The two of us play the same
note with the sounds of our lives.

Our timbre, however,
makes them unlike:

the wisp of a butterfly;

a supernova.

My eyes shift back
Into focus after staring
For so long

I blink as I wipe the drool
Off and look around

I sit in the comfortable recliner

As I notice the room, the chair,

The clock tells me how many years
I've been sitting here,
content to

Watch the dancing lights from
The T.V.

But all that's there is static

O Love,
Why do we hesitate in our fear?
What do we seek to preserve, for
What is worth more in life than the
Life itself?

While the spoils of the lives
Around us fade to nothing, the
Fruits of our union - our shared life -
Are self evident. It is the adventure
Itself that we reap.

Alas,
We search instead for a map
Of a road that has not been cleared,
When the compass heading is
As clear as the waters of Nyasa.

So come!
Let us move ever onward, and ever
Upward - for the road has yet to be tread,
But the destination is certain.

Let what is true speak into our hearts,
So that our hearts can guide us in
What is true on our voyage.

Father used his fists
a lot
Though never on the kids

On the walls
and the furniture
and the doors
and the mailbox
and the fence
and the neighbors
and random people on the street
and strangers in the bar
and a few times the poor dog
and one time on mother

He was the childhood’s
villain

To defeat him one had
to become a hero

and becoming a hero
took time

And today
after all this time
the villain of childhood
was dead

He died at the hands of
some other character,
a neutral one

A cop who told him to
drop to the ground
and father didn’t
so he got shot

That was it
The end of his saga

Utterly unsatisfactory
anticlimactic
disappointing
just bad

There was no final showdown
between hero and villain

because those things
only happen in
childhood
and childhood had ended a
long time ago

“and I still hadn’t changed my
opinion,” she said. “I still
believe that
a double suicide is the absolute
highest
display of love there is. Think about it,
two lovers dying in each
other’s arms. What in hell
can be more romantic?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “staying alive
for each other’s sake, maybe?”

“What? That’s, like, not
romantic at all. The longer you stay alive,
the higher your chances to fall
out of love. Nothing
chews at love like life does. That’s
why death is the answer.
It’s the only way
to immortalize love. It’s the way towards
that plane of existence where all
you feel is love and nothing else.
I wanna go there!” She squeezed her fists
and eyes, braced herself as
she said it.

“Well,” he said, “We’re both out of a job,
unwanted by family, no home,
no cash, no future…”

“All we really need
is love!” she screamed, jumping into his arms

“Yeah,” he said, “and an overdose.”

“I’m with you, dearest cousin!”

the stress was messing with
her periods
so she got even more
stressed as a result

Oh, and that guy she met
through the dating app, he considered
himself catfished. Why?
She looked like
in the
pictures. No difference.

More stress...

It all started with the premature
death of her
mother
And then there was
the messy divorce and all that
But she didn't wanna think
about it

There was only one way to cope
with the stress

She sat on the couch
and turned the TV on
and got the
nail clippers out of her makeup kit
and used
them to chip pieces of skin
off her knuckles
and then chew them like sunflower seeds

it worked wonders
as a stress relief technique

The skin of her
hands looked very much like
Swiss cheese but
the dents were rimmed with redness

She watched her hands
as she chewed on the pieces of skin
and then it hit her
"Oh God! I'm such
a *******. I forgot to take off my
wedding ring.
No wonder the guy considered
himself catfished. He
saw my hands and
thought I was some unhappy
wife looking for hookups. Oh dear..."

That did it
He was tired of coming home from work
and finding
a ******* book on the table
instead of food

but the book was also on his
pillow when he went to bed

on the toilet tank

in the garage

in the shed behind the house

and on the dashboard of his ******* car

He had enough of it

And one day he told her
he had enough of it and enough of her
It was time to break up
this wasn't going to work

He was not going to quit smoking
and she was not going to quit nagging him
to read her book on quitting smoking

"I won't marry you until you're 101 days clean,"
she'd said

He smoked a pack and a half a day

It was time to break up
and, gods, she didn't take it lightly

In that morning he left her alone to collect
all her stuff from his house and be gone
by the time he returned

She was indeed gone by the time he returned
and took nothing more than what belonged to
her and even left something behind
Her self-published book on how to quit smoking,
what else?

He sighed
picked it up from the coffee table
looked it over
sat on the couch
put a cigarette between his lips and
when he lit it the house blew up

Perhaps a big moral in the book was to
always check the gas after a
breakup

but it was too late now

there's nothing good on TV
when you're in
a crap mood

"****," he thought. "Nothing's gonna be
good on TV for
the next 18 years. At least."

he sighed
and shifted his position on
the couch

four days till New Year's Eve
and he already
got the greatest
gift one could wish for. A positive
pregnancy test from
his girlfriend

Oh, he was over the
moon
and everybody knew

"Meh, I don't need TV. I'm
the best actor
I've seen..."

what would be the reason
to have an open casket funeral?

Why should the living
see the dead?

He addressed the questions to no one
in particular
but his dead wife answered from the
picture on the wall
"Don't you wanna see me, darling?"

"Not like that, I don't," he said. "That's
why I have your portrait. So I don't
have to look at your
dead body in the casket. But your
mom wouldn't understand..."

"Darling, I think you're the one
who doesn't
understand. And I think it's
time we talk about your therapist."

"What about my therapist?"

"You tell me. You tell me why did she have
to tell you that she's single now
and looking to settle. I thought she
was supposed to
help you cope with the premature death
of your wife, not tell you her
problems."

"Dear, please..."

"And one more thing. I don't like
the medicine she
prescribed you. Have you even read the
label? That ****'s dangerous, you
know?"

He stormed out of
the room and
went straight to the morgue
and told the morticians to seal his
dead wife's lips with glue or
something

They looked at him like he
was crazy

"What is it?" he asked

"Well, sir, to glue the dead's lips
for the open casket ceremony is
just... standard procedure. Else the mouth
opens and it's not a pretty sight. Did
you work with the dead or something?"

He thought a bit
"Yeah," he said. "Something. Something
like that."