Chump Change

Were you even supposed to return here? It feels like you should be noticeably different, even if just slightly, improved— a worm seeking escape from a hooked fate, its visible squirm an apology for not bringing back a catch. Have you transformed at all? Maybe you did better than when you left me behind to find the thrill of Division Street. Hushed make outs inside a cigarette- scarred red Jeep—chasing after memories not meant for you to keep before you drove them out of your (other) life. Are you as red-faced as handed having been caught at plagiarizing? Scribbling your frayed name in place of the main character, calling it your story. As if weaving deceitful serendipity held sincerity, reshaping the stage and the plot to suit your shamefully common aims. It was bald, not bold. She saw through your attempt to insert yourself into the script, lacking the talent to write it for her, yourself. Did you think you discovered Dickens' unparented beside an above-ground pool? Her monitoring anklet trapping a tan line above the foot. She was no proper urchin, and you no Brownlow the Benefactor, just playing a part while robbing the bowl with a pilfered paper spoon. Did your fantasies fail you miserably? You had to have believed it to pull off a Brownlow, gone method, as all good liars know, at least that much; to touch the sunlit core of another with your storytelling, you have to commit to the bit. Portraying an orphan is as tough as selling threadbare 19th century costumes these days. Did my bargaining for your borrowed, broken spoon catch you off guard? I slipped into my walk-on role as smoothly as a finger on a Chekov trigger; we knew I wouldn't pull punches in the third act. Did your pressed khaki slacks gain space when she laughed in your tired, wrinkle-worn, thousandaire face? It would have deflated my ego back into my genes as well, which is why I learned my lines with composure— cold. My heart beats backward as the clock ticks towards an impending intermission, a necessary pause in your exposition. Its droning, like bees wings beating off your tongue, a consequence of miscasting a counterfeit urchin as your queen. Is the honey you reaped enough to sustain you now that she's cast you aside? I ask because a snack of saved syrup might soothe the medicine of eating those stolen, bitter words now.