+++
Post detachment but pre-departure, Mr. High Roller himself can be found in a soon-to-be flying solo perspective.
Purposely fortified in a high-rise of one of the only properties that doesn’t remind you of her. On the side of town, she doesn’t come to…
A penthouse view of the life you threw away.
An episode of Forensic-Files dances across the screen. It’s a repeat. You watch on mute but turn the Closed Captions on.
Iron your sleeve cuffs before hanging your shirt.
Witness number one assures the officer in charge that this isn’t normal behavior.
A phone vibrates behind you…
This part.
This was always your favorite part.
Neither of you knew what was to be. Both held your suspicions in a placid and harmonic anticipation.
You can convince yourself that seeing jaded lovers actually kill each other makes your mess seem more palatable in comparison.
Sure.
We may have fought over things, but I never buried her in the backyard.
Okay.
I’ll be the first to admit, we disagreed on this and that, but she never poisoned my dinner with cyanide.
In any case, one would imagine hearing the kiss of a gavel reinforce the words life term wouldn’t have the same impact if you only had a few months to live.
The death sentence is only a punishment if you value your life.
*BZZZ *BZZZ
Now, witness number two appears to be the victim’s belligerent mother, brandishing a high school yearbook type headshot, which looks to be framed with thought and freshly lifted from inside the family home’s foyer. A ghost square remains in contrasting eggshell evidence of only child. The face from the photo, now three feet below a gentle stream of a rural Washington state brook.
This face.
This poor baby just looks at the autumn sky, with the same vacancy of an infant, staring up in ignorant awe of the newfound time bomb that is their reality.
Sadly, you know how this one ends already.
The verdict is in.
On the screen, Witness #1 will be revealed as the suspect. Currently pictured in a backseat, with a hanging head that’s obstructed by the bulletproof windows of squad car 709.
Witness number one, but priority number two. The temperamental afterthought herself, now subdued in defeat and still the odd one out.
Seems little miss third-wheel had a bit of an overreaction to a pretty routine misunderstanding that one might encounter in a perfectly healthy relationship built on lies.
Standard proceeding in love triangles that aren’t right.
Evidence of foul play could be found long before the actual crime.
Quite the soap opera theme, but with fewer designer suits and tad more thrift store moderation.
Less Rolex.
More G.E.D.
There are no Dateline specials about people wearing Payless.
Click.
On stage now, our digital companion is ranked first in customer satisfaction, and would like to discuss your family’s life insurance plan…
Funny.
Click.
Half the tribe now votes on who is leaving their fifteen minutes of fame.
Click
There’s a 2 FOR 1 Special…
Nope.
The stage goes dark.
Curtain call…
Exit left.
Then it’s two hundred and forty nine paces east, down the hallway.
This is only after swing-shifts morning rotation, but before the tenured guards pay their daily respects to the porcelain deity in the event centers men’s room.
Take the third to last service elevator on your left, using the lifted key card you fingered from a pair of navy slacks, which were piled like pancakes atop two polished non-slips inside of stall 4.
Size 11 M.
Eighteen seconds on average to rooftop, factoring in minor delays and your ability to count properly…
Sometimes 2 + 2 equals whore.
Six figures.
Six inches.
It’s not the amount you have or the size that you’re offering… It’s the lengths you willingly go to in an effort to make the size of your problems as small as possible.
Money and girth may make toxicity feel like the cost of doing business, but bank accounts don’t drive you to the hospital at 3:00 am and fat cocks don’t buy you flowers just to see you smile.
Showtime.
Using the north side double doors, previously tampered with to not set the fire alarm off upon your exit, you quickly jump the back gate to the southeast honeymoon villa.
Then a final 31-foot rooftop launchpad to salvation… Oh, wait.
You’ve seen this one too.
Repeat.
It will always be a repeat.
+++
12:31
You ask her to text when she’s close.
You know she’s not capable of parking, possibly opening a gate… good God, possibly two, if she parks on the opposite end. Past the doors, ascending the staircase, entering a passcode to the elevator, all this, while being drunk as shit. All this, without waking the entire complex.
Fat chance.
Two hours past her eta, the bedside phone shrieks before you can.
Cant win em’ all.
Now, the man on the TV, who used to be the man on TV that wore jerseys on Sundays, and at one time brandished the side of cereal boxes. Possibly a childhood hero of yours…
He says for $19.99 USD you can buy a month’s supply of a special product, designed to bring back the spark that made her fall for you. For a few simple installments, the man has a revolutionary breakthrough that will reinvigorate your love life.
