It was a quick drive to the mini-mart

Amid the cold, desolate, lonesome dark

Where all the stars and all the lights

Shined bright and white at distant heights.

 

My shining white car drove on in the night

The only machine in sight.

With shining complexion that mirrored

The emptiness devoid and feared.

 

I drove through a desert land

Lacking in life above the sand

Besides rustling bushes and tumbling weeds,

Prickly cactus plants with wrinkled, old seeds.

 

The car and I sped along

Devoid of emotions for the silent desert song

That had ceased to soothe, sober, or swoon.

Instead it fell upon deaf ears with a creosote croon.

 

I pulled up to the mini-mart

Sighing heavily as I put the car in park,

And took a long, sullen look

At the depressing truth that couldn't be shook.

 

My hair was disheveled and my wife had left,

Of her love and affection I was left entirely bereft.

The bags under my eyes made them look

Each sunken in shade like a forgotten nook.

 

I stepped outside to stale, sandy air

That scratched the lungs until rare

To a point of wear and tear so great

That I had avoided the outside world to this date.

 

In a whitewashed room I would sleep-

Darkened from lack of light steaming into my keep

That was never kept.  With trash on the floor

And a pile of sweat-stained shirts barricading the door.

 

It denied the doleful people

Entrance to my holy steeple.

It kept my wife

From staying in my life.

 

Entering the mini-mart, I was soberly surprised

By the smell of tropical breezes that cleverly disguised

The stench of depression, smoke, and booze-

Booze that I was soon to choose.

 

I gingerly stepped towards the gray

To the aisle of colors stuck in the fray

Where I lost my beautiful wife-

But never my giddiness, identity, or strife.

 

I was mesmerized by the vivid hues:

The browns, the reds, the greens, the blues

All in a pretty row for me to peruse.

Oh!  How would I ever, ever choose!

 

I drunkenly waltz in my joy

Swaying to a ⅞ beat like a ragged toy.

Then, as if in a dream, I collide

With the nearest shelf side.

 

The scene slows.

A bottle glows

Against the rainbow rows.

Glass shatters, and cheap whiskey flows.

 

I have spilled the blood of an innocent

As of one of those inarticulate

Beasts that stalk in the night,

And have no control of the strength of their bite.

 

I drop to my knees and cry aloud

A song of sadness now endowed.

I slowly sober to find a covering darkness

Black and thick with sticky starkness.

 

My cries have gone unheard-

Not a sound, not a word

Has pierce the black fog

Thick and murky like the waters in a bog.

 

In the distance screaming pistons

Burn fumes with eternal persistence.

The fumes swirl and burn

Gathering to boil and spurn.

 

The fumes begin to swarm

Like bushels of black lilies that form

A beautiful, vamping theme

Of a fatally gleaming dream.

 

The fumes begin to resolve

As they evolve

Into a form seen before-

My lovely wife Lenore.

 

Her burning brown eyes

Like fiery whiskey skies.

Her raucous rosy hair

Like that of a cinnamon mare.

 

The dimples in her cheeks

Of influenced joy speak.

The freckles on her face

Stand out even in this inebriated space.

 

She wears a dress of crimson and green

A manzanilla olive.  The margarita routine.

It’s the first dress I ever saw her in

When I met her among a churchly din.

 

The pastor yelled

As the choir swelled,

And she stood in the second pew

Between cramped seats of polished yew.

 

Few attracted my eyes like her-

With the angelic complexion of gifted myrrh,

And personality so bubbly

It was like gin and tonic.  Lovely.

 

She love to sing along with Jimmy Buffet and James Dean.

I always did like Margaritaville, and the taste of Jim Beam.

She loved to stroll along the shoreline.

I always loved the healthy gleam of moonshine.

 

In the midst of my misty reflections

Over happy days and sunny sections,

The form of my wife had begun to speak.

The shock made my already wandering heart weak.

 

She says my name in a voice so tame,

Yet hidden beneath something takes aim.

With an ancient air

And innocence stripped bare,

 

The voice spoke with fuming breath-

A somber tone that signaled death.

A single wave of gratitude, and then a request.

“What are your wishes?  For you have been blessed.

 

“In breaking the bottle you have released

A spirit observing every caprice

That may be hidden within your mind,

And who will grant your every wish- if you be so inclined.”

 

My jaw dropped.

My eyes gawped.

My heart flopped,

Flipped, skipped, and stopped.

 

I was left speechless

Standing dumbfound in crusty breeches

While my wife ramble on

About wishes, kings, and palaces of an earlier eon.

 

A billion questions, like burning stars,

Flashed by like headlights on cars

That recede into the distance

Like lost love leaving behind an empty existence.

 

The question that trickled out

Was a meek, dainty shout.

“Lenore?”

I crumpled to the floor.

 

The scene went dark- or rather darker,

The sticky starkness became stark- or rather starker.

I plummeted down and down

Never hitting the rock bottom that forms solid ground.

 

I awoke surprised, senseless, and sticky.

The spirit had withered and dried quickly

As the life contained inside evaporated,

And Death’s voracious appetite was yet again sated.