365 Days of Writing A writing exercise. Everybody is welcome.

 Let me tell you about my first sexual experience. Well, honestly in this case; my first blowjob from a woman.

 I must have been in Junior high and I’d started dating this girl. Now understand, for me to be approached by any girl in my life, at any stage, in a somewhat affectionate manner tends to be a near miracle and at that point in my life was simply one where there was no way I was going to say no to the offer of “boyfriend-ing/girlfriend-ing”.

 I do believe it’s at this stage in coming of age stories that the writer often says “this was my real experience with the complexities of interpersonal relationships”, or somesuch thing. I suppose it’s true really, as I can say it certainly set the stage for every single following one in quite a few ways.

 Hmm, just realized this would go easier if I had a name for the girl. SO! Let’s say this girl’s name is “Genera”, why not?

Genera and I did all kinds of things after the ball dropped. I ate her out outside of gym class when she was on her period from a spot where we could see the whole class running laps. She was the first girl female who wasn’t changing my diaper or a medical professional that touched my penis.

 oh, and yeah. She was mean. 

I tend to like mean girls, it’s just a thing. I don’t like it, but i just seem to end up with them. It’s okay, I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one and it’s something I’ve long since been better at handling.

 etc.

 One day, Genera tells me that her parents are going out of town and that she wants me to come over. There wasn’t any hinting going on. It was pretty straightforward. Come over, my sisters are watching me, let’s have sex.

 I set up a plan for staying over at my friend James’ house overnight. James was one of those kids who was lucky in the way that kids with shitty parents are. No rules, no curfew, and the occasional ass beating. The only part of the bargain was that he got to come with me, and honestly I wanted him to. I was about 13 and had no idea what was going on. In the 70’s- 80’s in Arizona sed education was still fairly non-existent and not particularly competent. I’d seen plenty of porno mags at this point, but mostly girly stuff. I knew the parts and what went where, but that was pretty much it.

 Here’s me at 13. I have long hair, ride skateboards, listen to metal and some punk but mostly metal. I had come out of an awkward childhood where I had friends and then none because I had gotten glasses. which was then followed by me not wearing glasses, growing my hair out long and getting into fights. I’m caustic, i’m a smartass. I’m generally unpleasant to be around. I worship satan for all that a 13 year old can do. I stay out late drinking and fighting. I smoke. I’ve already stabbed another person and been shot at and shot at other people. I spend my time in the desert digging up porn and killing rabbits and snakes. I read comic books, and spent 3 summers reading every science fiction book at the library before reading every mystery.

 I’m completely at a loss all the time, and as much as I like girls I’m completely terrified. 

 The night comes and James and I walk down to the development she lives in. We’ve talked the whole way about things we’ve done that we actually happen and we both have boners in all likeliness. I can guarantee I did, and from what I remember about James I’m pretty damn sure he did too.

 We get to the door of the house that looks like every other house in the development and I knock.

 Who opens the door? Her two adult sisters. This wasn’t really something I was expecting, but from their faces it seems fairly certain they were. 

 Genera comes down and says let’s go to my room so we do. 

 This is followed by footsteps up the stairs and as we undress the beginning of 20 or so minutes of cheering from her sisters and James.

how does it go? well, Here’s what I remember (and man is this long, right? I’m writing this out between work things and not really paying much attention). We make out for a bit, then we attempt to have sex. She has a condom, but i’ve never put one before and after we get it on she can’t stay wet enough so insertion is difficult. She may have been a virgin as well. So the hymen might have been blocking the attempt as well. Give me a break. I’m 13. Did i mention that enough? This being the case she goes for a blowjob after I eat her out for a bit. Cheers and all. This is the first blowjob I’ve ever had and it motherfucking HURTS!

 and you know what, I come. She pulls away as soon as she thinks it’s going to happen and then proceeds to yell at me for getting it on the carpet. Gets up and goes to the door, heads to the bathroom to make sure she didn’t get anything on her. Then yells at me some more and ignores me for an hour. 

  After all this I sit downstairs with her sisters and James. She makes a big show of kissing me good night like she loves me passionately and James and I leave.

 I can’t really remember if we went drinking or not, but I tend to think we did. some warm beer or some stolen liquor from a cabinet somewhere. 

 I wake up the next morning to a dick that’s glued to my zipper with blood from tears all over the shaft from where her teeth have pulled the skin off of it. the cuts are pretty deep and i worry for about 10 minutes that I might have really fucked myself up.

