Working front register at Starbucks
you ask a little boy in green
if he likes Minecraft
What the coolest thing
he ever built was
then watch
As his family
and the whole line behind them
gasp, fall silent
stare at you
with standing ovation eyes
as he lights right up
to tell you all about it

I wake up on a yoga mat
In what is now just My
empty room.

All the clutter That made this house
lived in.
Tucked
in the three old
Sock and underwear drawers
That used to be:
Hers.

The family photographs
half the nerdy posters
books,
Magic the Gathering cards,
Burgled by some addict named time.

I look out at what I now call
"The guest bedroom".
The only evidence of her
An empty dresser
covered in Princess stickers.

At work
Customers ask:
How are you doing?
"I'm awesome! how are you?"
How are you doing?
"I'm wonderful! what brings you to freeport?"
How are you doing?
"I'm fantastic, peak or dark roast?"

How's your daughter?
"Step-daughter."
That's all I'm allowed to tell you
My boss said I'm scaring off customers By
over-sharing
So he wrote me a script.

I would love to tell you
I don't know how she's doing
And it's killing me.

Her mother left me,
We were both fifteen at the time so
My mother, Rightfully cautious
of her overly passionate puppylove eyed son
Didn't let me adopt

So I don't get to see her anymore.

Her mother was a fire who never drank enough rain
And that little girl
Will burn without my clouds.

I am playground math lessons
In space of mindless television
I am baking a cake together Instead of
"You won't eat till you listen".
I am the voice behind every barbie doll
And dinosuar that ever fell in love.

when you ask me how she's doing
All I can think about is how
I earned that
first "I love
you,
dada."

How I made her laugh
more times than her Mother made her
Cry.
How I tucked her in at night
and she made me read her
"Oh The Places You'll Go",
Over
and Over
and Over.
Screaming
when I said she'd go
On through the hakken kraks howl,
and Giggling
when I said she'd move
Mountains.
I raised her for three years.

But because I walked in on my daughter
Locked in "The guest bedroom"
banging on the Oak door
Screaming "DA DAAAA!"
While her mother forgets about us
On the other side of a keyhole.

I have to waste at this register
Handing you a precious cup of coffee
every precious cup of coffee
another abuse I can't protect her from.

"How is your daughter?"
"Step Daugher"
"How are you doing?"
"I'm awesome."
"How is your daugher?"
"Step daughter."
"how are you doing? Step daughter"
"Tell me how you're doing, Step Daughter."
"Please, Tell me you're safe."
"Tell me you're safe."
"Tell me you're safe."

"if your personality was a beverage,
what beverage would it be?"

She said: "I think I'd be Coffee"

"No,
You can't be coffee."

You're too sweet
Cheap, With two shots of vanilla

COFFEE is bold, smokey,
Burns your throat.

I had coffee once,
Brandy

Woke up to her every morning,
For years I got drunk off of her
When I didn't drink enough water
She made me sick.
but I never drank water
Went down the hall
to a sippy cup full of milk.

Even she,
was not just milk.
She was strawberry milk.
My little Coffee milk.

You are not Coffee.
You are water.

But soak up all my grounds
***** yourself on the dead burnt cherries
I've left for you.

Maybe
you can be some quick
instant version.

I spent years of my life in a fantasy world.

waters inhabited with murlocs
Forests with centuars and unicorns
I had badass armor
Spellbooks, Abilities, Charisma modifiers!

When you live in Dungeons and dragons you finish quests, unlock gods,
Slay Monsters

When my DnD group broke up

I didn't lose a group of friends.
I lost a party of adventurers

Their eulogies pronounced at the end of that final nat one
Will never be forgotten.

Portaits carved like improv comedy routines.
Characatures of our ideal selves
Bound, sealed, stuck on a book shelf
We deserved another sequel.

When the party healer crumpled her car against a Concrete wall at 70 miles an hour
It made sense nobody else knew how to cast raise dead.

