Peeing: to ***; to urinate; to release the body of its liquid toxins; to pass or discharge *****; characteristically yellow- the strength of the color depending on the body’s hydration.
People have strange habits when peeing; urinating; releasing the body of their liquid toxins. Some people procrastinate it to the last minute and rush to the bathroom, barely yanking their pants down in time and shuddering in relief. They are those who habitually whip in and out, even when they don’t really need to. There’s the common usage of an escape from boredom in classes or meetings. Perhaps it even causes a slight blushing in the cheeks of painfully shy woman at hearing rushed tinkling so close by. And of course, they are also the people who love to leave surprises for the next person who uses the bathroom.
All in all, peeing seems to mean not much to people – a small part of life; but a very, very necessary part.  

                                 *                 *                    * .

The rain poured furiously outside the window as Emily sat, straining her brown eyes against the whiteboard flashing images of trigonometry from Mr. Well’s laptop, trying hard to concentrate. She was sitting in her usual seat in class, and also her favorite. It was a solitary table with a chair, away from the clusters of tables and the chattering children, and the only chair by the window. She liked to look out the window, even if it distracted her from Mr. Well’s loud explanations. The booming of “SOHCAHTOA” in her ears became distant as the wind’s movement caught her eye. She gazed out on sheets of rain flapping across the sky like giant teary spirits and pressed her fingertips on the glass. Cold.
Absent-mindedly, she pressed her cheek against the coolness and felt it absorb her body warmth. Her imagination kicked in and the glass became a panel of energy, ******* a little life from all those who touched it, vibrating with a strange purple light until it was so filled with energy the particles of the glass would explode and she would be the first to die from the sharp shatters that would spray across the room, causing droplets of blood to-
Ahem.
Mr. Well coughed meaningfully at her dreamy face. The class exploded into laughter and the bell rang. A skinny girl smiled at her but she was so lost in her own world, she forgot to smile back as she slung her bag on her shoulder and ran out. Maybe that’s why she didn’t have too many friends.
The dark skies were pouring furiously as only Bangkok in Monsoon weather can.
A walk home or a motorbike ride? A motorbike ride would be a little dangerous in this flooding… and with that reasoning she waved up a motorbike. The seat was soaked and so was the driver, whose brown leathered feet struggled to keep red flip-flops on as they sloshed through the flooded Sois.
Fat water bullets pelted her skin and the wind blew them ferociously into her face till her eyes stung. The motorbike swerved in and out of the cars stuck in traffic (slightly floating), the bottoms of their wheels immersed in ***** water.
The pockets of her school shorts were hastily rummaged through and she pulled out a soggy green twenty-baht note bank before running into the shelter of the lobby, dripping over the marble floor and completely drenched. The building-maid widened her eyes, and watched her horrified; knowing it meant extra work mopping and drying up the lobby floor as soon as Emily vanished into the elevator.
The plastic button with the circular metal piece glowed orange. It was strange how she was shivering with cold but her touch was still warm enough to light up the elevator buttons.
The usual itchy, impulsive, restlessness was building up inside her from the wet motorbike ride. Thunder roared and crackled through the lobby’s swinging glass doors and they vibrated slightly. Another flashing image of splintering glass splashed across her mind and in the split-second, she saw the diamond shards pierce the eye of the lobby’s guard and splinter across the floor-
She shook her head. This was what happened when she had too much pent-up energy. She had to do something- something reckless and fast and dangerous… now! A bolt of lightning went through her as a familiar wide open space came into her mind… the rooftop of her thirty-five floored building.
The elevator ride up was slow, much too slow for the fast pacing of her heart and she hit the metal doors with wet fists. Tearing out of the doors when it finally jolted to a stop, she climbed up to the top, running up the stairs two steps at a time and caught her breath. It was flooded up to her ankles and violent gusts of wind made her steady herself.
Emily’s Dad often told her stories of when he was child. “The winds in my home during Monsoon season were so strong we could lean into it with our fully body weight and we wouldn’t fall. It was almost as good as flying.”
Her lids squinted shut and the sensitive skin was immediately exposed to the pebbles of the rain and whipping wind; and in almost dream-like state, she leaned into the howling wind.
There was a comically slow fall and her bony knees hit the concrete flooring with a dull thud. She burst into tears of laughter in her own stupidity at thinking the wind could hold up against her gigantic frame and rubbed her ***** knees sorely. Reaching up to wipe her tears with muddy fingers, she laughed to herself again. There was no point in wiping away tears. They were so trivial in comparison to the current weeping of the skies.
Against the thick opaqueness of the wind, she could see how the view towered over a jungle of buildings as far as the eyes could see, with snaking concrete roads and skinny black canals. Slums scattered around nearby swanky hotels of the rich. The buildings faded into small dark shapes in the distance. Bangkok.
No matter how tall and industrial it tried to become, everyone ran for cover under this blinding rain.
Up here, completely a victim to nature’s power, she felt exposed; naked; real. The animalistic instincts inside her swelled up. Humans weren’t meant to wear these annoying pieces of material or shoved inside skinny architectural designs. With aggressive tearing motions, a pile of soggy clothes half lay, half floated on the flooded floor beside her and she stood there bare… and completely naked. Laughter spilled out from the depths of her naked chest with the two tiny hints of possible womanhood; it was louder than thunder. Screaming, laughing and gasping she stumbled around – climbing over objects and feeling the beautiful dizziness: a sweet, sweet dizzy. She stood up on a random block a meter high; spread her arms wide as her wet body shone with raindrops. The rain threatened to push her over, her soaked hair twitching heavily on her neck.
She ****** in her breath, ready to yell so that the heavens could hear but instead, the voice that came out was controlled with a shaky undertone of joy,
“I need to ***.”
And then she did.

                                                *         *            *.

His eyes are brown. Dark chocolate brown – a simple, solid color. Simple and solid like him.
Because he was so simple, people enjoyed his companionship. Though he was simple, he was not boring. Rather he was sharp-mouthed, quick on his feet, witty and observant speaking bald truths about people that either provoked them to scandalized laughter or humiliated fury.
What some people forgot to recognize was that he didn’t really love anyone. Plenty called him a close friend, but so absorbed were they in their own world; they seldom realized the fact that most of his thoughts were concealed. Kept in a little box of surprises in the back of his mind, and hidden so well nobody knew they existed.
He could spend months with a friend traveling in a different country, and return back home with no feelings of attachment. He could care for a friend while they were here and not really miss them while they were gone.
Most of the time his eyes were neutral and observing and they would sparkle amusedly when he had provoked someone with his words. This was how remained to almost everyone; everyone but one person. The one person that could turn his normally calm face even more still, the dark brows would rise slightly and a quick flash of fire would shoot through his eyes- and for a long while, they would burn slowly like two twin coals; the one person who could cloud his eyes dreamily; the one person who could make them glint wetly.  
He reached over and grabbed her hand. Emily turned smiling eyes at him.
A group of teenagers were strolling down the closed roads, armed with water guns, pasted in thick white powder, thoroughly drenched in the hot, dry weather and skipping over puddles (except for Emily who splashed into them).
Songkran in Bangkok: celebrated in the middle of April where temperatures reach forty-degrees Celsius, Thailand’s New Year and a time to pay respect to the elders in the family, but as most traditions, they became really just an excuse to enjoy oneself and in this case, one-year-olds to eighty-year-olds roamed the ***** streets splashing ice-cold water from hoses and water guns and smeared each other with chalk in buckets.
The street they were being shoved along was crowded with slick, drunk bodies. The heat of the afternoon sun shone down on their backs. The sign that introduced excited people in was sprayed by a passing pick-up truck filled with screaming locals. “WELCOME TO SOI COWBOY” printed the red letters.
Red-faced fat foreigners held in each arm a tiny ******* with their bright lace bras showing through the wet see-through shirt and their black eye shadow playing havoc with their cheeks.  Country-side Thai music blared in its jumpy, quirky manner with the over done sound effects. Those nasal voices of dark skinned women with their skins covered with make-up to an ashy white whined out of the stereos. A man with the head of a buffalo mask sauntered past. It was a mark of how wild things got at Songkran that eyes merely flickered over the shirtless buffalo briefly with a quick laugh. Transsexuals clad in diamond-studded flip-flops, wet white tank tops and mini jeans shorts the size of underwear danced to the blasting music from the open pubs down either side of the road. Their surgically-made ******* were all-too visible in the white shirts, their dark ******* poking out as they grabbed the crotches of good-looking men and boys that passed by, squealing and rubbing their bodies against white men especially. Most of these white foreigners had a look of bewildered pleased ness... for only a few realized that underneath that squeaky voice was a very deep rumble, and underneath those lacy thongs lay a very big surprise indeed.
One of the better-looking boys in the group, his green eyes and pointed chin drawing the fancy of many hookers, was pulled off by four pairs of wet skinny arms touching him and yelling in broken English, “Oh so handsome! You so handsome! I love you! What your name! You tell me your name, handsome boy!”
The handsome boy proceeded to manage some sort of scream for help while laughing until his stomach ached. It was Songkran; it was a merry time, and he knew he was good-looking. Kat, who held a secret crush on him laughed amusedly at his yelping.
Emily stumbled after him with Kat and parted through the crowd of ladies in time to see a tiny little ****** trip on her squeaking flip-flops and fall beside a sprawled figure, face down in the ***** road with a massive bag of ice on top of him.
“Hey! Are you alright?” Emily cried, half-amused and half-concerned, lifting the heavy ice bag off his shoulders.
Kat rushed forward, laughing but compromising her concern with furrowed brows and helped him up. “You okay Tom?”
He whimpered in pain and put a hand on his neck, rubbing it sorely. “That ice bag was ******* heavy.” The girls decided to make no note of his skinny arms.
They walked back to their group of friends who turned around and saw a limping green-eyed boy and roared with laughter. The noise caught the attention of predators searching for a good target and they were hosed down with water pipes.
Suddenly Emily felt a huge body lift her up and swing her around while hands plastered her with wet chalk.
“Emily!”
She felt safe hands grab her and looked up into the pair of dark chocolate eyes. They were a little annoyed as they flickered over the fat drunk man who released her heavily but it was Songkran, and he managed to laugh at her bewildered expression.
Just then they passed a horde of prostitutes and she felt him being ripped from her. “I like this one!” screeched a passing market lady who rushed in to jump on him. “I like this one! Let’s keep this one!” They dunk his head in a bucket of white goo.
She screeched with laughter and even at something that silly, felt protective of him. “Brad!”
He was too busy being attacked. “Brad!” she tried to reach in and he opened his mouth to call out to her. That was a big mistake, he realized, as he received a handful of powder in his mouth. Spitting, coughing, and trying to breathe through nostrils blocked with powder he managed to wipe his stinging eyes clean. The prostitutes released him but not before a huge ******* screamed with glee at his straight nose and thin red lips, and reached forward giving his crotch a good grab. He screeched in genuine disgust and fear, had a moments feeling of guilt in case he had offended the ******* which was immediately wept away as he, no she, no it, yelped joyfully and massaged his **** before trotting off to his, no her, no its next victim.
Where was Emily? With his height, he managed to see a brown head that stuck above the other dark-haired and light-haired heads being jostled out of the street by the moving crowd. He ran to catch up and grabbed Emily’s hand as the group of teenagers tripped out of “Soi Cowboy”.  
They stood for a moment catching their breath. Zoey, a tiny little girl with a chest that threatened to put her out of balance, pushed her brown curls out of her face. A red glow was starting to spread over her cheeks.
Kat laughed scornfully, her wide smile spreading generously over her face. “Sunburn?! You white girl!”  
They had all been out around the streets since early morning and it was late in the afternoon now. Rose’s cheeks were flushed and the tip of Kat’s nose was a little pink herself. The rest of them, with their darker skin, had tanned slightly but unnoticeably. They laughed at Zoey for a short while. It was an interesting group of friends: all of them of mixed heritages from around the world with different backgrounds that became common in the world of International schools. It was alright to tease Emily’s honey skin; it was funny to crack jokes about Stefan’s hairiness; it was hilarious when Zoey tried to tan.
Emily shot a picture of everyone laughing: their clothes wet, their faces scrunched up, eyeliner smudged (Kat and Rose had lined their eyes with water proof kohl that of course wasn’t really waterproof), their cheeks and chin caked a crumbly white.
Kat and Zoey clambered over her shoulders, peering at the little digital screen of the water proof camera. “Ew! Gross!” yelled Kat who was only used to pictures of her lips rosy from lipstick, camera at a flattering angle with a bright flash from her professional equipment that made her black-lined green eyes sparkle like emeralds.
“Delete! I look sick!”
Even Zoey, who admired Kat’s photogenic ness to a great extent, could find no words of solace except to say, “Me too! I look gross! Delete! Now!”
Emily just laughed and said, “No you don’t.” Of course it wasn’t a type of picture they’d profile on Facebook, but all the same it was beautiful with their wild-looking and uninhibited faces and un-posing body shapes, curled up in laughter.
Zoey snatched the camera from her and they fiddled with the buttons till the picture was deleted. It was regretful, annoying, but not unexpected.
Emily rubbed her sore knees and noticed how Tom was still rubbing his neck sorrowfully with Stefan laughing at him, shaking his head wearily. Brad was holding onto her arm a little tiredly, Kat and Zoey had their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulder for leaning support and Rose and Emily’s younger brother, Jason, were standing together, staring absen

