Purring, Hot Revolver
Buzz, and a light
A sigh from the theatre, and a father is politely removed
From the audience, tight fist closed around the black throat
Of his purring velvet revolver, still buzzing
Still typing.
Incessant in its path, and the fingers are subsumed to it.
They miss the old feeling of dirt, and new-born hair
But their owner scrolls recklessly, and on through the crowd
Numb to anything but the hot metal body.
He half-trips on a woman, breastfeeding a child
Beside the gentle shattering of rotting teeth,
And bubble gum pink hair, sickly sweet.
Headphones jammed into throbbing ear lobes,
Hot with the orison of Ethel Cain, screaming about American Teenagers,
(She is 16, and from Newport-On-Tay. But she suffers all the same).
She waits for the blue light to cast itself upon her blackened thighs,
Another lonely girl,
Lingering in the half-light for a lonelier boy.
Another red heart taken by the American dream.
A checked shirt opens the door, for the man
Now sweating, signal lost to the dizzying heights of the auditorium
Vision fading into plaits, and youthful silhouettes, and a white picket fence,
And a missed birthday, save for the dull repraise of a telephone call,
Where ‘Happy’ is choked by the white knuckles of poor signal,
And eyes roll with affection, but distance only picks up the wretched sigh,
And a heart breaks, fastened by the soothing voice from some dull app.
It means the disappointment won’t kill her like it used to (Say what you want)
But her mind wears thin to the memory of leaving her room
And opening the blinds, not just because her mother told her to.
Pressed against the outside of the theatre doors, a timid smile
‘Have a nice eve’-
Don’t bother. The fat pig walks on,
Panting at the heady scent of connection, teeth shining as the lips are pulled into a smile
And the smile into a grin, jaws hungry to speak down a decomposing telephone line,
To someone who isn’t there
At least not the way she used to be.
A long, cold war with your kids at the front.
And he is in the street
Finally, and he praises a G o d ? Perhaps. In any case, something left behind at 13
Sweetheart! I saw your call-
-You have no new voicemails.
-I tried to answer quicker-
Your call log is empty. Press One.
-I thought I could be better-
Press One.
-Blame the signal,
please G o d ? blame the signal.
A tragic inquiry, and a fool. And the bubble gum hair lies still,
And the breast is pulled apart, and carved into a bloody pulp,
And a son stands tearfully onstage,
Poking at his eyes with the felt sticks of his Peter Pan costume,
Better suited to that father, standing hollower now in the street
Corpse cosied into the nose of a yellow taxicab.
His baby would not be crying,
If he’d only put that
‘damn thing!’
On silent.
His son’s eyes would not be bleeding,
For he would see a mother, and a father
And that father would not be blind to the fair wife he strains to reach
At the end of a vacant telephone line.
And he would not be sinking,
Hook, line. Bait- click?
‘Something like that.
You’ll have to catch me up to speed. Bye for now’.
‘Where are you going?’
‘The signal’s crap, I can hardly hear you’.
Blind to that woman, sat wearily beside him
Gripping her velvet revolver with heavy hands
She looks for him, as he looks for her.
A tragic inquiry,
‘Then stand somewhere else’.
Hot under the theatre lights. ‘Bye for now’.
About the Author:
Jess is 20 years old, proudly bisexual! and technically from Stoke-on-Trent, although she consistently lies and tells everyone she's from ‘near Manchester’ to avoid humiliation.
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