By: Jon Carter

truth be told

I left her house quietly,
stale alcohol on my breath.

I thought it was
better to leave
her bones behind me
like a man.

my pockets were full of
bleeding emeralds.
I lit a cigarette
and exhaled under the yellow
street-lights.

it was strange how
the world was always
spinning, but I could
Never
Tell.

I walked through
the sleeping neighborhoods,
restless,
thinking to myself:

the truth is never easy,
even when it’s what
you’ve always wanted.

I made it to the bus station
and waited for dawn.
when dawn came, I bought a ticket
for a city on the other side of
the country.

I sipped from a bottle
in the back
and watched the trees
fly by
one by one by one.

I knew I’d run forever,
and that I’d never
stop thinking about
her.

###

the great circle

when I was
a kid I
gathered
up
about 40 slugs
in a shoebox
and put dry
leaves and
grass
in the box
with them
and I was
entertained
for about
an
hour
watching them
crawl
around.

then I got
bored and
brought out
the salt shaker
and covered
them all
and sat there
watching them
melt down.

I found that
watching them
die was more
entertaining
than
watching them
live and I
wondered
if that was how
God
felt
about us.

this morning
a roach
crawled
from under my
kitchen cabinet.
I was hungover.
he stopped, frozen
on the floor
and we
stared
at each other for a
moment,
then I crushed him
with my bare
right foot.

I stared at his
remains and
vomited over them.

I have always
had a
strange
kinship
with the roaches.

dirty, resilient,
resistant to
nuclear attack.

no hard feelings, pal.

I had to kill you
as a bug
so you could
come back
a
man

like me.

###

that light

I was on the freeway
going about 85
about 20
over
the
limit.

the sun was
spilling its golden
blood across
the horizon
as it
was
slowly
dragged
down.

then there was this
flash of light,
white and mean.
it outran
me down
the
freeway then disappeared.

it was only
the light
and
me
out there
in that desert.

I pressed the
GAS,
90,
100.

and I’ve
never stopped
chasing
that thing,
that light,
that something
that
had no
business
existing
in the first place.