I don’t care if Ivan can’t get it up
and Lily is looking elsewhere
and Carmen saw Lolita for the first time
and left her husband
and Desmond is a sloppy kisser
and Peter was in a wreck last week
refusing physio because he thinks it’s witchcraft
or that May blames her parents for getting lazy
and just naming her after a month instead of a real name
and how Sam needs root canal
and that Tiesha is stockpiling water for a race war
that will never come
and that Bryan told you most of this in the strictest
confidence
or that no one has any confidence
especially Tony who signed up for self-defence
in the evenings to meet girls
and Marsha who won’t see a shrink because
that means she has problems
or Terry who keeps buying used cars
even though they fail him
and Anastasia who believes herself a princess
and not a dollar store cashier
who can’t pleasure herself
or how Crystal roams the streets in sleepless black hoodies
because of insomnia
and that Mario has started a squirrel sanctuary
because his mother died
and how Dale keeps calling and hanging up
and Don breathes heavily into the other side of the phone
when he thinks I am you because you gave him a dandy handy once
in his cousin’s Nissan Altima
and how Clare can’t stop painting pictures of flowers
instead of Vaginas because she can’t quite get there
and that time when Randy took the bus so far
the driver just told him to get out
and how your mother hates me for existing
and you only hate me the rest of the time
and all the other people or places or idiocies I may have left out
because I stopped listening a long time ago.
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, The Rye Whiskey Review, Outlaw Poetry Network, Horror Sleaze Trash, The Dope Fiend Daily and In Between Hangovers.
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