So let us now place monetary value on information.
Let us return to the source,
Mining & prospecting that fertile intel seam.
To wit: WWII and G-2 shenanigans.
Wild Bill and OSS-capades,
Artificial disseminations.
Partial recriminations.
And PSYOPS:
A literary nightmare--
THE CYCLOPS from The Odyssey,
For example,
If you lack your own,
Your own personal Bogey Man.
Or men. For me:
Allen Dulles or Richard Helms.

The Intelligence Community:
It was a small tightly knit crew,
Less than battalion strength in 1942;
A few myopic soldiers,
Who, although could barely type,
Were still too cerebral to
Waste as infantry fodder.
It was a huge converted Army-green warehouse,
Space strategically partitioned,
Sectioned off into cubicle-like spaces,
By giant 4-drawer file cabinets
Standing tall like MPs,
Sentinels & Guardians,
Monuments to pre-electronic storage,
Data relatively comprehensive, and an
Archive secretive & intimidating.

Within the Army-green incunabula,
Scattered throughout the intel landscape,
Here and there a few commissioned officers,
A smattering of college psychology majors,
Personalities with predilections,
And penchants for mind games.
These self same WWII vets,
Would morph into Cold War Mad Men.
Stalwart, stouthearted men of Eisenhower,
And J. Walter Thompson,
De-mobbed, as they say in the UK.
Consumptive.
Self-indulgent,
Particularly when it came to the kids;
Children of the peace,
Called Baby-Boomers,
An entire generation enabled & destroyed.
Who would produce little of value
Except medical marijuana and
Coupons, clipped by that sober ruling class—
Fat interest-bearing college-loan portfolios
Held by that neo-Calvinist Elect: The 1%.
Fat cats one and all,
Loaded dice & canasta cronies--
In concert a stacked deck,
“Una mano lava l'altra.”
The words of my namesake--
My grandfather Giuseppe--
His vowels reverberating,
Rattling in my dreams.
Not friends, but
Fiends in high places, like
The Fed and dark liquid pools.
Thank you, Barack, for
Fooling us again.
For giving us
“Belief we can believe in.”

But I digress.
It was when the Government Secrecy Act,
In all its transnational incarnations,
Embraced capitalism in a big way,
Elevating the ideology to whole-Earth saturation,
Systemizing the ethos of Darwin,
Into one global Moby ****,
One solitary leviathan,
A multi-level marketing labyrinth,
Where wealth is the end game--
Greed: pure, unbridled & unrestrained.
Bond--James Bond—
Did his bit, supplying catchy
Slogans & tag-lines:
“For Your Eyes Only.”
“On a need to know basis.”
“Confidential Information.”
“Top & Ultra-Top Secret.”
“Hush, Hush & a Bag of Chips.”

The sealed letter sits in a locked drawer,
In that stout desk,
In the Oval Office
In The White House,
“To be opened by my VP in the event of my death.”
Another staggering work,
Of achy-achy-heart breaking genius,
The culture commoditized,
A disease containing its own cure,
Assayed, graded,
Portioned & packaged.
Priced accordingly,
To a logic that goes something like:
“Anything this tightly controlled,
Anything the government deems to be
This illegitimate and/or & secret
Must be really, really God-awesome,
Must really be Da ******* Bomb.”

Brother Coolidge was right:
“The Business of America is Business.”
And INFORMATION:
“The Most Valuable Commodity on Earth.”
So said Stanford Stuyvesant Whitehead III,
19th Century robber baron, and
Consummate Fat Cat.
Get the picture:
We were smoking cigars and sipping cognac,
Mighty comfortable in leather armchairs,
Muted billiard clicks,
Punctuating the atmosphere
In this spacious lounge,
His East Side
Downtown & private
Manhattan club.
I, his guest, had not the slightest idea
Why I was there.
"By God, man," he went on,
My eyes speared by his laser gaze,
His bushy eyebrows,
His monocle.
His bulbous nose;
His thick wet mustache.
And those EYES:  
Those crazy,
Insane eyes.

"I am talking about a profound change,” he continued.
“Back when the steamship
Gave way to electronic wireless radio."
He puffed smoke,
Removing the cigar from his mouth,
Holding it,
Examining it critically for a moment.
"I'm talking about communication,
Instant communication
With business associates, &
Cronies far away,
Way out there,
Far beyond the places we know well.
Picture it:
You're running a fleet of
Ramshackle Filipino banana boats,
Out of some nameless cove,
Indenting the south coast of Mindanao.
A cyclone comes out of nowhere.
Good God--there’s sixteen banana-packed
Coal burners lying on the bottom of the Celebes Sea.
Think about it:
You've got telegraph radio.
Everyone else has the post office.
Now, I ask you:
‘Who's going long,
Who’s getting rich on the
Caracas Banana Exchange?’
Good Lord, man, it would be
Like being omniscient!"
“This very conversation,” he went on,
“Could well be a verbatim transcription
Of a conversation right here in this very room,
Between people like: J. Pierpont Morgan
And some lesser Gilded Age nabob;
Some Astor, some Rockefeller,
A Gould or Vanderbilt,
Whitney or Duke,
Some Frick or Warburg--
To name just a few, old sport.”
He stopped suddenly.
He looked down at his hands,
As we both realized he had counted these names
Out on his fat curled fingers.
He looked at me and smiled.
I was afraid.
Why had I been invited to this meeting?
I smiled back at him,
Doing my best to mirror his
Carnivorous menace.

I knew it.
He knew it.
He knew I knew it.
Mr. Whitehead’s growling rabid jowls,
His slobbering canine smile held me steady.
“Okay. Touché. ‘Ya got me.”
He shook off the phony smile,
An absence, accentuating
His stare: lethal, carnal & rare.
“I never had much formal schooling.
I’ve been hungry.
Hungry enough to know for sure
That the correct fork,
Don’t mean ***** from shinola.
When I’m dining out, fancy-like,
Me manners is the least of me problems,
Far less important than
The dinner chit they
Hand me after I slake
My thirst & appetite.”
Again, he stopped suddenly,
Recognizing that, perhaps,
He’d revealed too much of his
Bedford-Stuyvesant pedigree.
He turned again and stared at me.
“None of that,” he said.
“None of that means squat to me, Boyo.
What matters now is I’m rich.
I’ve got mine, By God,
And ******* It!
Tough ***** on the rest of you losers;
The rest of you fecking whiners can go
**** yourselves over at Zuccotti Park.”
He pounded the armrest,
The padded armrest of the rich Corinthian leather—
( . . . ***, Ricardo?
Get your Montalbán
Mexicano ***, back in
Random Access Memory Land,
Where you belong.
**** ya’ Fantasy Island
Hospitality, Mr. Roarke,
Go be wrathful Khan Noon Singh,
Somewhere else.
Now is not the time, or,
Let me rephrase that:
This narrative will not allow your meme here . . .)    

Whitehead pounds the armrest again.
“My point is this:  
None of JP Morgan’s decidedly,
un-nattering lesser nabobs of negativity . . .”
BAM!  Again, he pounded the leather . . .

(Back in your ******* hole, Spiro!
Do you realize just how far back,
Just how far back
Maryland’s reputation
Has been set back by your venality?
Not to mention any shot at ethnic assimilation,
The rest of us grease ball non-Wasps
Have in this country?
You ******* Greek!)

I stopped thinking
When I realized Stanford Stuyvesant Whitehead III
Was reading my mind.
“So that’s what it’s really all about,” he said,
Rank smugness in his voice.
“So, I’m just a nouveau riche upstart,
A socially inept parvenu,
Yet they still let me
Join their tony clubs.
It chaps your ***, Boyo, don’t it?
I’m still Scotch-Irish, and
A WASP, Laddie.
Something your skinny
Greaser-Guinea-****-Spaghetti-*** ***,
Ain’t ever gonna be.”
But I digress, again.

So I joined one of Uncle Sam’s
Lesser-known clandestine services,
An assignment appropriate to my ethnic identity,
Namely GLADIO in Italy,
A NATO stay-behind operation &
Cold-War comedy.
I infiltrated the Brigate Rosse.
I drove the Aldo Moro kidnap vehicle.
I cooked minestrone for General Dozier.
I sliced off J. Paul Getty’s ear in Calabria.
Ironically, I lost my hearing during
The Stazione Bologna bombing.
I am consequently pensioned off,
Off both the radar and the payroll.
Years later now,
I live in one of those gated, golf-coursed,
Over-55, sunny southern California
Lunatic asylums.

