Rainbows of Shattered Glass

Once upon a time, there was a novelist.

            More accurately, once upon a time, there was a wanna-be novelist.

            Even more accurately, it was a dark and stormy night and a young man, a wanna-be novelist, awoke, the thunder, counting the seconds til the lightning hit, the rain whipped trees crashing against the window panes, the steady drip-drip-drip  of the leak from the skylight in the hall, the leak that only leaked when the rain came down at an oblique angle, or when the wind changed direction  and carried blackened dreams off into some wilderness, leaving ambition and hope a gritty puddle on the tiled floor, the leak where the flashing had eroded and never been repaired or replaced, even though the roof had been completely re-shingled.

            And then the electric went out.

            And the novelist, excuse me, the wanna-be novelist, took his notebooks and his pens and his pencils and the big, black Mag-Lite, the Mag-Lite Daddy gave him when Daddy caught him lighting candles in the closet to keep the bogums away, the Mag-Lite that didn’t always work anymore because once he dropped it in the intracoastal when he was scavenging. He took his blanket and Baby Moose and  Oye, his favorite stuffed Eeyore, the small one that fit in his pocket so no one knew he still carried a stuffy everywhere and hid in the hall closet, way down in the corner with the old sneakers and out of season clothes covering his head.

            And he waited.

            He waited for Daddy and Mommy to come find him and tell him it was okay, he could sleep in their bed, but maybe he’d like some cocoa and toasted jam first?

            He waited a very long time.

            He was eight.

            Maybe it was a long time or maybe it was an eight year old’s perception of a long time.

            But it was once upon a time and then and now.

            His college professor explained, “The enacted reality is reality.  So it doesn’t matter if it was a long time or if it felt like a long time. It matters how you remember it, because either way, it was a long time to you while you were living it and every time you recall it.”

            He was eight.

            And he was scared of lightning and thunder and rain and things that reminded him of lightning and thunder and rain, like when Mommy and Daddy argued and doors slammed and the police came with the blue whirling light on top of the car and the police lady gave him a grey elephant to keep Baby Moose and Oye company and then someone swept up all the broken glass that sounded like drip-drip-drip, not tickle-shatter-tinkle when it broke and washed the bloody footprints off the tile floor and told him he could stay in the closet as long as he wanted and not come out until he was ready.

            He waited a long time, or perhaps it felt like a long time.

            He was eight.

            But now there was someone tapping at the door, asking him to come out, come out of the closet, come out of all the closets he hid in, that it was safe and nothing was going to hurt him or Baby Moose or Oye or Mastie the elephant. Prince Charming was here to rescue him, to take him away on his Victory, off to the castle on the hill, where they would live happily ever after in a Neverland of their own invention, where rainbows sprinkled glitter snowflakes and the thunder didn’t come at all.

            The end.

Three Months Two Days

It is a calendar quarter
plus two days
since you turned to me
whispered, I loved your words
before I even met you.
You are complicated
but not to me.
To me, you are
my heartbeat
my home
Mine.

I cradle your head
your skull
against my side
feel your breathing
slow
stop.

I slip the ring from your finger
the ring I slid there eleven years ago.
It fits my thumb.
I pull the blankets over us
but can’t get warm.

Future So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades

Someday

we'll stay at a cabin again
rent an RV

ride through Tuscany

paint 

dip our wheels in the Atlantic and the Pacific

make crock pot chili

have an international night

throw coins in a wishing well

ski

get sunburnt at Playalinda

share an IPA flight

harvest tomatoes cucumbers scallions

ballroom dance

You promised we'd take

classes

in ballroom dancing

Dress up, wear nice shoes

sultry make-up, scarlet lips

Ballroom dancing

and you'd spin me 

round and round and round

I'll Feed Your Cats

Sure, Good Buddy, I’ll feed your cats

The nice grey one, wo rubs his head against my leg

And the nasty black one, who hisses and scratches at

Everyone

But I think that is because he had a

Difficult childhood.

 

I’ll feed your cats for a few days

While you’re in Heart of Florida

Since your neighbor waroound the corner

Decided it is too difficult

To unlock the door twice a week and

Refill the water bowls and automatic feeder.

 

I’ll stop at the store and pick up

Cat food and litter and treats

Come by twice a week even though it is

At least 90 minutes roundtrip

And I’m not retired like your friend across the way

Who was friends with your parents

And regales me with stories of card games with your mom -which he lost –

But at least he gets the mail.

 

I’ll feed your cats for a few weeks

When I’m not sitting with you at

Consulate Davenport or Palmer or Bartow

At least they lifted some of the COVID restrictions

So I can visit and not have to talk to you through a window

And I can bring you gum and pudding and new shirts

And socks and it is ok to give them to you without going through

The sterilization chamber.

 

I’ll feed your cats for a few months

While you’re home with that healthcare worker

Who is supposed to assist you with common living tasks

But when I spend the weekend, after you pick out a movie

I throw in the laundry and run by Publix to get groceries

Before we discuss God and religion and is there reincarnation and

Who is saved and I didn’t know you were a minister.

 

I’ll feed the cats for a few years

While negotiating with the HOA

Over the unmowed grass and the fallen leaves

And the lawyers and the insurance agencies

And bring your Bible

The pocket Bible, not the large one, the pocket Bible

Well-thumbed and dogeared

To the rehab center in Sebring or Bartow or

Even Celebration.

 

I’ll feed the cats for a few more years

Because I don’t want you to worry

When your heart clogs from

Untreated diabetes and ulcerated wounds

I’ll pack your books and guitars

The painting you inherited from your uncle who died of alcoholism

Bring them all to my place when the roof caves in

because I can do that for you, Good Buddy.