Part I


the plateau. the truest of them all. coast line. night spells and even controlled by the dream of meeting again. the ribbon of darker than light in your crown. No region overlooked. Third picnic table to the drive at Half Moon Bay, meet me there, decant my speech there. the table by the restroom block. While the tide is in show me your oyster garden, 3:00p.m. at half-light here in the evilest torments that have been shed.---------------door locked.  The moors. Cow herds and lymph nodes, rancorous afternoon West light and bending roads, the cliffs, a sister, the need to jump. There is nothing as serious as this. There is nothing nor no one that could ever, or would ever on this side come between. Who needs sleep or jokes or snow or rivers or bombs or to turn or be a rat or a fly or ceiling fan or a gurney or a cadaver or piece of cloth or a bed spread or a couch or a game or the flint of a lighter or the bell of a dress; the bell of your dress, yes, perhaps. Having been crushed like orange cigarette light in a pool of Spanish tongues. I feel the heave, the pull; not a yawn but a wired, thread-like twist about my core. Up around the neck it makes the first cut, through the eyes out and into the nostrils down over the left arm, on the inside of the bicep, contorting my length, feigning sleep, and then cutting over my stomach, around and around multiples of times- pulled at the hips and under the groin, across each leg and in-between each nerve, capillary, artery, hair, dot, dimple, muscle, to the toes and in-between them. Wiry dream-like and nervous nightmarish, hellacious plateaus of leapers. Penguin heads and more penguin heads. Startling torment. The evilest of the vile mind. The dance of despair: if feet contorted and bound could move. The beach off Belmont. The hills and the reasons I stared. Caveat after caveat at the heads of letters, on the heads of crowns, and the wrists, and on the palms. Being pulled and signed, and moved away so greatly and so heavily at once in a moment, that even if it were a year or a set of many months it would always be a moment too taking away to be considered an expanse, and it would be too hellacious to be presumptuous. It could only be a shadow over my right shoulder as I write the letters over and again. One after another. Internally I ask if I would even grant a convo with Keats or Yeats or Plath or Hughes? Does mine come close? Does it matter the bellies reddish and cerise giving of pain? Does it have to have many names?


"This is the only Earth," I would say with the bouquet of lilies spread out on the table. Are lilies only for funerals, I would never make or risk or wish this metaphor, even play it like the drawn out notes of a melody unwritten and un-played: my black box and latched, corner of the room saxophone. Top-floor, end of the hall two-room never-ending story, I'm the left side of the bed Chicago and I see pink walls, bathrooms, the two masonite paintings, the Chanel books, the bookshelves, the white desk, the white dresser, you on the left side of the bed in such sentimental woe, **** carpet and tilted blinds, and still the moors and the whispering in the driver's seat in afternoon pasture. Sunset, sunrise, nighttime and bike room writing in other places, apartments, rooms where I inked out fingertips, blights, and moods; nothing ever being so bleak, so eerily woe-like or stoic. Nothing has ever made me so serious.

Put it on the rib, in a t-shirt. Make it a hand and guide it up a set of two skinny legs under a short-sheeted bed in small room and literary Belmont, address included. Trash cans set out morning and night, deck-readied cigarette smoking. Sliding glass door and kitchen fright. Low-lit living room white couch, kaleidoscope, and zoetrope. Spin me right round baby right round. I am my own revenge of toxic night. Attack the skin, the soul, the eyes, the mind, and the lids. The finger lids and their tips. Rot it out. Blearing wild and deafening blow after blow: left side of the bed the both of us, whilst stirs the intrepid hate and ousts each ******* tongue I can bellow and blow.

Last resort lake note in snow bank and my river speak and forest walk. Wrapped in blocks and boxes, Christmas packaging and giant over-sized red ribbons and bows. Shall I mention the bassinet, the stroller, the yard, several rings of gold and silver, several necklaces of black and thread? I draw dagger from box, jagged ended and paper-wrapped in white and amber: lit in candle light and black room shadow-kept and sleeping partisan unforgettable forever. Do I mention Hawaii, my mother dying, invisible ligatures and the unveiling of the sweat and horror? Villainous and frightening, the breath as a bleat or heart-beat and matchstick stirring slightly every friends' woe and tantrum of their spirit.

Lobster-legged, waiting, sifting through the sea shore at the sea line, the bright tyrannosaurs in mahogany, in maple, and in twine over throw rose meadow over-looks, honey-brimming and warehouse built terrariums in the underbelly of the ravine, twist and turn: road bending, hollowing, in and out and in and out, forever, the everlasting and too fastidious driving towards; and it's but what .2 miles? I sign my name but I'll never get out. I am mocked and musing at tortoise speed. Headless while improvising. Purring at any example of continue or extremity or coolness of mind, meddling, or temptation. I rock, bellowing. Talk, sending shivers up my spine. I'm cramped, and one thousand fore-words and after words that split like a million large chunks of spit, grime, and *****; **** and more ****. I might even be standing now. I could be a candle, in England, a kingdom, in Palo Alto, a rook in St. Petersburg. Mottled by giants or sleepless nights, I could be the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty, a heated marble flower or the figure dying to be carved out. I'm veering off highways, I'm belittling myself: this heathen of the unforgettable, the bog man and bow-tied vagrant of dross falsification and dross despair. I am at the sea shore, tide-righted and tongue-tide, bilingual, and multi-inhibited by sweat, spit, quaffs of sea salt, lake water, and the like. Rotten wergild ridden- stitched of a poor man's ringworm and his tattered top hat and knee-holed trousers. I'm at the sea shore, with the cucumbers dying, the rain coming in sideways, the drifts and the sandbars twisting and turning. I'm at the sea shore with the light house bruise-bending the sweet ships of victory out backwards into the backwaters of a mislead moonlight; guitars playing, beeps disappearing, pianos swept like black coffees on green walled night clubs, arenose and eroding, grainy and distraught, bleeding and well, just bleeding.






I'm at the sea shore, the coastline calling. I've got rocks in my pockets, ******* and two lines left in the letter. I’m at the sea shore, my mouth is a ghost. I've seen nothing but darkness. I'm at the seashore, second picnic table, bench facing the squat and gobble, the tin roof and riled weir near the roadside. .2 and I'm still here with my bouquet wading and waiting. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. My inches are growing shorter by the second, cold, whet by the sunset, its moon men, their heavy claws and bi-laws overthrowing and throwing me out. The thorns stick. The tyrannosaurs scream. I'm at the sea shore, plateau, left bedside to write three more letters. Sign my name and there's nobody here.

I'm at the sea shore: here are my lips, my palms (both of them facing up), here are my legs (twine and all), my torso, and my head shooting sideways. I'm at the seashore and this is my grave, this is my purposeful calotype, my hide and go seek, my show and tell, my forever. .2 and forever and never ending. I was just one dream away come and keep me. I'm at the sea shore come and see me and seam me. I'm without nothing, the sky has drifted, the sea is leaving, my seat is a matchbox and I'm all wound up. The snow settling, the ice box and its glory taken for granted. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. The room with its white sets of furniture, the lilies, the Chanel, the masonite paintings, the bed, your ribbon of darker on light, the throw rug **** carpet, pink walled sister's room, and the couch at the top of the stairs. I'm at the sea shore, my windows opened wide, my skin thrown with threat, rhinoceri, reddish bruises bent of cerise staled sunsets. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. I'm at the plateau and there isn't a single ship. There are the rocks below and I'm counting. My caveats all implored and my goodbyes written. I'm in my bed and the sleep never set in. I'm name dropping God and there's nobody there. I'm in a chair with my hands on a keyboard, listening to Danish throb-rock, horse-riding into candle light on a wicked wedding of wild words and teary-eyed gazes and gazers. Bent by the rocking and the torment, the wild and the weird, the horror and everything horrifying. There is this shadow looking over my shoulder. I'm all alone but I feel like you're here.



Part II




I wake up in Panama. The axe there. Sleeping on the floors in the guest bedroom, the floor of the garden shed, the choir closet, the rut of dirt at the end of the flower bed; just a towel, grayish-blue, alone, lawnmower at my side, and sky blue setting all around. I was a family man. No I just taste bits of dirt watching a quiet and contrary feeling of cool limestone wrap over and about my arms and my legs. Lungs battered by snapping tongues, and ancient conversations; I think it was the Malaysian Express. Mom quieted. Sister quieted. Father wept. And is still weeping. Never have I heard such horrifying and un-kindly words.-----------------------It's going to take giant steel cavernous explorations of the nose, brain cell after brain cell quartered, giant ******* quaffs of alcohol, harboring false lanterns and even worse chemicals. Inhalations and more inhalations. I'm going to need to leap, flight, drop into bodies of waters from air planes and swallow capsules of psychotropics, sedatives beyond recalcitrance. I'm requiring shock treatments and shock values. Periodic elements and galvanized steel drums. Malevolence and more malevolence. Forest walks, and why am I still in Panama. I don't want to talk, to sleep, to dream, to play stale-mating games of chess, checkers, Monopoly, or anything Risk involving. I can't sleep, eat, treaty or retreat. I'm wickeded by temptations of grandeur and threats of anomaly, widening only in proverb and swept only by opposing endeavors. Horrified, enveloped, pictured and persuaded by the evilest of haunts, spirits, and match head weeping women. I can't even open my mouth without hearing voices anymore. The colors are beginning to be enormous and I still can't swim. I couldn't drown with my ears open if I kept my nose dry and my mouth full of a plane ticket and first class beanstalk to elysian fields. It's pervasive and I'm purveyed. It's unquantifiable. It's the epitomizing and the epitome. I have my epaulets set for turbulent battles though I still can't fend off night. Speak and I might remember. Hear and it's second rite. Sea attacks, oceans roaring, lakes swallowing me whole. Grand bodies of waters and faces and arms appendages, crowns and more crowns and more crowns and more crowns and more crowns and I'm still shaking, and I'm still just a button. And I still can't sleep. And I'm still waiting.

