Obnoxious

“Successful” guys can be so—

I’d rather date a bus

boy.  He probably wouldn’t be such a—

Honestly, does anyone really need such a big set of

pecks?

I know you think you’re hot, so not

that my opinion matters, but really I just want to

splatter mud 

on your Abercrombie graphic T, pierce your lip,

give you a really ugly

tattoo—at least it would lend some

character.

No, I really don’t care about your stock

profile, so now, would you mind

wiping

some of the gel out of your hair?

Sometimes, it scares me

that I’d rather date the guy

smoking pot behind the dumpster outside the office, 

than date the guy who actually works

in the office—

I’ve looked at the hospital janitor

pushing a cart of dirty towels down the hallway and said,

“hmmm…” entirely overlooking

the doctor.

As much as I’d love to stare at your expensive tie

across the table,

I’m just so distracted by the cook.

He's back there sweating in the hot kitchen, 

breading chicken,

you know he knows

how to use his hands, how to grip a breast…

perhaps it would be best

if you didn’t order us a second bottle

of the place’s best red, 

let’s just admit this date is dead, so

excuse me while I swoon

to the taxi cab driver’s Spanish music on my way home.

He barely speaks English, and I barely Spanish, but

¿Que te pasa, papi?

The man who pays for a tan

from a bed doesn’t much impress me—I’d rather

a farmer tan rendezvous

‘cause it’s true

I do

think your tractor’s

sexy.

I’d rather a dude

be able to build me a house

than buy me one, would prefer to date

the guy who fixes the car

over the one who drives it, especially if, God forbid, it’s a sports car.

The rockstar in centerstage

will probably bore me to tears, unless of course he introduces me

to the drummer he just fired

for never being on time.

If you’re going to sing your own praises, I can promise you

I won’t be in the audience—instead you’ll find me

in the porta-john, making out

with the long-haired guy who writes

bad poetry.

So Good

“Sometimes, when we lose ourselves in fear and despair, in routine and constancy, in hopelessness and tragedy, we can thank God for Bavarian sugar cookies. And, fortunately, when there aren't any cookies, we can still find reassurance in a familiar hand on our skin, or a kind and loving gesture, or subtle encouragement, or a loving embrace, or an offer of comfort, not to mention hospital gurneys and nose plugs, an uneaten Danish, soft-spoken secrets, and Fender Stratocasters, and maybe the occasional piece of fiction. And we must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days, are effective for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives. I know the idea seems strange, but I also know that it just so happens to be true.” 
― Zach Helm, Stranger Than Fiction: The Shooting Script 

The Crummy Capers of Butter Bottom, Wicked Jagoff Extraordinaire!

Once upon a time, there existed a beautious kingdom known to its magnanimous and moral inhabitants as Yinztown.  All about Yinztown were college students who attended the nearby Yinztown University, studying subjects such as bridge building, Yinzer Communications, and Yinzenomics.  It was a splendid place where the streets glistened with bright and dazzling magnificence, a place where nothing bad ever did-nothing bad ever could-happen.

But one day, all that changed, and it happened faster than you could say "powdered sugar."  That's because a rebel outlier to Yinztown decided that this would be the day she would let loose havoc on the innocent, sleepy village of Yinztown.  She has been identified by many aliases, but most know her as the unassailable, the brutish Butter Bottom.

Butter Bottom lived in a dark, greasy village far from the sunshine of Yinztown, and was typically kept at bay by Yinztown's ever-vigilant vigilantes, the Green Squad, specifically bred to protect and serve only food with substance in its center.  But today would be different.  Because today, Butter Bottom, perched on the outskirts of town, bit into a bad batch of doughnuts.  It goes without saying that doughnuts were a food strictly prohibited in Yinztown, due of course, to their empty cores, an obvious tip off to the doughnut's lacking moral character.  Butter Bottom cared not for the laws of the land, however, and decided to assault the poor, unsuspecting victims of Yinztown in true villainous fashion.

Butter Bottom packed up her notorious Sack of Evil, and set on her way into the town as the wholesome residents were just preparing themselves to begin a new day.  Passing into town inside a car she hijacked from a poor, upstanding member of society, Butter Bottom scoped out the scene: a few bicyclers, some pedestrians snacking on breakfast fare with centers, a member of the Green Squad scrubbing the glazed look of a window to a fabulous matte luster.  Ahah! He would be perfect!