Your hero says for only three easy payments of everything you own, you can feel like yourself again. Act now he says, and this breakthrough product can bring back the dead.
Maybe if you buy in bulk they have a premium member’s exclusive alternative to fix things like endometriosis, or alcoholism. Perhaps they offer an exclusive crash course on repairing shattered dreams with hot glue, glitter, and bitter resignation.
Act now.
Reach for the wallet.
The landline continues its siren call beside you.
Priorities...
Sometimes losing all control is the only priority.
Maybe that’s why your hero offers the 90-day money-back guarantee.
There is no purity that can not be picked apart. Simulated enough over time, everything you once held in Godlike esteem, may eventually cower in naked imperfection. All flaws on full notice…
Curled on the bathroom floor.
Crying harder than you’ve ever seen anyone in your life, which is the first of many deaths you suffer inside.
Her.
Destroyed with news that she translated as her not being capable of doing the only thing that a girl is supposed to be able to do…
…but, imperfection is only a flaw if you treat it like one.
No… not Her.
My Flawless Dynamite.
One can remain intact, and still be blown apart. The absence of smoldering debris is not proof of no damage. You can tell yourself if they truly are the one, enough is never enough.
You can also own your bullshit and realize how absurd that desperate lie really just sounded.
Declaring unconditional love for another is not a challenge to test the theory.
Her. Choosing life over death isn’t a choice. Walking out of a burning building is not an abandonment of fire.
Saying that the love was never real because they prefer support instead of abuse. Implying that letting go of a ticking bomb is selfish. Believing above all else, if you had just told her once, it would have been enough.
All they ever wanted was for you to stop telling them and just show them...
Ding, ding, ding. Here’s your jet-ski bozo, now beat it! Here’s your holiday vacation for two to Fiji, you sack of shit. Now kick rocks. Scoot!!!
Saying you’d torch the planet to make her smile, isn’t an open invitation for you to burn down her trust just for practice.
Letting go of an anchor that is hellbent on pulling you into the dark depths, isn’t selfish. It is pure compassion. The courage to walk away is proof the love is true.
Chainsaws and shotguns. Lies and neglect.
The difference between a weapon and a tool is the person holding it. Not its capability. It’s not the depth of the love that matters, it’s the ability to show it.
Words prove love, like promise proves sincerity.
Tragedy is not just losing a lover. The real tragedy is knowing that it was thrown away, by pretending it was deserved, instead of earned. Protected.
It’s not the end of the world if you allow the fuse to be lit. You never doubted you could contend with a controlled burn. Though, if you spend all your time worrying about what may be, what could happen, of what if… you stand to miss out on all the reasons why it mattered, to begin with.
Don’t say you’d be there to put out the fire. What about…
...don’t start the fucking fire.
Perfection.
+++
Being offended is a choice. Being an asshole isn’t a birthright. Being a champion is having kids that come to visit you in hospice. Winning is the difference between someone being a crime scene witness or being crime scene evidence.
You tell yourself, set the bar low enough and you can make anything seem appealing in contrast. Bad service is impossible with zero expectations.
Facts.
You can tell yourself that failure can’t exist, without willful intent and active effort. Repeated enough times, this affirmation… practiced with enough frequency, and in a regimented routine, this obsession…
…a complete embrace of crisis. You can even find merits in the notion that never trying, is better than risking loss. Can’t lose what you don’t put on the table. Also a fact.
Allow the fracture to fully mature, psychosis in full bloom can convince anyone that there is honor in quitting. But it’s simply not true.
The honor is continuing anyway, in spite of the results.
Courage isn’t about the lack of dread, it’s about being fucking petrified, and handling that shit anyway.
Bravery is saying: marry me. Honor is found in the angle of the chin as you walk away, after having been told I just can’t. You have never heard a room so quiet…
Except for the sound of a heart shattering into nothing.
The Front-Desk nodule illuminates again.
CCTV: A gate slams in the distance.
Silence.
Yes, you were wrong earlier. It’s this right here.
…this.
This is the part where the screen is black and the only character left dancing, is the one in your mind. The signature series airs daily. You know it all too well. Only in this episode, she still has her smile. Because you haven’t stolen it yet.
These ones are your favorite.
You hope she packed some of these too.
+++
