A poem of significant insignificance

This poem will change your life
either that or it won't.
It may cure you of all your strife,
or leave you feeling gaunt.
It may be filled with perfect rhyme,
but it is not likely.
Because rhyming is hard.

I crumbled the parchment into an ill formed ball and tossed it on top of the other ill formed balls of parchment on the floor. They reminded me of something but I couldn't quite remember what it was. They were round like meatballs, their contents questionable, and not particularly healthy.

Meatballs... Oh yeah, I rushed into my kitchen just as the smoke alarm began to sound. Dangit, smoke break already? I left the meatballs a moment and stepped outside for a quick smoke. When the alarm finally went silent, I exhaled the last plume of smoke and turned back toward the kitchen.

This time I was met by a raging flame. It was my roommate, Antoine. He pranced around me, his sheer neck scarf drifting behind him like the fart of a chronic peppermint eater, light and slightly minty.

"Sup Antoine?" I asked out of politeness.

"Oh Hey-ay", he sang his customary reply and then flittered out of the room.

I sighed inward and headed to the freezer to get the meatballs out. Upon opening the freezer, I noticed an intense, moldy scent and the humidity of a tropical rain forest assaulted my face.

Damn, must have forgotten to pay the power bill again. Ice cream dripped from a pool on the shelf to the meatball package below it. I decided today would be a day to go out to eat. If only I had some money. I called out to Antoine.

"Hey roomie, you get paid yet?" I asked expectantly.

"Does a canary like it when its beak makes contact with a small bugs tender ass?" he replied.

"Um, I don't know..." I stammered.

"It's on the coffee table," he sighed outwardly.

I walked to the coffee room, and sure enough, floating on a pool of coffee was the money. I had asked him time and again to put it on the wooden table. The coffee table leaves it all wet and stained.

I picked up the money and wrung it out as best as I could.

"You want anything?" I yelled toward his bedroom.

"Nothing you want to give me, Boo," he shouted back.

I hate it when he calls me that. Not because he's calling me that as much as its actually my name. Boo Bronson. My parents were morons.

"I'll pay you back as soon as I sell one of my poems," I half-heartedly offered.

"Great, I can augment my retirement with it in 20 years," he taunted. "Just get the power turned back on and we'll call it even. I am having guests tonight and I need my disco lights working."

I sighed again and began to rack my brain about where I could go tonight to avoid another Antoine social event.

"OK, see you later," I said on my way out the door.

"Not if I smell you first," he chided.

I shook my head and headed out into the world. A strange place, the world. Strange and yet strangely normal with a few exceptions. That is to say, being from another world, I find it alarming at what everyone else here finds normal. Back on Earth, we didn't have coffee tables made of actual coffee for one thing. We also didn't have mandatory smoke breaks, but if you don't smoke here at least four times daily, the atmosphere will kill you, so hey, smoking's good for you. Who knew?

I checked my pack and made sure I had a few cigarettes on me and then walked into the street. As I submerge into its oily surface, I was almost overwhelmed with nausea. It passed as I passed through the street completely and emerge in front of the local store. Since the front is always locked up to prevent burglaries, I walked quietly around to the back where the non-burglar entrance is hidden behind a light pole with a sign that says "nothing to see here".

I walked around the pole and into the store. My order was waiting for me. I never did get used to that. They always had my order waiting for me, even though I never placed an order. I check it, and sure enough, there is nothing in the bag that I would have ordered. Having lived here a while now, I knew it was futile to argue with them, so I paid them, took the bag and walked back out into the street.

This time, I emerged in front of the power company's billing office. I slowly walked around to the rear and entered through their hidden entrance, cleverly masqueraded as a door shaped wooden board with a door knob on it. As I walked in I was promptly greeted by the only other person in the room, Mike.

"Hey Boo," he shouted causing me to cringe to myself.

"Hey Mike", I sighed.

"Did you get the invitation I sent you to the party tonight? I need someone to go with me that can help keep the babes off," he said way too loudly.

"It's at my house Mike. I didn't need an invitation," I groaned. "That and there are never any babes there. Just Antoine and his model buddies."

"Oh," Mike said, dejection evident in his voice. "Well, maybe this time will be different."

"Yeah Mike, maybe this time," I consoled. "Can I just pay my power bill now?"

"Oh, you aren't behind in your bill, Boo. You're house is having an outage right now. Should be back up shortly," he said, again too loudly.

