momebie

Yesterday while I was being stupid and manic at work I told theemdash that I was looking up 1920s slang so I could write a horrible poem about this thing I can't stop thinking about, and because she's an awesome friend she was all 'OMG DO IT', even though she has no idea what any of it means! This amused me, so I told her if she won Nano I'd post it for her mocking pleasure. It's a good thing all my friends are jerks, because I don't think nice people would find that motivating. (Not that I think she wouldn't have won on her own, but it's funnier this way.) Here, without further ado, is a shitty poem I wrote due to being overinvested in stupid things. I hope you all enjoy mocking it as much as she does.

Bootlegging Baby Grand

A live wire on the giggle water,
her fingernails made the tinktinktink
noise of a warming bulb
against thick, brown, stolen bottles.
If not for our son I would leave you
for Jane, who is soft in the light as well as the dark.
Tickticktick, she meant to say.

Vorpal, halcyon, glow.
Always warming--
no, I mean,
she never set the bedsheets on fire.
Balled up beneath her Jane looks a soft quiff.
“Doll,” I say, and wait,
because I’m not sure which one I want to answer less.

“Get your leaking chassis off that floor.
I didn’t go upstate so you could make
a mess of this place.
Stop it. Stop it,” my voice raised to wake the
dead soldier, shattered on the floor where he fell
asleep on the job. Still, she’s contrary.
“I’ll bring the bulls, bunny.

They’ll have the goods out.”
Taking her time to cool, tickticktick.
He came for you and you weren’t here.
There’s paint everywhere.
I didn’t anticipate--I’ll get the rags,
but he made me promise you’d see the mess.
“You’re not answering me, doll.”

I never lied to you,
and that’s not a check I could cash,
even if the bank wasn’t closed
for good. For the best. It was
only a matter of time before the debts
we abandoned caught up with us.
“How funny that mine caught up with you first.”

How curious that yours should be strangling me,
when all it has taken tear my attention away
is the
tick
tick
tick
bang.