In a world that is supposed to play out our ideal realities
it was no question her charecter lived eternal. the way she would have wanted.
The way we wanted so badly to be true.
Nobody felt right taking over her charecter.
And nobody wanted to **** her off.
So we wrote her story.
Every die she had tossed this whole adventure. Each murloc she ran from, each unicorn she rode, etched into a leather bound tome.
Placed Right on the same shelve we kept our pathfinder books.
Her headstone.
We never played after that.
But she did.
When we placed the novel next to the flowers her mother left.
We felt her cast healing song
one last time
And that night
We got a full rest

I never asked who I was praying to
never needed to know
just Watched the dice roll as wishes did off my tongue
Cringed on the gamblers table.
See, my sister needed a bike
As much as she craved transportation
I craved sin more.
So when god dialed his voicemail and got my wish for fire
He transfered over the call
Or rather, down
And I became a jumble of kindling and wood.
On Christmas, the bike sat beneath the tree in a big red ribbon.
My sister sat with her hands clasped in prayer, and suddenly her fingers fell off.
She couldn't ride a bike with no fingers,
So santa swapped out the tags.
Signing the bike over to me.
Soaking my sisters tears in my flames.
Greed wasn't the only thing I prayed for,
I asked for ***. Lots of ***. And coffee. And Comic Sans to dissapear forever
And I got it. Most of it.
I still have to deal with ******* Comic Sans.
Even God cannot be that kind.
With all my wishes there was a price,
A horror, a trauma, to balance out all my bad karma for making these "wishes"
Or "deals".
With whoever was listening
If not God, someone...
It was Becky.
I call it Becky.
The voice
It's less intimidating than schizophrenia, or D.I.D, or the Devil.
When I pray to Becky.
She does not say a word back. she giggles,
In the corners of my eyes, waiting.
Listening to me beg for vices, slowly sacrificing my sanity.
Giving me everything I ask for,
And taking everything I want.

There's no Pokémon
here in Rio, much like our
clean drinking water.

Gwar'th, a scranny peasent boy
from Deastbhillow
Frequented the tavern to hear the local bard play
Enthralled by stories of shipwrecks, cataclysms, Corpses rising from their graves.
He begged the bard over and over.
"Please! take me on your next adventure?"
Gwar'th locked eyes with the bard
Gave him every bit of attention.
The bard always declined,
"it's too dangerous for a child." He said,
"But I'll sing you a song.
The tale of the Red Metal Lute."
~~~
The sky was black
pouring buckets.
You couldn't see but walls of rain
you couldn't hear a ****** thing.
Not even each other speak
Until A loud wail rose from the sea
shattered every window and bottle on board.
In the distance, a figure
unwaivered by the storm.
A ghostly figure,
with a red metal lute
Seemed to fly,
Loom on the rain.
the figure plucked a single string
wailing screams from years of forgotten dead
some sailors on board went mad
The woman and children ran inside.
The captain headed out the cabin.
Grabbed his lute from off the wall
Walked right up to the ghostly demon
Challenged him to a duel.
"I win, you lure me the biggest fish
inside this ghostly sea
Once we haul it back to shore,
you let my sailers leave."
The ghostly demon preached back in wail
"My spoils claim each drop of blood
left upon your ship,
you'll join all the eternal tongues
wailing from my instrument."
They played their lutes so hard that storms whipped bruised wailed and brown
Lighting struck, fire popped and squeltched under the heavy rain.
Not a soul on board could hear the music, for they all deaf from the banshees wail.
But one small float snuck cloaked in shadows from the duel above the sails.
It had a mother and a brother
a baby in the mothers arms.
They made mostly to shore.
The oceans trials took all the family, but I, the baby,
A boy.
I don't know who won, the Captain, the Demon.
But I know one thing is true.
The power that lies within' an instrument
is more then anybody knew.
~~~
One foggy night in Deastbhillow
Long after the tavern closed
The bard was packing for a 'venture
loading up the partys caravan to head out of town
Gwar'th snuck on behind the treasure chests.
It stopped in front of a cavern
Five adventurers stepped off
A knight, a priest, a bard, a Clairvoyant
And In the shadows,
Gwar'th.

Down in the belly of the cave
Past the bones and the torches
there was a red glowing from the end
THE RED METAL LUTE
Gwar'th, excited, lunged from the shadows
Alerting the party.
The knight drew his weapon
The bard struck a chord
The priest prayed
And The Clairvoyant read the boys mind.
Together They killed the boy in cold blood.

"What did it look like to you?" Said the Preist
to the knight who slaughtered the boy.
"A beautiful woman.
What did it look like to you?" The knight asked the priest.
"My god."
"What did it look like to the boy?" The bard asked.
"An instrument," said the Clairvoyant, "A powerful instrument.
What did it look like to you?"

The bard looked down.
"The boy."