Lisa and I were watching one of our favorite series last night, a Japanese manga called “The Way of the Househusband” and I could barely keep my eyes open. I went to bed at a decent hour (11:30) but when I got in bed, I couldn’t sleep, I just laid there. It was rude and caused me to oversleep.

I don’t mean to brag, but I can go from oversleeping, to bushed and showered in less than 15 minutes, I’m really a marvel of efficiency (with still wet hair), especially since we wear scrubs.
I grabbed my iPad, stuffed it in my rucksack, and hey, I was ready to go.

In the living room, it took me a moment to situate myself - it was a very noisy and disorienting environment - what with Lisa yelling at me for running late, but soon we were off.

Just a girl, her lemon ginger Kombucha, and her angry roommate, ready to face the world.

We stepped out into the morning and.. Ughh! I’d forgotten my AirPods. I double checked, not there.
Lisa gives me a threatening look. “PLEASE,” I begged, desperately, “MY AIRPODS!”
“OH, my GOD!” Lisa said, glancing, irritatedly at the Apple Watch I gave her for her birthday.

I ran up the stairs and was back in NO time, really, really ready to go.
Just a girl, her Kombucha, AirPods and angrier roommate, ready to face the world.

My sister’s apartment is about 7 walking minutes from the hospital. As we were walking, I had my AirPods in and was rolling with Kanye. I in NO way endorse his CrAzY. But If I start the day out, with “Through the Wire” and “Jesus walks,” I’m tweaked for whatever gamut Rebecca (my surgeon) has in store for me. I paused the slaps, momentarily, as we passed a herd of boys, but I was bouncing again in a blink.

Lisa and I are in the second week of our two-month, summer fellowships - shadowing surgeons (different surgeons) for “clinical experience.” The first thing I do every workday morning is bring Rebecca a large coffee (from the cafeteria). She comes in at 5:30am every morning of the week and leaves God-knows-when - certainly, well after we do at 4:30pm.

She spends the three hours before I come in, reviewing patient notes and surgical plans. I gently rapped on her open door. She doesn’t look up, but she knows it’s me.
“Good morning,” I whisper, Rebecca’s seated at her desk, working on her laptop. I set the coffee on her right side and after I remove the pre-existing empty cups, I hesitate.

“What’s up,” she says, leaning into her screen to check something as she keys to enlarge it.
“I have a small question,” I say, “Are we supposed to be filling out timecards?” She doesn’t say anything, continuing to examine the - whatever. After a few seconds, I added:
“Quinn said we have to fill out timecards.”

“Did he?” Rebacca asked, rhetorically, after a bit. She’d stopped studying the screen and gotten a faraway look. Then, after another moment, she said, “Well, bless his heart,” which made me chuckle, because we’re both southern girls and that’s shorthand for “f**k him.”

“Thank you.” she says (for the coffee). I’d been dismissed.
We have rounds in twenty minutes.

This **** could be a lot easier
if I wasn't so dusty
or if my aspiration hasn't been disposed
or exposed. 'Thought you'd like to know.
I'm failing math again."
And my game is still obviously whack,
Anyway I got you to come over.
So, with a pretty girl now and drinking kombucha,
all these Facebook friends
I didn't think I'd have to see again.
Beckon me with a tight fist.
Refresh the laptop and let the afterglow echo
back and drift,
over a nose and fascinating lips.
"You know the bars here don't close till very late."
Everything I love will probably crumble
into a glass of soju. Vices
and the soul undressed
and the fish market's funk clings and holds tightly
onto another's thin grey hoodie.
"What do you do?"
Hobbies among other things include googling
or maybe just oogling at an Incheon passerby.
"Seoul tonight is almost as bright as you."