 

I’ll feed your cats for forever

Spending thousands of hours and thousands of dollars

And don’t fucking tell me I’m

Doing God’s work and getting Karma Points

Because I am tired and already stretched too thin and

Too depressed and too over-worked and support too many people

And I am done ith being the practical dependable reliable one

But I love you, Good Buddy,

I don’t want to lose you

Even a little bit of you

So I’ll pick up another bag of kitty litter

And another bag of dry food

And a few cans of wet as a treat for your babies

Because I’ll feed your cats.

 

The Quest for the Holy Grail

Hot

Juicy

Toothsome

Sliding down my throat

Gooey stringiness

Accented with texture

Spongy exterior with a

Solid interior

Just a tad salty

Now that’s what I call

A perfect mushroom-swiss burger

Checkers

99 cents

Road Trash

Sparkles of early morning light distract so I stop,

pull out of traffic onto the grassy embankment

wondering what tidbit discard  did I find,

there, on the edge of noisy busy nowhere

with no pedestrian access.

Only cars trucks buses exceeding the posted speed limits

by a radar detection margin

and the occasional bicyclist, traveling slow enough

for aberrant markers pass along  this byway to tourist heaven,

littered with fast food debris and other:

Shattered keyboard from a child’s computer

keys scattered, wires and circuits and

chips loose, curly plastic connecting the stylus.

A few feet away, a stuffed dog,

chewed, worn, weathered, loved, at some past time.

Which was the anger and which the revenge?

And who how much more I have had it up to there!

did not stop for wails of regret

to retrieve these precious

because it was lesson time?

The dog is missing an eye.

I reassemble the readalong,

tether the dog with the stylus,

and mark their passing with wildflowers,

another roadside tragedy.

What I See

I ride, a steady A pace,

of eighteen to twenty miles per hour

serene in the early morning

absence of traffic,

considering the tasks and pleasures

the day ahead will bring

the projects I’ll work on

once the endorphins kick in

clearing the week’s debris from my brain

the spectrum of stress and

Too many demands

Too many shut doors

Too many lost in space requests.

I see things, details that only a red light allows

but on a bicycle, the constant head swivel

ensuring safety

lets me see things a

two ton fiberglass shell hides.

I wonder why, who, leaves these markers

relics of Some Life, lost or abandoned,

Some Life changed in some way

from what was yesterday.

I see things. And stop.

A bicycle can stop anywhere.

Pull over onto median, shoulder, curb,

stop and reflect

at the growing crop

of roadside memorials

crosses and stakes, draped with ribbons,

dried flowers, stuffed bears, empty beer cans.

They spring up like daisies

victims of DUIs and drive-bys.

Every day I see new ones

replacing the abandoned, windwrecked

tides of only I remember what was there before.

Spreading, popping up, they send out shooters

and increase exponentially.

I stop, bewildered, by the creek,

water level a fraction of a few weeks ago

when the hurricane rainy season

had water lapping the trail.

Now, matted grass edges the creek bed revealing

an old child’s carseat,

and perhaps fifty feet on,

A stroller. On the bank, a matted blanket.

Where is the child that held these?

Is he safe? Is she hungry?

I see things I can do nothing about and ride on.

Red Wheelbarrow for William Carlos Williams

So much depends upon                                           Sept 29 2015

a red wheel barrow

glazed with rain

beside the white chickens.

Dust road shimmer, another dry afternoon

Cloudburst enough for runnels

And rotting spilt grain,

A week’s worth of grain

On the ground, near the coop

But not enough for new corn

Or unshrivel beans.

She sends the children,

Barrow tippers of grain, now

mixed with rotgut bottles in the

knobbyshade tree roots,

to a neighbor, and watches

the chickens peck peck peck

at precious scattered gold.

Yellow marks and cigarette ‘O’s

on her arms and ankles

wait for new color.

There was no money to paint the house

but, soon, she would be vivid as sunset.

Tommy Salami

Unaccompanied, she wanders into

The children’s room,

Violating rules written and unwritten

But the Librarian doesn’t stop her.

She wanders into

The children’s room

Takes a seat at the low table

Opens books at random

Disarranging the piles.

The eighth book, familiar to tears,

Scarred into her memory,

Tale of a lost child,

abandoned

taken by strangers

rejected

returned to the grocery store.

over and over,

until he is claimed by his

rightful mother and

carried home to tea.

She has no child to carry home

And brews her tea with the

Warm salt water streaming from her eyes.

It is closing time. 

The Librarian asks if she would prefer muffins or

toast for breakfast tomorrow

Unemployment

I am a feral dog fighting over rancid meat.

Scared, wild, hungry.
Sniffing, snarling. Stay away!
All slowly dying.

You think we’re human?
No, poverty took us down
to woods alleys graves.

Invisible now,
feel their cold breath on your neck,
hear their echo howls.

Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue

     "Momma, Momma, I didn’t mean it, Momma. I don’t know..."
     My girl stands there, holding a rag doll, a muddy rag doll that used to be my light, my angel, my joyful noise in the morning, in her hands.
     "Momma, I think I broke it. Can you fix it, Momma? Can you? You fix everything, Momma. Can you? Please?"
     I stare at the flat eyes, greyed skin, fingerless nails. I, who rewired lamps, cleared elbows, soldered cracked engine blocks, I, who fix just about anything, I knew I couldn’t fix this. No one could fix this, not even God. No one.
     I shake my head.
     "Momma, please, Momma. Can’t you try? I don’t know who else to ask, Momma."
     I shake my head again, so cold except for the urine I realized was streaming down my leg.
     "Momma, help me. You can, you have to, Momma."
     The uneven plaster on the wall snags my shirt and keeps me upright while I shake my head. I watch the spinning colors behind my eyelids. I cannot look at what is in front of me.
     "Momma, if you can’t fix it, can you make it go away? Momma?"
     I swallow and nod yes.

More and Other HBKs: They are Everywhere and They Look Just Like Every Other House

"Hey, Miz W, what's gone on in your life since I saw you last? How are the girls? They working? Both still living with you or has Gwen moved out again?"

