How old are we?
Too young to remember.

We're stupid people
person, I am a little girl

quivering

Lunchtime! it's a calling.
I am sure of my steps, they grieve as I do

under the matte color of peach
is a ****** mess.

Swearword, swearword, swearword. Slap.

“instructions on how to destroy yourself from the ground up, and vice versa”
i say i think i am a better ghost-- and she says, dont be so cliche
this isnt a fairytale, this isnt Wonderland
, but i was born shoving the barrel of a gun down my throat like it was someone else’s tongue
and after a while they start to taste the same
less like a herald and more like sour lips curling around a sentence over and over “nobody exists anymore
welcome to the Forgotten era--”
swallowing glass just so my throat wont feel so empty
when she kisses me she says shes sorry
when she says my name it sounds like a swearword, like her mouth is too brittle to sound it out right
“instructions on how to build the perfect barricade”, start with enough wood to burn yourself to the ground
start over. start over. start over.
(seventeen crumpled dollars and a neon sign that says WELCOME TO PARADIS, comical in a way that makes a nine year old on a too-small bike start crying)
We Need To Talk / cutting your bangs uneven with a pair of scissors you found in an abandoned building / LACHRYMAL: CONNECTED WITH WEEPING OR TEARS
“instructions on how to change the way your name sounds”
i bleed empty promises,call people in the middle of the night just to say that I’m Fine
(i dont even remember the last time i ****** awake coughing up consonants, trying to
rebuild myself, i swear!)
she says my name right and it’s a tuesday. there are guns on a basement wall twenty miles away
, and it’s raining outside
, and she tells me she likes the way it sounds
(she swallows it whole)

Paris sits at a heart-shaped table, her lamplight eyes dimming for the morning. She pumps a tube of mascara, yawning.

“Oi!”

Paris jumps, troubled by the noise. “Oh no. Not you.” She says, blusher brush poised.

London doffs his rooftops like ten million battered bowlers.

“Nice to see you too. Not a morning girl, eh?”

Paris shakes her lovely head in a flurry of churchbells. “For you mon cher, there’s no right time of day.”

(The Channel chuckles, unsettling ships, as Dover reclines in her cloud of talc and giggles like a tickled bluebird.)

London utters a swearword. “You don’t like me, do you?”

“You’re not fit to lick my shoe.” Paris scowls, adjusting the Eiffel Tower until it sits slap-bang in the middle of her head like a crown.

“What hard work you are!” London howls, slamming a fist into the Serpentine.

Calais shrugs his trees, bored. “Mon dieu – get a room.”

The other day my granddaughter seven was eating and talking at the same time. She started choking rather fiercely on something that went the wrong way. Her face was rather contorted and when it was finally over  she looked up at me and said "I thought you were going to have to do the hind leg remover on me." And so it goes in the life of grandchildren.
-----------
My grandson 11 came home from school the other day. He was talking about a girl who says she's an atheist. He talks to her, is friends with her and he brought a little New Testament from  Home and slipped it into her backpack. She must've guessed where it came from. And he said to her "you can keep it or you can give it back to me" and that was the end of the story.
-----------
My grandson 11 came out of school today and was so excited. He said two of his teachers pulled him out of class and said "we have both signed papers for you to be in honors when you go into the seventh grade next year".  So he is rather excited. And so is grandma and grandpa.
-------------
I was saying something the other day and my seven-year-old Lucy said "that is a pun isn't it ?" Ah. Yes it is.

Short time later I said something else and she said "that is sarcastic isn't it?" Well what can I say? Yes.  Yes it is. She is one smart little second-grader.
---------------
11-29-16
Last year when my granddaughter Lucy was in first grade I ask her if she ever saw a teacher or someone just standing around leaning against the wall doing nothing. Of course she said yes.  So I said to her the next time you see one leaning against the wall ask them "are you procrastinating"? She asked me what does procrastinating mean?  I said it's putting things off till later maybe tomorrow. And she said oh OK. Couple days later she came home and told me that she ask Mrs. so-and-so the question. "Are you procrastinating? "I ask what did the teacher say? Lucy then said "well she looks down at me rather real funny like and said Huh?"

I was telling the story a few weeks ago to the librarian at the school. And she was cracking up. Then the librarian told me that she said to her husband a number of times "are you through procrastinating yet?" The funny thing was her husband didn't know the meaning of the word and thought it was a swearword of some variety.
You just never know. He knows now.
-------------------------