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Jeramy Hale Jul 2010
I'm so in love with Fridays Fridays Fridays
I'm so in love with Fridays
yeah hipper cooler Fridays
ya gotta love them Fridays
yum yum yummy Fridays
rubbin tummy Fridays
slappin ***-in Fridays
get your giggle Fridays
all together Fridays
I'm so in love with Fridays
Fridays Fridays
Copyright 2010 Jeramy Hale
On Fridays, I cannot have you.
Though the faraway look combs through the glances, the heads lowering and longing

On Fridays, I cannot have you.
The icicle street of perturbing yellow parallel lines and molasses traffic that seems to rake the people across pavement into curvatures of avoidance keep me running.

On Fridays, I cannot have you.
I repeat it, a gesturing phrase, recurring, as I watch the transcendent glow, a denouement to a one-sentence story.

On Fridays, I cannot have you.
Could have: (What will save the moment in untickable preservation?)

On Fridays, I cannot have you.
Torin Apr 2016
And it's Friday
And I'm sorry
As the ghost behind your shoulders
Steps out from somber shadows
It's imprinted in your walls
And in your hands
And I know
And I'm sorry
It's always bleak when the week will end
Weakness begins
It's imprinted in the ceiling
To steal your smile

And I know why
She never had to tell me
I know why my sweetest love
Hates Fridays
And I know why
I understand she loves me
It's not the weekend, it just Fridays

Still it's Friday
And I'm sorry
I only put on my boots
To walk through cemeteries
It's imprinted in the graves
And in my mind
And I know
And I'm sorry
Tonight I'm going to party
By turning low the lights
It's imprinted in our blood
And beats our hearts

And I know why
She never had to tell me
I know why my sweetest love
Hates Fridays
And I know why
I understand she loves me
It's not the weekend it's just Fridays

It's not the weekend, it's just Fridays
That make her feel so low
It's not the weekend, only Fridays
That sit heavy on a soul
It's not the weekend, it's just Fridays
That would steal her glow
It's not the weekend, only Fridays
A song
Jack Ghaven Dec 2014
Stumble in at 3AM
I'm drunk again
Kick shoes off at the door
Drop my keys on the floor
Fumble for the lights
Man I miss Friday nights
Crashing on the couch in my clothes
Being somebody that no one knows
Days of the past come back to haunt me often.
laura Nov 2018
usually last a few minutes
the slow burn
bitter taste
wind chill needs to chill
fam needs to chill
bank account needs to chill
room remained behind glass
sipping coffee
bad fridays taste just as bad
A child holds out a hand.
He has no tears to cry.
His stomach is a gastric band.
His future is to die.

He doesn't have food to eat.
He has nothing to drink.
To him this life is far from sweet.
His future is to sink.

Whilst all around that other place.
People cause disarray.
By getting started in the race.
That we call black Friday!

Whilst many have to pray for life.
That we treat as the norm.
We're fighting for the cheapest price.
And doing it in swarms.

How can the peoples of these places?
Hold their heads up high.
Does greed reflect from our faces?
Whilst so many other die!

We seems so motivated.
Over a child's toy.
It's ok to get aggrevated.
Over the things we buy.

It would be another story.
If it was a fight for life.
But it doesn't show much glory.
When it's a new coat for the wife.

We have a poor economy.
So can anyone be blamed!
We are all healthy, fed and free.
And we should all feel ashamed.
People fighting over TV's, computers and various other companies products. This is what we see on this day! Where have all the morals gone?
29th November 2014
amanda cooper Jan 2012
you make me cold in the pit of my stomach,
a glacier sliding past my lungs.
your bangs brush my eyelashes when foreheads press together,
only silence and movement and sweat between our skins.
and i feel condemned, of all things.
yet, irrevocably, i'm yours.
sold on the street corner, at the intersection of your passion and your distaste.
1/27/12.
Connor Jul 2016
And it's difficult to remember something as the very name of Eisenhower
Or flowerbaskets
And tired movies made of silicone and
Aftersex
Or sixteen candles echoing out of an imaginary suite with cigarettes at every table
And green lawns
Barbershop conversation
The reflection of the sun in special trees
Or my best friend Jesus Christ
Or the smell of the theater that one day with the cynics who just got back from a tennis match and barbwire still laced delicately around their thoughts and
Nihilism
And automotives
And priestess Jane or Henry's gloomy doppelganger who reads alternative magazines and loves the aesthetics behind broken glass
And fine tuned musical instruments

It's difficult to remember
Lonesome Fridays smoking on a park bench trying to finish the puzzle
Or synagogues you've never been in
Or insurance
Or newspaper articles detailing the misadventures of Mr. City
(Of course of course! Take your shoes off at the door and make yourself at home)
We're tossing all our sewage into the ocean
that's far from clean as it
LOOKS anymore these days
That's anything
And everything except for the glowing mountains seen faded and wintry behind Apartments and the
"Glorious Mexican House of Spices"
Never been in there either

It's difficult to remember
Times of Mr Twin Sister
Or Joan Jett in the hallway
In a highschool who's psychology classrooms have become a time capsule in the ground/
Or the gentle skinny ******
Wearing Broadway makeup and
Kafka tattooed on his shoulder
I like his hat
He looks at me suspiciously
Or the guy who is yelling his order at the counter when it's quiet here anyways
Or the mariner who has a hobby of the saxophone
Or 1970s *******
Or the sheepskin bikeseat fad that's yet to come but I'm predicting it now!
Or two dollars and twentyseven cents at the beginning of Allen Ginsberg's America
"I've given you all and now I'm nothing"

It's difficult to remember
The Oriental
Sacramento flies
Midnight Moon
Quarter to four
"The Immortalization Commission"
Remodelled hotels downtown
Where mandalas on the floor became a
Tiger lily luminous
And the kimono is yesterday's painting/
Dearest Darling
When I was feeling down!
A staircase in reverse (??)
The sound a kiss makes
It's difficult to remember
Colleen's earrings
Or Washington State
Or air conditioners in Bali
The Indian ocean's daybreak hymn
To Seminyak
Or whatever happened to Steve from the Airplane out of Taiwan
On 3 days awake
Hello Kitty nursing stations
****** (Kubrick's version)
Cardboard taking up half my bedroom
It's difficult to remember until I jot it down and then its a sudden forever
Sunshine Superman in a cafe spontaneous
drawings with someone I just met who has some ******* attitude/
Who hops fences and has feral ideas
People! En Masse! Te Amo!
You're all in wolven liberty
And vague postulators
And holy prostitutes for the dollar
Sad eyed intellectuals
With undergarments made of breakfast cereal/
Seaferry poetry is different from
Trestle in August poetry
Or henna handshakes
Or the Napoleonic era
Sweet Cherry Pie
The tulip's tongue
Garabajal
Cloudy first day of July
Was hotter yesterday
But not too hot

