Kristen de Kline #70 - it was the best of times...

it was the best of times it was the worst of times
Charles Dickens lied
it was the best of times
how do you get turned into a pariah
banished from ordering strong double shots at your local cafe
ordered to leave the premises
limit your presence     not a foot a tippy-toe
out of line

itwasthe worstoftimesitwastheworstoftimes
get into the car     drive over 110
rev off to a bar called heaven     you know that place     where nothing  
nothing ever happens
back in the day     spent years in
heaven     shooting pool feeding coins into jukeboxes
downing jugs of DB    slamming glasses into bar-room walls
tyres     burned
heart-shaped holes     in the bitumen
something, someone     exploded
all that was     solid     back in the day
melted into thin air
you're wasting away thinner than you should be
I'm still scribbling your obituary
from beneath the floorboards     where
somebody (we can't name names) has buried     what's left
of me     a battery sized torch
a spiked nail splicing through the Kauri boards
briefly I thought about     coming up for breath
but I knew you'd be waiting     it wasn't safe
I played     dead     not a foot out of line
no double shots not a pawprint into enemy territory
I breathed in then in again     didn't exhale
no coming up for breath    dreaming about heaven
and the best of times     felt the car spinning round at a speed too high to register
smelt smoke     car tyres burning on the tarseal
smoke and mirrors      someone, something burning alive
was it me