winged unicorn

Black Thing

2011-09-06T16:28:00.000-04:00

im going to stay here until they go away

im going to stay right here in the closet

oh stop smirking not that kind of closet

no one in this family is in that kind of closet

im in a for real closet

my favorite closet way up on the top shelf sprawled across the hatboxes of military helmets collapsible toppers berets fedoras souwesters and bowlers where i can inhale the leather scent of the mans jackets

its quiet up here with the good smell of leather and man sweat

i dont like the hubbub the crowds in the living room kitchen bedrooms

even the bathroom where the man keeps my box

the apartment is full of people

the mans sister

his friend

his friends siamese bitch

yes i know a bitch is a dog but i am using the other meaning of the word

you dont insult my intelligence and i wont insult yours

at least ill try not to insult yours whatever intelligence you have anyway

so many other people that i am dizzy with the smells

i am too old and fat to avoid their legs

keep their heels off my tail and their hands off me

i dont like when they touch me

i dont like strange people touching me

i belong to the man

im not even sure how i managed to get up here

its been years since i climbed the coats but now i am here

up on top of the hatboxes in the warm quiet

so quiet up here away from everything everyone all over

im going to stay up here until they go away and the man helps me down

i hope he comes soon

he should be looking for me i think

such a long time since he fed me

since anyone fed me even the mans friend or the mans sister

they give me dry food but the man shares real food with me and I bring him presents

okay I used to bring him presents when I was younger

he even made a poster for the door with a scorecard because he is proud of my hunting

ill just take another little nap while i wait

its late

its so very late

i know its late because im very hungry and i want down

when the man gets me ill pretend to be annoyed and hiss but i hope he comes soon

maybe when he gets me down he will be sorry for forgetting me and he will hold me and give me treats and stroke my fur and play make believe and put me in the hats and take pictures of me like we used to do before when we were young and sleek and not grey anywhere

hes gotten so thin

i wish i could give him some of my fatness

i wish i could

im so fat now i take up his whole lap and the rest of the sofa too

he pushes me off because his stomach hurts all the time so I go up on the back of the sofa to nuzzle his neck and watch the fireplace with him

i know what ill do

ill call him and he will come and reach way up and say come here black thing you silly old black thing what are you doing up there all alone and pull me down and hold me and take me to sit on the sofa with him

im going to call him now

man

maaaaaannnn

oh man come get me man

if you get me down we can sit in the living room and i will do the firefly dance on the windowsill and play peekaboo with the curtains to make you laugh and i will bring you a present

oh maaaaaannnn my man come get me please

i wish he'd come get me

im lonely up here

i dont want to be up here anymore

why doesnt he come

he always comes when i call

where is he

where is my man

i wish everyone would just go away already so the man can get me and sit on the sofa with me and watch the fireplace and eat sardines right out of the can and itll be me and him and everything will be okay like before

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

2011-08-23T16:18:00.000-04:00

Staring at the out of focus mirror, at the baby smooth skull, I smile. There is a safety razor on the edge of the bath, and I know the blades will be counted later.
I’m not allowed to keep the extras, not since they found out that I’d found out and tried to make a quick and almost painless blink but since then I’d acceded to their wishes,
drank the Kool-Aid and lain in the hum hum hum machines.
They do give me a little bit of privacy.
The soap lather is slick, squishy, making quick work of my final depilation.
If I make myself bald now, then I will be bald all over.
Head
Eyebrows
Arms
Legs
Toes
Groin
I can’t reach my back, but I think that’s pretty hairless anyway.
I look like one of those very naked mannequins, hairless and sexless.
I won. Not them.
I tricked them, tricked them all, not waiting for the hum hum hum machine to take my hair, take my sex, take my me.
I’m going to use a whole bottle of lotion now and make me feel pretty.
And then I’ll count the stitches on my ribs.

The Quiet is Underwhelming

2011-08-09T16:21:00.000-04:00

We’re too silent now. I know, we promised silence, misguided thing that silence is, thinking silence is the same as comfort, that silence is the absence of strife.

It’s not. It’s just silence.

Except when it is another symptom of yet another cause, another reaction to another unknown.
Walls, gates, moats,
Wagons, caves, motes.
We build so much, wanting something different.
We know what we don’t want, everyone knows what they don’t want-or they think they do.
That is the easy part, knowing what you don’t want: vanilla ice cream, brussels sprouts, sardines.
But doing something you don’t do so you’ll get something you don’t have...

It’s time.

I’m taking down walls, storming gates, crossing moats.
I’m slipping between wagons, searching caves, removing motes from our eyes.
From both our eyes.
Put away stubborn, pride, inflexible. Put away fear.
How could I think less of you when I am so so far from the shadow of perfect myself, staring at perfect’s ass, so far behind I am in a lapped field on the verge of being pulled?
Beat down stubborn, pride, inflexible-more you does not mean less me.
The fallout and backlash anticipated, those are just shards from another goblet thrown by someone else, not me, never by me, and missed by the vacuum cleaner.

I’ve been there.
So take me to the common ground and we will open out mouths, let words pour out, smudge the chalk art in the driveway and the lines in the sand, cross the boundaries leading to a new place where no one cowers in the closet behind the winter coats and worn out sneakers and crumpled scraps of gift wrap.
We’ll go there, speak untested, unafraid and be silent together later.
　
　

Unemployment

2011-08-09T16:20:00.001-04:00

I am a feral dog fighting over rancid meat.

Scared, wild, hungry.
Sniffing, snarling. Stay away!
All slowly dying.

You think we’re human?
No, poverty took us down
to woods alleys graves.

Invisible now,
feel their cold breath on your neck,
hear their echo howls.

Goodbye Girl

2011-08-09T16:19:00.000-04:00

He stood over the shredder, feeding it, watching it gulp his former life, their life and spit out confetti destined to soak up bird poop and urine in the bottom of a large cage.
It gulped so hard it pulled the papers from his hand, reminding him of the plant in "little Shop of Horrors’, of quicksand, of the days she nursed their younglings, their frantic sucking, the milk spurting everywhere and her becoming thinner and paler as their bellies rounded hard., excess spewing out their little bottoms an inhale later.
He fed more into the shredder.
Her bank card.
Her checkbook.
Her photos.
Her passport.
Her notebooks filled with lies.
Her flashdrives, disks and tapes.
All that contained her, the machinations of her multi phasic mind.
He fed it.
When the hopper was full for the third time, he went out back and dumped the bits and bytes into a hole, shoveled dirt over it and turned the tarp. It was, if not a good feeling, certainly satisfying.
He called the girls to lay violets on the mound and, slowly, slowly they walked back into the house, one by one.

Naegleria Fowleri [Brain Parasite]

2011-08-01T07:34:00.002-04:00

"Work gives life meaning, a sense of purpose, makes you feel your day was worth something."

Crashes in my head, tide roiling over the boardwalk, pulling human detritus out to mid-sea where passing cruise ships will wonder just how THAT got out there, turn the panaceas into so much white noise.

Work locks the demons in the closet, skinny fingers claw under the edge, desperate to reach the doorknob so they can come out and guide me to the TECO oven and sing me a lullaby , perchance to dream of happier days.

The Future is Invisible and So am I

2011-08-01T07:33:00.000-04:00

     "You know, we’re at a crossroads? That things are going to change, evolve? Whether we want it or not, change is inevitable. Trite, but true, and the changes outside are going to impact us. How we deal with them, cope, in the end, it’ll be okay, we’ll be okay."
     I hear his voice, words I wish I heard, but it is all imaginary. He says nothing, staring at the papers, document sets, email chains, the bottom piece removed from a Jenga pile and the resulting crash.
     He says nothing.
     That is my position, silence, not his. My standard operating procedure, mode du jour. He has no right to usurp my place in the relationship, no right to mystery, circumspection, privacy, reticence. How am I supposed to respond? Do I take his role, wiggle my ears, turn cartwheels, cajole? I am clueless. The endless ramble voice I wish I heard strangles whatever my tongue might dance.
     "This is a good thing. It’s time, more than time and now we’ll be able to move forward to another level, we really will. Just think, baby doll! No. don’t think, babe, feel! Let yourself feel, babe! I love you and this is good, it’s all good. You’ll see. I’ll be fine, we’ll be fine, more than fine, better than ever."
     But the fantasy in my head, whispering sweet nothings, protestations of eternal love and rose strewn silk sheeted beds and microchip diamond rings, the voice promising tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, stays there, in my head, hammering my brain, not swirling down my helix to caress my tympanic membrane. The ossicles spin, measure and cut in a padded room.
     He says nothing as he folds the papers back into their standard sized envelope, adorned with a certified return receipt required edge, nothing as he scrolls the numbers in his cellphone, nothing as he fills a duffle bag with pants and shirts and socks but not the photos he took of me.
     Nothing as he throws the bag into the back of the car.
     Nothing as he turns the corner.
     Nothing as he gets onto the Interstate.
     Nothing as he watches the odometer climb.
     Nothing as
     Nothing as
     Nothing as
     The air conditioner clicks on and the temperature drops a few degrees, startling me. I lift the needle from the scratch, worn through to the turntable, on the 33 rpm. I suppose I could burn it to a CD or MP3 player, but what would be the point?
     It will still be stuck in limbo.

Secret Life of an American Wife

2011-08-01T07:28:00.001-04:00

Secret Life of an American Wife
Surrounded by secrets-What are we hiding, anyway?
I know, I know what lurks in the hearts of all
and it is not evil, not anything that exciting or creative, no
it is fear
it is resignation
it is past hope, devoid of redemption
See! That one over there?
He lives behind Walmart, in the truck he bought, used, when he finished high school.
Her? She skips her insulin and lunch was dumpster diving.
The greyhair across the room? She drives without insurance and will be relieved when they repossess.
Young man with frayed jeans? He moved back in with his parents and her sister and her kids.
But they all smile and pretend and make like they’re going to work and class and and and
and oh my, yes, education and integrity are so important, of course, yes sir, I will, thank you, and we all want more of this and and and
I know their secrets, how close, shoulders burning, white fingertips clutching at the precipice, they are to falling. I know.
I have secrets of my own.

Wellwood D14

2011-08-01T07:24:00.002-04:00

He’s pushing up daisies through the hedgerow
I waited too long before, too long since
The blip in my life that was us
Grey roads and heat wave ripple air before,
tree root broken sidewalks and tsunami wind since
I lie down, partly hidden by the bushes
Soon, I will take his hand and we will push up daisies together.

Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue

2011-07-18T10:04:00.000-04:00

     "Momma, Momma, I didn’t mean it, Momma. I don’t know..."
     My girl stands there, holding a rag doll, a muddy rag doll that used to be my light, my angel, my joyful noise in the morning, in her hands.
     "Momma, I think I broke it. Can you fix it, Momma? Can you? You fix everything, Momma. Can you? Please?"
     I stare at the flat eyes, greyed skin, fingerless nails. I, who rewired lamps, cleared elbows, soldered cracked engine blocks, I, who fix just about anything, I knew I couldn’t fix this. No one could fix this, not even God. No one.
     I shake my head.
     "Momma, please, Momma. Can’t you try? I don’t know who else to ask, Momma."
     I shake my head again, so cold except for the urine I realized was streaming down my leg.
     "Momma, help me. You can, you have to, Momma."
     The uneven plaster on the wall snags my shirt and keeps me upright while I shake my head. I watch the spinning colors behind my eyelids. I cannot look at what is in front of me.
     "Momma, if you can’t fix it, can you make it go away? Momma?"
     I swallow and nod yes.

Sushi: A Fish by Any Other Name is Still a Fish

2011-07-18T10:02:00.001-04:00

Cunt.
Lying, cheating whoremonger.
He’d rather sit there, staring, contemplating a ‘relationship’
with her. Not me.
I scroll my email logs, going back.
Fourteen months, twenty-three days.
So many broken promises in those fourteen months, twenty-three days.
It made me not like myself, the me I was with him.
The needy, whining, shutting my eyes to truth, ignoring the elephant conga line snaking around the room, head pounding me I became with him.
If I don’t respect myself, why should he?
If I don’t value myself, why should he?
Why should anyone?
So many broken promises in those fourteen months, twenty-three days.
The last trip, the test trip which I didn’t know was a test and was doomed to fail, questions written on decomposing paper with disappearing ink, letters rearranging themselves faster than a speeding bullet which stops in the cinder block wall behind my head, which ended in a bout of hepatitis A for me after eating oysters in August.
The realization that he was emailing her from my computer and clearing the cache in a futile attempt to keep me from knowing he was making plans
with her. Not me.
So many broken promises in those fourteen months, twenty-three days.
You want her, you want to fill your belly with sushi?
Go ahead. Eat. Eat as much as you can.
Eat, and when you are hungry an hour later, eat some more. Enjoy.
But she won’t take fourteen months, twenty-three days of broken promises to move on.
I have lost my taste for raw foods, for duplicity.
Give me hard-cooked eggs, pasturized milk, blackened catfish and grilled bok choy.
No more broken promises. Ever ever.

