I'm in a closed box
With tape on the top
Don't have any scissors
Have to use my fingernails
Scratch Scratch Scratch
Doesn't work
****
Maybe I should shout?
Let me out?! Let me out!
No one is listening.
I look through the slit
Through the clear tape
I touch my hand to the top
Of my cardboard box
All I see is white outside
I go to curl up a bit
Moving my hand,
But I can't
It sticks
To the top of the box
And I tug & pull
But it doesn't come off
I let out a small sound
I prop my other hand
On the side
And then I realize
That it's now also attached
****
Panic creeps into
The back of my brain
I pull very hard
But to no avail
I start to scream and thrash
As my skin
Touches the box
It sticks
And now I'm still
Still as can be
The box is holding me
Prisoner
The more I tug
The more I feel
Myself getting tugged
Towards it's surface
What is it's purpose?
I put this box in
The back of my brain
Long ago
What was in it?
I really don't know
Or I just can't remember
I'm overly uncomfortable
Then I realize,
I'm in it
And it's trying to consume me
I shouldn't have done it
I put my, myself in this box
And I tossed it into
The back of my brain
I have to refrain
From screaming in pain
As the box let's go of
My skin
I hear the schick schick
Of the tape peeling off
The top of the box
Opens very quietly
I stand up and stretch
Afraid it'll happen
Again
And get out of the box
Before it changes it's mind
And I look around
It's all white
So, this is what the inside of
My head looks like
Boxes upon boxes
Are stacked up like skyscrapers
I see some scissors
Lying beside the now open
Box
I look around again
Then I grab the scissors &
A box,
Slash the tape
Hoping to find all of
Myself again

I am here and it is the day after.
I lift a pile of unread mail off of a chair and open the blinds,
And watch the sun boil the dust in the air. I set and I take it in.

The room smells of old corsets and perfumed talcum powder.
An antique Lady Schick Consolette hair dryer
Hides partly obscured under the heavy frame of the carved mahogany bed
Along with stacks of magazines and catalogs and…………
God knows what else lurks there.

And I realize that I am the only one now lurking,
Looking into a room that had been forbidden to me
The soul domain of the lady of the house.

But she in not here to make things tidy for this impromptu visit.
She would be so shamed by my eyes taking this all in,
Her secrets, her pills, her special candies, her oils, her perfumes -
All of the alchemical accruements of femininity in jars and tiny boxes.

And the symbols of her wizardry, her diamond encrusted Eastern Star ring,
Pendants, broaches, earrings, necklaces, bobbles, bracelets, clasps, loose pearls-
From a strand I broke long ago during happier days.

The sun dust boils from this cauldron now,
This stuffy, over stuffed chamber of perfume and chocolate,
Of daybeds and special treatments, laxatives, gels, powered and pills.
I dream…..a can of gas and a match would be a fitting end

And then I see it on the dresser, an old photo of a family, a pretend family
And a face is cut out of it, his face…….and so I feel, for a moment
Her pain and see the world has she may have seen it. So be it.  It is done.

Gott,
Lass Freude sein!
Denn ich weiß nicht
was halb Liebe heißt
und dann auch nicht
was halb Weh
ich weiß nicht
wann genug, genug ist.
Jede Sekunde schallt in mir
mit ihrer ganzen Kraft!
Sie tut weh und lindert.
Gott,
Lass Freude sein
heute, diese Tage..
Schick mir lieber Gott
während meiner Verwirrungsstunden
die Lichtspur einer Hoffnung.
Gott,
Lass Freude sein
inmitten meiner Liebe.

"When I stutter, I am speaking my own language fluently."
-Erin Schick

studious skinny scruffy scribe

My utmost humblest apology
for inducing the following
cerebral calisthenics upon your cranium,
but the cost of friendship
with yours truly
(me – a foo fighting,
eagle eyed, beatle browed, beastie boy  
christened Matthew Scott Harris)
doth newt come
like some hootie and the blowfish
super tramping
cheap trick linkedin to
wings at the reo speed wagon
spinning zz top soundcloud.

Scathing, scolding, screaming,
scorning, searing, sniggering,
sociopathic sarin soaked skewed
squirt, sputtering, squawking, sleepily
staggering, stabbing, swaggering
sweltering sadistic, sarcastic,

savage, systemically systematically
stigmatized, supersized saber sharp
schick shaving, shunned, sabotaged,
scarred, scorched, smote, sanguine,
stippled, speckled schizophrenic
sensibility, spurring, seething,

somewhat stultified, sophisticated,
spellbound spirited scabrous
schlemiel schlemazel, stenciled,
sundered sniveling sanguine storied
snakebitten sojourning *******,
skeptical shoddy sophomoric

screwball, subtly sagacious,
stunted, sclerotic, scrappily
shuffling short, Shylock
styled sideburns Semite,
sainted Shasta sipping
shriveled sad sack,

sullenly syncopated, synthesized,
slobbering sybaritic, scruffy
sheepish sketchy scalawag,
Socratically scrutinizing, seizure
stricken, stoically sneezing,
shamed Skidrow skeezer, shifty,

sweaty, sham shaman,
supremely spidery, schmaltzy,
sylan seeking subsidized succor,
self shuttered, sequestered,
sidelined, shiftless, shabby,
semantically snazzy, soldiering,

shrieking, skulking, somber,
stooping, Segway scootering,
schmart spendthrift, Swahili
speaking, straitlaced, streamlined,
spongebobbing, sandal shod
sealegs, squarepants sporting

spectacles, sedate, sensate,
sentient, ship shaped,
shanghaied, salubrious,
slithering, snakish, stuttering,
sluggish, smashface scarred,
sober, solitary, sangfroid

skidamarink singing, Shamokin
speaking scrivener, scuzzy,
spunky, starved, submissively
suicidal, sunburned,
salaried shuffling senescent
snoutish soundcloud shutterflying
snapchatting schnorrer.

