Even Art?

Believe in nothing.
Even art.

Chapter IV

In a greasy spoon cafeteria, I take stock of my situation. I briefly ponder the pandemonium in my head and seriously consider aborting this trip altogether.

I am falling in and out of love with the waitress as I peruse the menu and wonder which way is up. I am hopelessly, fearlessly, head-over-heels when she cuts into the key lime pie... sickeningly alone and black-hearted, watching as she refills the coffee maker... love-sick as a secret book of poems while she wipes down the lunch counter and finally I’m in the throes of dejected depression as she comes to take my order.

This behaviour, I assume to accurately surmise, is no way out. Of course, this is no way in either, so in the interest of inertia and remaining true to all the truths of the cosmos, I shall carry on.

Enter, Mr. M.R. Yao, Esq.

The Joke Is On Him.

Leo Cooper is searching through bins of dusty LPs
At the used record store in my head.

He is looking for copies of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass' "____________________".

The used record store is in my head.
I can make anything happen here.

So I stop time,
Remove all Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass records,
"____________________" or otherwise,
Set them on fire in the middle of the store
And restart time.

Leo Cooper is befuddled.
One could say he is dumbfounded.
I would say the joke is on him.

Leo Cooper storms out of the used record store in my head
And I spend the night warming my hands
Over Herb Alpert's smoldering ruins.

The Very Next Mourning.

There is another me
Somewhere.
Out there.
And he spoke to me
In my head.
I was on a Greyhound bus.

He had a very confusing,
Yet ultimately believable explanation
About how all this was happening.

At the next stop
I changed my ticket
To include a stop
In my other self's hometown.

I'm getting
To the bottom.
Of.
This.