It's difficult to remember
Antiquity
The pale horse Studebaker outside the clinic
With a glossy red trim and **** I wish that was my ride
Andy Warhol's exploding plastic inevitable
Nearsightedness
Angels and their ability to shower with a a snap of their fingers
Distant harp music
Better him than me
Bananas almost ripe
Green aquatic
Reclusive junkies
Palomo's appliances
Questions for the next time
How much I like what you like and how I like that you like what I like
Ahh that's not my bus
I'm trying to get to the city!
That one quote Socrates is known for about knowing nothing as true wisdom
Supermarkets being built on top of liquor stores burned down a while back
Monopolies
Tragedies
"No Love Lost"
THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL
Your guess is as good as mine
Never tried to eat Asian food in Asia
It was all pasta and good cider that tasted like pineapple
Rain hitting the window and I'm
Drowsy again
God Save The Trees!
Curly hair looks good on boys
Torn up blinds
Queer as a three dollar bill
If Bill costs 3 dollars I'm sure he's caught something better safe than sorry
Sage advice
I'm the very model of a modern major general
Golden yen and international currency
Incense in the bedroom and how good it smells
There's my bus! Applying for a better job than the one I got now
But that's how it always is right?
Chasing satisfaction
1007 apt
Porch ornaments
Unique names
Unique style le style
The extra charge on foreign ATMs
Cordoroy polo shirts
Flooding in New York!
When someone's face screams *******
"Slippery when wet"
Dine N Dash
Grass gone yellow
Confidence in dyed hair and capes as long as wedding gowns
But less expensive
Doors that always seem to be locked and I'm wondering 20 year later what's behind them?
Albino animals
White thoughts as clouds or
Abstractions
Weathers nicer in Florida but who cares
Festivities this early in the day
Automatopeia
Do sad orphanages still exist?
Just like the movies
Midnight in mirrors
That sick puppet at the shoe shop used
To know how to really hammer it down
And now he's weak and forgotten
Never heard the words of a true prophet only Oceania
Or the private temple near Apollo Bay
Like Japanese gardens behind that gate
Will I ever see it
Make a proud example outta ya misbehavior
Form without function
Exhausted spiritualism
*** Kettle Black
negative photographs of dark rooms
And there's laughing coming from SOMEWHERE
Essays on kleptomania
Had a bad dream I became a cliche
Surrounded by other freaks and there was a lovely ***** I fell in love with her
We married in Oregon by the sea her name was rosy
***** rosy
Check your mailbox for nails
And what you don't wanna hear/
If you were a vegetable you'd be organic!
Empire
Satirical bubble gum
Satori
Linda Lovelace and her special party trick
That's someone's fantasy
Diamond in the rough
Mister guy with two black eyes frequents the adult playhouse
Hes fully stocked on fishnet leggings
He's too proud to put them on himself but
Has nobody else around
Boo hoo
Swigs back the whiskey and trips down the stairs getting a third black eye in the process
Marion came by with her dog the other day
Wanted her box of clothes back but he loved to sniff them to remember her
But she wouldn't have it

"Honey I'm going to call the police!"

"Ah they don't give a **** they have bigger things to worry about"

"Yeah you got that right shrimp **** enjoy my unwashed *******"

And she never came back again
He started losing the vertebrae in his spine 1 by 1 and you know where this is going
I won't say he was a poor man because he had it all coming to him the *******
But he coulda had a better start if you ask me.

It's difficult to remember
And even more difficult to forget
After the fact

Seagull opera
Giganticism
Portrait of the artist as a young man
Losing one's pencil when the best idea of your life drops down from heaven and into your sorry head
Signs graffitied to have funnier meanings
Cruelty
Impassive
The Loyal Lioness
And Bangladesh has too many kitchens
And not enough dishes
When I was young I used to say Island as "is-land"  
Which is true it is land
But the Europeans probably stole it from somebody else anyways/
I left my future behind
And objects in the mirror are closer than they appear
Im no illusionist
I'm terrified of the cracken
Father feels the same way about
Hotels
Why bother/
This has been going on and on for a while are you tired yet
Is your patience being tested
Mine isn't because this wasn't an all-at-once kind of rambling
It's extremely important to laugh at least
Once a day
Otherwise you'll find yourself a politician
In no time at all
Rockefeller
(         ) Quaint home to die in
I think
Trains create great music
Float on
Sink into yourself
Roses in a crooked alley
That's people
Busy busy busy busy
Let's describe a situationist
I'm not a fan of bright colors on clothes
Your best shade is blue
Bricklayers transcription of Don Quixote to a skyscraper
Rocket thyme
& Garden
Erratic children's
Insomnia
The doorbell repeatedly
Vancouver riots/ I saw that live on the news!
Pictionary with the surrealists
N Dada TV set MC Escher
Antenna
You're in the Twilight Zone now
Dear Ramona
I'm trying to make it up to you
With a brightness only seen when you're ready to see it so please for the love of God don't blame me when it's not appearing
The tapestry hidden
Keep your blankets clean
And avoid hospitals unless you're fine with fishbowls & the halogen
The water gestapo
Storage lockers full of unacted plays and
Antique microwaves
Emitting the nostalgia of the cold war era
And what a waste of time that was /
Walter Wanderleys presence in Autumn universities
The opening of Vivre sa Vie
Salvador Dali's pluvial taxi
Lightbulb epiphanies
Aquariums and their protestors
Zebras in the shade
Two wrongs dont make a right
Elizabethan theater
Saloon shootouts in a fever dream
I lost and bled out all over the rustic wooden floor
A maiden reached out for me and El Paso did play I woke up and pretended nothing happened/
Funerals for bad People who did bad things
My first memory of a cat beneath the mattress
Hello Dolly!
Auditory learning
Psychotherapy
Lillian the landlady lost her ladle and labeled little Lyle as a lair
The Black panther movement
Reading symposium some years ago and
Making note that Phaedo was still my favorite dialogue/
Zen Buddhism
Xoxo xoxo
The day Gypsies were replaced with
Surface ****** appetite
And not the real thing
Newspaper clippings
Hypnotism when all other options are out
Mystical visions of sidewalks
And the love of your life stepping through a door you've never seen
Maybe Yes No I Don't Know
Creature comforts
Che Guevara's problem is that his beard made him too easy to recognize
(Also that little hat!)
Chinese cough medicine didn't work
For long I still wheeze sometimes
Domestic violence thru the wall
Ceiling fan probably doesn't even work!
Dimpled laughter
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
In skytrains to Commercial
Bermuda in her mind
And courtesy in her voice
I'm no Arthur Rimbaud
But you already knew that
Alcazar of Seville
Filling up the shipbottle
Here's your paradise
Now relinquish it as it is
False!
Hare Krishna
Nowhere Fast
El Diablo and the
Portofino loaf left rotting on the countertop
Latin children speak of the sacred viper
You'll hear of it after this but we'll never see what the ******* meant
Heads alternating round the social current
Of my lively city
There's a dog soaking up the rain
And songs are made in honor of
Recent catastrophes
Trials are dealt
Cards cast to the gutter
New York quiets down for the news of another war
You scratch my back I'll scratch yours
Skeleton key
Ballad of the last wailing zoo
THE ATRIUM
Complexity in simplicity
That's how Brainard got me!
Elderly overcoats
Hiding purest LSD
Is a fan of Hawaiian T shirts
And a communist
What if I was a Freemason
Or owned a tanning salon
Faint crimson
What did Marv look like again?
"You're surrounded by people who love you"
Coffee when one needs it
GOODBYE BLUE MONDAY
Tattoos on the wandering man
Oriental chimes and the people who own them
Bus stop regulars
Vines overtaking power lines
The hypnogogic state
Strawberry light softening
The mind
Sister Ray LOUDLY PROCLAIMING
doitdoitdoitdoit
Passing the graffiti n Pluto neon
Halal wide awake another Saturday
Where's the Karaoke
Flashing by here
Those who find comfort in a bridal scavenger hunt
Or expensive beer
And here comes the hooded clown
Clamoring about his favorite
Loudspeaker
Telling me my time is soon and the noise
Drowns out the drowsy bliss
After hour spirits the perfect time for
Writing and trying to read distant Chinese
Indecision on the tip of the tongue
"NOW WHO IS THAT KNOCKING
ON THE CHAMBER DOOR?
COULD IT BE THE POLICE?"