Each member of the Green Squad of Yinztown was specifically created in a test tube to exhibit certain characteristics, each of which seemed deliciously exploitable to an outlaw like Butter Bottom.  Not only did they have bright green chests that could be easily tarnished with a dash of powdered sugar or cinnamon, but their heads were expressly developed to be slick and free from hair.  That way, anyone in need could easily spot the sunlight bouncing off the heads of one of Yinztown's saviors. Plus the Green Squad was far too busy keeping the streets clean of bad guys and confectious diseases to worry about fixing their hair just so.  Yet this apparent safety feature proved to be a scrumptious weakness for Butter Bottom-she could smack forbidden doughnuts right off this Green Squader's head, and he had nary a single hair to cushion his precious cranium from the attack! Haha! Oh the mind of an evil genius, rotted through with sugars and custard.  The Squad would be no match for Butter Bottom's decaying and festering evil.

Butter Bottom grabbed a handful of powdered minis, perfectly fitted for throwing in fast succession, and then, she waited.  The Green Squad member she had eyed up was totally involved in his task of window de-glazing--a perfect target.  Butter Bottom laughed an evil laugh, and as the smell of sour milk further tainted by stale doughnut crumbs wafted through the air, took aim.

Boom, boom, POW!  The Green Squad member turned, caught off guard, to make a flailing effort at self-defense, but his attempt proved to be full of holes.  The poor upstanding citizen driving the car at Butter Bottom's behest shirked in utter dismay and shame, but there was nothing she could do but drive--Butter Bottom had her by the doughnuts.

Other members of the Squad hurried onto the scene, and though she put up a good fight, they eventually took Butter Bottom down by exploiting her one weakness: obesity.  Butter Bottom tried her best to outrun the Squad, but her pudgy body undulated to and fro, full of jelly, and she had absolutely awful aerodynamics.  It is rumored that Butter Bottom was heard to shout "Calm dahn! It's just a couple a doughnuts, yinz guys!" This is, however, unverified as of this time.

Butter Bottom was taken by force to the only jail cell in existence in Yinztown.  It was a left over from the town's crummier days before the Green Squad had taken over, and it proved quite suitable to house Butter Bottom.  All of her doughnuts were seized and they made her watch as they crumbled each and every one, slowly and painfully, into a vat of bleach.

What was the fate of the poor upstanding citizen with the car?  Well actually, no one is quite sure.  She has not been heard from since the incident, but it has been rumored that each of her car's wheels were replaced with doughnuts, marking her shame for the world to see.  Apparently, she simply could not bear the disgrace, and moved out of Yinztown altogether to live out the rest of her days on the Equator, the center of the earth, the only place she could ever again feel whole.

The Green Squad member who was so viciously attacked had apparently, in his state of such distress,  actually been corrupted by Butter Bottom and had developed a taste for center-less foods lacking entirely of nutrition.  It is said that he helped Butter Bottom to escape, but the story has never been verified.

All that is known is that a few weeks after the incident, Butter Bottom simply disappeared from her cell, with only a glob of jelly left in her place, the only real evidence that anything awful had ever even happened in Yinztown at all.

*Note--the jelly was quickly wiped up, so actually there is no evidence whatsoever and the event has been entirely deleted from the history books, leaving a gaping hole smack dab in the center of Yinztown's history.

Guest Star!

I Do This for Me 

I yawn & breath 
to speak & see 
to know & find 
to search this world 
for peace of mind 

I yawn & breath 
to act & be 
to hold & seek 
across the plains 
for the authentic me 

I yawn & breath 
to know love 
to hold love 
to be love 
before this life's' last sleep. 


-by my good friend, Tisha Farris <3

Blue.

The cold steel ducked beneath his skin as if to hide from the news.  Feelin’ blue, she sits by the phone, leavin’ home he told her he’d do it alone.  The doctor’s voice doesn’t crack with the smack of the word cancer, jaded breath still flowing, in and out, bada-beat bada-beat, his heart throbs sound, doesn’t pound like the sound of her baby’s.

The talk of the clock hits hard as a rock, every tick that it tocks makes her heart wanna stop as she sits absent-minded, alone.  The phone sings, her mind rings…hello?

More tests, let it rest, with quickened breath, she protests, there’s no way that this could be true.  He cries on the phone, feeling sick, and blue.

Bald is beautiful, especially on babies, and him.  He says to she says and she says to he that when waters get rough, you just have to swim, both silently fearing his body won’t win, while calm doctors measure the life in his blood, count cells—red, white, and indifferent…

Her bare knees hit the porch, scrape raw against splintered hardwood, paint ragged and weathered—it peels to reveal the rough interior, while above rainclouds grumble and growl.

The owl takes flight

each night to hunt the blue jay,

who still manages
to sing

somehow.

How Do People Make History...?

My opinion...they push boundaries.  They challenge peoples' perceptions and norms and whatever it may be that they've always taken for granted.  They make people mad and they make them uncomfortable.  There is outrage, there is resistance, and then, this anomaly, this huge individual with the unyielding bravado becomes the status quo, and everyone forgets that they ever wanted to forget her.  And this is just the time when she must shake things up again.