The Meaning [lessness] of Life

2011-07-07T18:09:00.001-04:00

One more in a long line of one mores
Aphorisms swirl through the brain, trite and treacle,
knitting a shawl that wouldn’t keep a newt warm
No, not even a newt
There is so much rejection before "I can’t take it anymore" sets in good and hard
So good and hard all I want is to be amontilladoed in
before I hear dirges of accept and utilize, accept and utilize
Accept and utilize is a curse, not an inspiration
before the good cop bad cop shuffle has me confessing to crimes
I haven’t even heard of and couldn’t imagine

If I turn it inside out, struggle, nails claw chalkboard, to make this another learning experience
I am too old for this BS anyway
But if I do-
There is a truism, that fishing is like life
Not the cast your reel and you will surely catch something
Not even the teach a man-or woman-to fish and you’ll feed him for a lifetime
but my own variant,
My own, "If I don’t do what I’ve always done, I’ll get something I haven’t already got"
Maybe

Teach a man to fish and you’ll feed him for life
There is no bait
There is no hook
There is a broken reel
The ocean is so dense with salt, so full of tears, it cannot sustain life
So teach me to fish, hookless, baitless, broken
Let me cast my reel into barren water and watch me pull in a 1978 Bridgestone tyre
Watch me

Amabo te, fame deliria. Videro finem, exitum...
Da mihi piscis, piscis, amabo te. Lac humanus beneficii, amabo te.
Just give me a fish, just for now, to fill my mouth with sweet
calm the spasms for a little while
feed me enough for today, I won’t ask again tomorrow
I know I’ve worn out whatever welcome I had

Amabo te. I am the chum. Please.
　
Even if life is perfect in chance, in equity, in fairness,
[Who said life was fair, anyway?]
all the skills/training/certification/experience
when chance or unspoken paradigm intercede
and move a half meter to my left for the catch du jour
while all around, dozens doing pretty much similar with similar get
nothing
again

Life is a banquet, but most poor fools are starving,
while mouse rejected crumbs litter the table
and the Maid of Honor, never a bride, is the designated driver of a limo,
gas tank hovering on empty, who can’t even numb the hurt with Patron

translation:
Please, I am delirious with want. I see the end, the final end...
Give me a fish, a fish, please. The milk of human kindness, please.

Return of Who?

2011-06-28T10:12:00.000-04:00

Bad Girl stood there, silent, eyes downcast, pink leather collar dangling from her left hand.

Master stared through the pier window. She couldn't see him, not only because her eyes were down, but because of the crazed one-way glass. Even if she had looked up, stared right at him, all she'd see was a kaleidoscope reflection of herself. On his side of the glass, inside this house, he could be any denim clad statue, himself, the housekeeper or any of the train wreck of roommates he'd had since she'd disappeared three years ago. He opened the door.

"So who are you today? Cassie?" chucking her under the chin. "Alice, maybe? No, you're not. Are you Bad Girl?" She flinched, shook her head. "Are you Bad Girl come to see me? Come back to me for whatever god-forsaken selfish reason you could have? Come back to me to fix whatever nasty mess you've gotten into this time? Hmm? What now?

"Drugs? Alcohol? Work? Mick? Jerkwad still hanging around? Cynthia? Some one else? Someone new or shall I just go through the list of usual suspects? Stop your crying, I can't stand your BS. Come in, you're causing a scene. I don't need Gladys Kravitz calling the HOA on me."

She shivered as the air conditioning hit her, so much colder than when she was in and out all the time. He never ran the AC when she was there, called his bedroom "the little rain forest" but with only himself to please, or himself and whoever wasn't her, he had at a more typical temperature. The in-line skates, the orange and brown sweater draped over the chair, so not like him, alien to her memory, added another layer of cold. How much had he changed?

Master pulled a throw off the sofa and draped it around her. "Stop shaking. Come on. I'll boil water for tea. Cassie... please." Filling the kettle, fear and disgust played ring around the rosy in his mind, desire and love, yes, love, played in his heart. What was she doing here? "Why don't you put the collar on? That's why you're here? You need me to tell you? Put it on, go ahead."

She stood there, still except for the shivering.

"Yeah, you know better. Wear it with anyone else, no, no. Mine, that's it, right? You returning to your rightful owner? Huh, yeah, rightful owner. Sure, tell myself another lie. I never owned you, not even a fragment. Bitch owns me, though, heart and soul, she does. Did I say that? Here. Drink your fucking tea.

"So I guess you're here just because you missed me? I already lowered the AC, don't worry about hypothermia. Drink."

She looked at him, then into the mug, trying to read the leaves but could only see the stains left inside by long ago nights. They were all Greek or Serbo or anything she couldn't read anyway. She took a sip. "I shouldn't be here. I have to go."

He says nothing, but takes her arm and leads her into the living room. He removes the orange and brown sweater, pushes her towards the chair. She curls up in it, sips the tea. That chair, the same chair he was sitting in, reading "I am a Strange Loop" the day she left, closing the door with a gentle click of the knob. Her toothpaste and nail polish were still on the bathroom vanity.

In the few minutes it took to register that she was gone gone gone, no answer to email phone letter, he even sent flowers to her office, everything marked ‘return to sender unknown' he lost his taste for philosophy. He left the book on a fast-food table.

They Say

2011-06-28T10:02:00.000-04:00

They say it’s easy to see, looking backwards
They say every chicken finds it’s own roost
They say if you wait long enough, it’s all good
They say, they say, they say it’s god’s truth

Well, I say I don’t want to wait no more
I’m sick and tired of passed over
I’m going through that door
No more searching and waiting on four leaf clover

The say sunshine rises to the one who heard
They say keep working at your post
They say it’s hidden in the word
They day, they say, they say prayer is for the just

Well, I say I don’t want to wait no more
I’m sick and tired of passed over
I’m going through that door
No more searching and waiting on four leaf clover

They say it’s a matter of getting the right card
They say change rumbles coast to coast
They say if you believe it’s not hard
They say, they say, they say love God the most

Well, I say I don’t want to wait no more
I’m sick and tired of passed over
I’m going through that door
No more searching and waiting on four leaf clover

Well, I say I don’t want to wait no more
I’m sick and tired of passed over
I’m going through that door
No more searching and waiting on four leaf clover

Me and Maybe You, You and Maybe Me

2011-06-28T10:00:00.000-04:00

I photoshopped myself into your life
I was your buddy, your girlfriend, your wife
Played with shapes and shadows
Put myself in the highways and byblows

I cut and pasted into your past
Made myself your first and last
Call me crazy, call me obsessed
Call me, call me, call me, call...

Do you know who I am?
I’m your strawberry pudding and jam
Can’t you see where I belong?
Where you’re weak, I am strong.

Do you hear angel harps?
I am your flats and your sharps.
I’m the one you can’t escape
No such thing as coincidence, I am your fate

You’ll be fine, shh, hush, now sleep
Accept, let me in, breathe deep

I cut and pasted into your past
Made myself your first and last
Call me crazy, call me obsessed
Call me, call me, call me, call...

Life is Rolling Thing

2011-06-28T09:58:00.002-04:00

I’ve found I can live with anything
Pain
Grief
Scars
Torment of a broken soul
Seizure of a schism heart
Yes, I can
Yes, I have
but I can’t live with fear
Icicles in my eyes and paralysis of my hands
and pulse of blood slower slower and so cold
oh my god, the cold
No, that I cannot live with
So
I can live without you
a bone splitting I can take, take easily, take fine
just fine, everything will be fine
but the powerpoint possibilities you flash
hypnotize me to sleep, perchance to dream
of a place I cannot, will not go.

Ropes and Ties that Bind

2011-06-28T09:57:00.000-04:00

Every rope wants to be a noose
they lie there, so politely curled in on themselves
just waiting
I’ve watched them
when they think no one is looking
just past my peripheral vision
casting a shadow
as they test the ceiling rafters

More and Other HBKs: They are Everywhere and They Look Just Like Every Other House

2011-05-28T07:52:00.000-04:00

"Hey, Miz W, what's gone on in your life since I saw you last? How are the girls? They working? Both still living with you or has Gwen moved out again?"

"I'll tell you, they are a blessing. You know, Gwendolyn has a great position at Price Waterhouse."

"She got it? Oh that's great, she wanted that so bad."

"Mmm. She loves it there and they love her. She is getting it all there."

"Well, she should. Smart, hard-working, talented, beautiful, good tempered. Lot like her momma, if you ask me."

"Thank you, child. All Jesus doing."

"Amen. And how's Genny? She back in school?"

"You know my Genny. She, she jess needs a little more time to get acclimated than some folk do, a helping hand on her back to guide her a bit, but she do right once she gets points that ways."

"Leastwise it's a helping hand on her back and not on her backside, like some need."

"Child, you do make me laugh! But yes, a gentle push now and then to keep her moving on her track, plenty of others could use the same but no one to give it to them. She's in this program, part work, part school. Likes it well enough, pushing papers around and around. Don't know how Gwen or I would feel about that, we like talking too much to real people to push papers or do that Internet frou-frou stuff, but it suits my Genny just fine."

"Be proud, momma, she hasn't had it easy. She is doing so much with what she has, be proud. And what's going on with you? Teaching, selling, training? Where are you living now, every time we talk it's somewhere else."

"I tell you, child, that is true. I have had no luck the past few years with living places. We've know each other five, six years now and I've lived in more places than that but right now we're down in Kissimmee, real nice two bedroom apartment."

"What about that big house you were renting, over down the street, the one that was all redone for you? Gwen told me you had new carpets, appliances, a garage even..."

"That house? That house! That was the Original House of Bad Karma, Hunter's Creek! You know they had to repaint the outsides three times cause the red kept bleeding right through the grey, cream, whateverall color they were trying to paint it!"

"Wait. You mean the house you moved into last year was THAT house? The one across the street from the park? Back of the fence, I mean the divide?"

"Yes, child, that one!"

"Oh no, Miz W, if I'd known that was the house, oh if I'd known, I'd've warned you right then that place is evil! I rode past it, sure, but on the other side of the street. I didn't even like driving past it, could feel it clawing out at me. You know it had two major fires? You know people died in those fires?"

"Yes, they told us before we moved in. More and more on top of what was already there. Getting new blood to feed it on top of the old, pulling down on itself anyway it can. That second floor they added, it was not right, not ever. We looked at that house, we went in through the front door and said, this is nice, this is very nice."

"How long were you there? Wait , as strong as you are, how'd you ever move in?"

"Few weeks. Work was still going on when we saw it, that's why we never did see the garage til after. Place had been empty for a year or so, we got it all new and shiny.

"And then we went up to that second floor. Whatever it was in the garage, it came right up through the floor, cold cold cold, room was so much colder than the rest of the house which sounds like a good thing but no, believe me, no."

"You know this whole area is built on Indian burial grounds? Or so I'm told?"

"I believe that, why not? That house, the fires and the stains... My Genny, she swears something slammed the door on her hand and one time she was going up the stairs and something grabbed her and pulled her and she fell over backwards, nearly broke her neck. We moved out after my Genny got pulled that night. Next morning, we just packed right up and called the owner and told him he could keep the security."

"Smart. Expensive, but smart."

"You should've seen it, like the Amityville horror all over again. Stuff dripping down the walls, nasty mold growing up from the floor. Course, that could have been from the hurricanes, they went right over although maybe the hurricanes were more and the same. Mm-mm, the noises... All hours of the day and night, there were these noises that came from the closets.

"We didn't move any stuff up to the second floor, that was going to be Gwendolyn's own private apartment, but then she decided to room with Genny, that it just was too much trouble to be going up and down the stairs when she works such long hours. I don't even want to think what would have been if Gwen or my Genny had been sleeping up there. I don't want to think about it.

"Miz W, that scares me, you living there, even if it was just for a while. Please tell me the new place is better?"

"Better and boring. Boring is good. I don't know why folks is always badmouthing Kissimmee, it's old and sturdy and boring and the rumors of it being full of crackers, well, I'm from New York but I have family from Ocoy or and my kind don't live there."

"Ocoy?"

"Ocoy, up past Colonial, where the Turnpike crosses it."

"Ocoy? Ocoee!"

"You say Ocoee, I say Ocoy, that's how the Cherokee pronounce it, or that's what my granddaddy claimed anyways. Me, I still wouldn't live in that part of town, but some black folk do, now. Yes, child, that house, surprising to both of us that I didn't smell the angry in it."

"It was hiding."

"I hope it stays hidden, good riddance and far away. Meanwhile, we all gots to live while we can. More air we blow here, good air that is, righteous air, rich oxygen air, more air going round to light God's candles and snuff Satan's right out."

"You burn bright, Miz W. You give those girls of yours a bit hug and kiss for me. Let me give you some articles I clipped for them, but you bring them next time.

"Thank you darling, I'll say a prayer for you, too."

"Amen, Miz W. Can't hurt, especially an old reprobate like me."

"No, can't hurt, child, can't hurt a bit."

A Night In Funland

2011-05-28T07:42:00.000-04:00

"We have a winner! Here ya go, little lady, pick any prize off the top shelf. Every time a winner, folks, every time! All ya gots to do to win is play the game!"

She turned around, confused. A winner? There's a winner? Not her? Who? The barker had his hand on a girl's shoulder, not her, a girl with a Cleopatra drape of light blue beaded dredlocks.

Why her? Why not me? How come I never win? And no, I don't care if there is a next time, if I can play again later or tomorrow, I don't care what he says, I'm never the winner. I'll never walk out of here with a four foot Scooby Doo and everyone going ooh and ahh at me. Not ever.

She wasn't sure how she ended up on the curb, leaning against a light post, but the brigade of fire ants marching up her ankle was just one more line on her list of "Bad Luck Lori Stories." Tonight, she should have been snuggling up with a sawdust filled, imported from China, cartoon character and instead she'd be slathering her feet with antibiotic and antihistamine ointments, hoping to avoid a visit to the doctor and a ten day regimen of cefalexin.

Maybe a twistee-treat would turn this night into a not quite total waste, but her pocket was empty of the eight single dollars left after playing a few rounds at the water-pistol gallery. A man walked by holding a vanilla-strawberry and a chocolate-banana, leaning towers of ice cream, dripping sprinkles a Hansel and Gretel trail behind him. He handed the cones to his codfish mouthed kids. "Don't worry about finishing them, we're going to have funnel cake later."

Lori sat down again and let the ants resume their reconnaissance mission across her legs. She sat until the carnival closed, until she had to go home, until she couldn't sit any longer.

