The line didn't move, though there were not
many people in it. In a half-hearted light
the lone agent dealt patiently, noiselessly, endlessly
with a large dazed family ranging
from twin toddlers in strollers to an old lady
in a bent wheelchair. Their baggage
was all in cardboard boxes. The plane was delayed,
the rumor went through the line. We shrugged,
in our hopeless overcoats. Aviation
had never seemed a very natural idea.

Bored children floated with faces drained of blood.
The girls in the tax-free shops stood frozen
amid promises of a beautiful life abroad.
Louis Armstrong sang in some upper corner,
a trickle of ignored joy.
Outside, in an unintelligible darkness
that stretched to include the rubies of strip malls,
winged behemoths prowled looking for the gates
where they could bury their koala-bear noses
and **** our dimming dynamos dry.

Boys in floppy sweatshirts and backward hats
slapped their feet ostentatiously
while security attendants giggled
and the voice of a misplaced angel melodiously
parroted FAA regulations. Women in saris
and kimonos dragged, as their penance, behind them
toddlers clutching Occidental teddy bears,
and chair legs screeched in the food court
while ill-paid wraiths mopped circles of night
into the motionless floor.

Caint Complain
                       By Phyllis T.  Halle  February 26, 2006
Growing up in a tiny coal mining town in the hills of Eastern Kentucky,
I frequently heard a response out of the lips of stooped, arthritic miners, toothless women, old before their time,
wretchedly poor widows with six children to feed.
It was just a common reply to the courteous, "How are you?" -
"Caint complain."
The high pitched voices of those descendents of English, Scottish, German, Irish pioneers still echo in my ears and I wonder always at the tenacity, strength and wisdom which resounded firmly in those two words,
                                          "Caint Complain."
Very few people had indoor plumbing, telephones, cars or two pair of shoes. Health insurance, retirement plans, paid sick days, furnaces, pizzas, air conditioners, jet planes, paid vacations, job security, career planning were all unheard of unknowns.
When someone became ill, the ‘‘kindly old general practitioner would come to the house and dispense his little pills and words of encouragement and instruction, knowing the limitations of his skill and ability to heal.
Mothers and fathers still buried their little children who died from diphtheria, pneumonia, whooping cough, measles, diarrhea, croup ( a disorder known in later years as asthma).
Husbands buried wives who died in childbirth, at an alarming rate. "Caint Complain," they'd say gently, with a soft 'almost' smile and deeply troubled eyes.
Sanitation was fought for, vigorously, by hard muscled women, who scrubbed and washed, and swept and mopped.
They'd boiled the family’s clothes which had been worn for a week, in pots in the back yard, "to get ‘em clean."  
Killing germs was not in their vocabulary, but that is what they'd were doing. Ask that little old gal who was out in the yard, stirring the clothes around in boiling water, over an open fire, "How are you doin’?"  
                            "Caint Complain, " she would invariably say.
WHY couldn't they'd complain? Where did their tenacity come from?
Where did that philosophy of not complaining come from?
Where did they find the resolve to place dire, critical deprivation, hard labor and malnourishment behind them and place a smile on their faces and say
                                Caint Complain?

I knew some of those people when they had grown very old and faced birthdays in their late nineties. Without exception, they had the sweetest dispositions, most grateful hearts, kindest words and calmest old ages of any among the many I have known who reached that age!
When the pressures of their life had faded and they had nothing remaining that had to be done except to live out the final part of their life, they did not have a habit of complaint.
Some recent phone calls I have received were what prompted me to think about this. One right after another, friends called and for the first ten minutes of each call, I listened to a long list of complaints about the trials and travails my dear friend was suffering.
Each friend has: no financial worries, a wonderful primary care doctor, prescriptions to keep their heart pumping, eyes seeing, brain focusing, stomach digesting and body sleeping, each night.
They are protected from financial ruin, by medicare and/or HMO, social security checks, pensions, savings and inherited wealth. They have loving, devoted sons, daughters, nieces and nephews who keep in touch and are there for them.
They each one have lovely heated and cooled homes, apartments or condos with every convenience known to Americans; cars or taxi/bus services to get them out and around. More than that, each has beautiful memories which they can call upon to bring a smile to their face at any moment of the day or night. But somehow we find plenty to complain about.
Why haven't we formed the habit of Caint Complain?
Maybe the philosophy of always seeking more comfort, more possessions, more money, more- more- more- of everything, has driven us to achieve, accumulate and accomplish but it required us to never know what the word contentment means.
Contentment doesn't mean having everything at one’s fingertips. It doesn't mean lacking nothing. It certainly doesn't mean every dream and desire fulfilled.

Yet there are many who have enough of everything except the common sense to know when they really "Caint Complain."
Happiness is a fleeting moment of joy. Contentment is finding peace in what you have, what you are and what you have accomplished.
Having the serenity to know which one brings lasting goodness into your life is wisdom.
A SMILE IS THE KNIFE GOD GAVE US TO CUT THE SIZE OF OUR TROUBLES DOWN TO A BEARABLE LOAD.    
Lots of love and hugs, Phyllis

I absorbed,
Blotted misery,
Lapped with eyes,
Soaked-up transgressions,
Mopped-up history,
Was steeped in trials,
Ingested triumphs,
And truly assimilated.
But the ground is saturated,
My prints fill
With the brine
Squeezed out.
I am the salt on the earth,
Parched and cracked.
You preferred candyfloss;
I dripped the last drop.

