When They Clip Your Wings

   It began in October, it evaporated in December. The whole thing ended. We were ka-put, finit, terminated. It was the end of the story, except it wasn't and it never is. It was a temporary pause, a freeze in story-time, an electric crackle in the air. We continued on, just in our own separate ways.

   Back in the Fall I saw you at the crowded corner bar. You bought me a drink and winked one of your sapphire-blue eyes. You said, "Babe, you're too damn beautiful for a place like this. Let's get the heck out of Dodge!"

  I rolled my eyes, but melted internally. The line was cheesy, sure, but those eyes could drive a girl crazy. I downed the drink and said, "Alright, Romeo" We drove off into the night in his red corvette, the engine thrummed with delight.

   For a dozen weeks or so we thrummed with delight ourselves. Like hawks taken by heat thermals we spiraled higher and higher. But with every spiral comes a fall. And boy, when we fell, we fell hard. Just a short set of words on that flurried December night and you cut my heart free. I wandered off to the river to watch the snow fall and feel my emotions evaporate through my skin only to freeze upon hitting the air.  When they clip your wings, you fall and you fall hard.

  With my new found apathy and numbness I left. I got out of this other "Dodge" we had created for ourselves. This time more literally, I didn't stop the car once 'til I had hit the Nebraska state-line with its rolling amber fields of grain.  From afar it looks as if you could swim through those fields just as easily as the ocean. I felt at peace, or started to anyway. The question I posed to myself was, "After finding what I'd unknowingly been searching for, what then?"

  I got back in the car and smiled, let's start with and Iced tea and a hot slice of pie and go from there. And so I did, stopping at the first Mom and Pop diner I came to. The Pop of the diner looked like he could have been my grandpa, or at least someone's grandpa. He welcomed me in out of the heat and told me he thought I should know I was beautiful. I blushed, especially since an old man's compliments tend to be the most sincere. What reason is there to be insincere about anything when you're old? None. I thanked him and ordered a sweet tea and whatever pie they had fresh, the Pop said they had just baked one full of wild blue-berries, I said that sounded just fine.

Mark Foster, A-trak, and Kimbra
Warrior