by Richard Ballon
There is a white hole in the wall, a mirror. It is a trap. I know I am going to let myself be caught in it. I will dive into the eyes of the men who lean against the mirrors in the bar, whose lean bodies are reflected poolside.
I move to Provincetown to get away from my breakup. My rock star boyfriend fell in love with the head singer of his new band and zippo zappo, out of the picture. Three years of building trust to have it punctured like the wheel of a bike careening toward his next affair. So I think where can I go to ease this can you believe my heart is in a headlock that won’t stop hurting? The worst thing is that he keeps calling because he can’t let go of the sex. I was going to send him a bouquet of narcissus flowers, but he wouldn’t get it. He’d simply think ohhhhh, flowers…for me? So I send him a banana with no return address, and dive into the surf of men with bodies hard as surfboards.
At the end of that summer, I was squeezing by men in a crowded bar to get to the outside pool, when this one man pushes toward me. He is slight in build, has a self conscious swagger and his puddle eyes splash mine above his close cropped beard. He capsizes toward me but the swell of the crowd tows him away and I am gasping, because as he turns the corner he simply disappears. I realize like thunder, I am looking at myself from the beginning of the summer. I had arrived with a beard.
I loved that man who paused long enough for me to know it and I cycled back to when I had arrived, new in town. One of those early nights I squeezed by a crowd to get outside by the pool and had seen a lean, willowy, shaven man who I wanted to talk to, wanted to hold, wanted to love, but couldn’t find him, though he had just passed me by. The two points of time folded like a beautiful flower I caught the scent of, and I was drunk for the knowing.
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Richard Ballon published his first poem when he was fourteen and over the years has pruned a collection which when poked at, may pinch back. In New York, his writing has been performed at the Manhattan Theater Source’s Sola Voces / Estrogenius Festival, at Stage Left’s Women at Work Festival, MaMADrama and Left Out Festivals, NativeAlien’s Short Stories 5 and Emerging Artist Theater's One Man Standing. Other work, some of which was supported by the Massachusetts Arts Council, has been performed at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Turners Falls' Shea Theater, Boston, Provincetown, Valdez, Dylan Thomas Festival in Chicago, Iowa City’s Walking the Wire Festival, Toronto’s Inspirato Festival, Kitchener’s Asphalt Shorts, Montreal’s ArtHotel. Richard is a member of the Dramatist’s Guild. A collection of monologues, poems and plays was published in 2007 titled: enough of a little to know the all. Richard Ballon’s work is minimal. He believes the short play is the poem of the theater and the monologue, its lyric.