At age 30 Mark became fascinated
with the lore of the mysterious occult,
and he got deep into the dark arts.
He got in so deep that his personality and
even his appearance began to change.
He became so weird and weird looking
that former friends of his avoided him.
Dogs and cats went missing in the
neighborhood he lived in; it was suspected
he was sacrificing them to some demon god.
Worried for her son, fearing he was possessed,
his mother sent a Catholic priest exorcist
to hopefully expunge any demons from his soul.
The priest vanished after that, and nobody
not even the police, ever found him. Nor were
the police able to prove that Mark was responsible
for the priest’s mysterious disappearnce.
Shortly after that, Mark disappeared too, but some
of his former friends claim they’ve seen him in
nightmares screaming in a demon-filled hell.

Bob Boyd

I couldn’t believe it when my friend Melvin
introduced me to a life-size doll
he said was his new girlfriend.

At first, I thought he was joking until I
could see he was serious,
and he talked to the doll as if it were real.

I thought he had some wires crossed in
his deluded brain, but after a long
conversation with him, he seemed sound.

That was ten years ago, and he’s still in
love with his doll while I’ve gone through
three failed relationships with real women.

Which makes me think maybe Melvin made
a better choice with his doll than I have
with real women.

And for a lovelorn, desperate moment, I almost
considered buying a doll, but since I swore off
being with women, I changed my mind,

fearing that even with a doll I’d have yet another
failed relationship, unlike Melvin who has the luck
and the skills to make his relationship work.

And since romantic love is doomed to end
anyway, Death the final spoiler, maybe it doesn’t
matter whether you’re in love

with a doll or a real woman, and I suspect
with the doll a man would have no drama,
no disappointments, no heartbreaks.

But he’d have to have an extraordinarily
vivid imagination.

Bob Boyd

after all those tender moments
the passionate kisses
the impassioned promises
the vows to be true
her perfumed love letters
the talk about marriage ….

in the end she turned on him
because she was
just a fickle female
untrustworthy and untrue
and with hindsight he
eventually realized
he was better off
without her

Bob Boyd