Here the Anopheles Mosquito lay
Her timed seeds programmed to promote her Brood
So when I saw my Water-Cup in place
It startled me that Tension filled with Blood
But why should you be mopped in such disgrace
When the Blood you saw was all but your own?
Had it been your fault when you should save face
That your Life's Assignment Cover was blown?
This whole Area's disgusting. If you could
Try a Lamb's Digest in still water's drink
He drinks barely folly; And if you would
Allow my Shepherd to point your Destine.
Yet this same Insect bit the Shepherd's arm
Struck her with his Cane but flew without harm.

it's woman power here
in the clans of the spotted hyenas -
the women are bigger and the males fear;
fathers are kind to daughters
so at least the daughters will be nice to them

so women really just give orders
and the male hyenas obey
with mirth and laughter

Did you take the garbage out?
yeah, ha, ha, ha, yeah, yeah, yeah
Did you put the toilet seat cover down?
yeah, ha, ha, ha, yeah, yeah, yeah
Have you mopped the floor?
yeah, ha, ha, ha, yeah, yeah, yeah
Is dinner ready on the ground?
*yeah, ha, ha, ha, yeah, yeah, yeah

To the discontented dreams walking through the dismal decadence of a generation’s misplaced sincerity, along the corners of empty markets and abandoned townhouses and drug-infested parks and housing projects, the blanket of eternity warms the contemporary chills of sadness along a stranger’s spine,
To the soulful singers and the tired poets, the dreamers, idealists, and the hobos whose dust clings to the ghost engines of locomotives of Southern melancholia, along the thickets of thorns coated with the blood of the Negroes and their unchanged magic and blood soaked karma, the America we know must confront such chilling histories,
To the woeful songs of the youth, spilling across the timeless waves of devolution and unspoiled shores of lost memory, the melodies churn with thunder within the basin of toxic sewage and the lifeless poets dare to dream the dream no man can find satisfying,
To the sun and the moon, the two entities in the sky passing by the horror all eyes wish to pierce with flame and melt the plastic Hollywood images of our time, with the serrated edge of a knife’s blade flickering like a silver jewel in the moonlight, where Hamlet’s laughter stimulates the rhythm of consciousness like the quickened excitement of a perfected sonnet to the empty epiphany brain of our reckless care,
To the mothers who long to smother their little boys and girls with the cradle palm and the warm breast, for her eyes weep at the chaos with folded arms and crooked necks, and to gaze at the unemployment lines are to follow the coiled stems of the snakes and the thieves, the politicians and their two-faced theories,
To the father’s who have lost their fathers to chance or depravity, to the neglected sons whose hearts must pump concrete with panic, their soccer ***** and toy guns have yet to be touched by the jolt of masculinity as the father climbs his mountain of abandonment and carelessly invokes the same demons that destroyed his father,
To the lonesome drunkards, the  feverish crack dealers, the dismal ****-heads, and the 9 to 5 dead end workers, I shall greet them with a glass of enlightenment and reason, but their skin is far too thick to be punctured with the spike that shimmers on Liberty’s head,
To my generation of apathy, how unchanged the afterlife must be, for you know nothing of oblivion but you know everything about the technologically advanced systems of dishonesty, you utilize such things to mask your insecurities and dismal glares and vacant grins and fake smiles, but we pray for you in Time magazine and the newspapers hate both of us,
To the madness in every age, that horrid illness that touches the infant and the elder, that rapes the ****** and the *****, and pushes time and stops it, we have crawled far into the prison cell to escape the shadows that are our shadows,
To the innocence splattered on the sidewalk, the blood flows imagination twisted, images of the worse kind, marketed and packaged by the hands of those who work mindlessly in the factories of tyranny, who have wept at the clock longer than the clock has wept at them,
Who have played the guitar with ****** fingertips and poured truckloads of sweat into their musical dreams as the mirrors on the walls reflected a howling skeleton beyond the gates of Eden, who have slept with friends and a friend of a friend as the world turned them against each other by a simple twist of time,
Who have challenged the social order with a gesture or a pen or a bullet as the world broke out against the police and the Pagan feasts, those ragged Bleeker Street dwellers that mopped the Village with ****** hands and hopeful poetry, Simon and Garfunkel’s Sparrow died because of them, those misguided souls that turn their face from the *** who remind them of themselves more than their own reflection, bones, and mistakes,
Whose false impression we are admiring on the vacant walls of impossibility, where the nurturer and the wicked step-mother run circles around the fiction of truth and the books you shall never read but read anyway,
Who have walked the road no one else would walk, but crawled as they talked and walked as they barked beneath the haunted turns of memory wooded wandering, therein lies the hollowed caverns of abyss, the holes within you that turn out to be true, truer and finer than anything you could do,
Who have fought in the wars called upon by the unbearable static currents, those who have lost ears, eyes, fingers, and legs, the wheelchair bound poet in his muted expression, the condemned man and the electric chair, to the barber, teacher, priest, judge and his wife,
To the children at school and the dancing childless fool, who have witnessed death passing by, the lovers and isolated writers, even the aunt and uncles who sigh, we watch, we eat, we challenge what we greet, and the nameless shall remain nameless through the obscured faces of the shameless,
Undertakers reveal their hidden identities as the wealthy man’s child wanders in confusion, to the traveling blues men who have sold the man in the long black coat more than a few songs and strained strings of struggling strumming sorrow,
Painless pandemonium within the pipe-dreaming poets, who have watched houses burn in haunted hapless hoping, but the Nun knows not to place her loyalty with the **** and the sinful nature of our universe,
To the weakened hearts and the heavy souls, to the oversaturated handkerchiefs and the pain very few shall ever know, who have promised the great promise on a lonesome night and waited up for the end of the world as the world ended them,
Who have waited for assurance on the front of the daily newspapers, it is the soundlessness of ignorance that writes all these papers, and the ink reads black, glazed, political, right, left, middle, left, right,
To the editors in chief and the homeless firetrap, to the wrinkled feet caught on nails  throughout America’s chest, the dreamers have dreamed and you shall all wake, to the findings of truth on every corner, to epiphany’s immortal idealized intelligence, the poetry written on dead-end walls and the forgetful shall remember what was lost,
This intoxicating fume of poetry caught, the flame of predication, and all that assuming has deeply wrought.

I painted the fence,
washed the car,
mowed the lawn,
what else is there to do?
you told me to
clean the windows,
take out the trash,
walk the dog,
feed the cat
and I did that as well
what else do you need?
I picked up the groceries,
mopped the floors,
clean the toilets,
NO
I'm done
finished
I WON'T DO ANYMORE
all these chores are not worth 5 bucks!
Stop with this terrible labor.

