Paint It, Black

Suburban hours spent navigating narrow streets in an updated minivan; I look around and consider if this isn’t where more severe addictions take hold. We approach the beach, but the rich have claimed the sea for themselves and I long for open roads out west, for busy streets back on the grid. When the rains come, they wash the heat wave into a quiet summer evening. The lights flicker. My wisdom tooth hurts, but it isn’t a metaphor. We spent an hour today looking for four-leaf clovers and found none. It’s just as well, I told him they made all your dreams come true: when you and I both know wishes are only ever granted out of turn and at strange angles, how to explain that to someone who still believes in fairy tales.

There’s a punchline in there in the fairy tales I still buy, that I go looking for clovers in every patch of grass. But I’ve taken off my armor now, I’m all soft flesh and shivering skin, just the jab would knock me out.