IT'S ALL SO BEAUTIFUL — AL KRATZ
/Sometimes, I’m too tired for pigeons. I talk about them too much. Birds this, birds that. I hear you too, you know. You think Sydney is all over the moon. So what. I know you think I’m absurd. So what, so what, so what! So what the fuck if I am. So are you. Okay? You tell me how the bird turns its neck that way, this way, my way, your way, three way, no way, every which way circles and circles. You tell me the birds aren’t up to something. You tell me and I will believe you! I’m all ears. I’ll be your trigger. Please pull me. Pull me and pull me and pull me again. Sometimes I smell you burning Nag Champa and I swear to sweet Jesus, I can see you. If I get the right angle of the sun, if everyone else shuts the hell up, if I block out the static—hey, static cling. Ha! I wanted you to know, what I’m trying to say is that I need you to know I still hear you. I hear your poems. I hear you calling me Baby. A whisper really. A kiss really. It’s my gauge. That’s what you used to say, right? When we broke on through to the other side. When we held the glass onion and we weren’t afraid to look right through. We were going to drop out. Together, right? When everyone else was absurd. When we understood Sartre. We read that shit because we wanted to. Not because the old man did. Fuck him, right? We understood measure. When you read your poems to me before anyone else. Right? You did that for me? You were my gauge too. I know you were. We were electric and no one could pull the plug. No one except for me, I suppose. Sometimes I wonder about this life of interiority. Is it all that I wanted? No. But I wonder. If it’s really what I chose, and you weren’t really around, then I have to know, how was the life of exteriority, Alex? Is it all that you wanted? No. Okay. Fair enough. The pigeons aren’t that bad, Dude. They walk in circles and they don’t mind. They do the herky-jerky and they don’t mind. They have yet to hurt me. Sometimes I clap just for that! I get mad at them too sometimes. My anger is mine. Don’t worry about me. I have lots of possessions. Wouldn’t that be absurd? Ha! It’s all too good, Alex. It’s all so beautiful, all so true. The world makes me want to cry and that’s what I fucking do. So what. It feels good. I do that and then I get tired. So what if I’m too tired for pigeons. When I’m done with that stuff, I hear everyone say forgive me for I know not what I do, and I say amen. I say amen, amen, amen, Alex, until I fall asleep.
Al Kratz is a writer from Des Moines, Iowa, currently living in Indianola, and working on moving back to Des Moines some day. He has been a reader for Pithead Chapel and Wyvern Lit, but currently reads for no one but himself. It's not because he's selfish. He might read again for someone. He might start a new flash fiction site. He doesn't know.