The broncos won And I'm still at a dead end job
Didn't even watch the game, I was too busy
washing trash cans.
Heard about it through some magic rectangle.
The kids call "social media"

about all the different things
Lady Gaga looked like when
she sang the national anthem.
Heatmiser,
pizza rolls,
Dolly Parton
Because one time Dolly Parton wore a red suit, Which I thought was kind of a stretch.
I saw a commercial saying that more than
400,000 babies are born 9 months after the super bowl.
You know what else is right around that time in February?
Valentine's day
I don't think I've ever been less ****
than during the super bowl.
Nobody looks at their man
Half covered in Beer and nacho grease stains
And goes "oh baby,
that buffalo sauce gets me so wet"
"I just wanna grab a fist full of your hair
bend you over these pizza boxes an~"
"No"
"No"
"N~I mean, I'd be into it"
"No"

My girlfriend is in Florida working for Disney right now.
They have her doing laundry in a musty basement with
middle aged Mexican woman.
It's apparently awful.
"Ruins the magic" she says.
Seeing cinderella scurrying around half naked
doing her make up
Wig cap and undergarments.
Snow white with her nose up
asking for kombucha
Won't even make eye contact with the laundry vets
Let alone my intern girlfriend.
Who says these princesses
would sooner **** a man covered in nacho grease.
Then show her any respect.

I asked how the magic wasn't ruined before that.
After watching the play hairspray
when they yell
"CUT! "
and the actors go back to their miserable lives, 
I figured it out pretty young.
This middle class manifesto
Where making a livable wage is our life term goal.
But she is the faithful type.
Loves her a good miracle.

Like when she found out she was pregnant.
Was
She had already lost him.
Or her
I was over 3,000 miles away
With another man
she was drinking herself to sleep
Praying to some porcelain god for me to stop
I'm sure the morning sickness didn't help
Her depression
Or hangovers.
Or the will to tell me, The man already greiving over one lost daughter
we had lost another.
Before we even knew she was there.
I only tell her I love her.

She says she needs me around
because I’m a taurus.
I have no idea what she means by that.
But I love hearing stories about mexican woman yelling in spanish at their iphone screens
half naked princesses doing their makeup in hair nets.
And her still believing in magic.
She gives me something to dream about
while I wash these trash cans.

Like watching hairspray together
Her bending me over some chicken wings.
Our little Princess.

I live in the East
You live in the West
I roll to the right
You lean to the left

You watch the game,
I text my friends for fun.
You write every day,
What awaits me is always unsung.

I'm one that loves vanilla
While you prefer your chocolate
You live life in the open
I tend to close and lock it

I like the night,
You await the morning.
My sunsets, purple and pink,
Your sunrise has orange hues adorning.

I'm early to bed early to rise
You never seem to close your eyes
These days I'm moving rather slow
As you're always on the go

You have your coffee with cream,
I have my Kombucha tea.
You grill up some steaks to eat,
I say pass the salad to me.

Though we're miles apart
In differences between
Commonality we definitely
Have in our love of poetry

f this.
and that.
f the soul-******* siphons.
f the **** ******* on all the things.
f the wretched that ravages souls.
f plundering the vast unknown. f the broken that breaks us apart. f the pain that can’t find the exit door. f the non sequiturs that never stop. f all the thinks I'll never get to know. f the desert that evaporates technicolor dreams. f the reams of unsung ink.

f getting up too early. f never enough sleep.
f having no focus because mind is always trying to escape.
f the architects of this unending industrialized violent puppet reality TV.

f not having patience for utmost important because basic survival in this free range slave menagerie is just too overwhelming and chips away daily at already threadbare sanity.

f the aches under these ribs always begging for more.
f the abyss that eats cravings caved in for breakfast.

f the knowing that knows how awesomely amazingly brilliant loving flipping mind-glowingly ecstatic and jovial like a MF this existence could be.

it haunts me:

iridescent reflective ascendant peacocked wings
fluttering phoenixflies burst from ill-fit cocoons
surfing air so ******* fresh
even the Lorax ain’t got **** to say - he’s dancing
with kombucha in one hand and a DMT pipe in the other
at the festival called, I dunno, Just Because it’s ******* Monday

and we could
love and make and dream and play
all day every day every year every life...

and I look over
at this giddy ******
epic little boy version of me
and I think:
****

