Lights change from
RED BLUE YELLOW to WHITE.

Bass drums change the pace of our heart beats.

People are surrounding us like one whole mass, they are all the background, the way they dance sets the tone.

But through all this chaos I'm NOT alone.

I see a beautiful angel.

Her eyes like diamonds.
Her hair like roses.
Her smile like moonlight.

She calls my name through the crowd.

I only see her
& she only sees me.

I make way towards her, struggling through the dancing bodies.

When we meet, she takes hold of my hand.

Her skin is chilly.

Then our hands start melting like ice in someone's fist.

& suddenly were not at the Disco Party anymore.

Were indulged in light pink liquid which tastes so sweet.

Our feet are wrapped in white satin.

Our hands have become one.

& my heart is budding rapidly, it's a garden.

MY heart.

She is MY angel.

Finally I wake up to my alarm, time for work!

As I mop the bathroom floors & restock the toilet paper I think about the little angel who visited me in MY dreams & made life seem so wonderful.

We bonded for life in what felt like twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes of my like that changed how I felt about the world.

Ever since that day I moped with a smile & a twinkle in my eye.

I Love you Pumpkin!

As they lowered my mother’s casket into the ground
I held on to my father’s hands tightly
I looked at my father—failing to read him
His grey eyes looked at nothing in particular
And lips uttered words only he understood

He let go of my hands abruptly and started walking ahead
Leaving me behind with my aunt and her husband
I stayed with them till it was time to go home

Home- the word sounded strange to my ears
What good was a home if you did not have a mother to go home to?
One who you could talk to about all your worries
Rest your head on her lap and feel all your tensions drift away every time she stroked your hair

But I had to go anyway—It has been raining and I was soaked to the bone
When I got home
The air smelled musty and everyone was still in their “mourning clothes”
If I had my way I would throw away my Wednesday Adams inspired frock and Mary Janes into the fire once and for all
My father, aunt, uncle and grandmother sat around the kitchen table and tried their best not to weep into the food that was sent by the neighbors
I had no appetite to even begin with so I left the table without saying a word
I went to my room changed my clothes and flopped on my bed
I was too tired for anything else and wanted to be left alone for the rest of my days
But this was just wishful thinking
My problems started during the next couple of days
My aunt and uncle had graciously stayed with us for 2-3 days, before leaving on a Friday morning
But not before my aunt took the liberty of rummaging through my mother jewelry box stealing a keepsake or two
“Oh something to remember my older sister by” she laughing said
But I knew better
This had upset me a great deal but it was the least of my worries

My father had started behaving strangely
Coming home late into the night and bringing with him empty bottles and strange odors instead of dinner and clothes
Forgetting to restock the fridge and pay the bills on time
I was busy with school but I pitched in to help whenever I could
But nothing ever pleased my father!

“Lola why are the eggs burned” that earned me a pinch on the arm
“Take out the garbage” he would yell out and smack me across the head
“The soup tastes like dishwater”

The complaints increased with time and the beatings as well
There were 7 days in a week and he may be spared me for two
Everything and anything ticked the man off

I on the other hand was changing colors like chameleon from blue to purple and looked more like a ragdoll then a 14 year old girl
I hardly fit into my school uniform anymore

I could not remember how long this went on for but soon enough it was routine
He would beat in the day
And come to my room to sooth my wounds during the night

He never apologized- all he had to say was this “I love you pumpkin”
As if that was enough to heal the cigarette he placed on my arms and legs

My bruised face
Purple eyes
Broken bones

Things took a turn for the worse on my 17 birthday
My father would only come home now at night just to slowly creep into my room and check on me
Not on my wounds but my body instead
My eyes remained closed the entire time but that never helped
He was big man and had me easily pinned to my bed
He slapped me about when I tried to get away and thrashed around like a fish out of water

He only had this much to say
“I love you pumpkin”

Going to the police did not help
I could not inform my aunt and
My grandmother was buried six feet under the ground