Most days I am drunk at 9 AM.
I fill Bukowski mornings,
Conjuring up Jane Fonda,
Jazzercised in camo spandex.
She is high atop a Vietcong tank in Hanoi.
Or Daniel Ellsberg
Enjoying a second act in American politics,
Praising Snowden & Assange,
& Bradley Manning,
I summon up the ghosts of
Julius & Ethel,
Benedict Arnold,
Rose of Tokyo & Mata Hari—
And Ezra exiled at Rapallo,
And John Walker Lindh,
A Yankee Doodle Dandy,
Born in Washington,
District of Columbia,
By way of Afghanistan,
Taliban Americano,
Kangaroo-courted,
Presently residing at the
Federal Correctional Institution
At Terre Haute, Indiana.
Spies.
Traitors.
Saboteurs.
And Poets?
No longer capable of keeping secrets.
Desperate now to tell
The truth.

prom itself is just an overglorified dance
the after party is where the real fun begins
sitting at the kitchen table of my best friend's house
sipping strawberry margaritas her mom made
then progressing to shots of tequila
and playing shots uno, steadily getting more and more dizzy
until i'm trying to twerk on a wall
and calling my friends to tell them i love them
pretending to be a koala on an armrest
updating my snapchat story so people at other gatherings can be jealous
forgetting how to pull my pants back up in the bathroom
talking to my ex boyfriend for an hour on the phone, telling him
exactly why i didn't dance with him at prom
and that i fingered myself for a boy
and i wanted to tell him and everyone, for that matter, about her
but i didn't because rejection and rumors are my worst enemies
he stays quiet and the only sound left is
my frantic whispering that i hope i stay this happy in the morning
because sober me lays in the deep end of the spectrum of sadness

