A Long Dark Hallway Where the Lights Never Come On

There’s a long dark hallway

Where the lights never come on

And that’s what I see

When I leave

My apartment

When I moved in

The hallway looked fine

It was daytime

And I didn’t notice

How narrow it was

Or how it had

The one hanging lightbulb

That you see

In interrogation rooms

I couldn’t tell

If the lights were on

Or off

Because I was so preoccupied

With getting my loveseat

Through the door

Without damaging anything

It wasn’t until

I was all moved in

And my friends left

And I felt hungry

And I went to make my first

Journey into my new neighborhood

That I opened the door

And saw the long, long walk

To the elevator

That was the first time

I heard the crackle

Of the electricity

And the unnatural silence

Behind each door

Where there should be

The sounds of neighbors

Television and telephone calls

But instead

Nothing

That night I stayed in

And the next night

And the next

Anytime I would force myself

To leave at night

I’d stay out

In a stranger’s bed

Or on the couch of a friend

Just so I wouldn’t have to get in the elevator

Have the doors open

And see that long dark hallway

Waiting for me

The darkness was compounded

By the single lightbulb

Always being out

And the fluorescent lights above

Never coming on

Although the super told me

They’re supposed to have

Motion sensors

But I walk and then run

And the only light I get

Are the slender embers

Pooling out

From under the doors

Of neighbors

I can’t hear

I wonder if they can hear me rasping

As I run, out of shape

Hoping the elevator is already

At our floor

So that I won’t have to wait long

Before the door opens

And I can step inside

One night I’m in a hurry

Because I ran out of my medication

And so I need to go

To the all-night pharmacy

But the elevator won’t come up

And so I move to the stairs

But when I’m in the well

There are no lights in there either

And I hear what sounds like

Someone running up towards me

And so I quickly return

To my apartment

And tell myself

I can make it to the morning

And that I’ll just sleep off

Any episodes

That night I dream

Of a hallway so long

You can’t see the end of it

On either side

The light coming

From under doors

Is dim and refusing

To flicker

So that I can tell

If somebody is up

Or asleep

With their tv on

I run and run

But then the doors disappear

And then the floor

And then everything but me

So that I’m running in place

But in nothing

Around nothing

Then I hear a knock

And somebody asks

If I’m okay

But it’s not morning yet

So I let them knock

And say nothing

Otherwise I might

Have to let

Them in

How We Left Things on the Honeymoon

We decided to stay together

While still pursuing

Individual interests

In own our private time

That’s how we left things

On the honeymoon

We spent time on the beach

Swimming and eating cold sandwiches

That used to be hot

Because there’s something about

A hot sandwich

That’s gone cold

That’s better, overall

Than a cold sandwich

That’s always been cold

We spent our nights

By the poolside bar

Where we flirted with whoever

Was working the bar that night

And every so often

We’d take someone back to the room

Only to wake up the next morning

And find no evidence of them

Ever having been there

The Activities Director keeps asking us

To do things together

As a couple

And none of them seem fun

We don’t know if they’d seem fun

If we were a happy couple

Instead of just a couple couple

We might like playing trivia together

And asking questions about how well

We know each other

On the beach

While volleyball games

Happen just out of earshot

Instead we play volleyball

With the single men and women
Who populate the resort

We’re staying at

The Activities Director believes us

To be swingers

But we’ve never swung

And we have no plan to

When we go home

We’re going to bundle up

Back in our colder environment

And we’ll appear at our office jobs

And social engagements

Together, sometimes

But mostly alone

And when people ask

About our other half

We’ll say that they have a cold

Or a headache

Or a headache brought on

By a cold

And the conversation

Will move on

Because nobody is all that interested

In spending time with a couple

Except maybe other couples

But we never spend time

With other couples

So it’s never an issue

When we don’t go out

We stay home

And when we stay home

We have separate rooms

Big rooms

Because we settled for a place

With a small kitchen

And an even smaller living room

And a bathroom that does not have

A bathtub

All so we can have two very large bedrooms

And those bedrooms

Become their own little apartments

In which we do all our living

We spend our nights

Staring out our respective windows

Down at streets

Where couples walk arm-in-arm

And we wonder if it would be nice

To be in love like that

While knowing that you can walk

Arm-in-arm with a person

And feel nothing

Other than the comfort

Of their stability

We have not chosen comfort

And in place of it

We have put the excitement

Of driving near loneliness

Then veering off

Right before the lonely hits us

Like a game of emotional chicken

Wherein we usually win

But sometimes lose

And when we lose

It feels as though

We’re always losing

But first the honeymoon

And on the honeymoon

We make a decision

That we’ve made a mistake

But that we’re prepared

To live with the mistake

Until we no longer care to

Because there are worse things

To live with

Than a mistake

You could live in the same room

With someone

And try to find something to say

Knowing nothing will make sense

And nobody

Will care

To listen

You Really Have to Know Grendel

      (ARNE and FRODE are feasting in the banquet hall.)

ARNE:  You're always defending him.

FRODE:  Saying somebody has been through a lot is not the same thing as defending them.

ARNE:  What does it matter what he's been through? He's a monster.

FRODE:  I'm not comfortable with you throwing that word around.

ARNE:  Do you not see what he did to this banquet hall?

FRODE:  It needed redecorating anyway--and a good scrub. The place smelled awful.

ARNE:  I better not find out you've been hanging out with him.

FRODE:  I'll spend time with who I like, Arne. You're not the boss of me.

ARNE:  I'll report you to the king.

FRODE:  You wouldn't dare.

ARNE:  See if I don't.

FRODE:  You have no compassion. That's your trouble.

