"A leisurely breakfast" their mother would admonish, "aids digestion and builds strong bones..." so what with the imposed inactivity every morning, boredom broken only by Sockeye the family Spaniel, whose want of table manners coincided very conveniently with mealtimes... as he paced restlessly under the table, slobbering indiscriminately in his daily scramble to devour every dangling morsel before supply and demand shut up shop for the night and went home, far tastier... he gobbled down the latest offering of egg white, than the remnants of his own dietary allowance, they just had to get the timing right that was all, or risk loosing a finger, or gaining one depending upon who was doing the dangling, or who was doing the gobbling... he gave an indignant sneeze, not so much a hint but more of a... 'what's with the pepper malarky...'  So that it was only with a good deal of snappy hand coordination, lengthy digestion and sturdy bone building that Rocky was finally able to extricate himself from the table and make the most of what little time remained until lunchtime, meagre time indeed for the Rocky's of this world to hang around with their dogs, leaving their little sisters to help mums do, whatever it was that girls usually did when they should have scooted out of the kitchen faster, when it would have been all so much simpler just to grab a handful of biscuits instead...  Meanwhile, laying in wait in the room above, flat out upon the bedroom counterpane, having recently had their insides stuffed to bursting with a full English breakfast's worth of beach and holiday apparal... and that was just the luggage.    

     The contents of which, up until a week last washday had been snoozing fitfully behind 'Do Not Disturb' signs, cautiously peeping out from the gloomier, more remote recesses of the bedroom dresser, or carefully concealed in cupboards and closets... and being in every other respect by no means readily accessible to public scrutiny of any kind... had been left to their own devices some twelve months earlier with a clear understanding to skip bath nights from that moment on and henceforth immerse themselves in the heady, camphorated pungency of mothball, vowing once and for all never to darken portmanteau lids again... but now, after many hours of arduous laundering and de-fumigation... were now being squeezed and unceremoniously shoe-horned into what had recently become nothing short of an overcrowded sanctuary for the dispossessed.  
              
     Meanwhile, all the luggage asked from life other than be detained under section four of the Mental Health Act, 1983 and be found cosy padded accommodation elsewhere... was to have their interiors vacated, their tranquility reinstated... and with a questionable wink from a dodgy Customs official, have their travel permits invalidated... irrevocably, for despite throwing a double six for a spot of well earned convalescence back on top of the wardrobe some twelve months ago, basking in the shade of a warm Summer Sun, striking up the occasional conversation with the floral decor, third bloom from the left currently answering to the name of Petunia, the still over extended luggage, seemingly with little hope of R & R this side of the letter Q, faced the perennial disquiet of vacational therapy, of being knelt on, sat and bounced upon and be specifically manhandled in ways that matching sets of co-ordinated luggage should not...
                                        
     Tina could be heard quite distinctly in the next street concerning her husbands lack of competence, whilst Red it appeared had become just as outspoken as his wife in that particular direction... as the local self appointed busybody, who lived well within earshot of the address in question would bear witness to as she put feverish pen to paper, writing to what had become a regular... and some would say hot bed of intrigue in the local tabloid concerning how vociferous the once tranquil neighbourhood had become of recent and how certain undesirable elements within the community were to be heard carrying on alarmingly at all hours, day and night... and as she diligently weighed her civic duty against simple household economics as to whether to send this latest block busting eye opener by first or second class post, their parents could now be heard broadcasting, if anything to a wider listening audience than the previous newsflash, some of the more sensational episodes of the previous twenty-four hours as to who was pulling whose suitcase zipper now... although in which direction it should be pulled, they both agreed, wasn't for public disclosure at that time... vowing to draw blood well before the day was out, as three lacerated fingers would later testify and that it was only because of the children that they were going at all... but God willing, they would be setting off very shortly with rosy smiles on their faces for the sole benefit of the neighbours, even if it killed them. 

     Spurred to fever pitch  by this latest 'stop-the-press' newsflash, the same public spirited busybody now threw herself wholeheartedly into further award winning journalism and for the second time that morning took to pen and paper, only now directed to the gossip column in the local Parish Gazette, followed by grievous lamentations of impending bloodshed to the incumbent Chief Constable as to how they'd all be murdered in their beds ere long before nightfall.

     By devouring his water bowl, thereby dispensing with the need for it to be washed and by its abrupt and mysterious absence, disposing of all further incriminating evidence as to where the abundant supply of liquid, now surging copiously across the kitchen floor had sprung from... the flash-flood was hastily making its own getaway beneath the kitchen units, leaving Sockeye to his own devices to carry the can on his own, ankle deep in what up until earlier that morning had been sloshing around quite contentedly in Eccup reservoir.

      Having inadvertently released the handbrake in a boyish gesture of bravado, thereby placing himself in sole charge of a runaway vehicle, Sockeye it appeared was not the only member of the Salmon family to have dropped himself right in it that day as Rocky, having unwittingly placed the following ten years pocket money well out of reach and back into the pockets of his parents dwindling resources, had to a far greater extent nominated himself for the same Earth moving experience as the one his mum would shortly be giving Sockeye...

      Having just been granted licence to do whatsoever it pleased, the vehicle began its leisurely rearwards perambulation down the long garden driveway and by way of small thanks for its new found independence took Rocky along for the ride where due to a certain lack of stature on Rocky's part, at no point had he ever been in the slightest position to influence the Holiday threatening train of events which now engulfed him, never thinking to reapply the handbrake... that would be too easy, he perched on the edge of the seat clutching the steering wheel and stretched out his sturdy little legs in an heroic, but futile attempt to reach the pedals as the family car, which up until any second now had been his fathers pride and joy, pitched backwards at what seemed to Rocky, breakneck speed and directly into a very severe and unforgiving brick wall.

     Almost missing this latest round of entertainment above that of her parents most recent exchange, River accompanied by Sockeye scampered outdoors and slap into what could only be described as the most fun she'd had all year as an unsuspecting "what was that noise" muscled its way through the open bedroom window and fell flat on its face in the garden below and which, if that morning to date was anything to go by, then the neighbourhood would soon be tuning in to the latest Salmon family's 'hot-off-the-press' breaking news bulletin.

     Opening her mouth River hesitated as she fine-tuned the speech centres of her young and delicate synapse into full vocal alignment, then adjusting shutter speed from f8 to automatic she closed her mouth... then opened it once again and informed her brother that if the tip of dads size 9 was an Olympic gold, then Rocky would be sure to take first in the 110 metre hurdling event with 'team GB...' and could she have his autograph... with those words of solid encouragement rattling around his ears like the last biscuit in an otherwise empty tin box, River went skipping back into the house to announce the latest newsflash of her parents next financial happening... which she felt certain would prompt further rounds of thought provoking front page journalism.

     A steady two hours drive away, over on the east coast, the inhabitants of a sleepy fishing community were gainfully employed, pretty much as any other, going about their daily business, one such denizen... a baby crustacean, currently marooned by the tide had taken up temporary accommodation in a beachfront rock-pool property of certain distinction, was as yet unaware of a completely different and obscure set of circumstances that would shortly be rearing his slobbering jowls and bring all four paws, the size of dinner plates, crashing down upon the unsuspecting seashore fauna... was determined while she waited to catch the next high tide home, that until such time that the right wave rolled along, would potter about in the little rock-pool, perhaps indulge herself in a leisurely bathe... and catch up on a spot of therapeutic knitting.

     So, placing the days events since breakfast into perspective...  [i]  the vehicle indemnity provider, henceforth to be named 'the party of the first part', who currently weren't cognisant of an impending claim to date, would shortly be laying eggs attempting to squirm out of all liability, due to  [ii]  the automobile, driven by a minor, fortunately for Salmon senior on private land and henceforth, the aforementioned to be called 'the third party, to the party of the second part...' which urgently needed rigorous cosmetic attention to the rear tail light cluster and surrounding bodywork so as to maintain a favourable resale mark-up price.  [iii]  Having been dragged kicking and screaming from the top of the wardrobe, the luggage had rapidly developed cold feet and cried sudden illness in the family, but were being taken to the Wake anyway.  [iv]  Wrapped around the hot water cylinder since the previous Summer, the various sundry items of holiday apparel stood united, resolute as a Union Picket line not be seen dead looking as though they'd never so much as seen the bottom of a flat-iron.  [v]  Both Red and his wife, Tina, despite wearing the same anaemic smile as the one show to the neighbours as they departed, travelling counter clockwise along the crescent so as not to unduly advertise their recent misadventure with the garage wall, were only going for the sake of the children, whilst  [vi]  River and her errant brother didn't want to go anyway dismayed at leaving the television set behind, were already missing their favourite programs, which only really left  [vii]  'mans-best-friend' who, when he wasn't actually hanging over the front seat giving dad big sloppy licks as though... 'are we nearly there yet' or perhaps... 'I need to stop and spend a penny... or you'll all know about it if you don't,' was more than content to be taking up the majority of the rear seating arrangements and with a delinquent wag of his tail, was deliriously happy to be wherever his family were.**

                                                        ­                             ...   ...   ...

a work in progress.                                                        ­                                                                 ­  1862

The first time a man ever pointed a gun at me and asked me to love him was at Granny's Kitchen in Greensboro, North Carolina.