July 1st The day of his birthday
I decided to end this once and for all
I made Chinese and baked a cake
My father always got home around one in the morning
So I thought I would surprise him by dressing up like his lovely dead wife

I walked into my mother’s room for the first time after she passed away and opened up her walk in closet.
I didn’t waste any time in looking at the dresses and endless arrays of shoes and handbags
I picked out a black dress—one of my fathers favorites
Adorned myself in her precious jewels and spirited on her favorite perfume “Haiku”
So it was the first thing my father would inhale when he walked into the house
Just like I predicted the vile man finally came home
I made myself comfortable in the family room but sitting on my mother’s favorite chair with a glass of wine

The front door suddenly creaked open and I could hear the sounds of heavy footsteps making their way to the living room

The lights came on and I got into character
My father was very startled to see me
“Luna” he croaked
“Yes John It is I”
The man was definitely drunk
I put the glass down and stood up to embrace him
He ran to me like a child
“My darling how I missed you” I mimicked
I gingerly embraced him before coaxing him to sit in my mother chair and offered him the wine

He protested but I did not take no for an answer and begin to massage his neck
Just like the mother used to do it without getting sick
And hummed a tune of my own
After an eternity later I could see he was a little calmer then before
I continued what I was doing but this time using only one hand
And reached for the frying pan I had kept behind the sofa before hand

Before he could take my mother’s name again
I brought the pan down and struck on the head
I smiled when the blood finally started to trickle down

With a satisfied smirk I only had this much to say “I love you pumpkin”

I could not write.  There was a drought in my mind
I could not concoct a single ****** line.  I told my wife
My dear, I think it's high time
I went and refilled my inspiration

I walked to the store, the one at the end of my block
I surveyed my mind, yet still it was locked.  I shook my head
I can't believe I waited this long to restock
my nearly empty inspiration

Once inside, I browsed the multitude of  sparkling aisles
Searching for a brand to match my writing style.  With little luck
It was difficult to find one worthwhile
to serve as my inspiration

I started reading the descriptions on the boxes
_________________
E­xtreme Naivete
Do you like Rainbows, puppies, unicorns and sparkling vampires?
EXTREME NAIVETE might be just the inspiration you need to
explain to the world why Justin Bieber's hair is just the perfect shade
of blonde.  Remind everyone that there is sunshine and happiness
in everyone's heart if you just help them find it.  Perfect for the 10
year old in all of us that hasn't yet faced the harshness of reality.

Side effects include:  blatant ignorance of the fact that most people
are complete self absorbed *******, increased use of smiley faces,
and tendency to dot your i's with hearts.
_________________

­_________________
Dark and Brooding
Doesn't life ****?  Do you hate how everyone sits around and acts like
nothing is wrong with the world?  Do you feel like you're the only one
who has ever felt this way, like, ever?  Don't get mad, get...eh...whatever.
Tell your depressing story to anyone who will listen with our brand new
DARK AND BROODING inspiration.  Tell the world how you feel like
cutting your wrists and how every day is cold and meaningless.  Write
words that are as black as the clothes you picked up from Hot Topic.  A
perfect gift for a suburban teenager of successful parents trying to rebel.

Side effects include:  Using generic metaphors that include the words
'cold', 'dark', 'lifeless', and 'pointless' to describe your life; the sudden
urge to dye your wardrobe black and gray; and wearing an excessive
amount of eyeliner.
_________________­

_________________
Hopel­ess Romantic
Is there one person for everyone?  Do you want to be able to describe
the way your heart feels in excruciating detail down to the way your
"ventricles ventriculate doubly so" when your special someone is near?
Perhaps you should try HOPELESS ROMANTIC, the newest
in our ever growing line of inspirations.  Your misguided love will
reach new heights with all of the new words you will be able to use
to describe it.  you will be so mushy, that we'd recommend not
standing on open sewer grates after using this product.

