"I hear you're threatening to go on a date!" my mother jabs
and I'm reminded why Facebook is passe, because it is for spies
Barbie likes Ken doesn't she?  But when you think about it
he's just kind of there.  They never even met
and Barbie still can't spread her legs
she doesn't really know him
that eternal plastic smile and a man who exists
but is not known and never speaks.  Both are silent and smiling.
I am not a Barbie doll

I didn't make it through the movie "On the Road"
It didn't translate well to film, or maybe it's me
worry grips me and I cut my clonozapan carefully into fourths
and take one fourth and smash my finger into the dust and lick it off
I value it more than their benzodrine
The moment I awaken, the fear grips me, and then what?
One pill is consumed every few hours in the morning and early afternoon
leaving the next, for the panic of the evening
how will it end.  I don't want to go back. I am told not to think of it anymore
there is nothing more to be learned and it is only like rubbing my wrist
against a razor, trying to get through those tendons to reveal the pulsing red
their faces, my bosses, with their pasted on smiles, Stepford wives every one of them
the male, the female and everything in between
focus on the students, they will lose a good teacher soon
I am sad for that, yes and buried down in some black hole of my consciousness I know it is true.  I am that good teacher for
the girl who must move again this year, like last year and walks home
to the poor neighborhod where she lives and hears gunshots every night
My intervention and pleading for her teacher
to please reach out to her, because she is failing, and is afraid of you
even if you don't believe in gunshots or her cousin shot and dieing in front of her
and yes having mercy is one of my strengths, as my pancreatic cat rests on his catnip toy
and I care about those kids
not the stupid school
and even if I've put myself on the line, I am no phony Stepford wife
and if their reality, those kids reality is ugly and we know about it, we must help
even if it makes my bosses uncomfortable and squirm in their eggshell world of middle
class comfort.   I don't care anymore.
The kids are what matter, helping them with whatever time is left.

Maybe "Singing in the Rain" was really first doing laundry in the rain
Easter downpour, as solid as any I remember in Brooklyn, sans lightening
Big droplets, teaspoon size, coming down in successive sheets
like a hall of mirrors or glistening water, reflected further and further through
the misty air, and it's not cold, either, not muggy like Brooklyn
the air doesn't stick to your skin, cling to your body and line your nose
but the ***** water from the industrial sky still splashes on concrete
scattered small boiling mist of filth, oil, the mess of civilization,
the foaming "hidden creek" froths out from a concrete pipe behind this place
running underneath the parking lot, paved over like the river underneath 125th street in NYC
And I haul out my laundry, dragging it first across the ***** carpeting, then down the concrete
stairs, past remains of dust and play and gum turned black
until I reach the empty laundry room because who in their right mind would
do laundry on Easter in the middle of the downpour?
And I am dressed for it in a tank top and short skirt and the ***** rain hits my skin,
invigorates me, and I rush through it, smiling, listening to the remains of the creek
a shower of ***** water from a freshly polluted sky and I know no Broadway
dance moves and there are not street lights to cling to, only the inner ecstasy of
violating convention, droplets of water all over my chest, legs, being and I wash my hands
in icy rainwater flowing over someone's balcony like a refreshing waterfall

He is not to be spoken of, although many topics are covered
and I can be grateful, I suppose, because I am determined to pay for him
despite your objections, my parents who I mistakenly went to for comfort
He is, as the vet informed me, doing quite well with his treatment
and conversation about him is avoided as assiduously as if he were the
elephant in the living room
that no one sees
how many elephants have there been in our family?
Thousands, so it should be no surprise that there is now a pancreatic cat who
can live well with treatment
and if I need any reminder of the abyss that separates us, that eternal canyon
that destroyed me as a child, it is this cat, who in the last times of his life, seems rather
comfortable now with his medications and fluids and
our values, our beings are as far apart as the Snake River Canyon
a yawning space, which I wanted so much to fill as a child
and now I see men there on the other side, and I want to connect with them,
because that is what a child like me becomes as an adult
the desire to heal is there, but I will never fill that void
and can only do certain things like attend to my pancreatic cat
and avoid your wrath about him, and look over at the men
who so tempt me, who I desire not so much because of who they are
but what they represent, shadows on the landscape, like you were,
but I must learn to acknowledge my powerlessness at bridging this gap
look at the shadows, and turn away,
to what I can control, like caring for my pancreatic cat

The stress in my body was palpable, and at work, still heading to that dreadful place
The theater where I wasted countless hours and now had to go to an endless meeting
with death by Powerpoint and be told that if I just SMILE then students, even low
struggling, alienated, overlooked students who have fallen through the cracks of society
so early in their childhoods that they now prefer that dank and ***** environment to
daylight
But if I SMILE at them when talking about taking a standardized test which will determine
if these forgotten abouts and given up upons who are now hardened to that reality and resent any
disturbance of it, just SMILE and they will be excited to take that test and it's been proven by science after all said the principal who was also SMILING at us, the staff that doesn't matter except if you have been there a thousand years and one half and also went to one of their schools, and the Powerpoint, the powerpoint I could hardly watch because it featured our mascot the coyote hunting down and killing in the snow, and ended with a coyote, blood on its gums, snarling past the camera viciously, like a true predator, and that, that was supposed to motivate me to SMILE and get juiced to tell the downtrodden to look forward to their fate of failing the test and trying again and again in order to graduate.  Over and over, the same test. That haunting snarl.
That threat. That fake, pasted on smile. There is no love there, only control and threats and backstabbing, but it is only work.

And she stood there, her hand firmly massaging her chin as if there were whiskers there that needed to be combed and comforted and the high pitched presentation went on and I felt my body filled with energy and desire and maybe this is what a testosterone soaked man feels but
she didn't even look at me as I passed by, just made a purpose of staring at her set which is such a feeble attempt, that the big guy hasn't even been called in to help with it

And I thought the most satisfying thing in the whole world would be to just walk right up to her and clock her one in the face with my right arm which is stronger, followed by a left hook and some kicks and after that it would be just crazy mayhem and no girlish hair pulling because...
I was so angry and it was like a thirst to destroy this person who just picked up my accomplishment and called it her own to the applause of the smiling principal and the high pitched associated principal and his endless powerpoint the content of which I can't recall except to know it's a lot of work that no one wants to do and I volunteered for it and was rejected but I don't really want to work for a coyote who snarls and spits blood and tells me to smile and be warm.

But it was frightening, yes, more frightening to me than the pictures of viscious wild animals, because they are only animals, and just trying to survive.  
But I, the beast in me, the bloodthirsty anger and desire to destroy in fantasy was so
terribly and sensuously satisfying.

Work and work and nothing else on my shelf
Accomplishments, yes...in work, no less
But I'm ready to escape and live a little
No longer this fear...don't know what happened to it
everything bad has already happened so
the bear crawls out into the Spring sunshine
Not really lonely, just curious about what's out there
want to sit on a bar stool in a tight dress and sip a drink and flirt
Want to wear those six inch heels and laugh and be tipsy
dance to the beat of life and forget about it the next day
Want to buy that corset and denim at Fredricks and wear it with the
mad high heels and see what happens

His ears are soft now, not scabby
His purr is deep and mellow
He played with catnip this morning
Now on my lap, nestled between my naked *******
soft fur, never knowing or caring my clothing status
fluids, pain killers, anti-nausea
I never thought it would help
but it has and today is a good day
almost like his old self
my thirteen year old pancreatic cat reborn