June 2011
19 posts
3 tags
Fragile
When I think about the pretty things, it makes it easier to let go. It’s not that hard. To float. Like clouds making love. Seagulls swoop by catching french fries in their mouths. I see the sidewalk from here. It’s not that far away now. I can’t wait for the crunch. My bones are as fragile as my heart.
3 tags
Never Saw It Coming
There is something nice about saying no.
No one thinks you’re mean, rude or selfish. They just think you’re busy. That’s what you tell them.
“No, I’m busy”…drinking my slurpee.
“No, sorry, I’m busy”…watching this marathon of Freaks and Geeks.
“No, really, I can’t…”
But you get caught in your lie. Your...
3 tags
Bad Luck
I can’t complain.
He asked me to do it. Tangle his laces, push him down the stairs and pretend it was an accident. Totally staged, we’d have a laugh.
But he didn’t make it.
A crumpled mess of blood and bones.
A murder I didn’t commit.
A crime that was somehow my fault.
Behind bars, I think about you, our joke, but realized you were serious. You hated me. Your ghost...
4 tags
Everything's Fine
“Do I influence you?” Her tiara is slipping slowly from her head. Her lipstick is smudged and the smell of alcohol leaks out between questions. “Are you listening?”
I’m not. I’m gazing into her eyes. I want to lick her lips, taste her teeth and steal that damn tiara.
“What do you like about me?”
She puts her hand on my thigh. I lean in closer,...
3 tags
Bonding
Can we agree to disagree?
I hate your taste in music.
I guess I don’t hate it, but I don’t like it.
Men screaming loudly. Angst. I guess I don’t get it.
It’s not alternative. It’s not rock. It’s not anything. By my standards. It’s noise. Call me grandpa, but I just don’t get it.
I open my ears, listening closely, but there’s no fuzz....
4 tags
Harold
Harold fit nicely, but Sharon never asked his permission. She just plucked him from the ground and stuck him in her lunchbox. “A toy,” she thought. No human was as small as Harold.
But Harold was human.
Three inches.
He was not a toy. He wasn’t even a boy. He was a man. A man with a briefcase and today he was going to be late for work.
Harold tried to call out on his special...
3 tags
Beautiful Lies
I can’t keep lying to you. I swallow my words, turn them to poison and spit them out on someone else. Strangers. Shrinks. Passengers on the train. Co-workers. Anyone that will listen.
My life is beautiful. I used to be a nurse. I’m homeless. I eat vegetables. I’m a Mensa member. I can moonwalk.
All lies.
Each and every single one.
The truth is boring.
I love you. Let’s...
4 tags
Blue Skies
My parachute snaps, but instead of falling, I’m floating like a bubble. My world obscured by clouds. I close my eyes and when I wake up, I’m with you. The room is white. My body covered by bandages.
“He’ll probably never walk again.”
Someone says but I can’t see them. A voice so close, but yet so distant.
I feel fragile, like I might snap at any second.
I...
4 tags
Pets
She collected pets like tiny figurines. A hedgehog here, a flying squirrel there and she quietly dusted the dwarf hamsters. Her cupboards held wiry fox terriers, her glasses showcased her collection of newts and the floors were slimy with snail trails. Her neighbors never complained of the smell. A mix of Mr. Bubble and lavender plants kept it smelling strangely like daisies, even she...
5 tags
Collections
Messages drift like lost angels. I catch them on toast, blink three times and it’s just snowing. I’m holding my tongue out like always, catching snowflakes, always melted before they touch my tastebuds.
I pick them like flowers, collect them in glass jars and present them to you. You shake your head, “It’s just snow. Not angels. Not messages. It’s jar-shaped...
4 tags
Directionless
Carl was lost. He could be five or five hundred miles away from home. He didn’t know which. He didn’t have GPS. He didn’t have a cell phone. He didn’t have direction. The only thing he had was fifty cents to make a phone call.
He pulled over at a dusty gas station, nodded at the napping attendant and walked right up to the pay phone. Dial tone. Good sign. One quarter.
...
5 tags
Traces
Linda’s arms hung low, she looked for clues in the cracks of the sidewalk. She walked home with one striped sock, one teddy bear arm and a few ants for her farm. She collected candy bar wrappers from foreign countries, searching eBay night and day, using her forensic lab kit to find his DNA.
“I’ll find him,” she thought to herself, dressed in a wrinkled labcoat....
5 tags
Free
The clouds huffed and puffed and felt ill to their stomachs. They retired to ranches in the southwest, rode horses till the sunset and returned to work two weeks later. They missed the air and caressed it with outstretched cumulus. Life was never the same after they left, expected to work long hours just because, but refusing to complain.
No one cares about the clouds.
The horses bucked, wishing...
4 tags
Chocolate Dreams
Edith always hated the chocolate factory. The smell made her sick to her stomach. The chimneys never stopped pumping tiny white clouds, not even on Christmas, and she felt a place that never rests, is a place you can’t trust.
It was Christmas Eve when she saw the old man saunter out from the large gate. She never saw anyone coming or going, but her mother reassured her that the place was...
4 tags
Open Windows
“What if I told you I loved you?”
“Now?”
“No, tomorrow.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. I could have scheduled you in today, but tomorrow is too late.”
4 tags
Hold on Tightly
Charlene looked into the clouds and envisioned the world in front of her. The wind blowing her hair around her face, strands sticking to her lips and grit blowing into her eyes. She closed them and tightened her grip onto the metal pole. Her feet lifted from the ground. The swings blew into the air, chains tangling around each other, clanking together. When she opened her eyes, she thought she saw...
4 tags
Displaced Time
“What if the door opened and Billy came back to us?”
“Billy? Nah. He’s gone, Pa.”
“It’s only been…”
“Hi, Ma. Hi, Pa. I’m home.”
“Billy?”
“Yes?”
“You’re home?”
“Yes, I was only just next door getting the egg you asked for. It’s been less than 30 seconds.”
...
4 tags
Reassurance
I think about fading away. My body disappearing and living in between your window screen and glass, watching you as you sleep. The little dreams coming off your head like fluffy white sheep. I’ll catch them, tame them in between the glass with me. Together we’ll build an army and one day I’ll be big enough to win your heart back.
6 tags
Daydreams
Dallas dives in. The floorboards swallow her whole, leaving her bag on the floor behind her, waxed wood hates leather.
Her purse leaks the details and he’s in pursuit again.
Her heels covered in mucus. She can’t outrun her foe. She slips down to her knees, cries for mercy, but Elmo is right behind her, yelling, “Do you want to play?”
