Halloweened

On Halloween night, Ana turned into a Bible. She didn’t realize that the change was permanent until the next morning, when she woke up on a sweaty couch unable to move. The inspiration for her costume had come from her inexhaustible store of atheism, and she had prepared all kinds of derogatory puns to tell her friends at the parties. She lay on the couch in the unfamiliar room wondering what to do. Eventually someone picked her up, and his fingers flipping through her tickled. She wanted to ask him what he thought as he read, but she couldn’t talk.

Ramen

What are you eating?

Noodle—sluuurp.

Soup?

Yeah.

What kind?

Ramen.

Instant?

Like a Polaroid.

That’s gross. You know how much MSG is in that?

Enough for my taste buds to dance around in glee.

Way too much. Not to mention VBP and a lot of other chemical crap.

That’s fine. I live way too organically anyway. Slurp.

At least tell me you’re not eating the chicken flavored one.

Nope. Shrimp.

Oh god, even worse.

Shrugs.

Hey! You just splattered me with your chemical crap! (licks lips and tastes a little).

Sorry. Tasty, tasty chemicals.

Actually, can I have a bite?

Peanut Shells And Sonnets

Carl swept the peanut shells off the bar room floor and tried to compose sonnets in his head. Shara had mentioned the sonnet yesterday at lunch as if it were a wild animal to be found on safaris. Later, Carl had gone to the local internet cafe to Wikipedia sonnets, and spent the next three hours amazed at the long history of beautiful love sonnets. But as he swept, the sonnets he tried to compose were about how he was out of quarters, how he was forgetting how to mix drinks correctly, and how Shara liked to eat tuna salads.

Anti-anti-ode To My PO Box

You’re not the rocks that line the pathways of my life.
You’re not the open summer sky,
Or the closed winter sky,
Or the in betweens of fall and spring.
You don’t bring up boring topics of conversation
And you don’t stay closed to me.
You don’t cloister yourself like monks
When correspondence arrives.
You don’t go with just anyone.
You’re not the fingers prying into my affairs,
The teeth grinning madly at me,
Or the arms waving me off.
You’re not a conniver, a spy, a spendthrift, or a dullard.
You don’t change your hat to match your pants.

A Bar Scene

In a small, crowded bar, hazy yellow light swarms haphazardly through intimate conversations and whisperings. A tall woman with dainty ankles saunters over to a man sipping a dry martini, alone.

Hey there, sugar.

Her lulling voice melts like chocolate in his ears and he can’t help lean in for more.

What are you doing over here all by your lonesome?

He smiles, but just at the corners.

Waiting for you.

She slinks in next to him, cozying up against his right side in the leather chaise.

He raises his eyebrows.

No strings?

She smirks. Only if you like puppets.

Last Train At 9:15

Please don’t miss the train.
You’ll miss your classes and end up
On a couch, kissing a girl you really like,
Not ready to wake up to a city
Stretching itself on the earliest buses.
You’ll shuffle into lecture sleeping,
Hear about minerals, and think about her
Smoky taste and fingers. The poems
You wrote that day on windswept hills,
The poems you made on the couch,
Will haunt you. Just catch the train
And things will stay the same – it leaves
At 9:15. Leave late and you’ll find yourself
Sleepy in lecture, sleeping on that couch
Weekend after this.

Thoughts on product design.

Product design is righteous if it seeks to improve our living condition. It walks a delicate line between improving our lives by solving problems, and harming our lives by forcing consumerist paradigms upon us. I love design, am fascinated by the prospect of making the world a better place, and know how tragically easily humans turn to consumerism to solve problems it never can. I need to know that product design can make the world better and not just persuade us to squander our money on misleadingly advertised trinkets that eventually leave us with nothing more than empty lives and wallets.

Dreaming Of America

In the faraway Andes lies a village. A dark girl lives there, and she hopes day after day that one day she will be living in an apartment in America. She has never been to America, she has never even heard of America. She is fifteen years old and the few possessions she owns bear the myriad marks of the beast – symbols and swooshes and faces – that mean nothing to her except the alien feel that each has in her world of hand-ground maize. She dreams of these aliens, and one day she wants to be an alien.

My stapler ate it?

Last night, my stapler and tape dispenser came alive and formed a mutiny. Before creeping over to my bed, taping my mouth shut and stapling the blanket tight preventing my escape, they maliciously bent the paperclips out of whack, pushed the pushpins into the ground, and ripped the post-it notes into shreds. And then they destroyed my computer. They were tired of being under appreciated. Now, who knows where they went. They may be sabotaging countless others. But I want you to know that I was the first victim. And that is why I do not have my homework today.

Strange thoughts. Mainly hybrids.

A turkey gator: a strange hybrid turkey with scales, a long snout and sharp teeth. It still gobbles.

A flying squirrel vampire preys on unfallen acorns.

A hot dog rolled in steak is fried in cheese and eaten.

Spamsicles.

Dust bunnies and monsters in the closest copulate and form one giant dust bunny monster.

Taxi hummers can get through any kind of traffic.

Ghost sheep. Actually countable in sleep.

A jello pillow.

Fork fingertips. Never need cutlery again, but may poke people accidentally.

Bra pockets. They hold coins too!

A bird with a flat beak. Oh wait, that’s a duck.

Hallow's Eve Run

It had been a sunny day, and now with a swollen moon, it was an equally glowing night. The smooth roads were primed for running. The cool air she breathed was fresh and reminiscent of autumn leaves and mist. Instinct told her that there was something vaguely disconcerting about not being able to see the ground beneath her feet, but she ignored it and through her head back up to the sky. As she passed a lamppost, she saw her shadow in the distance, her legs long and spindly. She chased it eagerly, and laughed on into the welcoming dark.