I have to keep trying
keep believing in the things
because the thought of leaving him
in this world, as-is
without me

is the hardest thing
I’ve ever had to think

The broncos won and I'm still at a dead end job
Didn't even watch the game, I was washing trash cans.
Heard about it through social media
About all the different things lady gaga looked like when she sang the national anthem.
Heatmiser, pizza rolls, dolly parton
Because one time dolly parton wore a red suit.
Which i thought was kind of a stretch
But i've read stupider things on the internet so i let it slide
I saw a commercial saying that tons of babies are born 9 months after the super bowl.
You know what else is right around that time in February?
Valentine's day
I don't think i've ever been less **** than during the super bowl.
Nobody looks at their man covered in nacho grease and beer stains and goes
"Oh yeah!" Its baby making time!
My girlfriend is in Florida working for Disney right now.
Thy have her doing laundry in a musty basement with middle aged Mexican woman.
It's apparently awful.
Ruins the magic she says.
Seeing cinderella scurrying around half naked doing her make up.
Wig cap and undergarments
Snow white with her nose up asking for kombucha.
Won't even make eye contact with the laundry vets.
Let alone my intern girlfriend.
I asked how the magic wasn't ruined before that.
After watching the play hairspray when they yell cut and
All the actors go back to their miserable lives, i figured it out pretty young.
This middle class manifesto
Where making 15 dollars an hour is a goal.
But she is the faithful type.
Loves her a good hoping.
That's why she hasn't cut me loose anyway.
She says she needs me around because i'm a taurus.
I have no idea what she means by that.
But i love hearing stories about mexican woman yelling in spanish at their iphone screens. And half naked princesses doing their makeup in hair nets. And her still believing in magic. I think it says a lot about her.
She gives me something to dream about while I wash these trash cans.

I want lithium that tastes like
hair intertwined in chain link
on pedestrian bridges.

It'd be spit.
Your spit I swallowed
eyeing the eye of the storm

barefoot on Kombucha glass,
we both felt safe.
The bridge'd be destroyed eventually

but love's a greater monument
than cathedrals built with
taxpayer money and with

lips locked I'd have no
reason to scream
when winds break the trees

or the wind breaks me.
I'd stand my ground
magnetic banded

to the metal behind
what's in front of me
and I'll have the taste

of lavender and humidity
in my mouth instead
of my own blood.

Submissions to the Annual Musical Torture Experiment for 2017 are officially open!

Submit your five songs by emailing them to
TorturePlaylist@gmail.com

"BUT WHAT IS THE MUSICAL TORTURE EXPERIMENT NICK?"

Well me, I'm glad you asked.
The Musical Torture Experiment was started in 2013 by yours truely, Nicholas R Coulombe.
Where I asked everyone I knew, met, or saw on the street, to hand me 5 songs that I would add to one playlist,
listen to that playlist on a loop
AND NO OTHER MUSIC
for an entire month.

I have continued this tradition each year
recruiting Willing victims & voulenteers
to listen along with me.

These victims have many different lives, interests, and genre preferences,
but there is one thing they all have in common.

The blissfull escapism of living in their headphones.

This gaggle of Tune-heads who use their music as a fundamental life resource, a coping mechanism, an escapist fantasy or meditation.
These people offer their body and spirit to music.

Now, for a whole month, they are relinquishing control of their music.

Shotgun no longer shuts their piehole.

For an entire month.
Listeners will not be able to skip or select any music other than
YOUR SUBMISSIONS!

This is the perfect opportunity to force someone to really find whats so amazing about those artists we culturally hate.
Or maybe theirs an oldy that your grandkids Refuse to consider music because there is static or twangy voices instead of bass drops.

Maybe you talk about your love of skrillex and a hipster spits their kombucha in your face.

If you have songs that DESERVE the light of day.
This is your chance to indulge in their exhibition.

want to voulenteer yourself as tribute to listen along with these crazy *******?
keep tabs on what is being added cause you think its kinda interesting?
Or contribute YOUR five songs?

Just
Send an email to TorturePlaylist@gmail.com
by the end of August to participate!

Go check out the playlist itself here:

https://open.spotify.com/user/124409443/playlist/2TAdzDUKx7sfW1uJrqMS7K

(particularly when nursed at room temperature)

I learned that Kombucha
best be kept refrigerated lest
said probiotic drink
served at room temperature
(incorporating live bacteria) erupts
potentially causing
serious damage to consumer
as nearly happened to yours truly,
nonetheless patronizes company(ies),
who manufacture
aforementioned healthy beverage.

Analogous to other fermented brews,
one must cultivate an acquired taste
regarding delicately sipping Kombucha
now if you will kindly excuse
wordsmith henpecked and
away from Macbook Pro
fortunately satisfied with poem thus far.