Not recommended for stalkers or near ex girlfriends.  Side effects
include the inability to wipe that stupid grin off your face, random
urges to serenade women, and the sudden desire to quit your job to
search for your one true love.  We do not recommend mixing this
inspiration with EXTREME NAIVETE
_________________

­_________________
Bitter Lover
Heartbroken? Lovelorn?  Sexless?  Have you been feeling alone
recently, but can't quite find the words to explain it?  Well worry
no more!  About that...at least.  With BITTER LOVER, you can
focus all your hatred for the concept of "love" into acidic lyrics
of disapproval.  You will be able to spew forth a torrent of
spite and poisonous barbs towards anyone who even looks
like they're happy with their significant other.  Why should
they enjoy themselves?

Side effects include anywhere from snide apathy to seething anger
whenever you hear the songs "Kiss Me" or "Linger",  the inability
to see that your friends want you to stop depressing them and get
on with your life, and the urge to get drunk and tell people how
much marriage *****.
_________________


­After I finished reading, I shrugged my shoulders and sighed
This clearly wasn't the best solution to try.  I went home
I picked up my pencil with pride
at my growing inspiration

Woke up early like I always do, no matter what I'm going through I sit and contemplate my present situation, like is this life worth living or am I wasting it, I got plans for myself but with what I know, I know there's a possibility of removing it from the shelf of possibilities, sometimes I can't control myself, so I get ******* let some shots off and restock, my life is just a ramble that needs to be reshocked like defibrillators to your live stock, cause global warming turned to climate change and they make it seem it's not an issue by keeping your mind invisibly encaged and your nose in the tissue, I've been changing, so when it comes to blaming there's no one to blame but the cats who put our work to shame, **** the industry it's why I live in infamy like the US has for practically an entire century, continuing forensically but fail to catch their own trace of criminology, instead blaming you for your ideology passed down from generations along with theology, some things are more believable like the inconceivable evil that's injected inside the bloodstreams of my people, makin them turn from people to machines, **** that I'd rather be trapped in Saturn's rings but sometimes it's hard to stop some things

- This world has been ruled, dominated, and conquered for thousands of years.. I think it's about time to let that **** lay to rest -

Man I've been living for quite some time, and all I've seen is the world go from a bright shine to a darkened shrine, but I guess that's what will happen when you're born into a world that's already fastened their seatbelts for a global blastin, end the nukes end the fed end the ******* who will leave us for dead while they happily sit in bed waiting for their master Satan to come in faster, the worlds a disaster but it can be fixed if everyone pitches in to dethrone their "masters", mathematical factors plotting out disasters cause they're done on purpose like previous stories remastered, some will ridicule me but it won't matter when they realize the truth that's been hidden educationally generationally, you're serviceably useful to the machine aka the system, but the system needs you, you don't need to listen

Love.


I grew up in what I later had labelled for me as “une famille anglaise typique” which consisted of me, my brother and my parents. It was as typically happy as those typical families that can be found in typical children’s books and children’s imaginations. We were that ‘close-knit family unit’ type family and we fitted perfectly into that ‘ideal family home’ of our typical red-brick English terraced house. It was one hundred years old but felt older and we went to church on Sundays. We were boring, safe, long-skirted.


We loved each other with the sort of love attributed to our type of nuclear state and I’ve always found it both funny and convenient that nuclear is a word for both bombs and families. Like the people who thought things up had wanted to draw our attention to how we were a touch away from detonation and a mere countdown from demolition.


Mummy blew me full of buck-shots; her Love was fired in rounds. Each cartridge of anger settled deep but left only pleasant traces behind. They lodged beneath my skin, etched with Protection and Compassion and Parenting, and those words bled internally into my immune system so that I knew how to identify hatred and remove the threat of it from my body.


Love.


If you’d asked me of Love I would have said that Daddy rubbed it through my hair when he said “Goodnight” so that it crept through my dreams when I slept. I would have told you how I’d clung to the fence of the infants’ playground until my brother had come to tell me that it was OK to let go. I suppose I might have said that it was an underrated ingredient in Mummy’s baking that she kept in a cupboard all by itself.