(a poor excuse for legs),
and get me the latest
sophisticated prosthetics advancements,
whereat integration of cultured stem cells
into custom made appendages
allows, enables, and provides
unfortunate recipients of amputations
to experience sensations.

No more will yours truly
(skinny legged sexagenarian)
envy amputees fitted with smart limbs
equipped tricked out arms and legs,
cuz he will be proud owned
with false limbs
(mainly legs, I did not decide
about equally spindly arms)
finding a once nasty, short
and brutish solitary
Norwegian bachelor farmer
transformed into a very charming, tall
and humane debonair troubadour
rivaling the likes of any swain.

No insult meant
for those handicapped,
who experience(d) phantom limb
perhaps linkedin to
fierce near mortal kombat,
wondering if stayin alive
after surviving serious wombs
that killed fellow combatants
trying your darndest
to feel worthy earning a purple heart,
(a distinguished military decoration
awarded in the name of the President

those who got wounded or killed
while serving in the U.S. armed forces),
with attendant laurels such as
handsome veteran benefits,
answering the call of duty
nevertheless daily reminders
being survivor as a foreigner
waging war, when host country
loathed American military as infidels,
whose countrymen bathed
innocent defenseless civilians
in blood of barbarity.

Stop saying sassy sobriquets schooled
***** spindleshanks...
studious skinny scruffy scribe.

Scathing, scolding, screaming,
scorning, searing, sniggering,
sociopathic sarin soaked skewed
squirt, sputtering, squawking, sleepily
staggering, stabbing, swaggering
sweltering sadistic, sarcastic,
savage, systemically systematically
stigmatized, supersized saber sharp
schick shaving, shunned, sabotaged,
scarred, scorched, smote, sanguine,
stippled, speckled schizophrenic

sensibility, spurring, seething,
somewhat stultified, sophisticated,
spellbound spirited scabrous
schlemiel schlemazel, stenciled,
sundered sniveling sanguine storied
snakebitten sojourning *******,
skeptical shoddy sophomoric
screwball, subtly sagacious,
stunted, sclerotic, scrappily
shuffling short, Shylock
styled sideburns Semite,

sainted Shasta sipping
shriveled self secluded sad sack,
sullenly syncopated, synthesized,
slobbering sybaritic, scruffy
sheepish sketchy scalawag,
Socratically scrutinizing, seizure
stricken, stoically sneezing,
shamed Skidrow skeezer, shifty,
sweaty, sham shaman,
supremely spidery, schmaltzy,
sylan seeking subsidized succor,

self shuttered, sequestered,
sidelined, shiftless, shabby,
semantically snazzy, soldiering,
shrieking, skulking, somber,
stooping, Segway scootering,
schmart spendthrift, Swahili
speaking, straitlaced, streamlined,
spongebobbing, sandal shod
sealegs, squarepants sporting
spectacles, sedate, sensate,
sentient, ship shaped,

shanghaied, salubrious,
slithering, snakish, stuttering,
sluggish, smashface scarred,
sober, solitary, sangfroid
skidamarink singing, Shamokin
speaking scrivener, scuzzy,
spunky, starved, submissively
suicidal, sunburned,
salaried shuffling senescent
snoutish soundcloud shutterflying
snapchatting Schwenksville schnorrer.

You pump my pumped ***** lovingly with your pumpin' love stick
in our ripped Coleman tent when the thickset air is so thickly thick,
before I shave my furriest under-parts with your razor-sharp Schick,
in the days when I traded baths for a hollow promise & a moist lick

I cannot breathe in terrible industrial zones, where industrialists are
industriously industrious, because girls are calamitously calamitous
with pimply-red, skeeter-bit legs greased in oil-slick, fatal deet from
smoothly-shaven, Schick-razor-burned ******, to swollen, pink feet
Nothing is fine for hearts arrhythmical in lumpy ***** chemiatrical
after the N.C.I. floods lymphatical sytems with poisons genotoxical

You pump my pumped ***** lovingly with your pumpin' love stick
in our ripped Coleman tent when the thickset air is so thickly thick,
before I shave my furriest under-parts with your razor-sharp Schick,
in the days when I traded baths for a hollow promise & a moist lick

You pump my pumped ***** lovingly with your pumpin' love stick
in our ripped Coleman tent when the thickset air is so thickly thick,
before I shave my furriest under-parts with your razor-sharp Schick,
in the days when I traded baths for a hollow promise & a moist lick