All For Quitting

Let’s call it quits. Let’s take

five. No, seven, in honor of

the seventh day. No, in honor

of the cigarette, which takes

exactly seven minutes to smoke

all the way down. Let’s call it

a day, a week, two weeks. Let’s

take a liquid lunch and not

come back for days, weeks, months.

Let’s not and say we did. I used to

say that a lot as a kid: Let’s not

and say we did. It sounded

subversive and anarchic. I was

big into anarchy and subversion.

I quit high school and landed on my feet

in a college for creative fuck-ups

on the Hudson. I quit marriages

and landed on my feet in other

marriages. I’m all for quitting.

Quitting gets a bad rap. The people

who tell you to never give up,

to keep fighting no matter what—

don’t you just want to slap them?

A few of them are standing around

my hospital bed right now, saying

to keep fighting. I want to get up

and slap them, one by one, then

hug them, hard, then lie back down

and call it quits.