We took the back road to the house. The shade from the trees made the road feel like tunnel. Not a shred of light came in. We'd have to drive slow. The road wasn't made of concrete: it was made of dirt, rock, and dead leaves. Sometimes we could see the worms come up out of the dirt in the headlights, their pink stretching bodies like weird little fingers. Carrie never looked. She said it was too scary. The rest of us would look and watch them dance around like that. Sometimes we'd have to run them over. Of course, we'd feel bad about it, but we needed to get back to the house. There were things to be done. Nothing planned, but nonetheless, things to be done.
Englend reversed the car up to the front door. The liquor, the food, and the beer was in the back and would make it easier to get it from there. Patty and Carrie (the one scared of the worms) ran straight to the bathroom. They'd been complaining about how we never stopped at a gas station to ***. Englend said we didn't have the time and I just didn't care. Denny was in the same mindset as me. We usually were. Kat was looking out the window, thinking about something she didn't wish to share when we started to unload. She offered to help after she'd finished her thought, but the three of us said we had it. We didn't really, but we let her have her thought while we carried the bags. There weren't that many to complain about anyway.
When everyone was inside unpacking their things, I hung back and smoked a cigarette. I looked down at the river. It was full and rushing. The trees were full with bright, lime green leaves. The branches were tanned auburn from the sun. They looked the forearms of the Mexican girls at my high school: smooth, everlasting, stretching to a place I was never allowed to touch or look at. I ashed my cigarette into a pile of leaves and immediately worried that I was going to start a fire. I kicked it out, thrusting my boot heel into where I thought the ember had went.
"What the hell are you doing?" Englend screamed from the front porch, a handle of whiskey underneath his arm, a glass with ice in the other.
"Ashed into the leaves," I told him, "Trying to take it out." I kicked the leaves a few more times, then walked towards Englend.
"Let me get a hit of that," I said, pointing at the handle.
He spun the top and it rolled off the tread. The cap rolled off the deck and Englend chased after it, handing me the bottle first.
"Take this. Where'd the hell it go?"
"Down there somewhere," I said, pulling the bottle back. The sweetness of the whiskey hit my nostrils first, then the bite of the liquor. I coughed, feeling my eyes begin to water. The first one was always the hardest. After that, they got easier.
June had just ended. July was just arriving. The third was tomorrow and the next day was the fourth.
I took another pull from the handle. I placed on the decks railing and left Englend with it. He was still looking around for the bottle cap.
"I thought I saw it roll under the deck," I told him.
"*******," he moaned. He looked up at me, "Come and help me. It'll be faster with two."
"Can't. Gotta' check on Carrie and get ourselves a room."
"*******," he moaned again, reaching under the deck.
"Don't get your hand bit by a possum or rat or something!" I yelled behind me, going inside. "Carrie!" I screamed, "Where'd you go?"
"Upstairs getting our room ready!" I heard her scream from the 2nd floor, "Come and help me put the sheets on."
I went into the kitchen. Denny was stocking the fridge with the beer and the meat. I reached over his shoulder and grabbed a Budweiser. He had an open one in between his knees. The light stuff was on the bottom to the far left, the heavy stuff in the middle, and the expensive IPA, hoppy stuff to the far right. The top shelf was for food, mixer, and whatever else the girls had decided to get at the store. Fruit and things. I opened up the freezer. There were two handles of Smirnoff resting on three large bags of ice. We would need more ice. I closed the freezer and ran my fingers of the labels of two more handles of Cazadorés tequila and Bulleit bourbon. Overall, I thought we were fairly stocked for the four day weekend, but one could never be to sure. People came out of the wood work for the 4th of July. No telling who would show up at our front door.
I went upstairs to see what Carrie was doing. She was laying on the bed with the sheets resting on the dresser. The light was off. The room was cast in that light grey pigment that happens when the bedroom light isn't there. It was nice. The sun had been straining my eyes the whole time even though I had been driving in the backseat. Carrie was laying face down on the bed. She was wearing a skirt, so I slowly laid down on the bed and inched her dress up. She didn't flinch or move, so I pulled it up until I saw her burgundy lace *******. They looked pressed or ironed or something they looked so clean.
"What're you doing?" Carrie asked me, her face down into the mattress.
"Just looking," I said.
"At what?"
"At your ****."
"Why?"
"Cause' it's nice."
"Close the door."
I got up, closed the door, and laid back down.
"Lets put the sheets on the bed first."
"OK," I said.
We put the sheets on the bed, but couldn't wait for the pillows and the rest of the blankets. We tried to be quiet, but knew we weren't. After, we took a shower together. I rubbed Carrie's shoulders while the hot water rained down on us. She said it was better to get a massage in the shower because the hot water loosened up the muscles. I didn't know if that was true or not, but I did it anyway. I watched her as she unpacked her bag. Her hair was wet and it swung back and forth, wetting her back. She was wrapped in her favorite pink towel. Water dripped from her body down to the floor. I waited to put my things away. I had brought up very little. Mostly *****. Carrie took up most of the dresser. I had one drawer by the time we were finished.
We took a nap. After we were done sleeping, we looked outside and saw the sun had been replaced with the night. The stars and the light coming from inside of the cabin streaked out into the forest like a splash of golden florescent paint. Carrie and I poked our heads outside to listen to the creaking trees and the rustling of animals through the bush. Someone downstairs was lightly clattering dishes as they cleaned them while the smell of red maple firewood burning in the fireplace came up to our room. I took out my phone from my pocket and looked at the time.
"****," I said, "It's already 10 o'clock."
"I'm starving."
"I'm starving and need a drink."
"Let's go downstairs and see what they made."
I slipped on my 501's while Carrie straightened up her hair. We went downstairs and saw two plates with hamburgers and fries on them. Patty was at the sink cleaning the pots and pans. She was staring down into the soapy froth, humming a song to herself I couldn't understand. She hadn't heard us come down. Denny, Englend, and Kat weren't in the living room.
"Where is everybody?" I asked.
"Oh!" Patty burst. She swung around, a soaped up frying pan in her hands. "You scared the **** out of me!"
I put my hands up, "Gotcha!" I said smiling.
"They went for a walk somewhere and left all the dishes for me."
"Leave'em," Carrie said, taking Patty's hands and wiping the soap away with a rag, "Van and I will take care of them."
"I only have a few more..."
"I insist!" Carrie took Patty's arm and lead her to the couch and laid her down. I took a cup from the pantry, filled it with ice, and poured Bulliet half-way up. I handed the glass to Carrie and she brought it to Patty.
"Look at that," Patty smiled, "Full-service."
"What you get when you come up to the Dangerson cabin."
"**** right!" I exclaimed through a bite of hamburger, "Only the best here."
Patty leaned her head back after taking a long sip of the whiskey. She exhaled and closed her eyes. I watched her as her chest heaved up and down. She kicked off her shoes and let her hair fall over the armrest of the couch.
"You said they went into the woods, Patty?"
Carrie took her burger and went and sat next to Patty.
"Lift your legs up," Carrie said, "Let me sit with you."
"Yeah. They went into the woods an hour or so ago. Probably a little less."
I opened the fridge and grabbed another beer.
"What were they going out there for?"
"I have no idea."
"Probably to get firewood or something," Carrie said, "Can you grab me one of those."
"Sure," I said, tossing her one.
"Wait," She yelled, throwing her hands in the air. The beer landed right in one of her flailing hands.
"Nice catch," I laughed, opening the fridge and grabbing another.
"You're such a ****!"
I smiled and walked out onto the deck.
"He really is," I heard Carrie tell Patty.
"I heard that!"
"You were meant to!" she called back to me, laughing.
I shook my head and opened the can of beer. Why did they decide to go get firewood now? We had plenty of wood here already. Patty probably didn't know what she was talking about. That happened often. I strained my eyes to see through the darkness, maybe see if I could spot a flashlight or the round end of a lit cigarette, but the forest was just a wash of thick blackness. Even the stars had grown faint.
"Englend!" I shouted.
Nothing. Not a peep. They were far out there.
"Englend!" I shouted again.
"What the hell are you shouting at?" a voice said from the trees. I couldn't tell who it was, but it was someone I knew.
"Who the hell is that?"
"Well who the hell do you think it is?" It was Englend. He came out of the trees like a wild boar. He had a handle of whiskey in one hand with a pile of small twigs and firewood in the other. What came to mind first was a mix between a drunken Brawny guy and a pinecone.
"What's all the screaming about?" Kat asked, trailing behind Englend. Denny followed behind. They all had armfuls of wood. From what I saw, little would be useful, but I kept that to myself.
Englend came up the deck and handed me the handle. I took a long pull. As I drank, I looked up into the stars, which were now out and shining brighter than they were before. A cloud had moved, wavered off somewhere, presenting the gifts that were behind it. I lowered the bottle and watched Denny and Kat walk up the stairs. They were smiling.
"What are you two so happy about?" I asked, handing Denny the whiskey.
"Gimme' that!" Kat snagged it out of my hand, laughing. She took a long pull. Denny, Englend, and I watched, amazed that little hippy Kat could take such a heavy shot.
"Good God," I murmured.
"She drinks like a pirate," said Denny.
"A ****** pirate," added Englend.
Kat was especially small. Not a small person small, but petite. She also had a great *** and could out drink, out party, and out do the rest of us in debaucherous shenanigans. She had never heard of the word or feeling of shame either and did, really, whatever the hell she felt like.
"I heard that you *******," she said, exhaling, blinking her eyes wildly.
"That was a biggun'," Denny said, taking the bottle and pulling it.
"Needed it. Englend had us wandering around the ******* forest for firewood the minute we got here."
"Do we even need any?" I asked.
"Course we do!" Englend exclaimed, "Gotta' keep our ladies warm!"
He put his arm around Kat and shook her.
"Gross..." Kat frowned, her face pickling while she squirmed out of his arms.
"You love it Kat...where's Patty? Where's my babe!?" Englend thundered off into the house.
"I'm right here," Patty squealed. She was still on the couch with Carrie. She kicked her feet crazily as Englend jumped on her. Carrie jumped off just before he cannon balled onto the couch.
"You guys are SICK!" Carrie screamed.
"You love it," they both said in unison. The two of them play wrestled until Patty finally got Englend by the ***** and kissed him.
Denny handed Kat the bottle," You want another?" he asked.
"I'm good, Denny," she said.
"Hank?" He asked me.
"I'll take one, yeah," I said. I pulled it back as Kat went inside. I exhaled and looked at Denny, "So, you and Kat are the only two legitimate single people here. How you feel about that?"
"Hopeful," he said.
"That's good to hear. I'll see what Carrie can do."
"Sweet," he said nervously.
"Let's get inside. Patty made some burgers."
"Thank God," Denny sighed, shaking his head, "I'm ******* starving. Englend had us walking for ******' miles.
"No idea why. We have plenty of wood downstairs."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. Lots of it. I cut a bunch the last time I was here."
"******," he laughed, "Englend told us were out."
"He doesn't know what he's talking about," I said. We walked into the kitchen. I put the bottle down next to Carrie, who had made her way from the couch back into the kitchen. She looked at the bottle, then at me.
"What you drinking there?" she asked me looking at the bottle.
"Whiskey," I told her.
"Can you not drink so much?" she whispered so no one could hear her.
"I'm good," I said, taking her hand, "I just drank a little bit outside while I was waiting for Englend. They went on a wild goose chase for firewood."
"Good."
"Denny was telling me they went all over for the stuff."
"Why?" she smiled, "We have so much from the last time we were up."
"That's what I was telling Englend, but he didn't care. Guy gets antsy."
"Who's antsy?" Englend called from the couch. Patty was wrapped up in his eyes, looking drunk from the single shot Carrie and I had given her. Kat was on the couch with a beer. Denny was hovering by the door, rocking back and forth on his heels still holding an armful of fire wood.
"Why don't you just leave that by the door?" I told Denny, "Take a seat. Stay a while."
He dropped the firewood by the side of the front door and took a seat on the floor in front of the fireplace by Kat. He looked up at her and smiled, but she didn't notice. She was sipping her beer, rummaging around in her pocket for something.
"What I was saying was that you guys didn't need to get anymore firewood or kindling or whatever the hell you guys got because we have a lot from the last time Carrie and I were up."
"I saw those logs," said Englend, "And they're ******* twigs compared to what we got!"
Everyone laughed.
"Well," I said, opening the fridge for another beer (I wasn't sure where my other one had gone to), "I'm not taking the **** down."
"All good, we'll take it down."
"You'll take it down," said Kat, "We had to walk through half of the ******* forest to get to your secret wood spot, then walk back. I'm finished with wood for now."
"Fine," Englend moaned, "I'll take it down in the morning."
"I'll help you," Denny added.
"Good! We got two big guys to do it. It'll be done in no time."
I turned around and opened up the cabinet that was filled with shot glasses. I took six out, put them on the table, and filled them with whiskey.
"Let's take a group shot before we all start getting snuggly and sleepy."
"Great idea!" Englend shouted, popping up from the couch.
"For America!" Patty giggled, following Englend.
Kat helped Denny from the floor and walked over to the counter. They parted hands when Denny was on his feet, but I could tell he wouldn't mind holding her hand for the duration of the trip.
"I'm glad to have you all here," I said, "Glad we could do this."
Everyone nodded, smiling, holding their golden brown shots in the air.
"For America," I said.
"For America!" the rest of them yelled. We soaked in the glory of fine whiskey and hazy conversation for the rest of the night.
Everyone was moving slow in the morning. Englend seemed to be the most up out of everyone. I walked into the kitchen to him whipping 12 eggs, grating cheese, pan frying potatoes, bubbling coffee, and pouring orange juice into mimosa flutes. The champagne was already out. I thought, a little alcohol will probably do me some good. It did. After my third glass, I kissed Carrie when she groggily walked into the living room. She preceded to slump onto the couch. I brought her a cup coffee and some Advil. She smiled meekly into my glazed over, blood shot eyes. I could tell she was hurting, but she would be right in a couple hours. Once we got into the river, all would be right.
"Jesus," said Carrie, "You guys are already drinking?"
"Of course!" Englend laughed, "It's the fourth and it's already noon. We're behind if anything."
"And Englend made breakfast," I said.
"I can see th

“Big change, huh? Bet you could take some awesome shots here, Max.”

Max nodded, only hearing the last part of Warren’s sentence. Truth was, she was distracted by how beautiful this place was. If Max stood at the end of the street, she could get a killer depth-of-field perceptive image by aiming towards the long and skinny winding roads being enveloped by the building’s shadows. San Diego seemed to flourish with art and photography culture, and great opportune shots to shoot photographs.