Sorry to shatter your dreams, but...

Turns out Snow White wasn’t named after her fair skin. She was a cocaine addict and what they call a “crackwhore.” That explains the seven small men.

Last anyone had heard, Aladdin joined some terrorist organization and Jasmine became a sex-trafficker. The magic carpet, Abu, and the genie were all metaphors for the problems in their relationship.

Toxic waste was dumped into the ocean and the little Mermaid grew three more tails. The prince divorced her and married Ursula, who went on Jenny Craig and lost 50 lbs.

Everyone else is in rehab or dead. Or working for the DMV.

Epidemic of Happiness

I’m happy. Yer happy. They’re happy. Gosh darn. Everybody’s so freakin’ happy. It’s a goddamn plague of happiness. Everyone’s smilin’, the children ‘specially. ‘N don’t go thinkin’ yer safe from those big bear hugs. That shit’ll infect yer soul wif joy n’ laughter. Gosh darn that laughter. That ther is serious. Rull serious. It’s jus’ so gosh darn contagious. If one person gits it, the next one’ll start, then the next, then the next. Yer startin’ to see how this all began, haven’t ya? It started with the gosh darn laughter. Prolly from some rull funny joke. Ha ha ha.

A Dialogue

I thought of you today. Pensive.
In what context? Wry smile.
I was at the post office.
Pause.
I stood in that absurd line and thought about how much you used to enjoy such inefficiency.
Hey!
Hold on—it was because the entire time you waited, you wanted. And the feeling of wanting was more powerful than the gift at the end.
Roj, did you forget our anniversary? Knowing stare.
No…but you’ll have to wait for your present, and I hope you have the presence of mind to realize you used to love that.
Is it a necklace?
Maybe.
Well okay.

Exactly 100!

Liquid indecisiveness flowed through my tangled brain. Do I take this job in Syracuse? It’s forever away from here, everything I know and love—and that’s the good part. It’s a bank teller position that I couldn’t care less about—that’s the bad part. But on the side, I’ll be able to be my own man, because with such mindless work, you leave your job at the door. Maybe there’ll be a cute girl there that I can wrap into my existence. Maybe I’ll meet an old man who be-sons me. Maybe I’ll stare into the oaky night sky and be happy.

You Could Say

You could say my morning fell out of control when my coffee was too hot. You could say my morning lost focus when the bus rear-ended my little car. I wouldn’t disagree with you.
In the hospital, as I lift each steaming bite of Safeway cashew chicken to my mouth, you could say my chopstick skills are lacking. You could even say that the hospital air is twisting my fate even as it has been sealed from that first fatal sip of Starbucks.
You could say better days will come again, I’d say I wish I was in Groundhog Day.

Offerings Not Easily Accepted

They found him lying facedown at the end of Crossing Street, hair matted around the sides of his head. Arm extended, his lifeless fingers held a Pepsi bottle as if in offering to the highway beyond. His rusty shopping cart was full of plastic bottles, and inside each they found a paper on which a date was scrawled. Every bottle had one, and the earliest they found was in a completely flattened bottle, dating five years before. It was a newspaper clipping, and on the other side was written an address: the other end of Crossing Street, seventeen miles away.

On The Kitchen Bulletin Board At Stacy’s Asian Cuisine

Squirrel farts.
Blueberry nostril face.
Huge nugget vapid legislature.
Disturbed monopodular hippopotamal disenfranchisement.

Acorn poo.
Strawberry weenus visage.
Vast gem-like empty laws.
Removed single-celled bufalloal eviction.

Noodle squishier than Tuesday’s. Might be the water. No salt this time. Sidenote: garnish with cherry?

Table 9 has wobbly leg. Call Brian to fix. If he charges more than ten dollars give him kiss and a no.

Cheryl, movie Thursday? Yes, dummy.

Health Inspector Soon: Wash Your Hands Frequently! Hair In Nets!

Roger – the regular at table 7 – vowed he’d never return if we made the soup that sweet again. Less sugar.

Powerpoint and The Matrix

The world would be a more exciting place if bullet points catalysed bullet time.

A philosophy lecture would be punctuated not by extended periods of abstract reasoning, but by extended seconds that screamed past as the lecturer dodged clammy spitballs in slow motion.

Each mediocre group presentation would be a foray into the realm of the absurd – as each new point hits the projector screen, the class would be flung into retardation. In this blobbery, relaxed state movement is feeble and inconsidered. Havoc is wreaked before the next slide hits the screen.

-a
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In Starbucks

I am at a loss tonight. No, begin. The bones of the building show through, adorned with all the sinews and arteries of the coffee shop. Or: a raccoon with a round body, drawn in Crayola, surely amateur, or perhaps the work of an artist who has invented a new type of world. Neither right. Both sound the same, neither going anywhere. How about the rumble and honks and bar music, where do they fit in? Not too loud now. Not too tired. Where is the expanse tonight, somewhere above and beyond this scene. Built of words, stripped by disbelief.

The Expanse Tonight Is Poetic

Whirring down highways until prairies blur from earthly colors to heavenly eyes, I lean myself into the night. The back seat entreats me to trace the stars’ track, but I meet the vista with a faraway knack for the memory of fires. The firelight alighting on your tired black hair, the sparks dancing unaware on your forehead, the scorching red glow near my stomach’s plateau. You seemed to know. Your slow green words consumed crackling before fracturing my tried bones, until uniting we shone. The silent swashes find me wanting a home where your wafting tones fill the air softly.

The Bottle

Running towards a falling bottle of Bombay Blue Sapphire, mangled auto-erecting umbrella in bloody left hand and outstretched right.