The waitress, a soft spoken white woman with her hair pulled back in a bun, had just dropped off my plates --- a simple mix of scrambled eggs, two pieces of greasy bacon, and a short stack of pancakes. Now, no matter how cheap, I always feel like I'm cutting loose at breakfast places for the sheer abundance of plates. While I'm sure the eggs and bacon could have shared real estate, each component had its own china.

The waitress lingered at my table, her fingers fidgeting with straws in her apron. I made eye contact. Well, my eyes contacted hers; she was staring at my lips.

Sure I can't get you something to drink? she asked.

This was approximately the tenth time she'd made sure. She was uncomfortable that I had supplied my own beverage -- a Big Gulp. But even more than that, she was uncomfortable by the deep red stain taking over my lips. Contents of the Big Gulp: merlot, boxed.

(That is an unnecessary detail. I've only written it so I never do it again.)

Before Greg hopped up on a table and announced to the restaurant, If I could have your attention, my name is Greg and this will only take a second, blah, blah blah, I poured a copious amount of syrup on my pancakes. Then I moved the bacon to my pancake plate. In my experience, very little in this life is better than syrup on bacon.

I shut my eyes for that first bite, just like the commercials. The syrup dribbled a bit onto my beard, and when I opened my eyes, I discovered it had also landed on my shirt. I grabbed a napkin. Heard a chair slide backwards. I started with my beard, peering around the diner, making sure no one saw. I think I heard someone gasp. But I was busy, working that napkin then against my shirt. Jesus, I thought. My grandma, who's got a splash of the Parkinson's, could eat with more grace.

If I could have your attention, my name is Greg and this will only take a second, a very official voice boomed behind me.

I turned around to see if I recognized him as one of those cuffed jean-sporting, wild plaid-loving NPR hosts. He wasn't one of those. He was a sunburn with mop hair in a black tank top and hemmed jean shorts. He did, however, have a cleft chin. That's actually worth noting. Don't see a lot of them these days.

I know you guys are busy, he said. I know that like me, you guys are probably broke as hell. I mean no offense Granny's, I love this place, but it ain't exactly four stars. Or three. Anyway, all I want from each of you is five dollars. If you ain't got five, give me four. Ain't got four, three. And so on.

He started with the stringy Japanese couple on the west side of the restaurant. Nobody really seemed scared, not the freckled brat in canvas sneakers, not the liver-spotted gentleman with a copy of that day's paper.

My old friend Jerome used to say that white folks are the only romantic criminals. He tacked it up to that whole Bonnie and Clyde crap. Greg, it seemed, was privy to that information, too. He smiled and thanked each person as he robbed them of a few presidents. The victims, smiling back, seemed to be thinking of their names tagged at the end of some newspaper dialogue. A few even gave more than he asked.

Here, take fifteen. Times will get better.

Aren't you just a charmer.

It was all very moving.

So he gets to me, and of course, I don't have any cash. I carry a debit and an arsenal of credit cards like a normal American. I don't know how he made it to me before running into this particular problem.

No, I don't have one of those iPhone card swipers, he said. Well, you gotta give me something.

I offered a gift card to Harold's Clothes for Men, it had like two bucks on it, but he wasn't interested.

What's your name?

Henry.

How much do you weigh?

Enough to keep me prohibited from most amusement park rides.

I like you, Henry. Well, let me ask you something. Have you ever loved a man? he asked, pointing his smudgy revolver just past my ear.

I shook my head no.

Me neither. I've always been curious, though. You been curious?

There was a time when I was thirteen -- Blake Hinton was changing after basketball practice -- and I remember thinking, that is an incredible chest. These lines just sprawled from his sternum, lines leading to these almond *******, and I specifically remember wanting to eat them like, well, almonds. But that hardly counts as curious. So, I said, No.

To which Greg responded: Get curious, boy. You're coming with me.


In the spirit of honesty, I was in a bit of a haze before Greg made me climb into his beat up Cavalier. Not just from the Big Gulp brimmed with merlot, no, I hadn't slept in two days prior to the whole gun-in-face incident. Reason being, I was, as Greg would say, broke as hell, and the rent was due. I stayed up both nights conspiring (and drinking). So, really I was pretty thrilled to be kidnapped away from the whole situation.

I had visions. I guess from the lack of sleep. Maybe they weren't visions, maybe just dreams, or fever dreams, I don't know. All I know is I blinked, and we were in the Appalachians. And there was a grey longbeard in the backseat rattling on and on about how change is easy, movement is easy; it's that whole nesting thing that takes courage and strength, blah, blah, blah. I told him to be quiet. Greg told me to get some sleep. I blinked.

We were in a karaoke bar in Madison, Tennessee. There was a gin and tonic in front of me. I took a drink. There was a water with lime in front of me.

Greg asked, Where did you go?

I told him, your dreams, trying to be cute. He turned and asked the bartender for a Yeager bomb. Reaching for the server in -- granted -- an overly dramatic gesture, I said, Make it two. We made it three. We made it four. Seven. Then some vague, but perfect number, because my head rang right. The words came right. And I was a journalist, asking Greg all the right questions.

I'm not a criminal, he said.

I was just bored, man, he said.

You see, I was in a rut, he said. Last month I put up a personal on Craigslist. I know, it's pretty ******* desperate. I've read the kind **** people put on there. But mine was different. I just wanted some time with my ex-wife. Some couch ***, you know? We hadn't done it on a couch since I dropped out of college, and I hadn't even really thought about it until a couple weeks after the divorce. Then it was all I could think about.

A black woman, whose teeth glowed under the black light, began singing "Wild Horses." Then he read my mind, I think.

Yeah, she answered it. Did our thing on her sofa. It was nice and all, and like all nice things, you just want more, but she said I couldn't have no more, this was a fluke, a one-time, or no, a one-off thing, she said. Had to relocate, so that's why I did that whole thing at Granny's.

You ever get it on a couch? he asked.

No, I said. I've see a bra though --- two actually.

He took that as a joke, which was good.

Though wild horses couldn't drag me away, a gasoline horse could.


He handed me a courtesy breath mint after I finished throwing up. The Nashville skyline looks perfect, he said. Especially at night.

My stomach was gravel in a washing machine. Masculine love. At gunpoint, I had agreed to indulge it. I was going to make love to a man -- not just a man -- a criminal. Not something to write about on a postcard.

Mr. Winters, my esteemed landlord,
Apologies about the rent. Got kidnapped by a *******, and I'm presently banging and being banged by him in Music City, USA.

I blinked.

We laid on opposite ends of the queen-sized mattress.

I always liked Super 8s, Greg said. I don't see the point in spending so much on a hotel. A bed is a bed.

And I tried to be funny with something about the confidentiality of dark bedsheets, but it fell flat.

Greg cried. I love my ex-wife, he said.

Can I help?

Will you hold me? he asked.

The air conditioner kicked on in the already freezing room.

I'm sorry. You don't have to, he said.

I scooted against him. He smelled pleasant in a family-vacation-kind-of-way, like a fresh pretzel covered in salt. I put my arm under his neck. He buried his face into my shoulder. I blinked.


The front end of his Cavalier was held together with copper wire and coat hangers. It was a two-door. Both doors dented from, according to Greg, hit-and-runs. It had a Vermont plate on the back. It was red. I mention all of this to say: if we kept moving, we were bound to get pulled over.

In the parking lot of 3B's Breakfast, Burgers And Beer, Greg asked me to retrieve his revolver from the glove compartment. You kinda have to uppercut it, he said. And I did.

I don't want to do it again, but we have to. I'm not staying put, not until I hit the ocean. But don't worry, I'm not going to hurt anyone.

He showed me the revolver. No bullets. I nodded, in approval, I guess.


The second time a man ever pointed a gun at me and asked me to love him was at 3B's Breakfast, Burgers And Beer in Bellevue, Tennessee. Of course, it was the same man, Greg, but the circumstances were a little different.

I went with two orders of biscuits and gravy --- or B & G as my dear friend Chance affectionately calls it. Four bites in and I'd yet to hit biscuit. For a moment, I wanted to tell Greg, C'mon man, ***** the ocean. Tennessee does gravy the way God intended. Nobody would find us in this suburb. We could be sharecroppers. Do they still have sharecroppers?

Do you like fresh corn? I asked. It was the first crop that came to mind.

Greg didn't answer. I noticed his plate of hash browns and eggs -- sunny-side up -- were untouched. You okay?

He was, he said, trying to get in the zone, that's all.

Alright.

Our waitress looked like a poster child for ******'s Youth. She couldn't have been much more than sixteen. She had blonde -- almost white -- hair. Her eyes changed color with the intensity and direction of light, a gradient between seaweed and dark ocean blue. She appeared to be an amish girl gone defective, and I was about to inquire into that very supposition when Greg stood on the table, and said, If I could have your attention, my name is Greg and this will only take a second.

Tennessee is not North Carolina. In North Carolina, they got a healthy aversion to firearms. In Tennessee, however, once a babe can walk, the *******'s got a BB gun and an endless supply of empty soda cans for target practice. I say that, to say this: when Greg stood on the table, so did three other men. Their three guns pointed right at him.

Lower that gun, brother. You ain't gettin' any money out of us.

Hate to shoot you in front of your boyfriend.

Coffee spilled and ran off the tray our waitress held. She shook so hard, it wasn't clear how many women she was.

Greg's cleft chin centered on one gunman, than the other, than the other.

Just drop the gun, *******.

We don't want to ruin no one's breakfast.

Fellas, I said, he doesn't have any bullets in his gun. We need a little money that's all.