I'm completely off the topic
And into Apartment lobby photosets
Low battery phone calls
Confessions
Nauseated reverb
Trying to see the attachment people got with bingo halls
And moving companies
Ah no luck again
Eve is at it with her showtunes
Halfway methodology
Triage
Paisley headbands left
Distraught on the quivering
Heater
Dwindling sunsets
We're truly disciples of the moon spirit which grants us more energy
(This is according to a drunk I met one night)
Or ***** old men
When the horizon is engulfed with
A winking cinder
Suitcase at the door
Last time
First time
Magician never reveals his fetishes
(They all have to do with bags under your eyes)
Employment office dramas of my friend the one who blinded a social worker
And the one who blamed Islam
And the one whos philosophy entirely consisted of Spooky Action at a
                                            DISTANCE
Parisian riots
Queer youth
Didn't make the team! Jester
'cross the hall who's beard suggests
Ishmeal n car battery n expired vegetables n rain which crosses the line n
***** cranberry n
Poorly fitted suits n
Harsh pigment n incense shops n
Bocca     secret towns
With churches more beautiful than any you'd find in your own city
n the cultural market
Xylophone ear to ear
Soul cleansing starting at only
$89 (with a 6 month guarantee)
Sophie's birthday and her picnic at Victory Park
The nearby bums trying to sell tea mugs and
Loose wires beside gated convenience stores
I'm an Island away attempting a poem
And never bought a scratch n win
Or heard the same song more than seven times in a row or been in a column
Or escaped the washhouse
Invested in a birdcage for next year
Been to a palm reading
Visited Oasis
Smoked salmon
Told anyone else about Montana
Screamed the things I'd like to scream
** Word of the day
Or kissed a lunatic or swallowed the corpse of yesterday
I keep her on my neck until
I'm too anxious to let go
Counting streetlights
Jeans worn in and faded to be sent off to
A lonely caffeine addict
Christmas Eve I'll be reading a postcard from San Francisco
Asking the same questions
My imagination is made of a different material than last week
Now it's the same color as your hair
HEY that's a good pickup line to use in the heart of the Canadian Embassy
Drinking discarded music resembling a sweater you may have said YES to if it wasn't so unsure of itself
And now Mr. Acker Bilk ascends thru the window of an August home
Like a lazy hornet
I'm still lost without identification
Or a nice belt
As happens when one uses a quality item too casually
How did uphill suddenly seem so downhill?
I'll claim a waterfall
For SALE that inevitable Indonesia
Greyhound O another greyhound O another greyhound
I'm fretting too much about not enough
Delayed the Airport and the yellow question

????

II

What if I knew how to read the curb?
Or translate drunken droll
What if I was never tired again and could
REALLY do anything I set my mind to?
What if I was the first cigarette that cured cancer instead of caused it?
What if I could end superstition
And walk underneath any ladder I wanted?
What if I could make it with a young Audrey Hepburn!?
What if I stopped pretending to be a microphone and got on with "it"
What if the grocery store closed later
And I opened earlier?
What if parking lots werent so sad
All the time?
What if gravity simply had enough of exotic birds and specifics?
What if we stopped trying to recreate what is truly lost?
What if foreign children embraced
Wasting time instead of
Midnight starry bicycles
And the antics of a monk
Disguised as a romantic?

There are those that worship God
And those who worship the Sun
And those who worship nothing at all
But I suppose on the last bus
We're all the same exhausted
Voice who can't wait for next pay day
What is an empty bank?
Or authenticity
What is there to prove anymore?
I hope I don't die tonight and regret
Being impulsive for once
You're a smart shadow
And a dull character
Pushing the last of the daisies
Get the lamp to turn on again
Give the pavement something to look forward to with your walk
Be consistent in being inconsistent
If there's a word there's a ***** and a poem for it!
We all oughta worship
Nothing at all except
Clarity
Compassion with ones neighbor who either forgot the pay the electricity bill or couldn't afford to
We're a swimmin
Written between late June to July 13th.
Megan Grace May 2014
I only know how to love you
in ways that hurt, that feel
like scraped knees and


dropp
                i
                     n
                          g


skittles on the floor,
stubbed toes,
****** nose,
chest x-ray
came back negative
because I gave everything that
was in there to you so they had
nothing to see in the doctor's
office. My heart was never
really mine to have, anyway.
A small part of something bigger I'm writing.
Maddy Van Buren May 2015
Fridays nights always start the same
and they go like this:
I've got a hopeless wonder
you've all got bad intentions
hit me once, I can't hit back
it's a ragged jumbled way
to start a weekend
start anything really
and I'm more of a loser now than I've ever been
sitting in the blackout
maybe starved, maybe just tired
knowing someone
it can't cure Friday nights
because I never really knew anyone
seemingly
had the world at my feet
and no one by my side
but you who sits there
you need to listen
because one day I'll be gone
I will have the world on fire
and the nights I needed
and maybe then you'll understand why
I spent so many Friday nights
at the top of that hill
crying
We need to talk

But I need answers

That I don't want to hear
Tina Marie Jun 2013
Because he is my sun and
I am the moon.
Reflecting only the purest of lights even when
The night sky tries to drown me within
its endless sea of stars,
blooming and
booming,
continuously.
Although at times I feel lost within my own atmosphere and
the wind begins to ******* away from home, I know that
He will always be right there when I wake up in the morning…
Kissing my lips gently,
With the same pure light as the sun itself;
Smiling over me,
Allowing his brightness to
Fill my heart with warmth once again…
My sunshine.
CR Sep 2014
it was the hooded-sweatshirt, sit-close-and-pretend-you’re-cold, bleacher-seat,
whiskey-and-coke homecoming that you never had when the leaves changed.
but the leaves changed anyway.

the damp grass smelling vaguely like your fireplace as the world got quieter,
your nose in your precalc and your foot tapping and how-many-years-left
of solo fridays, you counted the suburban stars but didn’t tell anybody
how ******* beautiful they were above your head, because they were yours.

when you wore your high school colors, you were cold for real. no pretense
in your shivering, no flutter in your abdomen because he wasn’t gonna talk to you,
and you didn’t really care, you shrugged. but the leaves changed anyway.

and you changed, slowly. grew taller and smarter and prettier and then the
remaining solo fridays shrank to none, and you left. big sweet snowdrifts turned to spring
and you shared whiskey-and-coke with the city, your stars dimmer but abdomen
finally fuller, and limbs warmer and no sweatshirt because you didn’t need one,
and hands all over to hold and feeling all three kinds of love at once.

and then the accidental homecoming, and the changing of the leaves
and the hooded-sweatshirt shivers and knowing you’re so much bigger now than the
suburban stars and the backward glances of the bleacher-seat kids, but the damp
grass still smells like your fireplace and suddenly you’re small again, just for a
second but god that second, you shiver and turn around again. you’re so much
bigger than this but homecoming, this whiskey-and-coke homecoming still isn't yours.
Cyril Blythe Aug 2012
I assured myself again that I was completely alone. Gingerly, I sat on the corner of her popcorn-and-perfume-scented bed and allow my tingling fingers to reach out and open that sacred journal again to page one. I never really understood it but maybe if I read it one more time. “Things I Wish I Never Knew:

1. People are selfish almost always.

2. Shaking hands does matter. ******.

3. Wine hangovers are miserable.

4. Puppies **** behind things ‘cause they feel guilty; you wont find it until it smells.

5. Friends really do come and go.

6. Neti Pots absolutely **** and bring you nosebleeds NOT relief.

7. Attraction and love are different. REMEMBER THIS ABOVE ALL.

8. Joy is clicking add to dictionary in Microsoft word.

9. If you can make it through Taco Bell kisses, morning breath will be a breeze.

10. Be jovial, it’s a choice and a side effect of living in daily adventure.

11. Make sure that your family knows…” I pause because I think I hear footsteps padding up the fourteen red-carpeted steps to her bedroom. I know I can’t move, the old wood floor in this crumbling house will definitely creak and give me away, so I just sit on the edge of the bed at full attention.

        “…No, ma’am, everything’s basically back to normal again, we’re getting the locks changed on Saturday. I’ll tell her you send your love.” The footsteps and voice were at the top of the stairs and I saw a shadow fall across the dusty floor in front of the white wooden door. I know it’s my neighbor Annie because she lives here. We grew up together. “Yes, ma’am, I love you too. I’ll try to make her call you soon. Bye.” Her phone beeped to signal the end of the conversation followed by a loud sigh. I peered from the bed into the hall and saw her sitting on the floor. Annie is a pretty girl. All the girls who live here are. We used to go to school together until my grades got too bad and I started my special school. We used to play in her front yard with her sister, Kelly. One time I kissed Kelly, but we were only seven. She is my only kiss. They both leave for most of the year now to go to college but come home for Christmas break. I will never go to college, but that’s ok.