It was falling from an apartment window.

It was also raining.

The wet cement emitted subtle aromas of fresh grit and cool grease in slow clouds with each darting plop.

The bottle of Bombay Blue Sapphire was almost at the zenith of its descent. The culmination of its efforts. Brit challenged his leopardian ancestry with one spring, and made contact with the bottom of the bottle just as it splintered into the pavement.

He licked the delicate tear-coloured fragments of crystal.

Things That Crunch

A pigeon’s vertebrae
A hard candy
A burnt sausage
A lightbulb put in too vigorously
A shard of glass under a steel boot.
A stomache
A tooth on too-hard candy
Time (busy and deadline-filled)
A peanut shell but not the peanut
A plastic cup thrown onto a landfill to join multitudes of its friends
Keyboard key strokes
Crab shell split open
The outside of a chicken nugget
The inside of a chicken nugget (bad)
A camera when you wind the film too far
A bike when you change gears wrong
Frozen liptstick
Yellowed newspaper pushed into a ball
What else?

The Nap

Dreams needn’t be fully-formed, pre-planned, final-draft, plan-A entities, but they’re not supposed to be a messy collapse of recent fragments either. This was.

Probably because he slept in a warm room.

His ideas were allowed to ruminate, stew, breed. Warmth is only a positive notion if it’s cool outside; if it’s hot outside and really quite warm inside too, then perhaps the notion of a nap isn’t so positive either.

But nonetheless, he napped. Hard.

He hugged a man who through his crossing arms to lock and petrify stone around the sky of orange water candy leaving objectified love darts.

Desk Items

The three oranges on my desk are not friends
They rub peels like disgruntled subway riders
And shoot each other invisible dirty looks

My contacts bubble in a cleaning solution
Say goodbye to eyeball pollution

It’s a little pumpkin
Small and round
Ridges radiating
Dull and unprofound
It’s a little pumpkin
Seeds inside
Stem upshooting
Trying to hide

Books and papers
Overwhelmed with writing
Jumping and jiving all over the pages with infinite writhing and rages!

What do quiet speakers do,
Tangled in cords like webs?
When they have nothing to say
Their shapes come clear like towers
Above a plain

Talking Time

Time is a slippery solution, schedules are the chinks that clog the gears of our days.

Or schedules are the evolutionary orders that raise complex societies from primordial sludges.

No, the instinct to be free to follow your nose wherever it leads is innate, nothing can overcome it.

Without organization and discipline, we would regress into a soup of perceived yet insubstantial meaning.

Schedules rip me from the things that I find important like a blind weeder pulling up every plant in a field.

And it is good for you, for without that intervention, you would quickly outgrow your bounds.

Hunting For The Wild Hot Pocket (Inspired by Michael Brandt)

Many believe that the hot pocket is a synthetically created food—a pastry shell filled with low-quality ingredients, stuffed with unnatural chemicals, but new research findings may blow your mind. The hot pocket is, in fact, an organism in the phylum chordata. Yes, folks, that’s right. The hot pocket is indeed a wild animal. The Hot Pocket Corp. founder kept this information secret since his discovery of the hot pocket in the Sahara in 1964. It was highly endangered, and he abducted the last remaining population for his own manufacturing purposes. So, ladies and gents—let your hot pockets run wild!

Two Friends

Two friends find each other on a lonely street in a city both of them are strangers to. What brought them here? How could they have found each other so far from the times they used to share together? They embrace and walk down sidewalks, rearranging the unknown streets into shapes their minds have known. In a world of strangers, how is it possible for two people to know each other? It is beautiful! they say. This city is majestic, and I’m so glad we are friends, and that we have found each other for tonight! High above, others agree.

This doesn't compile

/* File: hundredWords.java
*------------------------
* This program takes a commonplace sentiment
* and translates it into a moving, emotional
* exemplification of a transient moment.
*/

import acm.program.*;

public class hundredWords extends ConsoleProgram {
public void run( ){
println(“This program helps you write 100 words”);
String opener = readString (“Please recount a recent experience that felt important to you in some way. Be detailed yet brief. You may use quotes, poetry, abstract notions, and metaphor.”);
String denoument = readString (“Now, please write a short yet strange sentiment that may or may not have anything to do with the above recount”);
String lastSentence = readString (“Lastly, in six words or less, tie the two parts together”)
println();
println(opener + denoument + lastSentence + “count the words”);
}

Awkward conversation

I have to talk to you about your exam grade.
Oh? Why?
Well… you failed!
Wait what?!
Didn’t you know?
No! Wait, I was certain that I did really well!
Apparently not.
This is awful, what grade did I get?
A D+… and Computer Science classes don’t give out anything lower than C-…
So I failed.
It would seem.
Can I see my exam?
No. It was eaten by my fish.
I thought carp only ate kibble.
Mine eats paper too. Sorry. About everything.
At least I still have two legs.
That’s more than I can say for my carp.

Veritable

Make pseudo monastic internal reflections,
Trade mellow bombastic eternal directions,
Grade yellow fantastic recurdled contraptions,
Flake glued open nasty kin turtle shell actions.

Plinth sausage stick flint adage kick blunt divulge bleat stick my bulge thick.
Criminal animal goop subliminal mineral stoop convectual visceral snoop directional vesicle hoops
By-the-by that buy to sigh what my old guy moulds sky for sly dough wry no rhino cryogenics, cry OJ nix, plyer fence bricks find whole trench bits

Warfare leaves a sparrow steeped in narrow cross hair barely creeped in
More fare tower burly beeps and warehouse surly sandy street ends.

