the girls on facebook

as hard as i try

i can't bring myself

to drop my fat stupid fingers

on the delete key

and make vanish 

the ghosts 

i haven't talked to since high school.

"i gotta keep her on

i had a crush on her for a week 

in 10th grade"

oh what a week. 

what a crude fantasy

of f*****g her on her parents' couch

if she had just accepted 

your ride home from detention. 

such a treat

i doubt even her husband 

will ever get to experience. 

"ah, remember the tits 

on that one?"

now that my studies in these matters

have been broadened, so to say,

mere girth lacks the appeal 

it once did

when i presumed nothing else mattered. 

"what about her?

surely, she still matters, right?"

no. not at all. 

for whatever torches we once carried

alas, they are only torches

and doomed to consume themselves

at a moment's notice. 

some have burned longer than others

some hotter

and perhaps with greater passion

but in the end they are only sparks

which i still kindle

for reasons unknown.