Francis Cash #12

Francis: So how was work?

Ethan: It was ok. Someone printed a poem and gave it to their girlfriend…

Francis: And they lived –

Ethan: They took a break.

Francis: Well your words don’t exactly inspire romance and dancing in the rain. Have you read your work?

Ethan: They didn’t read the poem just printed something.

Francis: Love of my life…I’ve written you …a paper filled with the alphabet…I give you Red Hands….

Ethan: Heck no, do not give that one to anyone ever…

Francis: I wrote you a poem….The Times …

Ethan: Swing and a miss !

Francis: (boxes the air) I’m gonna fluff you up!

Ethan: ….

Francis: Ahh romance. It’s a good thing you don’t get paid…now there’s no refund.

Bleeding Ink 1,604

There’s all these voices

I look around the room

I close my eyes

Some raise a glass

Expect me to just hate women

My phone blows up

“Look at this.”

“Go to therapy.”

“Take 4 years.”

Everyone has an opinion

I watch the room

I spent all those years

Doing what I thought was best

Buying flowers

Writing letters

Making dinner

Dances in the kitchen

I still didn’t do everything right, I guess

It’s not one persons fault

I won’t complain

I’m not going to cry in my beer

I’ve seen that

Too too many times

I watch the room

I feel nothing

I feel nothing at all

That’s the worst part

I don’t hurt

I’m not angry

I cannot possibly drink enough

And I feel nothing at all

“You know what you should do? You should go sniff and hit everything you can.”

But I feel nothing at all…

Only the blues

There’s an isolation inside

And I know

There’s going to be a morning

When the sun will rise

And I will only write

About that deep blue

That is her eyes

Just give it time

Even the sea is calm

At the darkest of the night

And I try to think

But the words can’t be found

And I try to drink

But there’s never enough

So I watch the room

And accept this too

This feeling – Nothing

Hoping I don’t become some kind of

Bitter southerner

That’s all

I don’t want to be hung up

I don’t want to be bitter

They expect me to just hate

But have you ever

Talked for hours with a woman

Danced without hesitation

Read until the morning

With her hand in your hand

And her head on your chest

There’s a thousand other intimacies

She gives you before you’re in her bed

I know this will pass

This feeling nothing

Bleeding ink 1,603

All the lights burn down low

Candles in a beating storm

All the words you try to speak

Muted

All the world

This room

Filling with water

There is no room here

No air

All the light has left

There is no devil

Only you

There is no hell

Only here

There is no heaven

Just the fiction we convince ourselves

So we can die in some kind of comfort some kind of peace

——

There is a frustration

There is an aggravation

There is this migration

You cannot change someone

You cannot expect love

Where there was no love before

So why are you surprised

When there is no empathy

——

The world broke

Whatever light was left

Is now gone

Whatever was soft grass

Is now a bitter root

The light by the candle

Has finally left

Whatever was flaming youth

Is burned ash

I am done

I am broke

I am gone

Bleeding ink 1,600

He waited and watched

The sun rise

And the sunset

Your bones ache

And he felt himself getting older

Sometimes at night

He remembered the smell of her hair

The way her lips tasted

He thought about how solitude

Seemed to fill the space in this new home

And how quickly life changes

In the evenings he would walk his dog

And sit outside watching the sunset

He would write letters

He would never send

And he wondered

If there would be one morning

When he would look in the mirror

And not see a 30 year old

But a 50 year old

The strangeness of how life moves like that …

Sometimes