Wilting

The flowers at the table were beginning to wilt.  And even though the dishes weren’t piling up in the sink, the kitchen was always unbalanced, the overflowing drying rack preventing the handful of dishes on the counter and in the sink from being washed.  Wires between computer speakers, a power cord, the wall scuttled across the table, books heaped in mismatched groups around the table, and Geoff’s desperate eyes stared hopelessly at the screen.  The world around him was turning into a complexity of zeros and ones: one – music coming out of the speakers; zero – couldn’t remember his last meal.

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Sugar high

Let’s experiment.  We decided to go off of processed sugar, and it felt pretty good, so it’s been a few weeks.  But the jury’s still out because the effects are a mixed bag.  On the one hand, it’s resulted in delicious homemade no-sugar-added bread and produced incredible pasta sauce because I had no idea that normal-looking pasta sauce adds unnecessary sugar for no reason.  On the other, the brownie I ate at lunch today was the most sickeningly sweet thing my pallet ever remembers eating, and I can proudly say that I now know what ADHD on crack feels like.

Calm Down

“All you must do is sit here for twenty minutes and not think about anything.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel relaxed?”

“Relaxed and renewed.”

“But it’s so frustrating to me that I need to make myself do something in order to feel relaxed. If I were actually relaxed I wouldn’t need to do this at all. Sitting and emptying my thoughts just reminds me of the fact that I need to be calmed down, and that makes me feel frustrated. Why can’t I just be calm?”

“Does being an athlete mean you can win the race without training?”

 

Olive 100

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“Oh, I actually meant All of 100″

Pastor’s Kids

In Sunday school, they’re running around, spilling punch on the pews. In junior high, pastor’s son is chasing girls, flipping up their dresses, while his sister smears on glittery eye shadow that makes her look like a harlot, Mama Esther says, as she drags her by the crook of her arm to the bathroom. In high school, the son smokes weed in the parking lot and the daughter is being felt up in a bathroom stall by the deacon’s son, who is quietly unrolling the nylons her mother insisted she wore because ladies didn’t show their bare legs in church.

 

Americans Shift Focus from Illegal Immigrants to Cell Phones

PHOENIX – Late Thursday, Americans here emphatically demonstrated their newfound fear of cell phones by rioting, tearing iPhones and Blackberries out of mobile phone stores and their own pockets.

“It’s so scary,” said Jeannie Liplicker. “I always thought my phone was so innocent.” She then snatched a Samsung from a passerby and curb-stomped it.

In the latest wave of paranoia to sweep the area, the rioters cited wiretapping snitchers, brain-radiation cancer, catchy jingles, and corporations trying to screw them as threats to their American way of life.

“They’re like Commies or wetbacks sitting right next to our balls,” said Josephat Carlson.

A Better Way

Airlines are doing it all wrong.

When it’s time to board the plane, they have the passengers board the plane in groups going from front to back. Instead of boarding like that, planes should board from window to aisle.

Front to back boarding doesn’t solve the big problem where I have a window seat, I arrive at my row, and the person with the aisle seat is already seated, so he has the choice of getting face-raped by my backpack as I trip over him, or getting up and letting me go in first.

Window seaters should board first, always.

Amateur Word-Fizz-Blitz

miserable wizards fizzle sizzling like lizards innards overlooking cooked dinners so winners rove over and over atrocious gophers motionless christophers know copious ropes poking jokes at blokes cantaloupes elope scant of hope rants fantastic spastic lava flasks masked as raw mauve shark attacks park effects dark charging defects slinging margarine larger than fingernails assailing barges failing to barrage garages travails trailing montages of monetary collages capillary papillary snap your hairy flapping derriere carrying cherries very precariously or hilariously stare and you will see fairies burying chariots mares idiots vintage insidious perilous merriest carolers ferrying manila barrels of killer carrion bearing

 

Struggletown

I’m in bed, on top of the sheets, dead cockroach style.  A voice from the other bed floats over: “Fannie?  Do you need me to tuck you in?” Not moving, I loft a playful “no.”  Movement at this point seems almost impossible.  My shoulders are finally getting to de-hunch after a day’s work in front of the computer.  Content, I smile.  Then it hits me: I have to get up!  I forgot to write!  Do I have to?  My watch says: 16 minutes until tomorrow.  My computer’s off.  Well, I got up.  Looks like that’s all the inspiration for tonight.

