The Eclectic Art and Words of P.B. Wells

NSFW & SFW Content

[pbwells3]

In the Fortress Again

In the Fortress Again by p.b. wells

it has been too damn long since I sat here in my Fortress of Solitude with the night pressed against the windows like some old drunk looking for a place to sleep.

no noise. no demands. no little disasters chewing at my ankles.

just me, the Admiral, the dark, and a strange little bastard I derisively call my mind wandering off without my permission.

where will it go tonight?

maybe somewhere grand. maybe the edge of history. maybe the graveyard where old rulers rot and new fools stand in line waiting to become ghosts.

or maybe I’ll just think about dinner and how it tasted like regret with a side of cardboard.

maybe the Colts. maybe the Bears. that brain-strangling draft that made grown men stare at the television like it had just shot their dog.

maybe the babbling buffoon in the White House starting and bumbling another war while half the country claps and the other half checks the exits.

maybe a sunset out in the Midwest, that wide, holy bastard spilling gold over the fields like God had one decent idea left in him.

maybe television, that glowing sewer where talent goes to be shaved, powdered, and sold back to morons.

maybe Congress, that marble zoo full of spineless little men and women who would sell their mothers for a microphone and a good poll number.

maybe I will finally begin my educational series for people who cannot tell a communist from a socialist from an anarchist, and decide the punishment should be three books, one dictionary, and a month without internet.

or maybe I will write about the difference between a MAGAt and a maggot.

no. too easy.

one has two legs.

the other has an excuse.

or, maybe the Admiral and I will just sit here. the only sound the clinking of ice cubes and the pouring of a bottle.

yes, it’s 3 a.m.

https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells

[pbwells3]

I Have Walked Through History

by p.b. wells

I have walked through history with dust in my mouth and blood on my boots.

I was there when a sharpened stone ended the first argument.

I was there when kings learned poor boys could be traded for borders.

I watched empires rise with marble teeth and gold prayers, then rot from the belly like fruit left in the sun.

Rome burned. Troy burned. cities nobody names anymore burned so clean even the ghosts left.

I saw men march under crosses, flags, moons, eagles, and every holy excuse ever stitched to cloth.

they all said God was with them.

funny thing.

God always seemed to be on both sides until the screaming started.

I saw boys run into cannon fire because some clean bastard called it honor.

I saw mothers dig through smoke and brick for pieces of children while speeches were written miles away by men with soft hands.

I saw trenches swallow a generation.

I saw camps where the air itself looked ashamed.

I saw cities turned to ash in one bright flash.

and after all that, after the graves, the flags, the medals, the prayers, we learned not one goddamned thing.

we still hand the keys to the loudmouth evolutionary dropout.

we still cheer when some swollen tyrant points at strangers and says, there, there is your enemy.

blame the foreigner. blame the poor. blame the darker face. blame the wrong prayer. blame anything except the bastard picking your pocket while promising salvation.

I have watched the whole sorry spectacle. kings. generals. presidents. holy men. businessmen selling patriotism by the barrel.

they build monuments with stolen bread.

they build statues tall enough to hide the bodies.

and the people clap.

Christ, how the people clap.

I have walked the same road for centuries.

different boots. different flags. same mud.

same hate. same lies. same little men standing on the backs of the desperate and calling themselves giants.

and I am tired now.

bone tired.

tired of courage shoveled under speeches.

tired of sacrifice chopped up into campaign music.

tired of decent people worked hollow while silk-suited parasites lecture them about duty.

still, some stupid piece of me keeps looking for us poor dumb animals to grow up before we strike the match and call the fire progress.

https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells

[pbwells3]

Make The Exit Ugly

Make the Exit Ugly by p.b. wells

don’t let the bastards take you quietly.

not the doctors with their soft shoes and clipboard faces,

not the priest waiting in the hallway like a salesman with one last brochure,

not the family whispering around the bed like Death has better hearing than the rest of us.

fuck that.

if Death comes in wearing a clean suit and smelling like flowers, tell him to wait outside.

tell him you’re not done spitting nails at the ceiling.

tell him there are still debts unpaid, lies unchallenged, songs half sung, women remembered, enemies outliving their usefulness, and one last glass some son of a bitch forgot to pour.

the world wants you tidy when you leave it.

folded hands. closed mouth. washed face. no trouble.

but you were trouble when you came in, red-faced, bloody and screaming, dragged from the dark like a wet little lunatic already pissed off at the world.

so why leave like a church mouse?

kick the sheets. curse the pain. laugh at the machines. make the nurse shake her head and the relatives stare at their shoes.