Later on she tells all her friends I got her pregnant and they all come up and tell me this, but she avoids me for the day. A friend of hers comes up and tells me that it’s a lie and a test.

 I wait for her after school. tell her the worst possible things I can think of that a boy would say if a girl tells him she’s pregnant. then, after she’s crying I tell her that I know what she’s doing. Tell her what I would have really done, which was the responsible thing.  Then I dump her.

 the end.

I’ve been listening to it for years and here’s what i know about love.

 it’s holding hands in a waiting room for a test to come in

 it’s sitting at a bedside

 it’s cleaning up their shit with your bare hands and not resenting it too much and trying  to comfort them

 it’s surviving the 3 am freakout when the fears take hold

 it’s remembering that there’s a person there

 it’s waiting for your baby to die and still holding on

 it’s listening to them tell you about how they were raped/molested/beaten and not  judging

 it’s helping them turn their breathing machine on

 it’s the second job

 it’s after the abortion

               the miscarriage

               the affair

               the venereal disease

               the small apartment

               not working the same schedule

               getting fat

               getting old

               remembering that they have a name and it was before you came along  

               chores

               not hating their friends even when you do

               the counseling

               the lines    

 it’s telling their parents/siblings/friends when they can’t or when it’s too late

 but it’s not your fucking fun, or your fucking shopping list of shit to do for fun

 it’s not your little dance of ego

 it’s not your fucking hobby

 it’s not that your taste in music is the same

 it’s not that you read the same book

 it’s not how much they fucking please you

 it’s not that they came to your show

 it’s not flowers and soda pop

 it’s not vanity            

 it’s a real thing, with real consequences in a very real world that can turn very terrible  at any 

 so go enjoy your fucking cruise you worthless piece of shit.

 Is coming from the main podium as the third poet of the evening is working his way through his second poem so far. Light haired with dark skin he’s alternating a near bark and super loud exclamations of near weeping in his attempt to drive emotion into his work. Macrame bag swinging around as he pounds the podium on an off rhythm. Not so much due to a pre planned timing, but more due to being awkward and odd and missing the steps needed to integrate a complete lack of social skills generated from a lifetime of imaginary accomplishments and a preconceived notion of how speakers should appear.

  We’re not here for him, reader. We’re here for someone in the audience.

Do you see him?  past the yellow and orange pastel carpets and the rings of typical poetry assembly goers? Proud parents who have no real connection to their children’s works, fellow students sneering at each new poet in contempt of their inferior skills in comparison to their own, very clearly better skills.  The fat, the skinny, the pasty, the dark all sitting on plastic chairs. some queasily trying to avoid eye contact with the speaker 

 there he is slightly fat, light brown skin mildly leathered and stained with patches that show he was once much darker. Do you know what he’s thinking?  dark haired, disheveled in a brown suit that was probably new in the 60’s but now is only an assemblage of fabric and safety pins. Blue tie, and the obligatory white shirt, tinted a soft coffee stain under each arm pit.

he’s thinking “I would prefer stones over these cheap, shitty things.”

  He’s thinking about what it was like when he was boy. When the people would sit around in the center of their homes and tell stories and sing songs. they had set stones in a semi circle, each row of stones larger than the interior set, so all could see. In all probably no more than 30 people in those days, but these things are harder to remember now. for him it’s about the dissonance he feels. the unreality of shiny, textured scoops with tough cushions and fabric that smells of easily 100 years of farting University students and their parents. He only comes for the memory, the connection of something long past, but is often startled by the fictions of it all after all this time. 

 How do you count thousands of years of life, or remember them honestly? so many things we think often pass an internal filter and the observations of the world become tainted with beliefs as opposed to their core actualities. 

 He has no idea, our friend, our only interesting person in this room. interesting in that while he is almost exactly the same as them he has never died, or if he has died hasn’t been allowed to be anything other than he is. He didn’t know in his childhood that he would be this way, as far as he knew he could get hurt and die like any other. He grew up amidst his people, his friends, his family. A harder life than what he has now in some ways, in other ways better. more real, more tangible. He had his life. Parents that cared, but were harsh in the way people then often were. kind, and loving, but often quick to decisions to use harm to teach, but gentle after administration. 