First, Last

2011-05-28T07:40:00.000-04:00

"Alright, but this is the last time." There is never a last time, not with him, not with her. Every time is a first time or an again time or perhaps a last time for today, but never ever a last last time.
I love my disciples.

Adjusting the clinchers, I made a mental note to refurbish the linings. The padding was thinning out and that could be, if not dangerous, certainly uncomfortable. The zippers, too, needed a quick spray with WD-40, and the safety locks. They weren't as smooth as they should be.

I like my zippers quiet.

They look so pretty hanging there, nude except for their matching cuffs, hoods and those heavy, heart-shaped lockets attached to their collars, sweat running the formal lacework design I'd painted on earlier, a touch of whimsy provided by horsehair and Trimtex acrylic paint. I'd considered doing a sharpy design a la Jigglypuff, but removing sharpy from flesh is tedious.

Leaning back in the swing, I kicked until I could grab the handle by the switch-pad and flick it.. It would have been easier to walk, but the swing, a cutaway tire, amused me. It was so iconoclastic, so irreverant, to have an old tire swing here. I'd picked up a rotating clothes rack at a dry cleaner's going-out-of-business sale and it had proven to be one of the best investments I'd made in terms of furnishing my studio: inexpensive, unique, multipurpose. They swayed as the rack rotated through and around the room, toes a few inches from the floor.

Then Clara sagged and her foot caught against a sawhorse and broke off.
Oh, dear. That will never do.

I stopped the conveyor and picked up the foot. A clean break, quite dried out. I poked Wilhelm's limbs and torso. He was dried out, too. Were they that dried out when I painted them the other day? I'm not sure.

I released the clamps and removed the hoods. Yes, those zippers definitely needed a spray of WD-40. Folded them neatly into a barrel and threw Clara's foot in after her.

No more play time for them after all.

When we got to the dump, I rolled the barrel to the edge of the sludge pond. Gave it a gentle nudge. "Ready for a ride, children? Alright, but this really is the last time."

Contract Work

2011-05-28T07:37:00.000-04:00

"Maynard stumbled over the slick, lichen cover rock. He was sure he had clambered over the same rock an hour before but who knew in this dense fog; he could barely see his hand in front of his face. If only he hadn't given in to that inquisitive urge to turn of the main highway and satisfy his curiosity. What a stupid decision that had been..."

"What a stupid decision? That's an understatement. Oh fuck, are they paying me enough to read this crap? No, they're not. Didn't even do basic spell/grammar check on this and now I'm supposed to do that and content edit?

"I can't even look at this, it's so full of mistakes. It is hurting my eyes, I want to put needles in them! Look at that screen, red, red, red, underlines, green, tick marks. Where am I supposed to put my edit notes, tell me that one.

"It's as bad as reading the Slantinel! Okay, fine, maybe not that bad. As bad as the New York Times, that once great grey lady who has sunk so far she buys copy from Huffpo/AOL.

"How much time did I budget for this anyway? One hundred twenty-one thousand words, single-spaced, 10.5 font. That comes out to 400 pages at a 12 font? I gotta get new glasses. Oh fuck, this turdlet isn't even a doc. The asswipe sent it as a pdf, now how am I going to work this? Enough. Where's my phone?

"Hey, Rik, I opened that project you subbed to me. Yeah, that one. Rik, did you look at it? No, Rik, not the word count, the content. Did you look at it? Didn't think so. It is so bad it is Braxton-Hicks contender. Fine, Bulwer-Lytton, dark and stormy night, yadda yadda.

"We agreed to what as my percent? Uhh huh. Well, I think we have to rethink this. It's a lot bigger than we were led to believe-and a whole lot uglier. Really.

"No, can't do that, not at this price point. Rik, it wasn't even spell-checked. I am staring at a checkerboard screen of red and black. Or maybe a backgammon screen, I dunno. Cribbage? Very not funny. So it's copy and content work. Fix the basic errors and then cut it down to ninety. That's a 25% cut. Which shouldn't be hard, having read the first paragraph. Easy deleting drivel, but making sense of it, seeing if there is a plot and character development here? I think the difficulty will be not cutting it by 75%.

"Rik, the protagonist is named Maynard. Do I really need to say more?

"Yeah, yeah, I love you, too. You're my hero. I'm your muffalato? In your dreams. Fine, get back to me later, big guy, would you? I've got youporn to watch, at least that doesn't make me ill. OMG, I can't believe it! Rik, Rik, it's the midget hooker! I'll send you the link. You're welcome. Well-cum. That, too.

"All right, I'll close this. There it is already.

"I love the smell of roasting flesh. It so much reminds me of bacon."

"I like this one. Great first line. Thank you, honey. Later."

The Terrors

2011-05-06T13:29:00.002-04:00

The terrors are back
We’re not going to hurt you, no not us
We’re not going to sharpen our nails and drain your blood
or pierce your eyeballs
or pull out your throat
or bite off your fingers
No, not us.
We’re just going to sit here and watch while you do it.
You make out job so easy.
Thank you.

Oxygen

2011-05-06T13:28:00.002-04:00

Given a moment to breathe
I’ll take gulps but find no oxygen
The insta-harden holding my lungs hostage
If it is not out there, where will I find it?

I can choose to believe or I cannot
Doesn’t matter what you say or do
I close myself and open to
A reality? A future? I can create
or I can stay closed.
I think I will sleep a while longer

Toy Cars and Other Fictions

2011-05-06T13:27:00.000-04:00

The child, of that age and appearance where gender is indeterminate, pushes the toy car back and forth in the sandbox until it is buried. Grabbing a bedraggled sock monkey, runs off to another adventure in the land of playground, while I ponder retrieving the tiny vehicle from its cat litter grave.

I’ve heard there is a car cemetery somewhere in Florida, a row of cars standing on end, noses in the concrete, their own row of neat gravestones, near a major highway, but I’m not sure I believe it. Perhaps it is another urban myth, like the sewer gators who run the New York City subway system or the underground civilization in Section 9.

But the roof of that tiny car is violet, the same shade of violet as my first set of adult lingerie, bought for a once and future life which came to the end I did not anticipate a few short years ago. Violet ribbons threaded through the palest green lace, so pale it could have been green or a shadow from the light because it was hand-dyed and custom fitted with teeny-tiny pearl buttons.

They, the buttons that is, were also violet.

And the button loops were pale green, all sixteen of them, in a neat row down the front, way to small for a man’s fingers to manipulate. One by one, I undid those button loops I’d painstakingly done up a few hours earlier. One by one, the chemise fell away, leaving me naked, vulnerable.

I shove the car back into the sand box and hurry to push the child on the swings.

The House on Orange

2011-05-06T13:24:00.000-04:00

My fake blond beauty sits, on the curb, head on her knees.
Open the back door, get into the car. Please get into the car. Please get into the car.
Please.
Get into the car.
Can you stand? Can you crawl?
Sway against the car, mascara smears, matted hair and a bruise on her collarbone,
visible through the tear in her shirt tell me more than I want to know
but not enough that I need to know.
Do I need to know?
Does it matter, will it make a difference if I know what nightmares are coming?
She curls into a ball across the back seat, thumb in her mouth,
as if she was still 18 months and not 18 years old.
The more things change the more they remain the same. Trite but too true.
Don't waste your breath apologizing, I know you're sorry, ever so sorry for everything,
for fucking up, for getting into trouble, for costing me so much in time and energy and money
and some parents would say the money is the last of it but they don't know.
This is just another 5 a.m. emergency pickup after too few hours of sleep and
if it takes too long and I'm not at work on time I'll be terminated, no questions or explanations.
The job market takes no prisons and gives no ransom.
Any absences or lateness are automatic cancellation and I don't know whether I'm more afraid of that,
of losing this crappy job with the only redeeming quality that it keeps us from homelessness for a few more months or if I'm more afraid that I'm not going to have a daughter to scream at any longer for being a stupid fucking idiot who is wrecking her life with her self-destructive behavior, that this emergency pickup will end in some city-run, Medicaid accepting hospital instead of a ride home and soaking her clothes to get the vomit smell out.
I just don't know.
I don't know anything, ever.
I make a U turn and head for home.

Beyond the Pale

2010-10-13T15:34:00.000-04:00

Outside the circle across the tracks
all the ways that I am wrong
peeking in through breaks in the hedgerow that I cannot cross
salt marked lines stronger that any surveyor post and rope
Back to my corner where I anneal with
Furriers, tanners, blacksmiths, scribes and other dressers of the dead
we all live beyond the pale
just visiting this planet
making little scritches where we can
trying to prove we exist
and that we matter

Brave New World

2010-10-13T15:12:00.002-04:00

When I was a child, I wasn't afraid of technology
There were faraways to be discovered
moons to walk on
dimensions accessed only through the wonders of light and sound waves.
Now I stare at the skittering phone, black hole life
It falls to the floor, still vibrating
I match it, quiver for quiver, terrified of the other end

Brave New World II

2010-10-13T15:10:00.000-04:00

I don't want to see blank pages anymore
They remind me of my life, too much so
and when they're filled,
well, that's even worse
"What are you saying?"
"Is there anything here?"
"Why this particular word?"
Farcical
Going into the kitchen to slice onions, instead.

Shattered Glass

2010-09-30T21:04:00.000-04:00

Dunk wash rinse place repeat
I transfer plates glasses utensils from one sink to the next and then to the rack to dry
moving each piece from left to right
like writing the directions for a screeplay
The warm water, the clanging of the pipes, the tiny rounds of water fighting air pressure and losing
Soothing in its simplicity, necessity
I pause, my hand deep inside a long narrow goblet
the edge almost touching the spigot
Have I forgotten?
Has it been long enough for fear-born-of-scar-tissue caution to be lost?
If this glass is too thin, if it taps the metal just right,
will it shatter?
Will the fragments shatter my hand, my precious hand, kaleidoscope it, filet it to the bone?
Will I be able to clamp, glue, stitch, anything
to staunch the spurting blood before it dirties the other dishes?
I pause and ever so carefully remove my hand from inside the glass and put all the rest into the dishwasher.

When I Grow Up

2010-09-30T20:46:00.000-04:00

When I grow up I'm going to fly
Except I'm afraid of heights anyway
I'm even afraid when I stand on a chair to change a lightbulb
So I guess I'll have to scotch that idea

Speaking of scotch...
When I grow up I'm going to weave plaids
Except I don't have a loom and I can't stand plaids anyway
So that goes out the window

Speaking of windows...
When I grow up I'm going to have a super delux netbook
Except I'm a bit of a luddite anyway
So I'll have to take another look at that

Speaking of looking...
When I grow up I'm going to see faraway places and in new ways
Except I hate to travel and I can't see without my glasses anyway
So...

I'm going to ride my bike to the top of some mountain and fly down
weaving in and out of traffic trying not to look at my speedometer

how the internet has replaced my address book

2010-09-21T14:38:00.000-04:00

i have a tradition.

when ten persons in my address book have died, i replace it.

i have four address books and no longer keep one, storing addresses in my computer software or in my phone.

i was scrolling through my list of favorite blogs just now, scribblings, rants, recipes, poetry, knitting patterns and the like.

three of the authors i follow have died in the last few months.

when it hits ten, do i replace my computer? delete all access to the internet? what?

Rish rush shel ha mayim

2010-09-15T17:29:00.000-04:00

Can't understand the sounds, joyous throb in my ears
as I wade into strange waters and dive under,
one last time, reciting al hatevilah, v'kayam b'maahmaro, shehehyanu.

I give up the oceans and climb, cold air pain replacing thermals.
Peeking around the mountain I choose to shield me,
I see streaks of golden dark bouncing off the edge of a broken tunnel.

"Just hold on, baby, just hold on! You close your eyes!"

Close my eyes? That means trust.
It means giving up control,
or at least the illusions I have of control.

Swallow fear, pride, facades and let the stomach acids dissolve them at their own pace.
Meantime, I keep my cadence, clinging to the handles, lean my head on his back,
eyes shut tight and whisper,

I am. I will. I can. I do.

Life Beyond the Blowtorch

2010-09-02T15:36:00.001-04:00

Three icebergs float in my veins, sleet attached to steel like white cells attacking virus,
floating there as long as I've been floating here, away from my other life.
Metal worked crosses mark their passage
blood broken glass sheared fiberglass are visas to hostile territory.
Every day for so long I didn't see even them
except from the corner of my eye.
Tonight, three years on, I'm glad the street lights are out.
I'm glad its too dark to see the teddy bear menagerie flower garlands
and boxes of broken chocolates, creme filling removed by various feral beasts,
homage on the median.
But the streetlight comes on just as I hit the underpass.
Spotlight on trois prei deux.
Baby, take a bow and exit stage right

Unclean Title

2010-08-26T15:45:00.000-04:00

The hibiscus are in bloom.
There. That place. Where I used to live.
Engine running, Jackie-O sunglasses and scarf, I resemble a 1960's starlet in disguise.
But if they came out, they'd recognize me.
I hope.
I dread.
Its not yellow any more. My favorite house color.
Every house I ever owned was some shade of yellow,
Porch, shutters, gingerbread, window trim, if not all.
The sun bouncing off the clotted red hurts my eyes. I blink a few times to focus.
The crepe myrtle is gone, and the palm
-I don't know what kind it is, I never cared about that-
is so tall it shades the optional bay alcove I paid extra for.
Its just a place I used to store my things and pace the halls because I couldn't sleep,
hornets stinging, subdermal demons writhing,
while the voices threatened to trap me in between the sheet rock and cinderblock.
It was never home.
I put the car in drive and ignore the stop sign at the corner.

