Typewriter Wallflower

the typewriter clacks on in its

slow machine-gun style as the

protagonist breaks down

 

mentally

emotionally

physically

 

does a wallflower have perks?

 

or do we all navigate existence

with a single headlight called

the individual perspective?

 

from having lunch naked to

trekking around Walden pond,

these are just doses of the

single, individual perspective

 

through long walks,

through surrealistic acid trips,

through constructing perpendicular

kitchen ideals,

through dancing around the celtic-like beats

in the midst of fundamentalist revivalism and

reptilian constitutionals,

through experiencing black blizzards in

the midst of No Man's Land,

through oral firsthand account and

careful third-person scholarship,

 

and the typewriter click-clacks either

forward or backward on the railroad

track of progress or nostalgia

 

the wallflower observes and

sometimes participates in the

activities of living

 

no matter the type of breakdown

no matter the type of condition

no matter the type of situation

 

we are all wallflowers involved

in the oral history of whatever be it

in the events of black gold boom

or the events of black dust bust

or the simple acts of age arrival

 

from mass migration to mass stagnation

from mass deflation to mass stagflation

 

the typewriters click-clack as

the wallflowers reflect

 

mentally, emotionally and physically,

the stories live on but so does the nature

as the wallflowers are still a subset of humankind

 

the retellings do not hinder

the negative nature of humankind

 

no matter the values

no matter the work ethic

no matter the origin story

or the current state of affairs

 

there are no wallflowers,

there is only the

human element called cancer

 

and the popular cancer loathes

the wallflower cancer as the

Calfornia cancer loathes

the Okie cancer

 

cancer is the demon

cannibalizing whatever

wherever it can and

this may be why we

delude ourselves

whatever way we can

whichever way we can

wherever and however we can

 

the typewriter click-clacks

with the shelf-life of the coal-fired

railroad engine, because even the

remnant and the cancer itself expires