Mark DeCarteret
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The Year I Went Without Being a Teen Idol
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Outside, it was the pink of a kitten’s yawn. A wink. Or the skin, behind my knee, where I must have
been bitten by something. Your snores tried to reason with me. Tried to mess with my well-known
ideas on holding a note, tone. But, then again, whose tunes will not one day be looked at as my own?
So, I’ve recently taken up acting. Like I factor. Like I’m the first track on an album labeled “If You
Think This is Fun...” Shit, it’s been months since I’ve charted. Been scored more than 3 hearts or 4
unicorns. Anything sparkly at all. Since I’ve led myself in a sing-along. Strung out around a campfire.
Or welled up from this kinship with the sun. Luckily, my cat is still smitten. Blinking heavily. As if
it’s timing is off. From wearing mittens 2 sizes too small. Still imagines I’m dancing when in reality
I’m shaking. Cashing in on the side where my desire has staged its own death. I’d rather nobody
watch me. Rather than sit, with the unattached, in my chat room. There’s almost too little to slam.
To remaster. For there are things to be seen to. And things you ask for an account of, a rebate. That
you keep tabbed for later. When the meds have determined it safe. To rename the old phase. Once,
a stranger remarked, you look like you’ve been hit by a truck. And I had. Leaving me with a tree in
the front seat. And this veil that I lower with chains. See now, the pink, has a yellowy aura. Like
some sickly saint kissed into the start of a bruise, then the ether. And this red, narrowly red, at its
center. Worn out from the routines. And the touring. The unforgivable publicity shots. And the
agent always beginning each sentence with. “So, here is the rub.”

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Mark DeCarteret's work has appeared in over 500 literary reviews.
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