Paint Your Pony by Charles J. March III

                        liz west CC



Paint Your Pony

For an interminable time, I tried to get away by using a dark horsepower. I thought it helped me to carry life’s ample loads, but it only enabled me to take them on the face as I fell—due to the anomalous nag on my back that produced my poor health and almost helped me to hell. It stimulated me and those who care to tear out our tresses and turn into mad March hares. Regrettably, every twelvemonth or two of trying teetotalism—I’d turn into a lunatic yearling, and there were even a couple of times where I almost died via self-inflicted gunfire from a Colt 45. Although, I always managed to zig-zag out of the way unscathed. It did, however, usually render me into a ridiculously shy isolation. 

I started to presume that the two of us were meant to be together, and that it would continue to cramp my style for many annums to come—especially since my name is Charles. It became increasingly difficult to crack the vicious rat race track that continued to mark me up, and even when I did my damnedest to be “normal”—by stabling up with a phat philly—it usually turned out to be a silly (especially if they were less than 4 years steady) idea, and made me unstable. I thought I was riding these toothsome damsels, but in sooth—I was actually a half-stepper who couldn’t get into stride. So the demented mares paradoxically saddled me up, which really rattled my cage and bridled my mind. I guess you can say that I was touched by the tail, which created the violin bow that established the ambient background music of my hot-blooded being. 
I should have known better than to try and tame these black beauties. 

Their black shawl was pulled over my eyes, and my anima proceeded to mount me like a proverbial black stallion—which made me feel like a deranged gelding. Their unalloyed mine shafts had gone deep into my heart, and obstructed my veins. 

This is when the feigned foal really reigned, as it grabbed the straps and sulked me away into a nearly, early glue factory grave. The cob spun me in its web, and coal was all I acquired for many Christmases to come. I was gambling with my life, and wasn’t a safe bet—due to my viability blinders. It made me pony up all my dough, and I was subdued into a ponyboy-like, impoverished outsider—which caused the heinous steed to drive me to deplorable deeds. Then the time came where I could no longer bolt from the charger, and I knew I had to call in the metaphorical calvary. 

So I got off my high breeding horse, painted my pony, and took up arms against Beelzebub (Lord of the Horseflies) and the China White men. 
I made it my mission to cross the Great Plains in order to graze in better pastures, and continued west so I could buck the bronco off my back. Along the way, I held my horse and gave it the Denver boot—so it could never make another move on me. I was done buying bindles, and was instead divinely vouchsafed a sacred medicine bundle to carry with me on my trundles. The draft horse wound up creating a draft that whisked me away to rodeo drive, and it was there that I began to thrive. 

The horse that once helped me to saw my life in half, assisted me in seeing the whole picture. I was finally able to get a good grip on the pommel horse that previously pummeled me into the ground, and I vaulted myself to revolutionary elevations. 

When I was Young, the damage from the needle was done; but now I’m atop Mount Calvary with The Mother of Sorrows, who has taken me in-hand with her son. 

Sorry, but I’ll never apologize for beating my deadly horse.

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Charles J. March III is an asexual, neurodivergent Navy hospital corpsman veteran from the South Side of Chicago, who is currently trying to live an eclectic life with an interesting array of recovering creatures in Orange County, CA. His various avant-garde works have appeared in or are forthcoming from the Chicago Tribune, L.A. Times, Lalitamba, 3:AM Magazine, Harbinger Asylum, McSweeney’s, Free State Review, Fleas on the Dog, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, BlazeVOX, Points in Case, Stinkwaves, The Writing Disorder, Literary Orphans, Otoliths, Oddball Magazine, et al. He recently poured his blood, sweat, and tears into Blood Tree Literature’s hybrid contest, and wound up winning third place. Links to his pieces can be found on LinkedIn, and his outsider music musings can be heard on SoundCloud.