The Writing Comes Apart, Face to Circle

To have in a head the idea of a story.  The bones and muscle
of it all flexing like a body newly waked and unsure of its own
limitations.  Unsure of the points where, yes, this fingertip ends
here and what is felt there is the space where skin does not turn
into low thread count fabric, but joins the surface of the media
and feels.  The space where the idea of being's is ends and
affectation, the extension of the being, begins.  The relationship
between the end of existence and the beginning of
something unpredictable.

I have been staring at a breast.  A woman is trying to
figure out what brand of food her cat will find acceptable and
toying with the idea that it is, after all, an animal and dissecting
within herself the reasons why she should care if the pate is premium
or not, because the cat will not starve itself longer than it has to,
but I can see it is a losing battle because she wants the cat to be
happy in a way it would not otherwise be without someone
to fawn over it and she grasps that there is no difference
to the animal, but the difference only exists within herself and
it perplexes us both.  Her reaching
for the top shelf.

As I stare at the breast, the woman in tow, the tattoos
trying their best to be colorful plumage half hidden by
the flora of Friday night "things to do, if only you knew"
question beggar's sweat suit fronds, I find it harder than
the question of enabled cats to grasp the question of
what it is men see in the cup or two of fat poking up
where clothing ended too soon for the weather we are having
outdoors.  Maybe in another season I would
clap her on the back and exchange something like a "good job
with the tits there" in so many, and different, words, but now
I am just weirded.

The appeal is long gone with my own changes and the logic
slips by like a wet plastic shopping bag in a work clawed hand
wishing I lived closer to the grocery store and hoping
the miles slip by with speed before I lose my grip and
demand answers from an inanimate object. She takes a step toward
the right and my vision focuses new, still fixed, on the previously obscured
face of a ten year old girl who has been watching me wrestle
with nonsense and compunctions of orientation and motives
far longer than I realized a ten year old
could fix on anything.

I am reminded of a story I wanted to tell as our eyes meet and discuss
several a many thing in a span of seconds before she realizes
her mother has moved again along the aisle of packaged meat
and she is expected and quite possibly late of course
for what could be the umpteenth and deciding time for a trip
to the wonderland of the cookie aisle.  I smiled and waved back.
The cat food woman sashays beyond me to the foot locker of foibles
to perhaps be drawn upon for later character sketches and
I am left to wonder,

left to hope that maybe in the time she spent she caught
a reflection of what I still chase and what she still has to learn to hate
or may never have an opportunity to and instead be, besides,
but beyond the paper lion and the twig mouse I am reminded
of a story I wanted to tell, as her face came into focus and trotted away,
about a time when I saw a man look at me with fusion in his eyes
when I was too young to remember and it ended
where the divide between memory and memorial stones build walls
too high to see above.  I want to be remembered in the way
I can't remember my own.  I want to be apart.  More than anything
apart from the story.

Waste

You half-caf buying,
cologne sporting,
paunch bandying,
chin shaving,
1% drinking,
vegan dabbling,
hazelnut creaming,
straw requesting,
checklist double checking,
sock matching,
finger moisturizing,
eyebrow preening,
tooth straightening,
slipper owning,
sideways combing,
piece of
civilized, middling, garbage.

I hope your MBA keeps you warm,

but then I know it does.  So I answer back:

I hope your MBA keeps you
out of my backyard

and we're both happy, you not knowing
how badly I would love to skin you alive and
you too small to do the work you delegate to me and
our paths only crossing
in a few scripted and well caged exchanges
appropriate to the workplace we both need
to keep on keeping on.

I warned you about the sarcasm.
I appreciate that you stopped.
Because if I am going to be fired for assault
you can rest assured you will not be working there
or anywhere
that is not wheel chair accessible,
with attendant sign language translators on staff,
for the rest of your life.

Wake and Bake

I don't know if it's normal
to wake up at 5:45 A.M.
to bake brownies,
but I also don't know
why I was awake
at 5:45 A.M.,
lying in bed like
I just pulled the covers
six hours ago and nothing happened
between then and now,
if not to get up and make
something I could thank myself for
when I got home from work later with
a massive appetite for mediocre sex and
sugar coated, fingertip sucking,
I am glad no one is here to see this,
regret laced,
peaceful like
an empty inbox on Tuesday
sleep.

Holiday in Series 7

It
is
all
about
the friends
I can call family
and the family
I can call
friends.

Holiday in Series 6

For Christmas I
do not want to be like you,
but half of wanting
is knowing what is
not and I would like,
this Christmas,
to be on the same page,
so dear Santa:
you do not have to love me.
I will not love you.
I will, however share a cookie
and I do not have a cold
so I will share my milk with you too
while we wait for tomorrow to come.

Holiday in Series 5

The second biggest day of my life
was crossing the stadium field
ankle deep in lake effect snow drifts
with my skip protected discman
belting Caroline Lavelle
like it was the last lullaby I would ever hear and
every snowflake fell
with the kind of certainty
that gives gamblers something close
to a breath of freshened air.
Christmas dinner at a fraternity
I could call my own and
call family.  It would not all play out
the way I would have loved,
but did it play then.

She plays so well today.
The want of the thought of the thing
and all of the potential
that buoyed every step
across a field I never thought I'd know.

Holiday in Series 4

I still remember
getting a copy
of Risk and being
overjoyed
that I would be so fortunate
as to receive
a board game and beef jerky
on the same day.

The hard part was
understanding no one in my family
played risk.  Or loved jerky.

It was cool though because
oneness was never really an issue
then or now.

Holiday in Series 3

Do you feel
so slighted
by this commercial
that you will
take grafted action?

Do you feel
so small
within yourself
that you will
ask for substance,
thinking it material and
comfortable enough
to vacate the difference?


Do you feel
you deserve,
at years end,
something to add to the charm
you haven't cultivated?

Then this is for you.

Holiday in Series 2

I bought myself
a phenomenal amount
of food and spent
a ridiculous amount
of hours preparing it
because, alone or not,
it's the holiday of the year
and I usually don't
give that kind of weight
to one in three sixty five,
but you only
live once.

Holiday in Series

You broke the lamp
and glued it back together so well
and stole from the corner store
and got caught
and read comic books
when I told you to clean your room

so

the beatings will continue
and the Christmas presents
you wanted are
indefinitely discontinued

because I never change
and you are

a mistake
after all.

It's okay, though.
Eventually I'll get old and
I am fantastically short sighted and
when you are taking
care of me and
I rely on you
for every little thing

it will be your Christmas every day
I sit in my own shit.