What We Lie About When We Lie About Love

A getaway,

he had reasoned brightly,

it will be good for us,

give us a chance to reconnect.

Why did everything he said

always sound perfectly rehearsed,

a conviction born of rote directive?

Was it the way he spoke,

the way she listened,

a tense combination of both?

Yes,

she had heard herself softly mimicking,

it could be good for us,

and later, at the cabin,

she found herself wondering

if compliance was the same as lying,

or simply a natural extension

of the fiction

which their lives had agreed upon

as a matter of necessary course.

#37 from Untitled Film Poems

Image by Cindy Sherman

About John Biscello

Originally from Brooklyn, NY, novelist, poet, performer, playwright and filmmaker, John Biscello, has lived in the high-desert grunge-wonderland of Taos, New Mexico since 2001. He is the author of six novels, Broken Land, a Brooklyn Tale, Raking the Dust, Nocturne Variations, No Man’s Brooklyn, The Last Furies, and No One Dreams in Color; a collection of stories, Freeze Tag, two poetry collections, Arclight and Moonglow on Mercy Street; and a fable, The Jackdaw and the Doll, illustrated by Izumi Yokoyama. He also adapted classic fables, which were paired with the vintage illustrations of artist, Paul Bransom, for the collection: Once Upon a Time, Classic Fables Reimagined. His plays have been staged and performed both nationally and internationally.

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