Tattooed

I noticed her hand tattoos first, when she flicked her pen to take drink orders. Both her arms, her neck, even her cleavage, were covered in a small museum’s worth of art. Against her pale skin, the deep bold colors were even more luring, and I wanted the full guided tour. I’m not usually into tattoos like that, but she had the sexy confidence that goes with committing to a style, any style, and this was more than just this season’s boots.

“Hey,” she said and smiled. I ended up having a coffee and spending the afternoon at the museum.

 

The Cigar Vendor

On the corner of Grant and 34^th there’s a street vendor that the police often argue about. They can’t decide if they ought to take him in or not, for he is a dapper boy of maybe eleven years old, and he sells cigars.

Clyde, he calls himself. He sells the businessmen on the mood produced by every cigar in his outstretched case. Resting on black velvet, some are heavy and pensive, others are outdoorsy, others are “classic”.

The police dare not talk to Clyde, though they long to ask where such a well-dressed and knowledgeable boy might come from.

 

Debate: To Have a Face or Not

And why should I have a face? Life would be so much easier if people were not constantly translating my physical expression. After all, if I can’t control what people think about me, why should I let them think anything at all? They’ll just bungle everything, misinterpret my mood, causing all kinds of nasty situations. Hmph.

OK. You’re right. Throw that idea out the window. I just remembered my little cousin’s face as he smacked me in the head with a pillow. And the eyes of the old man filled with compassion. It turns out that faces are pretty cool.

 

City and Ocean Meet

Out on the furthest hills out, where the wind off the ocean blows sand to kingdom come and the trees are shaped like tildes, there is a staircase made of wooden posts sunk into the sandy ground. It leads up the slope on the side of a cliff into a park where no one wanders. Junipers grow in the sand up there, and beneath the largest bushes are the remnants of encampments. Homeless sometimes find their way all the way out here, where though they feel free from the interlocking concrete of the city streets, the night wind pierces them.

 

Worms

I ate worms when I was little.  At least, I think so.  I imagine little me wondering about worms and trying them.  I mean, my current self would probably eat worms for the heck of it.  At any rate, I’ve told enough people (proudly) that I ate worms as a child so it almost might as well be true.  It’s funny how if you say something over and over, it can turn into a real memory. I know how they felt as they slipped down my throat (slimy) and what they tasted like (dirt).  Now worms are my wiggly friends.

Mistaken for Strangers

David and Jesse wanted to get high and David’s basement had a great set of speakers, so Nate came along too. Outside, icicles dripped, and a sliver of February afternoon leaked into the open basement window. Jesse rolled the joint, Nate put on The National, and the basement was drafty, same as always. No need to talk: David and Jesse passing their joint, Nate with his back against the plaid armchair, picking out chords on David’s guitar. Maybe they were friends. Afternoons like those were easy at least.

…when you pass them at night under the silvery, silvery Citibank lights…

Old Money

I walk through the Burberry store wearing jeans and a tee, and a cable travels from my backpack to my headphones turned all the way up.

Heads turn. “This isn’t right, this isn’t how it’s supposed to be,” say the sharp stares of the fine patrons of the boutique. “We came here to get away from that.”

I don’t know why I’m here. My dad loves this stuff, the $600 scarves, and smell of old money and arrogance. Who here is happy besides me? I don’t understand it; I feel like I’m in a museum of the rich and confused.

 

Flu Shot

I got an allergic reaction to a shot I didn’t wanna take. My doctor told me I had to get a flu shot to protect myself. Went, got it, got sick, cuz it turns out the vaccine wasn’t just for flu. His goddamn inoculation indoctrinated me. Convinced me to turn my head when new cars passed. Convinced me to crave the American dream in all it’s fresh-mowed glory. Suburban society poison shot straight into my bloodstream. So that’s why I reacted terribly, cuz that’s just not me. I can see how it’s a relief to some, but not to me.

 

Mac ‘n cheese

Yummyness in a bowl with added cheesy goodness and noodles of added deliciousness!  You can feel the salty medley tickle your taste buds and slide slowly down your throat.  Even before the massive bowl of yellow-orange goo is half done, you can feel your stomach start to constrict with protest.  The cheese goodness has started to congeal and expand and tie knots where there definitely shouldn’t be.  But the yummy goodness is still there in the bowl practically slipping you in and out of heavenly consciousness.  But the stomach!  But the yumminess and deliciousness!  Oh macaroni you taunt me so.

