The Orchid

Sunday, early evening, the light’s gone the colour of old paper, and next door they’re at it again, two animals ripping each other’s guts out with words first, then hands.

I’m half-drunk, peering through the hedge like some pervert saint, blossoms hanging there purple, pink, blue—like nature’s running a whorehouse and nobody told me the price.

He’s got her throat in his fists now, squeezing like he’s trying to wring the last drop of life out of a cheap bottle. She’s flailing, nails scratching air, a hard, hopeless slap that lands nowhere and changes nothing.

Same dance, different night.

Out on their patio the orchid keeps blooming, fat and stupid and pinky orange, sucking up the last warm breath of autumn like it’s got a right to beauty. The pot plants sit there all quiet and green, innocent as altar boys, while inside the kids stare at the television, volume up loud enough to drown the screaming, little eyes already dead.

I take another pull off the bottle.

The world’s a broken jukebox playing the same broken song, and nobody’s got a nickel to make it stop. I watch. I drink.

The flowers don’t give a damn, and neither do I, not really. Just another Sunday sliding down the drain with the rest of the blood and the beer.

a dire tragedy,
no safety net on the pool,
resentment begins.