When I Was Young and Full of Grace, I Spirited a Rattlesnake

When I was young I liked to think that a bad thing would never happen to me. I liked to think that a fine home would drop out of the sky, all hardwood and plant-filled with a view of the sea, and with it would come a calm and sensible wife with a blonde bob and an ass that looked fantastic and tantalizing in a pair of beige capris. And there we would live quietly, going to farmer's markets and listening to a lot of public radio.
Not that anything bad is happening, or has happened. It's just that whenever I've seen a dog, large or small, lately, the thought has crossed my mind that that dog might seize on to my calf and lock its jaws down to the bone, & I'd have to kick and kick at the top of its head as the owner yelled indignantly about just what I was doing to their anthropomorphized little mamer.
I don't know why such a thought has been emerging regularly, and I certainly don't think it is a sign of some kind of mental imbalance. Perhaps some people would; like those types that gasp and feign to weep at, say, the plight of Brazilian children for as long as it takes for an image or concept to cross a localized television screen or radio wave. Those types are usually pretty quick to get back to their list of organic groceries to be picked up at the next farmer's market, or whatever other activity assuages a Modern Western Liberal's vague sense of 'Global Responsibility' or whatever new phrase has been invented to make happy people uneasy.
Maybe it's because of a recent conversation about divorce in which I described my own in vivid detail to a freshly married individual without realizing exactly, obviously, why she was asking. Maybe it's because those dark things are currently at the periphery of my consciousness, whereas they were at the forefront for so long. Why? Well, ask me the questions the aforementioned did. I'd probably tell you about how while one can sometimes quickly get over a person, they can sometimes take much longer to get over a situation. In that long period of time I learned to embrace and even enjoy a deep malaise, straight through to its natural ebb. This too could explain why I am in possession of dozens of emotionally apocalyptic records by deeply serious songwriters that I am no longer all that interested in listening to.
Is this how someone becomes selfish? Smug? Even smugger than a smug married? Is this how someone becomes satisfied with a prissy blonde housemate who may or may not put out after six to eight months? Have I been through my dark night of the soul, and am I left to peter into blandness? What would it mean if I told you I don't even care to ask these questions anymore. At least for the time being.

Mates of State, a band that is a married couple. Listen to Get Better, which, amazingly, I hadn't until I Googled them just now.