A View from the Bridge
Sometimes loneliness is a teardrop.
Sometimes loneliness is a song.
Sometimes loneliness is a memory.
Sometimes loneliness is a bright mirror
looking straight at you.
Sometimes loneliness is a picket line.
Sometimes loneliness is an argument
at 1 a.m.
Sometimes loneliness is a worn screen
on a mobile phone.
Sometimes loneliness is a prayer.
Sometimes loneliness is a new car.
Sometimes loneliness is a barstool.
Sometimes loneliness is a punch you
should have pulled.
Sometimes loneliness is a child you
no longer see.
Sometimes loneliness is an impossible
plan.
Sometimes loneliness is a small bag of
white powder.
Sometimes loneliness is a television set.
Sometimes loneliness is a different place
that looks no different.
Sometimes loneliness is a blonde hooker
at 2 a.m.
Sometimes loneliness is hours
contemplating the sharpest blade in
the drawer.
Sometimes loneliness is a call that
never comes.
Sometimes loneliness is a screaming
empty room.
Sometimes loneliness is every overtime
shift you can get.
Sometimes loneliness is all the choices
you never made.
Sometimes loneliness is tears that just
won't stop.
Sometimes loneliness is a pain that
always stays.
Sometimes loneliness is a topless
mountain.
Sometimes loneliness is so great, death
is the only solution.
Sometimes we learn, it isn't.
My First Editor
When I was 15 I wrote
my first story for an
English exam. It was
about a 15 year old
boy waiting for his
parents to come home
on New Years Eve.
At midnight there was
a car crash outside his
house. His parents
were in the car. They
were both dead. He
was full of feelings
he never had before:
feelings he couldn't
explain. When I wrote
I felt like I was in a
trance. The words
poured out of me.
Everyone agreed mine
was the best. No one
else's even came
close. We got the
results a few days
later. All their stories
got "a" or "b". Mine
got "d". No one could
understand why mine
didn't get the top score.
I didn't write another
story for over 10
years. But when I did,
and sent it to an editor:
I quickly learned
nothing had changed.
A Quick Note for the Heartbroken Girl
that Gave an Inscribed Copy of Charles
Bukowski's Women to Her Ex-Boyfriend
Hoping He'd Change
Sorry to
break
it to you,
but
no man
ever
became
better,
reading
Chinaski.
Bio: Brenton Booth lives in Sydney, Australia and edits The Asylum Floor. Writing of his has appeared in Gargoyle, New York Quarterly, North Dakota Quarterly, Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, Naugatuck River Review and Heavy Feather Review. His collection Bash the Keys Until They Scream is available from Epic Rites Press.
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