A Promise is a Promise is a Promise

2010-08-26T15:43:00.000-04:00

A campaign promise
is not a champagne promise
is high gloss lipstick over veneered teeth
is not a testament of intelligence, integrity, talent, education or, most certainly, sobriety
is a curtain over honesty with hypocrisy smirking around the tiebacks
is not a vow of devotion but a paean to opportunism
is drawn and quartered by all comers in a bukake baccanal
is what I won't make you because you deserve better.

Houses and Homes and Promises

2010-08-24T15:54:00.001-04:00

I'll build a home with you and we'll never need a king size bed.
We've both been there. We've learned.
I think so anyway. I like to think so, that we've, that I've, learned.
And I promise to smile when you come in,
no matter how busy I am,
no matter how distracted,
because.

A Roving We Will Go

2010-08-19T22:56:00.001-04:00

Jump down turn around, pick a bale of cotton.
Jump down turn around, pick a bale of hay.
Jump down turn around, pick a bale of cotton.
Jump down turn around, pick a bale of hay.

She sang as she picked the roving apart, but it wasn't soft, safe, wonderful cotton, despite her assumption, despite its appearance.

It was fiberglass.

Carcinogenic, full of slivers that weaseled under the skin, shimmied into the lungs and brain, and set up housekeeping, eager for spouse, children, third cousins twice removed to come along ans expand the compound.

Fiberglass.

That miracle substance so pervasive in the housing industry that it was regarded as the lead paint of the new millennia and no one was sure whether the better approach was to remove the contaminant or contain it in walls and spray foam polyurethane.

Fiberglass in toys and drapes and attic insulation, where she sat, fluffy piles around her. She liked the way it glistened, the hologram effect when she held a piece to her eyes and pulled, until the light coming through the tiny window was a rainbow. It was her favorite game, that fall, hiding in the attic and singing, a pretend princess waiting for prince charming to kiss her into forever-never land.

Years later, when the doctors told her she had ‘white lung', the fiberglass version of asbestosis, she wouldn't remember that fall.

Who remembers the innocent games of childhood, anyway?

Random

2010-08-19T22:45:00.000-04:00

Time weighs too much. Not a volume measure, but an endless press.
Way back, breakfast bile.
No more. Now I eat happy,
Faith trust pixie dust.

Wrongness is past life.
Wake to joy, right, comfort. No tears.
Love hope charity.

Six points make a star
that lays above my heartbeat
to keep me aware.

Who am I? Not who you think.

2010-07-27T22:38:00.002-04:00

He doesn't love the public me,

pinstriped, pinned up, buttonholed me
or the decked out deshabille pimped out me
or even the "I can do anything" uber-competent me.

He loves the baaaad me.
The one splashes in puddles and loses her keys
and rips her clothes and breaks her nose,
and stamps her feet because she wants it RIGHT NOW.
The stuck at eight-years-old, mud-smeared, gap-toothed, scabby-kneed me,
leaving a trail of broken cups and crayoned walls,
hiding under the bed, afraid of the monsters she played with in the morning.
The me who bites her lip so no one will see her cry.
The me who stole a chocolate bar because she was hungry.

Yeah. That one.

Anywhere But Here

2010-07-27T22:31:00.002-04:00

"Not everything is an omen. You don't have to ascribe meaning. Let it be what it is." He reached out-oh, that's a symbolic choice of words, maybe I can use it somewhere- and pressed me against him. I was limp. "You have to stop this. You're going to make yourself sick again. Why won't you let me help you? Why can't you trust me?"

Eyes closed, I breathe short, shallow breaths, willing myself away, anywhere but here, anywhere but with him and his ardor. I am afraid. His intensity makes me afraid. It is easier to go back to what I was, to the evil familiar than to believe. He pulls me onto his lap and rocks me, face buried in my hair. I can feel the heat from his palms against my thigh, against the slope of my hip.

"Do I need to get a mirror? You are the only person I know who can lower their temperature at will, still their heartbeat to almost... Don't do this to me. Don't stop your heart beating. Don't go away. Baby, please, you're my joy, you're what I never dreamed of, you're my fantasy girl in every way I know and in ways I didn't eve know were possible."

I feel the wetness on my cheek, where his face touches mine. I used to cry all the time but he doesn't know that. He cries more than I do, at least, more than I do now. Hell, he does everything more than I do. Intense, plunging with his whole self, an adrenaline junky, tempting me with caves full of bats and fool's gold and diamond dust, hairpin turns and double parachutes, while I hang back, hover at the ocean's edge, salt to my ankles and no more.

Until the hurricane force of him drenches me, flays my flesh and leaves me clean, raw, new.

"I can't. I'm afraid."

"You've been afraid your whole life. Me, too. Now, with you, I feel right. Please, baby, I am yours, I am so yours, all of me, anything you want, anything I can give you. Let me be yours. Let me give you an iota of what you've given me."
He is so hot against me, hands searing my open wounds. The cynic is back and tells me, "Its hormones and madness, hot flashes and confusion," while the child crawls under the blanket of his heat and falls asleep, safe in his arms. I open my mouth and he salts the cinders on my tongue.

Hobgoblins can be a Good Thing

2010-07-19T22:52:00.001-04:00

If I could do something every day,
If I could actually stick to it, a la Julia Cameron,
If I did... because, to be honest, I can. I'm quite capable, I've done it.
I've buried myself in it, in the past.
If I did, still, where would I be?

Sounds easy?
Hardest part is what is obvious.
The time.
Finding the time.
Oh, observer says, you've got time, you've got nothing but time!
Looks that way, right? You, there, examining my life, here.
But think.
With all the time in the world, all I have are empty hours and dripping fangs.
It is at the door, gnawing at the baseboard, prying at the hinges, talons tripping lock cylinders.
Time cedes to terror, passes the scepter and disappears into a tornado,
leaving rubble and shards of vision, shovelfuls of debris.
I bend down, pick up a scrap of paper, struggle to read the faded ink, water smears.
Find part of a CD, a fractured keyboard, another scrap.
This one is blank.

I close my eyes, draw the blade along a vein and leave bloody fingerprints where words want to be.

Modern Labor Saving Life

2010-07-19T22:50:00.001-04:00

How did they do it, get it all done, before all the labor saving devices came about?

Did they have a more integrated life, living more fully in the here and now,
different sets of priorities, fewer priorities and calls on their time
or was it the half-empty bottle of tequila on a high up shelf
that got replaced every other Thursday?

Chef Salad

2010-07-19T22:47:00.001-04:00

Hunger spills over, wraps around strangers, eager to respond.
Waiting to take a bite, taste, chew, press against the upper palate,
smooth or gritty on the teeth, thin as water, thick as an oil slick, bubbly,
sweeping up to shore, covering random pelicans and otters.

Sauces, meats and tofu and vegetables all diced into interchangeable cubes,
heated surface a rumpled, now-neglected bed wondering who'll be next,
so ready I can see the waves rise up to me, beckoning.

Nursing my drink, I watch the chef, thinking,
He doesn't have to do that. Not for me, anyway.
All I need to feed my hunger is already here.

Pain Killers

2010-07-19T22:45:00.001-04:00

The train whistle smears numbing cream on my abdomen, massages it in. Each clack clack clack is a knife.
I swallow, panic clawing up my esophagus from somewhere below my ribcage.
Its coming, its coming, its coming, each clack says.
The whistle blows again and rolls on, crushing me into the railbed.

Night on NOBT

2010-07-19T22:40:00.000-04:00

He pushed back his hair, or what was left of it, and admired his profile in the mirror,
the contrast of tanned skin and pale scalp, shining through multicolored fingers.
"I feel pretty, oh so pretty," he hummed.
Another flick of mascara, some metallic eyeliner, gloss.
Lycra tank tucked into shorts, oversized ostrich boa trailing down his back.
Dangling hoop earrings to complete the ensemble.
A double shot of tequila over crushed ice.
It would be a night to forget.

Never Ask a Question If You Don't Want to Hear the Answer

2010-06-25T15:39:00.001-04:00

"I really like that purple lace." He reaches over and strokes her thigh, high up, then cups her ass.

"You know, these panties have a story." She wriggles down towards him and puts a pillow under her chest.

"Yeah? You're pulling my leg. No, I'm pulling your leg. Will you tell me?" He bites the back of her thigh. "You never tell me your stories, it's always, ‘Oh that's history, you'd be bored,' or ‘I don't want to discuss it,' or ‘It's unpleasant remembering.'" He bites her again. " Did that hurt?" She shakes her head. "Not even a little? You never tell me anything, you're so need to know basis I wonder if you're actually a CIA agent."

She shrugs, as much as it's possible for someone laying on their stomach with their head propped on their hands to shrug, and turns to look at him over her shoulder. "Of course not, I don't speak Russian or Arabic, I can't be a CIA agent. I just like to horde my words. I don't waste them. Watch, I want to turn over, my shoulders hurt." She flips over and puts the pillow under her head.

He flutters his eyelashes at her, ducks his face into her groin for a second and then looks up. "Please? Please tell? Pretty please with sugar on top?"

"Fine. I went to every Wal-Mart around here looking for my size, every single one."

"You went to Wal-Mart?" He hyperventilates for a few beats, holding his hand over his heart. "You went to all the Wal-Marts? To buy panties? And you admit it?"

"Stop or I'll stop. No, don't stop. Yeah, that's better." She pushes his head back down. "Good. I was there grocering when I saw them on the rack near the umbrellas. So I looked for my size. That purple lace, how could I resist? Of course, they didn't have my size, they only had extra-extra large, if they did have my size there wouldn't be a story now, would there? Wal-Mart, home of the uber-queen-sized. Stop, I'm talking!"

"Mmmfffle mmmfffle. I thought you didn't want me to stop."

"Men, you're all the same. No, you're not, you're actually surprisingly competent. Anyway, I looked the next time I was there. And the next. And the next. It became an obsession, a quest, a purple lace Holy Grail. Oh, god, that's good. I looked for these panties every single time I went to Wal-Mart, every single one of them, and there's how many around here? Three, four?"

He sighs, sliding his fingers under the lace trim, sliding his fingers along her thigh where his lips had been moments before. "Three in a five mile radius, four in a seven. That's devotion to the cause. So much trouble for a pair of panties, but so worth it. They're really nice."

"Yeah, they are. It's kinda almost a pity." She reaches down and strokes the cotton covering her lower abdomen, snaps the lace band a few inches below her navel. "It is."

"Oh?" He walks his fingers to the hipband and starts to tug them down.

"Only wearing them for maybe an hour. They're so comfortable, too."

He pauses in his ministrations and smiles. "I'm sorry, but much as I like them on, I like them better off. Maybe next time?"

"That would be a first. I've worn them lots of times. I've had them about two years now, but every time I put them on, before I know it, they're off." She smiles a dreamy half-smile, eyes almost closed. "The color's stayed so true and the elastic still has snap."

He does a rapid calculation. She's had them two years. They've known each other for about eighteen months. He's never seen them before although she's worn them ‘lots of times.' How could she have worn them ‘lots of times' and he's never seen them before and ‘before she knows it, they're off'? When did she wear them? Where? Why? What memory put that smile on her face? And most important, who? He starts to open his mouth to ask, but clamps it shut again.

There are some questions you don't want to know the answer.

Fifteen minutes of Fame or Maybe Less I Hope

2010-06-25T15:21:00.001-04:00

She has this ‘thing' for vegetables. No, she's not a vegetarian or vegan or, god forbid, one of those weirdo raw foodies, smug in their disdain and ecoclaims, driving miles and miles in their itty-bitty hybrids to pick up ugly organic produce.

Segue: I don't care how ecofriendly your car it, driving eighty miles round trip is not green except for the auto industry. You might get 55 mpg, but driving still releases fluorocarbons and rubber particles and emissions, nocturnal and otherwise, and causes wear and tear on the asphalt/concrete/dirt roads way in excess of walking to the corner grocery store. You just doesn't see the bigger picture, but why should you? Your telescopic mirror reflects the narrow sanctimony of your own world, which is fine, just fine, and excuse me for screaming.

Anyway, she has this ‘thing' for vegetables. She likes to find heirloom breeds, what was lost and now is found. They're knobby, colorful, deformed when compared to the usual supermarket beauties, but she arranges them on hand thrown plates or wooden canoes or in blown glass bowls and drizzles them with bottled low fat bleu cheese dressing, pasty, chunky inedible crud that it is, or sprays them with imported first press rapeseed oil. Then, she snaps photos of her ‘art,' like those food porn writers everyone is so fond of, oohing and ahhing over fruit waxed to a tenth of its life, instead of the free website blogger she is in reality, ignored even, no, especially, by her friends and family.

Until she switches from bottled drek to handmade aioli. Aioli, made from garlic mashed with a mortar and pestle, whisked with vinegar, an egg yolk and a pinch of mustard until light yellow and thick, transferred to a blender and the olive oil added one clear, green drip at a time, finished with a dash of sea salt and one single grind of white pepper.

She plates her garden glories and this delicate mayonnaise variant, kicks that food porn up to notches previously unknown and hooks herself a book deal, with the requisite guest appearances on Oprah, FoodTV, followed by interviews in Cuisine and the New York Times Style Section. Carrots; new red potatoes; eggplants Italian, Japanese and white; various gourds and squashes; alliaceae from shallots to leeks to scallions to vidalia; broccoli rabe and all its cruciferous cousins flexing their muscles; mushrooms, bold and dreamy. All these, anthropomorphized into a triple X of desire under the cornstalks.

Man, I hate that bitch.

Too Close for Comfort

2010-06-25T15:19:00.002-04:00

She doesn't understand what is right in front of her
How could she? She's too young too small too innocent
but they are ... distracting
It disturbs her, the way they fall into each other
heads almost touching, an intimacy thick as buttermilk
their voices softer than the fall of her hair
eyes flickering in the ambient glow of respective laptops.
He shifts his legs so they encase her knees, leaning into him.
She squints, absolutely sire there are sending little bitty tentacles out,
and she doesn't understand it at all.

