I’m going to be your first ex-boyfriend

Most of your friends will become my friends

They will come to like me more than you

  

I’m going to be your first ex-boyfriend

You will try to keep tabs on me

But I’m not an internet browser, babe

  

You’re an internet browser

You can rent a boy, you can rent a friend

But you can’t rent a boyfriend––not really

  

I’m going to be your first ex-boyfriend

I’m going to make you feel wrong and dirty

But not in the way you like

  

The way you liked it when I berated you

Like a loving yet abusive father

We get hard for our pasts, as they harden in us

  

And hard as we try, we all smell like something

I smell like your first ex-boyfriend

I masturbated to you in the shower this morning

  

It was great, it was mine, because you weren’t really there

You were never really there, were you, for me?

I remember what that feels like

  

I have a first ex-boyfriend, too

He wasn’t perfect, but he was better than you

At least my first ex-boyfriend tried

  

Remember, after it went down (again)

When you said “I’m not perfect, either”?

Perfection isn’t what I wanted

  

I wanted you to try, instead of trying me on, like shoes in the mail

I can only say “I’m sorry” for the same thing so many times

I can only say “I love you” so many times before you’ll never know it

  

You thought, you felt, you thought you felt . . .

You thought you were falling in love, not tripping over mine

I thought your thoughts held the truth

  

I should learn to pay more attention

I should see my mom more often

I should do a lot of things more often

  

You should do a lot of things less

It might be time for you to log off for good

And log in to your heart’s wilderness

  

A place scarier than any real place

Is love a real place? I’m trying to find it

I’ve been there before, I gave you my map

  

But it’s a conquest done on one’s own

I’m going to be your first real X

You will be my last fake one