Octapoodle

“Sire, the octapoodle is missing again.” Francewald bowed and rolled his eyes. Fourth time this week. God almighty knew how an octapoodle could so much as move its eight furry legs in tandem, let alone escape from the Tower, but it had. Somehow.
“Very well, Waldo. Send the boys.”
The boys were already out searching for Jack the Ripper; they had larger and greasier fish to fry than recapturing a pet for their illustrious, capricious leader. But God forbid Francewald bringing that up.
“Indeed, Sire.” Only Francewald knew that Jack and the octapoodle were in fact one and the same.

Penelope

“It feels like a dream. You feel… vivid, and colorful, and…juicy? The only way to describe it’s to show you. Come on!”
We stepped into her room and looked at each other. I had never so desperately wanted to embrace something and run far away from it at the same time.
“Put your left hand… here,” she said, lifting my fingers and touching them to her forehead. Her warm, beautiful forehead. I wanted to kiss her until I dissolved.
“And your other hand… here,” she whispered, moving my right arm around her so I nestled the small of her back.

Grey

Outside, a banker in a suit sauntered by cradling a skateboard. The day looked warm and pleasant, not carefree, but beginning to be. The first toke on a stressed cigarette. Soon, relaxation.


But the air inside was a starched shirt that had been bleached and rewashed a thousand times, only to become bloodied when reworn. And here he hunched, inside. His hands were dry and mottled, for any water consumed was eagerly leeched out by the vapid air. The lonely Kitkat wrappers on his desk played silent games with each other for company. He would do it tomorrow. Always, tomorrow.

This skin

Your moisture dropped sweet, sweet drops upon my lips

and ooh, I couldn’t help it, something in my heart dipped.

And it wasn’t the lips or the taste or the hands around my face,

It was this skin, this moisture, this skin we were in.

and ooh, I’ve wanted closure for so long, it seemed so wrong that we didn’t belong

but now that I’ve been alone

it seems I’ve known

Nothing mattered except when you were gone

And it was that moisture, the moisture of our skin

It was this skin, this moisture, that skin I’m no longer in.

Pumpkin Flight

The lopsided pumpkin sailed through the emotive night air as the onlookers draped oohs and ahhs from its bristling stem. The police leaned on their rearview mirrors full of dour bravado. The pumpkin passed transcendently through a streetlamp’s glow as it reached the apex of its frightful journey, then succumbed to gravity gently. The four boys stood with arms dangling in the air, mouths open in gaping grins. Their still-gasping peers ducked loquaciously, car lights flashed by, and the moon sighed as the fatal arc reached its terminus, dashing chunks of pumpkin skin and seeds across the wet parking lot.

An Abbr. Wrld.

R. Smith opned his BIW and tried to look for sth to wear, but since he hdn’t done lndry in 2 wks, the only clthes he had were NSFW. He donned on his least offnsve pants and walkd dwn the St. to the MUNI STA. He caught the 8:34 one, and wndred if he’d make it on time to the off. As the train car swivled a bit, a fem. bmped into him. They shared an awk. mnt. for a sec, bef. trning awy and blshing smltnsly. He hesitated, but dcded to GFI.

“ASL?”

“32. Fem (duh). NOMA.”

“Coffee?”

“K!”

Mount Abaddon

Every year at a certain moment, the earth and sun orient themselves so that the desert sun waves enter the dusty cauldron of Mount Abaddon, a volcano lost since the beginning of time in the deep Sahara, and illuminate the searing edges of a huge, flaming, seething creature. The few who have ever stood encased in dust on the crater’s lip at that moment describe a sight not seen but burned into their deepest retinas, and they shiver as they relate it. For they are the only ones to have seen that most ancient of evils, the great serpent, Satan.

The Great Novelists

I am a hermit crab, and I carry everything I’ve ever owned everywhere I go. Hidden in my shell are three grains of sand, and I live in the mouth of a lagoon. Some days during the summer, huge, old creatures come and move great mounds of earth around, drawing things out of the sand that I have barely glimpsed. Inspired, I try to dig my claws around the edges of things, but to no avail. The humans leave and my memory of them stays somewhere back in my shell with the three sand grains, tormenting me to keep trying.

Sunday Sob

It was good, she told herself, therapeutic. Each Sunday she knew she would do it, knew as surely as the weeks were marked on the calendar in her bedroom. When the pastor prayed at the end of the sermon, a maelstrom of emotions automatically overwhelmed her, and she burst into face-contorting tears. Barely able to see, she felt her way to the entranceway and left. The other churchgoers barely looked up it was so ritual. Sobs wracked her in the morning parking lot. Then, soon enough, she looked about, dabbed her face, and greeted the congregation smiling as they left.

The Little Boy and The Tree

The little boy looked up at the great branches above with reverence and awe through his little yellow visor. Excited, the little boy took his shoes off, placed them neatly at the base and prepared to climb like he had never climbed before. Clutching the ridges of the bark with feet and hands, He felt intrepid and daring—an explorer in the deep jungle. But a wrong foot here and a missed grab there and the little boy fell on the seat of his red pants. He started to cry but saw the branches, arms welcoming him to climb, climb again.

Hugging The World

She lay face down, arms and legs spread sticking straight out with her palms grasping the cloddy grass.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Hugging the world,” she said without looking up. “This body is shooting filaments through the soils and atmospheres. My wrists are bridges over the Nile and the Amazon and my fingers are intertwining with the roots of the Himalayas. My chest is curving, my toes are meeting somewhere on the other side of this great celestial sphere and though it may look like I’m here, I’m everywhere. Yes, I am extending, extending, surrounding, surrounding, and loving...”

