Soon You Will Be On Top of the World (Fall 07)

I: The Alarm
The alarm strikes six but I’m already awake,
have been for ages,
waiting.
She’s coming, Cailleach Bheur, and there is no escape
from that ol’ bitch.

I check my phone every three minutes.
Haven’t gotten a call for weeks,
if you don’t count Luke.
Luke’s not a friend, just a bill collector
and I can’t hide here forever.


II: The Store
It’s only a mile so I walk,
headphones in, to block the sounds of the world.
I can sense the cold fingers of Cailleach Bheur
stretching over the horizon,
that blue faced hag.
She’ll be here soon to torment me again.

The doors open without effort,
(offering a quick escape),
and for just one moment
I feel like Moses when he parted the sea,
but nobody notices.
They go about their routines,
providing for their families
or maybe their lovers.
I wouldn’t know.
I search for manna and the water of life,
but here, they seem to be out.
So I get fortune cookies and whiskey instead.

III: The Cemetery
She’s here cloaked in clouds,
Cailleach Bheur, that dark witch!
I wish I could kill her
with the blunt side of ambition,
but the darkness took that away.
So I ask,
Dear God,
tell me, please, before she takes me
in her chill-filled lust,
before she leaves me in the wake of her snowflake world,
to cover all the friends I’ve never met,
each already beneath the warmest of blankets…
What am I meant to be?

So I scream and I scream
each fortune I read,
as if a simple sentence can fix everything.

Yet she responds to none;
while I’m left shattered,
with a bloody throat,
a warm bottle of whiskey,
a pile of broken cookies at my feet;

at the top of the world.