Switching Gear

Don’t look at me like that. It’s not that I don’t love you anymore, it’s just…well, there are better options out there. Bigger openings. I’ve found that you can be a little narrow. And it’s such a bother to have to carry you around with me everywhere. I can’t even latch you on to something else to make it more conducive to how I work. I need flexibility and something that doesn’t make such a fuss if I drop it every now and then. I’m going to bequeath you to my little cousin. He’s still young and has much to learn.

A probable musing of what happened at a certain university’s commencement at a certain recent past

Look at those filthy individuals. What do they call themselves, again? Oh right, pro-choicers. The only choice they’re making is against life. Gosh darn it. I mean, goddamn abortionists. They can get away with murder! What’s next! You just watch. They’re going to sneak into your homes next and cut the life out of your children under your very noses—with a coat hanger nonetheless! Who even thinks about using some apparatus used to hang clothes to…oh I don’t know, scoop out a developing life like the bottom of an ice cream carton? Anyone who supports this is evil. And probably black.

Fierce

Jeremy F. McLaughlin stared at his toes. They wiggled ferociously. He furrowed his brow in consternation and peered across as the boy sitting two inches in front, facing him. The boy was also wiggling his toes. They were battling.

Who would win the toebattle? No one knew. All bets were off. This is because no one knew how to win a toe battle. There was no contact, no discernable goal, and no appropriate discourse to moderate. One simply wiggled one’s toes.

It was all in the mindgame. Jeremy won. Then he wrote a book about his success and made millions.

A Door Near Me

            I’m looking at a small door handle and it’s gold and dented; now I’m looking at the door itself which is white and has four rectangular sections indented into it. They are not all of equal length. The door stands slightly ajar at the moment though there is no one entering or exiting. I can see through the crack where the hinges are but the only thing I can discern is that it looks darker in there. When I try to push it closed, I can’t quite reach from my chair, so I think about standing up to do it.

Hysteria

            When Jimmy finally strolled into the command room, eight stolid thugs were waiting with noroblasters trained on his forehead. The robot warlord rose from the floor in a cloud of compressed steam and said, “Well ya finally made it.” Jimmy pulled out his six-shooter, Texas-style, and said, “Y’all messed with the wrong man.” I began wondering at this point if I had come to the wrong place. Jimmy tugged his cowboy hat’s brim low. The starship’s engines were a rhythmic thud beneath the steel floor. Suddenly, gunshots! Now music! Strobes! The greatest disco dance party of all time had begun!

The Objects Around Me

            The objects around me speak when I listen to them. They are everywhere; I step on them, I step around them, I sometimes notice them and sometimes don’t. Staplers, couches, curbs, paint, bouncy balls – you know, objects. I am Neruda, stooping around with reporter’s pad and scribbling pen saying “ah” and “yes” and “I see.” They speak to me and to everyone. Some are crass and I avidly transcribe their florid curses. Some are simple, some the most effusive philosophers I have experienced. My shelves sag beneath dusty mounds of notepads, bearing the weight of the objects’ everyday words.

Grapefruits

            Everywhere we looked, bright grapefruits sat like endeavoring Buddhas in the dewy grass. The pensively interlocked branches above our heads were completely barren and the leaves looked haggard, as if they had just returned from an unexpectedly long crusade. Peeling open a grapefruit, diamond-clear juice cascaded out. Before long, butterflies with luminescent green wings had enfolded us into a shimmering cloud, and one by one perched on the opened grapefruit like eager pilgrims finally seeing the object of their prayers. And what an object it was. When we had finally each eaten a slice, our tongues danced like eloquent fireflies.

Trash Talk

I said: “I can hit any tree on campus from the top of Hoover Tower. He spends all his time going to class and sleeping. Everyone knows I’m the unchallengeable ruler of the disc golf course, tonight I will prove it.”

He said some yadda yadda about picking up his prowess from wily legends.

I said his legends were decrepit has-beens and challenged them too.

We were tied after seventeen holes, and so was one of the legends.

I threw my disc into a tree and lost by two strokes.

It’s an interesting situation I now find myself in.

Reunion

I remember laughing about belly buttons and sunglasses. I remember your pool and summer and sweat. I remember going to the movies on a Friday night, getting popcorn with extra butter, and a large icee we could never finish. I remember making a birthday cake for my dog made of peanut butter and dog biscuits. I remember your striped sweater that kept coming back to you no matter how many times you left it behind. I remember seeing you finally after years apart for the first time. You wore the striped sweater, and had the same horrible posture.
“You’ve changed.”

Cutlery: A Play

Spoon: I like you.
Knife: Why stay so far then?
Spoon: I’m afraid I’ll get hurt.
Knife: Psh. I’ve seen you around with those forks before.
Spoon: That’s different. We can still…spoon.
Knife: I see how it is.
Spoon: Please understand.
Knife: I can change.
Spoon: I just don’t—
Knife: --think I can bend.
Spoon: I’m sorry. You’re not silver enough.
Knife: I’ve done it before.
Spoon: And you snapped. It won’t happen.
Knife: Whatever. I’m just too edgy for your kind.
Spoon: I guess.
Knife: Just wait. I’m gonna find myself a sassy little whisk and you’ll see.