That ****** is just trying to protect him.

I'm calling the cops, a purple-haired old woman yelped from under her table. Silverware clanged against the floor. Then the buzz of a fly. Then the pop of fries drowning in grease. Then the bell chimed as some idiot walked inside.

Greg's arm was shaky as he pointed the gun at me. Do you love me? he asked.

I blinked.

And I was at 3B's in Bellevue, Tennessee.

I blinked.

And I was at 3B's in Bellevue, Tennessee.

I blinked.

And I was at 3B's in Bellevue, Tennessee.

I put my arms up. Slid my chair back a ways. Stepped on the chair, then unto the table.

Do you love me? Greg asked.

His breath smelled like last night's alcohol and that morning's coffee. He was a child, a sunburnt child with a cap gun. He wasn't going to hurt anyone.

I put my hand on top of the revolver and lowered it. He crumpled, as if I were scolding him. They still pointed their guns at us. But for the first time in my life, I felt secured, tethered to a space.

I lifted Greg's chin up with my index finger. Covered his eyes with the palm of my hand. And I kissed him. I kissed him, keeping my eyes closed tight.

Dead Puppy, Broken Men
add opening narration/exposition/explanation; scenario with Jared

Yesterday:

"I've felt alone my entire life. Please don't make me be alone when I'm with you," Shellie begged Jared.
"You're not alone. I love you," was Jared's reply.
"But you won't open up to me."
"It's just really hard. I've always been this way."
"But why?" Shellie desperately yearned for the answers she would never find. "You need to love yourself, or you will never truly love me. You won't be able to."
"I do love you."
"Maybe you just think you do. Saying 'I love you' doesn't make it true. You have to show me that you love me. I can't handle this much longer. Nothing has changed in two years. Nothing."
"I know," Jared begins to cry, "I'm sorry. I really am."
"Don't cry please."
Jared looks away at the black T.V. screen in Shellie's apartment. He is silent for a long time, but eventually Shellie is able to pry his entire childhood out of his sewn-shut lips. She wouldn't take silence for an answer. Not anymore. If Jared hadn't come home, Shellie would have spoken to no one all day. She liked her alone time, but depended on Jared to be her right-hand-man, her main squeeze, her soul mate, and right now -- he simply wasn't being that. He was being something else; a subject of inspection, a psych-ward patient; a lost friend, who she longed to have back.
"Thank you for telling me," Shellie said as she squeezed his shoulders from behind, comforting him with tiny pecks on his cheeks. "Things make more sense now."
Jared said nothing the rest of the night. He instead sketched photos of slimy creatures with clenched teeth into his notebook, creating meticulous lines, surrounding the figure, as if it were travelling through time and space, into a new dimension, far away from this one.

---
Today:
"Did you know that there is a lizard that can only be female, and they don't have ***, they just clone themselves?" Brannan asked Shellie, his best friend.
"I wish I was that lizard..." Shellie sighed.
"What! Why!" Brannan exclaimed with confusion and worry.
"Because. *** messes everything up. I don't know...Maybe I'm just crazy," she stammered, looking for the right words.
"It's Jared, isn't it?" Brannan asked, already knowing the answer, because he knew Shellie.
"Yeah...I'm giving him one more chance. One more and that's strike three, you're out!" She laughed nervously.
"Ooookay," Brannan agreed, "one more chance."
Eli glanced up from the TV and looked at Shellie, wondering how anyone could hurt someone so sweet. But what did he know? He killed people for a living.
"What did he do?" Eli pried.
"I don't want to talk about it anymore. I've talked about it enough. All guys are the same."
"That's not true," Brannan tilted his head to the side in pity.

"The king is here!" Andy announced, as he walked through Brannan's door with a pound of **** in his canister, which was covered in skateboarding stickers and graffiti. Everyone cheered, and Brannan stopped playing Call of Duty, put down his Xbox controller, and picked up the pack of rillos that Eli had bought prior to coming over.
"That game ain't nothing like real life anyway," Eli mentioned, as he put down the other controller and everyone hastily made their way over to the kitchen table. He walked over to the freezer to pull out some Jack Daniels and ice, then went to the cabinets for a glass, turning his army cap backwards, pouring his drink, and taking a swig.

"How much do I owe you?" Brannan asked.
"We'll talk later," Andy replied.
"I was going to tell you, I still don't have what I owe you from last time, but Alexa said there is an opening at Starbucks, so I'll be able to pay you back ASAP man. I really appreciate it."
"Yeah, no problem," Andy said disdainfully.
"I'll roll it!" Shellie yelled to break the tension, as she put down her phone, only to pick it up again to check the time. Her boyfriend would be off work soon. Would she have to text him first again? Was he even thinking of her?
"Go for it!" Brannan tossed the rillo pack to her.
As she was finishing the roll, her phone went off. Shellie believed that maybe there was hope after all.
"Nope, just my dad..." Shellie mumbled to herself and sighed.
"What's wrong?" Brannan asked, with concerned blue eyes, through his thick-rimmed, black glasses.
"It's just Jared," she said as she pushed her lips to one side and looked down at her phone.
"What did he say?” Brannan asked.
“That’s the problem. He hasn’t said anything all day,” she explained in distress. Brannan noticed she hadn’t worn makeup in days, and by the looks of her outfit, she hadn’t been doing daily yoga like usual.
“Maybe he’s just super busy?” Brannan asked reluctantly.
“HE’S busy?? No. I’M busy.” She paused as Andy and Eli raised their eyebrows and widened their eyes. Eli was confused, because she had always seemed happy whenever he saw her. "I'm in school AND I have three jobs. What does he have? ONE job. One. I think he has time to text me, thanks for your input though."
Brannan said nothing, but pressed his teeth together and opened his lips, revealing a worried look with sad eyes, toward his dear friend.
"Yeah. He just doesn't get it. I'm a fire sign and I'm full of passion! Well, partially an air sign, which is probably why I’m so forgiving and understanding. But if he doesn't reciprocate soon, I feel like I'm going to go insane! Like, really? You don't want to go see Star Wars with me? What kind of person are you? Who doesn't like Star Wars? Really though," Shellie added.
"Maybe he's already seen it and doesn't want to tell you," Brannan suggested.
"You think so? Who would he go see it with though? All of his friends have already seen it. Do you think he saw it with his ex?! Oh my God..."
"Here, take this," Eli said as he handed the blunt to Shellie.
She took a big puff and exhaled as she closed her eyes in relief.
"You know what. I'm overthinking this. He just gets anxious in public, that's all," Shellie explained and looked around for reassurance.
"Are you sure that's all?" Brannan asked as he swung his black bangs away from his face.
"I don’t know... He's really mysterious and quiet. It's really hard for him to open up, I think. He didn’t really have a dad growing up. He's gotten better at talking to me, but he's still weird around big crowds of people. He never wants to go anywhere with me. It *****. I think he's learning to get better though. Maybe he's just young, I don’t know, but I'm sick of acting like his mother, you know? Why can't he learn things on his own? We're all scared, but if you don't face your fears at some point, then what's the point?"
Andy couldn’t help but think she sounded like a nagging *****.
"You know you just partially described the personality of a serial killer, right?" Brannan asked with comedic horror on his face.
"Did I?" Shellie asked.
"You deserve better!" Brannan's mom yelled from the living room. She was watching some reality TV show that she shouldn't have been watching. She continued to Shellie, "You deserve someone who takes you out and treats you right! You're a sweet girl!"
Shellie looked down at her phone. Still no text.
"Do you want to hit this?" Shellie yelled to Brannan's mom.
"I'm good, thank you though! I've got to finish these lesson plans for the day care," she explained with a sigh.
"Aww, sounds kinda fun," Shellie said. Shellie had thought about being a teacher, or maybe a counselor, but after helping so many people with different problems, she was starting to second-guess her passion for it.
"Nice blunt," Andy complimented Shellie. He thought Shellie was kind of cute, now that he had caught Eli in Alexa's bed and was no longer drawn to her. Despite her messy hair and mix matched attire, she had things together. She had things going for her. What did Andy have going for him?
"Thanks," Shellie smiled. Jared hated blunts, but he loved cigarettes. It made no sense to her.
"So what have you been up to?" Eli asked Shellie. "It's been a while."
"Just busy, busy. School and work, you know,” she said as she took one final puff before passing the blunt on its way, into the final circulation, never to return to her. She wanted to ask Eli about his life, but knew he couldn't say much, so she just went back to her phone.
Eli looked at Alexa, "Cigarette?" he asked.
"Yes," everyone except Shellie replied.
They all went outside in the freezing cold to get a brief buzz, while Shellie stayed inside, in the warmth, jotting down new business plans for her yoga studio into her phone. She then opened one of her books, but couldn’t focus on the text, so she quickly closed it. She then sat there in jaded silence, waiting for her friends to return from their strange endeavor.

