Truth in Lending

I'll do anything to avoid-
even write garbage, deliberate crap-
to avoid myself.
Anything at all. Why?
Jumpstart, need a boost. How? Where?
Had it all and now nothing.
But I know this, the root is absorption in I.
Get rid of it. Gut it. Stop concentrating on me.
New page, see what appears. Cross off, delete, x out.
Move it somewhere else.
It'll be okay, we'll figure it out. We will.
Make our worlds coexist, overlap and not lose what brought us here.

Work

Pull a random note, any note, do anything at all with it.
Just to get from here to there. Or anywhere.
Anywhere. Everywhere.
Desperate to get anywhere.
Good bad indifferent, go anywhere.
Mean median mode. La mode et mean.
Life is cruel. No matter how cruel, no matter how much it hurts,
what excuses life conveniently throws down
[Liar! You put your own stumbling blocks in your path.
When they aren't there, you build them. Liar!]
You find more.

Empty Station

The train is gone.
The ducks, too.
Night is silent.
Sucks the sound from me.
Hornets sleep, long sleep.
Dark cradles the hive, just enough to encourage sleep.
Standing here, listening to nothing,
missing the buzz under my skin.
When they wake, fear nausea reaches down and pulls my guts out.
Pulls them right out, piles them on the floor and puts a candle on top.
Happy birthday to the end of the world as we know it.

Writers' OCD

Fussy?
Damn straight I'm fussy.
It's fussy to want A-1 AND ketchup?
You are talking to someone who spends hours looking for the right verb.
Damn straight I'm fussy.
Deal with it.

Snow in July

That night
I loved you so much that night.
Every dream, all dreams converging in one perfect place.
My make-believe future, every girl's future, all laid out.
Perfect.
We'd live happily ever after.

Music pounding, bass note loud in my bones,
not as loud as the steel and concrete, girders and cranes building dreams.
It's all going to be fine.
It'll be alright now.
Well, it's not.
Hands running up and down me, eyes anywhere else.
Not on me. When did it get so cold?
Struggle into a sweater on this 90 degree night.
So cold.
Because the truth is happy ever after is a grease puddle rainbow,
illusion in used up, drained out motor oil when you look down,
faint light reflected on the ground swell.

Lead guitar breaks a string.
Hands in me, kiss me. Close my eyes so I can't see where your eyes are.
Anywhere, everywhere but here.
Keep them closed while they restring the guitar.
Keep them closed.

Mind's I

If you were here, here, now, next to me
How can you say that, say such wonderful things?
You see what you want to see.
Shiver when your skin touches mine, shiver wondering
when you will see what I see, as I see.
Give me now, I want to be what you see.

My little one

Please note the latest addition to my list of preferred authors. As my youngest child has completed her latest short story, explained the illustration sequence to accompany said work and then played a work of music that she composed, I realized that I have been negligent in adding her to the list.

Perhaps I'm not ready for her to grow up.