Guest Post: Mary-Ann Ortiz-Luis

Don't patronize me by telling me you have gone out of your way to spend time with me. I'm not a chore nor an obligation. I will not grant you bragging rights to your friends to highlight your kindness. I'm not your neat little package you tuck under your bed when it's convenient only to be rummaged for when it so pleases you. I'm either in your life or I'm not. I'm either integral to you as carelessly running your fingers through your hair or nourishing your empty stomach. Or I will not be part of any of it. Not one bit. So spare me the humiliation,.

Ice-istential Creamisis

I have transformed into a bulbous being with a soft, furry skin and insides that are delightfully fresh and icy. I am certain that I am a mochi. Green tea, to be precise. I must find a mirror to confirm the results, but there isn’t one. Doubt clouds my delicious brain. What if I am not in fact, a mochi? What if I am just a peach? Or a tennis ball? This existential crisis is unbearable. But wait! I know in the core of my ice cream heart that I want to dance. And only mochi know the mochi dance.

Derivations

            The key got stuck in the deadbolt after the door was open and when I couldn’t get it out it was the last straw, I was so close to being back in my house. SOL. Scream Out Loud.

            I left the door swinging and reread the letter in my pocket. My friend’s handwriting from Africa, all about entire villages sprawling dead. I nosedived into the couch. COL. Cry Out Loud.

            My girlfriend had told me she had to leave me, she wasn’t sure why, well maybe now I could be free to chase Beyonce. LOL. Hah. No. What a day.

A Bird!

            Wriggling squiggling through dark damp dank dirt coiling roiling around smooth and rough soil carving tight tunnels towards clumps lumps of rich reactions that recreate molecular fractions resonating and sprouting around the dirt like flirtatious compositions floating in position soaked by the rain swallowing water wallowing up into water soil mixtures drenching globbing earth sobbing swimming up and up and up muddy mess surrounds sliding slippery on all sides gliding sighing smooth spirals and still up up up to the surface bursting out among stalks and sights slick with wetness witnessing with feelings the freeing air

            Look out! A bird!

By chance

Philippe sighed. It had been six years, four months, one week and two days since he’d eaten baklava. But there, glistening on the other side of the glass in this tiny bakery sat a fresh tray of honeyed glory. He could still feel the overpowering sweetness drenching his tongue, the subtly crisp crunch of pistachio and filo filling his mouth; the scent of warm air, laughter, and home.

He was now in a very different place. The streets outside were busy, and the afternoon stretched on like a mirage; but this wasn’t home. He bought a square and bit down.

Wookie On Earth

            If I were Chewbacca, I’d go to my classes, raise my shaggy arm, and discourse in guttural ululations the similarities between health care systems and the Empire.

            If I were Chewbacca, I’d sit down at lunch with platefuls of sausage links and wonder if any of the wonderkids around me had a seed of control of the Force lurking in their unsuspecting minds.

            If I were Chewbacca, I’d show up at a party and immediately all the girlies would stop grinding with their sweaty frat boys to run their hands through my mane while I thought of cantinas on Tatooine.

I Wish I Were a Pelican

I wish I were a pelican

So I could stand at the edge of the dock

Overlooking the rocking water

Like an old, jaded sailor

I wish I were a pelican

So I could scoop down low

And grab the scintillating sparkles

That coat the ocean’s surface

I wish I were a pelican

So I could perch on the sand

The grains between my feathers

Satisfying beyond all belief

I wish I were a pelican

So I could talk to you, squawk to you

Tell you, you’re not so bad yourself

And maybe, maybe we could fly together, one day

The Heat

The heat is a welcome change to the cold that has been seeping through my veins. I am undergoing a transformation of blue to red. Or at least a vigorous pink. It tingles as it melts the icicles that have crystallized in places I never thought I would feel again. It’s warm. I’ve forgotten how warm it can be. And with it comes movement and suppleness. I can bend without fear of cracking. I can breathe and it feels like the hearth, on which I have been trying to thaw my soul for the last century. Thank you, thank you.

Secret Worlds

            First time I kissed her was on her tiny front porch in between the warm house and the lawns, streetlamps, and rain. We kept finding ourselves in in-between worlds like that. On a roof, between the stars and the earth, we could exist as if we were the only two beings in a secret world.

            We’d explore our latest universe. Sometimes it would be small, about the size of my arms around her. Sometimes it would be enormous, bigger than either of us could comprehend, and we’d both say we were incredibly lucky to have found one another in it. 

ten tens

When is a raisinet not a raisinet? Once it’s eaten.

She posed. He focused, exposed, developed, retouched. She became famous.

The last place you will ever look is the cemetery.

Meat combo pizza pockets combine accessibility with flavour. Insert jingle.

For sale: adult lowrider tricycle with sound system. Never ridden.

They thought, “Gay.” He wasn’t. She was. Lasted three days.

Sarah like Sam. Sam was taken. Sarah didn’t care. JERRY.

Sharp pincers zoom metal lace straight towards zippered drip places.

Her thumb clicked. It was broken, after all. From Nintendo.

The concept of the last word is a farce. See?