I would have passed you as many clichés as you could bear to take and I would have delivered them all in the half-smiling manner of a typical intelligent six-year-old girl.


Love.


We don’t sell clichés anymore. The business of Happy Family Stereotypes fell flat and we bailed out of the sinking ship in divers’ gear that only made us sink faster. Mum forgot to restock her shelf of ingredients and the time for Typical skidded through our fingers like shopping lists and childhood.


It’s not that we no longer lace our shoes with the same strings; only that the strings have been forced to fray and have shortened themselves with knots. It’s not that we don’t continue to Love each other but that we ceased to remember to love ourselves and, when we did that, there was somehow less Love to go round. What should have been an excess curdled and I watched it rise like water vapour from hedges after a frost.


On all of our To Do lists we manage to exclude the most important detail: Love Yourself. If we were to remember the task’s existence then we’d procrastinate a bit until something easier came around. We overlook ourselves and yet people still say that we humans are selfish creatures.



Too selfish to Love ourselves?


It’s not simply that self-deprecation is in fashion (although it is) or merely because we want to draw pity from those who spectate our lives (although we do) because it is with utmost sincerity that my friend and I agree that “if I was my friend, I’d loath me.”


We sit in town on benches by the fountain that sometimes forgets to spout water and rinse out the colours of our lives in the summer rain.


She says;


“Sometimes I’m scared that my friends don’t like me, because I can only ever see myself as annoying.”


I say;


“That isn’t a 'Sometimes' thing, Evelyn.”


Love.


It’s such a difficult thing to hold onto; like an idea or an aftertaste.


She laughs like I was cracking jokes on the paving slabs and says;


“Do you think we’ll ever grow up?”


And I ponder it because I know we’ll grow old but that’s not really the same thing at all. I wonder if I’ll ever grow out of my petulance and fantasies and idiocies and excuses.


“Not really. I don’t want to, to be honest.” To be honest; I say it like I'm the sort of person who wears truths around their neck and invites others to borrow them.


“Me neither. Everyone wants to fast-forward to Prom and then hold time there like, like, I dunno - like they would hold someone’s hand.”


“I don’t.” How relieving it is to confess that I have no interest in the event that 'you just have' to Love.


“Me neither.”


“It’s just an awkward excuse for dressing up and then standing around, pretending to look pretty.”


“You going with anyone?”


“Of course I’m not,” I laugh and hope that she isn’t either so that we can carry on being two lonely, ignorant, inexperienced best friends who’ve never tasted kisses and who have no concept of the term voluptuous. Boys don't fancy girls with flat-chests and freckles.


“You should go with Aidan.”


“Why, because we’re both as short as each other?”


Love.


I laugh at her suggestion even though I know how stepped-on I’ll feel when he arrives at Prom with a tie in a shade that fits my dress and an arm around another girl.


When I was nine, I followed an instruction manual for making a Secrets Box and the first secret I squirreled away was his name. I wrote it on a piece of paper and punched love hearts into it with red pen.


Love.


These days we’ve taken to exchanging banter in Tutor or Maths and I always make sure that I never make anything that’s too much like eye contact in case of humiliation. I busy myself with the fear that, if he looked at me too closely, he’d realise that I was staring back at him with my nine-year-old self. He’d recognise in my face that I still have the secrets box, empty of all but his name, and although I don’t quite believe that I’m in love with him I know that I smile inside when we have good conversations. I know that if he asks me to Prom, I’ll say yes and not just because he is the only boy with whom I am on eye-level.


Love.


“It’d be cute,” she says and I lean away, holding up my hands as a protest and a shield.


“God no.”


And here I go, hating myself again because I have absolutely no intention of ever telling her that I keep my heart like a secrets box. I confide enough in her to say that I don’t care for myself but starve myself of honesty when it comes to caring for someone else. For which, in turn, I procrastinate on the task of self-centeredness a little longer.


Love.