        I felt my pants vibrating and the theme song to the TV show Who Wants to be a Millionaire was somehow blaring from somewhere around my crotch. Before I could silence it, the shadow at the door became a tangible whirlwind of brown hair, sharp screams, and clawing grabbing fingers as she tried to wrench the ratty Moleskin journal from my fingers.

        “******, Cyril, I thought I heard someone in here. You give it back and get out of this house. You can’t, like, break into other people houses like this. This is just not what normal people do. Can’t your father control you?” At this point we’re both standing in the middle of the bedroom. I’m confused so I just dangle the journal in the air above her grasp. “It’s not yours and you know that. I know you at least understand that, right? Right, Cyril? What the hell would you do if Kelly had been showering or changing. Oh my god, ew, do NOT answer that.”

        “Ow,” I yelp as she scratches at my forearm to retrieve the precious journal. “Your claws are sharp, Annie, I have more scratches from you than I do Jimmy-cat and Jimmy-cat is mean, mean but fluffy… and he purrs but you don’t purr. Is that because you don’t like me?” I lower my arm and Annie snatches the Moleskine out of my fumbling fingers, avoiding eye contact at all costs. I hate it when people do that. I notice it, but they don’t think I do.

            “Cyril, get out.” Her right hand is now securely around the Moleskine and the other is shaking, pointed towards the doorway. “Now.”

            This is always the worst part. I walk out of Kelly’s forbidden bedroom: head hung as I creak down the fourteen red, carpeted stairs and make my way to the front door. It’s always quiet and I don’t like the quiet so whenever it’s quiet I count. I am good at counting. …Twelve, thirteen, fourteen…silence.

        I turn to her, “Annie, I’m sorry…”

            “Out.” She opens the front door and points me to my apartment, directly across the street. Its autumn now and the leaves and cold rustle down the street and I crouch deeper into my black coat as I step outside.

            “So maybe I’ll come over tomorrow?” I turn as I start down the steps, hopeful to have conjured up a smile from Annie, but all I see is the flash of brunette hair disappearing behind another thick, white wooden door.

            “Get off our property before I call the cops, you creep!”

            That’s what I’ve always been to these pretty girls: a creep. I don’t really understand what the word means, but I’m pretty sure from the way they say it that it’s not nice. Pops always tells me that I’m different because it’s better to be different. I don’t understand why Annie and Kelly don’t think it’s better that I’m different too.

            I decide to walk to Captain D’s and tell Earl hi because it’s Friday and that’s what I do on Fridays. Earl owns Captain D’s and has forever. Earl is my friend. Earl and Jimmy-cat at Captain D’s that I feed my left over fish are my friends. At least I think they are. I named the cat Jimmy-cat because Pops says mom used to listen to a man named Jimmy Buffett before she left us. I don’t remember those days.

            I turn the corner knowing Captain D’s is just 560 steps ahead and that to get back home I go 910 steps back and I’ll be at my front door. Counting is one thing I am good at; even the tests they used to make me take at the doctor’s office said so. I am good at numbers. Seven is my favorite number.

            I walk into Captain D’s and, like normal, its just Earl inside. He makes me two Fish-Filet sandwiches and we go stand outside. We usually don’t talk much, but I like that . I sit on the crunchy curb, put on my hood because the wind and leaves have made my ears sting. I unwrap the greasy paper on my first sandwich and Earl pulls out his red Marbolo’s and sits beside me lighting up his first cigarette.

            “Why do you smoke, Earl?” I ask him every Friday and he always responds the same way.

            “Eh. Why do the fish swim Cyril? Why do the Eagles and Crows fly? You know we don’t know why Women like shoes so much.”

I never really understand what he means but it makes me giggle and before we know it we’re both laughing. I’m pretty sure this is what friendship is. I lick the wrapper to get all the tarter sauce off and start on my second sandwich. Earl starts his second cigarette.

            “Where’s that alley cat you got trained up, boy? Go get ‘em and I’ll cook him his own fish patty.”

            He means Jimmy-cat. I wipe my fingers on my jeans, tear off a piece of the damp fish from my sandwich, and walk towards white picket fence that Earl built around the dumpster where Jimmy-cat lives. Jimmy-cat has a good life; he can eat anything in the green dumpster he wants and he is safe behind the big white fence. I don’t like the smell but maybe cats like eating and smelling the furry tarter sauce that clings on the sides of the dumpster. As I pull the lever to open Jimmy Cat’s home, I think it smells even worse than normal. After jiggling the latch a while, it clicks, and I swing the door open to Jimmy-cat’s house. It definitely smells worse. I step up one step and crunch on leaves and squish cold fries as I circle the dumpster. “Jimmy-Jimmy-Jimmy-cat, where-oh-where-oh-where ya at?” I stop as I enter the back right corner, I see Jimmy-cat but I don’t understand what is happening. I don’t understand what is wrong. He is covered in ketchup, maybe? But if that’s true what are the little white thingssss crawling around his stomach and why are they covered in ketchup and mayonnaise too? He is mewling and I’m scared. I smell fish. Fish and furry tarter sauce, one, two, three, four, my feet are crunching on the cold fries and leaves again, I know I’m at the door without even turning around.

            “Boy, what you doin’ in there?”

            “Earl?” …One…two… “Earl, can you help me? Earl, I, I don’t understand. I don’t like it.” …Three…four…five… “Jimmy-cat needs a bath, Earl, and something is eating his stomach.” …Six…seven…silence. Earl’s hand fells like a dead fish on my shoulder as he walks me back up to Jimmy-cats home.

            “Stay here, Cyril. Just gimme’a sec to see what’s happening.” Earl disappears into the leaves and fries and fur.

            eight…nine…ten

eleven…twelve…

            thi­rteen…

fourteen…

            silence.





            “Boy? Come back here now. C’mon.” Earl’s voice echoed around the green corners and I followed. One…two…three…four…five…six…seven I stand above Earl and I know the ketchup and mayonnaise and Jimmy-cat eating monsters are just on the other side of his crouched over body.

            “Well don’t be shy, come look.” Earl stands and I see his work apron covered in the ketchup and mayonnaise but beyond that in a bed of Fish-filet wrappers is Jimmy-cat and all the stomach eating monsters mewling at his stomach, as I get close I think they look kinda like little Jimmy-cats. I push my hood off my head as I lean over closer and that’s when it hit me, “Kittens! Jimmy-cat had kittens, Earl!”

            “I think Jimmy-cat may be more of a Jasmine-cat or Jennifer-cat.”

            I laid down the piece of fish I brought and Jimmy-Cat looks up into my eyes and I swear he was happy to see me.  I looked up at Earl and he was happy to see me too. I sat down in the mess of wrappers and fries and mold and laughed and laughed and laughed.
B Brown Mar 2015
Blue Hill Avenue

It begins with Spanglish-speaking merchants
conducting business inside of bulletproof stalls,
where the faint scent of dried cod follows you
to the flat fix next door, into the auto body,
a hair shop, and to the steps of a church
for first generation Cape Verdean-Americans,
their offspring and that old lady --
someone’s  grandmother --
who wears a black dress on Fridays
and walks home from the Market Basket
the same time that you get off the bus
who wears a shopping bag full of tropical foods
and memories on her head.

And if you stand at its first **** south,
you will notice how the families disappear
in the African American section.
There are fewer stores here, lots of energy boxes
with epitaphs: “Tiffany Moore Died Here”;
a seatless swing set, a playground gone fallow.
You won’t see any church steeples in this section
that feeds on a neon CITGO sign too small
to illuminate the skyline like the mega one in Copley does.

