Brenton Booth

Numbers

It’s the 1/12/15 and I
have just moved into
a 2 bedroom apartment
in Newtown
it is 6:40PM and I sit on
my 20 year old sofa chair
watching the planes fly
into the clouds on the
small balcony
it is the first balcony I have
ever had
I always lived in crummy
apartments below street
level or small rooms
how did I get here?
how do we get anywhere?
are all our lives nothing
but numbers,
in a few weeks I will turn
37
older than Mozart ever
got—
far less of course—
still waiting for my numbers
to finally mean something.

The Loser

He was short and thin
and wore glasses with
the thickest lenses you
ever saw. He had the
walk of an old man and
talked slowly like a
special kid and always
carried a laptop. I never
had much contact with
him but knew what the
other boys would do to
him. One day when I was
walking home from
school I actually saw it
happening. “Leave him
the fuck alone," I said, not
really knowing why.
"Fuck you Robert!" they
said.
"Well hit me then tough
guys!"
They backed off. I had this
tough reputation for no
real reason. I was the
strongest and fastest kid in
my grade, but what they
didn’t know is I had lost
any toughness I had years
ago. "Hey thanks," said
Jamie and I picked up his
glasses and handed them
to him. "It’s a good thing
these things are so big,
otherwise I would have to
explain to my parents
how I broke them."
I walked him home and spent
the afternoon at his place.
After that we were friends.
Once word got around he was
my friend the beatings pretty
much stopped. Though he still
got teased because he was
different. And he was. Last I
heard he was a software
programmer for a big company
making a fortune. While the rest
of us worked crap jobs or no jobs.

 

Brenton Booth lives in Sydney, Australia. Writing of his has appeared in many publications. His poetry collection Punching The Teeth From The Sky is available from Epic Rites Press. brentonbooth.weebly.com