Day: July 15, 2025

She said she needed a break from him.
They’d been arguing too much.
She needed to reassess their relationship.
It had gotten a little too rocky for her.
She was going on a trip.
She refused to tell him where,
except that she was taking a vacation
to get far away from him for a while.
She never returned from that trip.
Her mother said she went to Florida,
and disappeared there.
The police suspected foul play, she said.
He knew she was dead and dumped
in the everglades and probably devoured
by alligators.
Shortly after that, he went on a trip
to Florida too, and kind of disappeared
there … in the Everglades Correctional
Institution for a life sentence.

Bob Boyd

The days grew shorter.
The weeks and months too.
He felt time was conspiring
with aging to finish him as
soon as possible.

His breaking down body
seemed part of the plot.
And his balance was shot.

He started hearing fires
crackling in hell, and
angels singing in heaven

right before the dementia took
hold of him and the days and
weeks, the decaying body, the
sounds of hell and heaven, all of it
and everything went away.

Bob Boyd

At first her beauty was mind blowing to him.
He couldn’t believe his luck in her loving him.
In time her looks became a liability.
Everywhere they went men gawked at her
and made him nearly crazy with jealousy.
And men were constantly pursuing her
when he was not with her.
Eventually she left him for one of those
men, and though his heart was broken,
he was relieved the pressure was gone.

Bob Boyd