“Earth to Max.” That seemed to knock her out of her thoughts. *****, focus. “Are you going to go swimming with me and Brooke?”

From the look on Brooke’s face, she was hoping to God that Max said no. Brooke is the relationship equivalent of a boa constrictor, and she wasn’t sure how this hasn’t dawned on Warren yet. “I’m not sure. Maybe. Let me unpack first.”

After Kate dropped out of going to San Diego Comic Con last second, Max was nearly going to join her when Warren practically begged her to come. Coming back to the present - equipped with her suitcase and messenger bag - Max lingered behind the couple by several feet. This was her way of trying to avoid the reminder that she was third-wheeling with a boy who used to have a very awkward crush on her and his salty girlfriend.

“I’m going to go down to the pool.” Warren said, sliding his key card into room #228, turning his head to face Max before opening the door. “Maximillian, are you sure you don’t want to join us?”

“Like I said, I’ll think about it.”

The moment the three of them walked in, Brooke and Warren beelined for the restroom with their bathing suits in hand. Once they came out, Warren had a blue and black plaid board short swimsuit on whereas Brooke came out with a highlighter-colored graffiti two piece.  “Alright, Mad Max. We’re out of this joint. Catch us at the pool if you need something or want to swim. If not, we’ll be back in an hour.”

Max waved them off, digging through her bag for that bathing suit. The crimson colored ruched one-piece vintage bathing suit sat abandoned at the bottom of her matching vermillion suitcase. Down below at the pool area, she could hear screaming and laughing and splashing of the pool water. Max got up from her suitcase, and opened the curtain enough to look out at the hotel pool. Several other people were down there, pushing the time limit very close to closing in an hour from now. Come on, Max, you’re really going to let your whole adventure be ruined by the usual high-strung Brooke?

**** it.

Max nabbed the swimsuit from the hidden corners of her suitcase, stripping herself down to pull the swimsuit onto her body. Once the swimsuit was on, she turned her waist feeling the soft fabric conform to her small but still vaguely prominent curves. Max can remember Mom always saying that she looked good in red, so she recommended a red one-piece since Max doesn't have the confidence to show her stomach to anyone.

Well, except her best friend Chloe. They used to take bubble baths together as toddlers so it used to be the most natural thing in the world to get dressed in the same room together. It must have been a better time, where there were no insecurities. Now Max has trouble calling her up without her finger freezing up as she attempts to type the very last digit of Chloe’s phone number into her phone.

As Max turned around in the mirror, she noticed how her lack of a rear end was a lot more distinguishable in red. Wowser, Max thought, this looks really good on me.

“Wowser.” Max said aloud to her reflection, and threw on a bathrobe.

It must have been ten minutes into Warren and Brooke swimming when Max opened up the pool gate, entering the vast perimeter of the pool area. There were significantly less people around the pool, where most of the people still inside the pool area were kids our age. “Max, you’re here!”  

This made two teenagers stop in their tracks as they were opening up the pool gate at the other end of the pool to leave. One of them whipped around so fast that it was a blur of blue hair.  “Wait…”

“Is that…Max Caulfield? It looks a lot like her.” Rachel asked to Chloe, who hung her jaw open in disbelief. No ******* way.

Furrowing her eyebrows, she watched Max drop the robe on a nearby chair. Like an awkward penguin, Chloe watched her best friend waddle up to the pool edge & cannonball into the waters below oblivious to the two girls standing at the gate watching her. “You’re going to wake up the neighbors and the owner of this hotel's parents forty miles away, Warren!”

“Do you want to go say hi to her?” Rachel asked Chloe.

As Chloe decided on actually going to surprise her, Max's friend said something that made Chloe change her mind in a split second.

“How would you know? Besides, you’ll eventually forgive me for that once you meet the entire cast of Star Trek tomorrow, Max.” Warren yelled at Max, and Chloe did a small grin as she turned away from her best friend, closing the gate on both of the girls.

“No. Guess the oblivious nerd is going to Comic Con too.“ Chloe took one last look at Max before going back inside the hotel with Rachel Amber at her tail. "Do you think she'll recognize me in cosplay?"

"Probably not. Unless I drop the bomb on you guys."

“Shhh. I don’t need you ruining my surprise party, *******.”

Max, Brooke, and Warren weren’t in the pool for long, since Warren bumped his head into the side of the pool while doing laps with Brooke. They had to get out, and put an ice pack on Warren’s sore bump on his head. “Now how am I going to cosplay the 11th Doctor? I need to gel my hair back, but I have this gargantuan bump on my head.”

“We’ll figure it out, sweetie.” Brooke said, and Max nearly gagged.

Max went back to the hotel room first, since being around Brooke made her want to strangle her.  This whole third-wheeling thing was annoying, and Max was regretting coming alone without Kate as her faithful chauffeur. Nonetheless, she wasn’t going to let that ruin her trip. She was here to have fun. And to take a bunch of photographs, of course.

The next morning around 4:00 am, Max was rudely awoken by Brooke who shoved her in her shoulder. “Get up, Max. We’re leaving in thirty minutes from now.”

Was that necessary? Max thought, crawling out of bed. From the bathroom, she could hear Warren fretting over the mammoth-sized bump on his head as both of them got dressed in their cosplay outfits. “Okay. That hurt a lot. Ow, ow, ow.”

“Oh, is there anything I can do to help?”

“Shut up, guys.”

Feeling slightly irritable from the loud ruckus Brooke and Warren were making in the other room Max rolled out of bed. She rustled through her suitcase for a pair of skinny jeans and a white t-shirt with the print of a doe on the front. Once she had her clothes, she stood up to walk into the restroom to change when she noticed the ending result of both of her companions.

Brooke’s multicolored dark hair was pulled down in waves framing the scarlet dress with a black belt fastened around her waist. As for Warren, his usually shaggy brown hair was gelled back for his cosplay. She had to admit, he looked handsome in his mahogany jacket, red bow-tie and matching suspenders, and the cotton collared button-up he wore underneath. For a cosplay of The Eleventh Doctor and Clara Oswald, it was quite impressive how close they looked like the actual characters of the TV show Doctor Who.

“Take a picture of us, Max!” Warren said in a chirpy voice.

“On it.”

Max pulled out her camera, and pointed it at the couple who held up peace signs together. Once the picture rolled out, the couple split apart to put on the finishing touches of their cosplay.  As for Max, all she had to do was throw on her clothes. There wasn’t a lot of work in dressing up like normal people. Besides, she’s never really been a fan of cosplay.

If you want to count dressing up as pirates with her best friend Chloe on Halloween five years ago cosplay, then yeah, Max has cosplayed several times before.

“Max, hurry your *** up. It looks like the amphitheater is getting crowded from here.” Warren yelled from outside the bathroom door towards Max, who sloppily tied her shoes.

As they exited out of the large double doors of the four star hotel, Warren and Brooke took the crosswalk, pointing out people cosplaying as characters from TV shows or video games. They were smiling and laughing, leaving Max to third-wheel again. Instead of lingering on it, Max put in her headphones and turned on Crosses by José González tuning them out.

“Where is the line?” Max asked Warren as they approached the crowded complex filled with restaurants on one side and the amphitheater on the other side. Tents were set up here, even.

“This is what I call natural selection. If you come prepared with prior knowledge on how this works, you can conquer this haphazard looking line.” Warren spread his arms out, motioning towards the crowd that was rapidly growing in size.

“Let’s go, Warren.”

“Wait!”

Like an octopus, Brooke latched onto Warren dragging him into the depths of the growing sea of people. After three painful hours of waiting, Max felt the crowd start to lighten up around her as excited but deafening chatter filled the air of the surrounding herd of people. Everyone was clamoring loudly, quickly rushing into the open doors with their San Diego Comic Con day pass thrown around their neck.

As soon as Max received hers, she eagerly threw her day pass around her neck. After buying a small breakfast sandwich from a booth, Max decided to start people watching. Some of the cosplays made her laugh like the Darth Vader cosplayer leading a conga line of faithful storm troopers, taking long confident strides.

Max took several photographs of several different cosplayers, ranging from Doctor Who, Scott Pilgrim vs The World, The X-Files, Breaking Bad, Undertale, Magic: The Gathering, and Family Guy. When it started getting crowded, she got up from her chair and entered the large archway into the convention center filled with colorful tents and cosplay galore.

