You know some people never make it out of this scene
And I’m still in love with Billy Idol, though Billy Idol isn’t
Billy Idol anymore, is Angel cosplaying
as Spike in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that Joss Whedon didn’t
write because we all know he didn’t have the balls, couldn’t imagine love
outside of who could hurt the worst, so irreparable they still woke
cold sweat, still feeling hands, eyes. And Buffy the Vampire Slayer was never
about Buffy the Vampire Slayer at all, it was about redeeming
Giles. Redeeming Angel. Proving the thesis
that the good guy got the girl in the end and when that didn’t sell
cancelling the show. Hiring the Nice Guy to rewrite the story.
Correct all the things that went wrong, there was no other choice.
And I’m still in love with Billy Idol because Billy Idol isn’t
Billy Idol anymore, Billy Idol is William
Michael Albert Broad an Englishman who exists still, Peter Pan
playing old favorites for those who still believe.
I choose not to believe. Leave him frozen in 1982 and don’t look too close
knowing he was a rockstar in 1982 and if I looked there’s bound to be plenty
I can’t love him for. Leave him the last note of “White Wedding” hanging in the air
and laugh at how nothing’s changed, he’s just the same as Greensleeves’
anonymous/lost/forgotten author, filled with rumors
it was written by King Henry, the one with all the wives, for his second
wife, a hard fought seduction. The original fuck boy anthem.
And I’m still in love with Billy Idol, though Billy Idol isn’t
Billy Idol literally speaking. I mean I love Billy Idol meaning
every boy/girl/gender binary rejecting person in split
kneed jeans and too many piercings, maybe an enviable bounty
of tattoos, by which I mean more than the zero I, needle-phobic, can handle
scratched into my skin. I love loud music echoing in my bones long
after someone’s finally made me turn it down, kicked the old stereo’s cord
out of it’s socket. My own small time rebellions, the ones some days
I wish I wasn’t too afraid to try on my own skin. Or maybe
I mean Billy Idol; as in I like to imagine he was the one my mother watched
secretly on MTV, her own small rebellion, that she had small rebellions
once. She enjoyed watching a man in eyeliner, leather
growl something that could only charitably be called a love song.
And I’m still in love with Billy Idol, though Billy Idol isn’t
Billy Idol, by which I mean I envy Billy Idol
the way everyone knew his name, his every Friday night
hook-up, and now the top google hits for “Billy Idol” include
“Whatever Happed To” and I too would like to vanish like that.
E.B. Schnepp is a poet currently residing in Chicago. Their work has been featured in Poetry Daily and can be found in Gulf Coast, Nat. Brut, and Iron Horse Review, among others.