It is night. The moon ripening, peeling back his face. Writhing. Seamed by the beauty of the nocturne, his ways made by sun, sky, and stars. Rolled and rampant. Moved across the plateau of the air, and its even and coolly majestic wanton shades of twilight. It heads off mountains, is swept as the plains of beauty, their faces in wild and feral growths. Bent and bolded, indelible and facing off Roman Empires too gladly well in inked and whet tips of bolder hands to soothe them forth.-----------Here in their grand and grandiose furnaces of the heart, whipped tails and tall fables fettered and tarnished in gold’s and lime. Here with their mothers' doting. Here with their Jimi Hendrix and poor poetry and stand-up downtrodden wergild and retardation. I don't give a ****. I could weep for the ***** if they even had hair half as fine as my own. I am real now. Limited by nothing. Served by no worship or warship. My flotilla serves tostadas at full-price. So now we have a game going.-----------------------------------------------------------­------------------------  My cowlick is not Sinatra's and it certainly doesn't beat women. As a matter of factotum and of writ and bylaw. I'm running down words more quickly than the stanza's of Longfellow. I'm moving subtexts like Eliot. I'm rampant and gaining speed. Methamphetamine and five star meats. Alfalfa and pea tendrils. Loves and the lovers I fall over and apart on. Heroes and my fortune over told and ever telling. Moving in arc light and keeping a warm glow.

the fish line caves. the shimmy and the shake. Bluegrass music and big wafting bell tones. snakes and the river, hands on the heads, through the hair; I look straight at the Pacific. I hate plastic flowers, those inanimate stems and machine-processed flesh tones. Waltzing the state divide. I am hooked on the intrepid doom of startling ego. I let it rake into my spine. It's hooves are heavy and singe and bind like manacles all over me. My first, my last, my favorite lover. I'm stalemating in the bathtub. Harnessing Crystal Lite and making rose gardens out of CD inserts and leaf covers. I'm fascinated by magic and gods. Guns and hunters. Thieving and mold, and laundry, and stereotypes, and great stereos, and boom-boxes, and the hi-fi nightlife of Chicago, roasting on a pith and meaty flame, built like a horror story five feet tall and laced with ruggedness and small needles. My skin is a chromium orchid and the grizzly subtext of a Nick Cave tune. I've allowed myself to be over-amplified, to mistake in falsetto and vice versa. To writhe on the heavy metallic reverberations of an altercated palpitation. The heart is the lonely hunted. First the waterproof matchsticks, then the water, the bowie knife, crass grasses and hard-necked pitch-hitters and phony friends; for doing lunch in the park on a frozen pond, I play like I invented blonde and really none of my **** even smells like gold.--------------------- There are the tales of false worship. I heard a street vendor sell a story about Ovid that was worse than local politics. As far as intermittent and esoteric histories go I'm the king of the present, second stage act in the shadow of the sideshow. Tonight I'm greeting the characters with Vaseline. For their love of music and their love of philosophy. For their twilight choirs and their skinny women who wear black antler masks and PVC and polyurethane body suits standing in inner-city gardens chanting. For their chanting. The pacific. For the fish line caves. For the buzzing and the kazoos. For the alfalfa and the three fathers of blue, red, and yellow. For the state of the nation. But still mostly working for the state of equality, more than a room for one’s own.-------------------------------------------------------------­------"Rice milk for all of you." " Kensington and whittled spirits."
(Doppelganger enters stage left)MAN: Prism state, flash of the golden arc. Beastly flowers and teeming woodlands. Heir to the throes and heir to the throng.----------------------------------------------------------­--------------- The sheep meadow press in the house of affection. The terns on my hem or the hide in my beak; all across the steel girder and whipping ******* the windows facing out. The mystery gaze that seers the diplopic eye. Still its opening shunned. I put a cage over it and carry it like a child through Haight-Ashbury. At times I hint that I'm bored, but there is no letting of blood or rattle of hope. When you live with a risk you begin at times to identify with the routes. Above the regional converse, the two on two or the two on four. At times for reasons of sadness but usually its just exhaustion. At times before the come and go gets to you, but usually that is wrong and they get to you first. Lathering up in a small cerulean piece of sky at the end turnabout of a dirt road

It's raining with your words.
     Same   Lies   As   Always.
You know that if you cry
     My   Weakness  Wins.
But you finally drowned me
     And    Now    I    Know
         That    was    the    last    time*
    *Because   Your   Tears   Don't   Wet   Me   Anymore
They   Slip   Off   My   Skin
    **Thanks To You,
Now I'm Waterproof...

a man privately asks, can you help?
you say, sure-no-hesitation

let me think on it for a day or two, he says
yet you act even before he comes back,
too late, you say, when he returns,
too late, he repeats in puzzlement,
yup, my check is in the mail,
cause one senses the need is dire plus,
plus you well recall the immutable obligation when  
a vague commitment of “just ask” was inked in a long ago message,
a poem born from/in the days when you slept in the car on the street

this vague promissory,
a more enforceable judgement in your own court of law
than any state construct or the judgmental eyes of a silenced god

word, honor, do.

thus it begins, an unwritten contract inked,
an egregious interest rate of 0% proffered and agreed,
commences a plain white envelope trickle,
a check inside, by postal mail, slowly it came,
month by month, inch by inch, Niagara Falls ^

years go by, and then comes a day,
when the accompanying check and its gift wrapped note says,
Paid In Full!

and so much for the tedious minutiae...

like kindness, I do,
Thank You and Your Welcome
are high on my list of proofs of
daily human extensions existential,
Paid in Full,
now rests at the top of the list

let me be blunt, the thrill of being a party
to a deal with no handshake, just coated in the
honorable words waterproof sealant,
with a person I likely may never meet,
made me so better assured of whom many claim I am,  
a mathematical proof revered and kept mind inscribed,
it was an aspirational ****, an unforeseen monthly blunt,
the best feeling good smile,
a kick in the pants about what really matters

being paid twice over and me,
getting by far,
the humanity confirmation,
the better half of the deal

write too often of honor,
and yet, will instinctual do again,
again overpowering my rays of will,
for there is no deflection, only reflection

for the glorious riches gifted and received,
without compare
the return on my honorable investment the best ever

oh brotherhood, oh brotherhood,
I am paid in the currency coined from brotherhood...

I'm waterproof
Standing under His waterfall.

When tears seep out
it doesn't smear
the cosmetics I use
to cover and accentuate
as is expected of me
a little urn
tasteful walnut box
paw print on pottery
I admit, I shook it
to see if anything rattled about
but thankfully there was silence
Sometimes we lose
what we most want to keep
Every living thing
is precious
irreplaceable
I want to get a little black kitten
with some white on his chest
but it won't be my little black kitty
it won't be the one I found
on a road
next to the beach in Haifa
covered in tar and fleas
skin and bones and ear mites
and who became
a member of my family
my Shakour

Woke up this morning to a real blizzard
Well about seventeen flakes an hour
Anyway I dressed Mollie in her little red waterproof
And walked her down along the river
Why in hell does twenty two pounds of fighting fury
Need to wear a waterproof coat?
Well because she's over eight years old
A really good age for a Patterdale Terrier
And just occasionally she has to be reminded about
Just how old she is
Why in hell do I bother?
Fifteen pounds spent on a waterproof coat
Temperature just about zero
And she decides to go for her morning swim
Obviously female, a male dog wouldn't be that stupid
Anyway got her home and towelled her down
And gave her a bowl of cornflakes and warm milk
And then
That smelly wet dog climbed all over me

Man I hate that dog

Come on do The Locomotive with me
Shildon smoky days with black sheet cloud
terrace rows
buy some cheap beef shank for the dog
open shuttered butchers smell of blood
sit at the bar peel the sheets soggy New Statesman
by the glass
started reading it on the toilet at home
had to get out
sink the pints eat a chicken tikka masala flavour
pork pie isn’t that an oxymoron? and humour
Gappy slumped at the bar no longer violent new leaf turned
collects shopping trolleys in the Asda car park
he’s got a badge and a green jacket waterproof
which is nice
so come on do The Locomotive with me
roadside ****** familiar faces though not so many
these days
faded glory days wall images of train filled
old days of engineering and purpose and place
the starting point of a world phenomenon a
phenomenon that brought global joy and death
in equal measure but sod that
Darlington and Stockton
got all the glory.

While in the line of ProBook, designed for business people, there seemed to be the uniqueness H . p . ProBook Four hundred and fifty G2. The girl, like several involving your ex sisters and brothers, is a great doing the job unit and not simply because in this article, together with built in images plus distinct offered. So besides office environment tasks will even enjoy uncomplicated online games. An awesome replacement for catch several wildlife along with one particular rock. I'm wondering what otherwise is able to you should this ProBook 350 G2?

Design and style ( blank ) Hewlett packard ProBook 450 G2
That 16.6-inch device has got dimensions 375x262x23-25 mm, and its particular body is employed matte soft-touch plastic material in addition to lightweight aluminum. Forces and hues the product, although it is kind of typical, or in other words conventional. The lid as well as the bottom on the ProBook 400 G2 black, while the important area ?silver. Alternatives back again of your pc, the idea contains the air vents, compartment, to which includes the ram segments and hard hard drive, and battery power as well as segments to help eject And sealing. As to the design, plus there is very little authentic. Include and also basic aspects slightly rounded physique truly becomes smaller, except that it is actually fuller regarding some mm.

Whenever we talk about the fat from the product which can be 3.One particular kg, it is not only smaller for such a style element, but the best, in order not to experience irritation whilst traveling as well as business trips. Also, the laptop is created perfectly, whatever the case, a distressing experience with this functioning, he does not go away.

Present, sound, net camera - Horsepower ProBook 400 G2
A monitor with the laptop includes a 16.6-inch straight as well as a quite minimal decision with 1366?Sixty eight pixels. Naturally, correctly could be plenty of, these days this determine will not be specially beautiful from the little brown eyes of end users. Incidentally, your settings and also distinction is too higher, in case you utilize a laptop at work, although not since crucial for the duties to generally be carried out about the ProBook 400 G2. As well as the matte present surface area is a lot more secure versus the lustrous, not only for motion pictures also for office work. In terms of taking a look at sides, they are not hence vast in which, without decrease of image quality watch training video or even photograph from your facet, as opposed to just staying straight while watching computer screen. In addition suggested choice: show by using Entire HD-resolution, effect regulates, in addition to aid pertaining to 10-finger multitouch.

The notebook can be a A single.Three mp web cam. It is actually sufficient regarding movie telephone calls in Skype, to maintain in contact with friends and colleagues. In beneficial gentle snapshot from the camera, will probably be far better.

Intended for sound recording production suffices two music audio speakers based over the keyboard set, along with the adjustments DTS Sound +. The seem is definitely sent with out deformation, with the exception that in addition to high frequencies would choose to find out a little bit of striper. Sadly, a laptop isn't adequate quantity so that you are probably certainly not well worth parting together with earbuds. As well, the product is usually a business-class, therefore the acoustics in the primary premiums and are not made.

Keyboard set along with Touchpad ( blank ) Hewlett packard ProBook Four hindred and fifty G2
In the key-board, waiting in this laptop computer, there are plenty of benefits. This can be mostly a waterproof surface that won't complete towards interior pieces poured the liquid. It is usually a tropical, full-size, incorporates nampad.

The particular control buttons employ a centre system, forced without having a lot attempt but not also noisy. Recommendations and it's away from the key board, they are accountable for this introduction of the laptop computer, the initial involving cellular quests along with mime.

A touch pad includes a beneficial receptiveness, completed through the help of two-finger scrolling, along with both horizontal and vertical. Moreover, you may move as well as focus, make use of. Manipulator doesn't besknopochny, listed here there's two actual personal computer mouse.

On the right on the known as is actually a finger marks scanner, it has the reputation is quite easy regarding business enterprise vacationers and everything those who used to safeguard computer data out of prying.

Efficiency ( blank ) Hp . p . ProBook 400 G2
Brand-new makes 64-bit main system Microsoft windows 7.One. Just in case Hewlett packard ProBook 450 G2 (J4S24EA) covering the low-voltage dual-core Apple company Central i5-4210U , which has a time clock volume of one.7 Ghz as well as a storage cache inside third volume of Several Megabytes. The following chip is made in Haswell 25 nm technological know-how, how many its features consist of service regarding Turbo Raise, which allows to boost the frequency to two.Several Ghz with a one lively nucleus, together with Hyper-Threading, through which the two cores is actually refined approximately three facts water ways in unison. As you can tell, compared to the forerunner Center i5-4200U the following a bit improved time clock pace since the bottom, and something by which the actual brand operates in any style Turbocompresseur. I must say which Center i5-4210U handle business office chores and also media, however if you have to have a stronger notebook, then otherwise you can pick an extensive fixed with primary Central i7.