Wielding her camera bag close to her waist, Max carefully maneuvered her way through the sea of people as she took a look at the booths. Suddenly, the throng of people became too much for Max. An elbow into Max's side pushed her into the left side of her waist, throwing her into a booth.

“Hey, are you alright?”

Max’s eyes glanced up towards a blue-haired girl cosplaying as Pris from Blade Runner, who had grabbed her waist. Something about her was actually kind of familiar, however, Max couldn’t tell. “You hit that table pretty hard.”

Max felt the warmth from her waist leave slowly. “This crowd is suffocating. I need a place to breathe around here. It’s too claustrophobic for my liking.”

“Are you alone or something? Because I could always use company in my tent. It gets hella boring inside this tent sometimes.”

“Do you say that to all of your customers?” Max asked, chuckling nervously at the blue-haired cosplayer’s comment.

“No.” She mumbled something under her breath that Max didn’t quite catch. “I mean – unless you’re uncomfortable with it. I’ve seen people faint multiple times from claustrophobia here.”

Since her head was bent down over a sketch she was doing in a journal, the only way Max could tell that the girl was blushing was by how red her ears had gotten. The realization that the girl became a nervous wreck all of a sudden after that comment had made Max’s day already.

“Maybe you’re right. I should just sit down. There’s no places to sit around here, though.”

The blue-haired girl patted the armrest of the empty fold-out chair behind the table. “This is Rachel’s chair, but Rachel is helping out with the convention rave for later. She’s on the committee or some ****.”

“Coworker?”

“And an annoyance at times.” Max went around the table, taking a seat in the chair the girl patted. It was itching at her brain that there is something about this girl that is so nostalgic.

Suddenly, a long brunette-haired girl billowed through the back curtains of the booth, where Max saw a tattoo chair in the back along with an extended table with clutter everywhere. “Chloe, do you have my phone? I really need it right now.”

Wait a second. “Chloe?”

“Great. Thanks a lot, Rachel. You ruined the element of surprise.”

"No ******* way!"

After Chloe handed the phone to Rachel, Max followed with her first impulse, throwing her arms around Chloe. Immediately, Chloe laughed as Max nuzzled her head into Chloe's shoulder blade. Max could feel the initial excitement pounding in her chest as Chloe tightened her grip on her as well. “Get a room, Chloe.”

“I will shove this combat boot so far up your *** –”

“Okay, I’m leaving. I need to call Frank and see when he was going to get here.” Rachel stated matter-of-factly, then added as she was leaving, “Hope you have a fun reunion.”

Once Chloe let go of Max, she held onto her arms staring into her face. “Wowser. This is crazy. You’re dressed as Pris from Blade Runner. That is definitely my ****.”

“I hope so. Someone asked me if I’m cosplaying Ramona Flowers from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Now I will accept that misunderstanding because Ramona Flowers is my woman crush.” Chloe glanced over at Max, changing the mood merely by narrowing her eyes at the brunette. “Alright, are you going to explain why you didn’t call or text me for five years?”

It was so sudden that Max suddenly felt inferior to Chloe. "I'm sorry. My parent's decision to suddenly move to Seattle wasn't my choice."

"That's not a good enough reason." Chloe attempted to change the tone of the mood lighter, since this wasn't exactly the place to discuss that. "So what's up with you? Living it up here in San Diego or something?"

"I - uh - moved back to Arcadia Bay. Two months ago."

"Without a phone call, telling me that you moved back." Chloe pressed her lips together, annoyed. "Nice one, Caulfield. That's just ******* peachy."

Max started to get a little irritated herself. "Look, I'm sorry. Can we just drop it?"

"I’m sorry, Max. I don’t want to be the ******* to ruin your day. In fact, this was the complete opposite impression I was going for. If you want to punch me for being such an annoying rat, go right on ahead.” Chloe pointed at the bicep of her left arm.

I shook my head – chuckling as Chloe kicked back her chair – propping her feet onto the table cluttered with various types of artwork. There was a dozen pieces of art here, but I noticed Chloe was really into abstract watercolor paintings. Mostly Chloe did sketches of characters from TV shows and video games and painted it in watercolor. One of the paintings in particular caught my eye.

Of course – like all of Chloe’s paintings – it was strikingly beautiful: In front of an obsidian background was a butterfly with eye-popping azure wings. One of the wings seemed to be slightly blurred to give more definition to the closest wing. “Wow, you’re a real artist.”

“I’m also a tattoo artist. If you want to get a tattoo, just hit your girl up. It’s on the house for you.” Chloe said, holding out her arm to show me. “Rachel helped me with both designs.”

Chloe had a beautiful sleeve on her arm and a tattoo on the top of her hand of a red chrysanthemum. Max traced the red ribbon detail on her arm tattoo with one finger, making Chloe shiver. “Dude, you can look, but you can’t touch the tats.”

“Sorry, it’s beautiful.”

“Hopefully it will still look beautiful when I look like the human equivalent of a raisin when I’m 80.” Chloe joked, holding out her arm in front of her face. “How about it, Max? Wanna get tatted up by your best friend Chloe? It might be a great experience for you, hippie. No gang related tattoos, though.”

“Yeah, because I’m totally a part of a gang.”

The smile that lit up Chloe’s face sent Max into a comatose state of delirium. Her eyes focused in on Chloe like a lens, taking shots in her head so she didn’t forget this moment with her best friend. For once, Max was having fun. “You’re still a ******* geek. That’s good news.”

“Always.”

Chloe shook her head before getting up. “Alright, so do you want a tattoo or not? This is your final offer, Max. Don’t let it go to waste.”

“I don’t know. You know I’m scared of needles.”

“Still?” Chloe grabbed Max’s shoulders. “Come o

The armrest between us
feels dangerous.
Here I sit
separate
in my chair
safe
on my own.

The tension is thick
like the rim of your glasses
thick
like the lump in my throat.

I focus on not touching you
so much so, that I forget
about the no-man's land that is
the armrest.

Our fingers touch briefly.
It's an accident.

It's electric.

And our hands do a dance,
delicate and graceful.
A ballet of avoidance.

Ceasing movement,
content in our solitude,
A sigh of relief.
Of disappointment.

Then, a sudden attack.

You lace your fingers between my own
and gently squeeze my hand.

You don't look at me.
And I am grateful.

I keep a list of words that remind me of you.
Buoyant, Renegade, Circumnavigate
Alexithymia, Insatiable.

No.

I have this dream,
Of living on Mars, surviving without oxygen.
Leaving everything in the world behind

But never you.

She sings and I break.
Flood of unwanted memories.
Waves crashing down.
Here it is—the song—those notes—
Hand clenching the armrest.
Fingers white; knuckles clenched; rings bulging off my fingers,
Squeezing, gripping, relying on that armrest to be rooted in the Earth
so that I am not taken away.

He hums and I squirm.
So nonchalant. Casual. Like it’s nothing.
Like it’s just a song.

It’s NOT just a song.

Something as simple as going to a movie alone.
It can be the best adventure.
It's nice to have wiggle room to just... go.
You don't have to worry about waiting for someone to tag along.
Don't have to worry that you won't get to sit here you want.
Don't have to worry about them stealing your popcorn.
Don't have to deal with their laughing at scenes that aren't really that funny.
And you get the armrest all to yourself.

Yes, it's nice to have that freedom of entertaining yourself.
But then sometimes...

After going to see your tenth movie alone.
You start to feel like you have too much time just staring at the lighting before the movie starts.
You've sat just about everywhere in the theater by then.
You wish there was someone there to turn to when something is funny enough to share.
And the  armrest sits there mockingly, like it's caging in your loneliness.  
And you realize... you never really do finish all you popcorn.




*©NDHK

You round up because what difference is a quarter of a inch
Heels, depending on the size, will make you the average height
Leggings and sweats will bunch at your ankles
Shirts become dresses, but only for you
Dress hems hit the floor, but only for you
**** skirts become **** dresses
Having to hem every single pair of jeans
Sleeves. Sleeves are far too long
"Petite" clothing doesn't fit either
Step stools are your best friend
Jumping for something that's just out of reach works too
Constantly being mistaken for a 16 year old
(Even if you are turning 20 this year)
Being used as an armrest by someone who thinks they're funny
Stuck in the front for every group photo
There's that awkward height difference between you and everyone
Standing on tiptoes and having the guy lean down for a kiss
You hate sports that require tall people, like volleyball and basketball
And yet, you wouldn't change your height for the world

Every day he sat in his chair,
His ratty, tuna-colored, reclining marshmallow .
And every day, his happy little girl jumped up
and sink next to the armrest.
He kissed her hair and then she grinned.
He put his arm around her and she nuzzled his side.
“Where will Daddy always be?”
“Right here with me.”

