The Story

I take a deep breath, feeling my shoulders go up. I take another one, forcing my shoulders to retreat back down.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Tonight, I want to give a longwinded shoutout to my man, Mercutio.”

There are several snaps muffled through the crowd. A little “Woot!” is called from the left of the stage.

“ahem…

Could steal your girl

But he doesn’t want her,

Tarnish his honor

But don’t squander the love scholar.

The original bad bitch

A casual curse witch.

He’s the Greek chorus, does more for us

Than a priest could

And you’re down good

With a princehood.

If master M approves of you

Grooves with you

Chooses you

Makes rough good with you

Makes you what thou art,

Art,

to Mercutio’s tongue,

by his tongue,

Placed a curse

So I place a verse

And I hope it hurts

Less than a mistook

Across a sleeping soldier’s neck.

Lie back maiden,

Stay on track maiden.

There’s an opal, a diamond, a crack, maiden.

The horse jolted

The fool’s bolted

And I’m here with

my heart in my hand

blood on my man

your heart in my hand,

and it starts to fleet,

I can’t complete

a lack of heat

and silence.

The bard’s gone

It’s near dawn

And I’m lost

in a wilted rose garden

tilted too far then,

off the edge of the map

There’s monsters here

and I’m monstrous there,

Begging thin wings to hide me

fly me

Up to the silver lining

of the devil between us

of the heaven between us

came life between us

Came death.”

A round of polite clapping joined more snaps and a smattering of “here, here”s with a rare “yeaaaah.“

I nod appreciatively and make my way off the small platform, rounding the seated crowd towards the back.

Leaning against the scuffed pine bar, my long necklace tap-tapped against it, shooting a kaleidoscope across the ground as the soft overhead globes hit its sparkled spinning.

The poet who took my place on the stage has begun. Some sonnet about growth. Ugh.

I raise a few fingers in a greeting, but the bartender is already coming my way. He’s grinning into his dimples and flicking dark chocolate bangs out of his eyes. A silver shaker rocking madly in one hand, he sets the other one on the bar so I can fully appreciate his tanned muscles. Painfully beautiful. When I stare into his gray eyes, I feel like I’m staring into another’s from too long ago.

He comes in close, almost whispering, “What’ll it be, my rhyming mademoiselle?”

I grimace at the bad come-on but try to morph it quickly into an interested smirk. He is just doing his job.

“A friend of mine recommended something, but I can’t quite remember the name,” I purr, leaning in more than necessary, “it’s a bubbly one, with a country in it.”

“A whole country? I don’t know if I can fit that in a glass,” He raises his eyebrows suggestively.

I afford him a small chuckle. He’s trying.

He finishes his shaking and pours something orange into a tall glass, sliding it out to an awaiting hand, “You’re looking for a French 75, I believe.”

“Yes! That’s the one.”

“Coming right up,” he winks at me, apparently unable to help himself.

There was a time when I would have just gobbled up one like that. He’s playing the heartbreaker well, but I know an eager dreamer when I see one. Can practically feel their heartbeats under my own skin.

Alas, it has been quite some time since I played my old part. It’s just not the same these days. And my own heart aches- some days less, some days more.

A tall glass is placed before me, golden bubbles racing towards the top to kiss a dainty lemon peel.

“There you go,” he pushes a black napkin towards me as well, “I’ll be back to hear how perfect it is,” he smirks again and saunters to the other end of the bar to make a group of heavy-eyed girls giggle.

They will all think of him later tonight. I am sure of it.

My first sip of the spritely concoction stuns me. It’s refreshing in an almost aggressive way. Perhaps I should have asked for something simpler, something dryer. I didn’t need to be making a fool of myself and everyone else in the room tonight.

My second, third, fourth sip convince me that it is indeed, delicious. And that I’ve always really loved fools. Wasn’t that part of my problem in the first place?

I turn to watch the intent crowd, leaning back against the cool, sticky bar.

There are several couples pulled close together at small tables- peering at each other over a fake candle, believing each verse their love song.

A few patrons sit alone, nodding their heads to the spoken verse or tapping a pen to half-filled notebooks. Those are some of my favorites. Are they artists searching for inspiration? Detectives on the hunt? Did they plan their whole day around sitting by themselves in a hazy bar or did they find their feet wandering in from the street without a care?

The groups of three or more are few, but present. These are the scholars on assignment, or students on a dare. These are the “we said we would go out more!” friendships, each pondering if they should have just stayed home.

So much potential. And I drink it in along with several more bubbles.

“You’re becoming a bit of regular,” He is near me again, and I turn to watch those dimples dance, “I can add you to the locals’ tab list if you’d like. Gets you a 10% off on Thursdays.”

The nerves finally show in his pale eyes as he waits for my answer. So much potential indeed.

I shrug as nonchalantly as possible. A local? Ha. But I do wander here from time to time, to shake out everything swirling in my mind. To give him my name though… well, what’s in a name?

“Sure, put me in there, big guy.”

His smile springs with his relief, “Lucky for us! And what’s the pretty name of the pretty lady?”

I answer just as the performer behind me yodels into a limerick.

“Mag?” He begs, tilting an ear towards me, “as in, Maggie?”

“Mab. As in Queen.”

The Word

Lament: (noun) A passionate expression of grief or sorrow. (verb) Mourn, esp. a person’s loss or death.

From when I was first forced to read Romeo and Juliet as a dispassionate middle schooler, to when I was hungrily pouring over it in my theater studies at college, I have always thought Mercutio was the best part.

Sure, I can get on my soapbox about how Juliet was both a victim and the main character (and have… probably too many times), but Mercutio is the man! He looms so large that plays, movies, re-tellings have given him a huge spectrum of personality. He is the ladies man, able to use that twisting tongue of his to lure innocent maidens! No, he is the goof of the group, trying to lighten a mood! No no, he has he seen things the others haven’t (as he is a tad older and the prince’s relation, so would have been required to lead men into battle). None of that, he’s a spoiled kid doing spoiled kid things like spoiling a party!

Shakespeare gives us hints here and there, but for much it he leaves it to interpretation (which is distinctly unusual for him when he usually takes multiple paragraphs to slap the audience in the face with his point). I very much wonder how the Mercutio actor would have been directed in the first rounds at The Rose. I myself have always followed the theory that Mercutio is a very complicated person. That Shakespeare slips a full grown being into what could easily be dismissed as a sidekick. And so what does that make of his strange fairy poem?

I have no idea. You could find hundreds, if not thousands, of multiple different interpretations: She’s a metaphor for seduction, she’s a real belief in an unworldly world, she’s Mercutio mocking Romeo for his yearnings, she’s just Mercutio’s fourth glass of good wine.

Then comes all the dying. The Bard always likes to make a point that when there is love- there’s also either fools or death, and probably both.

But what I ponder on myself is- what happens to such a legend as the fairies’ famous midwife when there is no bard left to sing of her deeds? Do myths still mystery when no one is pondering them? What is a queen whose favorite fool has been killed? Thus, what led me to play in today’s story.

Also it’s poem weather. Happy reading!