Forever ago
I looked you in the eye
And made a promise --
A stupid, stupid vow --
That I'd be your Bonnie
If you'd be my Clyde.

You smiled at me --
Crooked, imperfect
Utterly charming --
And asked me to lend you a light.
A lighter passed between our hands
Before a tiny flame illuminated our faces in the dark
A silent 'I do.'

From that night on
I've had things that other girls
Only possess in their wildest dreams
And, even then
Wouldn't dare say they desired.

I ride shotgun by default
In a ******* car
Much too fancy to legally be yours.
Gifts come in the form
Of beat-up leather articles
That you once wore
Though the lingering shadow of smoke
Is hardly enough
To mask the hint of drugstore perfume.
Sometimes
If you're feeling especially charitable
These offerings are accompanied by the more traditional heart shaped box --
Filled with bullets, of course--
Or a single deep red rose.
For some reason
Every flower you pick
Seems to have many more thorns
Than most of the ones I've known before.

What you seem to consider the best gift of all, however
Is your presence.
I suppose you think it works both ways
When you parade around town
Arm slung around my shoulders or waist
Smiling like I'm some pricey badge
Your signature accessory.
Your performance draws attention, of course --
Awe-stricken once-overs
Envious double takes
Lingering looks that make overzealous Average Joes
Trip over their own feet.
As far as my own feelings go
The envious rush I used to get from the lust-filled eyes of other women
Has long since faded
But the crawling feeling of some depraved pervert's eyes flitting from you to me
And your proud smile, devoid of any visible love
Continue to make my stomach twist itself into painful knots.

What all those adventure-hungry good girls don't know
Is that I haven't felt as powerful as they do in their dreams
In a very long time.
What those green-eyed Plain Janes won't understand
Is that I am little more than arm candy
Your passenger-seat second-in-command
Posed like some special edition, leather-donning Barbie doll
Instructed to sit still
Hold the gun
Look pretty.
They don't realize
That the ache that comes with loving you
Feels absolutely nothing like the feeling described
In the lovelorn writings they post to their blogs.
There's nothing beautiful about it
No reward for staying up all night
Chest aching
Sobbing into a limp pillow in some random hotel room
Trying my best to keep you from hearing it.
As much as I hate to admit it
Nothing you do for me
Makes it worth it.

They all seem to forget
That it was Bonnie
Running from one man who didn't love her
Falling into the arms of another
Already broken
Hoping he might be able to mend a piece or two.
They don't realize
That it was Bonnie
Who **** near got her leg burned off
Because Clyde flipped the car.
The fault was completely his
And yet
She was the one who took the brunt of the damage
Being reduced to having Clyde carry her around
For the rest of their numbered days.
They don't stop to think that this is anything other than 'romantic'
How unfair it is that the world allowed him to ruin her
That maybe --
Just maybe --
She didn't want to be a weapon for him to carry
But a self-firing rifle.
Something intimidating
Unpredictable
Never dependent
On some hotshot
That everybody believes that she was in love with.
The idea never occurs to them
That maybe
When the two of them went down in that infamous hail of bullets
Maybe she wasn't enveloped in warm thoughts of going out in a blaze of glory
But anger
That she didn't get away with it this time
And never would again.


I understand now
That
For all intent and purposes
Bonnie and Clyde are a concept that should have been left behind
Way back in the 30s.
There is no passion
In dying --
On the inside or the outside --
Next to someone everyone thinks that you love.
There is no love
In your arm around me
Squeezing the humanity out of me
Like a man-shaped boa constrictor.
There is no glamour
In sitting loyally by your side
Gripping my seat until my knuckles are white
As you drive your own getaway car
Laughing to yourself
Without ever chancing a glance at me.
There is no beauty
In being wrapped in a jacket
That smells like another woman
No satisfaction
In mechanically handing you a brand new lighter
So you can light another cigarette
To prematurely age your beautiful, James Dean number one-million-and-one face.
I feel no affection now
Watching you smoke up like the nicotine glutton burnout that you are
And I will feel only contempt if --
Heaven forbid --
I ever die by your side.
You exhale
And turn to look at me with sleepy, empty eyes
Letting the remains of your cigarette flicker out
Just like the novelty of having you around did.

