It's a marked contrast to the casual summer-heat unrefined wild of Lochlan, everything unexpected and magic hour all the time to the punctual formality and predictable neatness of Caleb, ironed down and dark. Perfect.
And then in the middle there's Batman, still off-limits, still playing emotional hooky, still mysterious but somehow just playful and engaged enough and just enough of a safe haven to see me unwilling to choose sides when life is a dodecagon anyway, and I don't have to so long as I defer to the hierarchy they made and gosh, I'll never not be twelve and having the list drilled into my head of who I go to first and then who next if they're not there and never go to x when y is around because x would be jumping a very cemented seniority that began for them in grade school but never seemed important at all until I showed up.
But Batman wasn't even in my life until my early twenties and so he isn't really a part of the list or the hierarchy and there is no rhyme or reason to this poem but maybe that's why I like it. And maybe his refusal to put away his checkbook in spite of me asking him for clear direction on what sugar he wanted makes this less daunting than keeping up with Caleb, overall. Caleb has a passionate, crushing, needy and dangerous way about him that keeps me more scared than excited. He's that bad boy you know damn well will mortally wound you but you can't stay away.
Batman? Not so much. He doesn't give a shit, though he lies and tells me exactly what I want to hear. He is content maybe moreso than he lets on. He is fine. And yet here I am, and there is his checkbook. Though it's digital now. He just has to log in and press a button and all of my immediate problems are solved. He just has to extend an offer of some time and I suddenly have hundreds of minutes to spend.
For Christmas this year I got another deposit. More than he gave me for summer vacation, more than Caleb has extended in a while, enough to change my name and fake my own death save for the fact that I'm too curious for my own good. I got a lecture on market growth that I didn't even need. Batman went into full dad mode which made it even weirder. Maybe I'm always going to be twenty to him, always wide-eyed at the sight of more than a thousand dollars, always hungry and one missed cheque away from being homeless, always ready to sell the only thing I have that everyone needs but no one wants because it's the way they raised me.
Smile for them, Bridgie, and the world is yours. And so I turned back toward Batman and gave it everything I had.
I was gone before the ink was dry but it isn't smudged, and I definitely don't have to worry about being homeless now.
And then in the middle there's Batman, still off-limits, still playing emotional hooky, still mysterious but somehow just playful and engaged enough and just enough of a safe haven to see me unwilling to choose sides when life is a dodecagon anyway, and I don't have to so long as I defer to the hierarchy they made and gosh, I'll never not be twelve and having the list drilled into my head of who I go to first and then who next if they're not there and never go to x when y is around because x would be jumping a very cemented seniority that began for them in grade school but never seemed important at all until I showed up.
But Batman wasn't even in my life until my early twenties and so he isn't really a part of the list or the hierarchy and there is no rhyme or reason to this poem but maybe that's why I like it. And maybe his refusal to put away his checkbook in spite of me asking him for clear direction on what sugar he wanted makes this less daunting than keeping up with Caleb, overall. Caleb has a passionate, crushing, needy and dangerous way about him that keeps me more scared than excited. He's that bad boy you know damn well will mortally wound you but you can't stay away.
Batman? Not so much. He doesn't give a shit, though he lies and tells me exactly what I want to hear. He is content maybe moreso than he lets on. He is fine. And yet here I am, and there is his checkbook. Though it's digital now. He just has to log in and press a button and all of my immediate problems are solved. He just has to extend an offer of some time and I suddenly have hundreds of minutes to spend.
For Christmas this year I got another deposit. More than he gave me for summer vacation, more than Caleb has extended in a while, enough to change my name and fake my own death save for the fact that I'm too curious for my own good. I got a lecture on market growth that I didn't even need. Batman went into full dad mode which made it even weirder. Maybe I'm always going to be twenty to him, always wide-eyed at the sight of more than a thousand dollars, always hungry and one missed cheque away from being homeless, always ready to sell the only thing I have that everyone needs but no one wants because it's the way they raised me.
Smile for them, Bridgie, and the world is yours. And so I turned back toward Batman and gave it everything I had.
I was gone before the ink was dry but it isn't smudged, and I definitely don't have to worry about being homeless now.