Drowsy Rapture Poses
They told me that a good American man swallowed his emotions with a smile, so I greased up the gut punch with a few pints of whatever was slow enough to catch and a couple shots of Jameson’s to keep myself honest with everyone but me.
Nancy Reagan never cared about me turning into a drunk. I guess enough white people got rich off of beer money while all of the Cold War brainwashing in the free world couldn’t prepare me for the heartbreak of all of my girlfriends going back to their husbands.
The funniest parts are the jokes that don’t land. I learned if you balance your life on a barstool you’ll eventually hit the floor and no one will be there to crack a smile. With a throbbing spine pressed to a concrete floor I prayed passed God and Nancy Reagan for a mushroom cloud to turn my life into some kind of gray dust.
The end never came. The Russians never got around to invading and every text book I held on the back of my neck during the air raid drills of my youth omitted the chapters on life after survival. I’m learning to make it up as I go along, with dry guts and a clear head. If everything really is going down in flames I at least want to be able to remember it the next day.
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