Monday, February 28, 2011

And How She Never Hurt a Goddamned Soul

I'm in the basement
Some basement
Daylight floods in
Through windows in high casements

Place is kind of a wreck:
Plaster coming off the walls
Salting the dingy gray carpets

Turns out I'm the one wrecking the place.
I take a sladgehammer to the walls
A crowbar to a raised platform
Revealing cockroaches the size of cats.

Someone else enters the room
And suddenly I'm thinking up excuses.

Now I'm in a crooked cabin in the woods
Wee hours, starlight, place is a wreck
Unmade bed takes up most of the living room
TV blaring

Turns out I'm not the one wrecked the place:
Some dude swats the love of my life,
Killing her.

He stuffs her in a cardboard box and rolls her
Down the hill,
I chase after,
Thud.
She comes to rest against the neighbor's front door.

And now I'm running
As the sun smashes the horizon
Filling the world with golden light

And I'm thinking about her long brown hair
And how good she looked in a dress
And how she never hurt a goddamned soul.