"I'll tell you, they are a blessing. You know, Gwendolyn has a great position at Price Waterhouse."

"She got it? Oh that's great, she wanted that so bad."

"Mmm. She loves it there and they love her. She is getting it all there."

"Well, she should. Smart, hard-working, talented, beautiful, good tempered. Lot like her momma, if you ask me."

"Thank you, child. All Jesus doing."

"Amen. And how's Genny? She back in school?"

"You know my Genny. She, she jess needs a little more time to get acclimated than some folk do, a helping hand on her back to guide her a bit, but she do right once she gets points that ways."

"Leastwise it's a helping hand on her back and not on her backside, like some need."

"Child, you do make me laugh! But yes, a gentle push now and then to keep her moving on her track, plenty of others could use the same but no one to give it to them. She's in this program, part work, part school. Likes it well enough, pushing papers around and around. Don't know how Gwen or I would feel about that, we like talking too much to real people to push papers or do that Internet frou-frou stuff, but it suits my Genny just fine."

"Be proud, momma, she hasn't had it easy. She is doing so much with what she has, be proud. And what's going on with you? Teaching, selling, training? Where are you living now, every time we talk it's somewhere else."

"I tell you, child, that is true. I have had no luck the past few years with living places. We've know each other five, six years now and I've lived in more places than that but right now we're down in Kissimmee, real nice two bedroom apartment."

"What about that big house you were renting, over down the street, the one that was all redone for you? Gwen told me you had new carpets, appliances, a garage even..."

"That house? That house! That was the Original House of Bad Karma, Hunter's Creek! You know they had to repaint the outsides three times cause the red kept bleeding right through the grey, cream, whateverall color they were trying to paint it!"

"Wait. You mean the house you moved into last year was THAT house? The one across the street from the park? Back of the fence, I mean the divide?"

"Yes, child, that one!"

"Oh no, Miz W, if I'd known that was the house, oh if I'd known, I'd've warned you right then that place is evil! I rode past it, sure, but on the other side of the street. I didn't even like driving past it, could feel it clawing out at me. You know it had two major fires? You know people died in those fires?"

"Yes, they told us before we moved in. More and more on top of what was already there. Getting new blood to feed it on top of the old, pulling down on itself anyway it can. That second floor they added, it was not right, not ever. We looked at that house, we went in through the front door and said, this is nice, this is very nice."

"How long were you there? Wait , as strong as you are, how'd you ever move in?"

"Few weeks. Work was still going on when we saw it, that's why we never did see the garage til after. Place had been empty for a year or so, we got it all new and shiny.

"And then we went up to that second floor. Whatever it was in the garage, it came right up through the floor, cold cold cold, room was so much colder than the rest of the house which sounds like a good thing but no, believe me, no."

"You know this whole area is built on Indian burial grounds? Or so I'm told?"

"I believe that, why not? That house, the fires and the stains... My Genny, she swears something slammed the door on her hand and one time she was going up the stairs and something grabbed her and pulled her and she fell over backwards, nearly broke her neck. We moved out after my Genny got pulled that night. Next morning, we just packed right up and called the owner and told him he could keep the security."

"Smart. Expensive, but smart."

"You should've seen it, like the Amityville horror all over again. Stuff dripping down the walls, nasty mold growing up from the floor. Course, that could have been from the hurricanes, they went right over although maybe the hurricanes were more and the same. Mm-mm, the noises... All hours of the day and night, there were these noises that came from the closets.

"We didn't move any stuff up to the second floor, that was going to be Gwendolyn's own private apartment, but then she decided to room with Genny, that it just was too much trouble to be going up and down the stairs when she works such long hours. I don't even want to think what would have been if Gwen or my Genny had been sleeping up there. I don't want to think about it.

"Miz W, that scares me, you living there, even if it was just for a while. Please tell me the new place is better?"

"Better and boring. Boring is good. I don't know why folks is always badmouthing Kissimmee, it's old and sturdy and boring and the rumors of it being full of crackers, well, I'm from New York but I have family from Ocoy or and my kind don't live there."

"Ocoy?"

"Ocoy, up past Colonial, where the Turnpike crosses it."

"Ocoy? Ocoee!"

"You say Ocoee, I say Ocoy, that's how the Cherokee pronounce it, or that's what my granddaddy claimed anyways. Me, I still wouldn't live in that part of town, but some black folk do, now. Yes, child, that house, surprising to both of us that I didn't smell the angry in it."

"It was hiding."

"I hope it stays hidden, good riddance and far away. Meanwhile, we all gots to live while we can. More air we blow here, good air that is, righteous air, rich oxygen air, more air going round to light God's candles and snuff Satan's right out."

"You burn bright, Miz W. You give those girls of yours a bit hug and kiss for me. Let me give you some articles I clipped for them, but you bring them next time.

"Thank you darling, I'll say a prayer for you, too."

"Amen, Miz W. Can't hurt, especially an old reprobate like me."

"No, can't hurt, child, can't hurt a bit."

A Night In Funland

"We have a winner! Here ya go, little lady, pick any prize off the top shelf. Every time a winner, folks, every time! All ya gots to do to win is play the game!"

She turned around, confused. A winner? There's a winner? Not her? Who? The barker had his hand on a girl's shoulder, not her, a girl with a Cleopatra drape of light blue beaded dredlocks.

Why her? Why not me? How come I never win? And no, I don't care if there is a next time, if I can play again later or tomorrow, I don't care what he says, I'm never the winner. I'll never walk out of here with a four foot Scooby Doo and everyone going ooh and ahh at me. Not ever.