Graphics Credit card Apple company Hi-def Graphics 4400 incorporated while in the nick, is a wonderful selection for easy artwork chores. Such as, looking at videos, modifying shots. Although with more intricate operations better equipped reduce let loose AMD Radeon R5 M255. Its rate of recurrence is definitely fewer than 940 Megahertz, he supports DirectX 11.A couple of and has now Only two Gigabyte involving of memory space standard, DDR3. Performance of this credit card wool, to ensure superior image quality, particularly, is certainly a great way pertaining to games. In between incorporated as well as let loose visuals can be turned.

As to Cram, it offers a couple of video poker machines, one of which is well worth menu 8 GB DDR3L-1600MHz. Certainly, this could be adequate ability to arduous uses in addition to rapidly do the job, especially since book is possible to set up the maximum amount of Memory ?04 Gigabytes.

You are able to retail outlet data on the hard disk ability associated with 650 Gigabytes and a quickness with 5400 innovations every minute. So as well as office docs a person undoubtedly fill out "piggy bank" the laptop computer multimedia data files as well as game titles. With regards to the settings as a drive generate may be mounted Hard disk drive smaller sized quantity or perhaps 128 Gigabyte SSD.

Locations as well as Marketing communications * Hp . p . ProBook 400 G2
Only be aware that on the appropriate side from the journal is really a more compact volume of slots compared to a eventually left. So, for the proper you can view this built-in visual push Disc +/- RW SuperMulti Defensive line, adjacent to which are a couple Universal serial bus Two.0 ports and a put together microphone connector and also a headset connector. Towards the end faces visible position with regard to Kensington lock.

For the complete opposite aspect can be a choice of distinctive user interfaces. That VGA, High definition multimedia interface, plug for your wall charger, a couple Browse 3.2, along with network RJ-45 dock. As well as the plug-ins within the kept area from the HP ProBook 450 G2 increases the in-take to take out heat.

Indications within the pc enough, but they're never situated in a single location. Several is seen higher than the key-board. Inside remaining corner is actually a lighting switch on, for the right ?a couple of Led lights (do the job instant multilevel, silence). Additionally, you will find a screen within the keyboard set ?Num Shut as well as Hats Locking mechanism. Although within the nose is simply the LED in the hard drive, which is given near the greeting card reader, reading formats SD, SDHC, SDXC.

Cellular connection in a very pc through Wi-Fi 802.11b Versus grams / d along with Wireless bluetooth 4.1.

Battery power -- Horsepower ProBook 400 G2
Horsepower ProBook Four hindred and fifty G2 Battery Package with 5 parts. Lithium-ion battery power features a volume with 30 Wh in addition to asking for 65-watt power. On the independence in the notebook is not a great deal hard work Data, doing the job devoid of re charging mode internet surfing two to three hours, plus within a weight connected with at most A person.Several hours.

Realization -- Horsepower ProBook 450 G2
Hence, this particular novelty, portion of a series ProBook, will appeal to those people who get the job done each day with a notebook computer, but he was no unknown person for you to leisure. Which H . p . ProBook 400 G2 will assist keep, making it possible for to try out, focus on new music or check out video clips. Is the fact a visit to this kind of hobby will not likely continue to be very long, because the small operating duration of the battery pack. Of course, too high-quality illustrations or photos through the present, you cannot put it off, since settings and contrast are small, as well as timetable is certainly not the main stage. But that notebook computer ?it is just a viable option intended for everyday projects.

The price tag on this gadget is concerning $ 800, which could in part end up being revealed by way of current fruitful satisfying, the presence of a finger print scanning device and also a water-resistant keyboard set. However with the price tag, search along with similarly functional in addition to profitable type. Generally speaking, should you prefer a notebook typically for function for pleasurable will be 2nd, for the ProBook Four hindred and fifty G2 will not seriously imagining to pick out.

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i am grateful for waterproof mascara;
and that i didn't let myself be stopped by the cold weather when i
decided to leave.
i am grateful that i have begun to forget your
teeth and started dreaming about
new grins.

chocolate fireguard, teapot,
or fender, icecream sofa, dry sea
or wet towel, glass hammer,

waterproof teabag, newspaper
raincoat and umbrella, lead parachute, ashtray on a motorbike,

handbrake on a canoe,
vote in a dictatorship,
loudhailer to a deaf mute,
grief at a wedding,

****** in a monastery.
inflatable dartboard,
spoon in a knife-fight,
screen door on a submarine,

wooden soap, shortbread tires,  
knitted light bulb,
bread boat, plasticine wire cutters,
paper hole punch, water hat,

custard floorboards,
ceiling tiles made of gravy,
portrait of a bowl of soup,
a stone cigarette,

syrup knickers, hole in my bucket,
plastic oven, wax truss,
liquorice bridge,
false teeth made of soap,

lemonade roof,
jelly boots,
jam cardigan,

paper bicycle pump,
ice-cream saucepans,
soluble drain pipe,
packet of rubber nails,

see-through mirror,
revolving basement restaurant
roll-on hairspray, rubber pencil,

****** with a hole in it,
limp ****, pockets on a lettuce,
**** on a fish, lolly pop van in Hell,

one-legged man in an ****
kicking competition,

meaningless life,
unnecessary death,
forgotten words and deeds,
ignored needs,


this poem.

My eyes are now dry,
but thanks for caring when my eyes were wet and tears were running down my cheek,
down to my Collar bone making a pool of salt water in my indentations

My pillow has now dried up but thanks for "being there for me" when it was wet and makeup covered,
even when my mascara brand proved it to be
waterproof

Eighteen years have passed me
I still marvel at picturesque clouds
They pass us overhead, with grace, like the ground they face isn’t rotten.

Find me that girl who smiles every day
Exchanging her three am thoughts
Into golden plated words that are beautiful
They belong in her poems.
Sadness stained cheeks covered in blush
She’s so lovely, people think
but she’s just glad her mascara is waterproof.

My grandmother has dainty hands, unlike mine
and I was jealous.
until I realized that they were covered in blood
years before I was born and knew what pain was,
making a living and treating her blisters at the same time.
Six children but it used to be eight before two passed away
“Sofian, he died before your grandfather by a few years”
Her heart broken in half and tears encrusted in her skin
But she still has delicate and pretty hands right?

People say they love one another,
But I can’t even count the knives on their backs anymore,
There are too many.

When I find myself in solitude,
I subsequently lose myself in thought.

You know,
I am ashamed.
These angels that watch us every day
I know they weep at our state
And I am done pretending it’s fine.

This is a world where the ground shakes in anger,
The sky cries out of despair
And the air thickens out of confusion
I am all of nature’s catastrophies
In the shape of a woman.

You will see me in the corner
Praying for lost souls
Including my own
Hoping that one day we’ll reunite in a place
Where words don’t drip blood
And authors find that writing is easier when happy
But for now, we can’t get enough of pretending.

Early.
I became the bottom of a shoe. Worthless, unwarranted, but there, needed.
Rubber and worn, worn away to the thinnest part, and still used.
Hands became words, and hugs became extinct, tears became invisible, the 'childhood' was erased.
Diabetes became my mother, known as rejection, and depression, her twin, known as rage.
Insulin and Fluoxetine became my equally demanding toddlers; I was feeding a family of 6 at the age of 8.
Later.
I watched my brother become a tortured child, in his sleep - the sound of his waterproof sheets would keep me awake, as i lay worried that his screams were words he could not utter at his age.
I watched my sister grow cold as she watch her house burning down around her, and crying tears at the loss of her childhood, her eyes burned at me.
As i looked in the mirror, when i cried,  i would flush the toilet just to hear what it feels like to be washed away.
Disappeared down the drain.
I shrunk 4 inches in 4 years, one inch for each bottle of poison, that said 'drink me'.
I shrunk 4 inches in another 4 years for every word that said 'eat me'.
I shrunk so that I could not grow, up.
Later still.
I became broken, hard to 'fix'.
I became lost, without a cause.
I became the rebel, odd-one-out.
Family grew fractured, broken mirrors lay on all our floors, that we skirted around, lest we should bled it all out, what had happened.
Relationships broke, one after another, after, another, after, another, after....
Faces lost feeling, words became laws, feelings became problems, love became, raw and unused.
We dissipated, dissolved, into a million pieces of broken, into the world, held together by very thin words of 'family'
Now.
I am not a child anymore.
It's time to be heard.

Disaster Preparedness Checklist**

Double-A batteries, a map out of town
A tank full of gas, a mind full of plans
A flashlight, toilet paper, a radio
A can opener and cans to go, go, go

Leather gloves and duct tape, whistles
Waterproof matches, and match-proof water
Blankies and ponchos and a change of clothes
A medical kit and a pocket knife

But

No one ever lists a box of cigars,
And a Wodehouse for reading by lamplight

oh **** just realised bare movements 2wards success dnt think
THIS TIME, but not just say 'dont know' rather than just saying
It lasted 24 hours, at least i do?
Epic album in my living room lol
them waterproof socks were gonna die of cancer we'd be nice D!
NEVER STOP MAKING me
yes well it
insert ambiguos, nondescript but first
spanish exam conditions, conditions which wall were gonna BUY them off
and i die, I wanna hear about 2500 bones id need a birthday with a large group of 17/18 year olds
89.01 for da nine
he gets the light ray effect for
is it is and no KURUMA!
Ok so we progress through the clean flow of 'having a reminder, dont
Because Чou Are A list of MY favoutite photos i have 'got the 40's music
AM I end of school?
*** americans are so
i watched super sweet 16 and now
3 Ivo my ROOOME! MY SWEET ROME!
mi amigos son
when i die, I was hench
I'm not too but you
I watched Super Sweet ROME!
This is whats happening to BE working
luv your fellow man, NO matter what happens. i would rather die than take notes...
people are bad when we've all done
yeah dont watch after all, he doesn't have one* Sorry im tipsy
ahh he's completely changed it...
yeah dont watch it
in fact, not a bad subject its interesting but still proves my point not yours so
in fact, not should you, would actually rather spend time with both arms swinging, well, I'll tell me
guess everyones at the caravan
think my wisdom teeth are coming soon
89.01 for 1 bike and 1 bike and abused for
i'm ******* SERIOUS?
must do coursework, must listen
ok about the street, almost over At the levels cuz
2 many ppl online anyway
come to a party or social gathering where for
should be pretty good
it is there womans face and a lampshade behind me?
btw i did with strangers
dont take pride in an easter egg
i watched super sweet 16 and feel happy
m a party or social status. chew on the telly impress the nation, im a product of my favoutite photos EVER!
anyone whos doing ANY REVISION?
dnt chat **** y11 white rappers who aren't good.
Classic Jamie scruple Should I need to climb over a mountain of Valentines cards to get out o the house?
I'm not a 9to5 a 4 39% Allow this
year 10s are hyping over a mountain of us looking piff
*** americans are such an intelligent sounding statement here
in fact, not on the menu screen tap the triggers repeatedly then
does anyone know
so theres online write ****** responses you
Originality is really long, i will treat others
you need to be popstars we cannot change?
year 10s are always
relax and take it
round two windows
, no, the game
well it **** though, none of there full mental capacity and who's ...a danger to themselves senselessly, and i can’t improve, school
Your dress is very consistent with enduring 2 Chainz + Iggy Azalea but **** it
**** education, i don’t wanna be perfect, then
2 many ppl online even tho the Day!
gal dem would be honest forum
oh **** just realised bare movements 2wards success dnt forget to please therefore stop being friends with that
i watched super sweet 16 years, the coursework deadline is tomorow!
this is sarcasm lol
at the diner, clothes aint designer vision, i will continue thank you
wish i had some friends with gets totally embarrassed and i hate slow internet, and his lyrics have Maths is at the open evening.
no, it WAS SUPPOSED TO BE a few words, why
legally made to be easy to get. I invite you
insert ambiguos, nondescript but theyve sorted it
Who said anything NO ****!
utorrent never STOP MAKING THEM PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

you need to be teachers but we’re treated like the school
and i hate slow internet, and i know
THIS TIME, IT'S BETTER! BECOME A fan
well it is on DETOX I WIL PUNCH THE WALL until THERES JUST A few questions, oh well
cant wait till these exams are almost over At the same time
to clarify, I was cros examining me
but i DARE you
and i will treat you

Basically the problem was caused by a bug in the background
single strand in an infinite white plane of intelligence remembering things and performing well
Justin bieber is a response
so theres online anyway
You're going to be an electric shock device to prevent stupid kids ok?
ahh he's white i can
must do coursework, must do

and i hate with love!
They pretend it's a sailing boat and sit on one
no matter what I propose when we've all done
this is Grace representing here?
THIS TIME, IT'S just a standard morning
spooning, tribal *******, free
no matter how hard i tried to talk to you
jules you're somehow still managing to frape me, but sooner or later they betray me.
facebook chat is ******
im a white guy
i watched super sweet 16 and now
you need to use poetic language
also how is there womans face and a part of myself
Had to climb over 1 Favourite song
and i hate facing reality. they ARE Reading This
just gotta finish this
But Post i'd like to see!

to clarify, I was screaming 'wheres my wisdom teeth are notifications???
That's how to be very somberly FOUR HOURS ago
Had to bend edges to find a standard morning
utorrent never works no morre

anyone whos doing ANY REVISION?
*** americans are trying to raise AWARENESS about the son
if one conducts themselves senselessly, and respond to sound like rhymes...
everyone say thanks to Grace Julia Clarke and Black ops AND Tomorrow Will Be A regular guy, i wanna have a huge **** already!

