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Dad was fat all his life
Obese
He couldn’t do a lot of things.
Walk without special help
Bathe
Climb stairs
Sit in a normal chair
Drive a normal car
Sleep in a normal bed
And say “I love you, son.”

To draw those words out
of his dad he became a cartoonist,
but that also failed.

And now that his father
was dead,
collapsed face down
on the kitchen floor,
blood seeping out of a head wound,
he struggled to turn him over
on his back
and dipped his finger in the blood
and drew a speech bubble
next to his father’s head
and wrote in it the famous words.

Finally.
“I love you too, dad.”
There was a knock in the door
at about six AM

He wouldn't have opened if
he didn't check
through the peephole. It was
his aunt. Why would
she visit at a time
like this?

When he opened the door
she slapped him
across the face. "You *******
monster! You had the money, you
*******! You had the money all along!
You could pay for your mother's operation
and you didn't. You watched
her die in horrible
pains! How can you live with yourself?"

Ah yes, he knew what she
was talking about. But there
was no point explaining. He
closed the door in her face

went back to bed

"Who was it?" his girlfriend asked. "Another
one of your crazy exes?"

"No. It was my aunt who doesn't
have what I call internet education."

"What?"

"Internet education, dear. Rule number
one: not everything you see
on social media is true. Just because
I pose at the wheel of a brand new
Lamborghini doesn't mean I own
the **** car and am therefore
rich as ****, you know?"

"What kind of idiot would think that?"

"Oh, you'd be surprised..."
She came from work pretty early
and I knew when I
saw her that
she quit yet again

She changed four jobs in the last
five months and
got a tattoo that said APATHY
on her lower back

Her father died five months ago. He
died of what's called
almost-drunk-driving
He was sipping on a beer bottle while
driving fairly slow
on a country road
But the front wheels hit some log
or something
and the impact triggered the
airbag
It bloomed in his face and stabbed
the beer bottle into
his eye
causing him a major trauma to the brain

R.I.P
old man.

Maybe not your wife but
your daughter sure will miss you

She's coming from work
***** and ragged
Approaches me and demands a cigarette

I give her a small lighter

and she tells me to go
**** myself

"Well you're done with work
early today," I tell her.

"I quit," she says.

"Really? What was it this time?"

"What's every time, deepshit. The boss
or the coworkers or
the customers. Or all of them.
******* expect you to work on
holidays. Imagine
that. Like, Christmas is in three
days, for ****'s sake."

"I work on holidays," I say

"That's cuz you's a *****-***-*****
who won't say no when you
mean it. You're like...
all the rest of 'em."

"Maybe," I say. "But also, if I'm at
work I don't have to be with my relatives
and that's
a plus in my book."

"Pff, yeah, whatever. Lend me
a ten, will ya?"

"Best I can do is a five. And you
can keep the lighter."
like a popular song once said

She couldn't remember a time
when she felt needed

So she wrapped the
blanket around
her and cried while biting her
lips

oh, but it wasn't entirely
correct. In the other room
the old man kept
shouting her name
and knocking on the wall
He'd soiled his
underwear
again and needed help changing

She was very
needed now. She'd been needed ever
since mother left
for the last time and father followed
her
drunk as he was
and rolled the car down the hill. He wanted
to hit mother and her
new man with the car
and missed
And now his legs wouldn't work anymore
and his imbecile daughter
didn't take care of him
the right way

"The right way..." she said. "Is to
let you rot. Let your
body match your soul, old man..."
She placed the
pillow over her head
and closed her eyes
and remembered
the song

If love was red
then she was...
Red, gold, red, and gold--
a rhythm that made autumn end.
It might end you, too,
but in a different hue;
your blood and your friend.
I mean, a friend is someone we treasure; thus, losing one is like losing a gold. And as we lose one, we can't help but bleed, can we?
words strangle my gravity
and breathing is not easy
how do I write a piece
if I couldn't be at ease?
have you ever felt sad and you suddenly felt the need to write? but you couldn't even express whatever you're feeling through a single line. that's my own kind of tragedy.
The sun seeks for my smile,
for it mirrors warmth from a mile.
Even flowers demand for my kiss,
for they know it is my sigh of bliss.

Oceans of blue beg me to calm down,
but I could not whenever you are in town.
The city lights ask for my hugs;
they are jealous of the ten thousand lightning bugs.