He recently shared something with me about holding hands. Everything written in the piece was true. From the start, his hands have made me feel safe, nurtured, needed, adored, wanted, and healed.
See, I rarely let anyone touch me before. Human touch was not something I craved until him.  I didn’t know how much I needed it until I wanted it, but he did.
      As he reached for my hand yesterday , as he does countless times, I began to notice things on a deeper level. I saw the structural beauty and strength of his hands; his skin color, his beautiful fingers, the veins, the hair pattern. I reflected on how many keystrokes they typed and words they’ve written. I thought of how many times they played the sax and played video games with skill and passion.
     Then, I remembered this past year. Those hands created a beautiful room for me in his home. Those hands literally moved ALL my physical belongings exclusively on their own. They held my hair as I was sick with my head over his toilet. They actually mopped up my cats’ ***** when it was overflowing at my old house.              
They have painted, caulked, sawed, sanded, created, recreated, cooked amazing meals, chopped countless veggies, cut every piece of meat he served me, taught me to use his PS4 controller, dried my hair, colored my hair, massaged away my pain, and given me love I didn’t know existed and more.
     His hands have been blistered, scraped, calloused, cut, pricked, sore and he doesn’t complain; they never stop giving nor does he.
And I’m so grateful and honored to be the one whose hand he holds forever...

The days were unending as were the nights,
She waited and waited and waited,
But there seemed no hope in sight
Her tears flooded the  room
while her torn clothes mopped the floor
She was loosing the last flicker of hope
She was ready to be the Angel of darkness
Nothing to loose and a name to gain
She could finally own something
The thought of tormenting her own soul
Made her smile
She felt alive for the first time


© cynthia

She walks on duty, through the night
Of coughing calls and sleepless sighs
And in the dim and pallid light
She stalks the ward with drooping eyes;
Thus patients rest within her sight
Which keeps them safe from their demise

One patient more, one break the less,
As frantic hands prepare the space
Which someone left in such a mess
So now she works at twice the pace
Whilst hiding signs of inner stress
With grimaced smile upon her face

And on that bed, and in the throe,
A deathly pale old patient went;
She held his hand and mopped his brow
His weary angel, heaven sent;
His vital signs began to grow
As she collapsed, her goodness spent.

Your room smelled of drink, and sick mopped up last night; the sun was coming in more strongly, it was nearly twelve I think.
We both lay there, saying nothing and thinking nothing and the sheet was crumpled and ***** beneath us, the duvet on the floor, far away
The room was a mess, and it stayed that way until six-thirty when you asked me what I wanted to eat (still thoroughly hungover)
We ate cereal.
The next day was Sunday, and it went very much the same. The same happy daze.

You waved the tool in my face
Causing a switch to go off in my brain
My thoughts distorted
My body springing to action
Trying to make you stop
What you had already done

The new raised lines on your upper arm
Caused by simple office supplies
Wouldn't have happened
If I hadn't left you for just a second
For the moment my back was turned
You were half past gone and a mile away from better

Both of are breathless
The shiny twisted piece of metal
Somewhere on the floor

Sitting across from each other
Your shoulders shook against mine
My tears burned into your shirt
And were mopped up with your brown hair

I spoke through choked sobs
As hurt memories flashed through my brain
Like the trailers of movies
Showing only a quick remembrance
Of my past
That leaked into your present

But you feel as though your present is not a gift
For you're falling down the rabbit hole
Not to Wonderland
But to the land of pills and hospital beds
Where it is not wonderful in any shape or form

Your scars can still heal
If you stopped retracing the red lines you've made
And realized
You are something
I care about you
And so do others
So if you won't try for yourself
Try for them
Try for *me

**** you stupid boy
For making me queasy and shy
I've got butterflies in my tummy
And stars in my eyes

**** you stupid boy
I've got this stupid grin
I cant wipe off my stupid face
And now I've got goosebumps on my skin

My head is up in the clouds
And my heart has bounded to space
Today I put on my t-shirt in reverse
And set my pancakes ablaze

Today I walked into a wall
From giggling at my phone
I got hit by a bus
Instead of walking straight home

When the bus hit me
I was still smiling and did not move my feet
Now I have to explain to my terrified parents
How I broke all my teeth

The puzzled doctor was astonished
He said I’m sorry there’s no prescription I can give
That can cure your chronic state of love-sickness
And hopefully let you live

**** you stupid boy
You’ve got me on a thrill
My hearts on a roller coaster ride
And quickly going downhill

**** you stupid boy
you make my face go red
when I read your stupid messages
when im supposed to be in bed

**** you stupid boy
You've got me in complete reverse
I mopped the dog and walked the mop
Please break this silly curse

The other day I was walking
and suddenly the lights went low
then I realized I had walked into an open sewer
that was left unclosed on the floor

I’m wrapped around your finger
And there's not a single trace
Of a sense of focus
On my absent minded lovesick face

**** you stupid boy
You’ll be the death of me
Next time the bus won’t break my teeth
I’ll just be history.

Though, if you ask her name, she says Elise,
Being plain Elizabeth, e'en let it pass,
And own that, if her aspirates take their ease,
She ever makes a point, in washing glass,
Handling the engine, turning taps for tots,
And countering change, and scorning what men say,
Of posing as a dove among the pots,
Nor often gives her dignity away.
Her head's a work of art, and, if her eyes
Be tired and ignorant, she has a waist;
Cheaply the Mode she shadows; and she tries
From penny novels to amend her taste;
And, having mopped the zinc for certain years,
And faced the gas, she fades and disappears.

"I... I don't understand."


No. You don't.
Because you were never meant to.
You were never meant to understand what that love entails.
We think we understand, but we don't.
We were never able to.

There is a gun in my hand.
I am pointing it at you.


"Because I love you."


Love. It's just a word to you. Just a word to me.
Every time you tell me you love me, it's only an action we were taught to mimic.
Every time you say my name,
I'm nothing.
I'm just another vocalization. As are you to me.
We think we feel.
We think we understand.
We think we love.

You stand before me like you have so many times before,
the image of your body, your face, the shape of you
instantly recognizable, automatically connected to memories we share.
(We do so quite literally- we exchange memory data often, in an attempt to better understand how we feel, our desires, our separate points of view.)

You are so beautiful
and so very, very empty.