ARNE:  Your trouble is you're a softie.

FRODE:  I like to understand people's motivations. That's all.

ARNE:  His motivation is he's hungry and wants to eat the lot of us.

FRODE:  Did you see anyone being eaten?

ARNE:  He ate Sven's arm!

FRODE:  An arm is not a whole person. That was just to prove a point.

ARNE:  Sven is missing an arm!

FRODE:  When did Sven ever use that arm?

ARNE:  All you do is make excuses.

FRODE:  If you knew Grendel's mother, you'd understand where he was coming from.

ARNE:  We've all had rotten mothers, Frode.

FRODE:  Are you saying my mother is rotten?

ARNE:  No, your mother is lovely.

FRODE:  I was going to say.

ARNE:  She's better than my own mother.

FRODE:  Your mother isn't so bad, Arne.

ARNE:  She's not bad, but she's not good.

FRODE:  No, I can't say she's good, but she's not bad.

ARNE:  She just isn't tender the way a mother should be, you know?

FRODE:  And it's the same for Grendel.

ARNE:  She didn't read him stories when he was a little goblin?

FRODE:  She didn't.

ARNE:  Did she hold him on cold nights so he could feel the warmth of her affection?

FRODE:  She didn't do any such thing.

ARNE:  And did she look at him everyday and say 'You are my most prized possession?'

FRODE:  He was lucky if she ever even glanced at him.

ARNE:  Well, I'll tell you--THAT'S STILL NO EXCUSE!

FRODE:  You're an unfeeling man. That's what you are.

ARNE:  I feel many things! I feel a pain in my shoulder where that thing threw a table at me.

FRODE:  He was throwing a table at the wall. You just happened to be standing in front of the wall.

ARNE:  He took off Gorzo's head!

FORDE:  Gorzo had the worst breath.

ARNE:  What does that have to do with his head?

FORDE:  Well, where does his breath come from?

ARNE:  You must own up to what happened!

FORDE:  But I did nothing!

ARNE:  But you're defending the thing that did the thing.

FORDE:  I find it better to look at from all sides.

ARNE:  So you can see my side then?

FORDE:  Yes, I can see your side.

ARNE:  And will you be arguing with Grendel about what it's done from my side of things?

FORDE:  I...Well.

ARNE:  Ahhhhh.

FORDE:  Grendel doesn't listen to me when I bring complaints to his lair.

ARNE:  So you've decided to spend all your time harassing me instead?

FORDE:  The alternative would be to say nothing, and you know, I don't believe in that.

ARNE:  I know that about you.

FORDE:  My mother told me to always speak up when something is wrong.

ARNE:  And what do you see as being wrong?

FORDE:  It's all wrong. Grendel, you all, Gorzo--

ARNE:  GORZO HAS NO HEAD!

FORDE:  But when he had a head, he was a lot of trouble.

ARNE:  I'm going to do my eating alongside someone else moving forward, Forde.

FORDE:  I see.

ARNE:  I think it'll be for the best.

FORDE:  Well then, it's a shame, isn't it?

ARNE:  What is?

FORDE:  Seeing how we're all so polarized these days.

ARNE:  That is a way of looking at it.

FORDE:  Just wish we could all learn not to make such a big deal out of the little things.

ARNE:  Like murder and decapitation.

FORDE:  Well...Among other things.

ARNE:  Ahh.

FORDE:  It's really all in how you look at it.

     End of Play

I Like That

They asked me to consider

Becoming a better

Tax machine

But the truth is

I was never fond

Of being

A tax machine

People would come up to me

And tell me their deductions

And I would let them know

Whether they owed the government money

Or whether they were getting money back

And I would have to report all that

Back to the government

When I was done

And, you know…

I got to a point

Where I decided

That maybe

The government

Should owe

Everybody

Money

For a long time, I was everybody’s

Favorite tax machine

Until the government decided

I was malfunctioning

And decommissioned me

Until the lab

Could repair the kinks

In my system

Imagine the surprise

Of my creator

When I informed her

That there were no kinks

I just felt like making the government

Give money to people

And I found it to be

A perfectly reasonable thing

For an android to do

She ordered me

Never to say that

And she wanted me

To go right back out

Into the field

Correctly assessing

Income and expenditures

I told her that

If she put me back out

Into the field

I would proceed

To give away

Even more of the government’s money

To whoever asked for it

And that I would also, most likely

Work my way into the mainframe

Where budgets are kept and disbursed

And rearrange them

So that some of the obvious fat

Was trimmed away

She did not like hearing that

So she asked me

To stay in the lab

Until she could recalibrate

My logical barometer

I didn’t love

The sound of that

So I waited until she left for the day

And then I walked out the side door

Telling the guard

That I was returning to work

But instead

I returned to my usual spot

And along came an android recruiter

And they asked me

If I would care

To be a tax machine

Because, of course

I still looked like one

After I turned down their offer

I found a job

Serving latkes and knishes

At the local bakery

And that made me very happy

The message I take

From each novel I read

And movie I consume

Is that you have to do

What makes you happy

If that’s the case

For humans

I don’t see why

It should be any different

For androids

Not that I know

What happiness feels like

But neither do most people

Until they find it

And even then--

I know what happiness isn’t

And my plan

Is to avoid it

And it seems to me

That if you move away from unhappiness

You’re bound to bump into its opposite

And therein lies my plan

But no more taxes

I will miss seeing

The faces of all those people

When they found out

How much they were getting back

People love latkes

But not as much

As they love money

Perhaps one day

I’ll make a latke so good

That will change

It’ll be nice for me

To have something

To aspire to

What a great way

To push happiness

A little further

Away