if the world was ending in 7 days -
nobody else knows it
but there's nothing anyone can do to stop it
how do you want to spend your last week on earth?

***?! Who is this?

sorry [sadface emoji]

...
I'd go looting.
break into stores, steal TVs, printers,
whatev I can get my hands on

why?
i mean, what's the point?

The **** of it.
Never been looting before
You?

nope, never been looting.

I meant, what would you do with your last week?

i dunno
that's why i'm taking suggestions

Her forehead is planted against the glass
window of her school bus
her curly black hair
tied to false extensions, and pulled back into a pony-tail

The rain beats against the bus window
there's almost a rhythm to it
the chatter of the bus populace being almost lyrics
and the engine being almost the passionate guitar
this morning is almost a song

Bright pink ear-buds separate her
from the almost music

She looks like she's staring at something
that dimly glows off in the distance
it's something she knows she can never have

I found the wood knife today
it was shoved in the box
squeezed between the wall and a stack of half-used notebooks.

I grabbed it by its rope-
still strung through the hole in the center of the blade -
played with the wood disks and tiny beads that dangle from both sides.

I held it up by the hilt,
the metal ring clinked against the wood disks - imprisoned.

Grandma made these puzzles out of found objects all the time -
Contrpations that were usually a clever a mess of metal and wood.
All based on designs created before electricity was a thing.
The knife was the sole survivor from a box of flood damaged puzzles
    
Smiling to myself, I held the knife behind my back, in my right hand.

"Sometimes, I wish you never even had kids"
I still recall her words to my mother
as I tip the knife and slip the ring down to the base of the blade
"Write?! Josh that's a hobby! You're twenty, what are you going to do for a living?"

I push one disk through the hole with my thumb
"What if you get this girl your with pregnant? Then what?"
I bring the metal ring up and over the tip of the blade by tilting it downwards.

"If your father had done a better job raising you, we wouldn't be having this talk"
with a flick of my wrist, I fling the metal ring
though the hole and off of the knife.

It's been four years.
I still remember how it goes.
Muscle memory, I guess.
Engrained in my mind from years of practice.

Sometimes I think of her,
and I wonder if I miss her
or if that's just muscle memory too.

go to sleep
godless heap -
goddess leap
...gotta sleep

It's 2am,
for Siddartha's sake,
you ain't gonna find zen
at the other end of this computer screen.
******, I mean -

No creative dam is gonna break open tonight
(this morning)
you're all stopped up, or drained
so just stop drying.

Seriously, quit diddling with your self
doing that horrid poemry
(po-mory? poor-merry? potpourri? poopoory?)

just fu-cking
go
     to                                     (*******)
         sleep.

When the light sparkles  
Off of the dust in the air
I understand faith.

Dear Reader,
Run away.
Run as far as you can.

Board up windows.
Burn all your books,
dear reader.

I am poetry.
I will **** you.
You will let me.

Run.
Run far away,
Tear off your rearveiw,
Just go!

Or don't.
It's too late for you anyway.
I'm already eating you
From the inside out,
dear reader.

I'm poetry.
You will starve to death with me
inside of you.
And you'll love it, too.

She squishes the pill bug
with the tip of her shoe
giving it a nice twist at the end
to be sure the deed was done.

She stares for a long while
at what must have looked like a Rorschach test
speckled with bits of recognizable body parts -
legs and guts as such-
as if searching for the bigger picture
it must have been hiding.

She jumps back into her self
when she recognizes the voice of a little boy
calling from the swing set nearby.

She looks exhausted
like she's spent all day carrying the world
and this is a rare moment
when the universe allows her to sit down.

She reluctantly rises from her semi-comfortable bench.
and shuffles toward the impatient child
who is now screaming wordlessly for her.

She's been dealing with this behavior for a long time
you can tell because the pterodactyl screeches he's emitting
that send the nearby blind man's dog into fits
don't phase her at all.

She grabs the metal ropes of the swing,
pulling him back to the highest point of the pendulum,
and lets go.

The little siren boy falls immediately silent
his eyes slowly shut
His face melts into what can only be described
as the untarnished bliss we all misplaced,
or packed away somewhere in the attic
with all those old picturebooks,
long ago.

He's flying.
For the first time all day,
she doesn't have to fake a smile.