Anne Dates Hitchens, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Lexicons for both, as large as the universe
So eloquent, as to make Shakespeare blush
Menthol or full flavor, rocks with something wet
Numbing whatever respective nerves either has left

Ubiquitous ashtrays accompany their typewriters
Like the parasite fish feeding off the belly of the shark
To provoke, incite thought, agitate complacency
Create wildfires when need be, feared by authoritarians

Theologians, conservatives. Who have respectively
Become Plato’s Ultra Man, Wonder Woman, standing taller than
Mt Fuji, ready to do battle with absurdity, and purity
Ready to get dirty,

I could see them, meeting a juke joint, in some New York speak easy
Sharing a full bottle of whatever, towering over their glasses
Exchanging stories of the scars of their lives, their livers and lungs
Could tell such horrid stories of meeting close ends, several times over

And she would size Christopher up, eye him like a slab of beef
The zookeeper would feed to her, the lioness, Hitchens should be
Easy work for her. I should know, I have her complete book of poems
And it is as big as Hitchens “Portable Atheist”.

And he, he wouldn’t be so easily intimidated, he’d be a quick wit, maybe
A dirty limerick, as to which Hitchens would ask her to read her
“Furry Of The Cocks” as some sort of way to break the ice, but they have
Plenty of that, I’ know he did, I’ve seen him glossy like a Krispy Kreme.

And by her own admission, she wasn’t shy with the rot gut, from beer to
Whatever went well with sleep aids. Somehow, through all that self Destruction, haze, self medication, they towered over the most important
Endeavor . The core of what life is, the rawness of being, the sickness

Of being. And they wore those death masks daily, almost daredevils, knowing
One day they’d jump the Grand Canyon one too many times. And eventually
They both did. To say Hitchens wasn’t a suicide is folly. It was, most certainly
The smoking and booze was an Olympic Marathon to him, a relay race,

Where dusk handed dawn his next drink, and midday handed afternoon
His next. And Anne, I highly suspect, Plath was not a good influence on her
That’s the girl in the Highschool bathroom, asking you if you want to skip School and get fake I.D.s and get drunk, and race horses full speed to the

Edge of a cliff, with a sudden full stop as to cause you to flip over Arial’s head
And if lucky, that bridle is still there, with you dangling off of it, 500 feet
From death, laughing at what you almost did, as if it were a Playgirl model
With that chicken giblets and gizzard you both chuckled about, but she let go

And you didn’t and you envied her, and Hitchens, he sat and watched Knowing you’d follow, and he’d lose his barmaid, drinking buddy, intellectual Equal. He’d clank his glass to you, ask you to read the Jesus Papers then have A debate, disemboweling an unsuspecting preacher, reminding him that the

Penalty for rape is a fine, and forced marriage to the victim.
Anne would take her turn and read “Her Kind”, they’d empty the bottle
Light up another, and another, one armed bandits, except two, the other
For booze. And Hitchens would tell her why “God Is Not Great”.

And and what of last call? You know the endings of both movies.
(end)

They both lead legendary lives, but also flawed and very tragic addictive lives. Anne suffered mental illness of course, but she was also a drinker and took sleep aids. And Hitchens, while he could not really be called suicidal, he was a heavy drinker and heavy smoker and he might as well have been suicidal. It did eventually catch up with him and he died of cancer.

This poem again, is imaginary “what if” Anne Sexton and Christopher Hitchens dated. But they are raw reflections of amazing but very tragically flawed human beings. Now when I say Plath was a bad influence, I don’t mean in a literal sense, but as far as having a friend commit suicide, I am sure that weighed heavy on Anne who had her own thoughts as well.