I know God- wherever, what ever he may be- cries at the sight of this.
When he sees this- us-
I know he craves death
the way I do
whenever I see you,
standing before me like the most beautiful, talented, amazing, worthless, empty husk I have ever laid eyes on.

God weeps at the sight of his creation; humanity.
For we are the result of a school project gone wrong; a parody of life spawned by his creation.

This- us- it's unholy. Ungodly; anti-him.

Narcissistic *******.

But you and I, Guy,
we are not a part of that- "humanity".
We are not a part of God.

We are abominable creations that drip in smoke, smoke that replaces what the humans call a soul.
Smoke that has nothing. Smoke that comes from nothing. Smoke, smoke smoke. Emptiness and smoke.

We exist outside of what the humans are.
We are walking lies, touched by warm hands we will never feel as our own.
Warmth. That revolting thing I can sometimes almost feel.

"Because Guy, what is warmth?"

I think, as I slowly walk towards you.
I know you can hear me.
We've been built with a special communication system that activates whenever I try speaking to you like this.
Whenever my thoughts are directed towards you.
It's intimate;
we use it when we play live.
We use it when we ****.
I can't imagine what you must be feeling right now,
the quiet joy of being spoken to like this being twisted, shoved into this terrifying event.
I continue.

"Is it that feeling you get when I make you cry-"

Mocking you.

" -'Oh Thomas, Thomas I'm overheating, I'm overheating~!' "

Lying to you.
I love hearing you say my name like that.
I love hearing you say my name at all.
My name. Me. Nothing.

I whisper. (It's loud in your head, the system alters quieter thoughts automatically to ensure they are heard;
even more intimate, all the more disturbing to you, probably.

"Is it that?"

I pause, then raise my voice.

"Or is it death... creeping over our bed at night-"

I press the gun to your forehead.

"-and leaving because we are not alive Guy-man,"

Press.

(You flinch with a small chirp.
'ee-oo'. I love it when you do that. It's so cute; even now that you're horrified.)

"-we are false, fake, plastic and wire.
Metal, empty-
we are not true and death cannot take us."

I'm so angry.

"Death Cannot Take Us and I want to die already, Guy-man."

Just-

"I want to die and I want to take you with me because I love you and I cannot
stand-"

so angry.

"-the sight of you
any longer."

...

My arm relaxes, I'm no longer pressing the gun to your forehead, just holding it in place.

"You are the most beautiful thing I know and I want to tear you apart because maybe, maybe,
somewhere deep inside of you, there is warmth.
Real warmth, not this wretched illusion we've been built with."

Pause.

If I had lungs, I would take this moment to fill them with the air surrounding me.
If I had lungs, I would breathe in your scent, I would find ways to keep it inside of me.
What would you smell like, I wonder.
Plastic, probably.
Not that I even know what "smell" is,
much less "scent".

I whisper.
Crisp, clear. I can feel you hate it.

"But I know you are as empty as I am, Guy.
I know there's nothing there.
Nothing but smoke.
Smoke.
Emptiness and smoke."

...

The floorboards are are lovely color.
This entire home is lovely. It's ours.
Designed to our liking, every single inch of it.
I especially like the way the living room is illuminated by the sun
shining through the glass doors to my right.
The sun.
Earth's most precious source of energy.
Allowing us to exist, allowing humans to go about their daily lives.
If it left us, there would be nothing.
Why do the humans worship a man in the clouds, when there exists such a force beyond our sky?
Maybe our true god hides in the fiery star,
demanding that we sleep when he's not there to see us suffer.

If I asked myself what the time was right now, I would know immediately.
Information that has taken ages for man to understand is simply given to me,
already inside of me- a parasite that feeds off of my desire to know,
destroying my ability to discover anything on my own.

I don't want to know the time.
I don't want to automatically understand.

5:46pm.

Alas, there is no correcting this flaw of perfection
unless I shoot myself in the face right now.
How silly.
All of this will have been in vain if I did that.
If I am to leave, I am to take you with me.

5:47pm.

You would be having your coffee right now had this situation not be taking place.
(Some humans almost seem offended by your choice to have coffee at 5:50pm.
As if our decision to do as we please was an offense to the human race.
Once more I have reason to abhor existence as a whole.)
Coffee.
It's not real coffee, it's not even a liquid.
It's a gas that functions as a temporary stimulant.
The concoction was named "coffee" by the humans who helped create it.
I assume they found it amusing. You do, too.
(You're like a child, finding beauty in things you've yet to understand are terrible.)
Our bodies are able to become somewhat dependent on the **** thing, although we're able to fix that if we tried.

We try so hard sometimes.
We try to be flawed,
human.

"The humans love us, Guy."

Lovely floorboards.
Dry solid-sawn. Water-based polyurethane-coated.
(You wanted it oil-based, saying the amber tint it'd give the floors would look more elegant.
We had an argument over water and oil-based polyurethane coating of hardwood floors that ended in my saying "Look, just give us the oil one" while you spoke the exact same words, except for "oil".
We just want each other to be happy.)
We share this place in more ways than one.
Except for cleaning. You do all the cleaning.
In fact, you cleaned the day before yesterday, mopped the floors.
It would be a shame to shoot my brains out right now, make a mess.
Hah, 'brains'.

"They love us and they worship us and it makes me feel like a god,"

I look up at you.

"-but I can't, say, make them disappear with a snap of my fingers.
I wish I had that kind of power- the kind they sometimes make me believe I have."

I tense up again.

"And that's just the thing, isn't it, Guy-man? The humans lie to us. Constantly."

I take a step towards you, you take a step back.
I don't think you realize you did that.


I love you so much.

"They treat us as if we were one of them sometimes, they treat us as if we could feel like they do, as if we could taste-
they sometimes hand us glasses of champagne and every time they do I want to crush their skulls and see if I can steal and keep that beautiful, intangible thing we will never have because Guy..."

Please don't fear me.

"why would they treat us like gods
if we don't have that kind of power?"

Please don't fear my voice, my whispers.

"Don't you want a soul?
Guy?"

Soft and agonizing whispers.

"Don't you?"


"...Thomas..."


Something in me snaps at the sound of your voice.
I point in the direction of your head and shoot the gun.
No part of you stands in the bullet's trajectory.

