#billy wild

[missfilmnoir]

Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard (1950), Billy Wilder

[jerseynoir]

Tonight’s Watch - a Fred and Barbra double feature

[cosmosgarden]

Some Like It Hot (1959)

[anarres-calling]

Billy Wild

Billy Wild plays alone in the ditch behind the school, The naked slope side another place, another time. In five years, fresh grass unrolls over the crags, the valleys, the ancient cities, But Billy’s too old to remember the stories anyways.

This was long before they knew adjectives were monsters, Long before they learned that they were one too. Long before they learned monsters don’t live in closets, Long before they learned monsters die in ditches.

Billy Wild plays alone with wolves in West Virginia, In a yard with high, virgin-white fences. In five years, they find Allison’s house On the edge of the tiny town That’s there whenever they remember to squint.

Billy Wild reads Judith Butler on a flight to Athens, And sits next to Audre heading back to New York City. Billy Wild sees a face on a billboard. Billy Wild sees a face in the mirror. Billy Wild doesn’t know why they’re not them.

This was long before they knew fragments were all that was left, Long before their weapon was a cage, Before epistemology and genealogy, In the days when they never spoke their name.

Billy sings in the cathedral, And sells out the theatre on Queen. Billy’s been there for longer than you remember, And they’ll be there long after you leave.

But long before our bodies are battlefields no longer, Long before the ashes of all empires fall like snow, Billy Wild is dying in a hospital, While down the hall Billy Wild is being born.