what if…

if the person is you?

if you no longer cared?

what if the person is no one?

what if they’re surprised?

by the lack of surprise?

can you surprise yourself by the quiet?

by the lack of doing nothing at all?

standing in a doorway and saying it’s okay…

okay calling no taxi?

no friend?

no last call?

no last save?

you’re done?

pleased…

please don’t…

saved…

save me…

finished…

complete

she’s not engaged. she’s not the ping-pong champ of the world. she remembers the tears and the sweat of the dark man who took her dream and the woman on the phone argues her engagement. $ can’t choose her fate… but it tries. the woman across the counter is her fate whether she likes it or not. it’s a ping-pong of life. she hangs up the phone and asks the new customers their preference. her pocketbook and debt slide into her purse. her smile is weak but she speaks about the needs for a new buy. a buyer she is - we are what we buy. ‘the things you own end up owning you’. a snob. she says, she belongs and explains why. the man she’s next to argues; says he works and she doesn’t. it breaks his back. what a bargain. what a deal. what a story. what shit. we’ve become nothing. we’ve drank ourselves into a slumber of awake - buy - sell - drink. the story of nothing. you want it to be more. it’ll only end at a certain point. you’re never johnny cash. you’re never famous. never who you want to be. ought to be. did she say i was white trash? i was the white trash he saw in the mirror of the counter. we’re just who we admit we are… only some admit truth. and he’s still dreaming. walking the line in blue suede shoes doesn’t change anything.

she stands at the middle of the electronic sidewalk. no one asks her to move. the sight of her is almost blinding. a slight frantic mix with ‘fragile’ stamped on her naked body. from afar she’s a mona lisa, childlike, sincere, frightened. studied close you see a strong, withdrawn, malichious woman, a maneater. one carry-on is shouldered at her side and if sunglasses didn’t make the small beauty suspicious they would’ve been a part of her satellite eyes; a small cover-up between her and the likely wounds of others. the reasons they surrounded her and the disgust she feels thinking about it makes her wish valium would take over. a male voice louder than necessary speaks to say the walkway will be coming to an end.

the very thought is sad but untrue.

the sidewalk will continue to move just not with her. the florescent lights blink and rainbow beams overhead. the sky is looking down on those still worthy of the worldy ride.

what if she took that extra second to make a choice, a worse choice, a wrong choice… she could go on the next patronizing walkway full of consumers with their own selfish problems… and step left… unlucky position in the corporate world, step right… congratulations to an ungrateful man, step left… she’s the mom she told herself she wouldn’t turn out like, right again… country living, left… spoiled kids, r… mid-life crisis, l… divorce, r… unaccomplishments…

so she stops -  she stands - she pauses - to realize that the walkway will continue without her. these judgements. the problems. those people. it’ll all continue but step left…well that’s a wholenother story.

roygbiv - the walkway never ends - it’s always moving - it’ll all go on without her - on that, will she let it be worth the next step…

it doesn’t matter a little
that i’m sitting with anyone
because i’m sitting with no one
the songs are ruined
this cow chewing her gum
this pessimist tipping the right
the horniest tipping the wrong
i couldn’t possibly imagine i’d be in good company
and i’m wrong to think i’d ever be
keep drinking
it’ll numb it -
or it won’t
keep drinking -
and we’ll see…

you have given my life significance. interesting. i can’t succeed in making my own life mean anything to myself but i instead assign the entire burden to you. it’s not a small wonder why i continue my tedious tasks in a daze to ask myself where does all this start? who provided this perfection and who decided this was my fate? there has got to be a resolution to this and me being the core character, i should definitely explain this commonplace narrative.
are we really this paranoid? it is not just me… as a society, we walk nonchalantly and glance at two unattractive people and don’t second glance. yet, a beautiful woman walks past and a less-than-gorgeous man accompanies her and our mechanical reaction is negativity. “he must have money.” “they can’t really be together.” how is it that we are this bitter? we can’t look past looks?! maybe you have the story all wrong but you’ve still composed it in your head to look like a total fool? never could you possibly consider there are some things that he can emotionally / morally / mentally offer her that you can’t?
i’ve heard it all. some have just asked plain and simple, ‘why?’
isn’t that sad? i just don’t have a better word for it. i understand looks are always going to be shoved down our throats like a bulimic teen but we are adults - we vote. we get pregnant and make a ‘choice’. we believe in god or argue his existence. we get married and have mortgages. we are self-employed and file our own taxes. we set-up our own life insurance policies and payments are direct debited from our checking accounts. we are supposed to be evolving. with all this in our ‘highly intellectual’ lives, we can’t see why someone could love past a simplistic view?
i’m being patient. i’ll always try. but to those who read this i can save you the time…
if you ask ‘why?’ my answer is so simple. i’ll tell you… he has given my life significance.
i am so very much in love.

the smell of bacon… the taste of toothpaste… my love’s body next to mine…
right now i could only imagine you are lonely and i could only hope. we have come to the point where we are one with a lie. only the lie has just emerged and i am a fool.
all this time are bodies have shared some things our brain’s will never comprehend because you have never been faithful enough to do so.
if you were the adam and i was the eve, you would have ended human extinction on a decent note… at least no one would have noticed.
i could play a game with myself and say that there is a reason… that is right… ‘they’ say “everything happens for a reason.” come on. what is everything? war? poverty? alcohol related deaths where the drunks never die but the opposite car including the driver and their three small children do? i doubt this is what ‘they’ mean.
how do we put this into words of reason?
there is so much more to this than a simplistic lie. no one can tell you what you already know is not true. we have decided to choose the easiest route. we have chosen to face the direction of transparent instead of gray. we’d rather not sift through the shit to get to the beauty. we want everything and we want it immediately. we want the paris hiltons and the american idols. we want the home makeovers without the grueling process and expensive remodeling costs.
why is it that everything worthy of working for we are willing to cut corners for? why are we willing to see lies that would jeopardize our future to save some time in our present? i include me… my hand is sore. i’ve smacked a lesson out of myself.
my love is lying beside me. i’m tired of cutting corners as well as you are.
thank you to the ones who see it too.