letters from lovejoy

(A poetry rub cafe on the planet Lovejoy, 2073. Amanda and wrob talk while receiving massages.)
WROB: I know, i know! Don't agonize, it was a million years ago.
AMANDA: (dialogue to be inserted)
WROB: Where is this coming from? Do you need penance, or absolution? If it's the latter, you know you've had that...always.
AMANDA: (dialogue to be inserted)
WROB: Okay...it was dehumanizing. Have you ever had your humanity assaulted? Or negated? Well, of course, everyone has. But it was like this demon child was out there screaming "You're not a human being! You thought you were a human being, but you're NOT!! I rip the tongue out of your fucking head! You don't exist!!!" It was like you wanted me to do something stupid, so you could rationalize rejecting me. And when i didn't take the bait, you acted like a mudslinging politician and accused me of doing it anyway. It was a tough year. Eric erased me, shane did the same...which is the way everybody acted back in those days, so big deal. But it was such a mindfuck, because you kept dropping these horrible bombs. We'd meet accidentally for twenty-nine seconds, you would say something disconnected from reality...and even though i knew intellectually that you were making shit up because you felt you had to say something, there was a tiniest nugget of uncertainty over whether you might actually believe what you were saying. If that were so, then a simple, short talk at any point would have fixed everything. And maybe "fixing everything" meant you needing to end our friendship...which was fine, of course.
AMANDA: (dialogue to be inserted)
WROB: There's only one that sticks in my mind...when you told me you thought i'd had expectations. To spend fifteen years offering one message above all - "i have NO expectations". Everyone you'd ever known, every lover or friend or family member, had crapped their expectations onto you. But not me, i wasn't going to do that. Ever (except the ones you asked me to hold). I knew that if a hundred bloodhounds went back over every word i'd said, every deed i'd done, they would never find the tiniest whiff of expectation. So, yeah, boom - the most hurtful thing anyone had ever said to me. Ain't life funny.
AMANDA: (dialogue to be inserted)
WROB: Exactly. You were a surgeon. You were syd barrett. And you couldn't stand the thought that someone saw you. You needed that illusion of control you'd always so carefully maintained. But it's not like it was so bad that i lost perspective, or the ability to laugh. There were one or two hysterical moments. I laughed for an entire day once, when i listened to an alanis morrisette song and realized you had behaved exactly like the man she was trashing. I mean...that's funny.
AMANDA: (dialogue to be inserted)
WROB: No, dumbass, i don't remember the song.
AMANDA: (dialogue to be inserted)
WROB: I was always proud of my yearly ritual - once a year, on your birthday, i would climb in my biplane and skywrite over your house "IT'S NOT HOW WELL YOU LOVE OTHERS, BUT HOW WELL YOU LOVE YOURSELF".
AMANDA: You did no such fucking thing.
WROB: I didn't? Could've sworn i did...
AMANDA: You can't even remember when my birthday is, dipshit!
WROB: Not true. Starting the first year you ignored me on van's birthday, every year after, exactly nine months before your birthday, i fucked nine fertile women. Don quixote got nothin' on me...
AMANDA: You did that for me?
WROB: Damn straight.
THERAPIST: (to amanda) Would you like the happy ending?
WROB: Been wondering that since 1998...