Hello, I got back to laptop
today - December fourth 2021
after few hours elapsed
got hunger pangs
during brief hiatus
experienced relapse concerning
craving vegetarian hypocrite's delight
meat product constituted chicken sausage,
which greasy entree
invariably caused cholesterol to spike.

The missus (a plump carnivore
to the bone with plucky constitution)
vowed never to purchase
named poultry appurtenance ever again
so help me dog, cuz she
(connoisseur of gluten free foods)
attempts to promote healthy eating.

Indeed buzzfeeding body, mind and spirit
courtesy fruits and vegetables
ideally, preferably, and undeniably organic
helps me feel emotionally,
mentally and spiritually fit
able, eager and willing

to staunch the flow,
whereby yours truly
would become deceased,
thus imperative to jot obit
before that instant I exit
stage door left,

the only occasion witnessing
ala bumbling and fumbling performance
(despite unalterable fact that
life haint no dress rehearsal)
courtesy painless suicide
exhibiting true grit

regarding one generic long haired
pencil necked geek,
whose demise undermined,
when his lovely bones
deteriorated analogous to
rotted fascia and soffit.

I knew a glassy eyed doll
a classy glass idol
red to excess; red lipstick
and red back-less dresses for the spine-less chick
well re(a)d in chiq cosmo - check
but purple(xed) by the cosmos
rotting, like her kombucha and compost

A blanket for you, please cover yourself.
It took so many knots to bring it together.
Now I'm stuck sleeping underneath it, feeling like I cant remember anything but dreams.
It's been in my closet anyways, next to my dying kombucha mother.
They're out of sight, so they are out of mind.
Thank you, I love you but that's only because I know half of you.
I feel better at your house because I have no attachments to your person.
I had one but he has fled now.
Thank you for the blanket Becky, maybe I forgot to tell you.

I listen to books alone and walk to the grocery store to buy chocolate, and other things.

It is surprisingly full for a Friday night.

I walk past the aisles, on a hunt for candy.

Around me the mania of people shopping seems to slow and I forget why I am here.

Oh, yes.

To buy chocolate.

I was listening to an audio recording of George Orwell's 1984 and during the scene where Julia and Winston make love in the field encircled by saplings, I suddenly felt the need for it.

Chocolate, that is.

Bad for my head cold, good for my body.

I also picked up bread, milk, kombucha, and sharp white cheddar cheese, which I later found out, wasn't as sharp as I would have liked.

I didn't eat dinner, but I wasn't hungry.

I just wanted chocolate.

When I returned home, I turned on the recording again. Alone in my studio, I stared at the high ceilings, doing nothing else, and feeling uneasy about it, even with the company of the recording.

Listening to it was like having some omnipotent person sitting with me in the room. I wasn't even interested in the chocolate at this point.

I ate some anyway, feeling a little guilty, but rationalizing that I was trapped inside via this head cold, and there was not much else I felt like doing. I needed to take it easy.

Still listening to the recording, I reflected on the feeling in the grocery store again — the people milling around, standing in lines, and adding stuff to carts. Then I contrasted it with the feeling in the room — the raw space, glowing light, and diminutive demeanor.

I longed to share the feeling of the room with someone, like Julia shared her secret hiding place with Winston in 1984. I knew several people I could invite over, but only one who mattered.

In fact, there was a person spitting distance I could have invited over to ravish me if I had wanted that. But he didn't belong in this space, nor had he ever entered it. Only one person belonged.

The person that belonged was kind, thoughtful, and curiously distracted. He would generally acquiesce to my invitations, in the kind of disinterested way that made him fun to pursue. Despite this reluctance, we always had a good time. A great time, in fact. But once he left, it always felt like I'd never see him again, which was torture. Weeks later,  I would sheepishly send him a message to reconnect, detesting myself for it afterward. The process of meeting up, not hearing from him, and then re-inviting him to meet up was humiliating.

How could a person be so intimate with you one moment, and then ignore you the next?

Didn't he see I wanted him badly. Didn't he want me badly? Wasn't the general consensus that our bodies were meant for each other's. Why couldn't we lay in each other's arms for hours, comfortable and hidden and safe from the outside, like the room above the antique shop where Winston and Julia stayed. Our goodbyes were equally prolonged. The desire between us just as strong. What was he scared of? There were no thought police to fear. No explicit rules against intimacy.

