by C.J. Sellers
Tonight
Bone wonders why he goes out
wandering at night.
Why all this looking
in windows wrongly?
What? For spite?
He asks himself.
Bone’s so disgusted with himself.
“You don’t care ’bout nothin’,”
he says as he undresses to go.
“So what’s wrong with you?”
He can’t defend himself
from himself. He answers
shyly, “I think I may be
looking for someone
and I wander if it’s true.
No I wander even if it’s not true.”
He laughs even though
it’s not funny at all.
He does wonder.
Is it even a him or a her?
Is it even a him or a her?
Is it even a him or a her?
Bone struggles for a face.
It’s getting even
worse as the days go by.
Bone goes through the days now
faking his way through
waiting for the moment
waiting for the sun,
waiting for it to…
go down so he can slip out.
Sometimes Bone hears them arguing.
Sometimes they’re making love.
Sometimes…
Sometimes they’re making love.
Sometimes he gets thirsty
while he’s out.
Maybe he wanders because
when he dreams he’s
lost, alone, out in
some wasted space
with no one in sight,
not for miles. Not,
no not for miles and miles.
This makes him feel like
such a child.
This makes him so hungry.
He hears dogs barking in the distance.
He hears a car start and drive away.
Then so much nothing.
And Bone wonders if this is
the way things outta be,
if he should be alone
and if so why? “What did I
ever do so very wrong?”
he asks aloud
to the mirror.
He imagines the pain, and
imagines again, the pain
of the cuts on his knuckles
if it breaks.
Sometimes he brings along a bone
or some bacon. Now the dogs are
his friends. He goes and gets
something now. Something for
the ones who are
not his friends.
He’s got his answer
and it makes him angrier
than it should.
Now he’s so angry
and he’s so angry,
he’s so angry
and he dunno
why.
If fades again.
But he knows it will return.
Sometimes he hears a child cry.
So tonight he hopes luck
will work its magic,
he hopes it will all work,
work itself out.
He hopes this time someone
looks out a window,
looks back at him and
he knows, he knows he
don’t care if they like it.
Just let them look
at him once. Let
them see his…
Look out,
look out the window,
come and look, come. Now.
Yesterday. No, way back when.
Way back before all this began.
LOOK AT ME. Pick a fight. Pull out a gun.
Sometimes he wants to open the window
and go right on inside.
He’s so bored of waiting.
He’s so tired of wandering.
Tonight
something will happen.
He can hardly wait.
He licks his lips and shifts.
Unarmed and unguarded,
he goes out, he goes out
and leaves. Bone leaves
his sad self behind.