I had my chance for a happy life, or at least for a meaningful one,
and now all that’s left is an artificially prolonged apathetic wait
for a prompter to cue from behind the limelights my final line.
Meanwhile, I watch cheesy romcoms and wonder what I could
have done to keep that clumsy affinity from feeding on my raw
impatience and why there was no ticket for a night train between
our pillows.
Carving a jack-o’-lantern is as alien to me as ending a sentence
with a preposition, and yet I got used to the latter once I learned
the islanders’ tongue. Buying a pumpkin shouldn’t be a big deal
then, especially since, instead of Miss Daisy’s, I have already
chosen Pennywise’s smile … for tonight.
A saddle-goose once saw death’s head upon a mop-stick weeping.
“What is the matter, my gaunt bud?” he asked, since tears were dripping,
but what could be said at the sound of a bell beyond the timeless
“Bollocks!”
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I think of La Divina, who, all of a sudden, comes
to mind like a gift-wrapped bedtime prayer begging: pietà, pietà! Too late to play
the record leaves me with a distant memory of that great ugly voice of hers, once
and again jaywalking through a night already immortalised in polaroid pictures.
But when I lie down with my eyes closed, I touch the air saturated with the scent
of Eau de Verveine, which is puzzling because I never actually wear cologne,
and I assure myself that I could fall asleep if only I knew why the lighthouse
was no longer lit. And I swear I could hear the hoarse lament of a foghorn…
Only there was no fog.
I guess it is easier to just say, “I see you are happy now.” But one doesn’t smile
too widely, doesn’t laugh too loudly, and wanders around with their fist clenched
tight on the bottle neck. Happiness, I mean. You know, that almond-milk-bathed
chatelaine we all covet from afar. Only you haven’t heard the last one on the way
to the next eagerly anticipated Friday night out already.
I was never really fond of yellow, not until I met Miss Georgia Lass.
Two seasons later, only a hint of metaphysical indiscretion remained
unpraught in the canary shade. And just like that, the realisation came
that living that witty script would be a lot simpler. I could just occupy
the peripheries of a post-it note.
Sometimes I wonder who you are—you who read my words.
I’d like to think I have affected, perhaps even changed, your life,
but I guess it’s just something people like myself fantasise about,
trying to convince themselves of their relevance in a cruel world
of petty miscellanies.
There are only two kinds of people in the world—there are women
and there are not. I am not. I know this could be seen as a somewhat
narrowed perception of reality, but what can I say? I am a simpleton
and I love women. I danced with one once, a while back, but maybe
a little too long for the first time. And we had an egg hunt every day
but Easter. At least at the beginning. But then the reality check came
and called it all off, including Easter. Now there is a new egg-hunter
who does the dance exactly right, or at least that is what I have left
to believe. That and the Easter bunny.
There are notes in my handwriting that fill the blank pages on the backs of volumes
crowding my bookshelves, each a trivial remnant of a stranger I believe I once knew.
Sometimes when I look at them, it comes to my mind: all this effort and no sign
of the passage of time. But I did notice an interesting shift in punctuation.
And as I scribble these words in a newly acquired hard cover, I wonder
if the future me will still be bothered by that puzzling discontinuity
in the use of exclamation marks.
hidden pilcrow 