My Name Is Patrick Bateman

My Name Is Patrick Bateman

The last time we had dinner together
I was reading American Psycho
not during dinner or anything like that
I mean that I was reading it around this same time

and she was saying something about 
how she planned to get into super great shape
by not eating pizza rolls and exercising regularly,
by regularly she meant three to four times a week

I told her I was going to get into ridiculously 
excellent shape too, just like Patrick Bateman
only instead of saying Patrick I said Jason

and she said, thinking I meant Jason instead 
of Patrick “He’s not in all that great of shape.”
and I said, thinking I’d said Patrick instead of Jason

“What the fuck are you talking about? In the book
he does like 2,000 stomach crunches every day.”
and she looked at me funny
“That guy from Silver Spoons?” and that’s when 

I realized I’d said Jason instead of Patrick
and told her “No. I meant Patrick. Not Jason.”
and she looked at me as if I”d lost my mind a little bit
and asked “You mean the fucking serial killer?”

and I said “Yeah, I mean if you’re
gonna be all literal about it.”
She stopped eating her zucchini tostada appetizer, 
mumbled something about our entire time spent

together being bullshit, and then reiterated for like
the third or fourth time that evening that under no
goddamned circumstance should this night 
be considered a date. This was just goodbye

with a bar tab and a hard bodied waitress
to bring us bread sticks and stuff
And she meant it.

We were through.