jay robinson

Ashland University Faculty

spoiler alert!

They cancelled her favorite show.

She couldn’t fast forward through commercials anymore.

It’s a metaphor, her boss said, and he’d read about it on the internet.

She sent him a goodbye letter via text; never said goodbye.

Like a band aid to fix a chipped tooth.

I’m always ending up in the wrong penalty box.

The world, she claimed, should be more disclaimer-friendly.

The scenes for the next episode felt useless.

None of the plotlines get resolved.

Would the trimmigrants revolt before or after they smoked the entire grow?

Did she really love him, and/or his sister?

And the world was in the midst of an illegitimate baby crisis.

For symbolic purposes, she mixed whiskey and syrup.

He looked for someone to blame.

The same coat of paint atop the one before.

Another night at the opera.

He talked about the universe as if it were a self-cleaning oven.

Really, she said, it’s a shopping cart filled with all the broken wheels from the other shopping carts.

rival hostess syndrome

Not to be confused with Rival Hostages Syndrome.

She discussed the social ladder like it had rungs; he thought she wanted him to clean the gutters.

Objectivity; in other words, the view from the roof.

Anyway, the detour seemed to take longer.

Sometimes if the light hits them right, leaves look on fire.

Little flames drip onto the ground.

Death is so decadent, he said, because he wanted to sound cliché.

It was sunny outside; it was also cold.

In the old days we could avoid each other more easily.

Like missing a belt loop.

At the end of every day she promised a pop quiz.

True/False: He shouldn’t have gotten rid of all his flannel.

True/False: There are only questions, no answers.

Sometimes what she wanted for lunch was someone else’s neck.

Simultaneously he was the hero and the villain.

She was a blank to be filled in with more blanks but the blanks had to be in a precise order.

Things had gone on like this for a year. Maybe more.

I’m over it, she said. But she didn’t say what it represented.

JAY ROBINSON IS THE CO-AUTHOR OF THE CZAR. HE TEACHES AT ASHLAND UNIVERSITY AND THE UNIVERSITY OF AKRON. HIS POETRY AND PROSE HAS APPEARED IN 32 POEMS, THE LAUREL REVIEW, POETRY, AND WHISKEY ISLAND, AMONG OTHERS.