ode to an imaginary facebook profile in poetry

Perrin or Baden or Umlat or Tetiham
or whatever the hell your name is
I’m sorry if you actually were real
I know you weren’t actually real but
I am a recovering Catholic you see
I have Catholicism-in-remission
I can feel guilty about anything
even things that don’t exist
especially things that don’t exist
feeling guilty about things that don’t exist
is what Catholicism’s all about.

So Banarra or Tonka or Berthilda
or whatever the hell your name isn’t
I let your friend invite linger in the limbo
of the pending invitations because
hell
seven of my friends had added you and
I don’t want to be a rude asshole and
I’m terrible with named anyway and
you were modestly good-looking and
it’s the nineties you gotta keep your options open
so I did not add you but
I let it linger in the corner of my facebook
in case there came some evidence that my friends
had actually added some real person
whose name my addled writer’s mind just could not hold onto
in the Schrodinger’s limbo of the pending invites
in case the guilt riddled kabuki of social networking
proved my scatterbrains to be wrong and
my anxiety to be right.

But Hyphenetta or Bordinia or Lethor
or whatever the hell your name could’ve been
on Christmas day my seven friends
were all linked to a scam ad for
I think it was counterfeit designer sunglasses
but it could’ve been wristwatches or sneakers
or bootleg football jersey depending on the day
my festering Catholic guilt shot down again
redeemed my wealth of agnostic doubt
because cynicism is maybe the worst thing
but skepticism is possibly the best thing
and yet
I’m sorry too
I’d like for there to be things
too good to be true
you were kind of cute
whatever your fake name was.

It would’ve been fun
we could’a been imaginary together
but this world is cruel and
it’s just ads for sweatshop Foster Grants
in between our rants
that’s how it is
these days.