So there we were on the cliff above the railroad tracks, the Missouri River Bridge in the distance. We’d armed ourselves with sticks, rocks, and pellet guns. We were a ragtag militia, all fight and no war.

The roar of the oncoming train drowned out our planning for anarchy and unfocused mayhem.
The five of us waited, unsure how to take best advantage of the rolling brown and yellow Union Pacific. Dan looked at me and wiped the sweat from his face with his *** Pistols t-shirt.

“Let’***** it!” Rob said. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t say no. If I said it was wrong they’d have laughed and done it anyway. Tingles ran down my legs. I leaned against a nearby cedar and craned my head in the direction of the oncoming train. From our vantage point on the bluff amongst the trees, the unwary conductor would never see us. I waved to signal the others as it arrived.

The ground shook as the train roared below us. Deaf from its passing, we used hand signals like the guys in Red Dawn. That’s it! That’s who we were! We were the Wolverines! And I was the scout who had just spotted a resupply train that was carrying logistical necessities like...

“Cars! *******! This one has cars on it,” Kevin yelled. The other soldiers all gathered rocks and threw them at the passing supply train. I yelled “Wolverines!” as they pelted the evil communist convoy. The four of them joined me screaming the same. My blood boiled, and my face went hot as I embraced the guerilla tactics.

I was dumbfounded when Rob picked up a boulder... and lifted it over his head like a weightlifter. As it flew through the air in deliciously slow motion I thought for sure it was just going to drop straight down the face of the crumbling bluff. Then, with accuracy too precise to have been planned, the boulder crashed through the front windshield of some red Ford, and due to the speed of the passing train, blew through the back glass before tumbling to rest on the hood of some blue Chevy below it.

Dead Flippin Silence

“Rob! *******! That was awesome!” someone said...Tim, I think.

Rob stood with fists pumping in the air. He won today, and he became the captain of our squad. I picked up a much smaller rock and threw it, watching as it clanged helplessly off the train’s metal siding. The Russians would surely come looking for us now, and this was a hit and run raid. We bolted from our perches and sought other opportunities to hit the Commies where it hurt!

We really wanted to be Anarchy!

He lay there in a *****, unkept ball,
Having surrendered to the pavement.
Wisps of stringy brown hair
Covered the lines on his sunken in face,
His yellow smoked eyes, rheumy and blurred,
His vision hazy, like a punch-drunk boxer.

Kathleen Harmon sashayed by
With nary a glace downward.
Once they were equals,
When they sat together
During high school Chemistry.

Time slowed from a Tango to a Waltz,
As a drop of saliva
Kissed the pavement.
Stringing there from his cracked, parted lips.

His tangled brown whiskers,
Patchy on his cheeks,
Had lengthened with the passing days
Since their last meeting with a razor.

Nikes, Prada, and Gucci
Ignore him in passing
All sports, fashion, and business meetings;
On the clock, and self-absorbed.

Dusk marked the sky
With a violet crayon
Worn to a nub,
Then worn to nothing.

A sudden thud startled him awake!
Then blackened hardwood stunned him as it bit into his ribs!
A caustic voice berated his slumber,
A navy blue reminder that even surrender was no escape.

One contested definition of a circle is:
A polygon with an infinite number of sides...

- A woman in a pretty skirt walks to work at night aware of the stares she receives, ashamed to quietly be thankful for the attention.
- An old man looks at the crystal ball in his hand, glimmering and shiny, and suddenly understands mortality
- A young boy examines the body of his best friend, cries for hours, then places the dog’s collar around his wrist.
- An old lady suffers, unable to meet her own needs, and wonders where the children she ignored have gone.

- A young man finds his soul mate but loses himself in her.
- Forty-five teenagers wage war on Friday night, their screams of triumph pierce the night air, yet Saturday feels empty and tastes of despair.
- A middle-aged father of three hunts a fresh rose in the moonlight, unaware his wilted rose no longer has thorns.
- A woman in a business suit bangs against the glass, thick and heavy, and shudders when it fails to crack.