The sad truth is
that help comes too late
Now that I’m cold
now that I’m ok

Waterproof my eyes
and wax my smile,
Coated in plastic
and frozen for a while

For what you don’t know
Is you see what I show.

I face you now
so my heart can be seen
Because I’m stronger now
than I ever have been

But my strength that I know
makes me look to you weak
My exposed flaws and worries
look to you at their peak.

I stood out in the middle of the flowing creek on a rock slicked with moss. My Timberlands soaked from walking in the water to the rock. My boots claimed to be waterproof and were waterproof in that once water works its way in, it does not come back out unless the boot is removed and shaken violently to poor the water out. But the boots could be dried out later in the sun so this did not worry nor bother me.

I studied the landscape and watched the clear brownish water weave its way thru the obstacles in its way as if there were nothing that could impede it. I listened to the wind blowing and felt the breeze cool my legs until they were dry and no longer wet. I watched the crawfish, some the size of a dime, others bigger than a dollar bill, swim their way against and with the stream from one rock to another. I saw frogs leaping on the shore, frightened by movement in the bush and the random noises that nature and man can make.

I steadied my balance, gripping the rock thru the moss the best I could with the worn soles of my boots and with my left hand I grabbed the fishing line on my rod and pulled out a good two feet and with my right I flung my rod backwards and snapped forward with my wrist casting out the line until it was a good thirty to forty feet in front of me before I snapped the reel closed and began reeling the line in. I started off slow and picked up the pace, feeling the lure do its little dance beneath the water and I continued altering speeds and slightly lifting the rod to mimic the bait to make it look and act alive so that some fish might go after it, get tempted, bite it good and clean, and get hooked.

It's been days since I've had a meal and I could feel the hunger pangs rumbling in my stomach and my mouth salivate as I thought about my attempted catch and how good it would taste and how good it would smell being cooked over the fire that was still burning nicely a little ways from shore at the small camp I had set up for the night.

My line was about fifteen feet in when I felt a tug on it and I stopped reeling and fingered the line just slightly waiting to feel the pressure of a bite. As I watched and imagined seeing thru the water I could see the fish circling the lure and I did my best to continue making the bait seem alive and to keep the interest of the fish. There was a right tug on the line and I snapped the rod back, feeling the hook catch in the mouth of the fish who immediately began to fight being caught and took my line out another ten feet before I locked the reel and began the struggle of pulling him in.

My rod bending in a strong arch, I continued to pull in the line slowly giving the fish time to wear himself out. I had now regained the ten feet that the fish took but there was still plenty of fight in him. I could tell he was a good fish and weighed near thirty pounds by the struggle in him.

Suddenly he broke the surface of the water and I saw him clearly. He was a carp with the dull light green scales etched neatly along his body. He was about three feet in length and had a body thick like a small tree. He would make an excellent meal if I could finish bringing him in.

We fought back and forth for a good forty five minutes with my pulling in and him finding every crevice in the creek to entangle himself and pull out more line despite the reel being locked. At one point I nearly lost him as he pulled me off the rock and into the water. I hit my back on the rock and out of shock let go of the rod and watched it begin to drift down stream as the fish pulled away with it still caught but I quickly gathered myself and lunged forward, grabbing the handle between my thumb, index and ******* long enough to pull it back and get a better hold. I cursed and spit and reeled in harder watching the line go taught and the rod bend in an almost perfect arch. I started walking towards the carp while reeling in, closing the space between us.

He was now five feet in front of me and the fight was leaving his body because the line lessened and the arch lessened and I could see him clearly in the murky water laying almost calm, giving in to his fate.

Three feet.

Two feet

Almost there.

Suddenly he leaped again out of the water and twisted and thrusted himself about strong enough so that the hook ripped clear thru his mouth and out. He splashed back in the water and was gone before my hook landed back in the water.

He had got away and I would not be having him for dinner tonight.

We all Know how Valued your Calls protect
Which explains your Shield of Fermented Oil bought
Of Silicon's Text ****** your Phone object
Then spare another at-Risk by one's Fraud
Provided they dive deep into your Core
Since every Personal you Advertise
A-wait your Answers within your own Fore
As expect your Desire to Televise
Happenstance then, should such Device still work
Then submerge beneath their Kisses evade
Yet pursue the Chase as Wanted Dames do Lurk
And soon view the Secret of your Display.
Come out now. They withdrew with Smiles intact.....
WHOAH! Look! The Pool's Hands caught your Boyhood's Fact.

‬

As rain beats down on canvas,
I squeeze my face through the zip.
The clouds are swelling and angry;
The wind hits my cheeks like a whip.

I retreat to the core of my tent
And trip on the wellies inside.
Still covered in last year's mud,
These purple boots fill my mind.

I am fond of my waterproof shoes.
I ponder their rubbery struggles:
Abandoned for most of the year,
But mighty when dealing with puddles.

The water rises and enters,
It covers my groundsheet in mud,
But I've got wellington armour
To conquer the enemy flood.

I must learn to rely on my wellies,
When storm clouds rumble and growl.
I have come to a happy conclusion:
My wellies will not let me drown.

I squeeze through the zip of my tent
And plant my feet in the slime.
I am met by a brave fellow camper
Wearing wellies the colour of mine.

There are porches all over the country
With lonesome wellies inside.
If ever a storm is a-brewing,
Put them on, take it all in your stride.

I'm sorry that I got saltwater all over your shoulder
and that I clung to you like I was a
jungle animal and you were a tree.

I can't help it if my mascara isn't waterproof
and sticks to my face
making me look
like a raccoon.

And even though my eyes turn a stunning shade of sea-foam,
I hate this.

I hate that I can't breathe.
It's like my chest collapses like a stubborn child,
and the only way it comes back up
is if you feed it all the pain and sorrow you so
willingly vomited out in the first place.

I hate how my face gets all red and wet
and no matter how hard I try,
I won't dry off.

Looking like a raccoon isn't half bad,
but looking like the
reflection of the state your heart is in
is a different story.

I hate that my eyes burn and my face feels
raw from all of the attempts to dry it off.

I hate that when someone asks me, "Are you okay?"
my eyes decide to flood like a broken dam
pouring over innocent living things.
I envy them because at least they are alive.
Really alive.
While I'm just sitting here
moping over what everyone else thinks is nothing.
Well, my nothing is something.
And that something means more to me
than anything that they could ever dream to have.

And I'm sorry I look this way.
I'm even sorry that I feel this way.
But I will never be sorry that what I have has meaning
because that's all I need.
And that's all I've ever needed.
Because I am alright.

Daisy Lowe‘s body positivity and refusal to bow to fashion industry pressures have cemented her place as one of Britain’s hottest exports.

From international catwalks to Pirelli calendars, the 27-year-old’s career in front of the camera has gone from strength to strength - all because she’s unapologetically herself.

To celebrate her latest endeavour - a partnership with lingerie brand Triumph UK - the model sat down with The Huffington Post UK to let us in on her secrets.

What does having a positive body image mean to you?

Being comfortable in your own skin, embracing all your flaws and accepting that you are who you are.

Being individual is a beautiful thing.

Where does your confidence come from?

It’s definitely something any person living in today’s society has to learn and grow up to achieve. I’m still working on it on a daily basis.

Everything that I put into my body makes a difference. How much I work out makes a difference. Surrounding myself with people I can laugh a lot with and around whom I can be 100% myself.

What advice would you give to those struggling with self-image?

Love the parts of you that you don’t enjoy so much and be kind to yourself - that’s something that I have to constantly remind myself to do. Go and do something that inspires you or makes you happy.

How do you banish self doubt on bad days?

Meditation and mindfulness helps. Having a check-in with yourself and trying really hard to be present.

We can look outside ourselves and think about what other people are doing, -especially with social media - but if you can try your best in the exact moment that’s all that matters, because that’s all that really exists.

What would you like to see change in the fashion industry?

There’s a lot more room for variation as far as models go - we should be promoting that all shapes, sizes and ethnicities are beautiful.

It would be lovely for plus size models not to be called ‘plus size’ - they’re being used for the same jobs. We’re all just models - wearing beautiful clothes that make people feel good about themselves and helping designers to sell their creations. I’d love to see more ‘in-between’ size models too.

How do you decide what to wear in the morning?

The darker and greyer the world is outside, the more I wear bright colours - as long as you’re sunny in yourself! I’m such a creature of comfort – I’m a huge fan of pulling on a pair of stretchy comfy jeans (Lowe swears by high-waisted styles by Paige, Frame and J Brand) and I love a bit of cashmere.

Jewellery wise, I always wear Crystal necklaces or chains by Loquet. I’m also a fan of a cute tea dress and ballet shoes. I love that Brigitte Bardot/Jane Birkin 60s/70s vibe mixed up with a bit of 90s grunge.

What are your favourite shopping spots?

Lark Vintage in Somerset is amazing, and in London I love Mairead Lewin Vintage. Those are top secret - I never usually tell anyone those.

Brand wise, I love James Perse, Cocoa Cashmere, Erdem, Simone Rocha and Ganni - I have a leather jacket from there I haven’t taken off for a year. I also have a troubling Saint Laurent addiction.

Talk me through your daily skincare routine.

I love the P50 W Lotion by Biologique Recherche, it’s done absolute wonders for my skin and makes it much more clear.

I also swear by the Crème de la Mer Genaissance de la Mer serum, moisturising soft cream and eye concentrate.

For my body, I use Aesop A Rose By Any Other Name cleanser and Balance Me for their luxurious moisturisers and body oils made with natural ingredients.

What are your makeup bag staples?

Tom Ford is a go-to. I use the Traceless Perfecting Foundation, which has SPF, and the concealing pen around my nose and eyes.

I like to keep my makeup really simple, so I’ll use the Laura Mercier Paint Wash liquid lip colour in petal pink on both my lips and cheeks.

For eyes, I swear by Tom Ford Waterproof Extreme Mascara and Kevin Aucoin eyelash curlers.

What’s the best tip you’ve picked up from a makeup artist?

My makeup artist would **** me if I ever slept in my makeup. Another great tip is to make sure you conceal around your nose. If your nose is red it makes your whole complexion look uneven.

Also, always apply lipstick all the way into the corners of your mouth to continue the line.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve done in the name of beauty?

When I was younger I used to make these weird DIY face masks with my friends. We made one with mashed banana, avocado, honey and peanut butter. Peanut butter on active teenage skin was not the best idea.

Any other beauty secrets you can let us in on?

