MADONNA WITH THE KEY FOB

(Original Image by Caleb George)

Madonna with the key fob, thank you for letting me in. But you did not look me in the eye. You were on the phone it seemed, the receiver hidden beneath your wavy black hair, and you didn’t have enough time to think it through. You didn’t realize the wretch fast-approaching, did you? We often hide in plain sight. We drink in public. We dress our frowns with smiles dug out of the center of the sun. Had you taken more than a queen’s glance you might have caught on, you might have understood that a guy like me belonged at the front door and no farther.

You were so beautiful too, standing there against the door, leaning as if the sunshine had caught your eye, as if god and his herald of angels appeared to sing your praises. You played the part perfectly, looking away as I sidled past. I was beneath you, after all. A mere peasant spooning your splendor into my emaciated soul. But you’re used to that, aren’t you? You’re the type who sleeps with her mirror, who knows she is beautiful, who floats with heaven above the rest of us.

Yes, Madonna, my dear, there is no question you should have left me outside. For I have but to take you by the hand and lead you through another door. Hang up the phone and pay attention, for we are bounding down the hall of human misery. And there are many doors through which a young, beautiful woman has never been. Our suffering, you see, is the darkness lining your halo. We are the shading against your face, your breast. You are dressed in providence from the tattered cloaks of our wraiths. And there are many.

Let me lead you down an alley I know all too well. Let me find the door at the end of the second right turn. Let me crack it and show you a family drowned in liquor and drugs. Let me show you the purple Colorado lighting that strikes outside as a mother and son pile upon the father to keep him inside. Let me show you the blood and the bruises and the shattered toilet the mother is thrown against. Let’s look into this door, many years later, when the father is dead, and the son has a son of his own that cannot speak. Autism, some call it. Hell on a stick, I say. And this door, where his wife’s mother can no longer speak, nor recognize her reflection. Here, she wakes up at 4am, flings open the front door, and screams out at the phantom erasing her. Let’s look into this door with the addict brother alone and unemployed, trying to be sober, flying against gravity for enough scratch to see his son for the first time.

No no. Thank you, Madonna, for being so magnanimous. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve seen in some time, and I think you know it. All I ask is that you look me in eye and return my smile in passing, because the world is not meant for people like me. And we, along with our tragedies, will soon be dead and buried as though we never existed, while people like you live on and flourish in the hearts of men forevermore.