A few blocks away, a ghost of the Jewish past sits
with pointy stars of David nestled inside its
bulbous steeples that simmer on summer Sundays
where Haitian congregants stew inside,
praying and giving to the building fund
in damp envelopes that will go to the omnipotent one
who will someday replace the stars with crosses.

And as you keep walking, past the temple,
you enter Grove Hall’s Mecca, a strip mall
with a drive-thru Dunkin Donuts,

a Stop & Shop, CVS, Bank of America,
and a Rainbows that sells your teenaged aunt
the sequined one-off shirt she needs for a date
and the fishnets she wears to the carnival
that parades through a sliver of the avenue,
the very next section of our beloved Blue Hill.

Across the street, Check Cashers speak English
as good as the number of dollars and cents
they count when they hand you back your cashed check
or the double win you scratched out of a Gold Rush ticket.

Adjacent to them, a Greek-owned sandwich shop
that feeds you steak bombs as long as your forearm or
Festive Fridays: 20 wing dings, a pound of fries,
a Greek salad, and a gracious gulp of fountain cola --
essentially, a heart-attack meal.  

Next, another ghost of the Jewish past,
a church in the former Franklin Park Theater,
where Yiddish entertainers performed vaudeville acts
which nobody living can remember.

Then a building that resembles an African footstool,
one that will allow you to see over the **** of the hill
and down below at a gospel choir trapped in everlasting song
against the wall of the one-hour cleaners and that store
where a turkey-shaped lady with flour dusted hands
stands behind a window, noticing you,
while guarding her beef patties and cocoa bread
with a bulletproof smile.
Tawanda Mulalu Aug 2015
Physicists are perverts. They keep
trying to peek under Mother
Nature's dressing gown- asking
Her questions like "why
do electrons behave as both
particles and waves?"
when what they really want
to know is

if Mother Nature's lingerie
is red or black, and which
she prefers to wear
on Fridays.
Science is fun!
Alone
To me is home
I let the music flow through my veins
And my hate dwindles away
No stress, no paranoia, no screaming or hateful words

I am alone.
And I guess I'm bothered that I don't have friends
But I guess that's okay also
I've become everyones doormat
Sure, I'll buy you this
I'll listen to your petty problems while an (unmentioned) family member of mine does some more ****
But in my head, I scream as loud as I can for just one person
One
Person
To hold me while I cry
And tell me that everything IS going to be okay
And that all this IS going to be over soon
But I guess we can't all have what we want, right?
It's always on a day like this
When morning kisses me awake
And I
Upon the magic trip
Slip into shirt and jeans.

Then leaning into a cup of tea
I open up the world to see
The news.
So many views (Not many likes)
I choose to enter
Exiting my door
I fall away into much more
Than commonplace.

She looks nice
A face I'd want to look at twice
And so I do.

A bus..a walk..a talk with Sanjay at the Paper shop
Where I often stop to pass the time
And then the park
Stark
A contrast to a month ago when the flow of leaves
Became a river on the ground.
Now
Not a sound except the cracking of a nut
A squirrel but it scampers up the bony tree.

The day I came to see
Has seen it all before
The seasonal shift..the lifting light
The shortest day and the longest night but to me it's new
Or just another look at the same old view
I decide
And provide myself with the truth.
Megan Grace Jul 2014
i
am
s  o
sorry
that   i
couldn't
help you
find  your
way    back
to your heart.
but we all get lost.
god you were so lost.
Do you remember?
                       Looking at me.

Full of flaws?
               Yet still thinking I'm beautiful

What about missing me ?
               Even though it had just been 5 minutes since I left your sight.

... It's been nine months but I keep reminding myself it's only been 5 minutes and I'll see you Friday at 4:30 as I always do. However, we both know that isn't going to happen. You love her.
Badatpoems Sep 2016
Friday*

For some people, it's just a day in a week

But for me, its the day everything happened between us.
laura Apr 2018
Friday is for fry yays, queer guys
coming at me with the gold heart
and smooth, skin tender intentions
I’d rather call all my friends

and sit around being poor and pretty
at a park
rook Sep 2015
how long can i last
at this rate
my seams will burst before too long
one week
two weeks
who knows?

the only thing honesty ever did was upset people
curl up into the fetal position and pretend you weren't thinking of their lips
didn't want to lean into them
and wrap your arms around their neck
and kiss them
of course you didn't

star eyes
heart eyes
sitting on someone's lap, legs shaking
it's dark

don't cry
my mind is such a mess lately nothing i write is coherent and i hatei t i hate it i hate myself
loisa fenichell Jan 2014
I. clay and ice

In the bed: sheets white
as a faceless whisper. Think
dark and unwashed hair. Also,
eyes shot with too much blush.

II. eyes

It’s too easy for me
to look into the mirror
when I’m brushing my
teeth. Lips paired with
a dark sigh. Lights bright
as the careful hands
of somebody newly pregnant.  

III. dna

In the evening, I mean
very late at night, often
you are there so split into
two. Get into this bed, then
clench your muscles one
by one like soldiers’ play.
Your arms rest on the windowsill
like smoky moths. It isn’t until
you clasp your hands like a bird
falling midflight that I realize: you
are so much less than our fathers.
My mouth will be resting inside
of your neck but you won’t be
able to hear me begging
like a cancerous womb.
Nat Lipstadt Apr 2018
<•>
4/10/18 10:55pm ~ 4/22/18 2:02 am

Introduction

a simpler than plain fact,  
deserving reflection beyond the obvious,
containing obverse emotional mine field sonar arrays
floating on an ocean unhidden,
listening for the ocean's bleeping hid-dens,
before surrendering to its ****-sinking power of time/gravity
the better life elsewhere is always someone’s misery


<•>
confetti is just tomorrow’s garbage

someone stood on lower Broadway at 5am
watching the sanitation men sweeping up the aftermath of a super bowl  victor’s celebration, with broom heads borrowed from giants’ moustaches

passage of a single thought,
that the victorious celebrated on the parade should
a posteriori be required to participate
in this flip-side experience as
‘active cleaner uppers,’
re-enacting the famous Persian Sufi adage,

“this is too shall pass”

someone whispers we have blessed lives,
rich in the experiential, free of the dragging boredom
of the daily draining of making it, head well above of the
humanizing periodic regularizing water dunkin’ reminder
of just
or

“we too shall pass”

so even the confetti honorees must have too someone whose
life to aspire, the top of the heap, in chained food chain world

assaying perfection and the luck thereof,
picture perfect lives cannot withstand tsunamis of
waves eroding their shapes, wearing boundaries down,
do not forget the invisible invitation from the riptide
just beneath the calm surgical surficial surfacing disguises

if you face my book, will find in a later chapter prior
the fine sorry lines, the pierced titanium bulletproof vest,
the divorces of mistakes remade, the haunted envisioning,
the obligatory items that keep you awake, those awesome
responsibilities that take many small bites of a soul’s coverlet
that cannot be removed isolated jailed or desperate destroyed

confetti rained interspersed with droplets of sand grains,
this man of constant tomorrows, hopeful Mondays, bad Fridays,
is a man of constant sorrows,
pictures and poems life celebrating a never allowed to forget
lucky runs out like the string from packages saved
when no more packages arrive

when the packages no longer get delivered
oh that started years ago, when came the bile instead
of the blood’s replacement clotting factors

passing is a sometime thing
sometime is a most imprecisely defined terminus
sometime means that today’s confetti is a day away
as resurrected garbage
but nonetheless,
you are forever responsible for the cleanup


a picture worth a thousand words
but in me lives
tens of ten thousands words,
including

“this is too shall pass”

<•>
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2467058/writers-block-kick-the-editor-out-of-the-room/
finally finished fin
spysgrandson Nov 2015
my cousin liked to have breakfast
at an open air café, with his fiancée, on Fridays
the owner knew she loved French breads, having
been schooled at the Sorbonne  

the bakery made them at his behest    
he would tell his staff to keep one for her
and to bring a bag when served;
she always saved half for later  

rush hour was madder than usual  
that night, until the bombs blasted
and brought the synovial silence that comes
in the wake of wondering, what
has happened?    

