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MissNeona Apr 2015
Some of them are part hilarity, part shame...

The thing is, there are so many reasons why I shouldn't have worked that job...

I was between 16 + 17, overworked, super ADHD, brand new driver, horrible with directions (and these were the days of maps and phonebooks... >.>).

I was usually running late,
not really prepared,
costumed,
carrying things,
haphazard
and I had (and still have) plenty of issues doing standard issue human things...

there was this one time that I remember going up to East Side Marios at the time...
and again,
this is over 10 years ago....

dressed up as a large bird...
and now I'm a fairly large human as it is...
especially for a female around 5'10" and in highschool, I was around that height already.

With this head,
I clock in at a good 7"...
toting either balloons, flowers or some other gift...

I wander through this restaurant,
asking waitresses to direct me to my location.

I get there, do the song and dance thing...

and I'm pretty sure I totally slacked off most times and did 1/3 songs or whatever I was supposed to.

I can't remember if the rules were never told to me proper,
changed or if I just anxietied the **** out of the situation and failed to deliver.

After I was done and trying to make my way the hell out of there.

I'm extroverted,
but not a fan of people seeing me in costume,
touching me,
trying to meander through waves of people dressed as a bird..

and just a plethora of other things.

I preferred being safe in the shop and just tinkering away.

Anyhow, while I was trying to make my escape, a waitress came over and informed me that they had another birthday party and she asked if I would be so kind as to go and say hi to the other party.

Now, being the good little roman catholic school girl that I thought I was being raised to be (save for the glaring oxymoronic behaviour that I tended to exhibit in shame when nobody was paying attention to me...)

of course I would agree to say hi and make someone's day a bit better.

I made my way over there,
and as soon as I appeared she screamed at the top of her lungs,
sprung out of her chair and dashed over to me.

Her arms flailed and found themselves all over my person,
rubbing and molesting with a intoxicated fervour I had yet not been in receipt of at that tender age.

Now, don't get me wrong, I had molested and manhandled my share of unsuspecting, awkward nerds at the time in my amazonian haphazard ***** youthful mode...

but around that time, most thought that I was much too strange and dorky to engage with.

So luckily, most wouldn't be able to get near my bubble,
especially not to the extent and excitement that this woman was sporting.

I fumbled over my words and sputtered out a, "Uh-uhhh.... Happy birthday?"

To which the woman gleefully exclaimed, "Aaahhhaha! It's aa giiii~rrrl~"

and at this point,
in youthful mortification i was silent
a heavier set bald man let out a lecherous chuckle, "Uh hue hue hue.... my turn."

All I remember was bashful waving and me trying to make the quickest escape my chaotic form could.

Now, I don't even remember how long I held this job for,
because most of my memories of the position involve some sort of failure and folly...

so, I'm not sure if I made a clean break and if I heisted the additional awkwardness from another story and mashed them together,

however.... on my way out,
I remember somehow bashing into a waitress and having at least six glasses of beverage go all over me, her, the walls and floor and make a hell of a clamoring all about.

I remember being absolutely ready to expire by the time I made my way back to the van to change out of the confounded outfit that made my existence even more cumbersome.

I am pretty sure most of the joys of that job only come in the retelling of the incidents in how entirely horrible they were to experience first-hand.
you are the tiniest of scattered things
remembered in the cloudiest of dreams
so vivid when i sleep, sink deep, or
fly high into my head,
you are the characters in the books i have read,
the heroes, both living, and dead,
you are among the greatest of my ambitions,
you are a man, and to become one like you were is my mission,
but you are missing,
you were father, healer of hurts, great counselor,
confidante,
you were there when i was in the room,
but i was not,
when i broke into two,
a shell of me, and i,
wishfully, blissfully,
irridescent moon,
you are, silver-hair, scattered through the many rooms,
the sudden, unexpected trill of an old familiar tune,
you are sometimes the songs you sang,
sometimes the silences
sometimes the gentle rain
sometimes my tears, or violences,
the woods we walked, the talks we talked
the cluttered house,
faded graphite, scribbled in the corners of notebooks, on walls,
in phonebooks, and on all
of my cards,
you are often here
when i am gone
and i am often gone
when you are near
it is the reuniting that i long for,
it is the forgetting that i fear.
you are all around me, but fading,
you are a pencil drawing,
losing its shading.
a perfect snapshot, on aging paper
once and only once a perfect snapshot, later
smeared, torn, lost, or forgotten,
burned, replaced with another, eaten by moths,
found wet, molded, yellowed, or rotten.
Returned to earth, or dust, or ash,
and though i long  to hold you in a perfect memory..
time...
must pass.
i miss you.
Simon G Tehle Dec 2012
I come from the low-downs,
The after parties and the mornings,
Tough to wake up from.
I come from fast, domestic cars
Driving ninety miles per hour
Away from problems
Down country back roads in Saxesville;
I come from beaten children.