"All the girls at my work are such *******! Like, one day I think they're my friend, then the next day I'm like, who are you?" Alexas was saying to her mom in between inhales and exhales.
Brannan looked at Alexas then at Eli with a look of concern and distaste. His mom noticed his expression and gave a brief response of agreement with her eyes, quickly returning to her daughter's concerns with compassion and empathy.
"Like, Kate said she wanted to hang out and everything, then she just doesn't respond. What the Hell?"
"Yeah, you probably just shouldn't be friends with them," Brannan replied.
"I have to be! I work with them," Alexas explained.
Knowing it was a lost cause, Brannan turned toward the glass door, where one of his cats pawed at the frame. “Aw, look at Izzy,” he said, pointing.
“Awwww,” his mom replied as she sipped on white Beringer.
“Let her out,” Brannan said to Alexa, since she was next to the door ****.
“No! She’ll run away,” Alexa said.
“No she won’t,” Brannan argued, as he made his way behind his sister, slightly pushing her, and letting Izzy outside.
She looked at everyone, let out a small meow, then hopped down into the grass, under a bush, and out of sight.
“Look what you did!”Alexas said, raising her voice.
“She’ll be back…” Brannan assured her, with ****** eyes.
Alexas rolled her eyes and Brannan continued, “She just wants to be free, Al.”
Their mom watched Izzy as she scurried into the neighbor’s yard. “Yeah, she’ll be back,” she said.
Then Eli turned to Andy and said, "You trying to play Call of Duty?"
"Sure," Andy agreed, though all he could think about was how Eli had been in Alexa's sheets the week before. “I’ll ******* **** you dude.”
“Yeah right,” Eli said as he let out a laugh, not knowing that he knew what he knew.

Alexa went to the living room with her mom, and Brannan returned to his spot at the kitchen table next to Shellie. Smoke stained the air, as Brannan picked up his phone and began playing a Pokémon game. Shellie tried to act interested, but all she could think about was Jared. Eli and Andy finished shooting each other and came back to form a circle.
“Bowl?” Brannan asked.
“That’s okay,” Shellie said, “I’m trying to cut back.”
“What…” Brannan said in disbelief. He packed the bowl anyway and handed it to her.
“Naw,” Shellie said.
“Yaw! Brannan yelled.
“No.”
Brannan handed the bowl to Andy and as Andy hit the bowl, he turned to Eli and said, "Hey, so if someone sat 12 million dollars in front of you, and a puppy in front of you, and said: The money is yours, you just have to crush this puppy to bits. Would you do it?" He looked at everyone as if he already knew the answer; as if it was obvious. Andy waited for everyone else to reply first. Brannan had no intentions of replying, since he was trying to be Christ-like lately.
"No, I wouldn't do it," Shellie said.
"Are you serious?!" Eli asked with pure shock on his sun-kissed face.
"Yes, I'm serious. Would you do it?" She leaned forward, almost rocking out of the tall bar stool she was sitting on.
Brannan and Eli chimed in, "You would SO do it."
"I would SO not." She repeated angrily, hitting the blunt and blinking her brown eyes to moisten her contact lenses.
Brannan's younger sister walked into the room to sit down, and Shellie looked to her for an answer. "Would you??" She looked at her with eyes of a beggar's, pleading for understanding and empathy.
"Do what?" Alexa asked, and the boys repeated the scenario, talking with utter excitement.
"A puppy? A cute little puppy?" Alexa asked.
"Yeah, a puppy or 12 million dollars," Andy coaxed.
"I couldn't do it! I could never do that!" Alexa gasped. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t!”
"That's what I'm saying," Shellie agreed. "I'm not even a dog person, but I would grab the puppy and run! Maybe report that guy to the animal police or whatever."
"Yeah!" Alexa agreed, as she took off her Starbucks sun visor and laid it on the table, next to Brannan’s laptop, Eli’s sketches, Andy’s backpack, and Shellie’s books.
"You all are crazy!" Andy said. "If the money was right in front of you, you'd do it, no question."
"No," Alexa and Shellie both said firmly.
"You'd just have to see the money, right there in front of you, in person," he kept on going.
Eli took a sip of his whiskey, then made stomping motions with his feet and said, "Haha! Gone! 12 million dollars richer. You know what you can buy with that much money? Tons of new puppies, if you really wanted to." He laughed.
"Yeah, you could **** me and make tons of new friends, too," Shellie said as she rolled her eyes in disgust.
"That's not the same though," Brannan finally spoke. "We don't know this puppy like we know you."
"Well someone does," Shellie insisted.
"Maybe," Brannan replied.
"Someone could," Alexa said. "Unless you **** him."
"Who said it's a boy?" Shellie asked sheepishly.
"You're right. It should be a girl," Alexa agreed, "like sweet little Lola over here." She scooted her chair from the table, and beneath her feet lay her sleeping Border Collie. She got up from her seat and lowered herself to the floor, head to head with the dog. She touched her nose to the dog's nose, kissed the dog’s cheek, and patted her head before returning to her peers on the bar stools above.
Everyone went silent, and Shellie wondered if the boys felt ashamed - so obsessed with power, that they forget to love.

---
Yesterday:

"You know how I told you that I didn't really know my dad growing up?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, it's because he was in jail for a while."
"How come?"
Looking around, as if for help or guidance, Jared hesitated to say what would come next.
"What is it??" Shellie pleaded, her imagination running wild with fear and worry.
"He ***** me."
"W-what..." Shellie was taken aback. She would have never guessed this is what all Jared's anger had stemmed from. Life flashed before her like a lightning bolt. It surged through her entire body, carrying memories of her perfect childhood juxtaposed next to Jared's. She thought of all the times she had met Jared's dad. She thought of how they worked in the same office, and Jared had to see his face every single day. She wondered how deeply this must affect his life, and how little she had noticed. Had she misjudged him completely? Why were all of her boyfriends so damaged? Was she drawn to damage? What if he ended up like his father? She wanted to help him. She had to.
"But how? Or... Like, where?! Did your mom know?"
"That's why she divorced him. He used to rent hotels on the weekends and tell my mom he was taking me along on his business trips. It wasn't until I was seven... I started having nightmares. I couldn't wake up. I'd scream and yell, telling him to get off me."
"Oh, Jared. I love you so much. You know that? I'm here for you. **** him. You don't need him. Your mom is great, and your little brother loves you. I love you. It's surprising how great you turned out, honestly."
"Yeah..." Jared said, slightly offended, but also in agreement.


* note for author from author: add scene with Alexa and Lola -- Lola biting her over and over. He's hurting me, ow!! "She just let her bite her. Over and over again." She did nothing about it. She endured the pain.
Shellie teaches Brannan how to "train" his dog.. play with her, be her friend. She just wants to play. She doesn't want to watch us smoke **** all day. You have to act like a dog sometimes if you want her to love you and be good.
reference to god's of love.. maybe venus and mars
- add more in between blunt roation.. it burns too fast
- create more setting!! (vital)
- add physical fight between Eli and Andy
- add scene with brandon's dad at very beg

they say in our existance it seems as though our entire lives flip in an instant without us even
noticing the gradual changes. year by year our friends come and go, we see new parts of the world, we witness things we never thought could happen. when I think of how life plays out like this, I try to spread out every single year of my life and analyze it. mostly I try and look for where the world seemed to go to ****. I wish I could remember when I changed, when I felt like life wasnt worth it anymore. but the truth is I dont even remember a time when I could look at myself and say that I was worth it, that life was worth it, that I was destined for something.

in the beginning my issues were simple and petty, growing up in a town with beautiful girls and brilliant boys with straight teeth and even straighter hair. my bones didnt stick out and my skin didnt look as perfect and tan as the girls who stood by my side in elementary school. They hopped out of their mothers cars with beaming smiles and kisses fresh on their foreheads. I sat outside of class thirty minutes early because my mom was stuck working in the awful hellhole of a school. they flipped over their chairs as the bell rang and scooted their tiny waists into the seats, talking about their lovely weekends at the pool, which I was too fat to go to, or at each others houses, where I was never invited.

I wasnt really a loser, and I wasnt popular. but this didnt stop me from mentally ripping myself into pieces every chance I got. the perfect frame lay traced out in my mind, and I didnt match up when I looked into the mirror.

this self critisism still continues, and has only grown worse.

ever since birth I had lived in a home with parents who bickered and spat at each other like roaches, screaming over nothing. in the beginning the fights were pointless, not a single purpose held in the shouting. and then it shifted to my brother and I. the drinking that my father did. the business my mother spread through her side of the family tree, feeding the branches. loss of money, faith, time. a million things I dont remember. a million words I wish I didnt remember.

at age eleven I laid shivering in bed, letting the hum of the fan above me lull me into sleep. I longed to hear the hum of my fathers voice singing to me as he did when I was a child. humming our songs to myself didnt work anymore. on this particular night, my father wandered into my room with a blanket wrapped around his shaking figure. His eyes stained beat red. he poured out to me that he was leaving us, my brother and I, my mother. he wanted me to speak, I didnt say a word. he wanted me to hug him, I plastered my arms by my sides.

the next day, he still sat on the couch, avoiding my frantic glances and wondering eyes.

constant blame stuck to me. guilt stuck even more than the words thrown onto me while walking down the halls in sixth and seventh grade. I would lay on the old tattered couch in the basement, trying to catch a glimpse of my father if he happened to walk from his den and onto the porch. many times, I did not see him. many days, I did not hear from him. and finally the day came where he came to talk. it was bright, and my mother and father sat before my brother and I. seeing them come together was something I couldnt even remember, so I assumed good news. maybe a new brother or sister, maybe a package in the mail for us. but no, of course not.