Nights

My oily eyes pool under sockets of wrenches.
Grizzled mechanics in flashing ‘Stangs and ‘Vettes,
Popped leather collars in my vision. She said,
“Faster crowds” and left. My piston fingers
Fall across books and rub against both of my hips.
We met last in sleet streets snapping rhythms
On greasy knuckles. “I hope I’m not too late.”
And, “goodnight until morning.” My rubber toes
Charge in contact with violent surfaces. They run
Still through tinted drive-thrus coming in my ears.
Tomorrow night I will see her again under a solitary
Streetlight. “Take this.” Parting my hair, velcro shoes
And screws –

Perfectly Rainy Day

I gathered my fleece blanket around me, put on pajamas, and curled up in a big chair with a book and a good cup of tea. The rain fell in different tempos, different pitter-patters throughout the day. It was grey and blue outside, and there was no telling what time it was. Day passed into evening, and I periodically looked out from my window to see the deluge collect in promising puddles. I looked at you and you grinned ear to ear. We donned our rainboots and soaked ourselves silly. That night, we fell asleep with raindrops on our lips.

Little Commander

“Okay, here’s the game plan. Listen up! This fort is going to be gigantic. the waves won’t know what hit them. We gotta solidify our troops okay? I want to reach China by tomorrow! You hear me? That doesn’t give us much time. So let’s start. Dave, Lisa—I want you to start mixing the sand. Paul, Tina—I want you guys to start clearing our area of toys. I will scout the area to see if there are any spots we can’t dig through.”

“Honey, come inside. It’s getting late!”

“Darn. We’ll have to wait ‘til tomorrow, gang. Good work.”

Kneeding Blocks

Outside inbred pickles muster courage to assault gestalt
With often-coffined coffee beans
Tarnished vortices slick flaccid morbidities along graceless comeuppances.

Small.
Amputate the visceral decision from her rhubarb palette
Sear the quick-clipped snippets of antiquated pseudo-wisdom
Paste gentle smears across lathered tireless wheels,
And grate screeched steel against wooded asphalt.

Filament of sweetberry winds flossy blinds up
Conceal reality within writhing peels of orange zest in gasping bloody eyes.
Unbridled cornucopias pretend that archangels presume delinquency
But righteously, stilted flows garner further blows.

And inside, homespun wunderlust licks thick heat into the heart of
A rusty morning.
Awake,
And exeunt.

The Anchor

The anchor fell into the sea with a misty splash, unfurling the rope from the ship’s deck as the metal claw wafted down through layers of blue.
For days the sailors explored the cove, bringing back scurrying, brightly colored creatures and trinkets as they searched for gold and natives.
On the last day, disappointed, they pulled the expedition’s zoologist from the sandy forests and unfolded the sails. Two gaunt sailors pulled up the anchor. It rose from unknown depths, covered in golden scratches and barnacles.
The captain hefted the anchor and traced the scratches. “We are here, where are you?”

This sweatshirt

This sweatshirt is old and it’s ratty beyond all repair. The fleece that used to line its supple interior has pilled off after countless late nights running around to this place and that, several instances in which a mess just happened and no towels were to be seen, and not to mention hundreds of cycles through the unforgiving washing machine. But in its faded glory, this sweatshirt has a story. Its tatters speak of adventures, its subdued color of long hours in sunlight. And to this day, it’s still worn—not for warmth, but for comfort and those bears in mind.

The Way

Let’s think about the world in this way and that. Let our hands be still and feet lay flat. It doesn’t matter at all which way we go, which way we throw, to whom our thoughts eventually flow. And flow they will, if only to fill that void of utterly substantial but lacking thrill. But perhaps the sound of silence can make a pitch—rich in tension and some unmentioned poignant light. For who is to say, really, what is the delight? The delight of day possibly may just be the time I get to say, “Hey, that is the way.”

A slow loris's favorite thing

A slow loris likes to grasp branches in its small furry hands. A slow loris enjoys clinging to things for long periods of time and peering at you through their big, big eyes. A slow loris is never in a rush and enjoys the laid-back pace of things. A slow loris also relishes the idea of an lizard for breakfast, a mussel for lunch, and a salad of grasshoppers for dinner. But above all, a slow loris enjoys being tickled on its tummy. It craves the sensation of twinkling fingers. A slow loris will do anything for a tickle.

Cloud toss

I jumped up and reached for the sky. I reached for a cloud, plucked a tuft right out. It was soft and cool, and as I tossed it to my friend, I felt both the pliant bounce and the friction inside it. The cloud landed in my friend’s hands, wisps splattering to the sides and quickly recoiling back into the mass. He did not know what to do with it. The cloud started getting restless and started to shake. All of a sudden it jumped right up there, up to the sky, and parked itself right below the midday sun.

Uncover Our Ears

The tree troll forked minutes down from the branches
To uncover our ears
To hear the shuffling chinking pieces of misty minds
Meeting in clouds
Discussing the tree troll for endless minutes.
Corners of conversations
Washed down with picnic cloths and imported iced tea
Found on plates in dusty houses
Forgotten in our minds
As the tree minutes troll across the sky.
Shards of cardigan flung aside
To hang like ripened tea bags from greasy fingers
And figure the slyest way
Under the ground
Squished in amongst the roots and forgotten
Even by the minute trolls in the parapet trees.

A great lesson

What’d you notice watching yourself?
My body language was a little…
Yes?
A little, dunno, closed?
What do you mean.
I had my hands in my pockets.
And why is this “closed”?
Because people can’t interact with me.
I agree, for the record, but let’s deconstruct this.
?
Why do pocketed hands indicate disinclination to conversational participation?
They show awkwardness?
And awkwardness shows…
That conversation will be difficult, unpleasant.
Yeah.
So?
I should take my hands out of my pockets?
Why?
So people feel like I’m comfortable?
So?
So they’ll be comfortable watching me?
Look what you just taught yourself!