She wasn't sure how she ended up on the curb, leaning against a light post, but the brigade of fire ants marching up her ankle was just one more line on her list of "Bad Luck Lori Stories." Tonight, she should have been snuggling up with a sawdust filled, imported from China, cartoon character and instead she'd be slathering her feet with antibiotic and antihistamine ointments, hoping to avoid a visit to the doctor and a ten day regimen of cefalexin.

Maybe a twistee-treat would turn this night into a not quite total waste, but her pocket was empty of the eight single dollars left after playing a few rounds at the water-pistol gallery. A man walked by holding a vanilla-strawberry and a chocolate-banana, leaning towers of ice cream, dripping sprinkles a Hansel and Gretel trail behind him. He handed the cones to his codfish mouthed kids. "Don't worry about finishing them, we're going to have funnel cake later."

Lori sat down again and let the ants resume their reconnaissance mission across her legs. She sat until the carnival closed, until she had to go home, until she couldn't sit any longer.

First, Last

"Alright, but this is the last time." There is never a last time, not with him, not with her. Every time is a first time or an again time or perhaps a last time for today, but never ever a last last time.
I love my disciples.

Adjusting the clinchers, I made a mental note to refurbish the linings. The padding was thinning out and that could be, if not dangerous, certainly uncomfortable. The zippers, too, needed a quick spray with WD-40, and the safety locks. They weren't as smooth as they should be.

I like my zippers quiet.

They look so pretty hanging there, nude except for their matching cuffs, hoods and those heavy, heart-shaped lockets attached to their collars, sweat running the formal lacework design I'd painted on earlier, a touch of whimsy provided by horsehair and Trimtex acrylic paint. I'd considered doing a sharpy design a la Jigglypuff, but removing sharpy from flesh is tedious.

Leaning back in the swing, I kicked until I could grab the handle by the switch-pad and flick it.. It would have been easier to walk, but the swing, a cutaway tire, amused me. It was so iconoclastic, so irreverant, to have an old tire swing here. I'd picked up a rotating clothes rack at a dry cleaner's going-out-of-business sale and it had proven to be one of the best investments I'd made in terms of furnishing my studio: inexpensive, unique, multipurpose. They swayed as the rack rotated through and around the room, toes a few inches from the floor.

Then Clara sagged and her foot caught against a sawhorse and broke off.
Oh, dear. That will never do.

I stopped the conveyor and picked up the foot. A clean break, quite dried out. I poked Wilhelm's limbs and torso. He was dried out, too. Were they that dried out when I painted them the other day? I'm not sure.

I released the clamps and removed the hoods. Yes, those zippers definitely needed a spray of WD-40. Folded them neatly into a barrel and threw Clara's foot in after her.

No more play time for them after all.

When we got to the dump, I rolled the barrel to the edge of the sludge pond. Gave it a gentle nudge. "Ready for a ride, children? Alright, but this really is the last time."

The House on Orange

My fake blond beauty sits, on the curb, head on her knees.
Open the back door, get into the car. Please get into the car. Please get into the car.
Please.
Get into the car.
Can you stand? Can you crawl?
Sway against the car, mascara smears, matted hair and a bruise on her collarbone,
visible through the tear in her shirt tell me more than I want to know
but not enough that I need to know.
Do I need to know?
Does it matter, will it make a difference if I know what nightmares are coming?
She curls into a ball across the back seat, thumb in her mouth,
as if she was still 18 months and not 18 years old.
The more things change the more they remain the same. Trite but too true.
Don't waste your breath apologizing, I know you're sorry, ever so sorry for everything,
for fucking up, for getting into trouble, for costing me so much in time and energy and money
and some parents would say the money is the last of it but they don't know.
This is just another 5 a.m. emergency pickup after too few hours of sleep and
if it takes too long and I'm not at work on time I'll be terminated, no questions or explanations.
The job market takes no prisons and gives no ransom.
Any absences or lateness are automatic cancellation and I don't know whether I'm more afraid of that,
of losing this crappy job with the only redeeming quality that it keeps us from homelessness for a few more months or if I'm more afraid that I'm not going to have a daughter to scream at any longer for being a stupid fucking idiot who is wrecking her life with her self-destructive behavior, that this emergency pickup will end in some city-run, Medicaid accepting hospital instead of a ride home and soaking her clothes to get the vomit smell out.
I just don't know.
I don't know anything, ever.
I make a U turn and head for home.

Life Beyond the Blowtorch

Three icebergs float in my veins, sleet attached to steel like white cells attacking virus,
floating there as long as I've been floating here, away from my other life.
Metal worked crosses mark their passage
blood broken glass sheared fiberglass are visas to hostile territory.
Every day for so long I didn't see even them
except from the corner of my eye.
Tonight, three years on, I'm glad the street lights are out.
I'm glad its too dark to see the teddy bear menagerie flower garlands
and boxes of broken chocolates, creme filling removed by various feral beasts,
homage on the median.
But the streetlight comes on just as I hit the underpass.
Spotlight on trois prei deux.
Baby, take a bow and exit stage right

Night on NOBT

He pushed back his hair, or what was left of it, and admired his profile in the mirror,
the contrast of tanned skin and pale scalp, shining through multicolored fingers.
"I feel pretty, oh so pretty," he hummed.
Another flick of mascara, some metallic eyeliner, gloss.
Lycra tank tucked into shorts, oversized ostrich boa trailing down his back.
Dangling hoop earrings to complete the ensemble.
A double shot of tequila over crushed ice.
It would be a night to forget.

Child's Play

He tries so hard not to be afraid
of me
for me
to cover how he stops himself from saying, ‘Don't!'
He knows the surest way to push me is to try to stop me.
I kiss him and skip off to play
while he hides a frisson and a tress of my grey hair in his wallet
or perhaps takes to the santeria for a holding spell.
I don't know.
I'm long gone, until hunger, for him, pulls me back,
with skinned knees and scabby elbows, sunburnt nose and streaks of dirt on my face,
to be scrubbed clean and nurtured.