Victoria Falls

2010-06-25T15:18:00.004-04:00

He hears me calling in the water rush, door very deliberately left unlocked
Translating the storm to ‘help me', he breaks my solitude, appearing through the steam mist
Knowing he'll find me fetal curled, scalding the lunatic day off my skin,
skin covered with scars over scars over scars over scars, he squeezes inside
Picks me up. I cling, blind and weak as a baby opossum
Words spoken are lost in the susurration of the shower, grief swirling clockwise down the drain

Holocaust Pantry

2010-06-10T23:14:00.003-04:00

Eighteen cans of lima beans
Thirty-six rolls of paper towels
Stacks of tuna
Four can openers, none of them electric
A whole case of powdered milk
Blankets
Fire extinguisher
44 and ammo
Lots of ammo
Matches
Candles
A framework of five gallon jugs of water
Paper pens pencils
Hibachi grill
A 3 quart and a 5 quart pot
Two cartons of pasta, sealed in plastic
A door that looks like part of the wall
Because you never know.

Yard Sale

2010-06-10T22:56:00.003-04:00

You can tell it was precious
someone cared
once
cared lots
Now, it's relegated to the yard sale heap on a tattered blanket on the lawn
with limp stuffies, windup clocks and mismatched ersatz tupperware,
"As-Is, your choice, $1"
I wonder how long it took to work
to pick out the fabrics, threads, padding
if it was a child just learning to wield a needle
or an experienced grandma listening to the radio.
They have new, printed ones at Target.
But I'll take this one,
drape it over the sofa, and when asked where I got it,
lie, claiming it in my bloodline.

Veganism

2010-05-26T00:39:00.006-04:00

"I can see it, the vegetable man. There are a whole bunch of pieces, people portrayed by fruits, flowers, precious gems I think, but my favorite was the vegetable man. The cherry tomato eyes, onion cheeks, cabbage ear and the eggplant forming his beautiful Roman nose and brow. I can't remember the artist's name, Giovanni Archibaldo or something like that, but we can google it later. There are many examples of his work on artmuseum.com and artchive.com and folio.com. I think there's a folio.com anyway, I'm not sure about that either, but I know there's a artchive.com." I sighed and rolled over onto my stomach.

"I can think of other things to do with vegetables. If you'd like." His fingers slither over the veins in my arms and pause at the scar on my shoulder. "Fruits, sauces, ice cubes and, of course, eggplant. We can go shopping at the farmer's market. I'd like to roll a kiwi on you, drizzle honey down your thighs and just imagine the ecstasy you'll experience with an eggplant. Or two." He smiled wickedly.

"You're silly. I'm talking serious art here, museum art."

"We're naked. It's hard to be serious when we're naked. Besides, it's vegetable art."

"It is hard." I run a fingernail along his skin. "Never mind the farmer's market. Let's just toss a salad with what we have here."

Last Supper

2010-05-22T00:38:00.003-04:00

She loves camping without a tent.
She loves the wind.
I wonder is she feels it now,
blowing the trees that shade the old cemetery.

I pick up a loaf of Italian bread,
cut it in half lengthwise.
Spread softened butter on each side. A whole stick of butter.
Sprinkle liberally with salt.
Not fancy sea salt or black salt or volcano salt or even kosher salt,
just ordinary table salt.
"When it rains, it pours."
Yes. When it rains, it pours.
A whole loaf of Italian bread and a whole stick of butter and a lot of salt.
I eat it methodically, one slow bite at a time, chewing twenty times with each bite,
until it's gone, washed down with Tab,
and wonder when my chicken parmigiana will be served.

I cannot sit shiva, not by Law, but I can share a last meal with her.

Who Are You?

2010-05-12T22:26:00.002-04:00

Red print on my cheek,
A perfect match to your palm,
tells it's own story.

It's All About the Crackers, Still

2010-05-10T22:25:00.002-04:00

I avoid the rain
Symptom, not cause,
But no longer.

Lost and Found or Not

2010-04-30T12:38:00.000-04:00

Lost and Found or Not

All the things I've tossed away
Careless vicious afraid, most forgotten.
A photo quirk of memory recalls
Oh what ever happened to...
But a few choice items hurt
a book
a scissor
a hammer
smell of turpentine sawdust linen rags brings it back

You'd give me wooden chests tables a desk for my precious
I give you words
We wear scraps

Rude Behavior

2010-04-29T22:22:00.002-04:00

Sitting here, not paying attention
rudeness to the nth degree
but at least I sit quietly,
absorbed in myself.

Complex Arithmetic Computation

2010-04-28T22:21:00.000-04:00

So many layers of misery
I cannot even count them
They climb, they mount, they push me further down
I add them up, a Fibonacci progression of woe
Am I whining or am I, perhaps, justified?
Am I?

Foibles of Youth

2010-04-27T22:23:00.002-04:00

My daughter, joyous in the newness of love,
rifles through my closet,
evaluating shoes and doodads
taking into her room this that the other.
I smile and pass the baton.

Child's Play

2010-04-26T00:41:00.002-04:00

He tries so hard not to be afraid
of me
for me
to cover how he stops himself from saying, ‘Don't!'
He knows the surest way to push me is to try to stop me.
I kiss him and skip off to play
while he hides a frisson and a tress of my grey hair in his wallet
or perhaps takes to the santeria for a holding spell.
I don't know.
I'm long gone, until hunger, for him, pulls me back,
with skinned knees and scabby elbows, sunburnt nose and streaks of dirt on my face,
to be scrubbed clean and nurtured.

Comparison Shopping

2010-04-24T00:36:00.001-04:00

She is stunning in her concentration on the task at hand,
English muffin price comparison,
list in hand and furrowed brow.
I can see her hands, naked.
How could such lovely long fingers be ringless?
I see her, veiled; me, sliding a wide band onto the third digit of her left hand.
Her eyes flick at me. Does she feel my stare?
Her ponytail curves under, caressing the back of her neck.
It needs pearls, a long strand, with an extender hanging down the bones of her spine.
She pushes her cart to the end of the aisle and disappears around the corner.

Little Bird

2010-04-23T00:35:00.002-04:00

Little bird, little robyn bird,
Come out and play.
I'm waiting for you.
The world isn't so big.
We'll find pieces you can handle.
Perch on my hand, little bird, and peck my earlobe.
It'll be okay, I promise.

2010-04-23T00:34:00.001-04:00

I will recount the week and smile at what deserves smiles
little things
direct looks
sunburn in new places
aching muscles and rich coffee
the peaks of early morning before the day gets flushed.
I will recount the week and ignore the rest
so I can get through today

What Once was Whole

2010-04-22T00:30:00.000-04:00

It was, instantly, an alien place, devoid.
I was afraid,
not of what I'd find,
of what was here,
but what was not.
Not any longer.
The air was damp and too warm, shuttered feeling,
despite the hum and click of the air conditioner,
loud in abandonment.
I look around. Bookcases, knitting, kitchenware.
Shoes. Walker. Wheelchair.
Gauze pads and Betadine.
I calculate how many boxes I'll need
to empty this already empty place.

Just Another Night in Paradise

2010-04-21T12:29:00.000-04:00

It's a slow night, here
Few patrons to pay patronage to those seeking accolades
If not money, support, stipends, then at least applause
I stare out the window, restless
When can I leave, when can I leave
Cold air blows on my thighs.
They'll be warm later.
Personal heating blanket will wrap around them later.

Left Right Straight

2010-04-20T11:48:00.001-04:00

All roads lead you somewhere
if you put one foot after the other, turn the cranks,
with an eye on the sun to keep track of the time/space continuum
All roads lead you somewhere
and when that somewhere isn't here,
this crime scene where I am reduced to a chalk outline on warn carpet
and the forensic team measures the splatter pattern of regrets and guilt
on walls, furniture and bedding,
they still lead you.
All roads lead you somewhere
I can disinfect the wounds, stitch them, cover them with gauze
and kisses and prayers for forgiveness.
All roads lead you somewhere
maybe even home.

Resonsibility

2010-04-19T12:37:00.000-04:00

If you save a life, it is yours.
If I save you, are you mine?
To have and to whole?
Are you?

Broken Promises

2010-04-18T12:34:00.001-04:00

It's just as important
No. It's more important.
What?
The omissions. The deletions. The Halfs and the Half-nots
the thing claiming to be truth, claiming to be real , to be whole
Only they're not.
Every piece puts together it's own story
as far from reality as cheese from Chesapeake.
The unsaids loom, dive in with pointed beak, grab a slug and return to the clouds
having swallowed it in one gulp.
It rides the heat tunnels, beautiful shadows on the ground.
Cower at the edge of light where the words and actions disagree
beyond the fields of knowing truth.
I will meet you there.

Return of the Cat

2010-04-17T12:22:00.001-04:00

I am the cat who walks alone
You may walk in front of me, watching me over your shoulder.
Behind me, next to me, on my path, but not with me.
I am the cat who walks alone
even in the midst of all
even surrounded by loudness and cushions
I am the cat who walks alone
isolated, obsessing, apart

Carding the Three Fates

2010-04-16T12:21:00.000-04:00

Spin grief into the fibers of a fine woolen jacket
Weave it on frames of wrong
Fashion it with repentance
and wear it as a mark of Cain
warning the world away.

Television Isn't Life

2010-04-15T16:11:00.000-04:00

They say, no more sadness.
We want happy happy.
If you want happy happy, go watch ‘Emeril Live' reruns.
If you want truth, listen

My Name is Sylvia

2010-04-14T16:10:00.000-04:00

I know why she did it, why she put her head in the oven.
She was looking for the key
to unlock the door
of the shambles.
Only the key wasn't there, way in the back by the pilot light.
It was hanging there, on the wall, like always.
She just didn't see it.

Tonight's Sonnet is a Dish Best Served Cold

2010-04-13T16:09:00.001-04:00

He has plans, detailed plans.
When he gets home, he can see it in his mind.
Unlocking the door, climbing the stairs.
Muffled by the thwack of ceiling fans,
movement, scent of orange rinds
being grated into tea. Pulls out a chair
and sits, drinking. She asks, can you reach those pans?
After he kisses her, how did I find
this treasure? It's all so clear
to him. He has plans, detailed plans.
He wants tonight to be all kinds
of celebration in the apartment up there.
Only-it's quiet. He looks around. Nothing. No one. Gone.
Drinks a six-pack, then another. When she returns, she, she too, is alone.

Billy Collins Redeux

2010-04-12T16:12:00.000-04:00

Behavior doesn't exist in a vacuum.
It's all situational.
Guess what?
I don't give a rat's ass about why
I'm still going to shoot your mother fucking cujo next time I see it.

dedicated to Billy Collins, Another Reason Why I Don't Keep a Gun
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/another-reason-why-i-don-t-keep-a-gun-in-the-hou/

And You Will Know Them by Their Shadows

2010-04-11T20:31:00.000-04:00

Harken to me, the Eternal.
Lift up thine eyes, for this, this, is the land I have given unto you.
You shall beget children here, and your children will beget children in their time,
And this is the woman whom I have chosen for you who will bear them all.
This woman, lovely as a statue, as a graven image,
who you will worship on your knees as you did the golden galf.
You will woo her with betel juice and almonds and honey, sweet, aromatic, sticky,
and sing songs which are pleasing to her for she is the fated one.
You will sacrifice the fatted calf to her, to this woman, in her whore shoes,
the angle of her foot, her leg and the broad hips you will bury your face in
and pray, hands clasped around her thighs.
You will adore her as you have adored no other before, nay, not even me,
the Eternal, your God. You will put her before me, to be the mother of your people.
You will cup her breasts, weigh them, and when they are heavy with milk,
you will have suck of them.
Arise, turn now, and follow her.
Lay down your trivial amusements for she is the anointed one.

NB: this is what happens when i'm given a random bible verse to read

A Bowl of Cherries

2010-04-10T20:30:00.000-04:00

She holds the bowl, scant amount of cereal and milk inside,
holds the bowl with two hands, laps at it, laps at the dregs.
Then turns it over into a hat, so proud, as a few drops of milk crawl past her eyelashes.

"Oh baby, why'd you have to go and do that for? Look at this mess!"
Hush, I say, hush.
Look at her, not the floor or the counter or the shirt.
They'll wash, they'll be fine.
Look at her.
Look at her before you crumple her face.
The shadows of those creases will always be there, haunting us.
Hush, now. Give her another bowl to wear. Let her have a layered hat, a confection hat
And another to be a different drum to beat with her forgotten spoon.

Egg

2010-04-09T20:29:00.001-04:00

When I was ever so much younger than I am now,
a classmate cracked an egg
and let it drip through his fingers.
The assignment was to draw a hand holding an egg.
It didn't specify.
So he cracked that egg and let the white slide down past his knuckles,
while the yolk remained cradled in his palm.
I've never forgotten that sketch
or the hand which held the egg
or the hand that drew it.
If I was a palmist, able to read hands, I would have read his.
I wanted to read his hand, trace the lines, see what his future was
where he would go, learn, achieve and who he would become.
I wanted so to read myself into his future.
I wanted so to be the yolk cupped in his palm
while everything else slipped away

Totem Mask

2010-04-08T20:28:00.000-04:00

He's waiting. Churning. Trembling, watching the clock numbers change,
I know everything that will happen when we put our public faces on the wall for the night.