let them say he was difficult.

good.

let them say he would not accept it.

better.

let them say he kept swinging at something nobody else could see.

best of all.

because Death has enough quiet men stacked in the earth, enough obedient bones.

make the exit ugly.

make it loud.

make it honest.

make it memorable.

make it yours.

and when the dark bastard finally reaches for your throat, lean close with whatever breath you have left and tell him,

not yet, you miserable motherfucker.

https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells/art/Make-The-Exit-Ugly-1338347422

[pbwells3]

Everyday Advice From a Common Bastard

Everyday Advice From a Common Bastard by p.b. wells

first thing,

when you find yourself in "polite company," leave.

don’t explain it. don’t apologize. don’t stand there holding a sad little glass of something with fruit in it while some well-fed bastard discusses the market, his boat, his goddamn renovation.

just go.

smile, maybe. or don’t.

there are worse crimes than being rude. murdering some gloating, gluttonous, arrogant prick is one of them.

now,

before you lower your pants in any public restroom, inspect the paper situation like a man checking ammunition before the last battle of a stupid war.

I learned this on May 7, 2026, in a "superstore" that was not super in any way known to God or plumbing.

there are dates that live in history. Pearl Harbor. the Kennedy assassination. the day I looked over at that empty cardboard roll and understood the cold machinery of fate.

also, on a related note,

never speak to the man in the next stall.

not even in desperation. not even if your life has become a brown emergency and your dignity is hanging by one trembling thread.

silence is sometimes the last clean thing a man owns.

in New York, never trust a bar restroom that makes you go downstairs.

nothing good lives below a bar except old pipes, wet floors, broken locks, and the kind of smell that makes a priest lose faith.

as for politics,

never engage in such a discussion with a true believer wearing his ignorance like a red carnival hat.

tell him to fuck off, then walk away before you start thinking reason is still alive somewhere in the room.

reason left early. probably took a cab.

at society parties, wear a loose jacket.

a man should always be prepared for weather, a beautiful, kind-hearted barmaid, war, and the sudden need to liberate a good bottle from people too rich to deserve it.

Camus Cabernet Sauvignon rides nicely under the left arm if you keep your face solemn and nod like you are pondering the future of civilization.

and finally,

never vote for the lesser evil and call it virtue.

evil with a good haircut is still evil.

evil with a flag pin is still evil.

a smaller pile of shit still draws flies.

that’s the whole lesson, really.

leave early. check the paper. don’t talk through bathroom walls. avoid stairways beneath bars. never discuss politics with morons. steal only from the comfortable. and don’t shake hands with evil just because it washed one finger.

take care and be well.

https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells

[pbwells3]

Staircase Memoirs

Staircase Memoirs by p.b. wells

I was the spine of the house, the hard crooked backbone holding up all their velvet, silver, manners, promises, and the rot underneath.

they wore polished shoes here. they came up my steps smelling of cologne, cigars, brandy, roses pinned to black coats, powder on the throats of women who had already learned how to smile while dying inside.

I heard the formal dinners below.

the crystal clinked. the knives flashed. the laughter rose in careful little bursts like trained birds.

then came the talk.

Land. Money. Politics. Marriage. who was sleeping with whom. who was failing. who was drinking too much. who would inherit. who had become an embarrassment and needed to be sent away quietly.

every family has its little songs of murder. most of them never need a knife.

there were weddings here too.

flowers, lace, candles, a trembling bride on my landing about to walk down and hand herself over like a signed receipt.

everyone smiled. everyone lied. later, I heard the same bride coming back up with a split lip, a dead look in her eyes, and a husband downstairs explaining to the guests that she was emotional.

there were parties.

sweet Jesus, the parties.

champagne, piano music, heels slipping on my steps, hands under dresses, mouths in the dark, young men with predator grins, old women whispering poison, servants moving like ghosts carrying trays through all that expensive filth.

I heard a girl cry in one of the upper rooms. I heard a man tell her not to make a scene. I heard money fix things that should have burned the whole place down.

I heard a shot once.

then silence.

then footsteps. then somebody praying not because they loved God but because they were scared shitless of consequences.

children ran up and down me too. they laughed. they hid. they grew up into the same hard faces and cold hearts as the bastards who made them.

and now?

now the house is gutted.

the wallpaper hangs like dead skin. rain leaks through the roof. the windows stare blindly into nothing. my railing is splintered. my steps are cracked. I carry only dust, rats, wind, and the weight of all that happened here.

no violins now. no candles. no perfume. only mold, ruin, and the long black breath of abandonment.

what do I see?