- A squinty-eyed man makes good on his debt after years of being gone, then walks off the roof of a forty-story building.
- A child of twelve is ignored by haggard-looking parents, yet cries go out when he, in turn, ignores a drowning victim.
- A wealthy entrepreneur, of sour looks, enjoys a fine meal by the shore, yet wonders why as the tide rolls in he still feels insatiably hungry.
- The drummer in a metal band sees his father’s face in the cowhide, yet each night after the show he still needs ****** to numb the pain.

Pythagoreans thought the universe Eternally Recurs, and we know human life has infinite potential.

If it's true that human lives eternally recur and are filled with infinite potential

Why are we all still in pain?

The man to my right was more than eight feet away. I was going to have to move closer to him to catch my limit of four trout. I halved the distance between the two of us and noted the sideways glance he shot me. I apologized immediately and asked if I was crowding him.
     “No, you fine,” he replied within a thick Serbian accent.
     “You’re with them?” I asked, pointing to the crowd of people on the bridge some 30 feet upstream from us. I had heard the crowd of eastern Europeans talking earlier, and their accents were unmistakable to me. He nodded and we continued fishing.
     With my new angle I was better able to pick my fish in the water, so that’s what I did. I spied one and tossed my jig toward him. It took five casts but eventually, he took the bait. As I netted it in the swift, ice-cold spring water the man beside me congratulated me on the catch. I thanked him and added it to my stringer. This made three, and I only needed one more.
     “What’s your name?” I asked him.
     “Ivan”.
     “Have you been in the states long?” I asked, after the pause following his short reply seemed to invite more questions.
     “Since ‘96, my family live here. It is good.”
     “You like living here?” I wondered aloud.
     “Yes, the fishing is good. It is like back home in Serbia, or in Germany. We have this fishing there.”
     “You mean trout?”
     “Yes, trout...and some other fish like these, in water like this, but I can’t go home now.” He looked away momentarily. His lips pursed, and his brow furrowed. I pulled my line in, wanting to ask him more and not wanting to be distracted.
     “Were you in the war?”
     “Yes, I was in the Serbian police force.” My heart pounded. “When I was in the Serbian police force, we did what you see on the news. We went into villages and we killed them. We killed them all.”
     I cast my line back into the water, spying another trout. Ivan shrugged and cast his own line. I couldn’t tell what he was using but it looked like cheese of some kind. “I was drafted in Serb police when I was 15. I had no choice. If I refuse, they **** me. I did what I had to do.” I nodded, and ****** my line, missing a fish. “Before the war, I fished. After the war, there were not so many people, so fishing was very good.”
     The air around me was alive. The trees were greener, the water was colder and clearer, the sun was brighter, and the sky was bluer.
     “I’ve been fishing for a long time as well,” I responded. My father used to bring me here as a child. He nodded and continued.
     “After the war, all the fish come back, no one fished during the war, so there were many of them. You just had to be careful of the mines.” He grunted and gazed skyward.
     “The mines?”
     “Yes, during the war they mined the water.”
     I watched trout number four take my jig and I carefully reeled him in. Ivan congratulated me a second time, and I thanked him in return.
“You’re a good fisherman,” he said turning back to his own pursuit of the four-trout limit, as I left the water to clean my catch.

A discarded Bazooka Joe gum wrapper
Two pieces of aluminum foil
14 pixie sticks of various flavors
A packet of fire sauce from Taco Bell
A half-gallon carton of spoiled milk
A half-eaten roast beef sandwich, covered in olive green mold

A wilted red rose
A broken picture frame with a picture that was ripped in half
An empty champagne glass with red lipstick in the shape of a woman’s lips on the side

One double A battery
A green rabbit’s foot
A 9" long strand of shoelace, frayed at both ends
Many crushed, empty beer cans

A torn white t-shirt
A strand of friendship beads
A partially legible postcard from Milan, Italy with a woman’s handwriting on it that read:
     “...just can’t handle...anymore...
     Life is...just want you....
    away...
    -Des... [Rest of signature illegible]”

