There was this holy man I used to know
who would hang out near the video arcade
they tore down three years too late for anyone to notice.

For twenty bucks in real money or a thousand
of the Monopoly stuff he would swear to you
that the last person to truly break your heart
was having just about the worst time trying to come back from the dead.

I used to make fun of him. I used to give him names
from old spy novels and got away with it every time
because he didn’t remember five minutes ago anyway.

The whole district was weird like that. All these shops
no one ever went to. Riots, music festivals that happened
twenty years earlier, political events that changed the world
two people at a time.

There’s gotta be one of those places
in every town that tries to cheer itself
up with fundamentally intense imaginary friends.

Just don’t fall asleep when you’re twenty thousand feet
above the great unknown and your parachute suddenly
decides to betray you. There’s no telling where you’re gonna wake up
or what the summer heat will do to you during the monthly
nuclear winter.

You might even wake up in bed
with your worst enemy.

Happens to me all the time.
But that’s probably because I’m eager to throw
rocks in glass elevators, smoke at Burger King and make a career
out of every mistake I’ve ever intentionally made.

Anything to make the grand finale
look as convincing as possible.

I’ve got it all laid out, babycakes.

The next car I borrow is gonna be the one
that drives a hell of a lot faster
than the routine misadventures that make up
the endless holiday season I’ve got going for me.

I’ve got it all figured out, sweetheart.

The next time you see me
I’ll be reasonably wealthy
and completely obsessed with the future.

09/22/2010

Author's Note: Originally this was going to be a collab with somebody from the site, but I guess they lost interest. Alas.

Posted on 09/22/2010
Copyright © 2024 Gabriel Ricard