the sirens screamed soon enough
and my cousin smelled the smoke  
cordite, yes, but burnt baklava,
Maamoul as well  

his fiancée came to him that night  
watched and waited to hear if anyone they knew  
was lost, their hands clasped tight, breaths shallow,
in the languid hush after the city slowed
to its mournful rest  

the sun rose, the skies clear, crisp, to their surprise,
and they went to the café, where the owner apologized
for the wicked, wicked world, and for not having baguettes
after the bakery died
I must thank a friend at Facebook for posting an image of a candle for Beirut--the horrific events in Paris last night overshadowed the loss of 43 the night before in Beirut--a bakery was one of the two places bombed--I wrote of the Paris incident while it was unfolding--this one belatedly
if i remember accurately he puts hand between her thighs she gets wet her body tells him she wants him she puts hand between his thighs she feels hardness his body tells her he wants her a little blue pill and KY lotion don’t convey anything except maybe we’re too old for this sexuality was once the most defining intention in life but not anymore when youth perspire it smells **** when elderly sweat it’s malodorous yet in another breath old people are more appreciative know the hurt humiliation of neglect invisibility they secretly harbor passions beyond contemporary standards old age is ground zero for truly authentic perversity desires unfulfilled in youth



i don’t remember when the disenchantment began was it part of some greater change Dad’s illness death leaving Chicago my dog’s passing 9/11 or simply old age at some point my life stopped feeling like adventure all the crazy dreams aims aspirations cravings longings insatiable hungers wild experiments beautiful women everything slowly fading away leaving only ghostly empty disenchantment a profound sad knowing the world is never going to heal get better the whole brutally honest realization greed corruption poisonous toxins overpopulation think tanks planet candidates anger hatred atrocities will triumph i know i must not listen to this voice inside me these feelings of disenchantment if i can learn to heal myself and try my hardest to love forgive others than i will succeed in this harsh existence no matter what the world does



in my garden grows an abundant jalapeño patch i share it with my postman Fernando he picks ripe peppers for his wife Barbara she makes salsa with the jalapeños then Fernando shares Barbara’s salsa with me anyway Fernando served 6 years in the Marines and is of Mexican descent he recently told me a story about a holiday he shared with 2 fellow Marines at a ******* beach in southern Spain Fernando described a seashore bustling with many women exposing their ******* all of a sudden Fernando spotted this amazingly gorgeous long legged female wearing nothing but flimsy string thong she walked into a cantina the 3 Marines followed Fernando's buddy set up tripod behind amazingly gorgeous long legged woman and started shooting Fernando explained she turned enraged yelling at the Marines i commented to Fernando his Marine buddy ought to have first asked consent he replied we knew we should have but who gives a **** we’re Americans everybody knows Americans are ******* when people from other countries find out you’re American they deliberately treat you like an *******



October is pivotal April May June July August September mornings shine bright early dusk comes late then suddenly October bursts on scene changes everything mornings grow darker days end sooner October is the culprit this month 5 Fridays 5 Saturdays 5 Sundays old dog painfully arthritic legs climb stairs sound of waves crashing against shoreline distant stars in night sky cooler breezes blow whiff of death in air harvest your wheat oats barley cook your squash last of corn tomatoes eat your pumpkin pie swig your cider you know what’s next now familiar footsteps tread on path come to take you home back to place before the beginning you’ve got to pick up every stitch must be the season of the witch



Mom spoke about memory a fogginess she says comes over her she began by admitting she realizes how she camouflages so people won't notice how bad she truly is because they might not want to be with her she says it does not scare her it is just part of getting older she recognizes it in her friends Mom says she very much wants to remain independent she knows her house how to maneuver in it she feels angry she didn't sell the apartment when the market was better though she loves her home does not want to ever wind up in residence for the aged does not want anyone living with her she is used to living alone doesn't like idea of a caregiver in the house this passage is difficult for her in a new way somehow i think the difficult challenge for us all now is how to help Mom manage on her own and continue to empower her with dignity she is a brave woman turning 90 in late October woman descending a staircase
Baby boomer farmers tailgating Carolina red apples ...
Engaged in whittling , rocking beside a powder blue Dodge pickup ..
Mother hens in white aprons selling cocoanut cakes and peanut brittle .
Bluegrass pickers drawing a small crowd , children feasting on corn dogs
with Rock candy tucked away in their shirts ...
Funnel cake fragrance on joyous September nights ...
Copyright March 3 , 2016 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
Carrie Ross Nov 2011
Have I told you about my wife?
Middle aged
Muslim woman
She uh
She uh
She a
Shiite
Catholic
No
Not quite
Not on Fridays
Only eat fish
On Fridays
Unless
Unless you forget
Unless you're next to lake Michigan
Have I told you about my African History professor?
Osumaka
Osumaka Likaka
Cotton
Cotton in Colonial Zaire
Not for the weak of heart
If he sees your ankles
He might mistake it as a personal attack
Or invitation
Too much rumble
Tummy tumble
Eat some shellfish
Eat some pork
God didn’t forget
But we did
Whoops
If God saw you break your fast
when you were *******
What does that say about God?
And if God saw you being intimate with Osumaka
What would upset him more?
The fact that you broke your fast again with the *******?
Or the fact that you weren’t wearing your burka?
You just wore the hood?
Good
Thank God for swine
Thank God for shellfish
And most of all, thank God for burkas
Because you are one ugly *****.
Natty Morrison Jan 2012
There are differences
in the weight of our bones
in the curve of our jaw lines
in the pattern of the skin’s stretch marks.
Rule: Everyone will laugh at your differences.

There are differences in how badly your gums bleed
and how they ricochet teeth ‘round the mouth.
between swallowing your tongue
and choking on it.
Rule: Differences are descendants of pain.

There are differences
in the heart’s traffic patterns
the way all your blood looks at a stand still
and how the flow can be a pile up
on Fridays at 5.
Rule: Differences can only be explained through **** metaphors.

There are differences
your hair stacks in one way, and gravity says you go you left
And that’s that.
Your feet and legs will be too scared to disobey
So they don’t.
Rule: Do not mistake differences for instinct.

There are differences
between a shoulder
and a knife.
One is a knife and
the other is a stab wound.
Rule: I didn’t say the differences would be labeled.

There are differences
between a feeling
feeling the feeling
and the feeling of feeling a feeling
And every single one that you have is wrong.
Rule: You should be ashamed of all your differences.