my father was diagnosed with colin cancer. I do not remember the stage when they came and told me, I do not remember anything besides deep gray hopsital rooms which tasted like hell and flourescent white light bulbs which looked like heaven. I remember my mother sticking to my fathers side purely for recognition from the rest of the family. I remember how when the doors closed, the monster that she really is came out in low growls and snickering. I faked smiles for my father that I taught myself in school, I counted tiles on the hospital floor which seemed to similar to those lining the halls. the summer in which he was released was the summer in which we traveled the world. I tasted fresh bread from all corners of the world and I fed off the smiles of the people who lived in the villages, craving their happiness found in simplicity. I wanted it all. yet, I hated every moment of it. I knew I would never live a life so peaceful.

eighth grade started and so began The Wondering and The Wandering, the silence that hung in my throat and the words that filled my brain like acid, and not the good kind. I questioned existance, for I could not find a home in my friends, in my family, in myself. I could not remember when the chuckling from my cousins and aunts and uncles felt warm instead of harsh and cold. cigarette smoke stained my clothes and I clung to its scent like a child craved the smell of brownies baking in the oven. I fell in love with nights alone on the roof counting the stars and realized there were more in the sky than people in the world, and I felt truly scared for the first time. More scared than I had been when my father beat me for the last time and more scared than I became as he withered into a man I could not recognize. I was alone, I was vulnerable.

my death had come in the first year of highschool. the first day pushed me from the smiling faces of my innocent friends into the rough, ashy hands and curling smirks of my new friends. they introduced me to the world and I introduced them to my mind, and I also to the drugs, which just started with ****. I was welcomed to their table in the morning with beat red eyes that caused me to shy away from the mirror, reminding me of my father. I would laugh because my body made me. I would smile because I was floating far, far away. Looking down on them. they teased me, they pulled strings and I became their puppet. I was a doll and not a human. I burned myself and they laughed. my boyfriend held my waist and not my hand. he fed my sorrows and not my smiles. I was the fire and they fed me, they watched me, they listened. they split me into pieces and I snapped like my bones did in seventh grade when I skid across the cold gym floor in front of everyone. everyone I loved was vanishing in and out of my life like the flickering light bulb at my bus stop at five thirty in the morning.

I began to steal pills from the cabinets of my neighbors, filling the bottles with tissues so I could slip out of the house silently as the bottles fit snug into my shirt. it started with swallowing eight. then twelve. fourteen. eighteen. I swallowed them and let them burst in my empty stomach and carry me off, far away. so far away. I will not get in depth on the effect they had on me, thats a different story. I lost myself, and I was nothing. but I was not yet a ghost. my father had percosets, pills from his chemotherapy, shoved into his cabinet. I took 3, 4, then 5. my friends told me I shouldve thrown them up once I hit 4. so, I took 6.

I fell asleep with various ways to **** myself running through my mind. these were not new to me at all. they did not scare me, instead they welcomed me. knowing I could disappear so easily, so quickly. on a silent january morning I woke up, rubbed my eyes, rolled out of bed. I stared into my own eyes, and they were dim. I grabbed the percosets and took a handful. they gathered and slipped down my throat. they fought to return to my tongue but I already knew how to keep them down. I wandered into my mothers room and tried to spill a lie of how I was very, very sick (I wasnt) and how I needed (I did) to stay home. she told me no, there was no way I was sick (I was) and I wasnt staying home (I didnt).

I arrived at school and stumbled to my class like a zombie. five or ten minutes I walked out in the middle of the teachers lecture. I found myself clinging to the toilet bowl down the hall, crying, fighting every urge to stifle the screams that curled in the back of my throat. my skin blended in with the bleached tile. I probably threw up my body weight in the time that I was there. I dont know how long it was. I dont even know why I let myself walk into the building. but there I was, and then came the teachers, and I still dont even know where it is that they came from. they cradled me and my vision slipped and I know that I died there, in the deep gray bathroom stall which felt like hell and under flourescent white light bulbs which looked like heaven.

I like to ask myself every once in a while who I am. I don't know the answer, but I try to ask anyways, I try to get the spider webs in my mind to clear off. I try to bring myself back to what I could be if I never slipped away like this. I still have not found home. I tried to find my reflection in the hollow bottoms of bottles I stole from liquor cabinets across the neighborhood. I couldnt find myself in the blade or the oceans across the globe. I could not find home no matter how many cigarettes I smoked, no matter how many friends I made, no matter how many houses I collapsed in and puked on the hardwood floors. my questions always remain unanswered and my cries remain ignored. when I ask myself who I am, I remind myself that I am a million people. I am the little kids who followed me on red bikes in Italy and I am the girl I threatened who tried to hurt my bestfriend and I am the ghosts in the attic and the new kid at school who disappeared just a few weeks after. but one person I am not is whoever I was in the beginning.

I used to swim across the channel to rattlesnake island when I lived
in Florida . We all knew the sharks loved
the funneling action of the channel to the bay . And we were always aware that there were sharks near by . We saw them every day . Yet the allure of the island just a scant one hundred yards away was to much for a 10 year old to pass up . So I would swim across holding a rod and reel high so it would not soak in sea water . I admit there was apprehension evident in my strokes and kicks but I made it across . On the other side there were no rattlesnakes anywhere .
Just gorgeous unclaimed white beaches and aqua clear water . Needle fish scooted across the surface and schools of mullet jumping were all I could see . I did little or no fishing , just running and jumping into the surf . What an afternoon it was . But the sun slid down and we knew we had to leave soon as the big sharks move in at dusk to feed into the night . So we stepped into the swirling waters of the channel and then plunged in and swam . Sharks have all black eyes . Cold  black eyes and an expressionless grin that is all business sporting a mouth full of jagged dagger teeth . They are cautious up to a point but no one knows where that point is . Once that point is reached . . . well you don't want to see that point while your in the water . So about half way across the channel we see a dark shadow swim by in front of us between us and the beach . We know it's a shark , a big one . Perhaps more than fifteen feet long . We can't stay where we are at , but we fear to move on . So taking a deep breath we swim on slow and steady . Finely the beach is at hand , our feet touch sand and we run up on the beach and collapse . Then with heaving chests of fear we look back only to see the shark swim by . Needless to say that was my last visit to rattlesnake island .

My heart is the robin's egg that fell from it's nest.
Delicate, cracked,
the prettiest shade of blue
Not pulled away by the gasp of the wind,
Not scooted out by an unforgiving orange feline

My heart tried to fly before it's robin had hatched.
Even dreams(ers) have their limitations

Emerging from the blue shell the creature is wounded
very much alive,
very much curious,
newly cautious.
Wings unfolded but yet to soar.

Perhaps one day the wind will guide.

Perhaps one day the dreams will be suited

Perhaps one day I'll fly

*but first I will heal

In the end, I never really climbed-
Them, they gave me panic attacks,
Razors loped my flesh and I ran in
Circles over a reverse nightmare,
Spiral staircase, awful storeys,
They all scooted to 1999.

I want to climb down my 1999, burn
And not be smolder in an ashtray.
I hope to fall asleep, away from
The city, away from my guava trees.
I have my history of walking,
Suddenly lost without postage stamps.

Will you take me to Ferris wheel?
Push me down the spiral staircase,
And sleep next to my 1999? Will you?
Will you take me to Ferris wheel?
Push me down the spiral staircase,
And sleep next to my 1999? Will you?

“Some other day”

She scooted along the checkerboard floor
collecting ***** plates
& refilling sweet teas.
I placed a double-order of fish tacos
& sat right next to the buffet of hot sauces
just to watch her toss her brown hair about
from under her pink pussycat hat
& lithe body covered
in delicious ink
& piercings.

I always get up early. Early, early, early and it’s Saturday morning. So I scooted over to “Donut Crazy” and got myself 12 sugar donuts (and a selection of treats for my suitemates - I’m NOT suicidal.)

At 8am, I’m in the suite common area, on the couch, binging “Ladybug and Cat Noir” on my iPad and I realize that Leong, one of my suitemates, is sipping her coffee and staring at me like I’m a bad pet. I look around to find myself sitting in a shower of confectioners’ sugar speckles.

“In my defense, I was left unsupervised.” I disclaim.

The young novelist wrote in his rented room, a claustrophobic nook under the stairwell, where the ceiling sobbed dust each time the owner hurried down to work or hurried up for a forgotten prescription. Shelves crammed with the owner's yearbooks and photo albums lined the walls. He typed at a long oak desk. On which, he had one plant, a gardenia, white flowers in full bloom, and a quote by Buddha on an index card in a four-by-six-inch frame. "You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection."

The sun had quit for the day. He got up and poured out his cold coffee in the bathroom sink across the hall. He dried the mug with a paper towel. Then to the kitchen, where he pressed the button on the box of Merlot, filling the recycled mug. The denouement was coming together. But he hadn't hit his stride, tapped into that secret space where words flow with natural rhythm and proper grace. His hungry or starving or emaciated mother character--he struggled with the diction, the balance between subtlety and a Coca-Cola slinger's criminal word abuse--would decide to eat her baby. Not the ******, the denouement. Critics would **** as only critics could.

He drank one cup of wine while standing in the kitchen then refilled and stepped back into his room. The plant and the Buddha quote were suggestions by his mom. She didn't like him spending so much time alone. Time alone killed her uncle. The young novelist argued it was an indiscriminate heart attack. No, his mother said, it's from all that cheese he would eat. Cheese, his mother contended, was the unitary measure of loneliness, killing you one comforting slice at a time.

Google the symbolism, his mother said of the gardenia.

Secret love.

Oh good.

That's just the first result.

I always loved them.

That was only the first. I bet they're part of the funerary tradition.

