By Taylor Drake
Life is hard to look at knowing you aren't lingering behind the scenes. Probably sipping green MD from a rust-colored glass, perched from a vantage point. Or stepping out the cobblestone cove after hours, smelling like barmaid perfume, draped in a trench coat to hide old girl with the... right note. By sun rise, without a doubt, you got a pocket full of loose leaf and a scheme. I summoned the masked Machiavelli on this dreary evening, with the storm clouds obscuring my window's view. Meandering, war ashen, nighttide pulled this eggshell room outside of everything tangible. When he appeared, my composition book went blank, the light befogged, the one beer left my desk. let there be a disheveled florescent to blink sight into this Shakespearian dream sequence. Rattling chains never pierced my ears, I was at ease. My 10 year old self came back from Saturday night mass, just in time for the Birdman court case, sitting Indian style with my church shoes on. The masked mouse came in during the black text crawl. Drag the date forward seven years, the time they tried to defeat DOOM is on a dingy clock radio. The beat had so much conflict, I can still see The Fantastic Four battling the villain in my mind's eye. Lapse back to now, staring at the fine chrome alloy. Aura sparking like the rhinestone... I have So many questions I could ask, I'm tongue-tied as they slam together. What did you write down after your brother passed? Someone like yourself probably needs to hit the uni-ball, just to make sense out of the blue marble, "Even when it's rotten, we've gotten through the hard years." Right? Or did you just take it on the chin and soldier on? Where did you start to rebuild your world? Did it happen at the death scene of your first deal? Right on the pavement. Was it in Stretch's crib, as you dusted off the first loop, putting those Sade chops to work? Hearing it all playback. Or did it occur when you got the last draft of the first mask? How did you handle being uprooted and tossed aside by a whole government? I don't have to ask how you felt, after paying all these taxes from state to state. Putting up with America and her polystyrene smile, just to get booted at the last minute. Have you seen your son on the other side? What words came out that were left unsaid on Earth? Describe the warmth of that first hug. I wrote this one detached. Separate reality and fantasy, I'm alone. Nose deep in a notebook. Pretending to ravage this crinkled page with a heavy sword, swiveled with a strong back. Everything hurts. I have to lye in the dark with a gold heart, like a villain in rejection. Life is a roach motel at this moment, I'm outside looking in like Geedorah, just wondering how and why. At the end of this verse, I'm ready to lash out like Viktor Vaughn with a clasped fist. Viewing this hodgepodge scribbled on white trails in my 8th notebook. The thought pains me, knowing you aren't on your 800th. like peering out at the moon, void of the feeling that someone is doing the same.