I see the truth after the costumes are gone. this place was never beautiful. it was only decorated.

what do I feel?

tired. cold. meaner than I used to be.

but not surprised.

people came here dressed as civilized creatures, and left behind the same old stink people always leave behind:

lust, greed, cowardice, violence, regret.

I go down and down into the dark center of it, circling what is left, and if the dead still gather here at night, I understand why.

hell likes old houses.

and old houses remember everything.

https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells

[pbwells3]

Going Home Soylent Green Style

Warning: This is a late-night, spur-of-the-moment, still-under-the-influence creation. That's the only way I can even think about the concept. If you have never watched the 1973 film "Soylent Green," you likely won't know what in Hell I am talking about.

Going Home Soylent Green Style by p.b. wells

watching Soylent Green with the Admiral sweating in the glass, I sit here thinking maybe the future doesn’t arrive with flying cars or silver suits or some clean little miracle from a lab.

maybe it arrives with a government clerk handing you a form and saying, when you’re tired enough, we have a room for that.

going home, they called it.

soft music. pretty pictures. a clean bed. the last kindness dressed up like theater.

and hell, part of me understands it.

that’s the dangerous part.

because life can wear a man down until the walls start whispering and the bottle looks like a priest who finally tells the truth.

but once a society builds a beautiful door out of here, it starts pushing people toward it.

the poor. the old. the sick. the inconvenient bastards who cost too much and complain too loud.

call it mercy and you can sell anything.

call it dignity and the murder looks polished.

maybe going home is a good idea only when the soul decides it and no one profits from the ticket.

maybe it is evil the second it becomes policy.

or maybe I’m just drunk on spiced rum, old cinema and the rotten suspicion that humanity will always find a way to turn even death into a business model.

the Admiral hasn’t said anything.

which, for once, is probably wisdom.

https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells

[pbwells3]

Flak!

Flak! by p.b. wells

writing is flying a B-17 over 1944 Berlin with one engine coughing, a cigarette dying between two fingers, and every small bastard on earth aiming at the sky.

flak from morons.

flak from MAGAts.

oops, same damn thing, different hat.

flak from the rhyme police who think a poem has to jingle like a ‘60s radio ad.

flak from teetotalers who see a bottle and start praying like it just crawled out of Hell.

flak from holy rollers with clean collars and dirty little fantasies, telling me God hates my language.

tell God to send edits.

they keep firing.

boom.

boom.

boom.

little black flowers open in the air.

they think they’ve got me.

they think I’ll turn back, apologize, write softer, rhyme nicer, kiss the proper rings and thank ‘em for saving my soul.

but the old bird keeps flying.

rattling, smoking, patched with bad mornings, bad nights and worse decisions.

and I’m up front grinning like a lunatic with both hands on the yoke.

below me are the tidy little towns where poems wear neckties, anger gets shaved, and truth is castrated.

so I open the bay doors.

I let the ugly little blessings fall.

one for the frauds.

one for the saints.

one for every idiot who thinks language should behave.

cruel?

yeah.

heartless?

sometimes.

fun?

you betcha.

the flak keeps coming, the flak keeps missing, and I keep flying with fire in the gut and one more beautiful bomb left in the language.

https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells

[pbwells3]

The Past Is Never Gone

The Past Is Never Gone by p.b. wells

there are nights when the wind laughs.

not out loud.

worse than that.

it laughs inside the walls, inside the glass, inside the little wet meat of my skull.

and I sit there, one worn-out man with a drink in his hand, grinning back at it like some poor bastard who has finally been told the pistol on the table has a bullet with his name on it.

good.

about time.

not weather. not thunder. not some holy choir warming up behind the clouds.

no.

this is better.

this is the old rot finally splitting open.

this is the lie standing naked under the cheap yellow bulb.

this is the moment I have carried in my mouth for years like a razor blade I was too proud to swallow.

I remember the room. I remember your hands. I remember the truth trying to crawl out while you smiled over it.

I was the ultimate witness.

you wore that practiced little smile while the truth bled out behind you.

you thought nobody knew.

you thought silence was safety.

you thought time was some kind of bleach that could wash the stench off your pretty hands.

oh, you beautiful, arrogant, stupid bitch.

time doesn't wash anything.

time keeps receipts.

time sharpens knives in the dark.

time sits at the end of the bar wearing my face and ordering another drink.

I knew you.

I knew your face. I knew your voice. I knew the soft little music of your lies coming down the hall.

and you knew me too.

don't pretend.

don't give me those wide eyes.

