know now that I was never progressive enough for you. I tried my Midwestern best. I\u2019m an IT consultant, not an activist. But come on, I\u2019m not a TERF or homophobe. I just have a bad sense of humor. I grew up watching Adult Swim cartoons and Jackass<\/em> and other stupid shows, and not spending my time reading the poets you admire: Sexton, Lorde, Bishop. We are so different, and I\u2019ve moved on from us, whatever we were, and I hope you do the same. However much I deserve it, I\u2019m not a punchline for you and your friends. And I don\u2019t want to appear in any more of your poems, even if my name is changed or redacted. No Alec or Lex or Xander or A___. Please, write about someone else. This is it for me, Lily. Don\u2019t respond. Don\u2019t acknowledge me. Don\u2019t use me as lorem ipsum. Remember I defended your poetry to your father. So don\u2019t waste your talent badmouthing me. Write an ode to your father or Plath him. Either way, just let him know that I\u2019m doing okay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Did you hear Alex is into Black men now? He lost his job? He’s joined up with some TERFs in the UK & is pitching articles to The Guardian. Who was ever even friends with Alex? He\u2019s so insecure. So Indiana.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-christopher-linforth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18612"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19322,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18612\/revisions\/19322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}