All My Road Pt 4 REVISED

There is no good writing, there is only rewriting. Compare, if you wish, to the earlier version. Will I make more changes? Absolutely. Am I ever satisfied? Nope. Do I stay true to the story, to my characters? I try. I try very hard.

Driving past that interchange of vomit where once upon a time I'd been airborne, that interchange I'd never been able to find a short or long cut around, where I had for the first time realized what a turd he was, a selfish, immature turd, I find it hard to breath. And yet...

Here I am. Again. Questioning, talking, pleading: why don't you love me anymore, what did I do, what makes her better than me? I take a deep breath and walk to the door, prepared to rap on the glass. He's there, waiting for me. He opens the door a crack and lets me in.

"What did you want to see me for? You told me it's over. You said it, not me." He locks the entry door and moves past me. "C'mon, I'm working in the back."

I follow him down the tight hallway, avoiding the transfile towers and stacked up computer parts that make the journey to his realm even more of an obstacle course. "You lied to me. You lied over and over. I just told you what I saw, what we both know. When the words and actions disagree..." The back of his head is just as responsive as the front.

The words and actions. The way he'd abruptly changed, all business-like about things that weren't business at all. From long hours of playful to "Are you finished yet? I have to walk the dogs." As fast as I tried to close the gaps, he hammered wedges into the fissures. He knew I'd discover the truth, sooner or later, see through the glamour, be unable to ignore the spotted elephant in the corner. A truth so awful to him had to be repellant to me. He was a hollow statue on a pedestal, at least in his head, and that wasn't good enough. My acceptance of his flaws was as unacceptable to him as it was unfathomable.

"Words and actions? What does that mean?" he says over his shoulder. He points to a chair but I remain standing. Seated in his oversized execuchair, he stares at the computer screen. Was he working or playing ScrabbleBlast again? I shiver, icy memory tapping me on the shoulder, trying to get my attention. I lean against the desk opposite his. I don't want to see the screen, don't want to know what words are there. The actions have slapped me around too much the last few days. "Whatever. I'd like us to still be friends. We used to talk about everything. I miss talking to you, you're so smart. And now... There's too much distance between us."

"Oh, that's an interesting metaphor, there's too much distance between us. Certainly, there is now even if there wasn't before." Neither of us had moved in the past year, but the miles had doubled, tripled. The not unreasonable commute had become a burden, heavy, torturous when it meant clocking miles on his vehicle. Mine was expendable. Anything of mine was expendable, unimportant. "Why am I here anyway? What do I want from you?" I pick up a stapler, check to see if it needs refilling.

"You said you wanted to talk. I guess this is our breakup rehash?" He fiddles with the mouse, glances down at the papers littering his desktop, back at the screen. He shifts in his chair, turning it from side to side as he shakes his head . "I think... I dunno. I love so many things about you. I love fucking you, the sex is like, amazing-"

I'll never say that to anyone. I'll never tell someone I love things about him because I can't say I love him. I won't say anything. I won't spin.

"Well, was amazing, except for the last few weeks, and I love the things you do for me, the way you treat me, think about me, try to make my life easier, advise me on things-"

But you don't love me, the real me. You can't love me. I see through you, right to your core. I won't lie and say you're wonderful or perfect. I see your flaws and love you anyway, but that's exactly what's wrong.

"-but when you told me you'd lied me and you didn't want to see me any more.. I dunno, it changed how I feel, colored all my memories and perceptions, perverted them." He leans back and gives a small nod of satisfaction. He's justified his actions.

"Oh, please. You are so full of it. You knew, don't tell me you didn't know. You're not stupid. My lies were nothing compared to yours. It's like we had a constant, set total of lies. So when mine shrank, yours blossomed; you had to fill the empty space with bigger, better lies. And I bought into it. I swallowed them, my pride and my common sense, anything to be with you.

"You looove fucking me. You love the way I treat you, care for you, help you, but it all comes down to one thing: you don't love me. Everything about me is replaceable, expendable. Everything. You know, you call me all hours of the day and night, drunk, sober, angry, outraged, 3 p.m. or 3 a.m., ask me this, ask me that. You ever ask me how I am? What I'm doing, if I have time to talk? No, that's not important. Too much trouble for Mr. Narcissistic. Your needs are important, not mine. You confess to me, repent to me, depend on me. You know I'll help you in any way I can, do anything in my powers to help you. And you? I can't depend on you for shit. You can't even be bothered going ten minutes out of your way when for all you know I could be dying upside down in a ditch, forget about really inconveniencing yourself and helping me when I need something."

"Hey, c'mon. I think you're being a little harsh." He folds his arms, then tosses his head to get the hair out of his eyes. Like a runway model, sullen-faced, skulking, so their feathers don't shift. He was vain enough, so solipsistic he'd plagiarized my work, used my letters, the only thing I could truly call mine, to get into other women's pants and been insulted when I'd called him on.

"I'm not nearly harsh enough. I know you. I know everything about you, how you think, how you work, how low you'll go to get what you want. Your ends justify any means. That hurt? Yeah, ends justifies the means, and albeit macht frei. Fuckhead. You can't stand it that I see through your games, that I see what a clayfoot you are. I hold up a mirror and you see the cracks. You despise yourself for being scum and you despise me for loving you anyway." I eject the last staple and put the stapler down exactly parallel to the edge of the desk.

"You love me anyway? Even now?" Is he batting his eyelashes at me? Is he flirting with me? Is this what I want? Is this why I'm here?

"So? I can love you and not like you. I can love you and hate what you do, how you treat me. Believe me, I've been abused by experts. You're amateur hour on that point, sweetcheeks. I've learned from my past. I can do all sorts of things. But you know what I can't do any longer?"

"I'm afraid to ask." He smiles a small smile, refills his coffee cup from the pump dispenser his staff keeps full and on his desk. "You want?"

