(Senryu-ous story)

I can’t figure out
why everything doesn’t
happen like I want.

I brush my teeth and
floss regularly, I wash
my roommates dishes,

I am generous,
I don’t run in the hallways,
I do my homework.

I support pizza
places, Amazon - I spur
the economy

semi-sleepless night
no worries, but tossing with
no sleep - what’s with that?

My health app says I
slept three hours, four minutes.
I’m low on toothpaste.

five-thirty AM
Lisa and I ran four miles
on the gym treadmills

Banana/ peanut
butter/ cacao/ oat milk/ chia
seed breakfast smoothie.

I've been in love with
styling dresses, layered
over flared jean pants.

My first look was a
tulle dress over sequined jeans
and tan kitten heels.

The winter hook-up
scene is in full swing - not for
me, I’m like second base

I just lay around,
in sad, unfettered, boredom
- a crying shoulder

for others, I’m not
a skanky *****, like [censored]
- try penicillin - ßℹℸçⒽ

Since, as you can see,
I am, for all intents and
purposes - perfect.

I can’t figure out
why everything doesn’t
happen like I want.

This was last Christmas - 39 days ago - doesn’t that seem like ancient history?
We were in Lisa’s (parent’s) 50th floor flat, in Manhattan. It was mid-morning, we’d done the present thing, and it was coffee time. At 42°, the city was surprisingly warm, drizzly, and the weather service had issued a dense fog alert.

I had wanted a white Christmas and there it was, about 20 stories below us, a vast, dense, whipped cream sea of white stretching off into the holiday. The fog's surface wrinkled gently in places, revealing glimpses of the Hudson River, like an artist's fleeting brushstrokes. The pea soup brume undulated, like lava or a living thing and reflected the murderous morning sun like a mirror, making it klieg-light bright. Glare gives me headaches, so I had to avoid looking at it.

Lisa (one of my college roommates), her little (14-year-old) sister Leeza and I were spread out, under beige, vicuña throws, on one angle of their huge, white sectional couch and Lisa’s grandparents were nestled on the other.

A ‘Style Council’ playlist was playing on the room's sound system. Leeza had picked it and it was a great groove.
When “The Story of Someone’s Shoe’ ended, Lisa said. “That song’s so beautiful, honestly, it’s really lovely.”
“On God,” I agreed, (I’d introduced Leeza to ‘the Style Council’ last fall).
When Leeza said, “I forced you guys to like it, and now you do,” I just rolled my eyes.
“Well, your taste is usually so awful,” Lisa pointed out.
“My taste doesn’t need targeting here,” Leeza said defensively.

We all had our tech out - we young-ins were on our laptops; the grandparents were deep into their phones.
“I need to pick an elective,” I said, scrolling through the class catalog, “any ideas?”
“I took psyc 275 last term,” Lisa offered.
“Learn anything interesting?” I asked.
“Well, apparently Freud’s mom was hot,” Lisa said, distractedly focused on her laptop.

A moment later Lisa reported, “Texas Republicans are banning books about *******, because who does THAT anymore?”
“Women are getting ******-on by Republicans,” Leeza pronounced, and her grandma flinched as if slapped.
“Revelations,” I agreed. “We’re definitely getting ******-on by republicans,” Lisa undogged, while stretching.
“I think Republicans are the American Taliban,” Leeza pronounced, as if she spoke for all of Gen-Z.
“It’s a continuous topic on campus,” Lisa acknowledged.
“I’m not ON campus,” Leeza reminded us.

For a hot minute, no one said anything.. then.

“This is just my year, of, like, realizing stuff,” Leeza said.
“Oh, she’s realizing stuff,” Lisa moaned in fake sympathy.
“Her tenets are forming,” I commented dryly, like a news reporter.
“A year of realizing.”  Leeza reiterated urgently, like that was forEVER.
Then, refocusing on her laptop, she said, “I’m picking a song!” and ‘Water’ by ‘Tyla’ began playing.

Our solitude is always set to music.

When a class is boring, the air can feel close and rebreathed - not a comfortable feeling for a COVID child. When the class is finally over, it’s like you’ve escaped something.

Did you know an hour has 60 minutes because ancient Babylonians used a seximal system? (base six).

The class I was in was small, just eight of us around a table in a small room (four students were missing that day) and somehow the class had wandered into the unstable, waring, state of the world.

The professor ended his unscheduled thought, on the result of nuclear war, by saying, “After the nuclear exchanges, when cockroaches take over..”