The days meandered while the years pounced upon him.
His little girl traded her dresses for suits.
She blossomed and flourished,
Through the schooling and the moving vans,
and just as she foretold,
he was right there with her.

Until they day the doctor found it.
The lump, the break, the bubble, it wasn’t important what.
He knew the time had been floating around him, waiting to pounce,
but it knocked him down farther than he knew it could.

Now every day she sits in his chair.
His ratty, tuna-colored, reclining marshmallow.
And every day, his happy little girl stands at his side
Then sits firmly atop the wooden chair next to the armrest.
He points to his IV and she adjusts his line.
He puts his arm out and she leans forward.
“Where will Dad always be?”

No answer.

The trip complete there’s nothing left
Save for the souvineirs.
It was a blast, a welcome rest
I’ll think of it for years.

But here I am at LAX
No dream, no cardigan.
I’ll have to wait a hundred years
Just to lift off again.

Don’t get me wrong the airport’s nice,
The smell is odorless?
The chairs, the chairs, Oh god, the chairs:
The source of my unrest.

I’ll sit and sit and try and sleep
but always: no avail.
The strangers stare, don’t offer help
They watch me as I flail.

The pillow doesn’t offer rest
The armrest pokes me, merciless
My mind white-hot and furious


Just calm down.

Relax your self.

It will all be over soon.

LAYOVER

Denied:  my only boon.

[noun: /ärmˌrest/]
The repelling force between two magnets.

Caribbean waters wrench my gut
with an instinct to sail too far
into the blue plunge
of shark-finned waters
and sharp, yellow coral structures.
Those nature beasts rip wetsuit,
my sleek, stone shade wall from internal chill.
I am, feel, like a tanned fish
on these tire-weathered, cement streets.
Towering above are the heavy looks
down
from windows of sunned glass castles
of plastic and sweat.
They're calling,
pied pipers, to what is steel-stable
and rooted, in unforgiving fashion,
to the death of primal sense.
The urge to rip apart is tied back
around collared neck.

My boat is ashore
as I sea-dream-see of horizons unseen
while clenching an ill-fated
armrest desk of destiny
unexplored.

Intense ****** desire or appetite. A piece of furniture for seating from two to four people, typically in the form of a bench with a back, sometimes having an armrest at one or each end, and partly or wholly upholstered and often fitted with springs, tailored cushions, skirts, etc.; sofa. arousing or satisfying ****** desire: an ****** dance. Subject to or marked by strong ****** desire. Of, relating to, or treating of ****** love; amatory:

I gave you head for 36 minutes while you drove and when I asked if we could pull over so I could use a gas station restroom you called me selfish and said I could wait. There is a bruise down the left side of my ribcage from leaning over the armrest and I couldn't breathe for two minutes because we hit a pothole.
Good girls wait.
I couldn't wear a seatbelt on the high way because the strap wasn't long enough for me to be able to have my face in your lap. You said I'd be fine and I played your voice over and over in my head every-time you swerved because you had one hand on my neck instead of on the steering wheel. You got angry when I flinched at a passing stop sign and asked why I didn't trust you.
Good girls trust.
When we got to your moms house, you got out of the car and went inside before I even opened my door. You were naked when I walked in. You said "foreplay isn't my thing". I couldn't get my shirt off for five minutes because my fingers were shaking and the buttons were too small so you grabbed the kitchen scissors and cut it up the back. There's a scar along my spine now and you still run your fingers along it every-time I beg you not to. You tell me obedience is love.
Good girls obey.
You said you wanted to **** me in the bathtub so I bent over to turn on the water and you put yourself inside me. I cut my foot on your mothers shaving razor, and you told me you'd get me a bandaid after, told me to hold still so you could finish.
Good girls don't move.
We never made it into the bath because as soon as you were done, you yelled at me for getting blood on your mothers good towel and said I told you I was hurt but only in my head so of course you couldn't hear me. You came back with washcloth and a bandaid. Said I should watch where I step from now on.
Good girls are careful.
You walked me to your brothers room because he had a waterbed that you said you'd been dying to try and told me to put my face in the pillow and my *** in the air. Hands behind my back like a delinquent baby. The first hit came as such a shock my body jolted and you yelled something I couldn't really hear from under the pillow. Once my thighs looked like Tigers bellies and my neck was aching, you placed your corruption inside the only part of me you hadn't touched and when I started to scream you pushed my head back into the drool stained pillow and said to be quiet.
Good girls are quiet.
When you finally released inside, you threw my clothes to me and popped 3 Vicodin. You asked me if I wanted one, and I told you I wanted them all. You explained that that would **** me and I explained that I knew. You said you had to save them for your friends tonight, but you'd provide my noose once you got some more. When you dropped me off at my house, you grabbed my wrist before I got out of the car and said to give you a kiss. I said no, and you tightened your grip, told me to be good. I kissed you.
Good girls are good.

Good girls wait, and trust, and obey, and good girls don't move and good girls are careful and they are quiet and good, and good girls ..
good girls are good. But I am not.

We flew endlessly, miles above the surface, engines humming.
I looked down through a hole in the clouds; saw emerald fields
and a dirt road seldom traversed.  I found myself wondering if
someone looking up could see that hole I was looking through.
our eyes would meet in a nod of existential brotherhood, and
we would become eternally bonded as fellow humans.
I doubted it, though, for a slate of gray clouds loomed above yet.
Mother Nature saw it right to hide us in her own natural camouflage.
So we hung in limbo, between the layers of fog, neither here nor there.
I hate to fly, and my mind wandered to the worst-case scenario;
we'd fall down through the hole to smash upon the crops in a fiery heap.
Probably catastrophic engine failure.  Or perhaps swatted out of mid-air
by a petulant giant swinging a smoked turkey leg.  You know,
like the one's you can find at the county fair.  I gripped my wife's hand,
noticing how painfully sweaty mine was, wishing to be anywhere else.
But, in spite of a few bumps and the useless rise in my blood pressure,
the plane narrowly escaped catastrophic engine failure in that brief
moment.  I became excited for our impending arrival in Nassau.
The shining sun, blended drinks, fish fries; still assuming we got there
in one piece.  Drum beats from the Junkanoo tattooed through
my fingers quietly on the armrest.  We would dance deep into night,
then retire to the beach to laugh at old stories with new friends.
I'm sure if we were spotted from down below by all
the hard working humans, our freedom would be envied,
possibly even hated.  I became a young Marine Corporal once again,
standing guard on a frozen winter's night to protect the secrets
of that quiet hole in the clouds, my fellow passengers,
and even the mean old giant with turkey grease glistening on his lips.
It was my somber duty.

My mom tried to sweep
clean the cigarette burns on the armrest,
and turned the plastic-cracked
lampshade away from rare houseguests.
The arrow-shaped gap melted
at the middle and leaked down
the shade like a stopped-
up gutter. Climbing out her bedroom
window, she knelt on the rotten
mint shingles and tossed matted
maple leaves as indiscriminately
as rock salt onto the glassy sidewalk
drinking in the overhead halo
of Penelec Electric and pine needles.

Needles—

The red biohazard suitcase
in the dining room is packed
full for distribution
in a Philadelphian switchyard.

City of Brotherly Burning Barrels
and railroad-tie benches—
but not for dressing up suburban
meditation gardens, or housing
yellow jackets and half-melted
Army men. For sitting, sleeping,
and supplying calf splinters
for small talk along the Schuylkill
River, watching the cell lights
of Eastern State get swallowed
whole by the systematic tall grass,
one by one, thanking some blessed
something for their freedom
in the boxcars, their *** and Lucifer
matches, and each other.

I wear my cloak of crows
With a sly eye to the door
Hanging on the thought
Of leaving because
I've never really stayed

The black feathers flock to the window
Beady eyes survey my inaction
As the pitter patter of raindrops
Hum along the glass

I'm comforted for a moment
By my new ****** of friends
Gazing into my past
And the uncertain future

The rapid beat of my heart
Regains my attention
To the clutch on the armrest
My eyes have since shifted
Back to the door...