A portrait of a closet

Seventeen wrinkled tshirts hang from rigid on hangers. They have been worn between six and four hundred, thirty-seven times, depending on their age, color combination, and fashion coefficient. They wait unexpectantly. They care naught what happens tomorrow, who gets worn, who gets washed, who gets torn, who gets tossed. The only person who cares in any way about this interaction is their owner, who is currently staring at them in confusion.


For he cannot choose one. And in this tiny, transient moment, his ability to successfully complete this task matters more than whether or not he inhales another breath tomorrow.

What have we caught here?

Mona, pray tell, what is this?
It’s a fish, Patrick.
I can see that, Mona. What am I supposed to do with it? What are we supposed to do with it?
Cook it, Patrick. I was hoping we could cook it.
I wish I could. I think.
Do you have no gas, Patrick? Must you visit my house?
Mona that sounds wonderful.
Friday then?
I cannot.
Does another day work better for you? I wish not to seem desperate.
No days work. Every day I collapse. Every day I fall. I haven’t yet hit the bottom.
Perhaps you must choose.

Why is he famous

Bob Dylan’s voice sounds like hail slamming against that long-rusty grate at the boat dock next to my friend Tim’s house in the industrial part of town. His song’s instrumentals sound like campfire riffs on forgotten keyboards tapped out with limited skill and less emotion, until the inevitable dawn breaks and sends the cowering “musicians” back to begging out of hats on chewing-gummed street corners, with frigid gusts punctuating their monotonous existence. But that is irrelevant. It is all irrelevant. His words, his poetry, his tale answers my desperate plea for mutual human experience, I know he has been here.

A Riddle, unsolvable

It made no sense. Her capacity for loving one man while falling face first for another was breathtaking. And yet it wasn’t. It was entirely human. The love of her life was absent, now present only in her memory. And those were only active when she chose to remember him. She loved him, and yet. When a message arrived, she hoped it was from another. When a thought emerged into her troubled mind, it was of another. She loved him, yet she couldn’t help imagining this other’s hot breath against her ear lobe, his foreign touch against her yearning skin.

Cancellation

No way I was going to pay two more dollars for another transfer. At the crowded bus stop, I crumpled the slip of paper in my hand and waited for the doors to open. When they did, two women clambered on immediately, pushing an old, scarved lady who was trying to get off back into the bus. I stood to the side and motioned her down, letting her take my hand as she descended delicately, painfully. Then I said hello to the bus driver as I deceived him and found a seat, not sure of how to feel about myself.

Written In The Marin Headlands

I balance myself
Poured in among the wavy limestone
Artificial concrete arteries
Disappearing into the trodden hills
No longer used and crumbling above the ocean

And where is my heart
Perched atop the weary fortresses
Crawling through these misty hills

In ages past
Men peered from here each bone-cold morning
And tried to distinguish the shape of the horizon

Hills
Am I to be spread over you like dust
Flapped over by crows
And still punctured by spray painted concrete
Is my heart being worn down
Is my heart being worn down
Tumbling down the cliffs
To land at my feet

On The Verge Of A Masterpiece

His fears had been looming up on the horizons for days now, and any moment he would have to look up. On Sunday he took a trip to the countryside and wandered for hours over sagebrush hills as the sky darkened and lightened, threatening rain time and again. For the first time in years, he thought deeply. Sometime during the lengthening afternoon, when he was sure drops were about to fall, he stumbled upon the realization of his oncoming death like a man first dipping his toes into a sea he’s never seen. The rain never fell, and he returned.

My Palms

A bird flew into my room today, and I tried to catch it. At first it hovered uncertainly, glancing this way and that as it tried to comprehend the world it found itself in. I was uncertain too, finally getting up from my desk to shuffle sideways towards it. Furtively, I shooed it towards the open door. When it saw me, it panicked and bolted in a flurry of wings and beaks at my head. I ducked and threw my hands up, trying to catch it in midair, but it careened off my palms, hit the ceiling, and ricocheted outside.

Evolution Of An Alleyway

Forgotten behind apartment buildings,
alleyways topple into one another.
Scraggled cats tiptoe from beneath
acid dripping dumpsters in furtive squadrons
until they are overtaken by dour mobrats.
Scum plants arise dripping from oil-skeined
puddles until they deceive passersby, feigning
the bark and whimpering leaves of sorry poplar trees.
Shortcutters shuffle more urgently than
they expected past tumbled milk crates
hiding layers of stains so thick they might be quicksand.
Men find their darkest, stirringest souls
crouching in stark shadows,
whispering to slow steam dragging out of manholes.
Leaning on one another,
the alleyways struggle onwards,
dragging the city behind them.

Predicament

Ants judged her as she clicked her heels along the dirt road. Squirrels looked at her. Everything stared at her. She didn’t belong! She understood, shit! A twenty-six year old West-LA actress/model/waitress/secretary/assorted walking down Rue de L’Essence, Quebec with a purse full of prozac and stained one dollar bills. Her right heel caught a pebble and before she could damn all that is holy her lips tasted earth and her Matin & Co tailored skirt shredded around her pert waist. It was ten miles to the nearest gas station. but that would only offer
physical salvation.

Slam The Laptop Shut

The door opened and he slammed his laptop shut. By the time he was fumbling for a book, he knew that she knew.
She just went into the kitchen and started banging pots and utensils around until finally he had to get up and go to her.
“I was paying the credit card bill and – “
She stopped and looked at him.
He said, “I’m sorry. For some reason, I just can’t resist when you leave for too long, it’s there and easy – “
Her eyes flickered past him and he trailed off; their young son had walked in.