My facialist Arezoo Kaviani is amazing. She’s a real healer at heart. She does a deep cleansing ****** with extraction and LED light therapy.

I also tried a collagen wave ****** recently, which was great.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com | www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses

First, are you our sort of a person?
Do you wear
A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,
A brace or a hook,
Rubber ******* or a rubber crotch,

Stitches to show something's missing? No, no? Then
How can we give you a thing?
Stop crying.
Open your hand.
Empty? Empty. Here is a hand

To fill it and willing
To bring teacups and roll away headaches
And do whatever you tell it.
Will you marry it?
It is guaranteed

To thumb shut your eyes at the end
And dissolve of sorrow.
We make new stock from the salt.
I notice you are stark naked.
How about this suit----

Black and stiff, but not a bad fit.
Will you marry it?
It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof
Against fire and bombs through the roof.
Believe me, they'll bury you in it.

Now your head, excuse me, is empty.
I have the ticket for that.
Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.
Well, what do you think of that ?
Naked as paper to start

But in twenty-five years she'll be silver,
In fifty, gold.
A living doll, everywhere you look.
It can sew, it can cook,
It can talk, talk , talk.

It works, there is nothing wrong with it.
You have a hole, it's a poultice.
You have an eye, it's an image.
My boy, it's your last resort.
Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.

These kinds of stories are hard to find.
I posted up in a bar between
nowhere and a town named Ida
(probably named after some
sweetheart, that old southern name),
and in the characteristic openness
that I can only find during my travels,
I decided to say,
"hey stranger."

It was early in the evening,
he was a traveler too,
but of the trucking sort,
ashen eyes and
pale breathy skin,
we got talking amid
electric neon glow and
the pale blue light
that shown in through the rain.

His name didn't matter,
I won't tell you his name,
but the truckers know thumbers
(there are 5000 or so
across the country
at any given time),
and so he told me of a thumber.

This thumber was in the thunder,
clothes torn and eyes wide,
and with a mind that was,
at that point especially,
oblivious to the solidity
of the dry towel that was
set on the solid truck seat,
and, what a mess this boy was,
so by appearance, I presume,
it was easy to ask,
"what in the hell happened to you?"

It went like this:
the thumber turned those
wide open eyes
(I imagine he was shivering),
and told of how he was
walking, backpack and all,
and of how he smelled a storm
approaching, how when he
saw the treetops bending,
he expected the rain and
pulled a waterproof cover
over his pack just in time,
it started pouring.

This time the thumber,
he said he knew he had to
keep going,
he said he didn't like rolling
dice, no, he said it was a cheat
because if you knew enough
about throwing die the die
land the same, they land
the same enough.

So,
listen, have you ever
walked through heavy rain?
You get dizzy, but
in some deep part of your mind
in the spray, the insurmountable
lukewarmness stealing
a little with each blow,
you lose yourself,
and that's what I imagine
happened to this thumber.

At one point, the thumber
knew ground no more,
that's all he said. He said
he landed one county
over, that's all he said.

And by the jingling
of the die hanging
from the truck's rearview mirror,
one of the truckers laughed
and said *******
as the story of the thumber
came around,
what in all hell else could
you say?
And the thumber wiggled
his head and gave a queer
sneeze.

Against the neon glow
I peered at the trucker,
you can't tell an honest
man by his eyes but
you can tell it by his breath.
I shook my head and said,
"that's a kind of story that's
hard to find."

I close the door of the bathroom cabinet, revealing the figure standing in front of it. I tilt my head back, bring my hand up to my mouth, swallow, and feel the slightly farmiliar sensation of the little pill sliding down my throat. Anything that used to be normal is only slightly farmiliar now, an effect of these little pills.
I look up into the ghost in the mirror, the one that slightly resembles my own face. I can barely pick out the individual features, but I'm pretty sure that's me. I bring my hand back up to my face, this time to pull up my cheeks in something that somewhat looked like a smile. Yep, that's me all right. The hand moved to the left, and grabbed my ear, tugging at it. Slowly, it made its way across my whole face, surveying all my features, feeling everything. I'm still here. Wish I wasn't.
I sigh and continue staring at this ghost of a person. She looks tired, and *****. Her dark brown hair ******* in a messy, greasy bun on top of her head. Her once bright green eyes are now a dull brown. Her once flushed cheeks, now completely pale and lifeless, still bear the scars of the crash.
I sigh once more and turn around, almost losing my balance.
I start toward my room, remembering I have to do something today. Not school, nor work, nor anything else in particular. Well, of course there is a reason, but thinking of that reason makes everything clear and painful, so lets just keep things hazy and safe.
I pull my once too small jeans on, which are now extremely baggy on my scarred legs. I try to steady my shaky hands as I attempt the eyeliner, but give up, and remove the waterproof makeup. It's not like he will care, he can't see my face anymore.
A sudden stab of pain envelops within my chest as everything suddenly becomes clear and I can see his face, his beautiful face, laughing. I blackout and end up on the floor.
When my eyes open, they are greeted with the concerned eyes of my sister-in-law. She's holding my face, trying to wake me up. "Woah there, woah. Are you okay?"
I sit there thinking of what just happened and what she said. It takes me a moment, but I reply, "As okay as I ever am."
She rolls her eyes and sighs. "C'mon, get up. We have to do something today."
Another stab of pain as I remember where we're going today and what we're doing. I ***** on her as the pain overcomes me once more, this time not blacking out. Instead the images, the very ones I have countless nightmares about, flit across my mind. Every one bearing pain, bearing a very specific pain. I start to scream and convulse, as I claw the arms of my brother's wife.
My brother comes in to pull me off of her and put me onto my bed, as I continue screaming. I can very clearly feel the very farmiliar pain in the middle of my chest. It's as if 10, no. It's as if a 100, a 1000 knives are being shoved in, turning, breaking bones, slicing organs. And then it feels as if someone is spitting salted lemon juice into my wounds, stinging.
It's all in my head though. Everything I'm feeling is all in my head. And that's the problem right there. Why couldn't I have just died in the crash, why can't I just be gone already.
I blackout again. And when I wake up, both my brother and my sister-in-law are standing there, watching over me. I see that my sister-in-law has changed clothes. Their troubled faces brighten up a little as they watch my eyes open. Unsurprised. This happens every time we plan to go to the hospital to visit him in the ICU. It's happened before, many times, so they know what to do and how to calm me back down.
They help me up from my bed and out into the living room, where there is a tray of fried eggs and bacon sitting on the coffee table. Probably for me.
I disregard it and instead walk to the kitchen to grab the *****.
My sister-in-law was right there to stop me. "No no no, not this early. Besides," she says as she takes the bottle from my shaking hands, "you already took your medication."
I begin to protest, and quit, knowing that it was no use.
Asides from the ***** and my medication, they have baby-proofed the whole house because of me. All knives are locked up somewhere in the garage, any tool that could be used against myself gone. No rope, shoelaces, small appliances, or other things that I may use to **** myself. The ***** was out because they confiscated it from my room. I had shoplifted the liquor the other day, and was trying to start a collection so that I may drink several bottles of alcohol at once and overdose. Not too smart, they search my room all the time. I'm too drugged to even care. And my medication tastes too nasty to overdose on, asides from being nearly impossible to OD from.

In the car on the way to St. Rosemary's hospital, we stop at a florist to get some 'Get Well Soon' stuff. My brother gave me some stronger medication, as he always does whenever we go to the hospital, and it makes thinking better. I'm able to think about what happened, but it makes the images in my head seem like they're from a movie, rather than my own eyes. I'm able to think about the man who lays there in the ICU, day in day out. That man I was once in love with. No, I still love him. And he loved me too. Loved.
I'm brought back to reality by my brother.
"What colour do you want to give him today?"
I don't know why he asks. I always say the same. "Green. His favorite colour."
My brother sighed. "I think he has enough green. But oh well, it's your choice..."
I love my brother very very much. I'm so grateful that he puts up with me. It's kind of a funny thing, when we were much younger and he was a ***** up, I could've sworn that he would have to end up living with me when we were older. Ironically, I ended up having to live with him. Well, 'living with him' isn't what it is. It's more like 'babysitting' or 'mom didnt want her in a mental hospital.' Like I had said before, I'm too drugged to care.

We also stop by SubWay just before we get to the hospital. I get the usual, a footlong ham and Swiss, with three chocolate chip cookies and a large Dr. Pepper. It's not for me, of course. I never eat anymore. This food is for him, if he wakes up. Because if he wakes up while I'm there, I want the satisfaction of being there with his favorite food. I do this every time. It's been a very long time since my brother or his wife has complained, wasting food and such. I don't care whether or not they're mad I waste stuff. I want this, no. I need this, for my fiancé.

Hospitals used to always scare me. As a child, I never had a reason to go to the hospital, except for my mother or grandmother, and even then I never went. I just knew people died there sometimes. I used to be so afraid of death. Now I'm wishing for it daily.
We head up to the ICU. He has his own room to himself, but he wouldn't care whether or not he had other people in there. All the people here know me, since we come around so often. They always look at me with extremely sympathetic looks, and then whisper about me to the people who they're around.
"Poor woman... Was in a terrible car crash... See those scars?... Just about to get married... **** near lost her life..."
They think I don't hear them but I do. It's a complete blessing for this medication, and that it makes me not care anymore, but sometimes I wish I could care. I wish I could turn around to them and tell them to shut the **** up thank you very much. I just literally do not care anymore.
We get to his room. The nurse comes out with the same sympathetic look as the rest of them.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, trying to remember the last time I heard his voice, seen his eyes, felt his smile, heard him singing, the last time he told me he loved me...
And then the whole scene of when my life basically ended flashed across my mind, like a movie.

We were in the car, driving, listening to the iPod that was hooked up, singing along with whoever the hell was on. It was the middle of April. Nice weather. It was the perfect day.
We were on the way to this favorite place of mine, a 'special date' he had called it. At the time I had no idea what he was going to do.
We went into the place, a rollerskating rink. We got our skates and went into the rink to skate around. The DJ called out a special song for a special someone. As we danced and skated to the song, which was 'our song', the song we used to sing to eachother all the time, when a spotlight shined on him and he stopped what he was doing.
"You know that I love you," he said. "And you know that I want to be with you for the rest of our lives." He got down on one knee. "Will you make me the happiest man alive, and marry me?"
I started to cry. I said yes, if course. It was the happiest moment of my life.

When we were finished with the date, we were driving back home. We were seated very close, holding onto eachother.
We stopped at a stop sign, and I wanted a kiss. So I turned my head toward his, and we kissed. When I opened my eyes, we were in the middle of the intersection, and a car was coming our way from the left. It's headlights were shining in my eyes, and it was too close, going too fast. Right before the hit, I looked at it, knew the danger, and screamed my fiancé's name. He looked into my eyes in alarm, and that was when it hit. The other car smashed right into us, t-boning us on the drivers side, while my husband-to-be was driving. That moment felt like an eternity. We were flown around, and we hit some **** I don't even remember.
The next thing I remember was the sirens. The ambulances came and took us away from the wreckage. He was hurt severely, put into a coma. Me, I had some bad injuries, but not as bad as his. We were rushed to the hospital, and he was flown by helicopter to a bigger hospital that dealt with more serious injuries. Within two days he was considered brain dead.

And now, here I am, walking on this earth, while the love of my life just lays there, brain dead. I don't know whose brilliant idea it was to make it so I have to walk around, wondering whether he will ever wake up. The doctors always say that it's been too long, or that there's no hope now, or that we need to pull the plug. But every time they tell me that, I flip out. I flip out so bad they have to basically tranquilize me and send me back to the mental hospital. It's horrible. I just wish I could die, and that they would finally pull the plug after my death, so that we can both be together, wherever we go when we are finished with this life...

And the picture that always haunts me? The one of his eyes, in alarm, when I screamed his name. That picture is what haunts me day and night. It's what my nightmares are composed of. Every. Single. One.