I craved him so badly, it grayed out my sentiments for everyone else. In fact, the thought of ******* someone else after him just seemed...unnatural. I wouldn't be into it. Because anything other than his kiss, his touch, was just a kiss, or just being touched. Physical acts that carried no meaning for me. All I wanted was to create meaning from physical acts with him!

The fact that he didn't express this nagging feeling with his actions was unbearable. That fact that I might...bore him outside of providing physical pleasure, a nightmare. The fact that he might crave me like I craved the chocolate, as a temporary pacifier, kept me up at night.

I wanted to belief that he felt differently. That I wasn't just eye candy, but a human being, with feelings he wanted to nurture and respect.  A human he desperately wanted to get to know, like I desperately wanted to know him. A friend, not a comrade, whom he could talk with about anything.

But it was clear that whatever the motivation behind his disinterest, whether it was fear, genuine, or sociopathic, it bothered me. And despite this, all I wanted was to be around him. I wasn't expecting anything more or less. At least, I told myself I wasn't.

Maybe I expected everything.

1+1=2
we are taught as kids this is right and this is wrong
don't hangout with the weirdos
they eat green fish and drink kombucha
don't hangout with them they sit in circles
they wear every color of the rainbow (even brown)
they don't raise their hands
they always seem like they are talking to spirits
But they
they are happy

I will never drink it again before our reunion

Every day brings a new adventure!
or so the sign had told me
hanging so delicately
on some sort of kombucha based
drink
as though I could augment my life
and invite adventure in just by
drinking a drink
but that's how advertising works
I suppose
and we must be above the ads
because we are all independent and
free
unless...
that too is an ad
and the revolution has been bought and sold
and we are all just loosely strung along
quirks
that are indicative of our specific
ideals of humanity

here's looking at you
white dude with flannel and dreadlocks
and Rastafarian colored shoes

here's looking at you kid with pompadour
haircut, pastel shorts, and a MAGA hat hanging
off his backpack

are we all truly going our own ways
or are we just advertisements for
something better than
being unknown
and undefined?

~ May fourth, 2005
wedded bliss nearly fifty years
half a century almost
me not most favorite grown offspring,
she (when alive) did boast,
about youngest sister and her family,
unlike me – severely socially withdrawn
a veritable wallflower
as a result, I suffered emotional contusions.

When thru life yours truly did
nervously, frightfully, blisteringly coast,
nevertheless her spirit dwells
within wonky tonk prodigal host
crafted in the following poem he doth post
holding tumblr full of favorite brew
probiotic kombucha drink
to thee mother dearest
foregone fading memories
your long haired heir does toast.

Often these days,
the following genuine sentiment
Matthew Scott Harris
doth wish to share
how one and only son,
remembers his mother
cuz about eighteen years
after she succumbed
courtesy of terminal illness
he trots out and updates yearly
a poem initially crafted
when she passed away.

I still reckon eyes how yours truly
analogous to the fountainhead  
of Atlas shrugged off,
whose fanciful essence coalesced
immensely helped  sired,
and yelped ****** ******
when ******* ***** in heat whelped  
at what human biology wrought
doggone muttering schlep
despite being nurtured,

proffered, and registered
tender loving care
within whose womb,
a mature haploid female cell
experienced fertilization courtesy
complimentary male haploid *****
underwent fertilization yielding
zygote thru mother nature's gestation
this sole male offspring born,
thus subsequently after her demise,
yours truly shouldered himself with self scorn.

He clearly recounts
when she felt the scythe of the grim reaper
as if her death occurred yesterday...,
when all mine troubles
(emotional, financial, and physical)
moost definitely
no more farther away
then present moment.

Tempus fugit popular worded couplet
brings Latin alive with succinct precision
or imagine an hourglass
where fine granules
analogous to last remaining
grains representing sands of time
trickle from one to another
(upper to lower) bulbed chamber.

Just prior when coroner decreed death,
yet once in a lifetime opportunity prevailed,
wherein said self (me) chose
NOT to stand vigil at deathbed
(analogous to sitting Shiva)
of she who begat
an older and younger daughter
(mine sibling sisters).

