The world ends in 422 days

If I asked you, would you have dinner with me on Friday?

If I asked you, would you go to the movies with me on Saturday?

If I asked you, would you run hand in hand with me to the edge of a cliff and then right off the cliff, yelling and screaming as loud as we can, kissing each other in the forty seconds of freefall before our bloody horrible deaths on the rocks below? because this is what I want to ask you to do. I want to ask you to lift your arms over your head and grow wings out of them and flap them and take us away to a land beyond the sun where nothing comes and nothing goes and all the troubles, these troubles of this everyday world are all away and can never ever come again. I want us to run screaming and yelling off the edge of a cliff, hand in hand, and the world's ending anyway in exactly 422 days, we all know it, and can't you see I'm lonely? Isn't it written all over my face in permanent black magic marker, 'cause it's all over your face, I think, I mean I may I think maybe, I look at your face and it looks like the day after Halloween, you can see there was face paint there that's been scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed so hard the skin is red and raw but it's still there, the faint black of grease paint around the eyes, faint black around the eyes, and can't you see how horribly lonely and sad and afraid I am? Can't you see these black rings around my eyes, the world ends in exactly 422 days, my friend, and won't you spend those days laughing and running and holding and crying? Will you kick your foot through television screens with me? Will you make love to Sonic Youth albums with me? Will you mug old ladies on the train and run off with pink plastic purses screaming wild with all the reckless abandonment the end of the world affords us? because this is what I want to ask you to do. The fire is coming and we will all be burned up to a crisp so take today, take today right now, reach out and take my hand and tell me you'll love me until the world ends, wipe off the black rings from around my eyes, take my hand and kiss me softly on the lips and tell me you'll die for me and go running off at the edge of the cliff as fast and as loud as your legs will carry you.

Copyright 1998, Jason Pettus. All rights reserved.