I have fed on those eyes in my sleep.

I have kissed them. cursed them. chewed them like gristle.

some nights I woke up laughing. laughing so hard I thought my ribs would crack open and birds would fly out.

no, no, no. not good birds.

big black ones.

hungry ones.

the kind that knows where the bodies are.

you locked your mouth like a snake keeps poison behind her teeth.

you thought it made you safe.

no.

it made you lucky.

for a while.

that's all.

and I kept quiet too.

but mine was not fear.

mine was cultivation.

mine was watering the grave.

mine was sitting in the dark with my rough hands folded like a lunatic saint, waiting for the first worm to break the surface.

the damage stayed. it fed in the walls. it got fat on the dark.

it learned my name.

it slept beside me. ate with me. watched television with me. stood behind me while I shaved.

I could see it in the mirror over my shoulder, smiling.

and now the wind is thick with the sweetness of it.

I could lick it off the walls.

I could bottle it and drink it warm.

this is not justice.

oh, no. justice is a courtroom word, a clean word, a word with polished shoes and soft hands.

this is better.

this is revelation with its dress ripped open.

this is revenge. revenge walking in slow through the front door while I sit there, a man almost ruined by waiting, giggling into my glass.

this is the old lie being dragged naked into the light by her ankles.

and there you are.

still trying to stand there like nothing happened.

but I know what happened.

I know what you did to me.

I know what you buried.

I know it all.

and I have waited.

how I have waited.

I have waited so long the waiting became a religion.

I built an altar out of it.

I lit candles.

I whispered your name into the dark like a curse and a love song and a joke only hell understood.

and now the moment is here.

fat. ripe. breathing.

in my chest.

under my tongue.

in my teeth.

crawling up my spine wearing spurs.

and I am happy.

do you understand that?

happy.

not healed. not clean. not saved.

happy in the ugliest, purest way a man can be happy.

nearly insane with it.

shaking with it.

cherishing it like a newborn monster held close to my chest.

so keep your silence, milady.

hold it tight.

press it to your throat.

it will not save you.

the wind knows.

the dark knows.

this broken old man knows.

and now, finally…

everyone will know.

https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells/art/The-Past-Is-Never-Gone-1330093743

[pbwells3]

When the Noise Dies

When the Noise Dies by p.b. wells

I started in the dark same as most of us do, groping around with a desire burning in my chest like it knew something my head didn’t.

that’s the joke, isn’t it?

the desire keeps pushing you forward while the mind sits on an overturned crate smoking cheap cigarettes drinking cheap gin saying, kid, you don’t know a goddamned thing.

and maybe I didn’t.

I was told I was too young, too green, too full of moonlight and bad ideas, like youth was some disease you were supposed to apologize for.

I was told I was just dreaming.

you bet your ass I was dreaming.

because the people who laugh at dreams usually traded theirs for a payroll check, a tired marriage, a television glowing in the dark like a false little god.

I was told to get practical, get serious, learn the rules.

well, I looked around and the rules looked like shit to me.

all the fear, all the wanting, all the names and cities and women and failures and nights that felt like they would never end.

and half the time I was too busy just holding myself together.

still, I wanted it all.

the whole broken carnival. I wanted roads with no maps. I wanted train stations at midnight. I wanted strange bars in strange towns with strange women where nobody knew my name and nobody gave a damn. I wanted to stay young enough to believe the next morning might actually mean something.

that’s the real sickness, maybe.

hope.

dirty, stubborn, ridiculous hope.

and love, too.

that flashy little bastard.

love standing there in the corner like the grand prize at a rigged county fair, smiling like it’s worth every busted tooth and empty pocket.

maybe it is.

maybe the whole rotten trip is just stumbling through the dark thinking you’re headed nowhere, thinking you’re a fool, thinking you’re late, thinking you missed the turn years ago.

when all along you were just becoming whatever and whoever the hell you are.

and you don’t even know it.

that’s the killer.

you think you’re lost because nobody hands you a clean map, because wisdom doesn’t come with a brass band and a bottle of good whiskey, because getting older doesn’t mean getting better, just harder to fool, harder to kill with pretty lies.

so if it’s all some long crooked lesson, if one day I wake up gray and wrinkled with a little more sense and a little less fire, fine.

when the noise dies. when the fake kings choke on their advice. when I can look back at myself and say yeah, that dumb son of a bitch was wandering, but at least he was moving.

because all this time I thought I was failing, missing the point.