Several ***** pennies, scattered about
21 cigarette butts, some spilled from the ashtray, all the same brand
A $173.44 electric bill
A deck of playing cards from the Pyramid Casino with a hole through the center, the Queen of Hearts is shredded and strewn about the driver’s side floorboard

A pink feather boa
A stale half-full box of cheap cigars
A pen featuring the logo of the Las Vegas Hilton
A business card from an insurance salesman with a non-descript name

The label from a bottle of Krystal
Several flyers from various escort services

On the passenger’s door: A large splatter of sun-dried blood
In the dirt outside:

A pair of men’s sunglasses
One shell casing from a .45
A Kimber .1911 handgun
A male skeleton with a hole in the skull’s right temple

"So, we were having this conversation, and all of the sudden...well I couldn’t believe it...

"Oh, she went on and on about fields of daisies or something like that... She talked forever!

"Ok, ok...but first I have to build it up, so you know, you can appreciate the fullness of the moment.

"So we’re sitting there, having this conversation, and she just perks up...

"Yeah, she like...sat up in her seat, eyes bright as a light bulb, and she looks at me in this weird kinda way...

"I don’t know what way exactly, it was just weird. Like I was Brad Pitt or somebody like that.

"...Or someone like that, God! Are you gonna let me tell you or not?

"Anyway, she looks at me and just blurts it all out.  I mean she talked about it nonstop for an hour. I was thinking, Hell...we’re wasting time talking...

"No, I’m serious. It was an hour at least! After she finished I asked if she was serious.

"Well, I just wanted to make sure. Then she gets this ******* look and I thought she was going to slap me or something. It was like my asking her totally ruined the moment. It was a little freaky. I thought for sure she was just going to get up and leave like I blew my chance.

"Yeah, well...it might have been better if she did. She just looked at me, not like earlier when she thought I was Brad Pitt though. Now she was just dumbfounded or something.

"You know like...she couldn’t believe I even had to ask after what she had just asked me.

"Yeah, you’re probably right, I am. But look I can’t just...you know, after Jennifer and all, I can’t just leap out there without looking. I’ve got responsibilities to think about.

"Oh, whatever! I am not. It’s not wrong for guys to think about that.

"I don’t even know why I’m talking to you!

"Well...of course, I said yes, what do you think I’m a total *****? She’s way too pretty say no too."

An X is cool
An X is Wolverine!
An X is someone I never have to deal with again!

:::))) (Super happy face)

An X is me!

I don't like the Q.
That's a Star Trek character.
I'm old fashioned too.
It's still like N to me.

So I guess there are many Ls though.
:) Big Smile

"I'm supposed to be a T."
But I don't feel like a T.
I don't want to be a T.
A T is 50/50 and I'm 100/10. (Sort of).

I'm not sure,
when I was a kid
I just wanted a G (No, not a Geeee, a G)

So that's it then!

I'm a G! Cuz it's right for me!
looks down
(Ah ****... ******* Y)

:( sad face

Well,  I'm an L then, at least!
looks down
(Ah ****... ******* Y)

sad face :(

So I'm still not a G (Because of the Y), and Not and L (Because of the Y yet a-*******-gain), but not a Geeee a T, a B or whatever's left.

Can I just be a crooked G-L?
looks down at the ******* Y

:( sad face

Q is a nerd from Star Trek.

I'm an X because it's cool.

I sit around chewing bubble gum
Its flavor dull, and flat.
I spit it out into the greasy, stained waste bin.
It stares back at me angrily, lying next to
Some brown boxes, random yard waste,
An oily blue rag, and a raging red
Hunk of plastic, which once was a fire engine,
My misery reflected in its misshapen contours.
I’m trapped in my world
Of fake “How-do-you-dos”
And tepid conversation about the weather.
Each day is an agony and every moment, surreal.
I cry for a body that is not mine.
My soul burns with each passing lie I tell someone
When they ask who I am.

I hate love songs, happy songs, and celebrations!
They are never for me.
They are the bubble gum I scrape off my shoe
As I walk down the aisle to watch the latest horror movie.
The violence on the screen,
Only slightly assuages the rage… in my female soul,
Bound for eternity in a hairy, meaty prison.
I always feel like ****!
A female mind forever warped
By this absurd male body.
The lies I tell become my little deaths.
Little deaths are pain and envy.
Pain and envy are like bubble gum…
Endlessly mashed together and sticky.

