Shadows for Breakfast

Aloud allowed: one last rhyme to take up your time

by Wes Biggs

The end is easy if you've set it up right. Getting there is what keeps me up at night. It's anti-climactic. It's mellow-dramatic. It's a bad habit of telling lies by taking the truth at its word.

I'm losing my voice by yelling in your ear. I'm choking, I'm joking, I want you to hear. I'm taking my laughter too seriously. I'm cracking up mysteriously. I'm babbling in this tower of build-up to a punch-line conclusion. It's an occlusion. I'm prostituting the absurd.

Happiness is watching the blood pour from your face and knowing because you see it that your eyes are still in place. I carry my memories in my teeth and my skin, put the rest in a box I no longer believe in. Seal it with a Puff the Magic Dragon kiss. Who ever thought it would all come to this? Who ever thought?

It's a predictable trajectory and how it all reflects on me I'll probably never know. If I'm still me then I'll agree with that if you say so. I guess. Or maybe not.

This is the last one. It's ringing in my ears, and I've blanked on everything I wanted to write. It didn't all make sense. It didn't all rhyme. It just came out that way most of the time.

Bradbury gave me the title: shadows for breakfast, steam for lunch, vapors for supper. Burn this column. It's almost done. It's redux to degree 451.

I'm still leaving (myself pointless parentheticals). Still counting on too many hypotheticals. I'm past deadline again. Got to fit it all in.

So here's to you for putting up with this ruse. I've had it far too easy and left it all confused. Never quite figured out what I had to say. Thought it would probably sound better that way. I'm not much for proselytization. I'd rather spend my time in procrastination.

Here's to you for getting this far. Here's to you, wherever you are. I'm sorry it all sounds so Seuss-o-phony. I've been to Venice, I've been to Bologna. I'm still searching for a heart of gold and my hunk of Velveeta is covered in mold. Stop.

This means more to me than I'm likely admitting. It's an unheralded ending that seems strangely fitting. So I'll keep rambling on `til I get to the thesis. Jump up and down `til I'm stricken by paresis.

It's been four years and too many columns. It's so silly in retrospect I'll laugh myself solemn. I should have stopped this a long time ago, but it always was just a few more inches to go. I don't think I know how to end it for real. Somehow the climax has lost its appeal.

Alright.

I'm still here, beside myself. Hand in hand, you understand. I'm taking myself out for a walk. It's time we had a talk. I'm standing in the punch line. I'm waiting for lunchtime. Goodbye. Thanks.