Tragic Kingdom

Tragic Kingdom

I.
I think she told me her dad died holding her hand and wearing a diaper as he slowly surrendered to cancer like a child to punishment. Maybe it was just the delirium of experiencing strength reduced to soft clay as she massaged back muscles that no longer existed or maybe it was the fact that they shouted whatever prayers they knew like threats at the ceiling as his chest arched twice to heaven before sinking into the shell he’d once been, but she still exhibits some profoundly tragic skills. A finer Ophelia, a more inane Anna Nicole, I’ve never met. She’d like to believe we’re all bastards for believing something better will emerge from the cesspool of this nanosecond, but the numbness of now will become the numbness of then as time melts into time. Eventually, depression will evict her from his house like a slum lord and she’ll either recover or find a new reason to haunt bars and emulate Knievel and Icarus.

II.
The world is full of tragic actresses who never needed to audition for the chaos that they lived, but there are a few who found peace under the rainbow. Sometimes any sort of action is a good thing, even an impossible war against deity grinds the armor to paper thin plates – the kind we record our confessions on. The last time either of us saw God, He was drunk, lost and frightened. The exact image we expected to find over the sink and in the soul. We met, married, drank, regretted and sobered up. I think we’ll both be better now. As better as we can be. Anyway, she’s pregnant and I pray that, somehow, our daughter will enjoy her innocence like a bright toy and become the covenant we lost.