Thanksgiving (November 25, 2010)

They rode a bus.  Together they bumped and jostled each other as they made their way down the long winding road.  She gazed out the window thinking about that last caress he had given her before she left.  No idea how long it would be until the next time.  The man behind, huddled in a rain jacket, had his mind fixated on the organizational nightmare ahead of him.  Was all the food even bought?  Next to him, the girl in the hat stewed about the tensions that were straining to tear her family apart.  They swayed, together in their separateness.

Fire (November 24, 2010)

That rock I chose and hefted yesterday, it is glowing red.  Flames fan out from below in a fiery inferno.  My face wants to succumb to the warm and does, but also doesn’t.  It’s too hot and just warm enough.  Sparks shoot upwards into glowing ribbons.  I can’t tear my smarting eyes away.  But it’s the smell of the burning wood that has me transfixed.  Fires stop you, and me.  Eyes glaze over in a way that peels back the walls you’ve erected. That’s the time you can read the worry lining his brow, the regret etched into her cheekbones.

Star Bed (November 23, 2010)

I woke up to a dream.  In this place shrouded with stars, there are old buses and small cabins alongside stone paved paths, glass piles and water tanks.  I look in through the windows of each place to find finely furnished living nooks of all types.  Here a steering wheel next to a bunk mattress and there a quilt-covered bed in an old water tank.  As I follow the pathway I find myself next to a fishpond.  A Buddha laughs at me, a deep belly laugh, and I can almost hear it.  There I find my star bed, absolutely real.

Gadgets (November 22, 2010)

With all of our instruments and high-powered gadgets we were able to understand why the Hawaiians farmed where they did.  Woohoo.  They didn’t have blinking, beeping hand-helds or labs to send things off to and yet they identified the areas with the highest soil fertility and right amount of rainfall.  They were also able to grow food to feed half a million people as we fumble around today, with over 80% of our food being imported, and try to understand their system from the remnants they left behind.  Where did all the knowledge go?  Why do we understand so little?

Night’s Reflection (November 21, 2010)

What’s there to say when there’s nothing left?  She sat, apathetic, with a blank stare of fatigued concentration.  Her eyes were tired.  If you looked closely, you could see that her eyebrows weren’t totally relaxed but instead weakly raised.  Her shoulders too were tensed in a hunch.  Every so often she glanced in front of her at the words, which may have been trying to form something coherent out of their black squiggliness.  There it was, a word, before everything faded back away into nothing.  No exclamation.  No change.  Nope, that girl reflected in the mirror, she had nothing left.

The hilarity of a blade of grass (November 20, 2010)

Too much recycled car air, car time, car driving, car.  As we stepped out, my fingers reached for a stalk of grass and slowly brought it to my mouth. Thumbs in place next to each other – a deep breath – and a huge exhale!  The air was pierced with a shrill whistle…and was followed by a lot of other noises.  They were such ridiculous sounds, you had no choice but to try it.  Cheeks puffed and faces reddened: we sounded worse than a tuning orchestra mixed with pre-pubescent bull-frogs learning to croak.  Interject laughing and gasping and – WABAM!  There we are.

I want to be a wave (November 19, 2010)

How utterly unbelievable would it be to collect momentum before throwing yourself fully at countless urchin-covered boulders and not be hurt whatsoever?  Instead of coming out of the ordeal bruised, battered and bleeding, you would instead smash into a million beautiful droplets that sprayed every which way before slowly trickling back into one.  Imagine the power, the force, the rush, the roar and the freedom you would feel.  Angry?  Crash into the rocks with unrelenting fury.  Gleeful?  Shake with laughter until you just, gurgle, can’t stand it anymore and froth about, tickled by life.  I could watch them endlessly, wondering.

Morning Alarm (November 18, 2010)

It’s dark except for three holes of light coming through the wall.  Someone is awake and going to the bathroom.  I am awake.  My watch says something like 3:00am when I push the button called “Indiglo.”  Suddenly, at 3:08am, I hear a first crow.  Mid-crow this rooster has a rooster crowing friend.  And another.  A cacophony of cock-a-doodle-doos crescendo into a sound so piercing that I surmise everyone else in the bunkroom has to be awake.  I hear some tossing and turning sleeping bags, then, quiet.  The bathroom light is off.  I guess I never was one to hit snooze.