I don’t know much about Love. I know that there are four types – Philia, Storge, Eros, Agape – but who could say where exactly they filter into my life? I know that I ‘love’ beaches, I ‘love’ Rolos, I ‘love’ pencil sharpenings and the smell of good books but the truth is that, when it comes to Love, I'm a sherbet love heart that's been left to dissolve in a glass-jar ocean. I'm a Cadbury's Dream that chose to melt itself out. I’m a strawberry lace that someone likes to chew the end of.

I looked into the mirror
I saw my true face for the first time.
For the distortion of "should be's" definitions...
"What I need to be's" definitions...
They were erased from my planning board.
Of my reinvention...
Television stars are "everybody's fools.."
As I listen to Amy Lee sing..
"People's entertainment" that my mind tricked me into having to imitate. Inadequate tools.
In my "wrecked toolbox" that I thought that I need to bring.
As I started to look at those "real" stars around me... Ones who selfeshly started to reeducate..
My mind to restock the tools in my once "wrecked" toolbox...
I saw what my face truly reflected..
A beautiful man mislead by needing to be "seen" as someone... A shining "star.'
I once shined just as bright until my insanity wrecked it.
Now that I've rebuild what I have destroyed...
I'm the new "man In the mirror.."
As I hear Michael Jackson sing "making the world very clearer."
Looking back at what things that I truly have achieved... I see a clearer image of my reflection in the mirror...
Images that are the "truer Me" and such are much more clearer.

MY DEAR HEART. STOP. IT HAS BEEN TOO LONG. STOP. YOU HAVE GROWN COLD WITH HURT. STOP. YOUR DRUM IS OFFBEAT. STOP. BUT REMEMBER WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG. STOP. YOU BURNED AND PUMPED MOLTEN GOLD AND WERE UNAFRAID. STOP. REMEMBER THOSE DAYS SO THEY MAY COME AGAIN. STOP. THIS PAIN IS NOTHING NEW. STOP. WE NEED IT TO FIND THE JOY WE LOST. STOP. YOU WERE MADE FOR LIVING. STOP. NEVER FORGET THIS. STOP. THE TIME HAS COME TO OPEN SHOP AGAIN. STOP. WE MUST DUST OFF OUR WARES AND RESTOCK THE SHELVES. STOP. I KNOW IT HURTS. STOP. IT IS MEANT TO HURT. STOP. THE HURT REMINDS US THAT WE ARE ALIVE. STOP. AND WE ARE ALIVE. STOP. COME AND FEEL THE SUN AGAIN. STOP. COME FIND ME. STOP. I WILL BE WAITING FOR YOU. STOP.

GIVE MY REGARDS TO THE LUNGS.

If I could tell them the rocks I turn them to
When loud commotion start a hectic running war,
I grab, I throw, restock as the fighters do
Watching them hurl to the ground as mine beating, tore.
Where ever stepped on, these certain tiles will break,
One path is my home, God, I can not hold
Twisters and questions commence upon the shake
On ward! they call, where is the force to be bold?
No two sided blade as this was ever so fatal
Thus up pours the light blood from this narrow transaction
Bandage, if found my dear wanted Excalibur cradle
Rocks would soon fall and let my agony fraction
So come rubble, gather, and produce me mine sword
This one to mend cuts, a love of such needed rewards.

The floorboards have done their crying.
All the sticky flap-jack has been spent.
The sweetness, and energy of youth has run out
in the biscuit-tin we call our lives.

The times before this will always be missed.
But now is a time to freshen your face
with a cool, calm cloth.
Wipe off, those, your last of tears, and restock.

Now stand, the size of a cut on the tip of your finger,
in that vast empty tin.
Gaze up at the stars, and admire them
as they reflect around your box's silvery sides.

Or, at the witching hour, hear the flicker of a cigarette
burn in the silence of a leafy drive.
Keep that sound and let it echo, only for you,
in that spacious box.

And the next day, having worked hard,
You will look upon the world with another sense of beauty
- not just seeing the trees and fields in the afternoon sun.
That afternoon, your cup of coffee will taste the same as that very first time.
Its smell fused into your lungs, luring you to try.