Your father used to get them once a year for Pastor Mike. Do you remember that? Around Christmas time. It was your father's way of saying we appreciate your work.

Secret love.

The quote made just about as much sense. A devout--dare he think staunch--Methodist since she was old enough to disagree and berate, his mother's selection of a Buddha aphorism begged suspicion. The young novelist assumed this was an appeal to his academic worldview, a panoramic ideology that protected him from having to value or defend anything, really. Buddhism is **** electronic dance music; Methodism is vaudeville, tired and exploitative. And if his mother was trying to be cool, that disgusted him. But if his mother was trying to meet him halfway, that excited him.

That's it, he thought, the mug now half-empty. The mother is not hungry, not starving, nor emaciated. It's a loving mother. A mother that knows the lows of living. She eats her young in an act of compromise, to protect, to prevent confusion and isolation, hell even Kraft Singles.

He sat and scooted up his chair. He wrote in a fever, a frenetic fictive dream, page by page, scene by scene through the night.

We walk the world slowly
to pluck from thin air the sounds we've been thinking (or at least, I have)
but some curtain hangs between the realms of thought and reality
and won't let me transcend the division.

If I could pick the words up from the cracked sidewalk,
scattered like magnetic poetry on the concrete, I would.
But look, even if I could, I wouldn't be able to piece them together in a coherent fashion.
With my luck, I'd scramble to pick them up
only to have them fall into place in a different language entirely.

So we continue to walk, ignoring the phrases glistening like raindrops on our shoulders.
I watch the way your hair curls.

Decisions, decisions. Can we never go back?
The road's right here, and we've been there before,
retracing the bricks of the streets isn't in any way difficult.

But it's all in the past tense (or something of that sort)
and somewhere I purposely took a fork in the road
because I thought you'd stopped following my lead long ago.

My life is a series of crossed-out calendars,
and I scooted them aside to pencil you in.
But you didn't come.
You never came.

So I veered off course into my own little world.
Can you really blame me?
Here they all know me,
where I live down cobblestone lanes with my music and twelve cats named George.

I've accepted their offer because it held more water than yours...
(I was never quite sure what you were proposing anyway.)
At least I've allowed you this one last opportunity to break something
that wasn't really solid in the first place, and you're still suspending it.

The road's right here. I suppose we could go back.
But I'm not sure if I want to anymore.
My yes-or-no questions don't allow you much wiggle room.
They never did.

You look at me hard as if there's some constellation etched in my freckles, mapping your escape, your options, your halfway-open door.
I laugh and take a step back.
"It's a yes-or-no, dear."

I know I resemble a crazy, but truthfully? I don't really mind.
I leave you by a tree for shelter, stomp through the puddles down the street.
"Goodbye!" I scream.
"See you soon!" you reply.
"Orrrrr, how about never?" I shriek to the sky.

I prance down the roads, rattling with laughter.
I'd try to cry, but the tears don't come.
They never do.

And that's when I see them, glimmering at me like rain on the pavement.
"Mai dire mai."
I scoop them up in my pockets and call it poetry.

Diaphanous dragons disgorge a deluge of diamonds
into the shadowed crevices of cumulus clouds.

Ruby-red sapphires overpopulate the glistening sky
like carbon-hardened locust: gorgeous messengers of the gods.

The Earth wears a crimson helmet, shielded from
the odious absence of ozone above the North and South poles.

Near Minneapolis, John Berryman's wizened body shatters
on the frozen riverbed below the Washington Avenue Bridge.

Angels weep to see him jump, as he waves a vaudevillian goodbye.
The sapphires blanch, then turn an angry, violent violet. Black holes ahead.

2.
Shakespeare and Mr. Bones **** on mortality's skimpy
skeleton of life. Will this broken body be resurrected?

Does it deserve such distinction? Better yet, does its daring,
drunken destroyer? Four hundred Dream Songs nod yes.

Berryman toddled ticklishly toward the last traces of transcendence.
Love & Fame broadcast how terribly his faith failed to trade

daily delirium tremens for the mysterium tremendum.
The God he prayed to demanded a syntax pure, plain.and perfect.

With jolts of jest, He jimmied paradoxes into koans. Berryman
howls for the sound of one diamond scratching the outline of his body on ice.

3.
He left a legacy broader than liquor, lechery and the love-struck ladies.
Lust seeded his fallow lacunae and lazily broke his wife's heart.

Scholarship scooted him to the squeamish, secluded top
of his Shakespearean class: Signal student turns trusted teacher.

Poetry cloned the Oklahoma clown in him. No successors,
no schools, no savvy peers, save Lowell. his fellow manic-depressive.

He dreamed songs of hilarity, humility, history, dehumanization.
Poetry proved serious business until it learned to laugh at itself.

Sapphires crackle under the weight of the creaking sun. They spin a kaleidoscopic rainbow of colors onto Berryman's obituary. Somehow, he has won:

An irreplaceable jewel of the sky.

It’s Friday evening, (11-12-21) and Lisa’s Birthday. To celebrate, we’re going to see “A Night With Bill Maher” at the New York Comedy Festival (we’ll be socially distanced, in an opera box). He goes on at 8:30PM and my last class on Fridays ends at 05:25 (in New Haven CT). We had to hurry.

We have our bags and we’re hustling out the dorm gate loaded down like a couple of tourists. “We want to be on the island (NYC) by 7:30 for our dinner reservation.” Lisa said. I gave her a quizzical look, checking my watch, “It’s 6:18,” I said doubtfully, “we’ll NEVER..”  “Yeah, we will,” Lisa interrupts, “we’re taking a helicopter ride!” “Whaa.. REALLY??” I gasp. “Yeah,” Lisa grinned, “my dad arranged it, his treat.” “Thanks DAD,” I say, as we climb into our Uber.

An Uber off-loads us by a helicopter 15 minutes later (at Tweed Airport). I knew the blue and white grasshopper-looking whirligig didn’t have a mind - that it wasn’t capable of feelings or eagerness, but the blades were spinning and it seemed eager to escape earth - like a bug afraid of birds.

After we boarded, a guy in a yellow vest and helmet said - above the noise - “Buckle up!” and pointed to our seat belts. The “seat belt” was a harness that made an “X” across our bodies. Once the doors were closed it became surprisingly quiet. The cabin could hold four but we were alone, facing forward, Lisa seated next to me.

The earnest-looking pilot turned to us and said, “37 air minutes to the 34th street heliport,” but before he could close the little plexiglass door to our compartment, Lisa said, “Afghan takeoff please!” He nodded and closed the window, it got quieter still.

The pilot throttled up, the jet engines whined, the rotors became frantic and we lifted up into the air - just a few feet. I held tightly to my seat sitting perfectly still, as though the helicopter were a frightened animal I didn’t want to startle. “Relax,” Lisa said, with a BIG grin, “You’re going to LOVE this.” The helo rotated 180 degrees, “Woah,” I said.

“Wait for it,” she giggled. The back of the chopper suddenly rose, my body pressed forward, hard, against the harness. I went bug-eyed - about the time I thought the whole shaky contraption would roll forward end-over-end and we’d die in a fireball, we sprang into the air like a rollercoaster ride. When we lurched skyward, I had to fight the urge to hurl but Lisa roared with laughter.

After a moment we leveled out. “That wasn’t funny.” I said, still trembling and deadly serious. I opened a bottle of water, took a big swig and I felt myself relax a bit. “I almost threw up!” I wiped my hair away from my face. “I’m sorry,” Lisa said in a pouty, baby appeasing way. I glowered.

“Seriously,” she said, in a more reasonable voice, “I HAD to do it - I COULDN’T resist.” Unbuckling her harness she scooted over by me and took my hand. “It was a little mean, I know. I SWEAR, I’ll never, ever, EVER, trick you again.” She said, adding a girl scout salute that morphed into a pinky promise and we were suddenly whole again.

“I mean, it only works ONCE - and your FACE! - GOD!, I should have videoed that,” she laughed again - I just rolled my eyes and turned to look out into the darkness.

Maybe it was that take-off, but at first, all I could think of was falling to a watery death. I never get nervous on commercial flights, they feel like solid, white noise filled living rooms but this chopper was small and trembling, like an economy car or a hayride.

There was a TV screen that showed our altitude (9,000 feet and climbing) and airspeed indicator (140 knots) - I had to remind myself that trustworthy physics was at work somewhere behind this clippity-cloppity contraption our lives depended on.

The view of Long Island Sound, just after dusk, WAS amazing and soon I began to enjoy it. I counted 30 ships and barges lit up like birthday cakes against the watery darkness - and the approaching lights of New York City looked like a glittering tiara being worn by the horizon.

Ok, I thought, I have to write about this.