The Barbecue

The evening wind flapped his purple and pink spotted tie against his torso. It wasn’t a warm night, nor cool; it was an indecisive child choosing between a Snickers and a lollipop. He locked his car with that embarrassingly feminine mee-meep and walked on. The gentle sound of cocktail chatter carried from the backyard, but he wasn’t soothed. His stomach gurgled in anticipation. These things always had great food. Still, he wasn’t sure of himself as he lifted the cold rusty latch and stepped into the gathering. GQ left him lately fashionable, though here he was beyond fashionably late.

How lovely is this place

Brother, some water please? I am ill and sick and unable to move. I hear the crisp hills just beyond and my limbs ache to climb their tumbled slopes. Move, brother. Move so that I may move through you. Tonight we are here. Tomorrow night, we may be here still. And the night after.

Brother, why do you cry when you look into my eyes? I am alive now. I will always be alive, and so will you. Together and forever we will love as we lie on this hill and look at that hill. As I die slowly, peacefully.

Moonsparks

Sometimes when the moon slips above the tree branches you can see little sparks jump out from it. This is because it’s actually grinding against the branches, which are made of firelava.

Mama, what’s firelava?

It’s a stone, my dear. A hard stone that’s hot to the touch even when you put it in snow. There used to be one in our village.

What happened to it?

That’s a long story Nikkum, and your eyes look sleepy.

I’m awake I promise!

Well alright. Just the start. Maybe you’ll dream the rest in the night and tell me how it ends.

Dreams are my unreality

The dog said, “quack.”

“Is your throat sore?” I asked.

“Quack.”

I walked on to the store, which was covered in cheese whiz strings. Bob opened the door and wished me a “guten tag.”

“Hi. I’m not late.”

“Not at all sonny, we’re just stocking the elevator with some new buttons.”

“What flavor are they?”
“I’m not sure. Surely not licorice.”

I went on into the elevator, donned my white overalls and yellow hardhat and set to work on the buttons. Slugs were crawling on the walls, leaving psychedelic goo trails behind.

“Thanks for shining the elevator!”

“Glug,” the slugs replied.

Thought Bubbles

She carried her thought bubbles in her back pocket, where they peeked over the lip of the denim at the world in reverse. I saw them when she moved and her loose gray shirt lifted a little. They were small thought bubbles, chock full of interlocked ponderings. I couldn’t take my eyes off of them. When she wandered away, she took one out, whispered to it cupped in her hands, and released it to float around her head as she walked. I fell in love right then, not with the way she smiled or walked but with her bubbling thoughts.

Things that induce goosebumps

Twinkle fingers, twinkling slowly up and down my back and sides.

A frightening story.

A moving story.

Being cold.

Seeing someone getting into a sticky situation where possible limbs might be lost.

Geese.

Silence in corridors with an intermittent breeze coming from an unknown source.

Absorbing myself in a completely embarrassing moment from the past, and then letting go.

Nails or any hard object on a blackboard.

Kissing scenes in movies that go on too long and give me time to wonder how many times they had to film that with cameras panning around their suction-cupped heads.

Styrofoam upon Styrofoam.

Arboreal

That’s real tree-like.

You mean that it’s arboreal?

No, that’s a type of rice.

No it’s not. It means tree-like.

Arboreal rice. It’s used for making ricotta.

No, that’s a cheese.

Parmesan is a cheese.

There are many types of cheeses.

Yeah, like cheddar.

And ricotta!

No, that’s a rice dish. Made with arboreal rice.

No! You’re thinking of Arborio rice. It isn’t tree-like rice!

Wait, I thought we were talking about cheese.

Whatever man, just take your arboreal statue and make some ricotta and what the hell, top it with some parmesan.

I think we’re finally on the same page.

Roaming

The elephants walked the lands, banded together in a cluster of grey and blue. They roamed the grasses, meandered the dry plateaus. The researcher followed them compulsively, tracking the depths of their steps, the trails they preferred. He scrawled in his notebook, “What are they searching for? They seem to be lost--perhaps wanting purpose and love and meaning.”

“But it is not the case, here” a tall, Moriori warrior said.

“No?”

“No. Purpose is roaming. Roaming is purpose. ”

“Thank you.”

The researcher shed his clothes, left his notebook, and roamed the lands, hands fanned to feel the cool breeze.

Faces

She made faces in the mirror because she loved to see how she could contort her eyebrows and squish her nose. She tried for five different ones every day. Scary, happy, excited, constipated, muppet-like, motherly, fuhrer-like, etc. One day, after years of playing different expressions across her face, it froze. Her eyes were stuck in half moon squints, her nose and mouth bunched up like a curious chipmunk, and eyebrows furrowed intensely.

She went to show her mother, who gasped in horror, dropped the clothes she had just bought for her lovely daughter, and fainted.

“Awesome!” she gasped.

Roar

I am hungry. No, I am ravenous. I want to consume the entire contents of the universe. You know how people say they’re so hungry they could eat a cow right now? Well, I could eat ten. And then I’d eat that truck of potatoes that just zoomed past on the freeway, dip ‘em in a bathtub full of catsup.

But that’s not nearly enough for me. I want to ablate that chair you are currently sitting on. Notebook, pencil, and all. I will devour the very clothes off my back. And yours, too.

I am hunger, hear me roar!

Voice Change: I Jumped In The Water

I jumped in the water, and it felt cold. Lord, my bones shook and my soul was weak. The water was cold! I said the water was cold and I was drownin! But I called out, I called out the name Jesus to save me from the water! Lord, he heard me cryin away down there and he done picked me up, he done raised me up and held me gainst his chest. I wept on his chest. I been weepin for joy on his chest since that day and I ain’t gonna stop! Jesus! Thank you for savin me!

