Young Goth Man Walking on the Outskirts of Blue Town
︎︎︎ T. Garrison O'Donnell
︎ Oct 23, 2026
I was walking in the country
on the outskirts of Blue Town,
letting my mind wander, picking
up sticks and flinging them into
the woods to my right, kicking
the puffs of dandelions with my
black leather boots like they were
little soccer balls, frolicking
in the high grass that went up
to the knees of my torn, black jeans
when I spied a path among the woods
and followed it down to a creek
and by the creek laid my face
on a mossy rock, listening to the sounds
of the water crawling down the crack
in the earth the years had made,
and I thought back to my childhood:
Christmases with presents under the tree,
backyard pool parties where we inhaled
the helium from balloons and talked
funny, the monkey bars’ metal gripped
firmly in my palms, ants swarming water-
melon rinds left on a picnic table,
my first kiss on a bench outside the
Blue Town Cinemateque with my 6th
grade girlfriend Sophia, when suddenly
I heard shouting coming from far beyond
the other side of the creek, and I followed
it until I came to a clearing to find two
skydivers dangling by their parachutes
from a lone oak tree in the middle of the field.
“Help us young goth man,” one shouted.
“We are thirsty and we have to pee,” the other said,
and when I was right below them
I thought of all the bad things that had
befallen me in my relatively brief life:
the presents I opened that weren’t what
I wanted, the party invitations I hadn’t
gotten, the things that slipped through
my hands like a greased watermelon,
the women I’d loved unrequitedly, and
as they continued to yell for help above me
I started doing a little jig, hopping from
one foot to the other and pointing my middle
fingers at them like I could shoot bullets
from the tips, and when I’d had enough of
taunting them, had enough of their whining
turned insulting, their calling me a depraved
nutjob who enjoys the suffering of others,
I quit my dance and headed back to Blue Town
and after the long walk sat on a bench
in front of the public library and wiled away
the rest of my day attracting the sun in
my black clothing and watching the townsfolk
go about theirs: Miss McLean hobble
up the marble steps to the library to return
whatever erotic dreck she’d checked out,
Little Charlie coming out of the library
on his lunch break to go hit on women
unsuccessfully in the park, the old men
who sit outside the post office all day
avoiding their wives and telling each other
lies while dipping snuff, and my 6th grade girl-
friend Sophia, who I could see from afar
going into the drugstore on the corner of
Main and Blue Boulevard, who I let myself
imagine was going in to buy hand lotion,
and that day, just that day, I let myself
imagine her rubbing it in, slowly, wearing
a peignoir in front of a Hollywood-style mirror,
right before lying her blonde head on a silk
pillowcase and going off to pretty sleep.
on the outskirts of Blue Town,
letting my mind wander, picking
up sticks and flinging them into
the woods to my right, kicking
the puffs of dandelions with my
black leather boots like they were
little soccer balls, frolicking
in the high grass that went up
to the knees of my torn, black jeans
when I spied a path among the woods
and followed it down to a creek
and by the creek laid my face
on a mossy rock, listening to the sounds
of the water crawling down the crack
in the earth the years had made,
and I thought back to my childhood:
Christmases with presents under the tree,
backyard pool parties where we inhaled
the helium from balloons and talked
funny, the monkey bars’ metal gripped
firmly in my palms, ants swarming water-
melon rinds left on a picnic table,
my first kiss on a bench outside the
Blue Town Cinemateque with my 6th
grade girlfriend Sophia, when suddenly
I heard shouting coming from far beyond
the other side of the creek, and I followed
it until I came to a clearing to find two
skydivers dangling by their parachutes
from a lone oak tree in the middle of the field.
“Help us young goth man,” one shouted.
“We are thirsty and we have to pee,” the other said,
and when I was right below them
I thought of all the bad things that had
befallen me in my relatively brief life:
the presents I opened that weren’t what
I wanted, the party invitations I hadn’t
gotten, the things that slipped through
my hands like a greased watermelon,
the women I’d loved unrequitedly, and
as they continued to yell for help above me
I started doing a little jig, hopping from
one foot to the other and pointing my middle
fingers at them like I could shoot bullets
from the tips, and when I’d had enough of
taunting them, had enough of their whining
turned insulting, their calling me a depraved
nutjob who enjoys the suffering of others,
I quit my dance and headed back to Blue Town
and after the long walk sat on a bench
in front of the public library and wiled away
the rest of my day attracting the sun in
my black clothing and watching the townsfolk
go about theirs: Miss McLean hobble
up the marble steps to the library to return
whatever erotic dreck she’d checked out,
Little Charlie coming out of the library
on his lunch break to go hit on women
unsuccessfully in the park, the old men
who sit outside the post office all day
avoiding their wives and telling each other
lies while dipping snuff, and my 6th grade girl-
friend Sophia, who I could see from afar
going into the drugstore on the corner of
Main and Blue Boulevard, who I let myself
imagine was going in to buy hand lotion,
and that day, just that day, I let myself
imagine her rubbing it in, slowly, wearing
a peignoir in front of a Hollywood-style mirror,
right before lying her blonde head on a silk
pillowcase and going off to pretty sleep.
T. Garrison O'Donnell is a poet from Virginia now living in the Panhandle of Florida.
Also by T.: The Palace Saloon
Also by T.: The Palace Saloon