Extras
They were filming
a new movie in town
and they asked for a few hundred
extras to pretend they were dying
and she said we should go downtown
and see if we could get into the movie,
with that big name actor who bathed in horse piss
and made up his own religion,
but I only wanted to be me and alive, and I knew no one
wanted that, they never had.
She tells people she made it into the movie,
even though you never see her.
She accused me of that very same thing for
all the time we were together,
not “seeing her.”
I guess it was fine when the big
movie houses did it.
When Lovers Become Informants
Sharing all those nights together.
Sitting up in bed, telling secrets.
Then the turn comes.
Often without notice.
They shoot back out into the world.
Tell everyone they know
everything they know.
The things that are certain
to hurt the most.
As though
there was never any love
to begin with.
Bio: Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and mounds of snow. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, The Asylum Floor, Horror Sleaze Trash, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review. He enjoys listening to the blues and cruising down the TransCanada in his big blacked out truck.