"Oh, what caused the outage?" I asked.

"The lack of electricity getting to your house," he said as he shook his head at me.

"I see, um, well ok Mike, thanks. I guess I'll see you tonight," I surrendered.

"OK," he screamed.

I turned from the room and out into the street again.

As I emerged, this time I found myself outside of Suzie's house. She was standing in front of me heading toward the street.

"Oh hey Boo. I was just coming to see you," she stated, her voice like honey dripping onto a set of vocal chords in the exact right sequence to make it sound the way she sounded...

"Why were you coming to see me?" I asked.

"Well, I couldn't see you if I stayed here, I would have to go to where you were..." she said through raised eyebrows. "But lo and behold, I haven't gotten to where you were yet and yet here you are, so I guess I could have..."

"So, um, now you've seen me, now what?" I asked, trying to move the conversation along.

"I forgot," she shrugged.

I looked into all three of her eyes and sure enough, all of her pupils were dilated.

"Did you miss a smoke break?" I asked her as her skin continued to pale in front of me.

She slapped her head with the tentacle sticking out of her back, "THAT'S WHAT IT WAS."

She continued quieter, "I ran out of smokes, do you have any extra?"

Blood began running from the ear in her forehead.

"Yeah, yeah, here quick, smoke them," I said while frantically pulling the cigarettes from the pack.

A few minute slater, she was back down to two eyes, ears on the side of her head where they belong and no sign of a tentacle.

"That was close," she sighed with relief.

"Tell me about it," I stated.

"Well, you see, I ran out smokes, and was about to turn, but you saved me," she stated, a bit of annoyance in her voice. "For goodness sakes Boo, it just happened and you were standing right there."

I looked into her perturbed eyes a moment then looked away, feeling shamed though not sure what for.

"Umm, what do you have going on tonight," I asked, changing the subject.

"Currently nothing, but its not tonight yet. You should ask me that once it is tonight already, then I will know."

"Do you have any plans?" I asked, not missing a beat.

"Yes," she stated.

"Do those plans include me?" I asked hopefully.

"I don't know, haven't discussed them with you yet," her annoyance seemed to be rising.

"Right, so let's discuss them now," I suggested.

For the remaining hour, we managed to work out that she was actually breaking up with me, but not until she saw me that evening, so if I could come back later, that would be swell. Somehow, I agreed to meet her that evening so she could break up with me. Ah well, it beats being stuck at Antoine's party.

I returned to my house, washed off the days street oil and sat down at the table to finally write my poem. It was going to be epic. I plugged in my laptop to the now full electrified house and began to write, as I was all out of paper.

This was it. This was the poem that would set me up for life. I finally found the words that would make this world take me serious and maybe even change many of their lives. *chirp* I wrote frantically, each carefully crafted word more magical than the one before. *chirp* Brilliance, it was going to be amazing. Did I hear something? *chirp* Ah, it didn't matter. The world was finally going to love me. Suzie would love me. *chirp chirp chirp*

SMOKE ALARM! Oh crap. I quickly grab my pack and to my dismay found it empty. Dammit, Suzie smoked the last of my cigarettes. The third eye popped up on my forehead, right below the newly formed, bleeding ear. Tentacles sprouted out of my back. Blood began to pour from my face down on to my quickly ashening skin. I tried to scream but my tongue fell out of my mouth, right onto my keyboard, right on the backspace button. I began to panic. I hadn't saved yet. I tried to grab my tongue but my fingers had already fallen off and were replaced by what could only be described as a Jell-o like nub.

Just then, Antoine rushed in took a deep drag off of his cigarette and blew it into my face. It took 3 cigarettes of second hand smoke to get the symptoms to back off enough to where I could hold my own cigarette. Slowly, everything began to return to normal. My breathing was raspy, but I was breathing through a mouth with a tongue in it. My own tongue too, which is way better than last time.

I turned to thank Antoine, but he had already left the room. I turned back to my keyboard and sighed deeply as I realized the entire poem had been erased. I shut the lid to the laptop, and slowly stood up. Shoulders slumped, I turned from the room. The dub step had already begun in the other room with it's pounding beats and loud occasional laughter.

I sighed again, shrugged my shoulders and walked in to join them. Suzie can break up with me at another time. The poem had already left me and there was no getting it back. May as well get drunk.