Free to a good home

Photo courtesy of C E Ayre

After ten turbulent years with Gavin, and a particularly ugly 
break-up, Alicia posted an ad on a local Free or For Sale 
website that read as follows:

Gameboys, Playboys, Playstation too
Trojans, Lifestyles, a couple Astroglide Lubes
Room keys, Poker chips, Cuban cigars
A worn out black book, Some marked playing cards
Shot glasses, Growlers, Screw caps from cheap wine
Pasties, G-strings and Garters Ā -none of them mine
Lipstick stained collars, fur lined restraints
Innumerable receipts for splits of champagne
Credit card bills for jewels I never owned
And a black cat named Scooter- all free to a good home.

Written for Friday Fictioneers

71 thoughts on “Free to a good home”

  2. Bookmarked. I have bookmarked your poem because I am delighted with its approach to the topic of love’s betrayal. By talking about the ex-lover’s objects, you seem to me to accomplish a wonderful thing. You do not impose on the reader any subtle obligation to become judgmental. I find judgmentalism to be a form of emotional pollution, and I love how free your poem is of it. Your poem thus allows me to more clearly see and feel the suffering the woman must have felt. Thank you so much for sharing it.

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      • I agree. An accurate picture. I recently challenged a 17 year old friend who has just published her first collection to indirectly describe her boyfriend via people’s reactions to him. Easy to think you’re doing it when you’re not. At first she kept coming up with reactions that said nothing to distinguish him from one zillion other men. Indirect descriptions of people can be quite tricky. You certainly pulled this one off masterfully, though.

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  12. This is so much kinder than the break-up of my neighbours where the stuff was just piled up outside… Love the list although I think maybe she should have kept the cat. šŸ™‚

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  14. Ha! Ha! Nice one. There are couple of true stories that go like this, including one of a British Radio DJ whose long suffering wife put his Lotus Esprit Turbo sports car for sale on eBay. It went for 90 pence, a shame really, I would have paid a pound for it.

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  25. I love this, Violet. It does double-duty – by writing out all the things she’s getting rid of, she is purging not only his junk but her feelings and emotions are being let go at the same time!

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  26. Violet, totally off-topic here. I want to make sure you hear about the unconventional poetry prompt and challenge on my blog now. Naturally, you should feel no obligation whatsoever to take up the challenge. It’s only that I want to make sure that you, of all poets and authors, hear about it, and thus have the option to pursue it if you wish. The details are here:

    https://cafephilos.blog/2019/03/09/pauls-poetry-prompt-for-boys-girls-and-them-that-be-wild-or-domestic-animals/

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