The robbers who kidnapped Brian Allan


Brian Allan went around the town thinking no one wanted to do harm to him till, once when he was walking around the car yards and there was a few oddballs hanging around, and Brian Allan was being a brat, who tested the patience of these robbers, when basically all the robbers wanted to do is do the job, but Brian Allan got in their way, trying to ask for directions, and eventually, the rough bearded one put his hand around Brian Allan's mouth and brought him close to the car and got the rope from his boot and tied Brian Allan up and through him in the boot, yes the robbers went about to pull off this job, but Brian Allan didn't know that these robbers were thinking of demanding a ransom as a replacement for Brian, Brian was saying through his gag, don't get me, I ain't like these family people, I want to be with you, and of course the robbers didn't hear that.
The car drove off down the road after the robbers did the job and as they were leaving a kid who was Brian's age which was 15 was taking his time crossing the road, and the robbers got out of the car, and they put their hands across hs mouth and said who are you, and are you a friend of Brian Allan and he said I am Peter Buchanan and yes I do know him, and straight away the robbers thought, it would be cool to keep Peter and Brian ******* in the boot untill they finish the jobs they have to do, and Brian Allan and Peter Buchanan were trying to scream but the gags were on their mouths too tightly, and both boys thought they were going to die, both were thinking that they are too young to die and despite them not being heard, one robber said that you 2 boys are helping us rob places, you see they won't shoot us knowing we have teenage boys in the boot, so we will be long gone before you 2 will escape, and I don't want you 2 to be vonerable, because you 2 aren't, you see both Brian Allan and Peter Buchanan are like us, man, yes you 2 aren't like the rest, so while all the other kids, much with all the happy families, you 2 will be trapped in your rooms, and yes, I will have someone watch both of you, do don't try any funny stuff, teenagers.
The last job was pulled and despite the robbers promising to let Brian Allan and Peter Buchanan go, they just didn't trust then so he tied them to a pole and then said, if anyone comes to rescue you, and ask you anything, just say, nothing, and that man over there, he is part of our gang, and of you kids try anything like reporting or charging us, we will have both you teenagers killed in 4 weeks from the day you do it.
Brian Allan and Peter Buchanan were rescued and they kept their word, but they told that the attackers moved so quickly, and they put a bag over our faces when they grabbed us, and Brian Allan said, that he was feeling to dizzy to notice who did this, and both of them were sent back to their houses, and the poiice never bothered them while their kidnappers ended up going on a trip around the world and now that Brian Allan and Peter Buchanan were 40, the robbers were holidaying over in England, where they needed more money and wanted to abduct prince Harry, but he was too much protected, and it might not have been as easy as pulling one over on Brian Allan and Peter Buchanan, and now that they are old, no one would believe them anyway, and this case went unsliced and Brian Allan and Peter Buchanan were the only adults who didn't get robbed, all because they kept the robbers secret, but they still feel like they've been kidnapped by demons, and the robbers are teasing them over and over again, for that.

(this is a revised version of my earlier poem, "i like to wear big hats")

on a day between winter and summer that does not feel like spring
i stand in the mirror and pinch my cheeks 'til my eyes water
to make them look like roses.
i put on my great grandmother's gray cloche hat
and pretend i am a famous actress playing daisy buchanan
in the great gatsby.
teary eyed, i gaze beyond my own reflection
and listen to that man.
"don't you love me, daisy?"
the phone rings.
it's you.
we see a romantic comedy, which fills us both
with something like cotton candy.
but it's temporary so we get chinese food
because you say you like sweet
and sour pork.
i never liked the aftertaste.

"shall we?" Jay Gatsby uttered.
we took each step
cautiously,
as if we were
treading carefully
on each other's
soul.
and it made me a little sad,
that I could never be his
anymore.

She described me as Tom Buchanan.
She immediately said that I wasn't violent like him,
but that I could easily be him...
I could easily show his side.
I could be brutish and abusive
and dishonest and an adulterer
and greedy and pretentious.
I could be all of those things so easily.
It's as if a switch goes off in my brain that says,
"Hey, let's be an ******* today."
I don't want to be.
I don't want to be seen as Tom Buchanan.
I don't want to be the man who hurts so many
and truly loves so few.
I want to be so much more than that.
I don't necessarily want to be like Daisy or Jordan or Myrtle or Nick or
even like Gatsby himself.
I want to be like myself.
I want to be the girl that I'm meant to be
and I know that I am not right now
nor have I been for quite some time.
I just want to be the woman God made me to be and
I'm tired of being such a catastrophe in the making and
for ruining and hurting those around me.
I don't want to be that girl.
I don't want to be like Tom Buchanan.
I want to be me...
The real me.

*...who am I?

I'm a Beautiful Fool

Daisy Buchanan said,
It's the best thing a woman could be -
a Beautiful Fool.

That's me.

You were a good man who died to soon*
You had a great heart
You was the type that would do anything for anyone
You'd put people you cared about before yourself
Give them your last dollar...the clothes off your back
But like the rest of us
You had your issues
And all though you never showed it..
life messed you up
••••••••••••••••

Let’s go back to 1.
To start again, to meet you, to seventeen, to yellow
and hugs, to hammers and strings.
Nobody knew me then, and I ****** up
told them the true story.
Let’s go back, and I’ll tell you a different one.
It started out a prepschool fantasy. I had a
Great Perhaps, and you
(were there, probably)
And then I ****** up, my friend.
I’d like to revert to 1: a second round
I’m ready, now.
Hello, nice to meet you
Would you like to have a drink with me?
I will say yes. I will be thin again for you
And when you touch my arm
I will not shrink
from you.
Let us. Let me, at least
Revert to 1
and promise
(I do—to do better now).