There are differences
that you think are unique and cute
But differences will make you
different
And everyone on the earth or in the ground is
different.
So everyone on the earth or in the ground is not
different.
Rule: Differences make no difference.
blankpoems Oct 2013
Before you get lost in the unfinished maps of her veins
the ones like yours, but not stitched up too many times to count on the ticks of a clock,
make sure that she trusts you enough to tell the truth.
Make sure that she loves you enough to know how you lie.
Remember that every single time you open your mouth, she's wishing
you're saying I love you.
Remember that on Fridays she doesn't want to cook.
And she sure doesn't want you to cook anything that was slaughtered.
Remember that she prefers cheap whiskey over champagne.
And when you're opening your ribcage to show her how fast your heart beats
when she grabs your wrists, make sure the butterflies are set free.
Make sure they find the window.
Make sure they find a home.
Remember that every living creature is just that, living.
Remember that they have a heartbeat.
And when you stop breathing when you see her with her hair down,
when you're thinking about starting a religion about girls with flowers for eyes,
tell her she's beautiful.
Tell her she's so full of the future.
Get her a telescope so you can show her the moon when it's bigger than both your thumbs.
Take her skiing while it's Summer in Australia even though you curse the snow as if it
were born out of wedlock.
Let her know she's not the first but she's definitely the only, and you're so scared of dying.
You never know what you have until it's locked firmly in your grasp as if to not let it run away.
You might lose a lot of blood but you'll never lose your way home.
I don't want to hear the dial tone.
I want to hear your voice, I want to hear you scream.  Tell me to leave.
Tell me that I am the only road that leads you to a purpose.
That in a world of blindness I am so technicolour.
Even though I can't promise you that, I can give you my words, thrusted from my lungs
like wildfire.
Searching for the way out.
Talk to me about religion, please please convince me that there is something out there other than
rotting in the ground for all of eternity.
Bible scripture doesn't whisper of your lips like my pillows do.
I never really thought about pillow talk until they started speaking me to sleep.
I find myself found by the curvature of your spine, of the shadows that take up residence on your shoulders like they have lived there all along.
I want to kiss away every bit of pain that has ever stopped you from smiling at strangers
and let you know that I'm coming home and I will always find your hands.
Let your ribs shake when your heart has had enough.
Let them shake.
Let the rain come through your window while you're sitting there in your makeshift darkroom.
You are the only thing I know about consistency.
And before I get lost in the unfinished maps of your veins,
I will be making sure they lead to me.
jack of spades May 2015
A four-year-old was perched in front of
a boxy TV with eyes only open to
sugar-coated Cheerios and 80’s Transformer heroes
on the screen.
Fast forward to age
thirteen where she flipped through
dusty photography with
eyes searching
for substance
to prove reality from almost-forgotten dreams.
Scrapbook memories aren’t
all that she sees
because,
honestly,
she loses things.
Summer Saturdays and
Fall Fridays and
Winter weekdays spent too wrapped up in her
own head to notice, silently, spring rising
from its deathbed.
Honestly, she loses things.
She
loses
things that should be important
and real, but all she can feel is
the guilt of lost
and faded photography.
Scrapbook memories fabricate times of
color and scent and sound,
of spilled milk and Diet Coke,
of words too far gone to seep from
pen to page because
honestly,
she loses things.
written last year for an english assignment ("write a poem about a memory from at least three years ago" but i can't remember three days ago)
Ted Scheck Dec 2012
This one time,

12. or 13, when me
And a bunch of other kids
From a different neighborhood
Played. Outside. From about sunup
To 9:00 at night. I dimly remember
(This light-bulb memory is the barest bit of energy
In an ancient filament of thought:)

It was a nightmare come to life.
There was this one kid across the River
(Rock Island)
They found him naked and dead,
In a discarded pile of coal.
His life brutally taken from him.
But that was the only time
I'd ever heard of something so horrible. Happening.
It was as commonplace as school shootings.
Which is to say, it didn’t happen in the
World that was ‘As Far As I Knew’.
Outside, everywhere, as far as I knew;
Was just where you went. No matter what.
It’s just what we did. And we did a LOT.

We played. On a job application, I would have
Written that. “Player”. As in: “Hey, I’m a kid.
I mess around. I’m unhygienic and smelly and
My hair is long and arms sunburned and sweaty
And tired and about as happy as any kid
Could be in 1975.

This one time,
I go in this dumpster and grab a
Sandwich the Mgr. of the 7-11 mistakenly threw out
It smelled. Badly. I pretended to take a gigantic
Bite out of it. My buddies weren’t ROTFL.
That stupid phrase was pre-born.
They laughed so hard they fell off their bikes.
Probably painfully so.
I worshiped this praise. Ate it like
Seinfeld eats applause.
They were rolling
On hot Iowa summer pavement, laughing fit to split.
On top of that dumpster, that day, in that single moment,
I was the King of Whatever

The manager heard some kind of ruckus.
The sandwich was in my hand, a cheesy spoiled grenade.
Which I promptly threw at him. ‘Cause he was the Adult
And I obviously wasn't Victor Mature.
He waddled back inside and called the Cops.
Not amazingly,
They were literally right around the corner.
My buddies took off like scalded dogs
I got on my homemade trail bike, laughing so
Hard I pedaled into a sticker-tree.

I didn't know what "irony" was back then.
Back then, I was so inherently goofy, that funny
Hilarious crap was somehow attracted to me.
Ironically, when I tried being funny on purpose...
Fill in the blank. There's a lesson in there somewhere.
I'm pretty sure.

We met at that French word I still can't spell.
Ron Day View.
Cackling like
Loony loons. We laughed out little butts off.

And we rode bikes EVERYWHERE.
Through the trails. There were bike
Trails trailing everywhere, short-cuts from point
Hay to Tree. And oh yeah, I climbed trees.
Constantly. And ate apples and plums from
That mean lady’s yard. She stood in her
Kitchen and glared through cat-eyed glasses,
Daring us. Daring me.
GO AHEAD. PICK JUST ONE SINGLE PLUM.
THEN I'LL CALL YOUR MOTHER!
(Interestingly, we didn't hang out with the
plums which didn't fall too far from Mrs. Tree)

Ate whatever was edible. Wild clover.
Yeah. Grass. And
Crab-apples that held the promise of
Painful bowel movements squirting out of
Your ****. Not ‘***’ because cussing wasn’t
All that big of a deal. You heard it in R movies.
But it hadn’t permeated the marrow of
Our entire culture. Not yet. It wasn’t all over
TV after, say, 8:45.

Nothing about ***. Absolutely Nuttin' Honey.
'Cause I'd be making stuff up in 1975,
When I was 12. Kissing was just...
You know.

We messed around, got into and out of trouble.
We laughed. The future hung over us like
Those mean-sounding thunderclouds,
Miles away, but moving from the North-East,
Because severe weather in Iowa always came
In the same direction.

It’s what we did. It’s just about
All we did as kids. Man, we were crazy, and had
Crazy fun.

We built bikes out of spare parts. They were low-
Slung and cool. Mine was always breaking.
I did a lot of stupid things, and somehow,
Somehow I got away with doing a lot of
Stupid things.

I believe in God. Now.
Way back then, I was Catholic. I don’t
Know if that sufficiently explains it
Or not. We ate fishsticks on Fridays during
Lent. We went to church sometimes
On Wednesday nights, the Guitar Mass,
And on Sundays. The Mass felt like it
Lasted 93 minutes, like our services do
Now. But it seemed to go on forever.
It as about 45 minutes, and we would always
“Leave Early” which meant, we’d take
Our Communion, solemnly, eyes
Downcast and humble, but I would slow,
Then stop, lost in the visage:
I looked up at the Man on the Cross and
Wondered when the Priest would ever
Get around to explaining why He
Died for my sins.
Someone would wake me from my
Reverie, and whisper, “Please move ahead.”
Shamefaced, I would say, truthfully,
“I’m sorry, Ma’am.” Because, in 1975,
When I was 12, I really was.
Sorry.

Then an hour
Later I was dressed in
Salvation Army rags (today)
And I would jump in the creek with my
Jean-shorts and off-color shirt on.
Sometimes, the bikes weren’t in the picture.
So we hiked. Never ‘walked’ but “hiked” which
Was moving with a greater purpose.
Great distances. The distances weren’t the great
Part. I forget what the great part was, because
This was when I was a kid. When I was 12.

The things you did
As a kid
You store them in a secret kid-locker
In your heart
And your heart, it grows, along with the rest of
You, like a quarter pounded into the meat of
A young tree. The tree envelops the quarter,
Taking it in to itself, swallowing time
That you only try to clumsily relive
(Like I’m trying right now)

It used to be cold, icy, and snowy in Iowa.
I know this; I was out in it most of the time.
Does anyone sled anymore? Toboggan?
Round-saucer spinning uncontrollably at
About 12 mph? Metal sleds with runners
And power steering? Down crazy-steep
Barreling down frozen white hills, crashing
Into copses of thin pliable young trees.
You only see this kind of stuff on Youtube
In somebody’s ‘All-time Epic Fail List
The failure is epic, alright. We’ve moved on.
And not necessarily to a bigger, brighter future.

Ice! I skated on long-bladed racer skates.
I could stop on a dollar’s worth of
Dimes.