Put that in your box too, and close the lid. Tight.

“Hey. I heard about this country we could visit.

Would you go, if it was with me?

Well what if I told you it was a bird country, and everything was made of feathers.

Yeah, ocean and desert colours, soft and sleek and it glimmers like a dream.

Songs? Yeah, it’s full of ‘em. In all resonances and all keys, some of them mimic but most of them are original pieces.

So, would you go with me?

Why?

Oh, I’m just bored I guess, just feeling stale I guess, just feeling like there’s something out there I want to see.

                                                    (I don’t say that I want to see it with you).

Oh, you mean, why with you.

Well

When we were in the park the other week you stopped to talk to that guy with a sulphur crested cockatoo on his shoulder and you smiled when it bopped its head when you said its name – Larry, wasn’t it?

And you laughed for the longest time after we invented an adventure history for him and the bird.

That he was a pirate sailing the oceans to gather the gold and jewels to win the hand of his beloved.

The bird sniffed the air and pointed towards islands of treasure and scratched maps onto the deck of the ship.

He was only in Sydney – we saw this by the harbour, didn't we? - Because his ship needed to restock.

It would be one of those old school wooden ones and it’d look real quaint and beautiful next to the metal ferries swooping in and out of Circular Quay, next to the titan cruise ships that take up half the harbour.

Remember that?

                            (If I thought it would work, I’d sail ships and become a jewel thief for you)

Oh, no, no baggage limit – bring all the poetry you want. They give paper for free on the plane, even.

We can buy seeds at the duty free. No, Not sure about pens. I’m bringing my ink set anyway.

Haha, yeah, I still calligraphy faces for people who’ve lost theirs.

                                                                            (I could draw a book of you, though you don’t need it)

It’s a week round about trip.

Just us two, and animals that fly to and from our hands.

We can take bicycles and skate around the island and climb the dead volcano where gigantic nests hold eggs in warm rocking slumber.

                                                    (Perhaps we can be each other’s volcanoes and warm each other)

Oh, it’s casual, don’t bring your moleskines, just your two dollar notebooks. Weather will be light, so not more than a hundred pages.

So, does this mean you’ll come with me?

There's a funny little rhyme
about sticks and stones.
As if broken bones could ever amount
to the words and hate filled "jokes"
directed at the outcasts.
Broken heartstrings bleeding the blues
as we try to empty ourselves and feel nothing at all,
don't you dare tell me that hurts less
than a broken bone.
As if depression and emptiness
can be healed by a simple first aid kit.
Every year bullies restock their arsenal
of pain inducing attempts at tearing people down.
If a kid breaks, and no one is there to hear it,
do they make a sound?
Or are they just washed out background noise
as the dismissed phrases like
"kids can be cruel" or "you know how kids can be"
are stuck on repeat?
We cannot allow that to happen.
For if you cannot see the beauty in yourself,
get a better mirror,
look a little closer,
stare a little longer.
There has to be something inside you
that made you keep trying
when everyone tried their hardest to get you to
quit.
Something that helped you put a cast
on that broken heart.
Something that resonated, deep within you that
they were wrong.
They have to be.
I mean, why else would we still be here?
We grew up cheering on the underdog,
because we see ourselves in them.
So you can sit there and recite
"names will never hurt me".
Of course they did.
But that's okay.

today i threw away your first note to me
its been a month since you left
i no longer fear what i will see before i run away in darkness
but rather what i wont see as i
run towards it in the light
every one makes it seem like you can just move on
but have the ones making it seem that way ever been blindly thrown into an ocean of want with weights tied to their ankles?
you were my ******* in human form
every curve a line
every touch a sniff
its hard to hold back the urge of negative actions at the sight or memory of you
but at the same time i fight a war just as major as those actions with the opinion and set expectations of everyone else around me

i wish i could have realized the danger that was to come when i no longer loved you but rather the memories of you

im waiting to restock the empty shelves that align my insides
its been a month since they were filled
even though they were filled with stale expired items
id rather be stocked with useless things than be emptied completely

If I ever had five minutes to myself,
I’d get a book down from the shelf,
Curl up in the comfy chair
To enjoy the peace and quiet there.