"We've known each other how long and you still can't remember that I drink tea?" The first time he invited me to his apartment, he hadn't thought to buy tea. Not the second or third time, either. But I'd seen the expensive, waxed box of chai tea in his cabinet, the one sold only at the import store in the mall, the same kind the hostess at his favorite restaurant drank, on top of the box of Lipton I'd finally broken down and brought over. I wondered if he'd bought the chai or if Sushi had.

"Just asking. I can boil water for tea."

"Don't trouble yourself. I wouldn't want to impose." All the paperclips are lined up on the blotter like an English garden, neat rows and spirals. When did I do that? I sweep them into a cup and set it on the northwest corner of the desk.

"You never let me do things for you."

"That's right. Because what I want you to do for me, you won't do or can't do. I want you to be you. I don't want a god, I want a person, a flawed, striving to be better person. I want a man, human, effable, fallible." If I stay angry I won't kiss him. If I stay angry, I'll stay on my side of the room.

"Oh god, sweetie, you know me like no one knows me, better than I know me-"

"Damned straight I know you better than you know you. And just think how I'd know you if you weren't such a compulsive liar. Of course, your lies tell me even more than your truths, such as they are." I pick up the "Welcome to Indiana" snow globe as if it was a "Magic 8" ball with all the answers and shake it, knowing that only works if I ask the right questions, the ones I already know the answers to anyway. "You're so smooth, so charming with your quick wit and fancy car, expensive clothes, country club membership." I shake the globe. Only snow, still no answers. "And the games... Was I just more repartee, a whetstone for your vocabulary? Was I? So deluded by your smooth." I shake the globe harder.

"I thought just once in my life I could be Cinderella, that just once someone would save me. But no. I'm always going to be the bootstrap bitch, the life preserver of DUIs and Joan of Arc for morally and financially bankrupt hobos. Yay me! Just once, I wanted to be taken care of, just once. I am so tired of taking care of myself and the rest of the world. I'm tired."

"I'm sorry I'm not Prince Charming, really sorry. I wish I was, but I can't be what I'm not, no matter how much you want it, or I might want to make it so. I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam." He quirks his lips into that little half-smile he thought was so killer. I fight the urge to lick the side of his mouth.

I replace the snow globe and put the scattered pens and pencils into the square, faux leather pen holder. The push pins are in disarray, too, not grouped by color or shape. "Yes, you are what you are. And the sad thing, that was enough for me. I was okay with you being a flawed Charming as long as you were my Charming, but you needed me to see you as perfect. Maybe we both needed to believe in the fantasy more or lie more or lie better. It's just so tiring being ‘on' all the time. I want to be okay being flawed. I want to be with someone who's okay being flawed. I want to be with someone who really, really wants to be with me. Not some pin-up, two dimensional image of me, but me. Would you stop staring at my chest?"

He reaches over and places his hand on my lower back, thumb stroking that indent in my spine just above my coccyx, fingers gently squeezing the curve of my hip. I lean into the caress for a moment, then pull away. His hand drops to his knee. "Sorry. That dress is just amazing on you. How come we never got all dressed up and went out nice?"

"Um, maybe cause you never asked? Maybe cause you could never pick me up on time? Maybe cause you save the nice going out for your ‘I'd like to have a real relationship with her' skank and not for the woman you DO have a relationship with? Please, in the year we were seeing each other, you never even made time for us to go to the movies, let alone out nice. Want me to go on? The list of broken promises is longer than I am tall."

"I'm sorry for that, for all the ways I disappointed you but things happen. You know that. Things come up."

"Like my lunch is right now? You want me to tell you that you weren't so bad, that all things considered you were pretty good. You want your ego-stroking, well, fuck you, get it from Sushi." I lean forward, arms crossed, cold. Did it get cold in here? His eyes flick to my cleavage again. "Yeah, take a good long look. Where is she anyway? Still at work, little miss ‘oh, it's complicated'?

"Bah. Enough on her." I snap my fingers. "I didn't need or want an illusion. I wanted you. I know you. Do you know you? Do you know what you want? Not what you think you want, not what everyone tells you you should want, Mr. Silver-spoon-in-his-mouth-and-polysyllabic-words-on-his-tongue, but what you want? I'm discovering what I want and it is so different from before. My priorities have been messed up my whole life, and now I'm growing up and taking charge."

Silent, he stares at his fingers for a few minutes, examining the nails and then the tips, as if he'd never realized just how many ridges his fingertips had before. He looks up at me. "Don't cry." Was I crying? Huh. My cheeks were wet. "I'm going to miss you, I already miss you."

"No, you don't. I'm history, forgotten, out of the agenda. If not this one, then the next. Or the one after that. Or however many it takes. I'm long gone."

"I want a relationship and I can't get past what you did. I want simple and honest."

I snort. "Oh, please. Simple and honest? You wouldn't know simple and honest if it bit you on the nose. I have to go. I don't know why I'm here, anyway." I take my keys out of my purse.

"What are you going to do?"

"Do? What do you mean, what am I going to do? Go home, what else am I going to do?"

He glances at the clock on the wall. "It's late. You've been up since what, six? And it's four now and you've been drinking."

"And your point is? I can tell time and no matter how much I drank tonight, it's not as much as you drink."

"You're almost a teetotaler. You had a few tonight."

"I'm sober enough, but thank you for your concern. I'll put a tick mark in your good deeds and kind words column."

He stands up. He puts an arm around my shoulder and pulls me to him. "I'd let you sleep in the apartment, but..."

My body starts to fit itself to him. I can feel the warmth of him through our clothes. "What, you can't trust me to sleep in the guest bedroom? You think I'll crawl into your bed? I have some pride, not much, but some."

"I don't trust me." He strokes my hair, my neck.

