The Shadow Self

The ugly dark side

‘til now they could hide

bubbles to the surface

no longer confined.

You, now a servant

They come not to confide

But to confront

Life’s lie

And it’s you who must listen

And you who abides

The abuses

To come

from their poison inside

It’s in there.

and damn ugly,

but you’ve seen the signs.

Mind’s Miscorrelations,

Screaming skulls blare

Wild-eyed headlight’s glare,

Flailed swings

fists flare

in confused directions,

fatal anger pent,

but denied,

as they once were,

so damn angry at the thought,

grown old left to rot,
...in endless halls

No rescue today

No tomorrow
then, 
if that be
My Fate...?
   
"To hell with you all!"

I am allowed to Rage

you know!

It’s not supposed 
to be this way

they say,

and dare not attempt 
to anticipate

because it’s coming from someplace unforeseen,

buried deep in gut, like a bile in the spleen,

oozing a grudge

that bore on their minds

born of anger

built-up

o'er a lifetime.

Going, 
but begrudgingly...

Gone, 
but
Not Resigned.

DARLA DIDN'T MAKE IT

Hey now how you doing? Sit your ass down and have a cold one. I was just espoundin’ to my old friend Lou...Lou, from Honolulu….That’s Lou over there…the big Dude.

Dude!

We were just shootin’ the shit about the immigrates. I say if they want to stay here then fine! Hand them a rifle and send ‘em over there and fight these fucking wars we got going. You know, wherever they might be goin’ on. If there's some oil, then there's your war! Hell, we might be sending ‘em back to where they just came from…maybe fighting their own fuckin cousins, but still, man, you want to stay free, you know? …go fight fo’it. You come back a hero, we hand you your papers. You come back in a box?...fukman, you’re still a hero, you know? It’s your name on that wall. Pretty fuckin awesome…ask me. Shitman, I woulda fought if they’da let me, but this neck...? I told you about the wreck, right? That was one cherry bike. I showed you the pictures, right? Well, so-what I can’t turn my head? Shitman, I could be dead. Darla didn’t make it….goddamn…took a header…haunts me still. I told you that story right? How shit-faced we was that night? Yeah, probably a thousand times, right? I won’t bore you with the facts, I’m sure you got them straight by now, but I close my eyes and I see her flyin’…flyin’ on, to oblivion. Haunts me still. Weren’t for that fuck-up I’d probably be dead somewhere like Darla. Hell at least she landed on her home soil, you know? Who the fuck knows where I might’a died? Ain’t that the truth, Lou?

Fuckin’ bet your ass, dude! 

Look at Lou, he woulda fought, too, but his big ass just don't move. You gotta wonder what life’s got in line, sometimes its trouble, sometimes you’re fine.

To you, Lou! From one lucky motherfucker to the other!

THREE DADDYs

Sometime during the night the phone rang, harsh and loud, startling me awake. It wasn't so much the fact that no one calls at this hour, but more a case of nobody ever calling. I have the phone for one reason, and that is to talk to my mother, who is terminally ill. One would think, given the circumstance, that I would keep the phone next to my bed, but I have enough clutter about me, that the addition of another seldom-used utility that I frequently found off it's cradle, beeping busily and useless beneath a mound of laundry...now sits across the untidy room on the floor next to the floor lamp, where it might not be as easily misplaced or dislodged. So here I scramble across that treacherous floor in a room lit by a singular nite-lite, anxiety building expecting to hear the inevitable, yet ill-prepared to receive it, my pulse raises - I sense my blood pressure mount as my ears ring, and my breaths are short and tight. I grasp the receiver, and gasp into the mouthpiece "HELLO!?"

“Hey. Sorry.” It was female, soft, low, and slurred...the "eyyy" trailing off... "shorry", meek and contrite.

"You...You have the wrong number."

"Not this time..." He instantly knew ‘Who’. It was the foul-mouthed 'wrong number' that he had incurred that afternoon...or rather, given the hour it must be...last afternoon. 

"You have no reason to call here. What time is it?" Where was his clock?

"S'late..."

"No shit. Why are calling?! You told me to fuck off...to fuck off on my own phone, that you dialed and got  pissed off because I'm not fucking Carla..."

"I called Kayla. Carla wouldn't fuck you...but then neither would Kayla..."

"Well thanks for verifying your identity. You are the same self-involved foul-mouthed, conceited little bitch that interrupted my solitude this afternoon!"

"The same."

"So why you haunting me?"

"I'm not like that, and I think I came off badly...I called to apologize."

"What do you mean you're not like that - you just pulled the same shit!"

"I know. I'm rich...I'm spoiled...I'm fucked..."

“Oh, poor you, and fuck me, stop yanking my chain. Is that what this is? You and Sherry having a laugh in the back of your limo?”

“Kayla.”

“Who gives a fuck. Hang up.”

“You hang up...”

“Oh let's not play that...”

“I'm lonely.”