Why I resent those girls now --
The ones with those eyes, so hungry and green with envy --
Is that, when we first met
I was just another one of them.
So pampered
So inanely bored
Such a 'hopeless romantic'
That I promptly decided to follow you the ends of the Earth
To every grimy hotel
Even to our demise in the desert, if you wanted me to.
It took me forever to realize I deserved better
And, by then
It was all too late.

While I despise those girls who stare at us now
Swooning, like they're so jealous of the position I'm in
My heart also aches for them --
A bit like the way you make it ache.
Though there's passion in this ache
That being the fact
That my heart is screaming
Telling them to run
Run while they still can
Run before someone like you
Finds them.

For all intent and purposes
There absolutely should not be
A 21st century Bonnie and Clyde.
These should be the days
Of girls spitting their own fire
And boys fighting their own battles.
This should be a generation
Of people learning to find solace in themselves
And reliance taking an unceremonious dive
Off a very steep cliff.
There should be no more green-eyed girls
And James Dean boys
Making each other miserable
And calling it beautiful.
This is the point where we should let Bonnie and Clyde rest in peace
Along with Romeo and Juliet
Annabel Lee
Homer Barron
And every other tragic antihero
Who died at the hands of love.

Forever ago
I made a promise --
A stupid, stupid vow --
That I'd be your Bonnie
If you'd be my Clyde.
Now
What seems like centuries later
I close my eyes
And try to fly somewhere else
In my dreams.
My last thought
Before I drift off
Is that --
Maybe someday --
They'll write poems about us.

I've never had that crisp good nature
I never want to have it
I am no superman
I am a Brawn
Young
Powerful
Indestructible
Unstoppable
Stronger
***** your rules
Now i am free of you
***** your perfect mold
***** them all
Saving a cat
**** THAT
Why not a bank vault?
Save a few dollars from the government
The thrill of battle
The ecstasy of intoxicating cash
The sweet taste of challenge
Always stronger
I am not your hero
I'd just as soon rob you as save you
I'll save you only because
Without you I have no one to rob!
I am the Antihero
I am the perfect defender of man
**** or save i can do both
I am not perfect
A rampage is as effective as a ****** round
I am the hero in the shadows
I am Power
I am Freedom
I am Imperfect

Some micro poems about antiheroes.


I give my best friends black eyes,
I wont lye,
Some of it's their blood,
Some of it's mine,
But I cant talk about the first rule.

Tick tok,
Whirring cogs and grinding gears,
Going after low hanging fruit,
While we're,
Singing in the rain.

Returning video tapes,
Often leads to Huey Lewis and the news,
Raincoat, reservation, rat, rage,
I escape through blood lust and *******,
But this is not an exit.

Gets no love the one who doesn't love.
It's not Karma, but simple logic.
Even if he does, it's a sort of odds,
Making the canon candid.

It's not Karma, but simple logic;
The misanthrope is alone -
Who doesn't like water, will suffocate in,
Who doesn't like life, will be perishing in.

The misanthrope is alone.
This is all a matter of nature-
One may hide in a mass like serpent,
Still being poisonous, threatening.

This is all a matter of nature;
The old song of yin and yang-
Darkness isn't overthrown by brightness,
But they fulfill the scheme of destiny.

The old song of yin and yang-
The side uncursed by goodness
Is the side blessed with senselessness,
Extreme plainness and severity.

The side uncursed by goodness
Fulfills the dark side of the bright -
Without looking for doing the right
Since it's all self-implemented.

Fulfilling the dark side of the bright,
Giving chance for the light,
And bearing all the dark of the moon,
He may be a hero, the antigone.

Giving chance for the light,
Getting no love while another does,
We - people - serve perfect bad examples
For there's no hero without Antihero.

Getting no love while another does,
Even if getting that's out of odds;
Darkness isn't overthrown by brightness,
But each fulfills a scheme in destiny.