Like I'm there once again
Such a persistent memory
The one where it is too late
When regrets manifest
Into demons we carry
Through the mud, these burdens
Never letting you forget that instant

So I sit in this chair
In this room focused
On the door ready to run

At the end of the day
All the convincing in the world
Cannot change true nature
Not when it counts
Not when it matters

I haven’t come to rest
on your porch just to
be accused and then
arrested. I just need
a rest from the world.
As for the rest of you,
I don’t suppose you’ve
stirred from the comfort
of the armrest, though
some have surely suffered—
cardiac arrest and all.
Here’s where life’s
symphony rests—
a pause between notes—
not because it wants to,
but this measure calls
for it, two beats.
I haven’t come to your porch
to rest, but I feel the sleep
tickling the edges of my
eyes with the lack of inertia
that plagues the subject
at rest.

With your bottom resting on me
you roam the world of poetry
display spectrum of your poetic mood
ever bothered about this piece of wood?

I hold your frame over day and night
weight of your spirit soaring to height
your struggle to find in all only good
ever bothered about this piece of wood?

I rest your arms on my armrest
for your comfort I do my best
see you don't fall when in deep brood
ever bothered about this piece of wood?

For years my touch has kept you at peace
carried you safe seated with ease
when empty yawns the space I stood
is it then you would realize worth of my wood?

it's a game of cat and mouse we play without any reservation at all
we always had nothing more than the space between us, so small
our shared breath on the frigid air spoke dreams we'll take to the grave
i so desperately wish i could for once be even a little brave
when i glanced your way i could see your disappointment in me
the armrest we shared that morning was a battlefront only we could see
i sailed a beautiful sea of blue for months in fear of freezing to death
but your arms kept me safe and every time I held my breath

take a deep breath and swallow the lump that's found home in my throat
and eventually i'll probably come to peace with the words I wrote
all those years ago

what do I do with all these memories?
one day i'll be able to set them free
oh won't you come swim away with me
for you it's way too easy

the night i chased you down forbidden corridors is burned inside
with all the rooms they should of locked where we tried to hide
i still remember the way you fell asleep in the backseat
it was just you and i, and the lights reflected on concrete
everything just feels so melancholy tonight
especially the reminder of you in my life

take a deep breath and swallow the lump that's found home in my throat
and eventually i'll probably come to peace with the words I wrote
all those years ago

what do I do with all these memories?
one day i'll be able to set them free
oh won't you come swim away with me
for you it's way too easy

there was once a crooked smile that kept me alive
and i used to adore two shining blue eyes
it was never to be
you wouldn't float away with me

what do I do with all these memories?
one day i'll be able to set them free
oh won't you come swim away with me
for you it's way too easy

i will gladly give you every word I wrote
all those years ago.

"Your words, linger, for about a second. They then, falter, dropping. They do not resound into space. I can't see them echoing from my window; they cast no great entrance, no chance looks from the masses, no media news coverage.

Thoughts, however, thoughts, and some rare words, spoken in the exact tone, pitch, and with precise volume, with sincerity, resound forever. Thoughts, ideas, intangible bits of matter, resounding forever and ever and ever, audible to the trained ear. Imagine! Imagine the chaos, no-- imagine the beauty, that would follow."

The man turned away then, lost in thought. She could see his wrinkled arm on the armrest of his cozy chair. She could see the dust building on his slippers. He had been in this chair, thinking this concept through, for quite some time.

She offered him a fourth cup of coffee, and he politely declined, reasoning that he didn't trust the coffee beans these days. She exhaled, trying to remember why she'd come.

"This man could be the future. He could be the breakthrough we've been looking for. Imagine the furtherment of psychology this man could bring about. The furtherment of literature, of movies, books, conversation, nothing would be the same! Of course-- he is probably just a scam. But, these things have been right before. And if there is anything this man has to say or teach us about, we will be the first to discover him."

It is a Thursday
And for the first time she knows right where her heart is,
The exact spot it is in her chest as she feels each heavy thump it makes
Her brother collapses right in front of her
One minute he is talking, the next he is not  
Precipitously
Her heart literally starts pushing its way outta her chest as she makes her way to him
He had just asked her about an episode of the Graham Norton show
No way is she prepared for the next thing she sees,
He descends to the ground in a "tripping over a stone" fashion,
Hitting his big head on the armrest cushioning his way down to the cold tiled floor
He is getting up........*** he is not!!!
He is still, as still as a log and not the sleeping beauty kind
Her Mum,
By her side in split seconds calling his name, pulling him up in a sitting position,
At the same time screamingly beckoning her dad
Her Dad,
with every bit of calmness he could conjure
Joins his wife to pull him up from the ground,
Asking that water be poured on him
She,
Charging from the bathroom like a firefighter with a bucket,
Baths him with water,
He is coming to!!  
Answering the calls of his name as his mum leaves it on REPEAT mode,
Seconds had passed and he had missed it,
Seconds which would have gone by unnoticed like a fly on a wall,
Now will be a memory they will never forget.

©Belema S. Ekine

Like her husband, Claire's wineglass
left rings on the table. Her coarse
hair stuck to her thin, oxblood lips.
She found time to breathe in between
sips and dry coughs brought on by her friend,
John, smoking on the couch. He put his Pall Malls
out on the armrest like Dalmatians. Her sister
lay in a red wine carpet stain counting
the pennies behind John's feet.
Claire hid behind a fruit bowl;
oranges with skin far tighter than hers.
*Oranges her husband would've been glad to ****.

That’s my old chair
The one I used to doze in
While Mr Parker droned on ‘bout maths & that
I was gonna sit down front near Kerry Keener
But in the end I thought, nah, better not, so here I sat

You see, just here, my keychain scraped the plastic
As I ragged around to try & find a comfy spot
& that bit there got scuffed
The more my trainers rubbed it
I never could sit sensible
So they said

That armrest there snapped clean off when Matty Parker
Went arsefirst backward over it, farting on,
We laughed our backs off that time, Matty too like
It’s a few years now that Matt’s been dead & gone

& round the back there
Do you clock the “I heart Lisa”
Jason compass-scrawled once before class, the cheeky ****
He knew I had a soft spot for that Lisa
I made ******’ sure that Jase was out of luck

I haven’t seen that Lisa in a fair while
Jason neither like, funny how life goes
Still, you close one door, another waits ajar like
Sit still too long you won’t go far like, I suppose

Wake up

beep beep beep

The alarm is going off

beep beep beep

The alarm is always going off

beep beep beep

Stretch your legs until they hit the armrest on the couch

beep beep beep

Why am I sleeping on the couch

beep beep beep

The girl you paid for is upstairs

beep beep beep

Tangled in your bedsheets and snoring loudly

beep beep beep

You couldn't sleep

beep beep beep

My mind is working slow

beep beep beep

Shut that ******* alarm off

beep bee------

It's a struggle to sit up straight
Even more to get off of the couch
I try once,
Twice...
On the third time I use the couch's springs to launch myself to standing position

I almost fall back down when the tequila from the night before
Reaches my head and gives me the spins
I steady myself by finishing off a warm beer bottle sitting on the table
And add it to the piles of empty

My head clears
I think it clears
I'm not sure what clear feels like much anymore
I shake my head clear of these thoughts

Stumble towards the stairs
And step on a used ******
It follows me up the stairs like a piece of snake skin clinging to my foot

Thirteen steps feels like climbing Everest
I sit down on the seventh and wonder if its worth it
It's not
Nothing ever is
But I crawl up the remaining stairs and stand ***** in the hallway

I open the door to my bedroom
Her snores echo in the mostly empty room and she's mumbling someone's name

I block it all out and leave a couple fifties on the dresser
Close the bedroom door and walk to the bathroom

I drop my boxers on the floor;
Knocking loose the ******;
Scratch my ***** and **** out the nights alcohol

I'm feeling dehydrated now

The shower is on now
I step inside and let the water wash down on me
In these short moments I feel alive and awake

I try to hold onto this feeling but it always fades

The water is getting colder
I can feel my spine tense up under it

****, I don't want to
I never do

I shut the water off and towel dry poorly
Beads of water still dripping from my naked body as I walk around the house

I open the door to my room
There's a pile of work uniforms sitting in the corner
I'm not sure if they're ***** or clean
But I don't much care either way