all this time I was stumbling in the dark with my bruised, tired desire and my empty pockets and my glorious lack of a plan.

and I never even knew it:

that it was the only way to find anything worth keeping.

https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells

[pbwells3]

Loyalty

Loyalty by p.b. wells

Loyalty is a dangerous word.

it gets waved around by men in suits, by men in uniforms, by loud bastards on podiums who never seem to be the ones bleeding for it.

they tell you to love your country and maybe you do. maybe you love the rivers, the back roads, the tired little houses, the cracked city sidewalks, the old woman buying canned soup with shaking hands, the kid on the bus with big eyes still dumb enough to believe this whole thing might turn out decent.

that’s country.

government is something else.

government is offices, orders, flags pinned to lapels, smiling liars with polished shoes, greased mouths, and a talent for making cruelty sound like duty.

and sometimes the two walk together. sometimes they don’t.

that’s where the real test comes in, not in the parades, not in the anthem, not in all that swollen patriotic horseshit people love to perform for each other.

the real test comes when loyalty to your country and loyalty to your government split apart like rotten wood under too much weight.

then what?

then you choose.

choose carefully.

because great nations have gone to hell that way. great empires too. not always because the enemy was stronger, but because the people got stupid, or scared, or lazy, or hungry for permission to stop thinking.

they confused obedience with honor.

they mistook submission for virtue.

they handed their conscience over to uniforms, to slogans, to loudmouths promising safety while setting the goddamn house on fire.

by the time they figured it out, the jails were full, the streets were quiet, the truth was bleeding out in alleys, and the flags still waved like nothing had happened.

so no, they are not always the same.

country is the people, the soil, the broken heart of the place.

government is the machine.

and when the machine turns against the heart, you better know which one deserves your loyalty.

because history is full of graves dug by people who chose wrong.

https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells

[pbwells3]

The Truth or the Grave

The Truth or the Grave by p.b. wells

here it is plain and ugly:

we can't learn a damn thing from the mistakes of the past if the truth is locked in a basement with its teeth kicked in.

you can dress a lie in a flag, stand it on a stage, make it sing patriotic songs, make school kids salute it, make preachers bless it, make politicians hump it for votes and television,

but it's still a lie, still stinks, still rots through the floorboards of a country like bad meat.

and we can't make amends for the old wounds, the stolen lives, the blood dried into the bricks, the names ground into dust, if we don't have the truth.

you can't apologize for what you keep denying. you can't heal what you keep covering up. you can't wash your hands while they're still busy shoving the evidence under the rug.

that's the joke, isn't it?

a nation wants redemption without confession. wants innocence without memory. wants a shining future built on a septic tank of bullshit.

but the past doesn't die because some loudmouth in a suit says it didn't happen that way. the dead don't disappear because textbooks get edited and cameras get turned away. the truth sits there patient as a hammer, waiting.

and we can't build a future without it.

not a real one.

not one worth a damn.

all we'll build is another crooked house on another cracked foundation, another anthem for another collapse, another generation taught to grin while the walls burn.

our nation will not survive on slogans, or denial, or the cheap narcotic of pretending.

it will survive only if it has the guts the backbone the raw miserable strength to look itself dead in the face and say:

yes. we did this. yes. it happened. yes. we lied. yes. we were cruel. yes. we were cowards.

and then maybe, just maybe, with the truth standing naked in the hard light, we can begin again

not clean, not innocent, not holy,

but honest,

and in times like these honest is about as close to salvation as we're going to get.

https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells/art/The-Truth-or-the-Grave-1316409458

[pbwells3]

With Mia at 3 a.m.

With Mia at 3 a.m. by p.b. wells

it’s 3 a.m. cold as a bastard in the Fortress, mid-March acting like January's meaner cousin, rain, snow, wind in the high thirties gusting like the whole damn world wants to tear the shingles loose and carry this place off to hell.

I sit with the Admiral. my old wet nurse of bad nights, waiting for my mind to wander into some decent gutter, some harmless little memory about a barstool or a busted jukebox or the shape of headlights on wet pavement.

but it doesn't.

it keeps dragging me back to Mia.

that wasn't her real name, but names are funny things, they can still bleed after all these years, so Mia will do.

we met in college because theatre people always find each other, the poor beautiful lunatics painting castles on plywood and pretending the world can be fixed with lights, costumes, and a good final act.

I liked acting and writing. she liked costume and set design. we were young enough to think love was a hammer and the world was some cheap wall we could knock through.

things got serious fast. that's how it happens when you're too dumb to be afraid and too alive to pretend otherwise.

by the end of spring we decided we'd marry.