On money-soaked leather, we’ll make angels
no I’m sorry—we’ll make amends
I will talk breathy and flutter my eyelashes; I will be Daisy Buchanan
a rosewater anachronism that needs no cigarettes and no pretense, only
Attention
(I stood at, when you said goodbye)
There will be no end. There was no end. Not a goodbye.
On rust-red rooftops we will soliloquize
(about what?) (it doesn’t matter)
We will throw lit matches and watch how fire makes its mark
And we will separately wonder where it goes
and—are you listening?—we will watch the sunrise
and I will tell my daughter about that day when she is older.
A prepschool fantasy. We will drink to the word “contraband”
and it will be 1966—the rich kids’ 1966, the whitewashed one we pretend we are ashamed of.
I will be Daisy Buchanan, and thin again for you.
Let’s go back to 1. I would love to
try again, and better now.

I met Lori at a beer pong table. She was tall. A trash talker. Beach blonde hair. Eyes blue, blue as the sky on an afternoon in July, when the weather was cool from a light rain. This was post-college—a house party, for young adults who wanted more from life than the typical 9-5. She wasn’t from NOVA. She was from Weston, FL. Her teammate was a guy she was with at the time—they ended up breaking it off and for a while she was dating Cam, a pro-bass fisher, a long distance relationship, but they loved each other. But at the table, I was competing with her teammate, later on I ended up mentally competing with Cam, which didn’t do any good except to make me chain-smoke jacks and drink bourbon. I had a girlfriend at the time—let’s just call her Voldy. My teammate was Lori’s best friend Erica. This girl had swagger; played beer pong like Dr. J, always got us roll backs. I was tall as **** for a Vietnamese American—still am tall as **** for a Vietnamese American (Don’t worry my guys, my family’s from the Southside)—and in college we had built a beer pong table, at a spot called the pink house. “We,” meaning my roommates and I: CJ, Trevor, and Samuel. The U.N. I had practiced daily, playing before class, playing after class. Height made a difference; some great basketball player once said you need to have game on and off the court. I wasn’t sure what court I was on when I was in that moment. Lori was more than appearance; more body language; more eye contact; more southern twang; and more astuteness, than a TED Talk combined with NPR, combined with The New Yorker, combined with Al-Jazeera and linked with Wikipedia on a ***** binge. I could talk all day about how she looked, how she dressed. But I told you what you need to know. She shot first, her right arm shaped like a swan, the type of swan that sits on a lake in the middle of a spring morning, the type of morning when the sky is blue with the eyes of a girl who has seen too much, been through too much, and has heard too much. She sank the shot. Her teammate roared. But all I could hear was Lori’s voice; soft as the piano notes played by Sakamoto’s right hand, loud as the piano notes played by Sakamoto’s left hand. Blu was not how I was feeling. Or maybe I was.
Because at this table I had to either take a loss,
or seal a win. I didn’t know what I wanted. But I wanted her. Wanted her, like how you wanted a postcard
from Santa when you were 5 years old, and it was opposite day. So you got the address wrong,
and the letter was never received. And your parents told
you to keep trying so you did, you did, and you did,
but you were young and naïve. You didn’t know
what was real and what was not real. And now I was
at a place in time, when the setting didn’t matter,
and the alcohol didn’t matter, and the drugs didn’t matter.
All that mattered was her.
Because when I shot that orange ping-pong ball,
I kept eye-contact with her eyes.
Blue, much more blue
than the water in the red solo cups we were playing with.
I wish it were water from the beaches in Florida,
beaches I could read a Salinger story on,
beaches I could rest on
beaches I could lay on,
lay and take in the sun
that rises above my soul
that aches for something more.
But Lori wasn’t Brett Ashley,
she was more Daisy Buchanan
than anything.
But does that make me Tom or Jay?
Jimmy or Nick?
I didn’t know and I still don’t know.
What I do know, is this;
the ball sank into the
first cup of the triangle.
Lori’s face went from cocky,
to frustrated, from frustrated
to relaxed,
from that
to a smile.
One that I remember, and one,
I won’t forget.
Because all I want to do is forget,
Take my memory and squeeze
the bad **** out,
twist the living **** out of it,
and burn it with a match.
Because she thinks I’m the one,
Who did her wrong, but it wasn’t me.
I put that on my integrity, even if my words don’t mean much to your ears: please listen.
I was inebriated, 3/4ths of the time we chilled.
So I didn’t know what was false and what was real.
You can check my temperature,
Because when you’re in my thoughts I get a fever
And hey, I shouldn’t have made a pass on your roomie
I should have thought before I texted, because now your trust in me has been affected.
We’re not talking. I can keep apologizing for what happened, but you don’t want to listen to a broken record.
I wish the bad memories would pass away and I guess they’re all in the past today.
Look, I don’t have a time machine
strong enough to change all the mistakes that I’ve made.
But take this as a time capsule,
this piece that I’m sharing. Like that piece we were sharing. The one that belonged to you.
The one I wish I could kiss again,
Because your lips touched it,
And mine never touched yours.