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enjoy this Kyle Hemmings writing in the free April 2013 PDF file chapbook I Was Charles Bronson’s Secret Hostage				You can also order this as a 2013 6" x 9" perfect-bound paperback ISBN# book! Click on the cover spread for the book I Was Charles Bronson’s Secret Hostage

Substitute for Love #1

Kyle Hemmings

We lived in the middle of a long block of modest colonials
and silent dogs. As a kid wearing paper tissues under those
dreaded starched collars for school, or with ear glued to a transistor
blaring “Baby Love,” hands cutting the outlines of paper
heroes, I thought the sun and the moon revolved around our
house. Nobody dies in this home; nobody flies away. My mother,
who loved Maria Callas and Brigadoon, bought two parakeets
because she thought a house is not a nest without birds. I became
overly attached to the shy one because he reminded me of myself
in classrooms, of being stuck for answers. One day in a fit of rage,
my father opened the cage and chased the birds out the window.
I ran after them because the world was too big for the two of
them, especially the one who didn’t chirp much. I didn’t see the
car coming. The world was too big for the three of us. So now, I’m
holding the world in my hand. It’s made of glass and it’s really very
small after you’ve grown beyond it. I spin it around and around in
my palm. Inside, I can see a small boy chasing two birds because
they mean life and death to him. They keep running all around
the world until they catch up. But the birds will always fly away
and the boy is growing too tall and too starry-eyed for a life of
glass and pain. So I make a fist and crush this world.

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