All I Ever Wanted pt2
Fiction // Telegraphic post-apocalyptic punk romance
Read All I Ever Wanted pt1 first
Picture this: jet-black utter Christo-Fascist tower, tallest ever, ropes abound, can’t bring it crashing.
I am chain. I don’t break.
I break them: violent crash.
It’s done.
Or done enough. Mighty multi-million army splits: few have homes, fewer have love inside them. Mortar grind respite.
Or I’m done. Thoughts of you shimmershatter through me—reason to breathe.
Jenny.
I swore come back: deed done, goosesteppers on the run.
Coming back.
Thousand-mile surefire doomsayer gauntlet between us—let’s go. Silence lifts.
Leather gear squeaks. Bike exhaust starfire screams. Balanced, hovering, suspended while electroclash speakers drown out impulse combustion warp.
Riding west, sunset looks like kingdom of heaven, like picasso killed himself, like rainbow lost a war—war we won.
Down ruined highway, concrete rebar corpses looming, I’m alive as two men—zooming in a beeline straightshot back to—
Ruined world, birthing world, with all wondering and wandering in it. Hitch speed back a notch, pay respects.
Slower, see lights in eyes.
Ones who lost everything.
Dirt-smudged faces, small, alone, endless lines, watching me fly away. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
Cooking fires raise sad smoke-fog over mildew tents, rusted rides, anarchy abides. Acid rain shivers down, filters running hot, picked apart for pot-shot sips in tin cups. Slow down, ronin rider, mud guards brrrap at lost souls.
Refugees world end watch, camped around overflowing orphanage. Old order gone, remembering how to be new. How many parents long gone by our hands? How many by our enemies’? Now ride I past, no time, no patience, no shreds of myself to peel off, revive them with. Can’t save a thousand: can save one.
Jenny.
Arrival: they run, arms open, hero’s welcome but I never stop; outrunning night.
Back to you.
Think long thoughts: how this lonesome road, choked out foxhole wrecks, mirrors life. Run down it, one road but every inch always different. Rain dries up dust billows. Holy trees outlast bullet blasts.
New monuments rise. State dead: gods live.
Death cult lightshow cloud tattoos, cinder fireworks jewels. I approach.
Architecture twitches—like ants at doors, windows, buttresses, parapets.
Ink railings, stern statues topped with aurora borealis flowers, skulls etched with ‘Love’ and ‘Hate’, ‘Light’ and ‘Darkness’. Fear end of world but they’re wrong. Codes cracked, laws racked but rising spirits skyhigh fill in blanks. Flags flapping - ‘Abandon all hope’ ‘Last ones left’ ‘Ozymandias’.
Time always twilight here. Masks: skulls. Weapons: spears now bullets run dry. Glorious death: venerated. Social contract: degenerated.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Work must be done right; but they walk left-hand path.
Nietzschean wink, Arendt grimace, Popper sigh.
“Come join the end of the world,” they sing but it’s all out-of-tune false-cord ripchord discord—and bike keeps
rocketing
on.
White-knuckling no-sleep days-for-days. Teeth-gritted can’t-pray eyes-forget-sunrays. Think back one year, my fear, lines down, you in one place, me a thousand miles away. Feared the grind; banished you good-bye—expected hate, saw only love.
Feels like ripped apart. Was it my decision?
Will another hold her up now after countless bed-cold nights? Am I worthy, returning brutal-bloodied, shell-shocked over the split-rock tank-treads we stole and rolled down fascist throats? Will he kiss you now when my lips forgotten? Will you two join hands, consummate plans, spread, multiply, laugh, cry, die—forget poor bastard lost quixotic cause?
Jenny, I’m home.
Purple-velvet dusk—heavy silence and crickets—lonely house, misty hill. Switchback hairpin soft-dirt road.
Gears down, exhaust whispers, then take the rest on foot. Hear breathing, broken boots scrape.
Let the stagger in; walk like the real me. Like magic, like clock’s work, light makes the hill shift, cabin sees me, and I
walk
on.
Move so slowly; life’s a rush. Could call it dream but don’t remember being awake.
There you are. A same-shape silhouette shadow, night’s dark—cabin’s beacon—your form. Halo’s arrows.
Gravities pull.
Closer walk: dragging two cleaved worlds into one. Faster, faster: quiet crash.
Jenny—in my arms. Your squeeze rocks my bruises but can only hold tighter. Dream this, dream that. Hands new-tremble down my back’s scars. Weight on my knee sears. Your fingers brush arm’s bullet-wound, remember, remember. Then the pull-away, and face-to-face—
See you.
See your lines: hard months etched. Tired eyes still burning anarchist light, tears like diamonds’ prisms down cheeks. Tattoos faded: sun and war. Belly flat again. Stronger and softer than memory.
“Where is she?”
I—
forget—
everything—
A round face—hateless—tilts out behind paint-flaked doorway. See myself.
Anyone else: flinch, but she stares. See myself again.
Hard decisions made: melt away with you.
Moment later, I hold you both: impossibly heavy and light. I inhale—honeysuckle.
All I Ever Wanted.
Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash
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