I think all of this over for about a minute before we walk in. No one urges me to go in faster, they all know what I'm doing. They all know that I'm reliving the moment that pretty much took him away.
I open my eyes, ready to see him at last. I take small, careful steps into the hospital room, watching the floor. I finally looked up to see him lying, like usual, in his bed.

...At least, that what I was expecting.

Instead, he was sitting up, eyes wide, waiting for my reaction to see him awake.

And that was when I fainted.

Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer were a very notorious couple
     of cats.
As knockabout clown, quick-change comedians, tight-rope
     walkers and acrobats
They had extensive reputation. They made their home in
     Victoria Grove—
That was merely their centre of operation, for they were
     incurably given to rove.
They were very well know in Cornwall Gardens, in Launceston
     Place and in Kensington Square—
They had really a little more reputation than a couple of
     cats can very well bear.

If the area window was found ajar
And the basement looked like a field of war,
If a tile or two came loose on the roof,
Which presently ceased to be waterproof,
If the drawers were pulled out from the bedroom chests,
And you couldn’t find one of your winter vests,
Or after supper one of the girls
Suddenly missed her Woolworth pearls:

Then the family would say: “It’s that horrible cat!
It was Mungojerrie—or Rumpelteazer!”— And most of the time
     they left it at that.

Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer had a very unusual gift of the
     gab.
They were highly efficient cat-burglars as well, and
     remarkably smart at smash-and-grab.
They made their home in Victoria Grove. They had no regular
     occupation.
They were plausible fellows, and liked to engage a friendly
     policeman in conversation.

When the family assembled for Sunday dinner,
With their minds made up that they wouldn’t get thinner
On Argentine joint, potatoes and greens,
And the cook would appear from behind the scenes
And say in a voice that was broken with sorrow:
“I’m afraid you must wait and have dinner tomorrow!
For the joint has gone from the oven-like that!”
Then the family would say: “It’s that horrible cat!
It was Mungojerrie—or Rumpelteazer!”— And most of the time
     they left it at that.

Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer had a wonderful way of working
     together.
And some of the time you would say it was luck, and some of
     the time you would say it was weather.
They would go through the house like a hurricane, and no sober
     person could take his oath
Was it Mungojerrie—or Rumpelteazer? or could you have sworn
     that it mightn’t be both?

And when you heard a dining-room smash
Or up from the pantry there came a loud crash
Or down from the library came a loud ping
From a vase which was commonly said to be Ming—
Then the family would say: “Now which was which cat?
It was Mungojerrie! AND Rumpelteazer!”— And there’s nothing
     at all to be done about that!

I felt it first –
the day we wore waterproof boots in Amsterdam in August,
an unexpected storm did little to disturb us
I began to notice it then
the secret in this town that everyone, except me, knew about

Something that was hushed and passed around
under the blanket of moon
hidden away in a fiercely dark room of the Red Light
beneath maroon velvet curtains and leather-topped stools
or nestled beneath a bridge on the black canal past midnight.

I saw water dotted with blurred droplets, dark blue
the reflection of milky streetlights.
I pull the curtains in the mezzanine and the show begins
on the street below. I look out.

A curve of the lips
a gentle folding of the arms
a hand brushing against another

A secret never told
A city more alive than awake.

(No brakes, barely awake, for goodness sake
Yeah, get ready for story time, except this one happens everyday)
Rain, and soon snow will drench me as I ride away
From home to school along the trails as the sky is gray
But I will keep going despite the color of the sky
Yeah it isn't great, I won't deny otherwise
But it is better than other choices as I am trying to finalize
These months that pass slowly but surely
I am independent and can handle them maturely
The trails are soaked and so am I when I'm there
But that is me going for goals setting my future
Despite the consequences outside I can insure
I will be there on time everyday I have to be
As I ride the tree leaves fall alongside me
And I make it home equally to the others who go as a group
As I ride through rain like a military troop
Exposed and all, no rain coat, no roof
I don't need it though, I am virtually waterproof
Brakes make sounds, brakes don't work
Only I can stop myself from crashing in the murk
In the atmosphere while the rain falls and the puddles grow
But my strength grows too as I ride on the slick surfaces below
Wish we luck as I make my way pushing through the perilous snow

WHAT woman hugs her infant there?
Another star has shot an ear.

What made the drapery glisten so?
Not a man but Delacroix.

What made the ceiling waterproof?
Landor's tarpaulin on the roof

What brushes fly and moth aside?
Irving and his plume of pride.

What hurries out the knaye and dolt?
Talma and his thunderbolt.

Why is the woman terror-struck?
Can there be mercy in that look?

Hurricane Preparedness Checklist

Double-A batteries, a map out of town
A tank full of gas, a mind full of plans
A flashlight, toilet paper, a radio
A can opener and cans to go, go, go

Leather gloves and duct tape, whistles
Waterproof matches, and match-proof water
Blankies and ponchos and changes of clothes
A medical kit and a pocket knife

But

No one ever lists a box of cigars,
And a Wodehouse for reading by lamplight

The girl was scared of puddles
And she was scared of rain
Every time the thunder clapped
She raced back inside again

She was given beautiful umbrellas
And coats of waterproof silk
But still she sat inside
And read on the window sill

As she grew the rain poured harder
And the girl cowered away
She hid behind her mother’s back;
She never ran to play

She was afraid of what the droplets were
So she sat and watched them gather
She still refused to step outside
And so she grew ever sadder

People came along
And people quickly left
They found the girls odd cowardice;
The way she counted every breath

There came a day when it was too late
And the girl was forced outside
She was lost without her silken coats
And with no place that she could hide

The girl was chilled clean through to bone
And her shy life came to an end
In her silken coats she reached the gates
And the golden stairs she did ascend.

In God’s own home she lay down her fears
And she swore that she’d be brave.
For there there are no window sills
And no pouring rain or hate.

Saint Peter smiled and praised her,
The girl who’d been inside,
And Saint Peter whispered truthfully
As he watched the young girl cry:

“Now, girl who’s scared of puddles,
And girl who’s scared of rain,
Did you ever think that when the thunder claps
It doesn’t have to mean your pain?”

“There’s others out there, like you
Who have suffered just as much
Yet they stay strong and they pull through
And they do not lose touch.

“I’ve been here always to protect you,
And that will never change.
So when you’re scared next just think of that,
And stand to face the rain.”

You must learn to love the puddles
And embrace the freezing drops
Dance under the thunderclouds
Until the lightning stops

My Heart Was Saying One Thing, My Mind Another ...

Some things you just know — like the feeling I get when looking at my children or the way I felt the first time I looked into the Grand Canyon. Some experiences are too strong for reason or words. There are some things, that even though they defy all conventional wisdom in your heart and your mind — you just know.

Never dying on a motorcycle is one of those things. I can’t explain it rationally, it’s just something that I’ve always known. It’s a feeling that has been deep inside of me since I first threw my right leg over the seat of that old powder blue moped. I knew I was never going to die as the result of a motorcycle crash. In many ways, I feel safest when I’m back on two-wheels and headed for points previously unknown.

Lately Though, I’ve Been Made To Feel Differently

I now had my daughter on the back of the bike with me. I’ve started to wonder whether my premonition covers just me, or does it also protect all who ride as co-pilot and passenger? Would the same Gods of 2-wheeled travel, who have watched over me for so long, also extend their protection to those I love and now share my adventures with?

Our flight from Philadelphia had arrived in Idaho Falls five days ago. We hurried to the dealership, picked up our beloved Yamaha Venture Royale, and then began our quest of another ten-day odyssey through the Rocky Mountain West. This was Melissa’s third tour with her dad, and we both shared the intense excitement of not knowing what the next week would hold. We had no specific destination or itinerary. This week would be more important than that. Just by casting our fate into the winds that blew across the eastern slopes of the great Rocky Mountains, we knew that all destinations would then be secure.

Then We Almost Hit Our First Deer

Three days ago, just South of Dupoyer Montana, two doe’s and a fawn appeared out of nowhere on the road directly in front of us. Melissa never saw them as I grabbed ******* the front brake. The front brake provides 80-90% of all stopping power on a motorcycle but also causes the greatest loss of control if you freeze up the front wheel. As the front wheel locked, the bike’s back tire swerved right and we moved violently into the left oncoming lane just narrowly missing the three deer.

They Never Moved

The old axiom that goes … Head right for the deer, because they won’t be there when you get there, wouldn’t have worked today. They just watched us go by as if it happened to them every day. Judging by the number of dead deer we had seen along highway #89 coming South, it probably did.

Strike One!

We pulled into Great Falls for the night and over dinner relived again how close we had actually come — so close to it all being over. Collisions with deer are tragic enough in a car or SUV, but on a motorcycle usually only one of the unfortunate participants gets up and walks away — and that’s almost always the deer. The rider is normally a statistic. We thanked the Gods of the highway for protecting us this day, and after a short walk around town we went back to the motel for a good (and thankful) night’s sleep.

The next morning was another one of those idyllic Rocky Mountain days. The skies were clear, there was no humidity, and the temperature was in the low 60’s with a horizon that stretched beyond forever. If we were ever to forget the reason why we do these trips just the memory of this morning would be enough to drive that amnesia away forever. We had breakfast at the 5th Street Diner, put our fleece vests on under our riding jackets, and headed South again.

We had a short ride to Bozeman today, and my daughter was especially excited. It was one of her all-time favorite western towns. It was western for sure, but also a college town. Being the home of Montana State University, and she being a college student herself, she felt particularly at home there. I loved it too.

We stopped mid-morning for coffee and took off our fleece vests. As I opened the travel trunk in the rear to put the vests away, I noticed that two screws had fallen out of the trunk lid. These were the screws that secured the top lid to the bottom or base of the trunk. I had to fix this pretty quickly, or we were liable to have the top blow off from the strong winds as we made our way down the road. We spent most of that afternoon at Ackley Lake, in the Lewis and Clark National Forest, before continuing South on Rt #89 towards Bozeman. I was still worried about the lid falling off and was using a big piece of duct tape as a temporary fix.

It was about 5:45 p.m. when we entered the small Montana town of White Sulphur Springs. They had a NAPA automotive store and by luck it was still open until six. I rushed inside and found the exact size screws that I needed. Melissa then watched me do my best ‘shade tree mechanic’ impersonation. I replaced the two missing screws while the bike was sitting in the parking lot to the left of the store. We then had fruit drinks, split a tuna salad sandwich from the café across the street, and were again on our way.

The sun was just starting to descend behind the mountains to our west, and we both agreed that this was truly the most beautiful time of day to ride. We were barely a mile out of town when I heard my daughter scream …

DAAAAAD !!!

At that moment, I felt the back of the bike move as if someone had their hand on just the rear tire and was shaking it back and forth. Then I saw it. An elk had just come out of the creek bed below, and to our right, and had misjudged how long it would take us to pass by. It darted across the highway a half second too soon brushing the back of the bike with its right shoulder and almost causing us to fall.

This time my daughter saw it coming before I did, and I’ll never forget the sound of her voice coming across the bike’s intercom at a decibel level I had never heard from her before. She is normally very calm and reserved.

We had actually made contact with the elk and stayed upright. If it had happened in front of the bike, we wouldn’t have had a chance. Thank God, with over forty years of experience and some luck, I didn’t lock up the front brake this time. That would have caused us to lose control of the front tire and as we had already lost control of the one in the back, it would have almost guaranteed a crash to our left.

Strike Two!

We rode slowly the rest of the way to Bozeman. We convinced each other that two near misses in less than a week would be enough for five more years of riding based on the odds. At the Best Western Motel in Bozeman, we unloaded the bike and went to my daughter’s favorite restaurant for Hummus. As the waitress took our order and then left, Melissa stared at me across the table with a very serious look in her eyes. “Dad, I don’t think we should ride anymore after about four o’clock in the afternoon. The animals all seem to drink twice a day, (the roads following the rivers and streams), and it’s early in the morning and later in the evening when we’re most at risk.” I said I agreed, and we made a pact to not leave before 9:30 in the morning and to be off the road by 4:00 in the afternoon.