“So? Who isn’t? Buy yourself a friend and let me sleep.”

“You're lonely...”

“I am not.”

“You said you had solitude…”

“I said you disrupted my solitude. There's a big difference from being lonely...”

“Not where I live. Privacy! Security! Luxury! Tranquility!… and Loneliness. Come on…”

“Sounds like you got it made. How about using all that, to concentrate on yourself?”

“Concentrate on what?”

“I don't know...maybe who you might be?... what you might learn or accomplish?...little things...like, how you Feel?”

“I know all that, and I can Accomplisshhh... I DO,I don't make those decisions...so I don't think very hard.”

“Did you just state that someone else decides that?”

“They all do. But People know...they know who I am...”

“Not YOU.”

“In a manner of speaking, I do too... but that's not important.”

“So…It's a show.”

“...it's a show. Want to come over?”

“Why, where, and what the fuck for?”

“We can do that...I got a show I can show you...”

“No. Not happening.”

“Why? I'm pretty...you should see me…”

“You're drunk...you don't like old men...”

“I never said that...”

“You said that – ‘who'd want to fuck a gross old man like you’...?"

“I got to say, half the time my medication does most of the talking...and I'm talking the 'Dr.-shit', and not even the fun stuff. I am really sorry. I like old men. I do. My Daddys are old...”

“I'm not that old and I don't want to know about your Daddys.”

“I have three daddys! Really! It's what my Mother does! My real Dad, he died on the freeway. She keeps getting richer...not smarter, but her tits look great...we go to botox together. People think we're sisters...I hate that...I... Come on over. Be with me. I need...”

“I am a stranger. A random...old...hardly sympathetic, and totally put-off nobody...and you could be in danger. Don't be doing this shit.”

“I am reaching out. I need to reach out. They tell me, 'reach out'... I am reaching...c'mon reach me...touch me...”

“Okay, you're drifting off. What are you on?”

“I'm on the roof.”

MOTHBALL MEMORIES

She had dreams she once had family. She'd had a mother that loved her, a father that provided and hugged like a bear, and a sister with missing front teeth that teased her eternally. She missed them, yet never knew them, not really.

What she does remember so very well, from the reality she endured, was a father that would rage in violent acts within the domicile. He beat the shit out of them all,  until finally splitting open mother’s head with a hot frying pan…she burned his sausages…because she was sick…from a flu 
the child had given her…she sat down at the table while getting dizzy at the stove…she lay her head to rest and may have passed out. We can only pray. She did not hear his rage storm over head before crushing hers.

From under her bed she saw him approach. The room filled with the smell of burnt sausage. His feet now inches from where she huddled, He dropped the pan to the floor with a dull clang. Seeing the blood, she attempted in vain to stifle the scream.

“I won’t hurt you again…” he said. To his promise, he walked the eight blocks and turned himself in at the station. He had the blood on his hands. They locked him in a cell, then cops and Marta, came for the girls. Marta was her martyr, she’d say, and for good reason. She missed her sister who went to live with ‘Aunt Ri’ out of state.

The smell of fried meat haunts and nauseates her. The vegan, ever since, she’d cover her nose when driving by burger joints, less she lurch her lunch …again, and often took routes to avoid them. She learned to adjust, and enjoyed a stuffy sinus and her persistent allergies. But…

Moth balls…moth balls will trigger these memories. Mothballs in her sweater box tucked under her bed, and the round ones that hung in her closet – places they’d huddle.

The dreams? That family? She lives with them, not so much welcoming them, …oh, enjoying them in their moment, but simply being in that space with them was reassuring. Like walking in the front door of a house she grew up in. As if, she belonged.

WINDOW LIGHT

w o r k i n g   w /  w i n d o w ' s   l i g h t

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / 

3:00. P. M   -   w e d,   -    S u n  /. S h a d e s  /. 

Reflection

THE LONG TABLE

They sat at the long formal table, grand in scale, flowered and articulately arranged. He would have...no, he expressly, wanted it to be this way. So it was. Everyone in fine black attire, smiling, toasting, and mostly toasted too, just as he would have it...ties loosened, heels kicked off beneath, jesting, teasing, risqué banter, he would be soaking it in. 

Besides, it was a shock to no one, a blessing for most...his long slow descent, painful as it was, was also filled with laughter and reminiscence. It was indeed clichéd - ‘the best, and worse’ ... So much to regret, but far more, to be grateful...

Eventually the laughter turned to chronic cough, spasms, choking, phlegm and bloody sputum. Wracked between laughter and pain, until only pain remained. With no stories to share, he caved. 

  

So they arrived, relieved he was released, no one grieved, rejoicing instead, on this  gleeful night, at his final invite, he was gloriously free.

THE TRUSTY STRAY

HE WAS EASILY BEFRIENDED

JUST AS EASILY BETRAYED;

A TRAIT THAT STILL 

STAYS WITH HIM

AND HAUNTS HIM

‘TIL THIS DAY.

V