SOMETIMES YOU BUST

Prescott Wright spent the night pondering, perched on a hill over the city, and navigating his passages for nostril grit. He found his haul to be impressively substantial, and, once mined, balled, and compacted, he flicked the bits at the city beyond.

“Fuck you people, “ he spoke aloud.

You see, all was not right for P. Wright. He was an angry man, with undeniable purpose. Jailed and fined for a crime he could not have committed. He had dutifully provided the proof, but evidence back then…well, it just clogged the system, so they flushed P. Wright right down, and avoided the annoyance. 'Good day.'

Make that 90 days and pay the fine upon release.'

The fine was of such a significant amount, that the only way Wright could possibly pay was to post his own sign, out-front, saying “Farm For Sale”. His fields fallen fallow, his crop to dust, in his mind his father is saying, “It’s farming, son. Sometimes you bust”.

“Sorry, Daddy, I broke it,” he spoke to the sky. 

The sky murmured, then rumbled low, like gastric distress, thus causing P. Wright to laugh-maniacal at the bad, sad, coincidence. This, before his soul caved in and he wept at the rebuke. Foul as it may be. Another backhand from the old man, and this time P. knew he had it coming. His father was a hard man, not a bad one, and P. accepted, what he perceived to be ‘just punishment’ as administered, because they both knew, that would be his measure as a man.

Yet, here, as a man, 
he wept
the child-tears 
he'd avoided
all those 
years

with no one 
left to hear

V