Tom Flanders World

Hello June. Teach me to waltz and I’ll buy you a rose. Then we’ll sit in the balcony, you smelling your new flower and me eating chocolate Pez from Winnie the Pooh’s goiter. The dancers below will twirl and swirl and unfurl. You’ll laugh at my silly alliterations. Then we’ll sit quietly for a while, both dreading what will happen next. You, for the rejection you must give. Me, knowing of the impending rejection but driven by needs unrelenting. Sex always gets in the way, especially when there isn’t any. I try to lose myself in distraction. You’re crying again.

If a moan was a song the doomed would rule the world.

One day at the fabric warehouse the daughter of one of the cutters said to her mother that she was afraid that everyone in school was judging her. Her mother told her that no one was judging her. The girl looked to me for confirmation. I couldn’t lie. I told her that all the other kids were judging her, but what they thought didn’t matter. The girl stood up and yelled at her mother, “See, that’s what I need to hear! The truth!” She sat down and went back to stuffing fall catalog into envelopes. Her mother scowled at me.

Bruno cruises the beach lots in his tow truck listening to an 8-track of Tomita’s The Planets that’s been stuck in the player since 1982.

I try to write. I’m hesitant, Afraid. That’s the key word isn’t it, afraid? Not of failure. Not of criticism. Fear of indifference. Sometimes I want to spit in people’s faces. Sure they’ll hate me for it, but they’ll acknowledge me. They’ll scream that my writing is foul and worthless and I’ll smile because they are talking about my writing. I will stand on a pedestal of their hatred and and pity them. So easy they are to manipulate. The howling masses feeding my ego. Hating me. I am important. I matter. Hey, someone has to wear the black hat.

I slipped my inner critic a couple laxatives. Maybe that will get this ABBA song out of my head.

There is a wounded bike out there somewhere. It calls to me. I try not to listen. I have too many strays already. They clutter up the cottage in various states of assembly. Some need wheels. Some need gears. Others just need some love and attention. They wait. Wait for me to make them whole again so they can go off and be abused by some new kid somewhere. Muddy sneakers on pristine pedals. Peanut butter stains on the handlebars. The stuff of kid bike dreams. They must wait. A bent and broken bike calls me. Somewhere in the dark.