"That is so typical of you, playing the gentleman to weasel your way out of doing something. ‘I can't trust me. I'm afraid I might lose control. It's for your own good.' Four a.m. and you won't let me crash in your guest room. You can't put yourself out one iota for me, can you? You're still working, you could drop me off and come right back here. I'm leaving." But I can't move. I want to stay right there, feeling him, breathing him.

"You're too tired to drive."

"Tell me something I don't know." I rub my eyes, smearing mascara and eyeshadow on my hands. I must look like a racoon. Tell me an alternative."

"You could stay at a motel." What did he say? I push myself away from him.

"I could what? You going to pick up the tab? You make at least ten times as much as I do. You ask women all the time to go on trips with you, all expenses paid, but the one trip we went on, we split. Where's my trip to Vegas or the Bahamas? You know what? I bet if you put me up in a motel you'd write it off as a consulting fee. You've done it every time we've gone anywhere. You know what else you are? Besides a jerk? You're cheap. Cheap with your wallet and cheap with yourself. It's all about your bottom line."

"Do you feel better? You called me a few names, you feel better now? Because I really have to get back to work. I've got time critical projects I have to finish." He walks down the hall and I follow him. The boxes remind me of hungry dragons. I'm starting to hallucinate I'm so tired. He stands by the door, tapping his foot, impatient for me to leave.

"Time critical projects, my ass. I'll feel better. I'll feel better when I stop acting like a fool over you, stop caring about what happens to you. I'll feel better when I stop loving you. But I won't." I bite a jagged bit off my thumbnail. "Nope. I won't. Stop loving you, that is."

"But it's over. You've said it, I've said it. I'm seeing someone else. You'll get over me. I'm a compulsive liar and scum and a jerk and a fuckhead and an asshole and whatever else you called me."

"Well, it's a reflection on me, not on you, how I feel. I have to own my emotions and responses, be responsible for my feelings." It was really over. He wasn't going to ask me to stay, hold me, kiss me, let me cling to the illusion that he maybe somewhere deep inside loved me after all. The first time he was honest with me was to tell me it was over. "I have to go now."

"Are you going to be okay? I worry about you." He unlocked the door.

"Huh. If you meant that, you'd give me an option. You don't. You care about you and you care about the newest bang you're sticking your dick in. At least, you care while it's a novelty. It'll wear off. It's already wearing off. With you, it's all about the conquest. You still think like you're seventeen."

 He glances outside. Someone waves to him. He waves back, holds up five fingers. He's going to join them in five minutes. Nice. He has lots of work to do tonight.

"I have to go. I don't want to argue anymore. I'm too tired." I'm so tired. Give me comfort. Please ask me to stay. Please. I know he won't, but I wish he would.

"Can I call you?" He fumbles with the keys. His barbuddies are waiting. His dealer is waiting. First, I competed with them, then I competed with his internet porn addiction and now with Sushi and whoever else. Why did I bother? What's wrong with me? I take a deep breath, shake my head.

"What, when she dumps you in a month or so? I'm growing a spine. I hope." I get in the car and pull out of the spot. When I come up to the bar, I open the passenger window. "Go to hell, asshole. Go to hell."

A few miles down, I pull into a strip mall, cry for a bit. The flashing lights cast odd shadows on the dashboard, reminding me of the psychedelic Japanese cartoons that cause epileptic fits. Does Sushi watch cartoons, read anime?  Does she play Scrabble, do the crossword puzzles with him? Does she? Why do I care? Admit to myself that I'm too bleary-eyed to drive safely, might end up in a ditch again and I'm done crawling through alligator infested ditches for him. I wonder what the Florida Highway Patrol officer would say if he saw me sitting here now. "About time, ma'am. Surely is about time." I fall asleep with my head on the steering wheel.

All My Roads Pt 4

"What did you want to see me for? You told me it's over. You said it, not me."

"You lied to me. You lied over and over. I just told you what I saw, what we both knew. When the words and actions disagree..."

The words and actions. The way he'd changed, all business-like about things that weren't business at all. From long hours of playful to "Are you finished yet? Haven't you had enough? I have to walk the dogs." As she tried to close the gaps, he hammered wedges into the fissures. She wanted a man; he was a hollow statue on a pedestal. He knew she'd discover the truth, sooner or later, see through the glamour, be unable to ignore the spotted elephant in the corner. Accepting his flaws was unacceptable to him. He had to be better.

"There's too much distance between us. Oh, that's an interesting metaphor, there's too much distance between us. Certainly, there is now even if there wasn't before." Neither of them had moved, but the miles had doubled, tripled. The not unreasonable commute had become a burden, heavy, torturous when it meant clocking miles on his vehicle. Hers was expendable. Anything of hers was expendable, unimportant.

When she drove past the interchange where once upon a time she'd been airborne, that interchange of vomit she'd never been able to find a short or long cut around, that interchange where she'd realized what a turd he was, a selfish, immature turd, she found it hard to breath. And yet.

Here she was again, questioning, talking, pleading, why don't you love me anymore, what did I do, what makes her better than me?

"I think... I dunno. I love so many things about you. I love fucking you, the sex is like, amazing-"

I'll never say that to anyone, she thinks. I'll never tell someone I love things about him because I can't say I love him. I won't say anything. I won't spin.

"-and I love the things you do for me, the way you treat me, think about me, try to make my life easier, advise me on things-"

But you don't love me, the real me. You can't love me. I see through you, right to your core. I won't lie and say you're wonderful or perfect. I see your flaws and love you anyway, but that's exactly what's wrong.

"-but when I found out you'd lied me, when you broke up with me... I dunno, it changed how I see you, how I feel."

"Oh, please. You are so full of it. My lies were nothing compared to yours. And you knew, don't tell me you didn't know. You're not stupid. My lies disappeared and yours blossomed. It's like we had a constant, set total of lies. So when mine shrank, you had to fill the empty space with bigger, better lies. And I bought into it. I swallowed them and asked for more. I'm a fool.