Possible Titles for My Autobiography/Memoir

“I’m Kind of a Big Deal in Europe…,”or maybe…

“I’m Totally About to Be a Big Deal in Europe”

“Pooping in Public Restrooms—the Story of a Girl Living Life on the Edge of Her Seat,”

“DISASTER—fondly handled, heartily fondled”

“The Life and Times of the Poor and Fameless”

Or perhaps, just,

“The Unstoppable-Tameless.”

“It Was Me Who Took the Cookies From the Cookie Jar,”

No, definitely “The Lighter Side of Irreverence”

...”Benevolence, for the Otherwise Cold-Hearted,”

And “No-it Was Not ME Who Farted”

“You’d Know if it Was Me

Calling” “This Voices Knows Everything but Stalling”

And “Silence

Doesn’t Know My Name” “Not Scared

To Share My Shame

‘Cause I Don’t Have None.”

…yeah. That’s the one.

Inspiration Has No Respect

Inspiration has no respect
for your schedule.
It doesn't knock first,
and enter later
or apologize
for keeping you
up
all
night--it doesn't kiss
the back of your hand politely
upon first meetings, but
yanks you--kicking and screeching
your life
to a hault.

It pinches you at night, won't be quiet at
dawn; doesn't care if your contacts aren't in yet,
or the light isn't
on, because inspiration will seize you
...just when you didn't wanna be shook,
slap you hard and walk away, not even pay
a second look
and it's inconvenient
it's rude!
It pushes and it shoves,
when the dishes need doing
and the homework's piling up.

It rips at your itinerary,
grabs you by the cuff...but it's okay, 'cause inspiration
knows
I like it rough.

"There's gonna be a birth."

The beginning:

breath to lungs—the first romance; you “have” him.

Your body,

an exhaling cocoon from which

she alone

emerges—not as a fling, or some temporary

thing

but an ever-after

kind of

love.

And just because at first she may be small

Don’t be fooled; she’s not

your doll to flaunt

and dress, play games with before

delicately placing her back

on the shelf.

A baby

is cleaning up sick

and ick

at 4 a.m./

cuddling until

the Boogie Man goes to sleep/ he’s

pick-

ups and drop-

-offs

and a lifetime of asking you “why?”

...so be sure you know the answer,

Why.  Because

a baby cannot be kept

small

like a photograph

that you stow away

in your pocket, only to pull out at those times when you want to say

“yep, that’s my baby,”—can’t be stretched big

enough to fill

with dreams you couldn’t hold

in your own

hands.

He does not exist to make you proud,

but to learn

all the ways

to tell you

“no.” and to grow

into his own mind, her own heart

you’re her start,

but, remember, you’re just

the beginning.

To Look is Not to See; To Open Me Like a Book is Not To Read

All I could see were here feet, socks reminiscent of bandages from some war I'd never fought in, blue peaking out between folds of white like they'd been double-wrapped.

"Her nephew is here.  Yes, it's gotten a lot worse.  Ahuh.  Just wanted to check--ahuh...yes..."  The blue-scrubbed surgeon stood clear of the doorway with his cell phone, keeping his voice low.

I tried to focus on the six month's old copy of Good Housekeeping in my lap, awaiting the doctor's retrieval of me like a good patient, but...there was more talking, the hum from the room across the hallway evolving into a buzz around words like "cataract," "tumor," "radiation."

A man in clerical garb emerged from the room where all I could see were those stilled feet, and his smiling eyes persisted beneath his slick, baldy scalp.

The surgeon went on, now minimized to a disembodied voice, from within the room; "You're really doing great!" he said with strained enthusiasm, followed by nervous laughter aching to just cry already.  "You've still got one ear and one eye...you're doing okay!" he said as he re-positioned the feet which turned out to belong to a lady with the whitest hair.

"I will be okay," said the lady on the gurney, "because I want to be."  Her strength only fed my curiosity, and I took a quick glance up from an article about potted plant creations, just long enough to catch the very conspicuously-sized bandage engulfing her left eye.

"Her eye," said the priest man, leaning against the door frame, "was stuck, was attached to her eye-lid by a tumor," he went on to a lady who kind of looked like a receptionist and who seemed to pop up out of nowhere.  "She was trying to wash up under there, you know, it was getting encrusted, you know, and so..." the receptionist/rogue wanderer nodded, concerned, as the maybe-nephew went on.

"And so...the wash rag...it got...stuck," the man got ever-so-slightly uncomfortable.  "Her eye got stuck to the wash rag and...SCHWOOP!" With this he threw open his fingers in dramatic fashion, upward-facing palm, body jerking forward in a vomiting-like motion.

SCHWOOP! Just like that.

