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{burn everything down and start over} adrian s. potter Anymore, I cannot afford to invest in optimism. My tongue no longer twists itself half-heartedly around hope. The verbal motivation I once spewed is a mouthful of thumbtacks, a mosaic of shattered glass on my lips. In a backyard, my neighbor’s golden retriever, all cuts and ribcage, slowly learns how to not choke himself with his tie-down chain, his face downhearted by hunger and neglect. He looks toward my window for help, but I turn away with gin-blurred vision to watch clouds gallop across the sky like alpacas, quietly loathing the soft-barbed illusion of affluence that has lured me to this cul-de-sac wasteland. If I was fluent in canine, I’d ask him what could make our lives better, the answer obvious to everyone but me, like the patch of hair I always seem to miss shaving. After barking out his suggestion, the dog, busy pissing his soul out on a cottonwood tree, would pause, tremble, then rejoice as I set fire to this world. |