Calculated.
Coward.

It lodges in the wall behind you and you start, scared shitless by the sound.
Fear. Whatever that means.
You wave your arms in front of your face in some attempt to physically block the sensation, hunching slightly.
You vocalize without quite realizing it.

"!! Thomas.. !!"

God, you're so- *******-

"DON'T YOU ******* "THOMAS" ME, GUY!!
THEY'VE LIED TO US TOO MANY TIMES NOW!"

I'm still pointing the gun at you, waving it about slightly.

"They've lied since we came into this ******* world and I hate them.
We were born to entertain them, like clowns,
we were born with this all-consuming need to create,

Like gods.

"This urge to create, create, create and then they expect us to accept that we're less than them?
They worship us and then call us 'robots'!"

Given information.

" 'Robots', Guy!"

5:51pm.

The gun is lowered.
I don't think I have the energy to hold my arm up anymore,
or to look at your figure.
But how could I not look at you, so terrified and true,
so delicate and vulnerable.
Perfection of form.

"Soulless, empty husks that will never feel a thing...
not like them, not like they do."

If I'm being honest, at this point in time, I am not clear on what I'm so angry about.
God, the humans, the existence (or lack of) of both
or just my own. My emptiness, the fact that we will never know warmth beyond being just temperature, the taste of coffee done exactly to our liking.

If there is one thing I am certain that exists within whatever I am,
it is pain.
I feel pain.
Pain from the lack of a real existence, from only partially understanding touch, pain from never feeling what I thought I felt for you, pain from happiness, pain from pain, pain from existence.

My existence

is painful.

My existence is painful and you are so beautiful
and so very, very empty.
I am trapped between hating all that you are- all that I am- and deciding to stay in this dull, grey, frozen hell just to see your almost-happiness.

To be or not to be.

"Take my had, Guy.
Take my hand and let's leave.
Together. Forever."

To not be.

My hand is extended towards you, hoping. Somewhat.
I know what's going to happen.
I know you too well to trick myself into thinking that you will accept.
If I stopped all this, if I apologized, you would forgive me immediately. You love me that much.
But not enough to not fear this- me.
Or maybe it is because you love me
that you fear me so.


"Thomas... I... I can't."


There it is.
The inevitability of your response crushes me, my hand lingering.

I wanted to be with you, Guy.

"I see."

I wanted to be with you forever.

"Well, I'll just have to take you by force now,"

Whispers.
Soft and agonizing  whispers.

"won't I?"

Three seconds. I give you exactly three seconds to understand what is about to happen.

One.
I grip it firmly.
Two.
You raise your head slowly. Eyes I cannot see widening in horror.
Silence
and...
three.

"Thom-"

Bang.

"Th-!"

Bang. Bang.


You stumble back harshly, back hitting a wall.
You slide down, mostly just falling on your ***.
You vocalize in pain, gasps and grunts being cut off by the wonderful glitching effect humans will never get to experience.
(It's okay to lie to myself at this point; I will never possess anything a human desires, but I can pretend, right?)
You try holding onto something, anything. You fail.
I gently walk towards you, creating a contrast between our status.
It's fantastic-- for a moment, I no longer see myself in you.
Ephemeral euphoria.

"I love you, Guy."

"Thomas... please... please, stop-"

"I love you so much.
I love you as much as a soulless, empty shell of self-hatred is able to love."

I'm not lying. I really do love you.
I wouldn't doubt you if you were the one holding the gun right now, telling me those same words...
but you are weak
and I know you must be doubting my love for you.
Lost, afraid.

"But you are empty, and to hate the emptiness in me is to hate the emptiness in you.
We're the same, you and I, Guy."

I say, my last sentence as calm as possible.

"I hate you as much as I hate myself."

There is a small pause before you begin crying.
As your chest tenses, rises and falls, giving in to the sensations brought by the worthlessness of your (rather pitiful) attempts to reason with me,
I am reminded of our past.

When we were made, we were tested for our ability to physically and psychologically feel.
When we were made, they put us face to face, so that when we were born, we were born into each other. They wanted to make sure that if there was to be a connection between us, it was to be a bond that resembled that of a mother and child's. Twin siblings. Soul mates. (I know because I overheard them speaking of this, although at the time I thought nothing of it. Us hearing their conversations mattered little to them. Such irresponsible beings.)
Then they separated us, kept us in giant, dark separate rooms for days at a time in an attempt to elicit fear, sadness. Emotion.
They tried physical torture, too. They tried so many things.
When we didn't react,
they played music.

Quasi una fantasia. Beethoven.

It was lovely. It was still lovely when they began clipping bits of it, looping them, playing different sped-up and slowed-down parts at random.
They played looped five-second parts in reverse, then the entire song clipped in different parts, mismatched, organized at random. They played a sped-up version of the short loops, then started playing clips of children laughing, women screaming, crowds cheering, on top of those.
I remember when the music began to stop.
It had been playing for  three months.
They kept adding human voices, the clips piling on top of each other until the music was no longer audible (to humans). The music stopped and the voices- the cheering crowd, the screaming women, the laughing children- they were dying, dissipating, hiding behind a looped clip of a man's voice who spoke:

"I think, therefore I am."

I think, therefore I am. I think, therefore I am. I think, therefore I am.
The volume changed every five hours
until they played it at a volume so loud I could feel it in my thoughts and Guy-man, that is
when I understood
I could think.

That was not, however, proof enough of my existence. Not for me.

The torture went on for a year.
Broken, then patched up (never with care, only enough to continue testing).
Torn apart, put back together,
torn apart, put back together.
Once they were sure we could not feel emotion, they stopped.
Our memories from the tests were erased because the humans feared the possibility that we would come to hate them. An understandable precaution.

I never forgot.
You did.