Last breath(s) expelled while mama
tethered to machines,
one or more helped diminish
agonizing, depressing, and writhing
pain and discomfort
figuratively and literally
wracked and pinioned once fitness
and health conscious, flirtatious
industrious, tenacious, and vivacious body,
dinged, harangued, peppered
nefarious carcinoma by dint of
common atomic beastie boy
among certain Semitic people
linkedin to presumptuous inbreeding.

According to google search
frequency of breast, ovarian,
and uterine cancer among Ashkenazi
elicited revelatory statistic
1% of all Ashkenazi Jews
living today inherited
a defective copy of one
of their BRCA2 genes.

Unbeknownst to them,
these carriers of BRCA2 mutation
at increased risk for developing
breast, ovarian, prostate
and pancreatic cancer.

Indomitable esprit de corps
eradicated courtesy regimen of
chemotherapy and radiation,
which latter malignant terminal illness
(no joke) riddled a former robust
Arthur Murray ballroom dance instructor
(think approximately sixty nine years past),
whose coy and coquettish demeanor
instantaneously caught fancy of handsome
twenty something papa at his prime.

Before rigor mortis quickly
stole precious lifeblood, and
final minutes ticked away until
countdown to... realm
of absent consciousness
scant moments before subtle transition
slipped our beloved mother
out of misery (a veritable battleground)
where she did silently rage into deadzone...,
neither final adieu, caress, grief...,

nor poem written...
never communicated to deceased,
not an iota of sorrowful lament
bequeathed, prevailed, relinquished...
over lifeless body (mommy dearest)
relegated limp suddenly
cold stone pilot less body,
where morgue aged corpse
kept in cold storage
(despite aversion to frigid air
exhibited when mama alive)
preparatory to cremation process.

Rather... suppressed resentment
exhibited itself at 1148 Greentree Lane
(partially listed abode -
Matthew Scott Harris,
where family of mine then resided)
by mister recalcitrant,
felt ambivalent carte blanche blasé affection
regarding once young bride,
(who metaphorically
smothered cingular heir insync
with dada i.e. Boyce Brandon Harris),

cuz he (yours truly) overstayed
livingsocial under same roof as parents,
which happenstance situated
at me boyhood home
once located upon
six plus wooded acres;
324 Level Road
constituted the whittled down
once sprawling Leiper Estate,
which encompassed about
one hundred plus acre wood
home to Winnie the Pooh.

Both thee aforementioned
supposed biological guardians
railed, screamed, tormented
(albeit verbally traumatized)
yours truly, upon attaining
mine eighteenth birthday,
when great expectations
greatly exacerbating
emotionally hard times,
which ill suited poet de jure
experienced, brickbats rained

akin to fountainhead spewing
painful pelting piercing
poisonously pummelling (python like
hashtagged with moniker Monty)
down upon these
considerably mooch younger lovely bones,
whose anger (mine) smoldered
linkedin to constant epithets of expletives
out the mouths of those who begat me,
subsequently their livid with rage
tsunami festered within me
every holy moly molecule.

Mine atomized corporeal being
manifesting itself as deprivation
to embrace dear mama
attended at hospital with
both my non twisted sisters;
one hailed from Woodbury, New Jersey
and the younger staked out
modest digs within Bend, Oregon,
meanwhile thee grim reaper
did patiently soon scythe
heading back to his old curiosity shop,
a rather bleak house, I now conclude.

I love you.
Have you eaten ?
I love you.
How did that assignment go in the end ?
I love you.
There’s kombucha in the fridge
I love you.
There’s this song I think you’ll like
I love you.
Did you get home okay?
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.

What you thought of the trial
You didn't have much
Unusual to say
But that five minutes
Of watching your
Beautiful face
Hearing your
Soothing voice
Your silly sound effects
Filled me with joy
Love emanated from
Every cell in my body
God I miss you
But I don't know you
So now I go back
To pretending you
Never existed in my world
Never took my heart
Made me your girl
Dejectedly and
Without your participation
So that's why
For so long
Ive tried manifestation
I don't know you
You trigger me
But I love you
And I'm taking your fame
I was told I reminded someone
Of George Carlin
Can you believe that?
Best compliment
I've ever received
My kombucha joke
Is better than yours