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?”

Today I Saw

Today I saw
A student posting his request
For quiet in the hall
While he studied.

He did not realize that
He had become Martin Luther,
Nailing his angry theses on the church’s door.

That Martin Luther was only
Doing something supernatural,
Articulating for himself
The petty feuds of gods above
While they looked down in agreement.

The paper posted –
Written in cursive –
Was of a planet
Unseen by the strongest telescope,
A planet where spirits and gods and angels float
One
And another
And another

And this planet,
Dear Reader,
Is like nothing you could ever,
Ever comprehend.