I went home that weekend and told my parents.

my father shut it down so fast you'd think I'd announced I was joining a firing squad.

I don't remember the exact words. you never remember the exact words when the knife goes in. you remember the look, the ownership in it, the stale righteousness.

he forbade it.

why?

because Mia's skin was a little darker than what he wanted in the family bloodline.

that's it.

strip the tuxedo off prejudice and there it is, standing naked, ugly and ignorant, telling you who you can love.

we fought for an hour, maybe more, saying the kind of things men say when pride is cornered and blood starts talking louder than sense.

then I got in my car and drove back to school with my hands locked on the wheel like I was strangling the goddamn road.

next weekend we went to her parents.

I had met them before. nice enough people on the surface. her mother was kind. her father knew how to smile the way some men know how to lock a door without making a sound.

after dinner Mia and her mother went to the kitchen and he took me out back.

we looked at his garden. tomatoes, maybe. beans. some quiet green things trying to live in straight lines.

he asked about my goals, my plans, the usual fatherly bullshit before he got to the real sermon.

then he said it.

he would not allow me to marry his daughter.

why?

I was not Catholic. I was not Hispanic.

clean words. neat words. respectable words.

funny how bigotry likes to shave and put on a tie.

I looked in his eyes and I knew arguing was useless. not because he was right. hell no. but because his reasons were bricks in a wall he'd been building all his life and I was just one more fool standing there with bare hands.

when Mia and her mother came back, I saw it in her face.

her mother had handed her the same poison in a prettier glass.

the drive back to campus was the longest hour I ever lived through.

two kids in love trapped between two families each waving their own sacred garbage.

the choice was simple, which is to say it was impossible.

marry and be exiled from both tribes

or walk away and let the good thing die before the rest of the world could beat it to death.

we went our separate ways.

I transferred schools. to a Catholic college, which is the kind of ironic joke life tells when feeling cruel, when it's had too much to drink.

for a while there were letters, phone calls, the sad machinery of trying to keep a fire alive through wires and envelopes.

then less of them.

then none.

that's how most heartbreak ends. not with thunder, not with violins, just silence showing up one day and deciding to stay.

so here I am now, many years later, with the Admiral in my glass and the wind outside raising hell at the windows, thinking about a girl I did not stop loving so much as fail to carry.

maybe that's why she came back tonight.

maybe memory is just a drunk bastard too, stumbling through the halls opening doors you nailed shut decades ago.

or maybe fate wanted to remind me that racism doesn't just burn crosses or spit slurs or strut around in uniforms like some proud diseased peacock.

sometimes it sits at dinner tables. sometimes it tends gardens. sometimes it says grace. sometimes it calls itself tradition or faith or family or what's best.

and then it reaches into two young lives and rips out the future with clean hands.

people talk about bigotry like it only wounds the obvious target.

bullshit.

it wounds everybody it touches.

the wounds just travel differently.

and just as deep.

https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells/art/With-Mia-at-3-a-m-1314124379

[pbwells3]

Sniper Alley

The Siege of Sarajevo began on April 5, 1992, when Bosnian Serb forces and the Yugoslav People's Army encircled the city. It is often cited as the longest siege in modern warfare, lasting 1,425 days and ending on February 29, 1996. Nearly four years. One street became the symbol of the daily Hell… Sniper Alley.

Sniper Alley by p.b. wells

they called it Sniper Alley like it was some tourist stop, like you could buy a postcard and a cheap magnet and go home.

Ulica Zmaja od Bosne, Meša Selimović Boulevard, Sarajevo, a clean spine of a city that connected the factories and the airport to the old stones where history used to sit and smoke in peace.

high-rises lined up like a perfect set of teeth, windows cut into concrete for men with rifles and nothing human left in them but appetite.

and the mountains, those gorgeous damn mountains, forests and farmland rolling out like the gods were showing off, because of course they were.

distance is safety when you are hunting people.

you still had to cross. you still had to move. bread doesn’t deliver itself. water doesn’t appear because you “deserve it.” a kid still needs medicine. a mother still needs to find whatever passes for work when the city is being slowly strangled.

so you learned the choreography of staying alive in a place built to kill you.

signs went up: Pazi – Snajper! watch out sniper.

as if the street didn’t already say it with every shattered window and every black stain that used to be somebody’s name.

people waited for the UN armor like it was a holy procession, then walked behind it, tight, close, using that metal belly as a shield, as if shame could stop a bullet.

