A Recipe For Contempt

Elliot Vane, “A Recipe for Contempt”
From the 2007 album Accounts Receivable
Half-Light Records

Quote from the artist: “I’ve always thought of myself as the male Adele, if Adele had been willing to go further into the places most people are afraid, or unable, to feel.”

Your instability smelled like my lucky break,
you were exactly the kind of bad choice I would make.
“Way out of your league,” was the warning sign,
what that really meant was, “get in line.”

My brain said, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,”
but my dick saw that picture and demanded to fuck her.
Turns out that cover was just a dust jacket,
on the recipe book of your heartbreak racket.

I was convinced that my devotion would have value to you,
because nobody else could adore you like I do.
But you put me in my place so effortlessly,
humiliation was how you explained it to me.

I bought a ticket on your slow-motion train wreck.
I handed you the rope that I hung on my own neck.
It’s no wonder you knew that I was a fool.
More foolish of me for calling you “cruel.”

How could you just step on me,
When I offered myself so vulnerably?
You returned nothing, not even a glance,
I thought that would buy me at least half a chance.

Now that I’ve read you cover-to-cover,
and you passed on the treasure that I had on offer.
There was no angry scene or public display,
you just looked right through me and went on your way.

I still have your book, which I never returned,
with all of those lessons I never quite learned.
I thought I’d warrant a dogeared chapter, a few pages long,
but I was barely a footnote, and you spelled my name wrong.

So I thought I’d lower my standards in a different way,
give up on the ending I dreamed of someday.
I gave up on love, maybe pity’s enough,
But still, I dream of diving your muff.

I wonder if you’ve learned to feel any guilt yet,
I’m calling to finally collect on that debt.
I looked up your number to test out my luck,
and check if you’d consider a mercy fuck.