{"id":2467,"date":"2012-04-16T11:20:30","date_gmt":"2012-04-16T15:20:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/wpblog\/?p=2467"},"modified":"2012-07-15T20:10:48","modified_gmt":"2012-07-16T00:10:48","slug":"i-know-youre-still-smiling-you-cant-help-it-by-fletcher-young","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/i-know-youre-still-smiling-you-cant-help-it-by-fletcher-young\/","title":{"rendered":"I Know You’re Still Smiling, You Can’t Help It by Fletcher Young"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure that anyone sane mourns you.
\nNot the people of the city,
\nor the commissioner and his wife,
\nor Angel Rojas, or the oracle, or Ra\u2019s al Ghul,
\nbut I know John Crane does, and Harley,
\nand I know I do.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll never forget the morning
\nwhen Alfred walked up to the table
\nwhere I ate steak and eggs
\nwith a side of wheat toast,
\nand he laid down a fresh Gotham Globe.
\nI fell limp like a neglected sock monkey
\nwhen I saw the day\u2019s headline:
\nThe Joker Laughs His Last Laugh,
\n<\/em>with a drab photograph of you underneath
\nlying on a cot in a cell in Arkham
\nwith your hands over your stomach, still smiling.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s strange when reality doesn\u2019t seem real.<\/p>\n

Such a disrespectful headline.
\nI couldn\u2019t even read the rest of the article.
\nI was told you \u201cdied peacefully in your sleep,\u201d
\nbut I know nothing came peacefully for you,
\nas nothing comes peacefully for me.
\nWe canceled each other out, you and I.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve tried to recall how many times I\u2019ve looked
\ninto those wickedly somber eyes,
\nthe eyes which stayed lit only to draw me to you,
\nthe eyes which carefully calculated and carried out
\naudacious atrocities which wrote legends
\nthat terrify even the most hardened criminals,
\nthe eyes that I saw myself in.<\/p>\n

I crave chaos as much as you did,
\nbut now, the streets are quiet,
\nand there is no one to chase but petty thieves
\nwhose crimes aren\u2019t worth the gasoline
\nthat I\u2019ve wasted to find them.
\nSo I\u2019ve sordidly hung the suit in the cave
\nwhich sees neither light of day nor dark of night,
\nbecause all of the villains once described as super
\nno longer have anyone left to outdo.<\/p>\n

\n

—-<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Fletcher Young was born in Southwest Michigan, where he lived for 25 years.\u00a0 He moved to Texas in 2010 to pursue a warmer climate and gain new inspiration.\u00a0 Fletcher has poetry and fiction that will be appearing in Haunted Waters Press, Jack of No Trades Productions, and Circus of the Damed.\u00a0 His hobbies include running, writing screenplays and training his Australian shepherd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m not sure that anyone sane mourns you. Not the people of the city, or the commissioner and his wife, or Angel Rojas, or the oracle, or Ra\u2019s al Ghul, but I know John Crane does, and Harley, and I know I do. I\u2019ll never forget the morning when Alfred walked up to the table […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,219,199],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2467"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2467"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3191,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2467\/revisions\/3191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}