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Sister Rosetta Tharpe licks her wounds and oils her cords, a casual observation to start things off, to jump-start the mind with the cables that undoubtedly fuelled Ms. Tharpe's canon, or cannon if that works in context. Just something, anything, to jolt the good old stream-of-consciousness into action, for my mind to finally get the guts to 'inspect' that "empty" rathole where the guns of the 'enemy' are waiting in vain, my mind thinking (by itself) that if I wait long enough I can starve them out. But my mental adversaries are cunning and adept, able to go without food for days, weeks, months, eating moths, worms, rats, and slitting the snakes open to drain their juices. The snakes, the snakes, the snakes, my ultimate fear; the snake around my neck. Hung on the scaffold, standing ovation. Maybe I can burn them out..?

There we go, I writhed you loose, you ******.

I click a four-count in my silent mind, and I crawl in, like the good soldier I am, thinking all the time that I should have read Manual of the Warrior of Light by Paulo Coelho; without a doubt, judging by the title alone, it would have done me good. The last click of the four-count is the cocking of the hammer on my tool, be it a torch or a pistol; proxy war gunslinger, existential riot. Nothing to lose, and nothing to gain, ******* long nights in the hole, nothing to hope for once I escape, but another batch of darkness, and another painted face, asking "Are you okay?" ME answering in my male hangup "Why wouldn't I be?"

Now onto the metafiction cliché:
You can always escape, but you can never hide, like the cheddar cheese villain in just about every movie known. And never were it more true. Contemptuous nature can lie benign in the brain, prostate, or breast for a long time before it becomes malignant; and escape is always an option to prolong the inevitable. But I come from a people of brooders, an own ethnicity in its entirety devoted to judgement and yuppieism. There we go; another red-dot-underline to signify the royal introduction of another previously foreign '-ism.' Standing on the conveyor belt, side by side in a circle **** of prejudicial rhetoric: "Everyone are so unpleasant and gross," comic-book thought-bubbles in every direction, through every head, like malicious rays from the omnipotent sun of groundless hatred.

No sun for the land of the brooders.
No real sun.
But it will still fry your skin.
4th degree burns.

Return of a friend;
Return of a fiend.
Might be both, and it might be neither, but it doesn't matter, as all eyes are fixed on their feet, and the few inches of pavement in front to avoid any collision.
Jude kyrie Jan 2016
it was so long ago
I was not much more than a boy.
I noticed her in the office
blonde classy and oh so ****.
in those days I got romantically excited
if a breeze passed by my chinos.
I asked her for a date
to go to the movies she accepted.
then she took me home
to meet her mother the dragon.
her father was dead.
she was possessive of her daughter
and hated me from first glance.
the feelings were mutual.
finally she went out for the evening.
and I was alone with her beautiful daughter.
I got what I wanted and had ***
it was not making love
I did not understand the difference back then.
I lost interest after that
the chase was more exciting than the act.
six weeks later she told me she was pregnant.
back then the only option was marraige.
I got drunk at the wedding
it felt more like a funeral to me.
we had to live with her mother
we had no money.
and her hate for me festered daily.
my new wife would not have ***
with her mother asleep in the next room.
we drifted from each other further each day.
I started going to the pub nightly.
coming home drunk and noisy.
the arguments were loud
and finally her mother threw me out.
my mother would not let me back home.
her down to earth Lancashire upbringing.
you made your own bed lad
now go and lie in it.
I saw my wife in town
we sat in the square and talked.
I thought how beautiful she was
and what a swine I was.
she wanted me back
she said she had always loved me.
I told her I would live in garden shed
before I would go back to her mother's.
we looked around for somewhere to live.
and found a tiny flat more of a rathole really.
but she fixed it up with second hand furniture.
and cans of paint.
we slept in our home for the first time.
we made love not ***
I knew the difference now.
by the time the baby came
we were friends
I think I loved her then.
it took two more years for me
to know I loved her.
we spent the last twenty five years
together and she is my friend
my lover and my companion.
we raised a family together.
and became grandparents  together.
so I did not get a romcom movie
love affair.
but somehow against all odds.
we found a kind of loving.
Robert Guerrero Oct 2020
I miss the old days
The days I spent not worrying
My happiness not walking on eggshells
Failure wasn't a concern
Now it's all I seem to do
Catastrophically failing at life
Slipping into a darkness
I've feared since the first grade
Knowing all too well my fate loomed
Eagerly awaiting the moment
I failed at all the right things
Eagle to my rathole heart
Insurmountably falling prey
To the demons I created
And failed to drown
Not realizing they learned to swim
I miss the old days
Reminiscing only for the sake of sanity
Reliving the happiness
Even for a second
Before reality slaps me cold
Hopes of living it in the moment
Growing desolate

— The End —