A woman sashays past me,
An unknowing feminine tyrant
Enjoying my salvation with the
Parting of her pretty red lips,
The sway of her baby-making hips,
And her graceful, yet sleek fingertips.
She delicately sits, her soft pleasant voice
Floats back up to me. Dysphoria level: CRITICAL!
She dictates my days and nights...
Inadvertently taunting me as she giggles with her friends.
But my eye’s long drinks
Of her crisp, cool water were never
About my thirst.

-MorganLA

Blued, nickel reflecting light,
Shining on the Reaper.
Frosted steel
Open-mouthed,
Longing to swallow
A half-dozen biscuits

1 part Copper,
1 part brass,
2 parts lead,
1 part saltpeter,
1 part charcoal,
1 part sulfur,

The recipe for the dough.

Once masticated
in jaws of tungsten
It spits the metal bolus,
And gives new name to grim.

What if Creator
Was not so grand?
What if Creator
Was a grain of sand?
What if Creator
Was simply bland?

Would we glory in death and ******?
Would we pretend we never heard Her?
Would we love each other more?
or
Would we open a Sacred door?

If Creator were nothing more
Than all the electrons ever formed,
Creator would be:
Timeless, Infinite, Omniscient, Everything, and More…

Would we accept a notion like this?
Would fundamentalists balk or twist?
Would Atheists be found or lost?
Would we freeze in permafrost?
Would we seek Divine ballet?
Would we still kneel to pray?

Or would we:

War some more?
Ignore some more?
***** some more?
Work some more?
Explore some more?
Invent some more?
Love some more?
Or just ignore?

Would our lives even change?
Would we still call someone strange?

Would we even miss a beat?
Would we ever try to cheat?

Would evil men change to nice?
Would we still farm our rice?

Would a killer give a hug?
Would any of us do a drug?

Would our lives remain as cheap?
Would we never awake from sleep?


I don’t know.

One long endless night passes yet again,
Never mind counting sheep, I’m now counting flocks.
The days blur into dreams of classics...
I am Ahab, and sleep becomes my whale!

Countless twinkling lights mock me through the open window
Judging me from their perch in the night sky above.
I eat another bowl of meaningless carbs,
Hoping the article on my Twitter feed wasn’t just fluff,
I load and reload the harpoon, as I miss my shot time and time again.

I fade again. Woozy now. Eyes slow blinking...
The whale is smiling, it's tail flipping, and mouth all grinning, stabbing teeth. I fire and miss.
He laughs, ignoring this, and drenches me in ****.
He flashes me a toothy grin as he disappears underwater.
He isn't coming back.

My bed becomes a porcupine.
My pillow becomes a stone.
My blanket becomes a sheet of burs woven by the Norns.
My eyelids become coarse-grade sandpaper.
My back becomes a banshee screeching in pain.
My legs become restless deer who sense a nearby wolf.
My hair begins growing perversely inward.
My bladder becomes the Trevi Fountain in Rome.
My thoughts become the last horses running the Triple Crown.
My heart becomes a double bass playing Skeletons of Society.

He appears again, far away from my ship, head turning in the distance, pity on his face.
He turns back toward the open sea and is gone.
I perform a complex horizontal maneuver
That CNN’s Dr. Gupta said soothes "The sleepless body at night".
(He’s a ******* liar!)

The melting white whale becomes a series rectangles above me,
They form a drop ceiling,
With sprayed-on popcorn, and unexplained little holes
That provide me with a giant connect-the-dots ceiling!

WHEN suddenly a shrill, repeating, soul-crushing
Cacophony wracks what little sanity remains within me, trapped in this never-ending, soul-crushing trap of mind-numbing numbidity...

It's that God-forsaken, three-inch square, , ***** capitalist *******-of-a-red-blinking-*******-of-a-heartless-mother telling me it’s time to start a new day...

******* alarm!

I still haven’t finished the last one.