Waimea: red water (November 17, 2010)

It’s raining.  It’s dribbling, dripping, pinging, collecting, carving, eroding, freshening, quieting, soaking, and scrambling. It tattoos itself onto the canyon walls and into the bedrock there, carving its initials into the saprolites and soils above.  Soon there is blood: the blood of the land runs from these wounds and over them in a ruddy rogue that only gains in intensity as the rains prick harder and for a long time.  Since when did you take blood thinners?  Drop, drip: the tattoo artist is done; his work finished; the pelting, pricking pain, over.  The blood flow slows to a muddied coagulation.

To the Mountain Goats (November 16, 2010)

How do I begin to describe the teardrop shape of your oh so adorable face that makes me pine for nothing but a little nuzzle?  And your dear hoofs that are so perfectly articulated that they put jealousy in the tin hearts of cookie cutters – Oh!  Your beautiful budding horns: what form would germinating seedlings know to take without those model perky nubs you have? Even your excrement, all in bundles, welcomes the muse to sing tales of fine confetti.  High tales of thoroughbreds have nothing on your technical prowess traversing rock slopes, oh nimble footed ones. Jump, goat!

Talking Boots (November 15, 2010)

There’s a point where hiking boots become old friends instead of clingy, abrasive strangers.  Your feet no longer look too wide and bulbous in them (but your sneakers now do) and the leather has creases in it from being laced up so often.  Pulling them out yields a shot of excitement.  Dirt and layers of scraped of mud cakes the front and sides to the point that you can’t remember the original color of the boots.  Were they green?  Light gray?  We met each other half way, my boots and I: my feet have callused and the boots have softened.

Inside out or outside in? (November 14, 2010)

There’s a strange point between sun burning hot and goosebump cold where you’re simultaneously sweltering and yet oddly cool, calm, collected and controlled.  Don’t get me wrong though, if much more than a leg brush was touching my body, I would have been uncomfortable in that way where nothing my brain said could rationalize and then mask the physical.  How do you do that?  I am this body which I am in and which I chose to be in.  I live and breathe and exist in it, because of it.  And yet I can be elsewhere, instantly come what may.

On the boardwalk (November 13, 2010)

As I get to know myself better, I start to see the patterns immerge like constellations in a sky scattered with stars.  Except maybe not quite that pretty; some of my patterns are so ugly and hurtful and detrimental to both myself and others.  It’s those that spiral through your life until you meet, greet and address them.  How many times do you want to feel unhappy before you wake up?  Sometimes I’m blank for no reason and it’s frustrating and funky! What to do with those feelings from nowhere?  Today, furious, I took it out hiking on the boardwalks.

Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving!
Oh boy the turkey awaits!
Shall we gobble?
Shall we gyrate with thanks?
Cram into the car,
begin the engine,
and we’re on our way!
Snowy streets, snowy streets,
thanks so much it’s sweet!
Like cranberry!
Oh man,
a flat tire?
Now?
Here?
Gas station!
Veer in there,
where’s the air?
Oh thanks for air,
thanks for…
Oh what the hell?
You gotta pay for air?
I’m breathing your fumy air!
Oh well!
No thanks for that,
but thanks for tires!
Away we go!
Gobble yum, gobble yum,
turkey here we come!
Thanksgiving,
thank you!
We love you so!

Ring Ring by David Roxas

*Ring Ring * This is Mary-Ann.
> Commissioner, he struck again.
> Luke? Where?
> Hell’s Kitchen.
> Where is he now?
> The decks somewhere. I have coppers ready and awaiting orders.
> As for Hell’s Kitchen?
> Real shit is going down there, Commissioner
> Jesus. Casualties?
> None so far.
> Keep it that way. I want this cleaned up ASAP. Notify and send in the teams.
> Copy, over. Containment teams are being sent in as we speak and we’re printing a story for the press.
> Good, I’m heading down there now.
> What about Luke?
> Pull your guys back. Set up the Louie signal. He’ll find him.
>

Jury Duty

I just hope I get my jury duty letter in the mail soon. That’ll be my big break. It should come any week now – I’ve been eligible for years and never gotten it.