The girl stirs
Coming awake long enough to ask me to **** her again
I tell her I can't but if...
I let the sentence trail off as her snores start again

I stare at her as I pull my pants on and throw on a button up shirt
She's beautiful in a damaged way
Her life is etched in the lines and faults of her body and she needs to eat
I tell myself tonight I'll buy her dinner before we **** ourselves to death

My **** lingers to life for a minute at that thought
But I'm running late and have no time to see it through

I kiss her softly on her forehead
I haven't done that to someone in a long time and it feels foreign to me
I shrug the feeling off and head outside to my car

I turn the key and the engine cranks but doesn't start
I turn the key again expecting different results and not getting them

*****

I take out the flask in my glove box and take a long drink of the single malt scotch inside it
I feel my insides burning with life as it works its way into my stomach
I crank the key again and the engine sputters to life

I get out of the car, remove the wheel chalks, and jump back in as the car slowly rolls backwards out of the driveway

I throw the gears into drive and head towards work
Getting stopped by every red light along the way
I sip away at the flask at every stop
And by the time I get to work it's empty
I immediately dread the sober drive home in twelve hours

I pull in through the gate at work and idle my car into the first parking spot I can find
About half a mile from the front door

The guards are standing around talking sports
One is an ex-cop
He sees me and grabs the wand to scan me

He spots a book in my lunchbox
Says, "oh you're one of those readers; I never had the patience for that ****."
"Yeah me neither. It's toilet paper."
He chuckles, I roll my eyes
And go out into the factory to punch in

I wait until it's a minute past my start time and punch my time card in
I sneak away from the morning meeting and go to the bathroom
Smoking cigarettes for the next hour until the cleaning crew comes in and kicks me out

I work my shift by hiding away from the cameras and other people as much as possible

I punch out for lunch and go to a gas station down the street and buy a six pack
It's a three pack by the time I clock back in

I finish my day off by wandering the rafters above everyone's head
They never look up
I watch them
Study them
Stare down exposed cleavage

Joe comes up the ladder and interrupts my voyeurism
"this where you been hiding?"
"mostly"
"one of those days?"
"aren't they all."
"yeah. listen, I'm going to the bar after work. you drinking?"
"when am I not?"
"true. so I'll see you there?"
"probably."

I lied.
Joe has a certain way of weaseling out of paying his tab and I'd rather not be the ***** today

A half hour left until my shift is over
I sneak off to the bathroom again and smoke a couple cigarettes before I punch my time card and leave

I hit every red light on the way home
My three pack is gone by the time I hit the last red light

I pull into my driveway just as the girl is waking up and about to leave
She smiles at me and makes small talk
I ask her if she is hungry
Her smile widens
"yes*" she says

We go out to eat at some roadside diner down the street, stop in the bar for a few beers and comradery,
Pick up some wine and a bottle of *** on the way home

And **** and drink until sunrise

I call off work

And we **** for both our money's worth.

Suburbia greeted me with pale hands in my late teens.
She was a wasteland in a mini skirt; in its’ own right it could be called a Cave with Plato egregiously driving his brand-new Prius 90 miles an hour saying “this is really living as long as you don’t look back” and all you can do is nod your head vigorously because the twisted **** that had settled surreptitiously in your baby lungs was giving you daylight hallucinations. My endeavors didn’t end there when they should have.
There was something uncanny about the way streetlights gave you the eternal glare. Of creating ordinary neighborhood streets appear like you’ve been there before in a dream, in another body. In a dazed stupor the sounds of a television and a light coming from a garage is forgiving in your misguided attempts to be comfortable in a foreign space. It could almost feel like home when your repressed trauma keeps resurfacing while you’re trying to introduce yourself. Almost.
In these polite badlands with everything uniformed the people I met were always trying to stand out from the serene landscapes. Sitting in plaid couches I was giddy playing the nihilist. Rerun episodes of Portlandia playing but all I remember from that smoky room were brown pants that looked extremely crisp to the touch and I wanted to reach out my hands and see if they would crunch under the paperweight of my heavy palms. I didn’t but I’m sure they would’ve emitted the sound of potato chips being eaten in a frenzy.
When I wasn’t walking through dark rooms feeling through what could have been hallways, a family’s living room or the cool gates of hell I was meandering my way through drowsy parties where boys with the names like Dusty and Slaughter were prevalent. Each with their own bizarre story about how they stole their parents’ money one night and took off spontaneously. Driving all the way to Nevada with nothing but half a tank of gas and one pack of cigarettes. You could almost pinpoint their personalities by the type of cigarettes they smoked. Most of them holding different colored American Spirits. Had I been smarter I would have asked for a light and a smoke. Never mind that I was always deadly afraid that I had some undiagnosed lung disease and that asphyxiation was my biggest fear or that I had a pack of Marlboro black menthols in my purse that were over a year old. I found my corner sitting in a worn outdoors chair. The ones where the armrest comes built in with a cupholder. My beer ice cold sitting awkwardly sideways while I tried to consider why the host of the party was wealthy yet so hostile. My favorite party game was the one where I took hit after hit of joints being passed around until I was crazy glued to my chair and my brain started to feel like a lagoon that continued to melt into a Campbell’s soup I once had as a child. Everyone completely unaware of the horror that the house had become to me. Somewhere in the distance I was acutely aware of who I would go home with, why my ventures into the suburbs had sparked my intrigue in the first place. The only reason why I had endured feeling like a spider watching a **** film and why I had lost my virginity just a day before. I was a displaced specimen thinking about her ***** in a room of 30 people or more.

today they've surrounded my chair in the bookstore
with trash
used tissue for snot
and selfish sized candy wraps
someone's been tearing from a spiral notebook
here where I sit with Johnny Cash
long polyester threads
was she teasing her
******* one stitch in time
is this where she comes to unwind
nowhere in here can you find the decimal system
if they ever fix the armrest I'm never coming back
they say inspiration is for amateurs

the rest of us get to work
hours at a whack

Poem a day, day 10*

Why can't I write poetry
About things that matter to me?
Or am I really that shallow that all I care about
Is my own feelings of love, passion and loss
Or how tired/busy I am.

I haven't written a single poem about
Feminism, ecology or politics
Or even Star Trek or Doctor Who.
No Red Dwarf, cats or Cat from Red Dwarf.
Heaven knows I've thought about it.

I've thought "there's more to my life than that"
"There's more to me"
"I should write abut such-and-such"
And then sit there
completely blank.

My cat looks at me, sniffing the air
"How could you possibly not write about me?"
And walks off.
His brother lying on the armrest
The world revolves around him in a different way.

Well be more inspiring boys!
Help me out here!
Okay can't blame you
If even Star Trek and Doctor Who aren't doing it.
Plenty of ideas, so few poems

if we were alone, I would have
held you close,
turned you around, and kissed you,
rested you against me,
put up that armrest in between us
and sat in warm comfort together
but we were not alone
and I am absolutely parched for you

I just firmly placed my hands
On the side of the loveseat armrest
And then walked my feet
Up the adjacent wall
Until my body was at
A 45 degree angle
To the floor.
I'm not sure,
Why
I did that.
But it was a good decision
I've never seen this room
From that point of view before.

I glanced at him
in the car ride home
we both shared the backseat

Dwindling between sobriety
and the hazy reality
just like the wine in the bottle
resting between my hands
our logic made no sense
it even gave up

As the mumbles in the car
increased so did the vibrations
in our silence
the back seat had a world of its own

Full of untold attractions
engraved mysteries only those
who specialize in none verbal communication
can decode

There it is again
that glance, he's not looking
but she lays her vision
on him, tripping through
a roller-coaster of bottled emotions
she opens her mouth, but nothing
comes out,

It's a complicated situation
that even the back seat of the car
can tell

He turned to sneak a look
she looked away
at the window, she smiles
to her self
to the thoughts that lay themselves
in front of her vision, her only vision

He slithered his hand
to journey all the way from his side
to hers, an adventure that seemed to be
the most dangerous one of all

It made it over the armrest
slowly...
She still staring outside, marveling
at what she knows, he knows

She felt a warm embrace
and entwine between her fingers
she still didn't turn yet
but she knew....
that he knew
what they
both
know

Death sits beside me on the park bench.
Its four o'clock on some idle Tuesday.
Scythe lying on the armrest,
I hope I'm not dying today.