I come from down under and up top-
Places where it would literally be
A miracle
To meet anyone new.
I come from a son and a daughter,
A brother and a sister- Friends
But only from a distance.

I come from moments where, suddenly,
It gets serious and quiet
And everyone stares.
I come from falling phonebooks
And martini glasses,
Dry, with two olives.

I came to accompany my brother.
I came from farmhands and family babies
First borns and middle borns
I came from children who grew up
Too fast.
I came from a man and a woman
And I came to find my own way
In lieu of theirs.
Tommy N Feb 2011
I still haven’t bought gloves,
             though I had steel-toe boots for awhile.
Callouses are waiting for you to lay hands bare
to everything you own. You can go years without feeling
the bottom of your own table.

I moved Dad into his new house.
This brings the total to 18 moves in 10
years. Mostly in 20 hour windows.
You were around
for 7 or 8 of them

I read once that most of dust is actually stardust
from micro-meteorites. It’s not true.
It is actually dead pieces of you.
I’ve inhaled more of us than anyone.

Item highlights:

250 lb. End table with hidden safe inside
    Combination: unknown
Garbage bag with mom’s clothes
     and one Phillips-head screwdiver
Four landline phones tangled
    with their cords in a laundry hamper
Seven phonebooks in a neat cardboard box

Madalyn: Dad still has the small wooden sign you made him
                     the one that says “Dad’s Workshop” in blue glitter-paint.

Steve:        Dad has recently bought a toaster oven, and he loves it
                     as much as you love yours. He gave me the same speech
                     about the difference in the taste of hot-dogs.

You are both still in the pictures at his house. It startles
me when your faces appear on the screensaver.
Written 2011 during the MFA program at Columbia College Chicago
gsx Mar 2014
"for thirteen dollars
ill tear apart
1 big Texan phone book

no deal if raining
. no refunds.
you must provide
the materials"

"tear apart
my phonebook
for twelve dollars"
says man

"exit the area"
I repeatedly bellow
twelve dollars is chump change
I'm better than that

im like a siren
I can't stop screaming
at this man
his face is turning purple
he's choking from fear
I continue
it is nice to me

I glare him in the eyebalks
"HOPE YOU LIKE YOUR
BIG TEXAN PHONE BOOK
SAT UPON FOR MILENNIA"
I SCOFF as I sit upon it

he stands
"that phonebook ain't yours feller"
i am aghast
he snatches it from me
and shoots me in the gut

i lay in the dirt
writhing in pain
he steps near my head
and leans down to whisper
calmly in my ear

"no refunds"
he stomps on my face
and thus ends my reign
as king of ripping
big Texan phonebooks
into two smooth halves
for thirteen dollars
Sukanya Basu May 2021
He had a car that made his mother proud,
A metropolitan man, a man of dreams!
The women had their phonebooks out,
And their legs well below their skirt,
The metropolitan man shook their hands
And bought them drinks for what it's worth,
His dentist said that he'd retire soon
For his smile was **** pretty,
The Metropolitan man had a solid plan
He would rule over the metropolitan city!

We heard his wife was under care,
She fell down the stairs,
how unfortunate they said;
Well, you and I know they are lying,
She was a prisoner in the metropolitan cave.

— The End —