I used to sneak out of
my girlfriend’s apartment in the morning to
a coffee shop that isn’t there anymore.
I’d go out of my way to
pass a wheat pasted, hand-drawn sticker on
a cement wall:
some miraculous Jesus in black
sunglasses with the words
THE DUDE ABIDES
Now, I had no idea who The Dude was.
Never seen the movie,
never seen a poster.
But, I worshiped this sacred little act
of vandalism, an evil secret that escaped.
The dude? Abides?
Fuck, I don’t think I’d ever
even heard the word.
It was so strange and exclamatory,
breaking the rules
but too charming to stay mad at.
What the hell did it mean?
My mind could never keep up with the wonderful
world of fill in the blanks.
It’s like misheard lyrics
are always better than the actual ones.
But every statue becomes an eyesore and
after discovering my personal holy shrine was
just somebody else’s public devotion to
their favorite movie, I stopped taking
the long way for morning coffee.
Still, something stuck with me. Surely, knowing
how the trick is done doesn’t ruin all the magic.
Or maybe it does.
Maybe a question is sometimes
better than an answer.
All those internal universes
of strangers, churning away softly
against the insufferable
pangs of the universe.
Every Statue Becomes an Eyesore
Ian Valor