Donna Dallas

 Lives (on Central Park West & 64th New Year’s Eve circa 2012)

Look around you love and let’s try to find them
The misery lovers?
No, the die-hard love hopefuls like me
They’ve never existed baby, it’s your wild imagination
Didn’t the Murran’s marry for love???
No, they married because they were both forty-four
And found no one
to actually
love
What about our neighbors, the Brennan’s?
They hate each-other with a passion
She is fucking their tennis instructor
He’s most definitely fucking their Swedish au pair
Well what about your parents – do they love?
Even secretly?
I’ve never seen them so much as smile at one another. No
there is no love there hon
it’s as empty as
your head
But my head is full of
the thought
of love - that it can be - can’t it?
We’re just playing it love……we play our lives like a mad poker game
we win
we lose
we go on
let’s drink some champagne
And you will smile and fondly touch my hand – is it love?
Jesus, honey don’t be so sad
love comes and goes in a wave
a climax
a look
a life

 

Donna Dallas studied Creative Writing and Philosophy at NYU’s Gallatin School and was lucky enough to study under William Packard, founder and editor of the New York Quarterly.  I am recently found or forthcoming in Sick Lit Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, Beautiful Losers and Chiron Review.