Carmen wrote ****. **** begged to see her stories handwritten, the large C’s full and heavy, sliding underneath the stroke of her pen, the small a’s, gravity creating delightful roundness, rising in a stroke for the r, circling its soft head, coming out again to **** the m, sliding into the e, its cursive tongue in so many words and finally the hard bulge of the n, thrusting skyward, then finishing off with a long stroke, a generous flourish of release. Carmen considered, the barrel of her pen hard between her moving fingers, her response came, teasingly, a spellbinding yes.

Divisions of the night
Each calculated the same
Staccatoed bursts of sound
At regular intervals
Random quotes stick in my brain
“Where is your favorite place to eat?”
Limp beanbags lobbed at remotes
in futile attempts to change reality.
Fake drama as one
non-sister complains to
another that she will tell
secrets to strangers but not to her family.
But I am no stranger
I follow her life hour after hour
Her fake life in exchange
for mine not lived
except in flickering shadows.
Another weekend wasted watching
lives of the inane and ridiculous
Which is still somehow better than
watching mine