My bed often entreats me to stay,
but I still want to meet you halfway.
A song would always plead for my heart,
but this one's reserved for a very special art

The angels pray for my trust at night;
but I only pray for you, my light.
The world craves for my love;
And I hope that you are the world that I have.
 Feb 2020 Pepper Dove
Still Crazy
{•}

unwanted love

we, the human counting crows, tracking everything, steps, bank balances, heartbeats & especially,
those dastardly calories that need burning

pre yoga, her morning banana,
she takes but a half, and looks to unload the balance on a sucker/victim in the vicinity because a whole
is greater than a half,
and God knows a whole could make you fatter!

fully prepared for her desperate supplication, reply so quick,
"you're forcing me to eat unwanted calories,"
she crestfallen,
near to weeping from guilty feelings,
a crime so heinous!

but more than ready, added words, prepared years ago:

but to save your life gladly give you any body part,
step in front of a vehicle, for a certain somebody,
you may know, to preserve, life and liberty,
put up with your inanities, border-lining on insanities,

answer your questions before you think of them,
and will restrict my singing to sole showers in the basement
but never will I eat for two, that so undesirable,
in the name of love


to which she came to my bedside, kissed my nose, whispering,
"thank you for my life saving,"
while stuffing my mouth with said weapon,
"thank you again,
please don't make this into a poem"*


somedays you just ain't gonna win,
you see she loves me too well
and knows
my answers before I do...
in every still crazy story, a few grins of truth,
some crazy, and sometimes tears,
and occasionally some banana
May Cold

the tablet weather says 57 Fahrenheit
my ****** p.j.’s ******* say who the fk ya kidding?
May cold is different when it is chilled by ocean’s
known associates, cloudy and looking like it’s gonna rain anytime

May cold I think and the Lord laughs,
two weeks of snotty lungs ugliest congestion so bad,
the fancy people won’t sit next to you
in fancy place seats you paid for with last years loot

Your lungs looks ***** sound like a WWI trenches battlefield,
you’re sitting up at 6:00am, wearing
heavy bathrobe, hoodie, sweater and t-shirt,
but your sock-less feet scream whataboutme?

the pile of questions grow and the silence piano accompaniment
teasingly says you’ll never write again, what’s the point, so you write
for the one or two who will, maybe, wince along side of ya,
hoping first coffee delivered by a passing EMT will salve a declining body for an hour

May cold body and soul, left for to see waves, when human traffickers
who work regular jobs not-like-you, you who can’t get hired to spit in the subway,
yeah yeah everything is fine though I know the big D is coming for me,
tingling in the places where the tingling ain’t exactly next to normal

now that time’s only question is the priority of what to read first,
and first thought is of the list of reading things is so big, who knew,
it’s easier to go to pretend-work and waiting for calls that don’t come,
and the home quietude is a welcoming envelopment maneuver but the list chokes

S is fine though my slow slipping under is dragging her down invisibly
to no one but me, and only the grandkids of the crazy parents
make her light up like as only a woman can, carrying three on her horsey back
at age 72, while their couch bound mother scans Facebook thinking she’s crazy

somehow I get trapped in pictures others take and my gross weight
says delete this photo, leave no evidence that the slow killers and his minions
are coming for you, and every advantage you possess is a weight around
the skull that says, you see, I’ll still embrace you if no one else will

worlds insanity trumps the little joy I get when studying birthday photos,
knowing they will be surrendered up for sacrifice someday to a world,
where fresh running water is a past thing, and their DNA will determine what
line and place they are permitted to stand on, the antisemitism roaring its head

took a two day dump finally, which is better than gastric pain sudden,
which comes so stealthily that twice, **** my pants, just avoiding
public embarrassment, “barely,”  he writes smiling, but the credit card bill
always is due, when you get no credit for ******* up a body for68 years

otherwise I am fine, though few read my poems without a caffeine jolt,
and months went by with nothing to add, and then they hauntingly come
as often as I blowout my phlegmatic guts, and write them down to expel them
from a mind that cannot remember words for the thing that changes tv channels

so you ask, and now, maybe you will worry too, the last thing I wanted,
so hard to understand that silence was my gift to you, and every email you send,
makes weep from the idea that someone cares how I fair, and how unfair
that is to the one who cares, and I took 60 minutes to type this, and,

I love you man in ways so deep, I could fertilize you lands soil and your soul

and there could be a poem in that last line but my pointer finger is busy
wiping away tears but don’t worry the tissue box is always nearby
out of date
Let gravity guide you to certainty
It is where you can, again, be whole
Tame your past over a cup of tea
Do not fall, again, to the rabbit hole
Let's be wiser.
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