Thought Spiral
Sometimes life feels easy, and sometimes life feels hard.
I want to tell you the story, of how I lost my debit card.
You don’t panic at all, you just know that this is how it ends.
You’ve lost the only item on which you always could depend.
And your phone bill won’t be paid, and your Netflix and your sundries.
You’re not worrying, but probably, will have to flee the country.
Everything is fine of course, but your partner’s going to leave.
You’ll lose the job you hated, working for Office Manager Steve.
At least you’re not going to miss that.
And the man that stole your debit card,
the man that stole your bacon.
You’ll hunt him to the ends of the earth,
Like Liam Neeson. In Taken.
You have no choice to kill him, tell him how he wrecked your life.
Your partner, job and debit card and all that endless strife.
You’ll break out of prison eventually, smuggling a cell key through a locket.
And at that time I realised that the card was in my pocket.
So I worried about things falling apart, feared the future but I mean,
that could all have been avoided,
if I’d just checked my jeans.
Marketplace
It is the year two thousand and twenty two.
We’re in a bar and you’re ordering a drink.
The girl’s on her phone and she’s having a think.
And this girl is really quite into you.
You go up to the bar and you order a bitter.
The girl excuses herself to the loo,
as girls are wont to do.
And she’s looking you up on Twitter.
There is your job, and there are your earnings.
Here are some jokes and a movie reference.
Even a hint of your sexual preference.
And so far she knows that she can trust her yearnings.
She knows you’re not a thief, and you’re not a crook.
Meanwhile you talk to another brunette.
You ask her for her name and she says it’s Annette.
Loo girl’s currently flicking through his Facebook.
and frankly she’s had a look, and made sure he can cook
and walk the dog, and knows his manners.
Job’s a mechanic, handy with spanners.
Doesn’t live with his mother, he’s got his own nook.
“So Annette, you’re an accountant?” “How does that add up?”
Loo girl’s madly finding him on Tinder, hank of hair in her eye.
She’s hyperventilating as if she will die.
“Well it’s something I do, can I refill your cup?”
Loo girl cries out in a frenzy triumphant.
She knows him back to front, although she now can’t find him.
Oh, he’s leaving right now and the lights are now dim.
Last orders at bar. Band have packed up their trumpets.
And as an onlooking poet, I can’t help but observe.
I’ve finished my drink and thank the barman.
I walk down the street, the thought hits like it can.
That there never has been failure quite as deserved.
***
This is an excerpt from Charlie Chitty’s new poetry chapbook, Everything Fun is Illegal or Immoral. You can purchase the book from Terror House Press here.
Charlie Chitty is an author from Birmingham in the U.K. His work has been featured in Rabid Writes, Alien Buddha Press, Soft Cartel, Back Patio Press, Steel Jackdaw, and Expat Press. Charlie is the author of Everything Fun is Illegal or Immoral, available from Terror House Press.
