Tortured Soul

 V

a tingle in my...

 

 

 I wouldn’t say

"I’m  cool."

but sometimes

I do

get a chill...

 

like…

 

a ripple.

 

And my “world” ?

…is a room, 8x12’

and I'm single

 

Luckily

 I’m partial

.....to explore

.......the inner space

between my ears

which is infinite

where fame

and fears abide 

side-by-side

while at the same time

sparking the tiniest fraction

of universal friction

 which was felt

immensely

in my nipples.

 

 

V

farewell El'

 

We had just arrived home from Eloise’s funeral. She was quite the girl. You would not have guessed it from her plain front. There was a smattering of handsome strangers, mostly well dressed, and highly presentable. They each kept to themselves, not sure of the other. There were flowers from eleven different sources. There was a Robert, a Ben, a Marshall, an Alex...a couple of Mikes, some other guys named “joe”...and and someone named Betty but calls herself “Mr. Shivers”. Mr. Shivers sent a single Lily. Well, that one sent a ripple (...to the nipple) throughout the room. And who knows? Mr. Shivers might have been any one in attendance whose nipples payed 'attention' while perfectly erect.

 

 

 

                                     V

 

 

 

 

V

soon to be wed

 

 

 

Not that it’s still a story.

It’s not.

Nothing to be told

that isn’t old

and yet still told 

tenfold.

 

So, here goes: 

 

Dude became a brute

who immediately embraced 

her abuse.

From their wedding night on,

her life was a sliding scale

of beatings.

 

His “gentle touch”

proof in the burn marks,

born of boredom.

Tattoos disguised bruises.

Trips and falls

Were her fault

Until she slid off the scale,

in overload.

Three years on the chain,

now ‘broken’

Nothing left to give,

she gave up.

And as much as you think 

the mother was wronged,

save your pity, 

and your prayers,

 for the daughter

she left him

behind. 

 

 

V

The Stillness

  

 

 

 

The stillness made him uneasy. The claustrophobic quiet enveloped him. It hugged him in its tight grasp like an eight-hundred-pound ape. His breath was labored, his legs weak. There was the panic drawn from the fact that he was so remote…so crushingly alone. His ‘compass’  wound up and started to spin freely , picking up a momentum in his cranium. He was lost with no sense of direction. His next breath could be his last. Briefly, at first he caught glimpses of a cartoon classic playing in his head  - an old alarm clock exploding and parts flying everywhere. But it got so it repeated repeatedly to a maddening proportion, until he mercifully, or purposely, passed out.

Coming to, he found the reboot did him some good. He had survived the fall from grace, and the upgrade went smoothly. His memory of the crash, eradicated.

 

 

V

 

The dawning

 

 

 

 

 

It didn’t dawn on Megan

to look both ways.

She was careless…

her fears abandoned

free at last

until the moment

she wasn’t ever

and much 

too late

to 

reconsider.

 

 

V

 

 

 

what was to come...

 

 

It was as ‘still’ an evening as she had ever experienced. Hot? … yes, and oh, so, still…102  at 8:00, with clouds moving in and wind picking up, overnight thunderstorms are 50/50 but the humidity would appreciate a winner.

“Sparrow” (not her real name -and not my idea)… fanned herself while casually perched on the narrow balcony above the fray. 

“Crime” was very available, so foot-traffic was scarce.   No traffic no sales. We closed but we open.  She could hear the shop’s front bell from up here. She ‘could’, but knew she wouldn’t. Streets, as quiet as one could hope, but remain apprehensive. No never know on these streets. Someone could pounce out of the darker shadows, while a passing vehicle does a U-turn back around and fires with intent to inflict dire consequences.

So, she took to ‘the roof’ to take in the scene, for some quiet time and cool air, and what was to come.

V