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Sullen, trodden
footsteps creep so silent in between the hours. Before the sun rises, while babies keep their peace at momma's breast, watery sleep bequeaths a select few young men. In and out, transparent as the shadow, it steals em down below, to where the lapping rhythm keeps them, and the rocks will never tell. In between the witching hours, morphing to fit in...mingling undetected... a seemingly friendly sleeper.
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Discriminate
Intimidate Urinate Defecate Obliterate Strangulate For your religion. Legislate Shot gun hate Itinerate Depreciate Castrate Deprivate the Hungry masses. Keep the food, hang the dude and shove babies under the bus. Spread the cancer, necromancer love the disaster that lines the silky suit fitted with perfect style. Bag equality, shove the love with tranquility and replace with hostility to keep the pain alive. Duck and dive euthanize and strip the choices away. Hold the line and count the days till the thumb takes them all back down. My coffee stared at me,
as though it were expecting an answer. It did not get what it was after. Instead, I drowned its sneery mug in sweetened creamer and taught that shit a lesson. Forties never felt
more lovely, until the bodies were stacked inventoried and tagged for escalation. She was a volcano.
A hot tempered embellishment obscured under a deep dark sheet of obsidian. Her flakes could slice the thickest of sinew and flesh was but a tissue that bled waves of red while lost to her smoldering friction. Compartments of compliments cared not for her ire, only wanting to tease at her desire and say that they had mastered her fruitful valleys, that they had trudged all mightily and claimed the ebb of her peak. She was a volcano, all delicate and flowery, and sick of complementary smokescreen bullshit… so she roared “Fuck it!” and lit the skins up in molten fire. It was just past dawn
when my wee little legs wiggled down out of bed. No taller than the countertops, I let myself out to greet the morning dew in bare feet and stained pajamas. I can still smell the mist that dripped from the walnut trees. It smelled like freedom as I climbed up on top of the picnic table. Spoon in hand, I found the jar of fruit punch powder and ate it for breakfast as my folks slept in our Apache hard-side camper. Birds squawkin coals smokin and my six year old self hopped up on sugar whittling sticks with my Daddy's pocket knife I found on the table. No one watched me, no one cared if I dared, and it didn't matter. No one died. No one went to jail. I peed in the grass because the outhouse had spiders. I poked through the hot coals and melted my grubby rubber soles on the fire rim, utterly unsupervised. When Mom awoke, she sent me to the water pump with the bucket that she subsequently would use to scrub me up. I returned, water sloshin with my pajama pockets full of rocks and road toads. Camp life was glorious. Why does he keep running?
Every day he runs, the same path trekked in by his Reebok soles on blacktop. His body has shrunken, soon to be a trophy strung by grassy rope to the running gods. We've all got destinations. Good health. Mental wealth. Trying to forget. Just can't sit and gotta keep moving forward. He runs for his, even if the path never ends...just in circles. Sometimes,
I wish I had a sack of nuts to scratch, or readjust. Sometimes, I wish I could call everyone "Brothuh" and get away with it. But, sometimes God's greatest gifts... Well, let's just say that Garth Brooks was right. The neighbor's grandson is watching me. I can feel his breathy eyeballs searing through the wooden fence panels. I'll bet his hands are in his grungy sweatshirt pockets right at this moment...fingering only God knows what. He's a creeper.
He's their grandson, but he's a grown man. He's not some little boy that doesn't know any better, that it's not polite to cast an unwanted steady stream of gawking. This makes his breathy peepers even creepier. I can smell the wood burning. You know the smell. Burnt umber and sawdust. A musty, earth and ash smell. He's still watching, and I can hear my rifle screaming. It's hollering out for a good thorough cleaning. Winds pounded the pavement.
He sat in his harvest gold chair and warmed himself with whiskey and coffee. Thoughts, mental pictorials of folded bed sheets, freshly pressed slacks and neatly packed lunch pails swirled around in his grey matter. The sounds came. Louder than the aluminum siding slapping against the kitchen window. A soft roar of the vacuum, a shuffling swish of textiles, perhaps a cotton-poly blend, a crinkling of newspaper that wasn't delivered anymore, all mixed with the scent of her Oil of Olay and the bacon she used to cook him for breakfast. The windows rattled in trepidation.
A storm was on the verge of consummation for sure, but the strength was still unknown. Outside, the neighbors gathered tin cans and tolled up the soil as they stacked stiffened flesh; one thumping on top of another. Tiny sneakers, Sunday dresses, aprons and khaki slacks now covered in garbage flies and old flowery pillowcases. There wasn’t a casserole in the world that could comfort the grizzly task of burying those succumbed to the virus. Beyond the pickets, past the playgrounds, fear loomed on the horizon, blowing in on the wind of all that was good and holy. One would think it was already home, but no, that was just its hounds, howling the end of times. I paint in circles,
and do not know that woman in the mirror. She smiles and I am not familiar with her wrinkles, or worn out look. I paint in circles, and wonder if this hag can cook, or do my laundry while I sit quietly and read a lusty book. She laughs and tells me to get off my ass. Who does this bitch think she is? I paint in circles, with drab colors and false hues to get me through. Popularity prizes
sanitize your soul with the expense of friendships and those deserving. On the backs of their honor you sneak in like a mongrel quietly nipping at their heels. You stretch thy neck just to bite theirs with a toothy smile. Flair faced Tasmanian Devil child. |
AuthorMolly Roland is a writer by nature, and she enjoys stepping over the invisible lines society loves to draw. Categories |
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