The Starship

To collect their lord of time they came.
In brightly lit visual ships.
Lights rotating.
Blazing round Orion's Belt as they scooted on.
Descending almost stooping in a crescendo of multi-coloured flashes.
Simultaneous in rhythm.
Similar to ancestral craft.
Seen many times before.
In silent mission.
Concealed from humanity whose terror they had often felt.
In an illumination of oblivion soon to be.
This was their last attempt.
Tried to ****** the evil as they struggled with dark polluted air.
Rancid was the vile stench.
As if Earth was slowly rotting to her putrid core.
Night dispensed a shower of hypnotic dust.
Irritated all men's eyes.
Dust of hypnosis sent the world to sleep,
Eyes blighted by nightmares of things seen recently passed.
While inhabitants slept peacefully.
Their evilness was cleansed.
Another chance was given for the world to start again as friends.
At that moment their lord of time, he was collected.
Smiled a smile with dignity.
Forgave mortal man's stupidity.
And screeched give peace a chance.
By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)

"what about the beach?", the grandpa asked the grandson
the small boy with wide eyes looked up at this man, his eyes clearer than the elder had seen in years
the grandson had asked the grandpa to take him to the beach that day, just a few miles from the house, so he could watch the thing he loved most at that courageous, carefree age
"not today, im sorry. maybe next time you come and visit. the birds will still be there, then", he said, tirelessly
and so the little boy scooted off his lap and the grandpa sat in his chair, long after the little boy had gone to bed
he asked himself the question he had just asked
and found no reply

I have no taste for whiskey,
although it seems over the years
I have developed a proclivity for cancer,
for building the nacre into  pearl.  

It’s funny how one can live with death
scooted to the borders, listening to it
rap the door with sub-audible gusts
that only your dog hears and barks at.

The holy trinity, my wife calls it,
three masses on the left, right,
concluding down in a ****** triangle,
a parasite, a dark natural beauty of my years.

The bad genes of my parents play out their divorce
in my body, diabetes and cancer
fighting for the claim to death’s victory,
my only peace being to cut them both out.

The Great Physician puts my cure
in the hands of fallible demigods,
whose inclination is to bury hope in the
condolences of the other well-intentioned masses.

“It’s great that you feel no pain,
Your color looks good today,” they echo
as the pallid tv weatherman I met
in ruddy years on the brown river shuffles by.

The nacre of the cancer ward-
an open shirt skeleton on oxygen,
two old black men  talking loudly
about seasons of diagnosis and mistreatment,

just waiting, waiting, waiting to get better
caws at me as I make my way
to the reception table just bright enough
to not seem an open casket.

My wife fills out three pages asking
for family obituaries while I answer
on a tablet forty questions about death,
five about life, two about insurance.

I wait in quiet sitting in a clinical green chair
Listening  for my name to be called,
thinking not about the culled pearl
but the beautiful oyster thrown way.

she was cute,
I think it was her smile,
she smiled at me,
everytime I spoke.
yea I´m sure its her smile

but

when noticing the anatomy of a woman,
you can´t forget the eyes

she means nothing if you forgot,
her eyes,
large and brown,
this is how I know it was her smile,
because her eyes smiled too
even when her mouth forgot to

Her hair was gentle...
like her eyes,
her hips they swayed from side to side

She scooted her chair closer to me
when we stopped dancing to rest tired feet

Maybe next time I´ll dance with you

I hope you found your keys

One dismal and grey day, I was walking down the abused and crackled sidewalk that city workers had neglected to fix despite the poor look of it.  I glanced down every few steps to avoid the cracks in the cement that could make me stumble. It started to lightly rain, so I decided to find a place to wait out the weather. To my luck a run down café called The Bismark was right across the road. I sped across the street and approached the entrance to the café. I turned the old door **** and walked into a quaint and aesthetically pleasing, mostly white little room with several large machines that I can only assume would be used for make expensive, overly complicated coffee that was delicious.
A cute girl was standing behind the counter dressed in modern and intentionally tattered clothing that was obviously a planned statement to her quirky individuality. I ordered a small dark roast coffee and sat down by the window. While peering out the window into the seemingly boring and newspaper print world that lay before me, I saw someone walk in. It was a younger man, probably six months passed twenty and plain as the weather he just came in from. He wasn’t just any sort of plain; he was the kind of plain that stood out because he was so extraordinarily ordinary. He was wearing a red apron with a nametag that, only after a glance I could make out to read A&P.;
He walked up to the counter and ordered what I thought to be a black coffee. He paid and then waded past the field of wooden chairs over to table across from me. He looked to me like he was a bit detached. My curiosity quickly turned to a half embarrassed half confused mindset when he looked back and made eye contact with me. Thank God the cute barista yelled out, “Sammy!” with an annoyed yelp that could only be uttered by someone who was absolutely fed up with his or her current state of employment. The young man who had caught my attention scooted out of his chair and hastily walked to the counter to grab his coffee from the cute barista. He nodded in appreciation with a pleasant half smile and pulled out his wallet to grab the monetary appreciation that makes the menial minimum wage jobs worth it.
So as not to spill his coffee, he walked with a careful stride over to the table that he had been sitting at before and sat back down onto the chair. He then took the lid off of the cup of coffee and blew on it with short rhythmic puffs. I watched with a regretful curiosity at the strange character that had seemingly come in from daytime dreary.
I decided that I should interact with the oddity that lay before me and started thinking of techniques to go about it. Your humble writer thought to himself as to whether or not this decision would prevent him from carrying on the day with the glee and whimsy that was sure to come out of the bright and beautiful world that lay beyond the door to the café. Cooler heads prevailed and I decided to ask him how he was doing.
He glanced over at me, as if he was surprised that a human being was actually talking to him.
He replied, “I’ve had better, but a break from work is a break from life.”
I smirked and nodded in agreement. Then I asked him what he did and where he worked.
Unenthusiastically, he replied saying that he was a cashier at the A&P; grocery store.
I asked him why he seemed so unhappy with the job and he told me that he was tired of having to interact with the same boring people on a day-to-day basis.
“Why don’t you just quit the job if it makes you so unhappy”, I asked.
He replied with look of irritation and explained to me that no matter how hard he tried to break away, the job wouldn’t let him out.
I asked why that was and he said there is just something that was holding him to the cash register.
He said, “that the perfectly stacked shelves in his store make him numb enough not to care.”
What kind of annoying customers have you seen while working there? I replied, trying to change the depressing mood that the conversation was exhibiting.
He told me that once in awhile a bunch of annoying kids while come in and start knocking stuff over and trying causing a fuss.
I said he should just let the parents know that their kids are up to no good. He told me that half the time the parents don’t give enough of a **** to stop them and are just thankful that they aren’t mothering them for a change.
I told Sammy that I wasn’t looking for the basic answer that everyone in the service industry gives when they have complaints about their jobs. So I asked him, “What were some of the most out of the box customers that you have had come in to the A&P;?”
He told me that through out the years he has seen people come into the store with no shirt, no shoes, and no pants came in. He also explained how once,  a rabid poodle came in and started trying to bite his co-worker, Stokesie.  He even told me about how once, a former employee at the store tried to steal all the meat from the butcher by hiding the meat under his shirt. He said hat he had to chase him out the store with a baseball bat and that with every step more and more meat would fall out of his shirt. He then began to tell me how sad the store made him feel. He told me about all the fake people that he had to sit silently and watch while they went about their mediocre lives with an ignorant bliss. He told me how the people that came into the store had a certain stupidity that showed how suburbia could ruin a person without them even realizing that they had been ruined.
Once in awhile he would take some time to wonder just how messed up the folks that strolled through the aisles of the A&P; really were. He would always come to the same conclusion. That was that society had diminished the aspects of a meaningful life into an obscured picture of true happiness. The joy and fulfillment of a good life was now just strolling up and down the aisles of the neighborhood grocery store, taking food off the shelves like zombies, and paying for it with the money that they made working the same sort of depressing job. It was a twisted cycle that Sammy knew he had to break free from.

"There's no such thing as a witch,"
Martha told me smiling
trying hard to hold the corners
of her lips from turning up
and holding her hand
over her pentagram
silver-necklace.
She dropped
a chicken foot
right next
to a circle of
six smoldering candles
& a burnt tarot card.
I knew then
it was time for me
to leave her premise.
I scooted across her yard
& locked the gate
behind me
feeling strange,
as if I were lying,
placed
under a spell.

"I've got to go inside, its smoldering out here"

and you looked at me as if it were an obvious invitation to come
almost looking confused as to why I would even hesitate

we walked inside and went to the back room.
there were a circle of people there; the kind I would expect you to fall into naturally
on account of your beauty and wit.

but you walked past them and sat in a corner, with enough room for me to sit between you and the wall.
with less hesitation now, I sat

your legs were laying out straight facing me and your back against the wall
my legs were laying out straight facing you, and I was leaning on my elbows

you initiated conversation because you're eloquent on the spot
I listened mostly because i'm not

I noticed a while through how well we were together. just talking to one another.

eventually, it got quiet and you pushed your back from the wall to lie flat on the floor
I put my elbows down and did the same.
as you scooted closer, our hips touched

"aren't you glad we're connected now"
i smiled

*I've got no clue what you meant by that
But I know that I was ecstatic to lie there with my hip touching yours

I would want nothing more,

Than to hear you knocking at my door,

You want nothing to do with me I'm sure.




I cant get you out of my head,

I lie alone, awake in bed,

I can don't know what to do instead.




There is only one of you,

And one of me,

I thought we fit together perfectly.




My edges were too rough,

My heart was too tough,

My love wasn't enough.




