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Cerebral Contents: Update for 05.13.08: Backsliding by Cynthia Ruth Lewis 05.05.08: Five Feet and Building by Joel Van Noord Grocery Aisle by Richard Lighthouse Cross the Road by Ashok Niyogi 04.29.08: The Modern Covenant by Daniel E. Wilcox Death by Onions by Michael Frissore 04.21.08: Future's Children by Kimberly Raiser Identity Theft by George Anderson A Great Deal of Money by Justin Hyde 04.14.08: Mr. Papaya and Dale by Eric Suhem California by Caroline Imreibe Aftermath of Vehement Argument #1,068 by Cynthia Ruth Lewis Trip-Hammer Vitality by Lisa Nickerson 04.07.08: The Florence of Basel, or Why Readers of Nietzsche Need to Read Burckhardt by Jeff Crouch Friends of the Poet by Sean C. Bowen Picture Perfect by Leah Baldwin 03.24.08: Staring Down a White-Tailed Doe by Aleathia Drehmer 03.17.08: The Hairbrush by Vernard Kennedy Dog Days of Winter by Niall Berkeley Poem From My Grave by Michael Lee Johnson Mashed Potatoes and Hamburgers by Matt Finney 03.10.08: Hard Work by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal Jetty Cake Pigs by J.D. Nelson |
Everybody's Pal By Mike Blake Even with the pleasant weather, and the drunken laughs and friendly smiles, there is the unease. There is that thing permanently twisted — has been for years — always making itself known as you ascend (for brief periods, anyway) in your cups or pulling on your "funny cigarette," using whatever tools are available to raise your spirits, there is always that inner disturbance to put a cap on the party. It is the amoeba that you can never shit out. You carry that baby in your head for good, your traveling companion, your invisible tumor. Yes, you've been bent somewhere, man of the many smiles; something wrenched you from your correct posture somewhere along in the ordeal; it was probably an accumulation of knowledge, things experienced when you were vulnerable (leading to those many nights when still wide awake in the early morning hours, the only voices inside your head), and perhaps taken advantage of. Call it experience, yes, and years of it. And you wonder if it has made you a better man. You've become better at hiding that twisted man, that sense of being forever out of step with the majority, the inability to dance with the commonly accepted. You know how to put on the face without much effort, and most people are fooled. Sometimes it is so easy that you'd just like to show them a glimpse of what's underneath, to let them know that, at times, you have truly felt things, at times you couldn't summon a smile so quickly, at times you wanted nothing more than to go to sleep for good. But you've learned to close those windows in your eyes. Give the people what they want. Be quick with the handshake and the laugh, and how can you fail to succeed? You're everybody's pal. ______________________________________ |
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