i was introduced by church bells at 47 past the hour, epic doorswings and shadows touching your feet that stretched for miles like the dawntime grand vistas of desert childhoods, and i spun on redstool sittings like a lost breath, my arms sliding against a countertop and frowns blurring into smiles. i saw her face, her eyes as hollow as a diseased tree and as deep as a screaming well with blood cracked bricks and the remains of fairy tale kids chased by wolves with notions to devour them. i was reminded of the sandstorms of youth, coffee tee soda pop pee, the popcorn fireworks in my face and the kisses blown to me from the barrel of a middle finger ass. look at all the options.
let an atmosphere be established, technicolor passersby, passengers of the sidewalk, trenchcoats hard hats purses and poodles, marching to the beat of a drummachine, twiddling thumbs mentally, thumbing through shopping catalogues in memory, tilting their heads and admiring the sunset in the middle of the afternoon. booths and tables and sweet apple pie delivered to your mobil door, sit comfortably and smile and let us do all the work. swinging catapult doors push you in throw you out, and releave yourself and scroll the messages of the world's filthy answering machine. the tile floors sink in and eat our soul, my feet dance to the tunes of the glorious 50s, a sock hop, a rebel with shades, the black and white mystique of a dirt road and a neon sign and the plush new age houses falling from the sky like symbols from the future. the future is now, and i wanted to order some soup.
her arms shed silk and moved in blurry arches and her neck bled pure and her fingernails were nervous and particular and she smiled for the first time that day over and over again. she loved every breathing thing on the planet. she was chaste and sad, her reflection mopped counter tops while she wrote on a small notepad with a pencil as cratered as the moon. the paper ripped and her hair stayed still but fell infront of her eyes, her empty, deep eyes that moved forward but never side to side. she focused like a broken camera, she brought in the light and spit out civility and a pretty curve of her lip. she trained for years and years to be the nicest creature on earth, and spat in the coffee when she thought you wouldn't tip. i didn't want coffee. i wanted soup. i had every intention to tip.
and i was a walking dictionary, dropping word after word down the gutter and watching it wash away in the midday rain. i was formed from leaflets and textbooks and my facial gestures suggested it. i was a dull poet who could count in three languages, who could connect any image to a word, though usually the wrong one, and she was a trainwreck and a falling house and a horse with no head. she was my sideways glance i saw through the mirror for 5 years as i commented on the nice coats of others as they unleashed their genitals in high class resteraunts. i was cryptically undressing the world and wondering why i made so many mistakes, and cataloguing those mistakes, writing them down in script form and wishing for a movie deal. alas, i did not have the proper connections.
i wondered, with her sweet backroom food smell, where the grease climbs onto her and melts into roses, if i could say all those words i wanted to say or if it would just come out a garbled garbage heap, flies swarming, the dead rising, the living mourning, and the gushes of mortal piercing my ears and making me wish i hadn't forgotten how to cry. i wanted to tie the entire existence of humanity around her waist like an apron, and i grabbed a napkin and hoped she was a muse and heaven did not exist and this was simple earthly inspiration. and when it came out i pretended it was night, in the soft red glow of a soda dispenser, i saw my childhood and the mountains and the trees and every war my heart had nothing to do with. i left all doors wide open. i let it become a mixture of misspellings and mangled one liners, how many have we been in, these ethereal girl diners.
i wished she was thiner i wished i was rich, i wished for her naked poetry. i wished for the pain of an alleyway scuffle under the grand blue skies of yonder. i wished for the songs that came to my head, i wished for the zoos, beautiful houses on high. i wished for fame, power and respect, and the important audience of the impressionable. i wished to be dead, to intoxicate myself, as long as she was right there beside me. i wished the west would fall and leave her on my shoulders, the most valuable thing left in town. i wished her aches and pains would be that of the greatest in the world, and me a shining bright knight to save her. i wished i could get it down to a formula and type it into a computer and make copies. i wished to take her to the noises of the circus, to win her giant bears that were never alive. i wished, above all, before my threepiece suited days, that i was alone once more incognito. i will collect you, i do, and this napkin will be your present. i will never see you again, lonely appetite, wall stares, untied shoes, and i walk out of the door to the sound of church towers crashing to the floor.
bryan e. ©2003