"You love fucking me. You love the way I treat you, care for you, help you, but it all comes down to one thing: you don't love me. Everything about me is replaceable. Everything.

"You know, you call me all hours of the day and night, ask me this, that. Confess to me, repent to me. You depend on me, you know I'll help you in any way I can, do anything in my powers to help you. And you? I can't depend on you for shit. You can't be bothered going ten minutes out of your way when for all you know I could be dying, forget about really inconveniencing yourself and helping me when I need something. How can I trust you for anything?

"And me?

"I'm a fool. You're an ass, but I'm a fool."

"Hey, c'mon. I think you're being a little harsh." He folded his arms, then tossed his head to get the hair out of his eyes. It reminded her of runway models, sullen-faced, skulking so their feathers wouldn't shift. He was vain enough, so vain he'd plagiarized her work, used her letters to get into other women's pants and been insulted when she'd broken up with him.

"I'm not nearly harsh enough. I know you. I know everything about you, how you think, how you work, how low you'll go to get what you want. Your ends justify any means. That hurt? Yeah, ends justifies the means, and albeicht macht frie. Fuckhead. You can't stand it that I see through your games, that I see what a clayfoot you are. I hold up a mirror and you see the cracks. You despise yourself for being scum and you despise me for loving you anyway.

"You can't stand it."

"You love me anyway? Even now?"

"So? I can love you and not like you. I can love you and hate what you do. I can do all sorts of things. But you know what I can't do any longer?"

"I'm afraid to ask." He smiles, a small smile, refills his coffee cup. "You want?"

"We've known each other how long and you still can't remember that I drink tea?" The first time she'd come to his apartment, he hadn't thought to buy tea. Not the second or third time, either. But she'd noticed the waxed box of chai tea in his cabinet, the same kind the hostess at his favorite restaurant drank, next to the box of tea she'd finally broken down and brought over. She wondered if he'd bought the chai or if Sushi had.

"Just asking. I can boil water for tea."

"Don't trouble yourself. I wouldn't want to impose."

"You never let me do things for you."

"That's right. Because what I want you to do for me, you won't do. I want you to be you. And that's not good enough. I don't want a god, I want a person, a flawed, striving to be better person."

"Oh god, sweetie, you know me like this, like no one knows me, better than I know me-"

"Damned straight I know you better than you know you. And just think how I'd know you if you weren't such a compulsive liar. Of course, your lies tell me even more than your truths, such as they are. When they are."

"Don't cry." She didn't feel the tears. "I'm going to miss you, I already miss you."

"No, you're not. I'm already history, out of the agenda. If not this one, then the next. Or the one after that. Or however many it takes."

"I want a relationship and I can't get past what you did. I want simple and honest."

"Simple and honest?" She snorted. "You wouldn't know simple and honest if it bit you on the nose. I have to go. I don't know why I'm here, anyway."

"What are you going to do?"

"Do? What do you mean, what am I going to do? Go home, what else am I going to do?"

"It's late."

"And your point is? I can tell time."

"I'd let you sleep here, but..."

"What, you can't trust me to sleep in the guest bedroom? You think I'd crawl into your bed? I have some pride, not much, but some."

"I don't trust me."

"Oh, please. That is so typical of you. You can't put yourself out one iota for me, can you? Three a.m. and you won't let me crash in your guest room. You could sleep at your office or in your car or anything. I'm leaving."

"You're too tired to drive."

"Tell me something I don't know. Tell me an alternative."

"You could stay at a motel."

"You going to pick up the tab? You make ten times as much as I do. You ask women all the time to go on trips with you, all expenses paid, but the one trip we went on, we split. Where's my trip to Vegas or the Bahamas?

"You know what? I bet if you put me up in a motel you would write it off as a consulting fee. You've done it every time we've gone to dinner. You know what else you are? Besides a jerk? You're cheap. Cheap with your wallet and cheap with yourself. It's all about your bottom line."

"Do you feel better? You called me a few names, you feel better now?"

"I'll feel better when I stop acting like a fool over you, stop caring about what happens to you. I'll feel better when I stop loving you. But I won't." She bit her thumbnail off, chewed it. "Nope. I won't. Stop loving you, that is."

"But it's over. You've said it, I've said it. I'm seeing someone else. You'll get over me. I'm a compulsive liar and scum and a fuckhead and an asshole and whatever else you called me."

"Well, it's a reflection on me, not on you." It was really over. He wasn't going to ask her to stay, hold her, kiss her, let her cling to the illusion that he maybe somewhere deep inside loved her after all. The first time he was honest with her was to tell her it was over. "I have to go now."

"Are you going to be okay? I'm worried about you."

"Huh. If you meant that, you'd give me an option. You don't. You care about you and you care about the newest bang you're sticking your dick in. At least, you care while it's a novelty. It'll wear off. It's already wearing off. With you, it's all about the conquest. You still think like you're seventeen. Hell, you compete with your kids."

"That's disgusting. And it's not true. That's really disgusting."

"Yeah? Then why'd you compare me to your son's girlfriend?"

"You have a better body than she does. I told you that."

"Exactly my point. Why are you looking at your son's girlfriend like that? I have to go. I don't want to argue anymore. I'm too tired." Please ask me to stay. Please. She knew he wouldn't.

"Can I call you?"

"What, when she dumps you in a month or so? I'm growing a spine. I hope."

She gets in her car, starts the engine. She opens the window. "Go to hell, asshole. Go to hell." A few miles down, she pulls into a strip mall. Cries for a bit. Admits to herself that she's too bleary-eyed to drive safely, might end up in a ditch again and she's already crawled through alligator infested ditches for him. She wonders what the Florida Highway Patrol officer would say if he saw her now. "About time, ma'am. Surely is about time." She falls asleep with her head on the steering wheel.