I can picture it now: I’ll get to meet lawyers, judges, and the best part, the other jurors. I’ve been looking for an opportunity to expand my professional network, and this would be perfect.

I’ll dress up in a suit and tie, take the early train downtown, and maybe even buy a newspaper to fold up and put under my arm. I was born for this moment.

The Sea of Seeds and Polyps

Up there,
a sea of seeds and polyps reverberates.
A man sails softly,
seeking a certain mermaid.
Angels fish for men,
and men try to make for themselves
heaven on earth.
The last pterodactyl
wanders an ashy planet.
Crabs maneuver around barnacles.
A monster wakes an abandoned man
from the most contented sleep
he’s maybe ever had.
Buses run local and express,
filled to overflowing.
A ghost waits in his house
for the second passing.
A hundred stories
conjure themselves into being.
Up there,
seeds and polyps wait
for their chance beneath the microscope,
wait for life seen by another.

 

Swiftly

There are some people who are uncomfortable being alone. They feel the silence like a judgmental force, compelling them to fill the space with something – anything; they only feel like whole, real people when they are surrounded by other people, by something to do, by the opportunity to be somebody for somebody else.

There are some people who are at ease in solitude.  They hear crickets chirping at night and enjoy the music; they feel the wind through the windows and enjoy the whispering breeze like a calming conversation.

These people meet each other, briefly, and swiftly, they turn away.

Grandpops

I’m a grandpops, a kind-hearted old man, therefore it’s my job to love my grandson. He visits me here in the home sometimes, brings magazines to keep me occupied. But if you ask me, and I’ll tell it to you straight, the goddamn kid needs to get himself a life. I didn’t really raise my son to have a bastard, and I certainly didn’t expect no goodie-two-shoes bastard. He’s never even gotten himself in a fight at school. I tried to punch him once, and he thought I was just kidding around. Little punk. Bring me pornos, not Motor Trend.

Infiltrated

Each breath infiltrated body,
each touch a familiar
conception experienced
as a foreign body. Deeply intertwined,
yet never before recognized by
these eyes, in these forms,
a silent reverberation spoke
the only comprehension
that existed
in these moments, an existence
beyond all time, beyond
these forms, greater and more encompassing
than bodies.
Single hands created firm pressure
between them, simultaneous
solitude and singularity, two spirits
recognized one another unconditionally,
fascinated to see the other once again.
Past lives, kindred spirits, anomalous
existences in the entirety of realities,
in these moments
long hours passed, lifetimes
already lived, and a welcoming
Home.

Ink

When they think we’re strangers,

they don’t see

the shower of stars burned behind our ears

because you said it was more romantic than rings

and why would anyone want a ring anyway,

cold metal can’t compare to the sting

of a needle, the way we writhed as it drilled

into us, clutching hands

as you winced—almost grinning—and told me

my blood was beautiful—why, you said,

would we want rings when you can watch

stars shoot across my skin, when you can read

my scabs like Braille—why

would anyone want rings

when we could have galaxies?

 

Babosas

When I became aware of the thousand daily deaths
like slugs in the bins of my life,
I first tried to scrape them away
with incessant fingernails.
No use – in canyons and alleyways I slipped on them,
dark like shapelessness,
never crawling,
remnants of the blind night
that stayed all day.
Insignificant,
insistent,
the deaths cropped up,
leftovers of foul journeys and fallen branches.
I searched for the source of salts and chalks,
childhood remedies lost in manhood.
Even my words seemed stopgaps,
flood-holders,
flights of fancy.
Only my imagination knew
where the living land
was free of the scourge.

 

Right Back Where We Started From by Merissa Ren

The moment the wheels hit the tarmac,
it’s there slipping up from the hold, in the vents, maneuvering around
the visitors.
The lets grab lunches and long time no talks that all mean the same
thing start pulling pulling into the comfortable habits, the petrified
past person.
Jump in the shower, scrub it off: not the travel but the home.
The faucets are all new.
Mom! When did we get these spoons?
Mom! Why can I see my face in the mirror while I pee!
Did I suddenly grow?
Oh no, I just had Jose put in a new toilet.

