Captain Irony is Happy by Mike Hickman

Captain Irony is happy with me

for giving him everything he wanted

in one go, in one decision, in one mistake.

And then in all the others that followed.

“I’ll be a new person,” I said,

“with a new person,” I said,

and he listened, silently, before saying, “How interesting,

How very interesting that you should say that.”

“I’ll be what I couldn’t be before,” I said

and Captain Irony’s smile broadened,

and he replied, “I hear you,” before whispering,

“But I’m not so sure that you do.”

“There’ll be no rows, there’ll be no tension,

every day will be perfect, you just see,” I said.

And I knew it was desperate bargaining,

and his face told me that he knew that too.

But I couldn’t be stopped.

“That’s how it’s going to be,” I said.

“Marvellous,” he clapped, “I’ll be back to check up on you in a few months.

You knock yourself out.”

And I did, and he did too.

Check up on me, I mean.

Right at the point when it all exploded,

and my impossible demands proved

as impossible as I’d known them to be.

“I’m the same person,” I said, shaking my head,

“only I pent it all up, clamped down on myself so hard,

that I left myself nowhere to go.”

But Captain Irony is happy with that,

the only one not disappointed I’d proved myself so wrong.

“It really doesn’t work if I warn you,” he said.

“I don’t even need to say I told you so.

If you hadn’t noticed, the clue’s in my name.”

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Mike Hickman (@MikeHicWriter) is a writer from York, England. He has written for Off the Rock Productions (stage and audio), including 2018's "Not So Funny Now" about Groucho Marx and Erin Fleming. Poetry and prose has been published in EllipsisZine, Dwelling Literary, Bandit Fiction, Nymphs, Flash Fiction Magazine, Brown Bag, and the Daily Drunk (amongst others!).