We've been and we'll be gone even as antigone.

there is no such thing as an antihero,
only a villain
who has found an exuse,
an antagonist who can speak more prettily than
all the others
who can lie holes straight through
the hero's
heart,
find their place in the universe
and blot it out on the map because
the universe
does not tend towards anything
but solitude.

you will find yourself all alone.

you will find yourself all
alone
and you can snap the neck of every doll you own but
despair will never be anything more than
an unrequited love, an
attachment that you never grew out of, a
high school crush that you stapled to your heart so as you grew it was like
a gastric bypass
you cannot hold as much love in your heart
as your mother
said you could
but you can kiss and sigh and with every moue you'll wonder just
why
your chest feels fit to burst when you get any deeper than
touch
heart fit to rupture you are the main villain
of every book
i've read
the antagonist in every story you are
the angry girl whose doll parts
lay in pieces
at her feet
whose bomb will detonate if you get too close
{the character i could relate to the most the character i hated the most the character
i talked to whenever i could and
memorized every line to replay, god
i hate
the way you speak
and i want
to hear
it more}
i ripped out your staples and added my own.
{despair will never reciprocate but
i understand you i
do
because we are the same and i hate you because
you hate yourself
and i could give you nightmares every night and
listen to your motives
every
morning
'people are disgusting'
you said
as if it was
a revelation}
you're not ****** up, just out of luck
because four-leaf clovers can't survive droughts.
you are seventyeight percent water
and every drop you spent on
drowning
the background characters
and every doll on your bedroom floor
{i love the way you cry when you laugh because every time
i hope
that one, that one tear
is the final drop wrung from the shroud
of a sailor a burial at sea
and you will crumble
into
dust}
you angry girl your eyes
are a yellowing bruise on the storyline
your backstory is a rash
on the protagonist's hands
and all your inner demons told you you were not alone but
you explained them away and
appeals to pity left you empty.
i will rip out all your staples i
will make you
seventyeight percent
saltwater
my heart is a mirror you can find yourself there and
reassemble yourself
from all your broken parts
i will be the blueprint from which
you rebuild
yourself

{a story is nothing
without
a villain}

I bleed like a villain who
has clawed redemption
from his veils with his fingernails,

the blood of forgiveness
purged from a sinner,

we gouge at broken hearts

put down thy pen,
it is in disrepute,
smash thy tablet,
crack its glass...

house the mouse,
don't be an ***,
genus human,
you have been
antihero morphed
anthromorprophesized,
******, simply, replaced

you poem prophecy
returned,
stamped,
Unneeded, Unread, Unheeded

you have been excused,
you have been recused,
jury, a chamber of inconclusive noises
dismissed,
the judge will digitally
write all
from now on...
submit your selected tags
for laughs,
a different poem returned to you,
by a digital "humanist"

what do I crave?
give me your youthful typos,
let me literate critique
the good, the bad, the
trite repetitive and especially
the ugly
poetry,
the kind only
humans can write

so I love or hate it,
your literacy,
with impassioned dispassion,
the kind no machine will e'er transcend

pull the plug on your random alphabet generator,
Eliot of York,
or you might find yourself
upgraded into unempoement!

one. he will see right past the clever disguises and camouflage that you use to deter the world from your weary self. he will see directly into your character; into your heart and your soul. he will like what he sees, and he will want more. he will write about it.

two. after writing about your soul until it has exhausted his own, he will surface for air. there he will notice your body. he will be mesmerized by its curves and valleys. he will want to bathe in your very presence, as if the radiance of your body will make him think the way you think. he will write about it.

three. he will dream up a future for the two of you, a hopelessly impossible love story with just the right amount of heartbreak. he will be dissatisfied when life doesn't follow his carefully scripted plot. he will realize he has crafted you into the perfect antihero. he will write about it.

four. he will attempt to find a way to immortalize you. he will want the idea of you to live on like a musty echo rocking the surface of our dry and cavernous earth. he won't accept the fact that his darling was never made for eternity. he will write about it.

five. he will wonder if his words have corrupted you. the portrait he has made barely resembles you at this point. he will not know what to say to you anymore, because unlike the words on the page, you left. he will write about it.

six. he will ponder life without you. even things like grocery shopping and brushing teeth will be different without you by his side. he will struggle, but his heart will heal. he will write about it.