“No,” I interrupted - it was a flashbulb moment - an impulse. I don’t usually interrupt professors, “Ants. Ants would take over - they’re mobile super-organisms, cockroaches are just meat to them.”

His smile and nod of approval felt warm and cozy, as if my emotions had a texture and temperature - but I knew it was something assigned to me briefly, like a motel room.

Nuclear survival isn’t exactly my bailiwick, I’m not sure where I picked that thought up or why I had the confidence to offer it. Confidence is a thin lever to work with when talking to a professor. I’ve seen professors crush brash students.

The bell rang, I had survived, and Leong was waiting for me in the hall. The crowd in the hall was moving on toward their classes, like water splashing in every direction. Leong barked a laugh. “What?” I asked.

“Neh,” she said, waving her hand (meaning forget it).
“What?” I asked again.
“When I was little, I would visit my grandparents' farm, in Shandong (province, China). They would call their cows in with a bell,” she said, motioning, with both hands to include the crowded hall.
“We’re the most privileged cows in the universe,” she suggested smilingly.
“I suppose we are,” I agreed, as we passed out into a wind as cold and harsh as witches' breath.

With silly smile, playing laptop keyboard
keys, I relay tales of brief, college bliss,
where days, like dry martinis, swiftly pass
lips that pucker for life’s capricious kiss.

My roommates bring joy and warm delight, like
late night Cheeto-fights to break-up study
drudgery - some chaos can counter stress,
though it makes a powdery-orange mess.

While we whirl and preen, when on party scenes,
we've embarked on the classic scholar’s quest.
We're earnest lasses, who pass-up passes -
well, some capitulate - we are human.

But I'm tempered by shame, and remembered
love's flame - and nightly I whisper his name.

(inspired by "Gifts of the Most High" by G Alan Johnson.)

The crows know me, and I, in their untamed glares,
and wild, accepting, onyx eyes find a solace.

No need for ID, for they’ve been watching me,
my face, yet unetched by time and life's own artistry,
is a passport for their uncivilized and predatory attention.

The corvid and I are kindred in many ways.
We've all scavenged for fortune's scraps,
shared the sting of bitter winter snaps,
and feasted on the meager leavings of the day.

In this dark pact, of watcher and watched,
a silent truth is proclaimed, that all that’s done
beneath the sun, is seen by dark, intuitive,
discerning, if not caring or humanly wise eyes.

The carrion crows know me,
and those feathered sentinels of air, mark
my coming with raucous, heralding cries.

They gather, black against the sun-kissed sky,
in councils held upon the wind's swift motions,
like children, they argue - observing still - as they play.

They causa no fear, but someday I’ll disappear,
unraveled, bit by bit, not by malice from on high,
but by beaks and claws, to caws they mantric-like cry.

Perhaps death really does have an ebonite beauty
and, like angels, his servants have wings, and pick us apart
when our time is through - and those sharp bills come due.

In dreams, I’m where the music plays.
I’m listening to the laughter, like it’s in another room.
My drink is dark, bitter and oaky tasting
and the peanuts taste like soap.
There aren’t any napkins.
Others are lines of light and shadow.
I feel an anxiety that I gnaw on,
like a dog works a bone.
My dream’s conflating memories.
Suddenly Lisa’s there,
she comes up from behind,
“Aww, your tag is sticking out,” she says
but before she can fix it,
I hear tower bells ringing.
It’s my alarm.

Sometimes after Lisa and I do our early-morning 4 mile run (we treadmill in the basement fitness center if it’s under 43 degrees), I come back and lie on my bed, for just for a moment. This morning it was just as the sun broke over the horizon and a pink light crawled across my ceiling, highlighting every imperfection, like craters and mountains on some distant, barren planet. My Apple watch went chikle-inkle-lnkle. Ok, Time to start the day.

Later…

Leong got a new ‘Girls Life’ magazine, those always seem packed with the latest scientific info.
“Studies suggest that you and your deepest friends may share the same blood types!” Leong read aloud.
“I’m O-negative,” she announced, “What blood type are you?” She asked me.
“Red,” I revealed (I am, after all, pre-med).
“DElicious reddd,” Lisa updogged in a Bela Lugosi vampire voice.

“Americans are never serious,” Leong whinged, her voice rising and falling on the last syllables.
“That’s what makes us what we are today,” Lisa asserted, “a slowly, steadily, declining superpower.”
“We could join the military after Yale,” I suggested helpfully, “I bet they’d make us officers.”
“Oh sure, I heard the army’s making men out women these days,” Lisa agreed.
“Sounds messy,” I said, wincing.”