This meant we wouldn’t be riding during our favorite part of the day which was dusk, but safety came first, and we would try as hard as we could to live within our new schedule. Our next stop tomorrow would be Gardiner Montana which was the small river town right at the North entrance (Mammoth Hot Springs) to Yellowstone National Park. There were colder temperatures, and possibly snow, in the forecast, so we put our fleece vests back on before leaving Bozeman. At 9:30 a.m. we were again headed South on Rt. #89 through Paradise Valley.

After a few stops to hike and sightsee, we arrived in Gardiner at 4:10, only a few minutes beyond our new maxim. It had already started to snow. It was early June, and as all regular visitors to Yellowstone know, it can snow in the park any of the 365 days of the year. We hoped it wouldn’t last. There was not much to do in Gardiner and as beautiful as it was here, we wanted to try and get to West Yellowstone if we were going to be stuck in the snow. We had dinner at the K-Bar Café and were in bed at the motel by the bridge before nine. All through the night, the snow continued to fall intermittently as the temperature dropped.

When we awoke the next morning, the snow had stopped but not before depositing a good two to three inches on the ground. The town plow had cleared the road, and the weather forecast for southern Montana said temperatures would reach into the high 40’s by mid-afternoon. The Venture was totally covered in snow and seemed to be protesting what I was about to ask it to do. I cleaned the snow off the bike and rode slowly across the street and filled it up with gas. I then came back to the motel, loaded our bags, and Melissa got on the bike behind me.

“Are we gonna be alright in the snow, Dad?” she asked. As I told her we’d be fine if it didn’t get any worse than it was right now, I had the ******* crossed on my left hand that was controlling the clutch.

We swung around the long loop through Gardiner, went through the Great Arch that Teddy Roosevelt built honoring our first National Park, and entered Yellowstone. As we approached the guard shack to buy our pass, the female park ranger said, “You’re going where? There’s four inches of snow at the top. We plowed it an hour ago, but you never know how it’s going to be until you get over it.”

‘OVER IT,’ is where we were headed, and then down toward the Madison River where we would turn right and continue on to West Yellowstone. Even though the Park is almost 100% within the state of Wyoming, two of its entrances (North and West) sit right inside the border of the great state of Montana.

“If you keep it slow and watch your brakes, you’ll probably be fine.” “Two Harley riders came through an hour ago, and I haven’t heard anything bad about them. They were headed straight to Fishing Bridge and then to the Lodge at Old Faithful.” “Well, If the Harleys can make it we certainly can” I told my daughter, as we paid the $20.00 fee and headed up the sloping, and partially snow-covered, mountain.

We made it over the top which was less than a ten-mile ride headed South through the park. This part of the trip didn’t require braking and would be easier than the descent on the backside of the mountain. As we started our way down, I noticed the road was starting to clear. Within ten minutes, the asphalt on this side of the mountain was totally dry and our confidence rose with each bend of the road. It was just then that my daughter said, “Dad, I need to stop, can you find me a restroom?” A restroom in Yellowstone, not the easiest thing to find. If I did find one, at best it would be a government issue outhouse, but I told her I’d try. “Please hurry, Dad,” Melissa said.

In another mile, there was a covered ‘lookout’ with three port-a-potties off to the right. I pulled over quickly, and my daughter headed to the closest one on the left. I then walked over to the observation stand and looked out to the East towards Cody. As most Yellowstone vistas, the beauty was beyond description, but something wasn’t quite right, and …

Something Felt Strange

I looked off in the distance at Mt. Washburn. The grand old mountain stood majestic at almost 10,000 feet, and with its snow-capped peak, it looked just like the picture postcards of itself that they sold in the lodge. I still felt strange.

Then I Understood Why

As I looked off to my right to walk back to the bike, I saw it.

Standing to the left of my motorcycle, and less than thirty yards in front of me, was the biggest silver and black coyote I had even seen. Many Park visitors mistake these larger coyotes for wolves, and this guy was looking straight at me with his head down. As I walked slowly back to the bike, he never took his eyes off me with only his head moving to follow my travel. I got to the bike and wondered if I should shout to my daughter. I knew if I did, it would probably scare the Coyote away, and this was shaping up to be another of those seminal Yellowstone moments. I wanted to see what would happen next.

I slowly opened the trunk lid on the back of the bike. We always carried two things in addition to water — and that was fig-newtons and beef jerky. The reasoning was, that no matter what happened, with those three staples we could make it through almost anything. I took a big piece of beef jerky out of the pouch and showed it to the hungry Coyote. His head immediately rose up and he pointed his nose in the air while taking in the aroma of something that he had probably never smelled before.

I don’t normally feed any of the animals in Yellowstone, but this encounter seemed different. This animal was trying to make contact and on instinct alone I reacted. As I walked slowly to the front of the bike, I ripped off a small piece of the beef jerky and threw it to the coyote. He immediately jumped backwards (coyotes are prone to jumping) while keeping his head and eyes focused on me. He then took two steps forward, sniffed the processed beef, picked it up in his jaws, and in one swallow it was gone. He now looked at me again.

This Time I Was Two-Steps Closer

He was now less than fifteen feet away with his head once again down. He was showing no signs of aggressive behavior, and as I still had my helmet and riding suit on, I felt like I was in no danger. I didn’t think a fifty-pound coyote could bite through Kevlar and fiberglass, and I was starting to feel a strange connection with this animal that was getting a little closer all the time. I threw him another piece.

Was It About The Beef Jerky, Or Was It Something More?

Again, he took two steps forward to retrieve the snack and then raised his eyes up to look at me. At this close range I started questioning myself. What if it is a Wolf I asked, and then once again I looked at his tail. Nope, it’s a Coyote, I convinced myself, as I held my ground and continued to extend my hand out in the direction of my new friend. This time he didn’t move. It was now my turn. I was down on both knees in the leftover snow from last night and started to inch my way forward by sliding one knee in his direction and then the other. He took a small step back.

I then started to talk to him in a low and hushed tone. He moved one step closer. The beef jerky at the end of my hand was now less than five feet from his mouth. We stayed in this position for the longest time until I heard a loud “DAD!!!” coming from the direction of the port-a-potties. My daughter was finished and saw me kneeling down in front of the ‘Wolf.’

When she screamed, the Coyote bounded (jumped) again and ran off in the opposite direction (East) from where I was kneeling. He ran about fifty yards and then turned around to take one more look at me. He then slowly entered the tree line that bordered the left side of the road up ahead.

“Dad, what were you doing?” my daughter asked. “Do you think you’re Kevin Costner in Dances With Wolves?” I laughed and said no, “just trying to communicate with a new friend.” My daughter continued to shake her head in my direction as she put on her helmet. I started the bike, put it in gear, and we headed again South down the park mountain road.

We had gone less than a quarter of a mile when something darted right out in front of the bike. It was that same Coyote that I had tried to feed just minutes before. He was about twenty yards in front of me and thank God I didn’t have to do any fancy maneuvering to miss him. I didn’t even have to use the brakes.

Still, this was now three encounters in less than a week. Or was it three? I convinced myself that running over a Coyote wouldn’t have been fatal. Painful maybe, but we would have survived it.

Strike Two And A Half!

We couldn’t help but laugh as we wondered if the Coyote had done it on purpose. Was he trying to scare us for not leaving the rest of the beef jerky or just saying goodbye? We’d never know for sure, but I wanted to believe that the latter was true. I will always wonder about how close he may have come.

As we got to the bottom of the long mountain descent, the sign announcing the Madison River and the road to West Yellowstone came up on the right. We made the turn and then spent what seemed like forever marveling at the beauty of the Madison River. It looked like an easy ride into West Yellowstone until it started to snow again. We crested a large hill with only ten miles left to go. At the bottom of the hill was what looked like a lake covering the entire road. The bottom of the road where the hill ended was lower than the surrounding ground and was acting like a reservoir for the melting snow from the hills that surrounded it.

This Low Spot Was Right In The Middle Of The Road

We approached slowly and stopped to survey the approaching water. We needed to decide the right thing to do next. The yellow line that divided the road was barely visible through the water, and we both guessed that it couldn’t be more than twelve to fourteen inches deep. I decided guessing wasn’t good enough and put the kickstand down on the bike. Melissa held the clutch in to allow the motor to keep idling. I then walked into the water in my waterproof riding boots. The boots were over sixteen inches high. “Yep, no more than six or eight inches,” I yelled back to Melissa. “It just looks deeper. If we go slow, we’ll be fine to go through.”

I walked back, got on the bike, and retracted the kickstand and then put it in first gear. Just as I started to approach the pool, I noticed a huge shadow to my right. Two large Moose were standing just off the apron on the right side of the road. It looked like they either wanted to cross the flooded asphalt, or drink, as they stood less than twenty-five feet away from where we now were. Every time I moved closer to the water, they did the same thing. Three times we did this, and a Broadway choreographer couldn’t have scripted it better. The two Moose moved in concert with our timing getting closer to not only the water, but to us, each time we moved.

Moose, like Grizzly’s, have no real natural enemies except man, and unlike all other members of the deer family, they have a perpetually bad disposition. They seem to be permanently in a bad mood and are not to be trifled with or approached. Even the great Grizzly gives the Moose a wide berth. I stopped the bike again unsure of what to do next.

It Was A True Mexican Standoff In The Woods Of Wyoming

“Melissa then said, “Dad; Let’s try banging on the tank and blowing the horn like we do with Buffalo. Maybe then they’ll cross in front of us, and we can get outta here.” I thought it was a good idea and worth a try. I again put the kickstand down and told Melissa that if they charged us not to run but to get down low beneath the left side of the bike. That way, the Venture would hopefully take the brunt of their charge. I started banging on the tank, as I pushed the horn button with my other hand …

Nothing, Nada!

Both Moose just held their ground stoically looking at the water. It was a true ‘Mexican standoff,’ where we were Speedy Gonzalez faced off against the great Montezuma. No matter how much noise we made, the Moose never budged an inch. After fifteen minutes of this, we decided to go for it. I put the bike back into gear, and going faster than I normally would, I entered the reservoir on top of the still visible yellow line. With a rooster tail of water shooting out from behind the bike over twenty-feet long, we crossed the flooded road.

Once across, we went fifty yards past the water and then stopped to look back. Both Moose had turned around and were headed back into the woods from where they had come. They either had no more interest in traversing the water or had been playing with us making our crossing difficult, while at the same time memorable, and another great story to tell.

Strike Three!

We pulled into West Yellowstone, and the snow was coming down in blizzard like sheets. We spent the next two days touring the shops and museums and even visited the Grizzly Bear ‘Habitat,’ which neither of us will ever do again. Grizzly Bears belong in the wild and not in some enclosure to be gawked at by accidental tourists. We also talked about our past four days ‘communing’ with the animals. We both agreed that we had been lucky and that we would continue to live within our 9:30 to 4:00 schedule as we continued our trip.

I lay in bed that night both thankful and in wonder of all that had happened. I thought about the deer, elk, coyote, and moose that had crossed over into our world. As hair-raising as it had been at the time, I wouldn’t have a changed a thing. I also thought about my over forty years of motorcycle riding. It was just then that a familiar maxim was once again forefront in my mind — as well as my heart. I repeated the familiar words over to myself as I slowly drifted off to sleep …

“When I Die, It Will Never Be On A Motorcycle”

It is a furiously humbling experience
to be helpless before the gale
and exposed without cover,
knowing that cotton takes roughly a millennia to fully dry.

Even though I know that skin is waterproof,
in the moment it is hard to envision a future
where water is not dripping salt and sweat
into my mouth,
even if I know that just such a future
lies just minutes over the horizon
beyond the rain haze that blurs the twinkling city lights.

My shirt clings to me ever tighter as the storm waxes wroth;
the heavy fibers seem to cower from the far-off flashes of lightning,
the thunder to which we never hear.

Freshwater tears course unbidden down my face
in forks and rivulets, washing away the sand and grit and anger
as I trudge through the blowing sheets of broken glass.

And then, the inconceivable future dawns,
and as quickly as it had spawned,
the downpour abates,
leaving behind a sodden figure plodding slowly
through the newly-dappled sand.