farts as memories
Dateline – My bedroom
I wasn’t always a legend. I used to be a simple folk hero back in rural New Hampshire. There were ballads sung about my pick up truck, my favorite being the one that compared it to the Devil’s welded steed.
Of course as a folk hero I fought for good. But after awhile it was like too many union victories and everyone forgot the companies hired only small children till I came along.
The little hamlets upstate began writing new verses to the old tributes, implying I shouldn’t get free milkshakes down at the Friendly Toast.
That’s how it goes. You have to be hated in your hometown to be a legend in bedrooms across time zones and tax brackets.
I married a woman, a famous musician. She played the rape flute. Many women looked at her and hated how tight she wore her jeans. It was a problem for me too. She couldn’t even carry her own guitar pick in her pants pockets. I’d misplace it and she’d become angry.
It was when I decided to become historically significant that it all fell apart between us. I spent a lot of time at fundraisers and dinner parties. Too much time, she felt.
So it’s no surprise tonite I lie here alone, all the pillows to myself, I sit propped up more fully than before as I type out my personal history, and breaking wind in such a way as to remember, also, at one time, I was just a child.