Virtual Life Metrics
I spend time with a friend
well, a pseudo-friend
an acquaintance of sorts
no, I guess he'd be a friend,
****, who knows
one of those types you never really share your heart
that authentic trembling you
I guess
he's more like a radio station
on a long lonely road trip in the night
or late night cable when the kids have left
a thousand channels
bright flickering nothing
we meet after hours in the deepest of dives
I just sit, listen,
curl myself into that hunching shape
looking like someone piled old laundry on a stool
and act as chaperone
an escort of sorts, you know, like those fresh faced kids in college
earning some bucks walking lifesize cartoons around for pictures
and with a bar top slap, I know he's got one, he's revved up
a steampunk machine running on old rye and spasms
"know this! I have faith in our sacred family values, our brave military and our cellular plans!"
(it's hard to not chuckle a bit, enjoy the aerating effect a good laugh does to spirits and your pallet, just avoid aspirating too much or you bellow and cough like an amateur drinker, good god don't show weakness in a place like this or the crows will circle and I swear the shadows lengthen under the bar)
most times, as I sit next to him, removed from his sphere
detached observer that I always find myself
I notice he talks to that small sliver of himself seen between the dirty glasses
piled up against the old mirror with faded silvering
and the blackened spots frame his face
like an old time picture
representing a vast loneliness of a nation
this goddamn solitude we find in crowded rooms
"My opponent here is working with Chilean miners, violent video game makers and angry chefs, goddammit"
once curse words are added, we'll be on our way soon
the barkeep's tips weren't that big
and the mutterings from the corners are beginning
as his outbursts begin to chisel into the hazy bubbles of regulars
I pull him out into the night
away from cheap wine and leaded glass
red faced, blustering,
cool air confusing him for a moment
and, lightswitched, he walks with a purpose,
back to the maindrag and streetlights,
calling it a night with a wave and one last holler:
"I want an America where Somali pirates and Rupert Murdoch yes-men cannot corrupt our precious environment!"
I just stand and wave back.
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