red cross syndrome rewritten

Red Cross Syndrome


Time and time again I’ve seen women trying to get
truculent alcoholics to stop drinking thinking love
conquers all. Or female lawyers helping their clients
to escape from jail, for love naturally, only to end up
losing their license and future. The list is long, but
what can I say, infatuation, lethal attraction? Victims
and abusers in a fatal embrace needing each other.

On the other hand, running away with a gambler has
a romantic allure, Mississippi River and steam paddlers,
robbing a bank, fleeing to Rio de Janeiro; adventure,
it beats the safe boredom of a middleclass life… for
a time, but then the dream fades as the face when
meeting reality, money gone, the man also, creaking
joints, too late now to go home.

Collectors of dogs and cats, eccentric old ladies who
have a story to tell; only there is no one around to
listen, yet still defend the man who got them in this
mess; as golden memory- a shiny illusion-. Or, if they
are lucky, get caught; spend some time in jail, find
Jesus- as Paris Hilton did. Or atone, for passed sins,
and work as a cook, in a soup kitchen, for the destitute.