Espieto

When he inspected things, Espieto moved in the form of a wind. This way, he could feel textures and shapes moving around and through him. He liked especially the smooth expanses of newly paved roads; they made him buoyant with warm tar currents that left him whistling. His Providence was small but lively as he wove down the sidewalks between bustlers and wanderers. But when a semi truck barreled past unexpectedly, the wall of displaced air slammed into him, scattering him into invisible eddies. Disoriented, it was all he could do to re-gather himself and continue, tenderly, on his way.

Portal Station

Hey, let’s go down to the portal station! I heard that now you can even see the other side of the portal, want to go check it out?
Look, there’s Boston, New York, Atlanta. They even have a little room in Des Moines. Strange how every portal station looks kind of the same as this one.
But come over here to the International Hall. Even here the distant portal stations look the same. Too bad we can’t step through for a second just to look around.
Here’s Saudi Arabia. Weird! It opens right onto the street. Hello camel passing by!

Full and Moony

Heyo girl, come here and be sleek.

If you’ll open your mouth, I’ll give it a peek.

I don’t see dentures, or cavities raw so

I’ll roll my dice hard ‘cos I’m about to score!

Wait, so you a first year, fresh outa school?

Tight! I’m a senior, which you know from my cool.

This event right here’s on to screw with the man,

So blow first base, don’t wanna hold your hand.

Lean in close, with intimacy

And grant this kiss some legitimacy.

We’ll feign knowing names,

Shame is not in this game,

Frolic under this moon into ecstasy.

Voice Change #3 Fresh Baked (Aloud)

Nephew Jordan, did you steal the last corn muffin from the cupboard? Don’t you dare walk away from you my son, for I may be your mother, and I may love you until the day I die, but I am not afraid to hit you so hard you bleed. JORDAN, did you or did you not take the last of my muffins.

You didn’t. Then your daddy’s gonna get busted, I’ll say that straight. Where is the man. He’s out. Getting drunk, probably on my coin. I’m cross. I’m right cross. Nephew Jordan, you ought to leave me QUICK now.

Need to hit a mattress

Every wired morsel of my head is tired – it sucks to complain but again life just drains right out of me. It’s a catastrophe, a jingle stuck in your head on constant refrain. The next eight hours will destroy me, solemn sleep is so close and verbose I wish it wouldn’t ignore me. It shouts on the edge of awareness like a hunger-racked child starved to permanent impairment. Its mouth is in my head and its butt is in my dread and its corpse lies through my soul and it’ll grow if I stay awake till I show up dead.

A Stranded Martian

Gilbert was a Martian. He was green and small. He came down from Mars awhile ago and fell into a human girl’s room. They were friends instantly. He explained how his ship was out of fuel, and he was at a loss on this foreign planet. She fed him lemon drops, and helped with his experiments—trying water, juice, peanut butter, gummy bears. Nothing worked and the little alien got more discouraged as time went. And then one day, Gilbert was gone. The little girl looked for his spaceship, but found “fueled my ship!” written in tiny marshmallows on her desk.

Half Full

The empty glass looked longingly at the jug of milk sitting beside it. It wanted to be full of that creamy substance—so cool and inviting. It wanted so much to nudge its way forward, but could not, for fear of tipping over and crashing into pieces. What’s that in the distance? A boy? A small boy that can barely reach his tiny hands above the tabletop. Glass in one hand, the tiny totster made his way to the milk jug and poured until the pearly liquid reached the rim. The boy drank half. Both he and the glass were satiated.

Mavis Staples

After the song ended, she shouted the refrain one last time in her deep, throaty voice, then stomped with both of her feet halfway across the stage, fists clenched and yelling in joy. The microphone was forgotten. So was the crowd. For forty-nine years she had been singing the song – she sang it for Martin Luther King Jr. and for sun-drenched masses like this – and the final chords still swept her with emotion like the dusty afternoon her father had sung it for her the first time. The band behind her struck up the next song.

Dreamer

Are my dreams real?
Oh how I want to feel the sliding patterns,
The shapes that make the space
Where I sleep at night.
Were that the world,
And this just a swirl of meaningless objects,
The touches and clutches and feels
Just nothings and no ones,
Perhaps the universe
Wouldn’t disperse as it does and
Come together,
Gather together,
With me a part of it all.
A dream is smaller than me,
But might grow tall as tree trunks
And branches
And leaves.
Waking up is like being scattered
Across and under seas
Too deep to find the end.

Voice Change #3: Stacey (Aloud)

Stacey loved Snoodles. Sheeeeee well gosh, she loved the way they looked, all furry and round. Definitely cute! But she also loved the way they felt – so soft and sometimes if you patted them just right they would purr too like little kittens! Stacey’s Dad had bought her twelve Snoodles for her birthday to show how much he loved her. He was out of the country on the actual day, but she had Snoodles! And Snoodles were the only parent anyone really needed! They definitely didn’t fight, get divorced, forget you at school—they were just furballs! That purred!

Voice Change #2: Mr Heath

“Samuel, come in here.” He pitied him, in a strange way. He was like an earthworm stranded on dry concrete, with nowhere to hide, feet impacting all around.

“What is it, sir?”

“Sit down. Clerical matters,” in regards to his recent failings. Samuel was in big trouble. Big.

“Ah.”

Samuel perched on the large, uncomfortable leather chair. He looked at Mr. Heath with troubled eyes. But there wasn’t much he could do. He looked down at his small hands submissively.

“Samuel, do you know why I brought you in here?”

It was because he’d embezzled sixty thousand dollars.

“No, sir?”