On the KX Near Redwood City

A man comes onto the KX, a white man with white hair, sunglasses and a tan. He says, “I don’t have change,” showing off the twenties in his wallet. The bus driver – who could be Latino or Southeast Asian, I’m not really sure – shrugs and reopens the door. The man exits the bus calmly, but as the impersonal door shuts, he says loudly, “Well thanks a lot. Thank you. Asshole.” I’ve been sitting up front the whole time, so I’ve seen that most of the people on this bus that speaks mostly Spanish pay only the few quarters they have.

 

Boundary

It was odd, she thought, that although she sat on beautiful beaches and atop the tallest mountains, what she was gaining with most clarity was not, in fact, appreciation for these things, but a clarity about what that distant “home” meant and what it was to be purely her self.  The days were becoming longer to her now, more time passing between each setting sun and more effort put to seeing each one through.  For though she came into a better understanding of what she was, it came through a process of walking that which was not, knowing it, understanding.

A Quiet Mind In Wintertime

When I come home for the holidays, it begins to snow. Stuck in our old townhouse, I go on winding metaphysical journeys inspired by the old books stacked in my room. I have not lived here in years, and dust has settled in stillness across the leather volumes, each inscribed with the name of a person I admire. They had the courage to have ideas and the patience to put their ideas where they would not be lost. Within the silence of snow my imagination rises up, ushered by words long interred, and I attempt to trace it onto paper.

 

Adulthood by Merissa Ren

Today she said goodbye to the great love of her life.
She put on the dark dark sunglasses and faced the fairy tale fallout.
It was sad; that was that.
The 84 to be x’s marked the march to reality.
When it was done, she’d be done.
What are you going to be when you grow up when you’ve already been
everything, lived everywhere, and felt this life from moment to
moment?
I guess it’s time to be one, here, for a little while.
Touching ground with a little pain and an unwavering path.
A perfectly balanced grown woman.
Weird.

Sometimes

Sometimes at night, as she was going to bed, Dani lay back and tried to remember what it was like when she knew Christina.  There were scattered memories of birthday parties, broken bones, playing in the backyard.  But as she racked the shelves of her mind, the hazy, scattered memories up to sixth grade were followed by clearer but fewer and fewer memories from middle school, high school, and now college. Maybe their lives had been intertwined when they were kids, but it was hard to believe.  Now they spoke every few months, and she couldn’t quite say about what.

The Real World

You have an app on your phone that lets you find the funnest stuff in the quickest time? That’s so cool! So where do you live? Oh, isn’t that area mainly for like families and older people? Do you like golfing, or do you just happen to live by three different golf courses? Oh man, what is this other app? You have an app on your phone that lets you stay connected constantly with the people you meet? You must meet so many people! Not really? You spend all your time at work?

Wow you definitely need a better phone.

The One That Got Away

She checked her email constantly. She’d check it first thing in the morning, last thing before bed, during meals, and after showers before getting dressed. She’d check while driving, eating, or having a conversation. If you’d ask her, she’d say she wasn’t waiting for anything in particular, but, “you know, you never know.”

Today, she opened her inbox and it all felt worth it, all that effort. She read the email from the boy, the boy who got away in high school, who was in town, flying out tomorrow, offering “so if you’re not busy later, let’s grab a drink.”

 

Almost Alive by Merissa Ren

Susan swiveled around in her waiting area seat, comfortably over fifty
without any uncomfortable signs of clinging to her youth. She wasn’t
particularly remarkable, she never really was. She was seven different
kinds of grey. Some cable knit trim on pristine cloth boots, a barely
grey pair of sweater tights met by an inch of unobtrusive creamy grey
trim, a decidedly grayish grey skirt, a scarf paneled in various
shades of almost pigment and a vest on the taupe-y side of grey. Her
face is even a little grey, not old grey, just empty with a little
something almost dark.

Nighttime

My eyes snapped open in an instant, just quickly enough to absorb the deafening boom that was echoing through my room, waking me both violently and smoothly into its reverberating waves.  The house seemed to shake, and in a moment my hazy mind flashed to solitude in the Rockies, the same depth of thunder collapsing down on all sides, the same darknesses torn apart with the flash of thunder.  Silence followed, distant tremors teasing like a call to insanity while flashbulbs continued to illuminate shadows on the window.  And just as smoothly, just as abruptly, I drifted back to sleep.