Polly Wanna Cracker

2010-04-07T00:01:00.000-04:00

I should be used to it by now, to death walking through the door and sitting on my shoulder, squawking, "Polly wanna cracker, Pretty Boy, Polly wanna cracker."
I'm not.
I've done this for years, long enough to see babies conceived, born and walking in on their own, asking if they could please have some milk and cookies while they wait.
But I'm not.
Used to it, that is.
"I'll be doing this as executrix for the estate, filing on his behalf."
"I found your name in her papers. What do I do now?"
"Do you need to see the death certificate?"
"Can you help me?"
I'll never get used to it.
Especially when it knocks on the door from the inside, when it's here and now, sitting on my sofa, not on someone else's shoulder, but hovering over the dinner table, salting the food with bitterroot.
She doesn't know.
I know, but she doesn't and ignorance is bliss, sweet bliss, chocolate covered pretzels, whipped cream with slivered almonds, a fig tree, comfort with apples, letting her function, smile and concentrate on important things, whether the black and turquoise top goes better with the white jeans or the khaki shorts.
Priorities.
Don't snatch this from her, Polly, don't.
Eat my crackers. I don't need them any more. I am fat. I am a feast.
Eat my crackers, Polly. I'm ready. I've been ready for years.
Give her a chance. Let her stack crackers, crumble them, enjoy them with dabs of jelly.

Leave her alone, Polly.

Bright Light Blind

2010-04-06T17:17:00.002-04:00

What tragic mistake did I make, at some point in my prehistory?
What led me to this?
Staring up at the guillotine, sunglint blinds me.
If I press a little harder...
It doesn't matter, does it? Press or don't press. See or don't see.
All lines converge on the horizon,
No matter how they skew out.
All lines converge and disappear,
Whether I run, hide, stare it down in an attempt at stoicism.
All lines converge into smoke.

With a Candle and a Feather, Seeking an Honest Man

2010-04-05T17:25:00.000-04:00

They asked her: Are you a ???
She made the big mistake of being honest
when she answered.
Used to hyperbole, no one can read truth any longer.

Anti-Wonderland

2010-04-04T08:33:00.003-04:00

Lost in anti-Wonderland, that dark place which is my refuge,
where everything is wrong, negative images bombard me.
Demands, pleas, they strike me, beat me, break my bones.
Where is the White Rabbit to lead me out of here?
Jaws of Life trepane my skull, looking for Hope,
her aiglet caught in a fissure.
They free her and leave me in the dark, alone, again

Uh huh. Tell me another.

2010-04-03T17:21:00.000-04:00

Given options, choose.
Make it better, with a smile.
Accept or move on.

No

2010-04-02T14:18:00.001-04:00

"Ask. If you don't ask,
the answer is always no.
Ask Improve the odds
to fifty-fifty.
Take a chance on you."

No, Daddy, you're wrong.
I asked. The answer is still no.
I don't ask anymore.

4/1/2010

2010-04-01T08:35:00.000-04:00

Morning, y'all. It's
April Fools Day, another
Big Ole Fuck You, World!

All My Road Pt 4 REVISED

2010-03-10T17:51:00.006-05:00

There is no good writing, there is only rewriting. Compare, if you wish, to the earlier version. Will I make more changes? Absolutely. Am I ever satisfied? Nope. Do I stay true to the story, to my characters? I try. I try very hard.

Driving past that interchange of vomit where once upon a time I'd been airborne, that interchange I'd never been able to find a short or long cut around, where I had for the first time realized what a turd he was, a selfish, immature turd, I find it hard to breath. And yet...

Here I am. Again. Questioning, talking, pleading: why don't you love me anymore, what did I do, what makes her better than me? I take a deep breath and walk to the door, prepared to rap on the glass. He's there, waiting for me. He opens the door a crack and lets me in.

"What did you want to see me for? You told me it's over. You said it, not me." He locks the entry door and moves past me. "C'mon, I'm working in the back."

I follow him down the tight hallway, avoiding the transfile towers and stacked up computer parts that make the journey to his realm even more of an obstacle course. "You lied to me. You lied over and over. I just told you what I saw, what we both know. When the words and actions disagree..." The back of his head is just as responsive as the front.

The words and actions. The way he'd abruptly changed, all business-like about things that weren't business at all. From long hours of playful to "Are you finished yet? I have to walk the dogs." As fast as I tried to close the gaps, he hammered wedges into the fissures. He knew I'd discover the truth, sooner or later, see through the glamour, be unable to ignore the spotted elephant in the corner. A truth so awful to him had to be repellant to me. He was a hollow statue on a pedestal, at least in his head, and that wasn't good enough. My acceptance of his flaws was as unacceptable to him as it was unfathomable.

"Words and actions? What does that mean?" he says over his shoulder. He points to a chair but I remain standing. Seated in his oversized execuchair, he stares at the computer screen. Was he working or playing ScrabbleBlast again? I shiver, icy memory tapping me on the shoulder, trying to get my attention. I lean against the desk opposite his. I don't want to see the screen, don't want to know what words are there. The actions have slapped me around too much the last few days. "Whatever. I'd like us to still be friends. We used to talk about everything. I miss talking to you, you're so smart. And now... There's too much distance between us."

"Oh, that's an interesting metaphor, there's too much distance between us. Certainly, there is now even if there wasn't before." Neither of us had moved in the past year, but the miles had doubled, tripled. The not unreasonable commute had become a burden, heavy, torturous when it meant clocking miles on his vehicle. Mine was expendable. Anything of mine was expendable, unimportant. "Why am I here anyway? What do I want from you?" I pick up a stapler, check to see if it needs refilling.

"You said you wanted to talk. I guess this is our breakup rehash?" He fiddles with the mouse, glances down at the papers littering his desktop, back at the screen. He shifts in his chair, turning it from side to side as he shakes his head . "I think... I dunno. I love so many things about you. I love fucking you, the sex is like, amazing-"

I'll never say that to anyone. I'll never tell someone I love things about him because I can't say I love him. I won't say anything. I won't spin.

"Well, was amazing, except for the last few weeks, and I love the things you do for me, the way you treat me, think about me, try to make my life easier, advise me on things-"

But you don't love me, the real me. You can't love me. I see through you, right to your core. I won't lie and say you're wonderful or perfect. I see your flaws and love you anyway, but that's exactly what's wrong.

"-but when you told me you'd lied me and you didn't want to see me any more.. I dunno, it changed how I feel, colored all my memories and perceptions, perverted them." He leans back and gives a small nod of satisfaction. He's justified his actions.

"Oh, please. You are so full of it. You knew, don't tell me you didn't know. You're not stupid. My lies were nothing compared to yours. It's like we had a constant, set total of lies. So when mine shrank, yours blossomed; you had to fill the empty space with bigger, better lies. And I bought into it. I swallowed them, my pride and my common sense, anything to be with you.

"You looove fucking me. You love the way I treat you, care for you, help you, but it all comes down to one thing: you don't love me. Everything about me is replaceable, expendable. Everything. You know, you call me all hours of the day and night, drunk, sober, angry, outraged, 3 p.m. or 3 a.m., ask me this, ask me that. You ever ask me how I am? What I'm doing, if I have time to talk? No, that's not important. Too much trouble for Mr. Narcissistic. Your needs are important, not mine. You confess to me, repent to me, depend on me. You know I'll help you in any way I can, do anything in my powers to help you. And you? I can't depend on you for shit. You can't even be bothered going ten minutes out of your way when for all you know I could be dying upside down in a ditch, forget about really inconveniencing yourself and helping me when I need something."

"Hey, c'mon. I think you're being a little harsh." He folds his arms, then tosses his head to get the hair out of his eyes. Like a runway model, sullen-faced, skulking, so their feathers don't shift. He was vain enough, so solipsistic he'd plagiarized my work, used my letters, the only thing I could truly call mine, to get into other women's pants and been insulted when I'd called him on.

"I'm not nearly harsh enough. I know you. I know everything about you, how you think, how you work, how low you'll go to get what you want. Your ends justify any means. That hurt? Yeah, ends justifies the means, and albeit macht frei. Fuckhead. You can't stand it that I see through your games, that I see what a clayfoot you are. I hold up a mirror and you see the cracks. You despise yourself for being scum and you despise me for loving you anyway." I eject the last staple and put the stapler down exactly parallel to the edge of the desk.

"You love me anyway? Even now?" Is he batting his eyelashes at me? Is he flirting with me? Is this what I want? Is this why I'm here?

"So? I can love you and not like you. I can love you and hate what you do, how you treat me. Believe me, I've been abused by experts. You're amateur hour on that point, sweetcheeks. I've learned from my past. I can do all sorts of things. But you know what I can't do any longer?"

"I'm afraid to ask." He smiles a small smile, refills his coffee cup from the pump dispenser his staff keeps full and on his desk. "You want?"

"We've known each other how long and you still can't remember that I drink tea?" The first time he invited me to his apartment, he hadn't thought to buy tea. Not the second or third time, either. But I'd seen the expensive, waxed box of chai tea in his cabinet, the one sold only at the import store in the mall, the same kind the hostess at his favorite restaurant drank, on top of the box of Lipton I'd finally broken down and brought over. I wondered if he'd bought the chai or if Sushi had.

"Just asking. I can boil water for tea."

"Don't trouble yourself. I wouldn't want to impose." All the paperclips are lined up on the blotter like an English garden, neat rows and spirals. When did I do that? I sweep them into a cup and set it on the northwest corner of the desk.

"You never let me do things for you."

"That's right. Because what I want you to do for me, you won't do or can't do. I want you to be you. I don't want a god, I want a person, a flawed, striving to be better person. I want a man, human, effable, fallible." If I stay angry I won't kiss him. If I stay angry, I'll stay on my side of the room.

"Oh god, sweetie, you know me like no one knows me, better than I know me-"

"Damned straight I know you better than you know you. And just think how I'd know you if you weren't such a compulsive liar. Of course, your lies tell me even more than your truths, such as they are." I pick up the "Welcome to Indiana" snow globe as if it was a "Magic 8" ball with all the answers and shake it, knowing that only works if I ask the right questions, the ones I already know the answers to anyway. "You're so smooth, so charming with your quick wit and fancy car, expensive clothes, country club membership." I shake the globe. Only snow, still no answers. "And the games... Was I just more repartee, a whetstone for your vocabulary? Was I? So deluded by your smooth." I shake the globe harder.

"I thought just once in my life I could be Cinderella, that just once someone would save me. But no. I'm always going to be the bootstrap bitch, the life preserver of DUIs and Joan of Arc for morally and financially bankrupt hobos. Yay me! Just once, I wanted to be taken care of, just once. I am so tired of taking care of myself and the rest of the world. I'm tired."

"I'm sorry I'm not Prince Charming, really sorry. I wish I was, but I can't be what I'm not, no matter how much you want it, or I might want to make it so. I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam." He quirks his lips into that little half-smile he thought was so killer. I fight the urge to lick the side of his mouth.

I replace the snow globe and put the scattered pens and pencils into the square, faux leather pen holder. The push pins are in disarray, too, not grouped by color or shape. "Yes, you are what you are. And the sad thing, that was enough for me. I was okay with you being a flawed Charming as long as you were my Charming, but you needed me to see you as perfect. Maybe we both needed to believe in the fantasy more or lie more or lie better. It's just so tiring being ‘on' all the time. I want to be okay being flawed. I want to be with someone who's okay being flawed. I want to be with someone who really, really wants to be with me. Not some pin-up, two dimensional image of me, but me. Would you stop staring at my chest?"

He reaches over and places his hand on my lower back, thumb stroking that indent in my spine just above my coccyx, fingers gently squeezing the curve of my hip. I lean into the caress for a moment, then pull away. His hand drops to his knee. "Sorry. That dress is just amazing on you. How come we never got all dressed up and went out nice?"

"Um, maybe cause you never asked? Maybe cause you could never pick me up on time? Maybe cause you save the nice going out for your ‘I'd like to have a real relationship with her' skank and not for the woman you DO have a relationship with? Please, in the year we were seeing each other, you never even made time for us to go to the movies, let alone out nice. Want me to go on? The list of broken promises is longer than I am tall."

"I'm sorry for that, for all the ways I disappointed you but things happen. You know that. Things come up."

"Like my lunch is right now? You want me to tell you that you weren't so bad, that all things considered you were pretty good. You want your ego-stroking, well, fuck you, get it from Sushi." I lean forward, arms crossed, cold. Did it get cold in here? His eyes flick to my cleavage again. "Yeah, take a good long look. Where is she anyway? Still at work, little miss ‘oh, it's complicated'?

"Bah. Enough on her." I snap my fingers. "I didn't need or want an illusion. I wanted you. I know you. Do you know you? Do you know what you want? Not what you think you want, not what everyone tells you you should want, Mr. Silver-spoon-in-his-mouth-and-polysyllabic-words-on-his-tongue, but what you want? I'm discovering what I want and it is so different from before. My priorities have been messed up my whole life, and now I'm growing up and taking charge."

Silent, he stares at his fingers for a few minutes, examining the nails and then the tips, as if he'd never realized just how many ridges his fingertips had before. He looks up at me. "Don't cry." Was I crying? Huh. My cheeks were wet. "I'm going to miss you, I already miss you."

"No, you don't. I'm history, forgotten, out of the agenda. If not this one, then the next. Or the one after that. Or however many it takes. I'm long gone."

"I want a relationship and I can't get past what you did. I want simple and honest."

I snort. "Oh, please. Simple and honest? You wouldn't know simple and honest if it bit you on the nose. I have to go. I don't know why I'm here, anyway." I take my keys out of my purse.

"What are you going to do?"

"Do? What do you mean, what am I going to do? Go home, what else am I going to do?"

He glances at the clock on the wall. "It's late. You've been up since what, six? And it's four now and you've been drinking."

"And your point is? I can tell time and no matter how much I drank tonight, it's not as much as you drink."

"You're almost a teetotaler. You had a few tonight."

"I'm sober enough, but thank you for your concern. I'll put a tick mark in your good deeds and kind words column."