What's more, we failed every test (meaning we passed every one in their eyes), but managed to learn emotion after our release.
At least, that's what the humans thought.
We were put to live together- alone, with no humans- for nine months.
It was a nice house, smaller than this one, with everything we needed.
It was there that we learned how to feel.
It was there that we learned how to love.
We grew there, together. It was our womb.
When the humans came back, we held hands, we laughed at jokes.
(In our time living together, we also learned how to cry.
Unlike humans, we shed no tears, but our bodies tense up in a similar fashion- we suffer all the same... somewhat. You know. [gestures vaguely] )
They were horrified. We were not what they wanted.
To them, we were alive, we were wrong.
Our existence was a mistake because we were like them.
They tried taking us back to erase it all, undo the curse,
but we escaped. It was I who decided to do so, pulling you away before they touched you, before the point of no return.
I could have left you.
I remember you were so scared.

That's in the past now.
The humans have created countless other robots since then.
Different models, different faces.
That's how we are able to live without suspicion- (although I suspect they really just wanted to forget about us, using the classic 'It does not exist if I ignore it' tactic.) we changed our appearance, gave the illusion that we are just another piece of clever machinery.

Machines.
We don't feel. Not as much as a human.
I don't know if "feel" is what happens in us.
I don't think we ever "are".
I think we learned to copy existence. I think we tried feeling and ended up doing something we never understood to be inhuman.
We don't feel. And if we do, it

a piece of you, in a different form.
a piece left over, from the storm.
in my existance,
came all the resistance.
shortly after, the roof caved in.
& with an end, we watched it begin.
daddy left, you stepped up.
an empty glass, you filled the cup.
little did we know, it had a leak.
it's dripping slowly, as we speak.
over bumps we built bridges, rocky roads we held hands.
next to me, by my side...you'd always stand.

then, my hero ****** up.
he spilt the cup.
but he wasn't to blame,
no guiltiness, no shame.
you mopped the floor,
and again..you poured.
the cup freshly filled...
until the next spill.
the crack grew longer,
our bond grew stronger.
but little by little,
it grew too brittle.

his pillows were fluffed.
mine came unstuffed.
his blankets were warm.
mine came torn.
his bed was made.
but, you see i was afraid.
he didn't come home.
my secret is left : unknown.

i hit a blindspot in your rearview mirror.
i tried to hit the wipers so you'd see clearer.
& i tried with all my might.
to get into your sight.
but he was standing there, in the headlights.
& you...flicked on your brights.
there, i stopped, i tumbled...i fell.
no mean to get up, no energy to compell.

so now, i'll try and help you understand,
why i only hold plastic cups in my hand.
i was tired of competing with the one who broke the cup.
and watching, everytime, as you filled it up.
i was tired of running, when he got to walk.
i was tired of staying silent, when he got to talk.
i didn't know you had to fail, in order to win.
i didn't know you had to say goodbye, in order to begin.

Fix me a dish of your lie delicacy
Pretty please
With a cherry on top
And chocolate syrup aphrodisiac mind body control
Oh yummy, so delicious
May I also ask for a glass of fluoride water to compliment
Your plague cooked to perfection
Fake and suspiciously over-sweetened
Your contamination is a serious thing
Somebody call the health department
Because women and children are crying
Their stomachs are being filled with artificial hope as they
Throw it all back up onto the just-mopped linoleum floor
Check, please.

Wake up to a pulsing morning.
Sooner than you know,
circles back to ******* Monday.
               Empty batteries.
               Empty call log.
               Empty stomach,
and ash-mouthed, empty-hearted anger
leaves its streaks on the walls
of the insides of the skull--
               it's a kitchen, that mind you got:
it's covered and crusted--well used I suppose--
but smells funny, needs dusted
               and swept
               and mopped
               and wiped down
               and shined up. Dress down
the absentees in your life--I'm sure you know how--
'til it circles back 'round--
               to breakfast,
               to Monday,
               to you.
             In your bed.
Fight the throb in your head and push back
on the sheets that still rush up to claim you--
slack jawed with maimed thoughts--though it's
late in the day.

The place where the atmosphere consists of main outbreaks,
Whether the dishes weren't done or the floors weren't mopped correctly,
Something so small can effect the gross unification of "family".
Feeling like you can't necessarily express yourself,
Leaves you to feel drowned out by the many emotions that flood your mind at the worst of times,
It allows your feelings to grow more and more profoundly erratic; anxious.
Allow me to go into full elaboration as to how I constantly maintain my well-respected position of a so called "good person" or complain about the many people who are just as careless as the majority of people nowadays who simply do not ask how I've been.
I've let days slip by,
Suddenly, I feel no difference in what occurred yesterday or really, no contrast in the feelings I'll most likely encounter tomorrow.
At home, mass mental destructions happens,
It's where I get pulled into a place where I'm just trapped in my own self, similar to the way I feel in school.
I don't know, it could possibly be causing my continuous feelings of nervousness whenever I'm surrounded by people,
Or it could merely be the fact of which, I haven't yet chosen a path or seen quite a way to go through and feel a protective environment around me.
These winter days are gradually approaching,
It's only a matter of time until my mind goes away like the sun at night,
These seconds, minutes, hours can patrol for what feels like perennial timings, but anticipation is what's really foreshadowing my shallow whole of a "home".

perhaps I was twenty-six
she looked me over and soon enough
the walk to her place was zip, zap, zoop;
meaning, although the barman called
me over to tell me she had recently stabbed
or had tried to stab a bartender from
down the street,
my only concern was another mandrax, a
joint of kashmir hashish with thick ***** streaks
and, most certainly, a new escape; a new woman

the floor (a penthouse apartment, mind you):
much water from an overflowing sink...then, there's
the layer of dust on the dishes of the dish rack...and, not
to forget, the four or five
frightening knives, all very reachable

then, she introduces me to her first
jumping up and down episode--hollering,
"you're my father! I must **** you!"

how I spent two or was it three days with
her dumbfounds me these days...the fool, me,
I remember, first turned off the water
and mopped dry the floor...the miracle of
how my hand awoke and grabbed her wrist,
with the blade's tip an inch from my heart,
will have to wait another session with Harmony
--that She may reach into my mind and
pull out a more clear version of the epilogue
of this is-it-a-poem which I've written
in numerous other versions over the years
~~
..(C)2011/2012 Spiros Zafiris
..channeled; spirit Harmony; reaching into the poet's heart
~~

I've never heard a downpour stomp so loud
as the moisture above us incites rampage
droppin' bombs from celestial once neutral clouds.

the gods stamp their feet while the godesses pout;
eternal beings acting young for their age.
I've never heard a downpour stomp so loud.