I marveled at the lady's face, small and weathered by years and infirmities but none the weaker.  She looked back, though I wondered how much she could see.  And as the kindhearted and well-meaning, albeit awkward, surgeon stood over his papers and the priest/nephew stood over his aunt and the wanderer took off to schedule and file, the doctor finally called me into his office.

Fun With Words

Some awesome new words I learned or relearned today:

Succubus--female demon who seduces men in the night; male form: incubus

Kismet--fate, destiny

Susurrus-a whispering sound...I'd call this one an onomatopoeia :) 

Phone Phucks

There are two types of people with whom I cannot stand talking on the phone...or sometimes just talking to in general, actually.

I. The "I Never Stop for a Breath" Talker

This is that dear friend who, for all the good about them and all their good intentions, just never takes a hint.  Phone conversations are lovely when they are quick and to the point.  Sure, a long talk here and there is great, but before you settle in for a good long chat, make sure the person on the other end of the line has the energy and time; please do not drag them, kicking and screaming, into "I wanna talk about me" land.

When I talk to someone, I like input.  I want to have a conversation, not give a damn sermon, so when people talk to me like they might just as easily be talking to a wall with no feelings or thoughts of its own, I call them preachers who bogart conversations and I will typically try to avoid speaking with them, especially on the phone, in the future.

This subject brings me to the second type of person I cannot stand speaking with, and they are called:

II.  The "I May As Well Be Plaster on the Wall Because I Am So Boring and Utterly Responseless" Individual

This is the one that bugs me the most, even more than the bogarter. This is the person that you can pour out your heart too, tell them what you think is probably the funniest story in the world, or with whom you bestow some other titillating little tidbits that you are excited to share with another human being, and what do you get?  "...Uh huh...yeah...grunt...*undetectable head nodding*...yeah."  Wow, thank you! I'm so glad we could have this conversation!  I may as well have just spent the past five minutes shellacking my toaster with cream cheese for all I have just gotten out of speaking to you just then.  Bravo!  Let's be sure to do this again...NEVER.

Thank you for reading and "Phuck you kindly."

Sicka Chicks

Chin strap beards in the corners of your photographs.
Glare on the hair dyed so many colors it's evident you can't make up your
mind.

I wonder what you see at the bottom
of that glass,
when it's on top
of your face...just space?
Swirlingspecks of lipstick
or lip-liner
or maybe a nice glossy shimmer, whatever you girls are wearing nowadays,
folded within the ebbs and flows of your drunken
backwash?

Is it fulfilling, this sight,
day in and night out, this sight, every night,
what life is all about?

 And it doesn't make me furious, that you leave me
out

because really
the next morning, what more have you gained?
Have you sustained
even a memory
from the washed-out stains
on your name...it's a shame,
because everyone has their party phase
but when it seems no longer to be just a phase
but, instead, a way to pass your days,
living long in that haze,
where potential's erased...

in your photographs, I see
you erode
at Mr. Toad's when that last call is called out
for the last
time,
and my rhymes might be all that remain
in your
mind, so have a good night
--now I'm gonna go
sHiNe.

Sal's Cologne

Every day and night, an old, old man who lives on my street takes a walk. He is always dressed to the nine, with a sharp hat and coat to match, and a thick, white handlebar mustache groomed to perfection. He stops to talk to people on his way up and down the street, and occasionally I run into him and stop for a chat. His name is Sal and he moved to Pittsburgh from Italy as a young man, evidenced by his thick Italian accent. He always remembers small details I tell him about my life and asks me about them when we run into one another, even as we meet in passing. He tells me about his homemade wine, and always gives me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek, his white grandpa whiskers tickling my skin. It's heartwarming to know that such kind and caring people exist, and that even as a very old man or woman, there is still so much life to be lived, if only one chooses to live it. I will always remember my first deep breathe after each time we part ways, strong with the smell of Sal's cologne.

Lost.

You
are
sparkling...
gleaming
collecting
dirt, in the farthest corner
near the dustiest edges
of the most
forgotten
place.
I knew I'd find you
so I let you go, to
where?
Ah, yes, I know--that pocket
in that bag;
the space between the stove and the counter;
the tiny zipper part
of my purse, the spot
that exists solely for that moment
when you find it, that it you thought
you'd never
find
again...
the nightstand, beneath the nightstand, behind
the couch,
hovering inside
the bubble in the carpet--
you're there,
but as soon as I look,
try to measure you with my gaze
the uncertainty of your place, shifts space and
you're gone...
to my sock drawer, the dryer lint catcher, that box
inside the box,
inside the box in my head,
under the bed! In the covers...
hidden inside/under
just above/just below
beside
myself, I search and find
a line
of shimmering
dust.

I feel like joy.

"Life is short, but it is wide."