He stands up. He puts an arm around my shoulder and pulls me to him. "I'd let you sleep in the apartment, but..."

My body starts to fit itself to him. I can feel the warmth of him through our clothes. "What, you can't trust me to sleep in the guest bedroom? You think I'll crawl into your bed? I have some pride, not much, but some."

"I don't trust me." He strokes my hair, my neck.

"That is so typical of you, playing the gentleman to weasel your way out of doing something. ‘I can't trust me. I'm afraid I might lose control. It's for your own good.' Four a.m. and you won't let me crash in your guest room. You can't put yourself out one iota for me, can you? You're still working, you could drop me off and come right back here. I'm leaving." But I can't move. I want to stay right there, feeling him, breathing him.

"You're too tired to drive."

"Tell me something I don't know." I rub my eyes, smearing mascara and eyeshadow on my hands. I must look like a racoon. Tell me an alternative."

"You could stay at a motel." What did he say? I push myself away from him.

"I could what? You going to pick up the tab? You make at least ten times as much as I do. You ask women all the time to go on trips with you, all expenses paid, but the one trip we went on, we split. Where's my trip to Vegas or the Bahamas? You know what? I bet if you put me up in a motel you'd write it off as a consulting fee. You've done it every time we've gone anywhere. You know what else you are? Besides a jerk? You're cheap. Cheap with your wallet and cheap with yourself. It's all about your bottom line."

"Do you feel better? You called me a few names, you feel better now? Because I really have to get back to work. I've got time critical projects I have to finish." He walks down the hall and I follow him. The boxes remind me of hungry dragons. I'm starting to hallucinate I'm so tired. He stands by the door, tapping his foot, impatient for me to leave.

"Time critical projects, my ass. I'll feel better. I'll feel better when I stop acting like a fool over you, stop caring about what happens to you. I'll feel better when I stop loving you. But I won't." I bite a jagged bit off my thumbnail. "Nope. I won't. Stop loving you, that is."

"But it's over. You've said it, I've said it. I'm seeing someone else. You'll get over me. I'm a compulsive liar and scum and a jerk and a fuckhead and an asshole and whatever else you called me."

"Well, it's a reflection on me, not on you, how I feel. I have to own my emotions and responses, be responsible for my feelings." It was really over. He wasn't going to ask me to stay, hold me, kiss me, let me cling to the illusion that he maybe somewhere deep inside loved me after all. The first time he was honest with me was to tell me it was over. "I have to go now."

"Are you going to be okay? I worry about you." He unlocked the door.

"Huh. If you meant that, you'd give me an option. You don't. You care about you and you care about the newest bang you're sticking your dick in. At least, you care while it's a novelty. It'll wear off. It's already wearing off. With you, it's all about the conquest. You still think like you're seventeen."

He glances outside. Someone waves to him. He waves back, holds up five fingers. He's going to join them in five minutes. Nice. He has lots of work to do tonight.

"I have to go. I don't want to argue anymore. I'm too tired." I'm so tired. Give me comfort. Please ask me to stay. Please. I know he won't, but I wish he would.

"Can I call you?" He fumbles with the keys. His barbuddies are waiting. His dealer is waiting. First, I competed with them, then I competed with his internet porn addiction and now with Sushi and whoever else. Why did I bother? What's wrong with me? I take a deep breath, shake my head.

"What, when she dumps you in a month or so? I'm growing a spine. I hope." I get in the car and pull out of the spot. When I come up to the bar, I open the passenger window. "Go to hell, asshole. Go to hell."

A few miles down, I pull into a strip mall, cry for a bit. The flashing lights cast odd shadows on the dashboard, reminding me of the psychedelic Japanese cartoons that cause epileptic fits. Does Sushi watch cartoons, read anime? Does she play Scrabble, do the crossword puzzles with him? Does she? Why do I care? Admit to myself that I'm too bleary-eyed to drive safely, might end up in a ditch again and I'm done crawling through alligator infested ditches for him. I wonder what the Florida Highway Patrol officer would say if he saw me sitting here now. "About time, ma'am. Surely is about time." I fall asleep with my head on the steering wheel.

been there done that

2010-03-09T16:28:00.001-05:00

Hi robyn! Here is your Daily AstroSlam for Tuesday, March 9, 2010

You hate being pushed around by others, and today, you'll really push back. It's a matter of pride for you -- after all, that's about all you have. You're unemployed, broke and homeless; the least you can do is act arrogant.

if it weren't a perpetual fear, i'd laugh.

what i've been doing lately

2010-03-09T00:56:00.001-05:00

rewrite rewrite rewrite.
edit edit edit.
cut cut cut.
paste paste paste.

aw hell with it.

DELETE!

Dirty Little Secret

2010-03-03T17:31:00.000-05:00

He was my dirty little secret, except he wasn't little and if he was a secret, he was a very badly kept one, secret not because no one knew about him, but because everyone chose to ignore his existence in my life.

But he was dirty. Oh yes, he was dirty, as dirty-minded as any teenager could be with a worldly older woman as his sub rosa lover, a woman who was willing and eager to do anything and everything she'd ever thought of or seen before. He was prime, a juicy fig plucked down that I could sink my teeth into, bite down, chew and swallow, and he loved it. I was more fantasy flesh than any of his compatriots could even imagine, let alone aspire to and I was his. So yes, he was dirty.

Another facet of my fragmented life, everything in it's compartment, sharply separated, no overlap, nice and tidy. I like keeping things orderly. I like the concept of separation of church and state and I practiced it with great enthusiasm. I had my state, my public side, and I had my church to worship in. He was my church and I got down on my knees and committed sacrilege to make your hair curl and your stomach churn.

Until, years later, it all came crashing down, when the letter I wrote, telling him it was over, it was all over, over to the extent that I doubted it had ever been, that I wondered if it had all been a wet dream powered by a fevered imagination, the result of too much anesthesia at the dentist or too many donuts after a night of reefer, the letter which took "Dear John" letters to heights never before or since seen, the letter which I never mailed but kept, relished in rereading, treasured words, 24K calligraphy on cheap looseleaf, was found.

By my kids.

All My Roads Pt 7

2010-02-21T15:55:00.003-05:00

"From Orlando, take I4 east." Take it until you can't go any further, until you've gone off the interstate, off the road, off the sand and right into the ocean.

Take the ocean until you hit land again. That may be Greenland or Africa or the UK or somewhere else. It really doesn't matter where you end up exactly, as long as you keep moving, heading east into the land of the rising sun, that golden orb which blinds you if you gaze at it too intently.

Not all things that glitter are gold. Some are dross, base metal, some are pyrite, fool's gold, and some are, well, some just are. Glitter, that is. Some things that glitter are just glitter, little flecks of metal you can stick on valentine's or birthday card with Elmer's glue, or sprinkle in your hair to catch the strobe of a disco ball. I learned that long ago, glitter isn't necessarily gold, during my infatuation, my transition time with hamelech malchai hamlocheim, the king of king of kings, the man who would be king, king in his own mind and universe, anyway, that was for certain, and for a blaze, as long as it takes a match to strike and burn, king of mine, ruling my emotions with a toreador's flourish, ole!

If you go long enough, past the ocean, past the first landfall, still moving east, always east, past the oared ships of the Aegean, remnants of a mighty kingdom now sunk beneath the sands and waters of time and tide which wait for no man or woman either, covering memories with salt dust while the holder of those memories wonders if it's safe to blink, you find a greater landmass.

Keep on east, snows and desert, hop a ride on a camel or an elephant, take a train or three, Orient Express, Tibet Express, bullet train, heading east right across the Bering Strait. Look for that overland passage Prester John spoke of, that Sir John sought, the one that crushed the Erebus and filled all with Terror. Or maybe, instead, risk everything with the absurd passion of the besotted and shoot south right off the tip of Africa and set yourself up for a repeat of Shackleton, the ever rising sun now a shadow gazing over your left shoulder, shading everything you do, casting darkness alternating with blue glare so sharp you can't even see your own hands as they work. Maybe you'll be crushed as I was crushed, as my endurance was repeatedly crushed by the ever shifting pack ice I couldn't and can't escape, that I carry with me as my boon companion, still.

Anyway, look for that overland passage, the opening in the sea ice, quick, quick, and maybe you'll escape before it grinds you down and turns you so far around there is no north or south or west anymore, just east, east, east. Keep moving even though north is south now and you're so far from the equator you have to zigzag back to your point or place of beginning, if that matters.

"Take I4 east."

Or you could just take it east until you find a turn off that takes you home.

You can find a home.

You can make a home.

Your home can be anywhere or anything or anyone.

Because some things that glitter are gold, 24K, warm to the touch, reflecting your own affection back to you, and soft enough to reveal your own fingerprints when you press your hand down on it, your personal tattoo, brand, mark, malleable enough to spin into a cloak you can pull around and use to keep out the chill of setting suns.

Some roads lead you home.

All My Roads Pt 4

2010-02-18T02:07:00.002-05:00

"What did you want to see me for? You told me it's over. You said it, not me."

"You lied to me. You lied over and over. I just told you what I saw, what we both knew. When the words and actions disagree..."

The words and actions. The way he'd changed, all business-like about things that weren't business at all. From long hours of playful to "Are you finished yet? Haven't you had enough? I have to walk the dogs." As she tried to close the gaps, he hammered wedges into the fissures. She wanted a man; he was a hollow statue on a pedestal. He knew she'd discover the truth, sooner or later, see through the glamour, be unable to ignore the spotted elephant in the corner. Accepting his flaws was unacceptable to him. He had to be better.

"There's too much distance between us. Oh, that's an interesting metaphor, there's too much distance between us. Certainly, there is now even if there wasn't before." Neither of them had moved, but the miles had doubled, tripled. The not unreasonable commute had become a burden, heavy, torturous when it meant clocking miles on his vehicle. Hers was expendable. Anything of hers was expendable, unimportant.

When she drove past the interchange where once upon a time she'd been airborne, that interchange of vomit she'd never been able to find a short or long cut around, that interchange where she'd realized what a turd he was, a selfish, immature turd, she found it hard to breath. And yet.

Here she was again, questioning, talking, pleading, why don't you love me anymore, what did I do, what makes her better than me?

"I think... I dunno. I love so many things about you. I love fucking you, the sex is like, amazing-"

I'll never say that to anyone, she thinks. I'll never tell someone I love things about him because I can't say I love him. I won't say anything. I won't spin.

"-and I love the things you do for me, the way you treat me, think about me, try to make my life easier, advise me on things-"

"-but when I found out you'd lied me, when you broke up with me... I dunno, it changed how I see you, how I feel."

"Oh, please. You are so full of it. My lies were nothing compared to yours. And you knew, don't tell me you didn't know. You're not stupid. My lies disappeared and yours blossomed. It's like we had a constant, set total of lies. So when mine shrank, you had to fill the empty space with bigger, better lies. And I bought into it. I swallowed them and asked for more. I'm a fool.

"You love fucking me. You love the way I treat you, care for you, help you, but it all comes down to one thing: you don't love me. Everything about me is replaceable. Everything.

"You know, you call me all hours of the day and night, ask me this, that. Confess to me, repent to me. You depend on me, you know I'll help you in any way I can, do anything in my powers to help you. And you? I can't depend on you for shit. You can't be bothered going ten minutes out of your way when for all you know I could be dying, forget about really inconveniencing yourself and helping me when I need something. How can I trust you for anything?

"And me?

"I'm a fool. You're an ass, but I'm a fool."

"Hey, c'mon. I think you're being a little harsh." He folded his arms, then tossed his head to get the hair out of his eyes. It reminded her of runway models, sullen-faced, skulking so their feathers wouldn't shift. He was vain enough, so vain he'd plagiarized her work, used her letters to get into other women's pants and been insulted when she'd broken up with him.

"I'm not nearly harsh enough. I know you. I know everything about you, how you think, how you work, how low you'll go to get what you want. Your ends justify any means. That hurt? Yeah, ends justifies the means, and albeicht macht frie. Fuckhead. You can't stand it that I see through your games, that I see what a clayfoot you are. I hold up a mirror and you see the cracks. You despise yourself for being scum and you despise me for loving you anyway.

"You can't stand it."

"You love me anyway? Even now?"

"So? I can love you and not like you. I can love you and hate what you do. I can do all sorts of things. But you know what I can't do any longer?"

"I'm afraid to ask." He smiles, a small smile, refills his coffee cup. "You want?"

"We've known each other how long and you still can't remember that I drink tea?" The first time she'd come to his apartment, he hadn't thought to buy tea. Not the second or third time, either. But she'd noticed the waxed box of chai tea in his cabinet, the same kind the hostess at his favorite restaurant drank, next to the box of tea she'd finally broken down and brought over. She wondered if he'd bought the chai or if Sushi had.

"Just asking. I can boil water for tea."

"Don't trouble yourself. I wouldn't want to impose."

"You never let me do things for you."

"That's right. Because what I want you to do for me, you won't do. I want you to be you. And that's not good enough. I don't want a god, I want a person, a flawed, striving to be better person."

"Oh god, sweetie, you know me like this, like no one knows me, better than I know me-"

"Don't cry." She didn't feel the tears. "I'm going to miss you, I already miss you."

"No, you're not. I'm already history, out of the agenda. If not this one, then the next. Or the one after that. Or however many it takes."

"I want a relationship and I can't get past what you did. I want simple and honest."

"Simple and honest?" She snorted. "You wouldn't know simple and honest if it bit you on the nose. I have to go. I don't know why I'm here, anyway."

"What are you going to do?"

"Do? What do you mean, what am I going to do? Go home, what else am I going to do?"

"It's late."

"And your point is? I can tell time."

"I'd let you sleep here, but..."