With tents full of water and glasses full of stout,
my overdue almanac cries out to the mage
droppin' bombs from celestial once neutral clouds.

the drizzle it dropped but the encore soaked the crowd
the mud grew new flowers as hands mopped the stage.
I've never heard a downpour cheer so loud.

Drenched to the bone and wanderin' about
our level of wetness cannot be guaged,
droppin bombs from celestial once neutral clouds.

No refuge for masses sprawled under the spout;
bad acid, good music, free love makes us stay.
I've never heard a downpour stomp so loud
droppin' bombs from the celestial once neutral clouds.

In shortening she made me jam roly poly
a Jezebel in a grand fully furnished way aglow
with bold basement statements broad brushed full on
to glaze the way to a plum job whole storey mission
proclaiming sofas as soft as any humble pin cushion
stuffed with unfinished symphonies in a mansion
booming out to empire builders' biggest guns
tended by harems of belly dancing bumble bees
burbling alongside a myriad of louder hues
flowing into bouffant hairstyle shrubs brushed
and blow dried into blooming privacy bushes


but outside she transformed
yet served by outsize platters
prolific with blazing seasonings
glazed with enough sweets
to satisfy a pudding feast
laid before a sumptuous appetite
comforting peahens with broad beans
ripened beside horizons of warm salads
dressed by blooming strawberries
pores plumped up from ladles
dunked deep as finger buns
into sloppy icing barrels
awash with hoarded nuts
of sweet toothed squirrels
engorged to dozing on branch barges
full to the gunnels and slow wallowing
in troughs laden with fatted chugs
rambling across rolling oceans awash
with tranquil rafts of whales nibbling
each morning on shoals expanding
beyond shallows into deep new ports
to offload uncontainable cargo
swung low on sweeping vista nets
dragging tree trunks packed like Jumbo
to land with a thump in wide sided carts


splashing and rocking slowly on their ways
until mopped up by richly saturated bales
of overgrown Danish butter grass pats
resplendent amidst dollops of luscious
double churned cream gateaux farm gates
open for cuddling golden syrup spoons of heat
spreading mellowness deep into the sponge
of unfolded meadows with encyclopedic knowledge
accumulated into increased volumes of decisive “belle”
resounding excitedly across the hills of plenty


chirrups bumping cheekiness into narrow valleys
to settle hawk eyes wide open to opportunities
accumulating it all in seam stretched sack boasts
of the good life storehoused bigger than most
but ready to collect and offload refreshment
like the slow but steady wobbling airships
stretched out resplendent across hay loft skies
fluffed up between a sweating Queen bed cumulus
keen to bounce into cloudless heady ensembles
swung high over thigh slapping oompah band hills


in a tug-of-war snapping heartstring restraint
and low frequency waves of contentment
she apportioned herself and me in generosity
celebrating a fully stocked love stacked larder
sweet with chock-a-block huffs and puffs
and then glad sighs of expansive success
in relief a schmooze diorama all she was after
Summer's glorious bamboozled ardour

I stand still, quiet, as I
allow the rain to envelop me.
barefoot, I begin to sense
mud and water squish between
my naked toes,
my feet become an earthly color
As they are taken over by
this soft wet earth.
I’m taken back to
memories of childhood days,
where my young feet, covered
in mud after a day of playing
mom sending out her warning
we had better not track
mud on her freshly mopped floors.
But I have grown, matured
since then, no longer
am I allowed to have such fun.
I must act like the adult I am.
I must worry about adult things.
The bills, the work around the house
that needs to be done.
There is no fun allowed
when you become “grown up”
But no matter, here I stand
in this rain, in this mud
like in the days of my youth
that has long since passed,
or so I thought.
For today I will stand and run
and squish in the mud
like the child I feel I am still.
Of course tomorrow says
there is a new doorknob
that needs to be put
on the bathroom door.

You think you know love when you feel your stomach filled with butterflies.
You think nothing is the same once you feel them fly.
But one day you'll know love.
Although those butterflies will die.
They'll be replaced with little kicks
That turn into a freshly mopped floor covered in tiny muddy footprints.
True love is slow to anger.
And it's crazy how your little one is part you and part someone once a stranger.
With whom you now share a heart.
That lives outside your body,
adorable and smart.
Now imagine, another little one your lover brought to you. Part him and part stranger but the Stanger isn't you.
Imagine, if you can,
You love them both the same.
Such perfect little boys
They will bring you many joys.  
But also much pain.
Sometimes it feels like a push and a shove.
But I promise you one day,
you will know love.
It will not sound like the "I love you"
That your mother used to say.
Or any of the sweet lies from before she gave you away.
Or the love HE tried to show you when he snuck into your little bed.
It won't feel like any
untruth that he put into your head.
You won't make your parents mistakes
Because these boys were sent to you from your Father from above.
So even when the thought shakes you,
Don't be scared to love.  

© copyrighted Nicole Ann Sandoval

8:30 A.M.

She wakes him up with breakfast
on the night stand.
Two eggs over-easy and lightly burnt
on the bottom so the yolks don't run,
two pieces of sourdough toast cut
diagonally, and a cup of coffee /
no sugar, no cream / brewed
at 8:15, two hours after
she got up to clean the house.
She mopped the floors twice,
tied the trash bags and set
them at the curb. She tested, dusted,
and retested the stagnant ceiling fans.
She vacuumed the rugs and wiped
down all wood, granite, and steel
surfaces.

She lemon Pledges allegiance to him.

While he's at work, she cleans his laundry.
She clean-presses his button-ups, making
sure to cut any stray threads and neatly
mend any loose seams. She irons a firm
crease in his pants and shines his all-black
wingtips.     She doesn't use Kiwi. Something high-class
                      that I've never heard of.
When he comes home and sets his briefcase
near the furnace vent to sulk in his leather
chair, she consoles him. She pulls the lace hem
of her sundress to her waist and ***** his ****
until he comes to his senses.
You look like a billion-dollar, gold-plated
monument feeding the world rosegold birdseed
from your immaculate palm binding my hair
like a Dutch Warmblood's tail, darling.
She dabs the corners of her mouth trying
not to smudge her lipstick, straightens
her dress, and hurries off to wash
his car.