and sometimes you ran. not heroic, not cinematic, just the ugly sprint of a human animal trying to outrun hate.

one thousand thirty wounded, two hundred twenty-five killed, sixty kids. sixty. children.

a number that should make every flag in the world burn itself.

and the worst part is it wasn’t in some wasteland. it was in a place so beautiful you could feel your chest crack open just looking at it.

mountains framing the city like a painting. buildings that stood for centuries, stone and craft and patience, turned into rubble because a man with a rifle decided your last name was a crime.

because of that gene we pretend we don’t have, that exclusive human talent for turning difference into permission.

ethnic hate. nationalistic hate. racial hate. religious hate.

hate, plain, dumb, proud hate, dressed up in speeches and uniforms and history lessons that always skip the blood.

and the city kept living anyway, because what else can you do when you wake up and your only choice is to cross the street or starve?

so you cross. you pray to no one. you run fast. you keep your head down. you keep moving.

and somewhere up above, in a window or on a mountain, a man watches a beautiful world and chooses to ruin it one body at a time.

https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells/art/Sniper-Alley-1311143667

[pbwells3]

I Have Failed Many Times

I Have Failed Many Times by p.b. wells

anyone who says they are not afraid of failure is lying.

believe me, they are lying.

no bullshit, they are lying.

they dress it up in clean words, post it on a wall, sell it as a scent called Confidence.

but the truth is uglier and way more honest.

in “Southern Cross,” Jimmy Buffett says, “Think about how many times I have fallen.” and that line sits there like a rum bottle on a table that’s seen too many midnights, too many promises, too many damn near.

to me, however, fallen is too eloquent a word for failure.

and I have failed many times. some of it loud. some of it quiet. some of it with witnesses. some of it with only the ceiling fan watching me spin.

and I’m damn sure I will fail many more times in the future.

because what else is there if you’re actually doing something?

people love to talk about courage. they want a medal pinned to their busted jacket. they want to be the hero in a story that never sweats.

but courage doesn’t have shit to do with failure.

failure doesn’t care how brave you feel. failure doesn’t check your résumé. failure doesn’t clap for effort. it just shows up like a bill you forgot you owed.

so it’s not about having the courage to face it. it’s about not caring about the odds.

it’s about waking up and placing your chips on the table again even when the table has already chewed you up and spit you out like gristle.

it’s about accepting failures as the price of doing what you want to do, what you have to do, what you love to do.

because it doesn’t matter what you do. you will either succeed or you will fail. that’s the deal. that’s the whole damn menu.

and if you decide not to try because the result is gonna be one or the other and you don’t like a certain one of those outcomes, then you’re only going to live half a life.

half a life.

a life where you stand outside the door listening to the music and calling it wisdom because you didn’t go in.

a life where you skip the road trip, skip the kiss, skip the fight, skip the canvas, skip the page, skip the leap, skip the messy, shining disaster that might have been yours.

you’re going to take a pass on a helluva lot of experiences.

and those experiences are the pieces that make you, the bruises that teach you, the sparks that drive you to do what you must.

it ain’t courage.

it’s love.

love of the thing itself. love of the work. love of the sweat and the stubbornness. love of the strange little fire that keeps burning even after you’ve poured rum on it and called it a night.

love is what drags you back to the table. love is what shoves your hand forward when your brain is screaming don’t do it again, you idiot.

love is what makes failure just the admission fee.

so yeah, I have failed many times.

and if I’m lucky, I’ll fail many more.

because that means I kept going in. kept paying. kept playing. kept living the whole messy thing while the music was still on.

https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells/art/I-Have-Failed-Many-Times-1305932483

[pbwells3]

Opinions and Other Outlandish Bullshit

Opinions and Other Outlandish Bullshit by p.b. wells

Lemme start by saying I am in the middle of a long, happy argument with the Admiral, and Jimmy Buffett is back there floating through the room like a drunk uncle with a guitar who somehow knows exactly when to shut up and when to sing.

So yes, my inhibition shield is gone. kicked under the table. spilled on. probably on fire.

I apologize in advance for any bruises to your precious opinions, your political team colors, your holy books, your bedroom banners, your Sunday rituals, your fantasy leagues, your sacred cows, your blessed quarterbacks, your favorite talking head with the lacquered hair and the smile of a tax audit.