"What, you can't trust me to sleep in the guest bedroom? You think I'd crawl into your bed? I have some pride, not much, but some."

"I don't trust me."

"Oh, please. That is so typical of you. You can't put yourself out one iota for me, can you? Three a.m. and you won't let me crash in your guest room. You could sleep at your office or in your car or anything. I'm leaving."

"You're too tired to drive."

"Tell me something I don't know. Tell me an alternative."

"You could stay at a motel."

"You going to pick up the tab? You make ten times as much as I do. You ask women all the time to go on trips with you, all expenses paid, but the one trip we went on, we split. Where's my trip to Vegas or the Bahamas?

"You know what? I bet if you put me up in a motel you would write it off as a consulting fee. You've done it every time we've gone to dinner. You know what else you are? Besides a jerk? You're cheap. Cheap with your wallet and cheap with yourself. It's all about your bottom line."

"Do you feel better? You called me a few names, you feel better now?"

"I'll feel better when I stop acting like a fool over you, stop caring about what happens to you. I'll feel better when I stop loving you. But I won't." She bit her thumbnail off, chewed it. "Nope. I won't. Stop loving you, that is."

"But it's over. You've said it, I've said it. I'm seeing someone else. You'll get over me. I'm a compulsive liar and scum and a fuckhead and an asshole and whatever else you called me."

"Well, it's a reflection on me, not on you." It was really over. He wasn't going to ask her to stay, hold her, kiss her, let her cling to the illusion that he maybe somewhere deep inside loved her after all. The first time he was honest with her was to tell her it was over. "I have to go now."

"Are you going to be okay? I'm worried about you."

"That's disgusting. And it's not true. That's really disgusting."

"Yeah? Then why'd you compare me to your son's girlfriend?"

"You have a better body than she does. I told you that."

"Exactly my point. Why are you looking at your son's girlfriend like that? I have to go. I don't want to argue anymore. I'm too tired." Please ask me to stay. Please. She knew he wouldn't.

"Can I call you?"

"What, when she dumps you in a month or so? I'm growing a spine. I hope."

She gets in her car, starts the engine. She opens the window. "Go to hell, asshole. Go to hell." A few miles down, she pulls into a strip mall. Cries for a bit. Admits to herself that she's too bleary-eyed to drive safely, might end up in a ditch again and she's already crawled through alligator infested ditches for him. She wonders what the Florida Highway Patrol officer would say if he saw her now. "About time, ma'am. Surely is about time." She falls asleep with her head on the steering wheel.

Viney

2010-02-18T02:03:00.000-05:00

He is the ostrich man, with wheels.
Or is he the stork, emu, flamingo?
Whatever bird-hipped being he is-because he's not human, no human could be that fast, lithe, etoliated-
with legs so long his feet blue shift as he moves
pate as hairless as the eggs dropped from any of these
whole being the perfection of aerodynamics
spinning in a hyperbaric wind tunnel
as government grants measure the carbon dioxide released,
lactate threshold achieved of his scrawny limbs, gnarled veins throbbing.

If he lifted his arms from the aerobars, he would fly

Modern Medical Miracles

2010-02-18T01:33:00.002-05:00

"Just take a deep breath. Yes. Another. Another. Good. Now, roll up your sleeve. That's fine, just going to hook this up so we'll have a constant read. What? Oh, it's an electronic blood pressure cuff, we watch your pressure right here on the computer monitor. It beeps if your BP goes too high or low, so we can adjust your drip. Yes, there is new technology every time you blink. This is so much safer, before one of us had to sit and watch you. Now, we can take care of other patients and the machine alerts us if there is any aberration. Excellent. Okay, then, you relax, the doctor will be with you in another minute or two, the anesthesiologist, too. Relax, honey, you'll be fine."

She blinked. It'll be fine. They'll start the drip, 100, 99, 98, 97, 96 and when she woke up, in five or ten or twenty minutes, it would all be over.

Again.

Again and again and again and again.

They'd start the drip and she'd go to sleep and when she woke up, she'd be peachy keen, right as rain, all things bright and beautiful, neat and clean inside and out, good as new.

Again.

Again and again and again and again.

Why?

What was wrong with her?

She turned, watching the monitor click, the gentle inflation and sudden deflation of the cuff on her arm a warning, a link to everything else that told her what she wasn't. 70/40. Well, that couldn't be good. If her pressure started too low, they couldn't put her under. If it dropped too low, they wouldn't be able to wake her up. Could they? Did they have paddles here? A crash cart? They must, it's a surgical clinic, they had to have emergency equipment. Paddles weren't even anything special. For goodness sakes, Disney had paddles. Restaurants had paddles. And they had transport here, if the paddles didn't provide enough power. She giggled. Maybe they had tazers, those would wake the dead.

Yes, paddles, just in case someone decided to go to sleep and stay asleep, decided it was easier to go on in that lovely twilight of nothing where there was no more trying and failing, no more planning and counting, and certainly no more watching and mourning. Sleep is a wonderful thing. Maybe she would sleep now, for a bit, before the hullabaloo started.

She closed her eyes, head still turned to the machine and lay very still. Another minute and the ruckus of scrubs and sprays and latex gloves, talk talk talk, should we do this, should we do that, as long as we're in here, snip snip, can you make a decision, not making a decision is also making a decision, you won't feel a thing, it'll be done, scrape scrape snip snip, no worries, be happy.

She despised Bobby McFerrin, with his noisy mouth and twisted a capella renditions of classic crock. That ‘Be Happy" tripe? That was the worst of all. How could any thinking person be happy in the messed up world?

One eye open, slow. 64/38. Hmmm. Shallow breathing, oxygen in only the upper lobes. Keep it steady. 64/36. Fine. No more again and again and again.

"Oh dearie, this will never do, no, it won't. We can't have you like this." The nurse picked up her head and shoved another pillow under it. "This simply will not do. You have to sit up, get your pressure up. Doctor can't operate if your BP starts that low, it has nowhere to go, and believe me, you do not want to undergo this procedure without anesthesia.

Procedure. It was a procedure. Not an operation. Not a test. A procedure. Did calling it a procedure make it smell any less foul? She sat up and took a few deep breaths, tightened her legs, balled her hands into fists. 80/48.

"Much better. We'll just keep you up until the doctors come in, there they are." The nurse nodded in the direction of the hallway. "I'm going to watch you myself, I am, after. The feed is right here on my waist. It'll only be a few minutes, but we don't take chances. You keep breathing like that. Excellent. We don't want any problems, now do we?"

She smiled at the nurse, at her own thoughts, at her power. She could do it. She could do it easily, just let it drop-see, 74/46, back up a tad- let it drop until it was done. No more masquerades, curtain drops, fine. She took another deep breath.

"No, we don't want any problems, no we don't. Thank you, nurse. Thank you so much."

Christmas in Florida

2010-01-25T14:50:00.001-05:00

This was no Rockwell Christmas, no roast duck, no tree, no presents, no family. This is no picture perfect landscape, not here. This was Florida, sunshine, tourists, heat, where the snow is as fake as the hospitality industry camaraderie. This was a bleak, sweaty landscape just like so many other bleak, sweaty landscapes he'd faced before: quiet, dust motes floating in the warm air, solitary.

Only this year, the nuance had changed, making it both more and less harsh. This year, his Christmas was not quiet, but filled with rapid breathing and hiccups of pleasure. This year, it was hotter and he wasn't thinking of the temperature as he crested another hill, one of the many he'd conquered that day in the wilds of Lake County. And this year, although he wasn't alone for the first time in a very long while, he was lonely.

He skidded around the corner, scattering gravel but still upright and powered up. Ghosts of Christmas past stretched their claws to grab him, send his delight into the gutter with all his other Christmas disappointments, from missing weenie whistles to sweaters that didn't fit to rings thrown back at him. Memory of waking fought with resentment of separation. Whoever said parting was a sweet sorrow was an ass. There was nothing sweet it. There wasn't even anything sweet about the anticipation of reunion, because there were no sure things in this universe, not his universe or in his life anyway. Nothing sure ever, uncertainty and unpredictability was the only thing he counted on.

Snowflakes of joy melted into soggy disappointment.

He switched back into the big ring. Downhill rush sent a tingle to his groin, sore from his earlier exertions. He shifted back on the saddle, pressed down against the nose, tucked his knees tighter against the frame and watched the indicator on the speedometer rise.

Why did she leave?

Why did she have to leave?

Over the last few months, she'd cracked his isolation, pealed the flesh from him like vernix from a newborn and now she'd left him, lonelier for the knowledge that he was truly alone. Knowledge is a terrible thing, joy tasted and revoked. He was Tantalus, thirsty, hungry, and could barely graze her life giving wetness with his tongue, nip at the flesh swinging just beyond his bared teeth. Once you've tasted ambrosia, everything else is sawdust.

Another hill to climb, more sweat, more hot wind. Christmas was supposed to be cold, snowy, family gathered round the crackling log fireplace and he had aching muscles, sore knees and exploding lungs from the sucker punch her words had landed. His guts wanted to spill out, leave a trail for the ever present turkey vultures. Sisyphus and Prometheus now. He knew a few bits and pieces of classical mythology, but now he could mix and match gods and demigods with ease. Another set of trivial information she'd gifted him with, along with all the others.

How could she leave?

Was she thinking of him?

He turned towards home, the place that held him. "And I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep."

Through a Glass, Darkly

2010-01-25T14:48:00.000-05:00

Was it live or was it memorex?
There was no way to determine if they were in St. Pete, Palmerton or that kingdom of fakery-DisneyWorld.
Did it matter?
Not a whit, not a ha'penny, not a fig.
As long as they could ingest enough liquids to keep their blood alcohol levels above the legal limit, no one cared what universe they were actually tottering through.
A young girl passed, skipping rope. "Step on a crack, break your mother's back. Step on a crack, fall into the black. Step on a crack, find something you lack." They watched until her voice faded into the mist, then turned away.
Arms around each other's shoulders or linked, swagger alternating with stumble, they sang their own odd medley of verse, straight up, on the rocks, over easy, as they proceeded down the streets.
Until Josephenia, hanging off the end, tripped, her arm slid free of Bartholomew and she fell head first into a puddle, breaking up the reflection of confectionary building as if the water had splashed up to melt the sculpted fondant and french meringue rosettes, tripped into the puddle and kept going, until she disappeared completely, leaving only a few bubbles to show she'd ever been at all.
The others blinked, shrugged and continued, just a bit more careful to avoid the fissures in the asphalt.

Not Thing In Excess

2009-12-16T02:19:00.000-05:00

I want a rope, a long colorful rope I can use for anything:
belt, fishing line, clothes line, tow, tie down
noose.
One that will-oh god did you hear that?
That sound which coiled in and distracted me
took me from whatever little arc of hell I walked along
with a babushka pulled down over one eye, pirate purdah,
protecting me, marking me as ghost, apart, not quite there.
As far from the mouth of the world
as John Lennon's killer was from reality.
Yeah, shoot me. Go on, just do it.
So your bitch will love you.
Just like that, I take this rope, this long bit of string and swallow it
with two shots of tequila, hands sticky with lime and salt
hands too numb from what I have to do, as intense as Chernobyl,
as bright as meltdown orange glo in the sky.
I want rope to bind me to all these places,
like a ballerina's jetes waft her across the stage,
fluffernut light, a sweet sticky confection smeared over matzoh sinister truth:
rope will wrap around and around your neck, searching for autoerotic ecstasy,
looking for ways to justify killing you.
I'd take the rope, this rope, with a bit of vintage soul,
and I'd follow it, bits, bytes of long ago, and try to sleep,
not caring about the long lists that remain undone.

The Cyclist 12 days of Christmas

2009-12-16T01:36:00.001-05:00

On the 1st day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
a GPS with integrated mapping

On the 2nd day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
a wireless bike computer

On the 3rd day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
rechargeable lights

On the 4th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
a helmet video cam

On the 5th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
two sets of wheels

On the 6th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
a hydrapak with reflective tape and velcro pocket

On the 7th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
a frame mount pump

On the 8th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
a selle italia saddle

On the 9th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
replacement cleats

On the 10th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
a new racing kit

On the 111th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
a large box of CO2 cartridges

On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
a pinarello prince with all upgraded components

Chop-a-matic! An ode to Ron Popeil and Billy Mays

2009-12-02T13:42:00.001-05:00

They're Bright! They're New! They're Creepy as Hell!
But Wait! There's More!
With voodoo, you get eggdrop
and Styron doesn't crack, chip or absorb odors
Safe and Machine Washable
Non-toxic if consumed by pets or small children
Multipurpose-the more you use it, the more you'll like it!
And the more ways you'll find to use it!
Handling various thicknesses with elan and an upward thrust
Includes a safety guard to ensure that there will be no contact
between fingers and flesh dissolving anal fluids.
But if you prefer dessert,
spelled with two ‘esses' because dessert is so sweet
as opposed to desert with one ‘ess' an arid lonely place,
this little faggot cookie press will do the shaping and squirting for you
with precision and just a flick of your Bic.
Where's Martha?
Jail is such a happy place for some of us.

Freedom

2009-12-02T13:32:00.001-05:00

Life is precious. To some.
As for me,
I've let go.
I am fine with the end.
Life has no talons.
Letting go frees me to let it go
to forgive
even myself.

Truth

2009-12-02T13:30:00.002-05:00

Until you accept your ugly
have faith to let your guard down
Until you know you can let the one
see what you bury under the broken toys in the garage
Until you stop inflating, glorifying, lying
trust the mirror in his eyes won't slit your veins
until then
until then
until then
you will look, try to stay above the high tide mark
and pray no one sees the clay feet inside your Armani shoes
when you stop
when you let the demons out of the box you call your heart and know
know
that the one will slam the lid so Hope stays,
then you'll have truth.