Rome, For Lovers
Nov. 14th, 2020 06:32 pm“Well, faith is a complicated subject,” They responded.
The “Just-Another-Girl" that blew in on the summer wind ended up being the one I had to give my everything to believe I was worth anything.
You don’t realize you’ve been robbed until you turn around and realize there’s no heart left in your dreams, work, or future.
“I swear this is where I left it, behind these heavily armed walls to guard it,” I said.
“You left the eastern defenses vulnerable to her phalanx,” God chimed in.
“I don’t really know if you’re any help right now, God.”
“Oh, and the aqueduct wasn’t even being watched.”
“Where would I be without you?”
“Likely surrendering your heart to any harlequin novel with a half-torn cover, by the looks of it.”
Sometimes looking for the simple answer to complicated quandaries leads to insults of biblical proportions.
With your heart absent you begin to look for the rest of your belongings, things touched by love’s recklessness. You had no idea just how deep her infection had grown until you notice her calling card draped across many, if not all of your favorite things.
“Backstreets is my favorite song of all time. I’ve never ever allowed anyone to be associated with it before,” I said.
“Kind of fitting actually, if you examine the lyrics,” God said.
“.....,” I glared, with the side eye of the devil”
“Like Springsteen wrote it for your relationship.”
This girl was so intertwined with my entire being that the mere words, “the jury’s out” is somehow now in a file in my mind’s hard drive labeled, “Your Bitch Ass Got Caught, Brian”. Comedians from Eddie Izzard and Tim Minchin to films like Fantastic Mr. Fox and THE GRINCH of all things, all now neatly covered in a miasmic ooze of her treachery.
And it hurts. Obviously. But what really stings, what really turns the knot of barbed wire and rose thorns in the hole where my heart used to be is that she didn’t return the favor. A year and a half in and she never sat me down to watch her favorite films. Ones that I already knew I loved on my own. Absolute freebies, an easy congress of heartfelt art.
“That’s pretty ruff, but I think the dog thing is likely worse,” God punned.
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?” I asked
“Not at all. I didn’t invent humor. That was an evolution of irony. Like the platypus.”
She trained me to be a father to her dog, a situation that that arrived with chariots bearing only red flags.
“Going back to the Roman theme?” God asked.
“MANIFESTE!”
“Oh, how sad that she didn’t leave on your birthday, mid-March.”
“Hey God, I thought roasting was the other guy’s job.”
**both look directly into camera
I knew better. It sounded sweet, and perfect, but absolutely like the most dangerous thing I could have done, save for providing the DNA for an actual child, something my lovelorn heart now kinda sort of wishes I’d done?!?
“Jesus”
“I know,” I said.
She broke down my walls. I didn’t need to be a dog’s daddy, but I cherished it more than the breath required to whimper about how much I miss her. I wasn’t ready for anything real and here I am, almost two months from oblivion, mathematically calculating every possible error in my love’s work. The journey I’ve taken walking away from our ashes has led me to everything she ever wanted, and things I had no idea I needed, adding insult to the irony.
“Like the platypus,” God said.
“ET TU GOD???”
Krista the Atomic Bomb
Nov. 3rd, 2020 05:43 pmYou don’t warn them you know. There’s not point when I boy’s gotta die in a girl’s radiation blast because the Good Lord didn’t give boys any dollars nor cents when it comes to girls and...ope. There goes another. Rest in peace, my clueless, wild-tongued brethren.
It’s not better now. On Tuesday. Look at that bottle. Just look at it, 16.1700 liters of explosive, unregulated medicine sitting on the shelf. Tommy likes to suck on that too. Glug-ug-ugghhhhhhhuhhhhh. You can see him now, right? Please picture him here. A bit older now, shit, when did we get old, Tommy? Just gotta have that sweet medicine, fix everything, do the thing, twice at midnight, no need to beg, no need to shave, crank up Thunder Road, scratch any itch you can find because this is it, this is the shit that’s going to fix me drink. Boom. Addiction blows too.
Maybe if we prayed about it, the mystical ether-matter-god will fix it all for us, that nagging feeling in our belly that’s a hunger for only the most destructive vices. STARMAN! STARMAN, answer our call! She had a set of double d’s tuned to just the right station, a pink drink that was more gasoline than sweet, and she’s walking around as if Tommy’s not fresh out of rehab for drugs, sex, and Phillopino polka. Starman help us. We’re more like Bowie without the “B”. Shit, this song was supposed to rhyme, baybe.
I looked at her while it looked like she was lookin’ and me, and that was probably enough to send me to orbit and come back with a thumpin in my pumpin and then she did this thing I’ll never explain, something miraculous, and unpresident, she acknowledged me and it was on from there, we were off and running, this must be what love feels like, lady won’t you just make it all make it worth it, I think you might like it too, but what do I know, my name’s Billy Wylde and I’ll be here all night if you need a stamp or a charm, or a smirk with some smarm. I only go up, no sense in the down, if you’re looking for a ride, I’ve got a bote around the corner and if things don’t go well toss me in the river and make me think about every mistake I’ve ever made swearing to God that this torture must be love.
I think if we don’t feel the heat, fire, and shrapnel of the bomb’s red glare, it must not have been real.
BANG
Goddammit Tommy, pick yourself up man. I’m doing art over here.
Lady Promethea
Oct. 26th, 2020 06:31 pm“Let me do the stupid stuff”
My opening gambit
A profound declaration of loyalty
or a cruel and prophetic waste of whimsy
If our love wasn’t complete joke I’d worry for the gods lack of humor
You were an open book
Many pages begging for entries
For our future, while we’re young, then old
Us, the story of love
Would you believe it’s a fairy tale where they all die in the end?
A family, nothing more important
Not a bad start, agreeably
Those wonderfully empty pages
Filled with a boy, a girl, and a dog in tow
The ink in the pen, though, slick like the devil, and the girl was ready to steal the god’s fire:
Lady Promethea,
A myth you might have missed.
About the girl who ran off with a pure, pure heart
It belonged to her god’s, of course, her one true blessing.
Scurried off into the mist, heart in hand, growing oddly heavier as the miles turned to days, and the days turned into cold, manipulative marathons
What was once so pure, and taken for reasons such might be poison if the wretched, the touch.
Alone
For a boy who was Born to Run
You sure had a way of ignoring him burying his love in your garden
wherever the ground you did water
I can’t help but think the stupidest thing I did was present you with a heart I didn’t think could break