I really do.

and if the insult is deserved, well, hell, think of it as routine maintenance.

because everybody now has an opinion like it is a license to drive a bulldozer through somebody else’s life.

everybody is certain. everybody is a prophet. everybody is a goddamn expert with barbecue sauce on their shirt and half a headline in their head.

they pound the table about freedom, about morality, about decency, about family values, about what other people ought to do with their bodies, their money, their prayers, their beers, their knees, their grief.

and the funny part is most of them can’t run their own goddamn lives for ten straight minutes.

they lose keys. they duck phone calls. they lie to lovers. they cheat at cards. they cry in parking lots. they drink light beer and call it discipline.

me, I’m no king here. I’m just another fool with a glass in hand and too much mileage on the soul, listening to Buffett grin through the speakers while the Admiral fires back with that sharp look that says I am full of shit and maybe he is right.

probably is.

maybe we are all full of shit.

opinions and other outlandish bullshit, stacked to the ceiling, sold by the pound, wrapped in flags and halos and team jerseys.

still, it passes the night.

it keeps the blood moving.

and sometimes between the noise and the swagger and the cheap certainties,

somebody says one honest thing

and the whole room goes quiet like a church that just got caught with its hand in the till.

https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells/art/Opinions-and-Other-Outlandish-Bullshit-1303448176

[pbwells3]

Man Down! Man Down!

Man Down! Man Down! by p.b. wells

he is folded at the base of a column like somebody set him down there with the rest of the trash and forgot pickup day

hood up hands locked boots out in front of him like he’s trying to keep his body from sliding off the planet

a guy walks past phone in hand probably filming a joke probably texting somebody about dinner probably not seeing a goddamn thing

this is the part where we say that is sad that is terrible that should not happen then we step over him and buy coffee

a singular tragedy copied and pasted city to city block to block small town to big skyline same cold pavement same human being slowly erased in public

what is his name Miguel Thomas Idris something his mother said softly when he was five something a first-grade teacher read off a list something a lover once moaned into his ear

how did he get here one layoff one bad landlord one busted knee one bottle too many one hospital bill one war that came home inside his head one winter that did not care

how long has he been there long enough for people to stop asking

does he have family are they looking did they quit did he quit does he even care anymore or is caring a luxury for people with a door that locks

we call this a fact of life like rain like taxes like traffic as if misery is weather as if this man is just climate

the truth is uglier

we got used to it that is all we trained our eyes to blur trained our hearts to clock out trained our mouths to say nothing can be done

and that might be the filthiest lie of all

because while he sits there breathing in the dark we are the ones going numb we are the ones disappearing piece by piece excuse by excuse until one day somebody steps over us and doesn’t even break stride.

* * * *

The inspiration for this poem was a photograph titled "Phone" by M00nChi1d78 at www.deviantart.com/m00nchi1d78. It struck instantly, and it struck me hard. It did so because of the moment's poignancy and the photographer's skill in capturing it. I am grateful for permission to use it for publication.

Photo link: https://www.deviantart.com/m00nchi1d78/art/phone-1278496943

https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells/art/Man-Down-Man-Down-1298072096

[pbwells3]

The Whale

The Whale by p.b. wells

I didn’t come out here expecting a miracle. I came out here because the room was too small and because my head was doing that thing where it chews the same rotten thoughts like a dog with an old bone.

gray sky. cold water. hills sitting back there like they’d seen it all already.

I’m standing around with my hands in my pockets, trying not to be me.

then he comes up.

not a polite rise, not some shy fin like a half-hearted handshake, but a whole goddamn mountain breaking the surface like the ocean finally decided to show off.

a humpback, black and scarred and heavy with years, barnacles like old medals pinned to his skin. he throws himself into the air as if the laws of gravity are just suggestions, as if he’s sick of the deep for one glorious second and wants the open world, the gray light, the vast, stupid sky.

and the splash is a hard applause. white spray everywhere, like the sea laughing with its mouth full.

he lands back in his element and keeps going, because that’s what whales do. breathe. dive. carry their giant heart through miles of water. sing low and secret where we can’t follow. eat when they feel like it, travel because something inside them says move, and never once check a clock.

and me, standing there in my small body, with all my cheap worries, I feel it.

the simple beauty of it, this massive creature just living, not trying to impress anyone, not selling anything, not begging for attention, just existing with power and grace like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

and seeing him does something clean to my brain.

for a moment I’m not a broken machine, counting money and regrets. not tired, not full of noise.

I’m just alive, standing on the edge of the world, getting blessed by a whale who doesn’t know my name and doesn’t need to.

he goes back down, and the water smooths over, like nothing happened.

but something did.

I walk back to my room lighter, like the ocean reached into my ribs and pulled out one small piece of darkness and tossed it into the deep.

https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells/art/The-Whale-1295361051