10/30/10

Amelia
By John Ogden


She smelled of weed and beer, that slight dull tone of muskiness clinging to checkered flannel five sizes too big. Sixteen, blond hair, eyes like deep blue pools, wet and endless, the sky merge surf of Carribean sea washing across the pure white sands of her skin. I knew her boyfriend. He was a beast, black and brown, low shorts, prison tattoos, a sad stereotype pretending a macho twenty when he was probably slouching closer to thirty. Her parents hated him. I hated him, instantly, the moment I saw him and the first angry drawl spilled from his mouth. I knew she deserved better. The black eye and bruised arms told me she needed something better, someone better.

What a crime it is that the world is full of so many women in need of someone better.


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John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.