'A Story with an (im)Moral'
 
Once there was a boy
desperate to make some grand escape
not exactly sure what from
but determined by desperation nonetheless
he found his solution of choice to be running away,
in the elementary, running away from home sense
not to be confused with the running
of the 'Forrest Gump' specialty
so away he went
across all the boundaries he could find
city, state, nation, ocean
he crossed and crisscrossed them all
until the places he ended up running away from
brought him right back to the place
he thought he'd never return to again
normally at this juncture
he would meet up with a forgotten sweetheart
realize he'd only been running from himself
and settle quickly into a story book situation
of paper bliss and paste-flavored life
however, he had always been more
of an anti-hero kind of guy
so after a quick fling with that sweetheart
who, matter-of-factly, he had never even started to forget
he left her sobbing in a corner
over the should-have-been he robbed away from her
and proceeded to absolutely decimate
every tie he had left in that town
he had always doubted that saying about burning bridges
so he perpetrated a final crime as a lasting reminder
that he had told the whole town
to go **** themselves, in no uncertain terms
-and by **** he meant it-
he burned the only bridge out of town
along with an ex-buddy from high school's
pristine Camaro that turned out to be
just the ignition that bridge needed
it would be stock to tell you
that he learned some grand life lesson
and felt great remorse for his evil ways
no such scripted end, though
as he grinned into the wreckage
smoking in the stream at the bottom of the gulch
he was struck by a happy revelation
staying away is so much easier
when you physically can’t go back
and his only parting thought
was of how much time could have been saved
if he'd only burned that stupid bridge
the first time he left.

'the tragic chapter'

she was a strange one
and that was probably the kindest thing
that was said about her
she had the kind of voice
that reminisced of old school
pre-Disneyfied hideously terrifyingly
mind-alteringly ugly witches
and her looks were not exactly top-shelf,
shall we say
but surely somehow she could have
some kind of productive fulfilling
if not altogether happy life
because everyone can have that
if they truly want it
or so we’re so often told
however
there was a problem
though this individual
held no false pretenses of siren’s voice or angel’s beauty
though she acknowledged and owned and satirized
her own plainness
she would never really be fulfilled or happy
because she had
a particularly devastating and incurable fatal flaw
you see, even though she was a perfectly capable girl 
with a good idea of what she found pleasing
materialistically and career-wise
her personal life was another story
even though she would
never dream of playing princess
she still believed herself
to be entitled to no less than
a handsome prince
or knight, or duke, or CEO even
job title wasn’t really the issue
this was due in no small part to that little life gem
we’re all given
that maxim of anyone being or doing or having anything
they ever desired
so long as they wanted and worked for it hard enough
and unfortunately
another of those few things
that could be said in her favor
was that she was nothing if not determined
to the point of obsession, as it were
it was this very determination to land the alpha male
she was never entitled to 
that would see through
to the very end of her tale
she knew what she wanted
and knew she would never have it
but the lack of having did nothing
to ease the wanting
so she wanted her way through an entire life
with a successful career
and her own home
and two cats
named Doppelganger and Die Fledermaus
and she spent her down time
in her house
with her cats
talking to her prince
that never was
because she was far too stubborn
to take any lesser offer
than the man of her dreams
but dreams aren’t real
and unfortunately
no one took the time to point that out to her
until in the end
when her cats were dead
and the few friends she had
got tired of listening to her
ramble through her fantasies
and gave up
and left
and she was alone
in her house
talking to her dreams
because those were really
all she ever had.
the end

'So It Begins...'

once upon a time
there was a girl
who always ran around in circles
figuratively, of course
not literally, because if she was literally always running in circles, she'd pretty soon be dead
but that's neither here nor there. back to the girl
she had no idea that she did this
but everyone around and about
was painfully aware of her issues
she was convinced that she was always coming up with new and exciting ideas
when really she just spent all her time recycling her own idiocy
and she became increasingly irate as all the things that she kept around
even though she would never admit that she intentionally kept them around
started to seem wrong
or used
or just completely foreign
until a magic prince
with a magic want
who totally dug the fact that this chick was entirely self obsessed and weird
and pretty much certifiable
snuck in the middle of the night
and robbed the ***** blind
however
because the guy took all her worthless
pointless
and in the end
meaningless baggage away with him
she replaced her former obsessions with stalking him
and he became her magic want
which he severely regretted soon enough
because with her circular habits
her stalking efforts were not unlike being relentlessly pursued
by a small
angry
but not entirely unaffectionate
chihuahua
he fully intended for her to stalk him from the beginning
but unfortunately
as he had been raised in a pseudo-feministic
yet highly romanticized society
he was under the false impression that once this chick started pursuing him
she would give in to her basest wants
and deep seated but repressed desires
that every girl has but doesn't admit
to ending up with a magic prince
he was wrong
there
was
no
fairytale
and once she caught up with him
the relationship that ensued
became a vicious cycle of marriage, divorce, and remarriage
because he had been ****** in
to her circularity.
the end

'Pets and Palates'

he had only two real loves
ducks and waffles
this was highly disconcerting
to his parents
who tried to distance their boy
from these strange affectations
by buying him a precious pet goose
named Berchunice
and putting him on a steady diet
of pancakes
and their various
international counterparts
needless to say
he didn't live to a great age
as a matter of fact
he died at twenty-two and a smidge
because while pets generally extend and enrich life
caring for a goose you despise
and dining on starchy carbs
seriously inhibits life expectancy

his passing was terribly unfortunate
as was the life his parents had forced upon him
if they hadn't forced these changes on him
had they merely accepted
perhaps
encouraged even
this love of ducks and waffles
their lovely lad
would have
efficiently and economically
solved global warming
in an effort to protect
the best interest
of his friends
the ducks
and in his downtime
he would have put
a major dent
in the world hunger problem
with a highly adaptable
waffle recipe
too bad.

I witnessed the death
of an echo today
watched it fall, muffled
by an unforgiving brick wall
before being swallowed up
in its entirety
by a howl of wind
and the grating teeth
of near silence

this unlikely termination
left a loss of words and feelings
because I couldn't be quite sure
if it had been an echo borne
of a scream or a laugh
a shout of joy
or a sob of heartbreak

with such vital information
now permanently undetermined,
who can say whether
there was ever really a death at all
perhaps more appropriately,
only an end
to a mere moment
in the unrelenting span
of  indistinct existences

i wish i could purge my heart
letter by letter
bleed my love out
through leeching keystrokes
find some kind of therapy to
release these good bad humours
or reach even further back into history
for truly archaic remedies
love is no great sin
so there’s no bread and salt
to feed the lepers, no coin to pay for the service
if only ridding myself
of this disease of devotion
to an unknowing you
were as simple as sleeping
with salted tomatoes
(love apples, as they were once known)
and pennies to press
into the palms of the loveless
who slip through the night
soaking up discarded emotion

maybe what’s been missing
has already been put to music
if I speak to you in song lyrics
will I finally have a chance?
tortured singers say it better
than I ever could
and I know that’s
a language you speak
could it be it’s just a matter
of changing tongues?