I’d do my best to just ignore
Toys and games scattered across the floor,
Or the cobwebs dangling from the light
And the ***** dishes from last night.

I’d fight the urge to load the washing machine,
Then give the stove a perfunctory clean,
To fold and iron the clean laundry pile
Which has been mounting up for quite a while.

I’d remind myself I’ll go insane
Fixating on the grubby windowpane
And I’d warn myself that I simply must –
Not trail my fingertips through the dust.

I’ll keep a calm, composed demeanour,
Resisting the tug of the vacuum cleaner -
Because maybe if I ran it around the place
The house wouldn’t look quite such a disgrace?

To the sticky surfaces I’d turn a blind eye,
And that dodgy smell, which would seem to imply
That something, somewhere in the back of a cupboard
Highly likely in mould is now covered…

I’d disregard with gargantuan intent,
Cards and gifts which should have already been sent.
And school supplies which I ought to restock
Because they need glue and scissors around the clock…

I’d caution myself that I’m still a beginner,
At preparing a healthy, balanced dinner
And that sometimes meals go unplanned
Plucked from the remaining vestiges at hand.

I’d forget to berate myself that I don’t succeed
At tidying up at lightning speed,
Nor keeping my calm, nor staying unstressed,
When faced with an eight-year-old who just won’t get dressed.

I’d admonish myself that for my peace of mind
I must make more effort to relax and unwind,
To not grab some down time would be a mistake…
But – oh shucks – I must make that Birthday cake!

So I quietly replace the unopened tome,
Glancing around my disorderly home
And remember I am now a mother, a wife,
And reading books was in my past life.

But on the plus side I have giggles and smiles galore,
And tickles and snuggles and cuddles and more.
So I’ll try not to let the clutter and mess
Become a reason for concern and distress.

And instead of becoming a source of displeasure,
I’ll allow myself these short years to treasure
For soon the chaos and hubbub will abate
And I will have fewer things on my plate.

And who knows, in the future; maybe one day,
I’ll miss the turmoil and disarray?
As I’m reading my book, quiet in my chair
I’ll wish that my brood were once again there…

I wonder where would I be
If not for the Sharpie
To keep myself organized
Permanently

As I store my life in boxes
With short stories on top
So I'll know where to go
When I need to restock

I even Sharpie my name
On the tags of my clothes
So both my clothes and I know
By whom they are owned

Oh the Hollywood tragedy
If my pirated DVD's
Where not all color coded
By a rainbow array of Sharpie's

Plus they're the perfect party favors
With the overindulgent guest
For weeks they can look in the mirror
And see all the fun that they missed

There is nothing I like better
Than pulling out my permanent pen
And marking down forever
Whatever mood I'm in

I'm camping inside, I swear
The outside is such a mess everywhere
Wild creatures with guns and strict order
Supplies won't last; this will get much harder
I need to go out to refreshen and restock
But the world outside doesn't need the flock
It is peaceful, clean, ******* heaven without us
Once this is over, we'll ruin it by creating a messy fuzz
Maybe it isn't that bad to stay here instead of anywhere
I'll stay here even after this is over, I swear

Looking through my mental cupboard
I find I’m a little short on Meliorism.
I’ve been relegated to using Optimism,
Which doesn’t taste quite the same.

Adding a pinch of Sanguine flakes
helps, but makes it a little spicy.
I wish Ebullience wasn’t quite
so expensive and hard to get ahold of.

I thought I was all out of Dolor
But I found a new jar behind
A box of Pessimism, which
Is 2 weeks past it’s use-by date.

So I will dump it along with a
Packet of dehydrated Doubt hidden
Behind a whole carton of Ennui
That has never even been opened.

I think it’s time to clear the shelves
And restock with all fresh and new
So I can cook up lots of good things
And feed them to the hungry world.
ljm