#pbwells

[pbwells3]

The Man Who Says He Hates War

The Man Who Says He Hates War by p.b. wells

there is a man who says he hates war.

he says it slow, like he is reading off the label of a bottle he cannot afford, trying to sound dignified while his tie cuts off the blood to his already empty head.

he says he hates war then starts licking his lips every time a map comes out.

he hates war but he wants Greenland, talks about taking it by force, if necessary, like a drunk uncle eyeing the neighbor’s truck.

he hates war but he wants to annex Canada, the quiet kid at the back of the class who never bothered anybody, and now this clown wants to slap a collar on him and drag him across the border for the hell of it.

he hates war but he talks about invading Mexico like he is ordering extra guac, easy, casual, as if cities do not burn the same way his toast does.

he hates war but Venezuela is on the menu too, another place he cannot spell, a country he thinks is only gasoline and brown faces that owe him something.

he hates war but he wants the Panama Canal back like a spoiled child screaming for a toy he already broke once.

he hates war so much he ordered the bombing of Syria, like it was a fireworks show, something to impress the neighbors.

he hates war so hard he ordered the bombing of Iran, a place he probably confuses with an athletics store, lights it up anyway because nothing says peace like high-tech bombers and drones.

he hates war so deeply he bombed Yemen, a starving country already on its knees, and then had the balls to shrug like he had dropped a napkin.

he hates war and that is why there are missile strikes and murders in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific, just to show the fish who is the boss.

all this in less than a year, a calendar soaked in blood and hypocrisy, and he waddles out in front of cameras to tell us he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.

Nobel. Peace. Prize.

I have heard some absurd shit in my time. I have watched preachers with cocaine on their collars, cops crying about fear with their knees on necks, CEOs weeping on television while firing ten thousand people through a memo.

but this, this is the top shelf of bullshit, the theatre of the absurd with overpriced popcorn, brought to you by a nation asleep at the wheel, snoring in the backseat while this bloated little driver aims the taxi at anything that moves.

thank you, America, for the fuckup of all fuckups, for dressing a thug in a suit and calling him a savior, for handing him the launch codes and a box of crayons and saying, go ahead, draw us a better world.

maybe the world, if it survives, will somehow, some way, someday find it in whatever tattered heart it has left to forgive you.

but tonight, out here in the cheap seats, watching the sky for the next peace-loving missile, it feels more likely that the universe itself is leaning back, lighting a cigarette, and laughing in your face.

https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells/art/The-Man-Who-Says-He-Hates-War-1271884915

[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]

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]

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]

I Am Still Here, You Bastards

I Am Still Here, You Bastards by p.b. wells

She sits at the corner of the world on a chipped white slab of a table under a light that looks like it got drunk and forgot where to fall.

face in profile, hand propping up her skull like she is tired of carrying it. hair a mess that used to be styled back when she still believed anyone was worth impressing.

bottle on the table, dark, patient, smug. glass of something the color of a cheap sunrise in front of her, catching the light like it knows it is the only holy thing left in the room.

she is not glamorous. forget that bullshit. her shirt is wrinkled, sleeves shoved up to the elbows like she just fought with the day in a parking lot and lost.

there is a smell of citrus cleaner, old sweat, fried food, and the gentle stink of people who gave up quietly.

you could put a fancy frame around her and some museum prick would start talking about shadow and contrast, the tragic beauty of isolation. what it really is is a human being, tired as hell, trying not to scream in a place where screaming only gets you thrown out.

her eyes have that burned out highway look, like she has driven too far on too little sleep and the exits all disappeared about five years ago.

the glass sweats on the table. she sweats inside her bones.

every few minutes she lifts it to her mouth in one smooth tired motion, no drama, no toast, no bullshit. just the slow private agreement between her and that small golden lie.

people say alcohol is poison. they are right, but they forget that some days you would rather swallow poison than the raw, uncut daylight that waits outside.

she takes another sip. her throat works like a machine that has been repaired too many times.

across the room some shaved ape laughs at a joke about his ex-wife. he laughs like a drain unclogging. she does not look. she has already dated enough versions of that sound.

under the table, her foot taps once, twice, then stops, like even the nervous system is on strike.

she had a name that sounded like it belonged on invitations. years ago. before the wrong men and the wrong jobs and the wrong mornings looking in the mirror thinking, well, shit, this again.