And this one time
I
Fell right on my knee hard enough to
Grind a hole in my jeans. It looked like a ******
Meteor crater. A pretty girl named Tina
Felt sorry for me and sat right next to me
She wore pink pom-poms and I fell in
Puppy with her for about three hours.
Then she smiled and hugged me and
I was more frozen than the ice outside
And she left, her Mom picking her up
And eying me balefully as I stood
Pink-faced and flushed and utterly
Confused about the randomness of
What had just happened to me.
Girls from my town all knew
More about myself than myself knew
About me. They had me PEGGED, brothers
And sisters. But not this girl. She was from
The next town over.
That was a good day, if I’m remembering
It correctly. If. I’m pretty sure I am.
Or, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter.

We played a game called ‘Blackman’
Like a tag game in Gym, where
One kid is “IT” and a mass of skaters
Goes from one end of the ice pond
To the other, and the people you capture
(I couldn’t catch an old man in front-wheel
Drive figure skates and I got so frustrated
I gave up to jeers and yells and found the
Trees were good listeners to kids
Who couldn’t skate as coordinated as
They wanted to.

So ten minutes later
I would go into the Warming House, and
Listen to am radio. All the Hits! KSTT! Davenport,
Iowa. On ******* Blvd., which was really
River Drive, because the Hostess Plant stood
Sentinel on top of the hill, pushing out
Sponge-cake filling and HoHos and Cupcakes
And those awful coconut snowballs, and
This one time, in high school, I shoved one
Inside my mouth and tried to swallow it
And about choked to death.

I walked to Mark Twain Elementary School
And ran home for lunch, and was usually
Late because I was easily distracted
And when the school day ended,
I walked or ran home, hurrying, because
Captain Ernie and Bugs Bunny Cartoons were on,
And then Gilligan’s Island from about 4:00 to
5:30, when the news would come on,
And then Dinner,
And I couldn’t stand to sit still
To save my life. I have ADD. I
Know this now. I didn’t know it
(Nobody knew what it was)
I knew something was wrong with me
Or not-right. It was just the way
The World Turned.

Back then. I had no sense of ‘self’.
I was a changeling. I tried to fit into
Whatever people expected of me, which
Was very often extremely difficult, because
These people I emulated and thought were
So **** cool were just as messed up
As I was, maybe more; But I
Didn’t have the emotional maturity
(Or I couldn’t face the awful responsibility
That went with that awful truth)
To deal with it, so under the rug it went.

I was moody and happy and singing
One moment and crying in the shower
The next.

This one time, I was stuck
In the borderlands of childhood
And the beginning of a man
It was safe, for awhile
This one time.
Abigail Madsen Nov 2012
I miss
I miss the nights when things were different
I miss the nights when I asked what pokémon you caught
not what STD you got
I miss the fridays when we asked what you were doing
not, who you were *******
The nights when it was about us
and not them
the nights when we smiled
not cried
Why is it
why is it we want to grow up
instead of living
because before we know it
there wont be any time left to live
and we’ll be wishing to have it back
missing the nights when things we different
the nights when I didn’t have to worry about
losing you
the nights when you remember
what happened
the nights when
you didn’t have to ask others
what happened
when will it end
the nights when
you don’t come home
you don’t call for a ride
and you don’t come back.
because one day
people will be saying
boy I knew her when
when things were different
the nights when partying
meant cake and weird hats
not drugs and bad tat’s
all I’m trying to say is not
how to live your life
but to live your life
people say you only live once
thats true
but
you only die once
don’t make that once
because you were young
and stupid
remember
remember the days when
you could walk yourself to the car
the nights when drinking
meant juice
and higher
meant on a swing
and the only thing getting baked
were cookies.
Now
the twisted meanings
are your life
were your life
when the nights
were different.
What colour are Mondays?
Red? Well mine are.
The same colour
you’d imagine a headache to be,
tomatoes, morello cherries
or like a nosebleed.

Does that mean Tuesdays are blue?
That mouthwash shade,
brain-freeze after a Slushie.
Wednesdays? Perhaps purpley-pink
as burning potassium,
Parma Violets under your tongue.

Thoughts on Thursdays?  Fake-tanned,
tangerine skin, the ugliest orange
for the ugliest day.
But Fridays are a healthier green,
think telephone-pole celery,
cucumber truncheons and kiwis.

Saturdays then? Funeral black
speckled with brown sugar
though Sundays are white.
Hurts-your-eyes-like-snow white,
almost transparent, for they come
and dash by with no tone in-between.
Written: January and March 2014.
Explanation: A poem written on the theme of colour for university.
Antony Glaser Jan 2016
The cafe tables are littered with left overs
pigeons forever observant
their regularity like faith.
Meanwhile its halibut tonight
Friday fish night,
are we so different?
Kate May 2014
2PM
I think most people associate creative people, especially writers
with the middle of the night.
Getting a great idea at 1AM and working until 7AM
and a masterpiece is made

I'm not like that.
I tend to get ideas at about 2 in the afternoon.

I have a great idea for my friends birthday.
That's a great outfit to wear to Fridays dance!
Hmm....that could be an amazing book...
What if everyone in the whole world did this?
Oh! I could totally make money doing that!

These things happen at 2 in the afternoon.
So I'm procrastinating on school right now, AKA taking a break. Go me.
Ember Evanescent Nov 2014
No, I don't think you understand how rare it is for me to like you

To just find you attractive because that is fairly common for me

But actually like you like you

Because those are two very different things

Attraction and affection

No, I meant Affection

It should be capitalized

What I mean is

I don't like ALOT of things

Seriously

I’m freaking negative

I am the queen of all pessimism

I don't like:

Bad grammar

When people pronounce words wrong

People who say Pacifically instead of Specifically

Overly optimistic people Example:(Oh your family is in thousands of
dollars of debt your sister just killed herself and your boyfriend just
cheated on you with your mom and you're pregnant with the baby of
the guy who got you drunk and slept with you without your sober permission who happens to have just moved to Asia to escape having to care for you and his baby? Well, you have your health!) –stab-

The number 9 it sounds like it’s on the edge of something. I hate wishy-
washy numbers that don’t go all the way. Resolve to ten already!!!

Movies where there is a completely impossible happy ending thanks to spontaneous magic

Apple juice

Most flowers

Pink (the color)

The Sun

The month of April

Girls who don’t know how to wear pants. Or a shirt. Seriously. Those aren’t shorts. That’s just a belt that ***** at being a belt.

People who try to ****** me

People who freak out at me when I try to ****** them

Mondays

Tuesdays

Wednesdays

Thursdays

Fridays

Saturday­s

Sundays

F!CKING MONDAYS AND TUESDAYS

When people pronounce french words WRONG

PEOPLE who pronounce french words wrong

Reality TV

Holidays that don't even get you a day off from school

Ducks that are yellow. THEY DON’T EXIST the bath toy company is LYING TO YOU

Sticky hands

The color yellow

The color orange

Colors that just seem too… happy. It makes me want to light them on
fire. And impale them.

Obnoxious hair colors

Girls who wear jeans and skirts simultaneously

Overly colorful rainbows

When people talk into your ear and you can feel their warm breath.

Being drenched in water

Character or word limits

Signs

When I get all disappointed because I dreamed someone I hated got hit by lightning and it doesn’t come true

When I wish really REALLY ******* a star but it just doesn’t come true. Then I have to go and fill the grave I had all dug up for them.

Plastic hangers

Man, I HATE plastic hangers

Walking

Running

Standing

Any kind of action that doesn’t include limply lying around

When I look at someone with extreme loathing and they don’t spontaneously combust. It’s very sad.

Raisins

When you THINK it’s a chocolate chip cookie and it turns out to be
raisins. MAIN REASON I HAVE TRUST ISSUES!

But, I do like you.

That’s saying something.

I LIKE YOU.

Really.

Honest.

But you don’t realize how rare that is.

:P

…God, I’m so violent. I should have that looked at...

Well, there's your positivity for the day
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT AND ADD TO THIS LIST OF THINGS THAT ARE VERY HATEABLE

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