divorce poems and other stories

campfire sing-alongs

‘i have got to get out of here.’

i’m staring at a campfire, out in this thicket in the middle of some obscure suburb-of-a-suburb. the half-built cottage, cabin, whatever it is - now it’s empty. in the morning, the only mark of our being here will be the words “BAT COUNTRY”, and the bats that we stenciled on the walls. we can’t bear the thought of a single place erasing us. not us, not we few drug-addicted star-crossed fighters.

someone laughs and it sounds distant. someone brought a laptop to the party - how asinine, i think, until i remember that it’s what played the shit music we danced to all night. fifty people had shown up to this little clearing, fifty or so. i remember it like fifty, anyway - maybe it was less, but i’m the narrator so shut up and follow along.

in the little abandoned cabin, the music had been pendulum, aphex twin, and other rave music i didn’t know too well. but now there’s less people here, maybe twelve or fourteen. some even number so we can all be anti-couples. music that’s markedly less shitty comes from the laptop, and i raise my eyes up from the fire when i hear familiar piano notes.

all of a sudden, half of us are glaring at each other over the fire. all of us who have fucked each other and fucked each other over, too. and when the words start up, we sing along. we pray the lyrics out over the flames, to the gods of hate and friendship and love.

this is us loving each other. this is the burden we’ll carry- they will be weights in my heart for the rest of my life, and i’ll never be able to change that. i hope that it was worth it, for the few months of happiness we had. around the fire, my ex-fiancee, her boyfriend. my best friend who i fucked to make someone else stop loving me, that someone else. an ex-best-friend who toyed with the emotions of another friend. so many friends. so much love gone sour.

i hope that our few remaining friends
give up on trying to save us
i hope we come up with a failsafe plot
to piss off the dumb few that forgave us
i hope the fences we mended
fall down beneath their own weight
and i hope we hang on past the last exit
i hope it’s already too late
and i hope the junkyard a few blocks from here
someday burns down
and i hope the rising black smoke carries me far away
and i never come back to this town

and that boy, he will overdose - a few times, but he won’t die, not yet. another one, he will empty inside. that girl will lose herself completely and ruin all her veins. him, his teeth turn to dust. she will live in my mother’s basement and every time she gets stronger, that guy will hold her back.

and me, me.

i’ll just flee. i’ll fly away somewhere else. the consequences will not catch up to me, not so long as i can run faster than the light can.