tonight the bottle knows her better than anyone she has ever slept beside. it does not ask what happened. it does not tell her she is overreacting or too sensitive or should be grateful to even have a job.

it just waits for her fingers to curl around the neck and for gravity to do its stupid, faithful work.

she is not chasing some wild party. this is not fun. this is maintenance. like changing the oil on a busted car just to keep it from exploding on the freeway.

you can judge if you want. the world is full of clean fingernails and filthy hearts who love to judge.

here is what they do not see.

yesterday, she watched her boss smile with all his teeth and tell her to work late again because the numbers looked bad and he needed someone to bleed quietly so he could keep his bonus.

last month her landlord raised the rent because he can. because the town council is a pack of polite thieves who hold meetings about how best to fuck the poor without messing up their suits.

last year the man who promised her forever packed up his playlists and his favorite coffee mug and walked out the door with a shrug that said, this got hard.

no tragic violin soundtrack. just the sound of his tires rolling away, soft as a cough.

so now she sits with her personal little sun in a glass. need, escape, ritual, surrender, all of it mixed together like a dirty cocktail no one taught her how to refuse.

she does not pound it down. this is not a race. she drinks with the patience of a condemned saint. one slow swallow at a time, just enough to sand down the edges of the voices in her head.

you know those voices. the ones that say, you fucked it up, you always fuck it up, you will die alone in an apartment that smells like spoiled milk and someone will find you because the neighbors complain about the odor.

the drink does not erase them. it just turns the volume from screaming to muttering, and sometimes that is all a person needs to get through one more filthy evening without walking into traffic.

her wrist is pale in the harsh light, tendons like wires. there is a small scar across the knuckles, old, white, a souvenir from some forgotten argument with a door or a wall or the face of someone who earned it.

she looks at the glass the way people used to look at the sky.

I swear there is a prayer in it, something small and bitter, like, please, just give me a break, one simple goddamn break, or at least numb me enough so it does not matter.

the bartender polishes the same spot on the counter like he is trying to erase the place. he knows her order without words. that is not romance. that is inventory.

still, she is grateful. grateful for the way he sets the bottle down without making eye contact, like he understands the humiliation of needing anything this badly.

she takes another mouthful. throat, chest, a soft, dirty heat. no fireworks, just a tired little candle flickering behind the ribs, saying, here, sit by me a while, I will keep you company until the world stops barking.

there is a clock on the wall that does not give a shit about her. the hands crawl, sharp and smug. somewhere in that slow crawl the line between choosing to drink and needing to drink dissolved a long time ago.

but you will not hear her say she has a problem. people love that phrase. they love to stick it on other people like a label on a jar.

she does not have a problem. she has a life that weighs too much, and this cheap amber shoulder to lean on for a few hours before the next round of stupid miracles and small humiliations.

from a distance she looks calm, almost serene. get closer and you can see the tiny tremor in her fingers as the glass goes down and comes back up again.

she is not stupid. she knows this is a slow-motion suicide, the gentle kind, the socially acceptable kind, where you do not jump off a bridge you just let your nights lean forward millimeter by millimeter until one day you cannot remember what it felt like to stand straight.

still, there is something fierce in her. a little middle finger to the universe every time she pours another.

you want me miserable, fine, I will be miserable on my own terms. I will choose the poison. I will choose the speed. you can take your inspirational quotes and shove them where the sun never clocks in.

this is not a cry for help. this is a woman sitting alone with her chosen burn and saying,

I am still here, you bastards. not happy, not healed, not holy, but here.

and for tonight that is enough.

so the bottle waits, the glass glows, the light carves her out of the dark, and the whole sad, beautiful mess keeps breathing, one rough, vulgar, stubborn breath at a time.

https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells/art/I-Am-Still-Here-You-Bastards-1277043642

I Am Still Here, You Bastards From the eclectic art of P.B. Wells.

Observance and reflection… nothing more. Take care and be well.

[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]

The Day They Killed Big Boy

The Day They Killed Big Boy by p.b. wells

He was never supposed to matter. just plastic and paint, that fat kid with the pompadour and the stupid happy face, holding a tray of food above his head like it was the Holy Grail of cholesterol.

He was drafted into the mascot wars. Ronald McDonald in his clown drag. the Burger King freak with his dead eyes. Wendy with the pigtails and that frozen smirk. Chuck E. Cheese and his rabid rodent grin. a whole circus of plastic gods, smiling like they knew something you did not.

