rather, he would go out on dates with girls. None of them seemed to understand the enigma that was Simon Hayes. His stutter didn’t help. She had been different; she had listened, at least for a while. Her name was Brigid, and she shamelessly tore out his heart and threw it into the dust. Simon blindly pursued her for over a year before witnessing Brigid and his best friend in a more-than-just-friendly embrace. On a trampoline. Naked. It was then and there that Simon decided to become a poet.
He had his share of internal strife. More than his share, in fact. Simon more than simply concerned his mother anymore when she came out of her fugues. He frightened her. She once questioned him about a notebook of poems she had found scrawled in his eccentric handwriting. How could he write such dark poems? Sure, they had their problems, the war, the death of Simon’s father, the de-ratification of the United States Constitution and the dissolution of the Union, the police state that the Allied States of America had become, the Almost-Second Civil War that had been narrowly avoided when the President selected his political rival Cervera as his Secretary of Defense, but why write about such sad things? Life was good. We had won the war, hadn’t we? Cheer up, Simon! And who is this “Brigid” girl anyway?
The look Simon had stabbed at his mother silenced her, and an abrupt and awkward silence followed. In fact, she never asked about his poems again. They talked very little after that incident.
“Poetry.”
“What about it?”
“You wrote poetry?”
“A little.”
“Can you recite any of it for me? I used to love poetry. I still love poetry, just haven’t had any time to read in… well, years.”
“Ms. Flynn, it’s been a long time.” He said it seriously, but with a sly smile.
She persisted. “I bet you still remember some of it. Especially the poetry about Brigid.” She enunciated the word like a hypothetical annoying younger sister would, taunting her older brother about his first date. Briiiii- giiiiid.
“You won’t like it, Ms. Flynn.”
“Call me Maggie. And let me be the judge of that!”
“Fine. You win again, Maggie.”
He thought long and hard, and then began to recite.
Shadowroom:
She was here once I
Remember so so long
Ago many weeks months
Years (How long?) since
The essence of her the presence
Of her pervaded these walls
Lavender walls within which
Hell is contained she
A constant for so long held
On to the phone right here
On that summer night and talked
Me back while the music
Played its dirge from
The happy past under false
Pretenses it played and she
Sang and I SNAPPED at
The voice so like beauty
Thoughts of emerald eyes
Burning in the dark on
That special night when
Hopes and dreams became.
This room is.
A reminder of her essence to me the feel flaxen
Radiance of sunlight hair
Gold painting the impossible
Beauty shine light waves upon
Waves sent to me scent to me
Her scent in these walls
In the shadows in the light
Lilac scent of lilac
A flood of memory.
I am trapped here.
These these walls hold me
In altered form a drawing
Of her she laughed when
She saw it and loved me
Somewhat, I’d say, or the
Dumb little gifts with
Which I drew closer to
Her, stuffed animals, a
Valentine made from
Fruit-Roll-Up, strawberry,
Carved: “I love you,”
She laughed, lovingly, and
Christmas gifts of a
Disney wristwatched Dopey
The Dwarf, and a can:
Spam. Oh well. Sadly, lastly,
A portrait: that night,
Beauty incarnate
In a gown of white and a
Smile to shatter a man’s dreams,
Replayed nightly. An instant
Of eternity, snared forever,
Us together, at last, sharing
Bitter tears, parting forever.
I am left alone with the pain,
Yet, I still love. Hayes stirred the dying fire. The embers began to glow once more. It was getting colder in their makeshift shelter. They would have to find a better place to stay tomorrow night…If there was a tomorrow night.
A voice, almost a whisper, came from Flynn’s side of the fire. In the dim light he could barely see her, and her hushed statement escaped him.
“What?”
She cleared her throat, spoke louder. “Brigid must have been blind.”
Simon wondered what Flynn meant by that. He looked into the fire, glanced up from it just in time to catch Maggie glancing up from the fire just in time to catch him glancing up at her, and he quickly looked back at the dancing flames.
“Do you have any more?”
