fiction 

things just didn’t turn out like we thought

 

This thing occurs in society circles, 

where somebody says he’s crazy, 

then everybody turns their back:

it’s known she’s loose, he’s lazy.

 

He wears the hot red scarlet M 

unwanted but assumed

She cleans her hands ten thousand times

its far too late; she’s doomed.

 

Michael:

He’s an online troll, I heard he’s got 

like fifteen fake accounts 

He’ll steal your money & haggle you

for any small amount.

 

I heard he borrowed the gallery van, 

to move, for just one night

he took his girl & cut for Vegas-

blacked out and got in a fight

 

Ruby:

She’s vogue, she’s lithe, she’s rarefied, 

a glittering abyss

she’s on, she’s now, she’s painted over

every bruise & kiss

 

I heard she’s anorexic

and eats just once a day

she kissed her boss & quit her job

now she’s living on his pay

 

Sun-bathers in the golden pool

of the good of the common will,

basking in the lush potential

of the transient’s brand of cool.

 

Homeless, in satin chinoiseries,

glampiric in their use of Yes please.

bleach-headed dandies, blissful among 

the stank-weed & the bees.

 

With angel pizza zeal, pearled plastic

& potent as a limbless fish,

she’s deep-throating a cherry popsicle 

he’s living an idiot’s wish.

 

          chillness.

 

                    woof woof. you still got dirty feet?

 

                    what is with these freaky fish balls? 

                    you’re never up. 

 

          a toke sounds nice.

 

                    and fry bread-

 

She hides the wine behind Mica’s books;

he pushes her face away.

wash your feet, he says with a look;

she sleeps in the yard like a stray

​

Living the high life beyond their means,

rail-thin & pale- 

suffocating, on “the bathos of human existence 

and the scant air it leaves for us to inhale”

 

The stupa of the party cupid was lush

with spotted eggs, bull’s horns, and grains-

where gossiping hipsters gather to chatter

Donatellesque in their chains

 

Ruby and Michael went out one night

and never went back home. 

Now they ride the bus all day

tell Nikki they’ve gone away.

 

Everybody wanted them each to know

how little they were worth

everybody wanted them each to know

they were a stain upon this Earth.

 

Outcasts now, even to each other,

even as he latches her bra.

She folds a twenty and then another

into the pocket of his chamois.

 

She dodged his kisses but clutched for his hand

didn’t know who to believe. 

The man in front of her wasn’t the man 

being painted by the scene. 

 

It’s cold tonight in Highland Park

the stars are gonna shiver

Michael withdraws, as he watches her walk

smoke curling around his fingers.

 

Ruby was living on peanuts and coke,

chilled down to the bone

Michael stopped talking but to bum a smoke,

& called back east for a loan.