Big Boy was my guy. my corner of the circus.

That restaurant was never fancy. and never pretended to be. decent food at a decent price. no white tablecloths. no wine list that reads like scripture. but it wasn’t a dive either. no broken jukebox, no drunk in the corner pissing himself.

It was middle-class. that rare sweet spot where you don’t feel like a fraud and you don’t feel like trash. I could walk in, sit down, and for an hour or two I belonged to something.

Late nights after closing the theater, I would head over there, slide into that booth and let burgers and fries pull me back down to earth.

Other times, it was after an all-nighter with what passed for friends, eyes red, heads ringing, every joke suddenly the funniest thing on the planet. we would stumble in there, order way too much food, and pretend we were going somewhere in life.

And there were mornings, too. the ugly kind, when the sun felt like an interrogation lamp and coffee was the only thing standing between me and a nervous breakdown. I would sit with eggs, toast, and that big idiot statue outside the window, keeping watch like a chubby little saint of the working stiff.

Now it is rubble. gone. torn out of the dirt so some corporate son of a bitch can slap a convenience store on top of it, tie it to a gas station and call it progress.

Because if there is one thing we need, it’s another fluorescent hellhole selling lottery tickets, cheap booze, and gas that costs too much. these places pop up like boils on the ass of the earth, ugly little demons from Hell with automatic doors.

They say Big Boy did not go in the dumpster. rumor is he’s hiding somewhere, tucked away in a warehouse or some guy's backyard, waiting for the day someone gives a damn again.

Maybe he will rise one more time, wipe off the dust, step back onto a sidewalk outside some new place that tries to be honest.

Or maybe he is done. maybe he is resting on the quiet, invisible laurels of a job well done. years of holding that tray, watching kids grow up, watching couples fight and make up, watching me drag my tired ass in and out.

For me, it’s simple. one more piece of my map has been ripped away.

One more friend gone. one more corner of the world that used to feel safe scraped off and paved over.

People say change is good. they talk about growth, about new opportunities.

Most days, it just feels like a loss. like someone keeps sneaking in at night, stealing the landmarks that kept you from getting lost, and replacing them with places that don’t know your name.

I don’t like it. I don’t like this kind of change at all.

I miss that stupid statue. I miss the cheap coffee. I miss the feeling of walking through that door and thinking, yeah, this is my level. this is where I fit.

Now when I drive by, all I’ll see is bright lights, gas pumps, and a sign I don’t care about.

Big Boy is missing, and so is one more small proof that the world was once a little less empty than it is tonight.

https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells/art/The-Day-They-Killed-Big-Boy-1266669463

[pbwells3]

From Zippy

For context, you may wish to read "Zippy," available on my DeviantArt gallery. One year ago, Zippy left me.

From Zippy by p.b. wells

I wasn't looking for a home. I had the street. it had rhythm and rot. it had the kind of silence only empty bottles and late-night drunks understand. but then you showed up with your hands full of worry and that dumb soft voice, like you were talking to a ghost, you hoped would listen.

I watched you for days. you smelled like coffee and deadlines. you walked like you had bricks in your pockets. but you looked at me like I mattered. so I walked in. simple as that.

I picked the spots I liked. didn’t ask. didn’t explain. top of the dining table? Mine. that beat-up recliner? Mine too… once you were in it. I’d sit on your lap, just long enough to remind you the world wasn’t all bills and regrets. you needed a heater. I was warm. we had a deal.

that window at night? that was my cinema. no plot. just cars slicing the dark, the occasional deer running from headlights or a raccoon running from nothing. you’d shuffle through the house like a ghost, mumbling to the walls, and I’d wait for you to settle so I could come do my job: silent company. soft purring. the whole goddamn spa treatment for a soul I knew was tired.

you scratched behind my ear like you meant it. not many humans do things like that. not without wanting something back. but you just… did it, like it was the only way you knew to show love, without asking for anything in return. I liked that.

I felt it coming. the end. the slowing. the stillness behind the stillness. my legs stopped listening. the dark got darker. but I stayed until I couldn’t.

and now you sit in that chair like you’re waiting for a ghost. you stare at the window like I did. you shuffle through the house like you’re made of sleep. but I was there. I was there. and you were good to me. better than most.

don’t let the silence fool you: I didn’t just vanish. some part of me is still purring right there, between your damn ribs.

remember me.

https://www.deviantart.com/pbwells