except the ones I tell

"There are two sides to every story
except the ones I tell," his thick fat lips
gyrated in time with the language
and the meanings but no one listened
no one cared.

"Thrice upon a time or two..." he began all his
sordid silly tales.
But cigarette stains on his teeth
distracted any audience that might
be tempted to listen to instead ponder
the core of nihilism
and empty truths that no one wants to believe
even though synapses firing
force them to.

"... thus endeth the story of the boy from Edgewood Way," he'd say.
His story, his every story,
exactly the same from
different angles. All grim.
Sad.
Broken.
Masked in shades of idiocy,
just like all the grim, sad, broken men from the days of FDR.