I don't blame you for the pain,

I remember that day it rained,

When I scooted to my left and you to your right,

But now I cry at night.

he gave me a look that set
a fire in my heart.
he turned the lights off,
and my heart raced faster.
closer
and
closer he scooted,
but did nothing.
why didnt he kiss me?

his little red car didn't do 100
it didn't even do 55
it just scooted around the carpet
getting stuck on sticky substances
that were not embarrassing
his little red car drove along
uneven ground, and occasionally
ran into feet, that were mountains
that crushed the little red car
in anger and under the heel of rage
he was lost for words
his little red car, not broken
still on four wheels still drove on
until the day it ran into Mommas hand
it backed up and drove forward again
and the hand didn't move
it didn't ruffle angelic hair
and it didn't wave away his little red car
with indulgence
it didn't move at all
he was lost for words
he drives slowly along the streets
in his black car, red a color of agony
while he scoots around the alleys
his bare feet cold upon metal
there is no carpet, no stickiness
to be left as an unknown substance
allowed to cloud his vision
of how it is to be to drive around
carefree
at a loss for words

I sat next to a **** fox at the
bar
It was a stumble really--I didn't
see her and barely made it onto the
stool
But she scooted to the left and brushed
my right arm
I glanced and said,
"Hi."
She smiled and asked how I was doing.
I responded with,
"What are you drinking?"
She giggled and said she was sipping on
a *** and coke

I got the bartender's attention and told him,
"*** and coke"

He brought it back and sat it between
the two of us--
     I threw him six bucks.

She drained her drink and reached for the
*** and coke.
--I slipped in quicker and grabbed the glass;
gulped it

The fox looked confused

I smirked,
     stood up,
          and walked out.

We slipped down olive drab line
under deafening blades,
out
onto the ridgeline
into pitch
like lightning.

Then the hookers,
them stick *******
scooted,
leaving us
in total silence.

Three days
& two cracks later,
we got extracted,
two departed,
mission accomplished.

had a dream you and i were sleeping on the same bed
i don't think we were touching but we were facing each other
it was dark and scary
your eyes were closed and my eyes were opened and i thought about moving closer
, putting my head to your chest
i remember your skin, it was sweaty it looked sticky and i think i may have actually scooted closer
, rested my forehead to your body
you weren't awake and i was sad and i just wanted you to look at me

in my dream, i woke up the next morning and you were gone
i checked the internet and i couldn't remember your name
either that or you had blocked me on facebook

Last night we sat in my driveway
Your chest heaved and I knew
Your heart was cracking under the pressure
Of "goodnight."
Because it was so close to saying goodbye

I scooted onto your lap  
While your tears dripped onto my thigh
And I tried to press my heart
Into your chest
Because I hated to see you cry

It wasn’t even delivery it was a **** pick up. All I wanted was a medium one topping. Just a delicious Papa John’s with a little beef. Well, turns out me and my car were about to have some beef.

My car and pizza have a history together. Long story short my car is the only nonliving and living thing to hate pizza. I was a pizza delivery driver for a few short months and my car loved driving around except when it came to pizzas and delivering them.

Like I said my car is a human or at minimum a living thing of sorts. The tan-*** ******* smelled the pizza as I scooted behind the wheel with my medium one topping. One sniff and three different lights came popping out at me.

The ABS brake light, air bag light, and the battery light. My car is maniacal! Once I got back home my car wouldn’t start and now I need a new battery and alternator. My car’s best friend even tried to give her a jump but she wouldn’t accept the love.

I love you my lovely car but why do you have to hate pizza so much.

A notch on the car seat is digging into my bare back. We never had *** in a car, in all the two years that we dated. This was our first time, which is funny, so much is over with. It is unoriginally steamy, but this makes the moon look even more muted, and I think about myself as the moon, and you as the sun, as we have always been and always will be in my head. I am intensely serene. I have just given the world’s greatest *******, and you are still kind of panting excitedly next to me. Your *** is still in my mouth. My *** has stained the seats. I am lying a little lower than you, due to the previous positioning of head to *****, and in this moment I am completely unconcerned with you at all. I am having a very silent and extremely imperative one-on-one dialogue with the moon.

And it is very strange, in one second I am looking up and the next I am looking down, it is years and years later, I am looking down at a table, I bought the table off Craigslist from some old lady in Vancouver who promised the leg only rattled occasionally. It didn’t. It rattled all the time.

I am looking down and some guy is standing above me, leaning against the wall. I remember choosing the paint of that wall, it is a light taupe. I remember feeling like my mom. I remember thinking that only a mom would look at the fascinatingly bright rainbow world of Home Depot paint swatches, and choose taupe. I had bought the table because I thought it matched the wall but I was somehow just now realizing that the colors didn't really go together at all.

He leans against the wall, and he looks familiar although I am simultaneously making him up. He has a little mustache, a shade of a beard. His hair is long, and just the right amount of messy, he is exactly what people would call ‘just that kind of guy.’ He is wearing a nice shirt, like he had just come home from work at a job that would pay enough for my parents to be happy. He has tired eyes. He has a kind smile. He looks like he would be a good father. He leans against the wall and I have an intense desire for him to sit down beside me.

I am about to ask him to when he makes this abrupt little laugh-chuckle sound that people in movies make when they’re about to give a particularly awful scripted line. “God, I dated some real airheads in high school.” He really does say the word ‘airhead,’ in my mind. He is that kind of guy. “What about you, babe?” he asks. He rubs his nose with his hand. “Did you have any hot high school lovers?”

And I am back in the car filled with provocative moonlight and innocent, angelic love that drips with that honeyed smell of ***. You have stopped panting. You have scooted your body down beside me so that it fits in a special space that over time has come to feel like an extension of my own body, where it had always been for so many sweet, pivotal, intimate moments of my life. I have a wider mouth now, and bigger eyes, but you still recognize me. I have a little extra skin around my waist too, but you don't seem to mind. Your hand rests humbly on my hip, and you look up at the moon with me. We are quiet for a while, and I cannot help but think that if the guy in the taupe room with the rattling table were there instead of you, he would have said something stupid.

I cannot thank you enough for letting us be simply who we were, in that unambitious and unassuming moment of time. And for bringing yourself to me when I wanted you to but didn't know how to ask, for never trying to be like the movies, and for not using stupid words like ‘airhead,’ for being both transient and infinite, equally and honestly, and for being the hottest ******* high school lover I could have ever asked for.

"Are you real?" Ravi whispered hoarsely.
Shyama the Mataji from the Yoga Shakti
ashram in Melbourne, smiled,
"As real as any of us," she replied.
Tenderly she tucked warm blankets around Ravi
as he slept on the cold, concrete, cement
steps of the Hindu temple.

Now it all seemed like a mirage to him, a fading dream.
Ravi anxiously waited for David's dark blue van.
Today he was finally leaving the austere environment
of the Buddhist Temple. New born vistas were
blossoming before his astonished eyes.

That morning he had broken the news to his mother.
"Mom I am coming home in a few days!"
His mother gasped with delight on the phone,
nearly swooning. She had just engaged in a
week long sadhana of intense prayers and
pujas in Bangalore pleading for the return of
their only son, Ravi, to their loving arms.

Soon, David and Ravi scooted down the
road waving goodby to the Monk and fellow
Buddhist practitioners. Ravi breathed a deep
sigh of relief. Everything was going so smoothly.
Later in the day I met David and Ravi for lunch.
Ravi had a slightly dazed appearance on his face.
So much had transpired in the past year. It was
as if he had been reborn. Each baby step he took,
God was there urging him on, catching him if he
seemed unsteady or unsure, infusing him with
fortitude, strength and great love.

I asked Ravi if he planned to say
goodbye to Shyama, the Mataji at the ashram.
Since time was pressed he decided to say farewell
in a phone call.

We wrapped up our lunch, David had errands to run,
so I took Ravi in my car. On our way home
we stopped at Walgreens to get some
chocolates for his Mom. We noticed a
woman pulling out of the parking lot.
"Oh My God!" Ravi exclaimed,
"That's Shyama!" We dashed over to her car.
"Ravi's leaving!" I gushed. Shyama Ma
got out of her car, gently embracing Ravi
and blessing him. We chatted briefly, then Shyama left.

Ravi and I stood there gawking at each other
in bedazzled ecstasy.
We both could feel the Divine Hand of God
showering us with His astounding leelas.

We resumed our errands and made our
way back to my house. Rama, our
inquisitive cat greeted Ravi rubbing his
furry little head against his feet.
Ravi relaxed, settling down on the wine
red couch in our front room. We flicked on
the TV. Ravi stammered like an innocent child,
"I haven't watched television in years!" He looked
at me with a befuddled grin, "I still can't believe
this is all real."

The weekend flew by and soon Ravi
was standing at the Check-In counter of
the airport preparing to fly home to
Bangalore, India.
"Ravi," I said softly, "this morning I had
a dream with Sathya Sai Baba."

"Oh really?" Ravi said excitedly,
"Please tell me about it."
I related the dream to Ravi:
I was sitting at a table, I believe my husband
and another man was on my right.
Swami was seated across from me.
He had such a beatific, radiant countenance.
I gazed at our glorious Sai, love surging
through my heart.

An attendant came over and poured juice
into two glasses. I said,
"Please give this to that man first. The attendant
moved the two drinks over.
Swami looked at me with a very
happy expression on His holy face.

As I finished describing the dream,
I said to Ravi, "I think Swami was
letting us know He is pleased with the
service rendered to you."
What a wonderful blessing.

Ravi shoved a package of Pizza flavored
crackers into his Carry-on bag.
David and I watched as Ravi trekked
through the security line of the airport,
his eyes glistened with thankful tears.

We both snapped pictures with our
cell phones of our sweet friend and
blew kisses which he eagerly caught,
a pristine beginning, a magnificent ethereal
bridal bouquet glowing on the rose pink
threshold of an extraordinary new day.