I lied to my fourth therapist,
telling her all of my bogus
achievements while she jotted
them down on a pad in her lap,
hoping that she couldn't smell
the Schnapps on my breath or
catch me while I admired her
legs during my feeble attempts
to lie to her about my ongoing
drug use so I could remain
her "favorite patient" because
I had finished some college
where I had failed to learn
how to be a good liar. She
booked an appointment for
the following week that I
would be too hung over to
attend, let alone cancel.
One of the receptionists
walked in on my desperate
attempts at masturbation in
the lobby bathroom in order
to let me know the patient
van had arrived to drive me
and all the other impotent
losers home, or at least to
a quiet place where I could
feel suicidal until I bored
myself into a fourteen hour
coma of too many nightmares
and not enough dreams ready
to come true until I was
ready to come true.
Kevin Ridgeway lives and writes in Southern California. Recent work has appeared in Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, Spillway, BIG HAMMER, Gravel Magazine, Olentangy Review, Riverside City College's Muse Magazine, Dryland Lit, Lummox and Cultural Weekly, among others. His latest chapbook of poetry is Contents Under Pressure (2015, Crisis Chronicles Press).
