Till That Winged Horse Appears

by: E.M. Burlingame

We’re a ragged pack of drunks and brawlers, us men,
stumbling toward something we call “man,”
but it’s a butcher’s apron we wear—
blood-soaked, bone-cracked,
taking lives in a fight that’s lasted centuries.
We’ve done vile shit,
gutted ourselves with cheap gin and cheaper lies,
clawed through betrayal and bodies,
all to pay a tab that’s never settled,
a seat at a table that’s splintered and burning.

But here’s the punchline, boys:
all this wreckage we’ve piled up—
the broken jaws, the spilled blood, the empty bottles—
it’s not even the gig.
We’re supposed to shield the women,
that wild, vicious World of Woman,
but they’re no damsels waiting for a savior.
They’re the storm itself—
sharp-edged, unpredictable,
holding the knife to our throats while we bleed for them.
They don’t make it easy,
and they damn sure don’t make it clean.

We’re dead men swinging,
already half-buried in this muck,
fighting a darkness so thick it chokes the air—
a black, twisted thing we can’t outdrink or outfight.
And the women?
They’re tangled in it,
part of the chaos,
slashing us down as often as we shield them.
Love and hate knotted in a dirty bedsheet,
their souls bloodier than ours,
their eyes daring us to kill more,
knowing we’ll die.

We’ve sold our souls for pennies,
eaten our own livers with a side of regret,
spilled lives like it’s last call and the bar’s on fire—
and for what?
The World of Woman’s drowning,
real flesh, real screams,
teetering on the edge of oblivion,
and we’re too drunk, too broken to pull it back.
They’re not waiting to be saved—
they’re spitting in our faces,
dancing in the wreckage,
making every fight we take on a little heavier,
every breath a little shorter.

If we’ve got any fight left,
we stand anyway—
guns and knives up, armor cracked,
stabbing at shadows and stilettos both.
We catch a blade in the chest,
defending some dame who’d just as soon gut us herself,
and yet, there’s an angelic bitch coming to lift us up.
A Valkyrie, to Valhalla—
that fairy tale we at least didn’t piss away.
It ain’t just the cold, hard dirt and the worms waiting,
but Odin’s halls and table, the All-father
watching us stagger to the last round.

We’re not getting out alive,
not with the women tearing at us as hard as the evil.
It’s all a slow bleed—
booze, battles, and murder—
a grind that ends with us face-down in a field,
little reward, little redemption,
just the echo of our own dumb roars
as that winged horse and fancy bitch appear.