Outside The Lines

by

Phil Pochurek

What happens when you go outside the lines
In your paint by number life?
From your paint by number house
With your paint by number wife,
And leave your perfect world behind?
Do you change jobs?
By a new car?
Or maybe get a new family, a new wife?
I went outside the lines the other day
I did something that scared even me
And blew my friends away.
It all started with a broken TV.
Then my favorite F.M. radio got turrets
And started spewing out Rush Limbaugh
While I was out on a run
Right in the middle of Stan Getz.
What was I suppose to do?
So I bought a gun!
It was something I knew nothing about
Or had ever done.
Of course this had to happen
The day I quit smoking cigarettes.
I thought maybe it could help me
With some issues I had at hand,
Just point it and ask your questions
And get instant answers on demand.
Then I realized that would be stupid
What if the other person had a gun too?
I had no desire to play Wild Bill Hitchcock
I just wanted something to shoot.
I started by shooting my broken T.V.
Finally putting it out of its misery.
Then I worked my way around the house
I shot the phone and the answering machine
No more fucking caller ID.
Then I had to do some sneaking
Down the hall to the computer room
Where my digital genius was sleeping.
It was about to become high noon.
First I shot the monitor
And its little camera too,
But I saved the best for last
And shot it twice in the CPU.
Now no more digital ulcers
And no more internet stress.
I only had one more thing to shoot
Before I cleaned up this mess.
It was small and usually hiding
Rarely out in plain sight.
This one I looked forward to shooting the most.
Such a rude little electronic device.
I searched high and low
Like I had in the past
When I needed to use it for me,
Now just like before
I’d lost it once more
So I sat and waited patiently.
It didn’t take long for it to happen
I tricked it into crying out
I pretended I was doing something important
And that’s when I heard it ring out.
I ran through the house to catch it
Before it gave out its last ring
Up the stairs down the hall to a closet
In my coat pocket I found the damn thing.
I grabbed it and squeezed it
Then started laughing
I had one bullet left for my cell,
Its poor little lights started flashing(low battery)
When I blew it all to hell.
Now my gun was out of bullets
As I looked around at a job well done
All the lines in my life had been erased
Systematically one by one.
No more electronic hardware
To enhance my pathetic life.
No matter how much I loved them
Rubbed them or dubbed them
They would never be alive.
Now I’ve only got time for the real world
Conversation that’s eye to eye.
First person interaction
If you want to see me you have to come by.
I still have all the colors in my life
A beautiful daughter and a wonderful wife
Just the lines and the numbers are gone.
So write me a letter I’m doing much better
Sometimes I even respond.
I’ve cleaned up the mess
And I’m doing fine
Life is good outside the lines.

NEXT?
Why don't you look at Untamable Ashford
by: Gwen D. Feldman Haaland
from: Ashford, CT, US

To visit all of Phil Pochurek's poems, click HERE

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