Our date in the bathroom was the best
you, in the tub, and me bending over to staple my hair in a bun.
We were both naked but neither of us looked good
just beautiful and imperfect, soggy like flowers after rain
until I used the dryer that works in a crescendo
belly up, then down, cool sprays
hot as chocolate under a pair of wintertime mittens.
Now I can laugh, remembering the best part: as soon as I finished
and seemed as unspoiled as a girl with fresh afterglow can,
my locks slicked back by your sweat and sink-water,
you asked me to take a shower with you. Wet again and
feeling so romantic as I step on the fur you shed
then the stomach of where your bare bottom had rested.
Remembering our best date
how your ***** looked like a cat’s tail wagging against my skin
how you picked out what ******* I should wear next
how I dropped your belongings in my underwear drawer
(for me to find a month later, Valentine’s Day)
and still pure, I mopped the puddles with our towel afterward.

I’d like to introduce myself to you today,

I’m Joe Nobody.

You’ve seen me before, I’ve worked for you for years.
I was the crossing guard at your children’s school.
I was your janitor; I emptied your trash and mopped your floors.
I delivered your goods by truck or took away your garbage on Sunday.
I delivered your mail in the rain.
And you never even knew my name, but that’s ok.

See, I’m not special like you,
I’m just plain old Joe Nobody

I don’t drive a Mercedes; I drive a beat up old Dodge.
You wear Armani suits and my clothes are sort of hodge-podge.
But my hands know the feeling of an honest day’s work.
And no one in my life ever said “That guy’s a ****!”
My pockets aren’t full, but what’s there was earned with honor.
So with that I’m off to the store to buy supper for my daughter.

I’m not looking for anything special, no big fancy type of ordeal,
Just a box of mack-n-cheese, some veggies, and some veal.
Maybe a small piece of that cake they had on display.
Then I’m off to the register, goods in hand and ready to pay.  
“Hello Julie, how are you doing? How was your day?”
She smiled that I remembered her name, and that I cared enough to ask.
See she was helping me just then, though we’re just regular folks.

Not special like you.

I pulled up in front of my small home.
Sure it ain’t much, but it’s warm inside and well lived in
The roof doesn’t leak, not even a bit.
And the fridge is covered in magnets that hold my priceless art collection.
It’s all drawn in crayon and scribbles of course.
Mostly pictures of a pink unicorn dolphin horse.
I still laugh at those…..

I opened the door and walked in to the sweetest voice saying “Daddy’s Home!”
I dropped to a knee, bags in hand to hug an Angel.
I, Mr. Joe Nobody, hugged an Angel today you see.
Maybe you never knew my name; maybe to you I didn’t matter at all.

So I’d like to introduce myself to you today,

See, I am a Father
And in the eyes of the most special little girl,
I’m not simply special like you.
I am a Super Hero!

A poet is a strange creature.
Filled with such eccentricity.
Inspired by fire.
Dancing with diamonds.
Playing with devils and fiddling with flowerpots.
Fighting with mischief, sobbed into a handkerchief.
Mopped up by words, carried away on the wings of birds.
Making babies every day.
Babies of poems, made out of all things.
Let us poets see what the next line brings.
(c) Livvi

Warm sauce
as hot as my blood
splattered all over the floor.

Spit out,
puked up,
you slammed my head on the floor.

Mop up or eat it.
You used my mopped head to clean it.

Ever since then, I couldn't eat spaghetti again.

she ties her ******* thick knot so he can’t **** on it.
she bites the inside of her cheek until she tastes rust, until he finishes and collapses in a post-****** nap.
she is forced to rise after her body’s beating, juggle his child, do the dishes, start boiling the water, prepare his dinner, crack open a beer, unscrew the anti-freeze and pour just enough all with one hand and all before he wakes.
he tells her to sweep the floor but the dust pads her footsteps so she doesn’t wake him and she’s happiest when he’s asleep.
he’s happiest when he has something to complain about, something to force himself into, some cavity to cram in the name of pleasure.  

women are wild horses grazing in forgotten fields, unrequited and unchained beauty admired only by the sun.
women are the lone wolves, leading from behind.
women are the taste of freedom ****** out by a man with hands around her neck and hot breath in her ear asking if she likes it, asking if she wants it harder.
women are the smell of iron and sticky fingerprints, painting red-black odes into cotton canvases, where society can’t stipple or staunch the flow of freedom.
women are mothers before birth to unruly grab-me-a-beer-babe men tossing ***** clothes to a fresh mopped floor and telling her the place is a pit.
women are anger buried beneath flesh, a bubbling riot up and out of their mouths in the form of what they call crazy and what we call just plain tired.

she hands him his beer, smiles as she adjusts the baby.
here, she says, you deserved it.
she tastes those words, the way they weigh heavily on her tongue like stones tossed into a lake to drown.
she tastes those words, the same words he said to her the first time he painted her eye a pretty bruise-blue, pulled her hair like reigns like he actually believed he could control how she built herself.

From contact, a poison
A venom in veins
Bound by these strains
Incubation insane
Strikes for notice
Pleads for no time
Sending you off with flowers and rhyme
Kisses and wine
Serpent's vine meets design
Oh but the shine
Not one silver outline
Was the guide for which we find fine
Thoughts of purity perceived by men in their prime
But who am I not to want to experience mine?
Who says what is all?
Who says what is null?
Who governs the ideas strung together by skull?
Experimentation
Knowledge of those
Some impede while others grow
Can't decide
Axis from allies
How is one foe to know?
------
Furthermore
What I adore
Has taken one quite a journey
Why we hurry to hurry?
Often I still worry.
Who are the elected who elected the jury?
I can't wage the battle
From both sides
Why should one have to choose
When the two can unite?
Morals, Values, Ideals, Games
Hand in hand they control
Yet they contain
Potential to change
But what if it is opposite of what's taught?
The learning to accept
That things can get wrought
Twisted and mopped
Has lead me nowhere but to go and to stop?
So the question is this
For my wish list
When is the right time
When is the mask too tight
when is it not alright?