Christmas.... ugh
Isn't this a perplexing situation?
I have an interesting question...
First, I know this poem is not perfection
But does any one know what it's like
To be utterly alone on what's supposed to be
A most joyous day, surrounded by friends and family?
That annoying cherubic man
Won't be visiting my home
It's just an idiotic holiday
And no one cares I'll be alone
No homemade Christmas dinner
I might make myself a grade A steak
I'll raise a toast to myself
Nothing to boast about
Probably just whiskey, bottom shelf
I immense-ly hate Christmas
Say I'm dense-ly, I don't care
Been that way as long as I can remember
From the makeshift tree, when I was three
To being stuck homeless in a snow drift at sixteen
I can count all the "merry Christmas's" I've received
On one hand
It's never been merry, or happy
Most I got was engorged on stuffing
And a poorly cooked, dried out Turkey
No presents under the tree
With a gift tag saying Melanie


You know what? Sorry Quin,
but this is too **** depressing...
I quit...

Tequila, Velveeta
Distant, instant
Solemn, Gollum
Under-wear, I don't care
Tiny, finely
Flightless, loneliness
Hindrance, appliance
Backward, forward
Orange, purge
Rooftop, please stop
Kringle, Pringles

Ha! Invitations?
No...
Salutations...

I drop to my knees.
I keel over, coming hard.
My **** in your mouth;
My throbbing **** in both your palms,
I sink calmly into oblivion,
The happy ending devoutly to be wished,
For any ******* worth its salt,
What most matters to draftees of the Legion,
Roman plebeians applying most of their salary
To local honey BJs.
Salt:  the poor man’s ******.
Go ahead sacrifice my life for Rome,
Waste me in Gaul or Britannia,
**** me away for the Empire,
Exploit my wives,
Demean my offspring prostitutes.
But, please,
Just leave me my *** and TV,
Free Velveeta and Obama-Care.

Growing up
in an American house
in the nineteen fifties,
sixties and seventies,
the cheese of choice
was Velveeta,
the processed cheese-type food,
and we cut it
with a cheese slicer,
which was a thing
with a handle
and a wire
and a roller,
and my mother
would make us
grilled cheese sandwiches,
which she called
cheese toastwiches,
and the molten goo
would spill out
unto the plate
as we were eating one,
and this traditional cheese
seemed to start
in the days
of the little red metal pedal car
and end in the days
of being drunk and high
at two in the morning
watching Eddie Constantine movies,
and so the cheese
has changed
and it is now
mozzarella.

In your best midnight voice you said, "Shall we?"
I nodded, leaving my heart
somewhere in orange county
next to his ***** dishes
and overflowed ash tray.

I’d be lying to myself if I said I was in love with you.
and I’d be lying to myself if I said I wasn’t, too.
and I don’t know why right now I started thinking about you so intensely but I am.
and every time I see that stupid velveeta commercial,I think of you. you are gold and you make me melt.
and I hope that she treats you well and gives you everything that you need
and I hope you treat her well too.
and I hope that she bakes you homemade goods like cupcakes and cookies and brownies all the time.
I ******* miss you.
I really ******* miss you.
and I often think about driving to your house and telling you that this is where you’re supposed to be but I already know the answer to that statement and I know that it ***** and I know that I was awful sometimes and we were **** people and I know that I would do anything to make you feel like you would want me again and that *****. see the thing is is that everyone said they would stop hanging out with me if I ever got back together with you and when they ask how I feel about you I lie and say that I’m getting over it but I, not getting over it and that *****. you are this tattoo that still sting on my heart and I am trying to rip the seams of you off of my skin but it doesn’t seem to be working and something in my heart tells me to keep hanging on and to keep hold of all of these memories but I can’t. something is holding me from throwing away all the stuffed animals and love letter. so I have them in a box because sometimes my brain is right. but sometimes it’s not and I am having a hard time knowing which one to follow at this point. and I miss your laugh. I miss the way you would kiss me under fireworks every Fourth of July and hold me until I fell asleep. I miss you intensely. and right now in this moment I want to call you and ask you how you are and I am… empty. this isn’t a void some random person can come into my life and **** me senseless to change. only you, with a simple glance. god, I want you back so badly. and I ****** it up. the one person I cared about i ****** it up.
I am literally empty without you.

Make mine Velveeta.
Cheese is only cheese.
As Janis Joplin
once observed:
*It's all the same
******* day,
man.

Him
written July 8th, 2021

This is painful stuff, for me to post. I need to get this out of my "In Process Notebook" and into the "Finished Notebook." For me part of ptsd is avoiding anything about the trauma. I don't even want to call him my father, but that is who this is about. There are not graphic details of trauma in this writing, but there is some graphic language. I would avoid it if words can trigger you. Please feel free to skip this one and move on to something else.

-----------------

The other day, I stood in the kitchen, and had velveeta on saltines, a snack indelibly associated with, him, like the big hershey bars with almonds, that he kept in the cupboard over his junk drawer filled with screws and nails, with the shoe polish for our Sunday shoes kept below.

I can smell the shoe polish, unexpectedly real, that drawer and the shoe polish, and my soul recoils, instinct to flee as far away as I can get. There are memories, of him, that I have practiced remembering, until I don't flinch, at the thought of him, in my home - in my mind - in me still.

This isn't one of them. This one comes crashing through me, like a tidal wave, the love and the hurt. If it was just one, love -or- hurt, it would be bearable, perhaps, but that is not what this is, one or the other.

Love and hurt, together, shatter me, over and over, and I am broken glass, on that kitchen floor, all over again. I resolve, to practice this memory, practice him, until I can walk over the glass of these memories, keeping the smile on my face, and not want to flee.

clones roam the land,
searching for nourishment,
in mon santo fields,
designed to starve.

lost in the Budweiser haze,
opening bottles and sniffing foam,
rocky mountain brownies,
zigzag smoked.

waterfalls of velveeta,
sear my skin,
sausage and ro-tel,
invade my mind.

crackers crumbled,
lost in the mix,
salt and the lime,
a tequila lick.