 I don’t think, reader that he could tell you where he was from really. “Middle east” would be the closest he could respond with. Has no more real memories of what people looked like, or what they spoke. No idea as to what they ate. he often imagines it to be Goat, or sheep, but he remembers neither really. He couldn’t even tell you what they wore. it has been that long. he has impressions, vague soft sheets of sense memory that lay across his mind from time to time. that’s why he comes to these. for that soft caress. was that his mother? his father? his son or daughter? his wife?

 she he remembers a bit better. She was there when he learned what he was. that he doesn’t die. no matter what happens. no matter the disease or violence so far. He could also tell you it always hurts, violence and illness do the same damages to him as they would anyone else. He just survives. regrows limbs over the time where it would take one to grow such a limb if it had been severed. time to live through terrible diseases that kill him as much as they can, ravaging him and causing the same fear of death each time. He can tell you with certainty that he isn’t sure if it has simply not happened. that slippery death that will chuck him out of his body finally and into other climes. wet ones.

 He had been what you might think as a boy when it had occurred. Perhaps before his twenties. Simple folk living simple lives as it’s said. though those lives are no simpler than any other as he’s learned over the years, and years, and years.

 Like most people he had been the victim of great men and the men that love great men. he would tell you, if he could hear us that there aren’t any great man who are called as such. weak and evil men is the term he would use. His village had simply been on the way for an army of a great man to go force another great man to give him the populace that the other great man had claimed as his own. He and his men had simply passed through the village, and had sent men to ask for support. food and water, and an area with which to rest. The village, not knowing what great men and their soldiers do had freely given it. that was simply how they knew things to be. if someone came a great distance and had asked for some succor from the elements it was given. the world was hard, and the people should help each other.

 the great men and his soldiers then helped themselves after being helped. Our modest looking man was forced to watch as his wife and children were raped, then he was raped and murdered next. raped on top of his wife and children, then put to the sword. great men. he would tell you a great deal about great men if he could. they had set him  and his family in the center of their rock lean-to. their home and then pushed the walls over on top of them. the closest they were willing to do to provide a grave. mostly to prevent spirits to give chase and revenge.

 that’s when our friend learned there wasn’t any death for him. he had woken, still butchered, chest cleaved from neck to groin, coated in feces and semen, the gore of his wife and children. with his bowels hanging out beside him collecting dirt and insects. the shock causing him to try and use his broken and wedged arm to scoop them back into himself. dirt granules clinging to the purpled gobbets as he shakily tried to put them inside in whatever way they caused the least discomfort. All the while staring at the young girl whom he had loved, loved like no other, her face, broken and bruised, eyes turned to the eyes of dead animals everywhere.

 he lay like that for days as wounds slowly knit. until hunger got the best of him.

It’s important for you to know, reader that everything for him functions relatively the same minus that one twist. well, that one and one other we’ll get to. So as he watched her rot he grew hungrier and thirstier. drank of her blood, and eventually ate of her face. weeping, weeping and crying the whole time with what water remained in him.  screaming and shuddering. 

 great men indeed, eh? 

 He couldn’t tell you how long he had been there, minds can break, and old minds can rarely remember.  Only that at some point he had dug his way free and stood in the middle of a great man’s handiwork. From here there is very little for him to remember. He could have been there for a hundred years before he moved on, surviving on what he could find. perhaps gaining help from a neighboring village that survived, or travelers. he couldn’t tell you what happened from that day to the time he finally left the place he was from. those times have passed.

 He could tell you what the single line from the poem causes him to remember. He can tell you when he first saw the dead.

 He had been traveling with a man and woman as a servant of some kind when he had seen him. A small boy walking on a stream. looking lost. perhaps reminding him of his own boy, and surprising him for the singular feat of walking on water he had gone to him to see if he needed aid. he wasn’t surprised by the walking on water. those were different times and there were many stories of such things. Of men and women who had learned the trick. Of gods and goddesses who could do it as easily as rend the moon from the sky. walking to the boy he asked in the language he had then “do you need help? are you safe?” for the water was rushing and deep. 

 The boy could only ask for his mother in the language of children. “momma’s” and “mee maws” and plaintive gasps. reaching out to the boy caused the boy to walk towards him, but when hands clasped, no touch was made and the boy couldn’t walk onto the land.  

 ”where is your mother?” asked our man.

“she was in the room when they put things in me and killed me. why are they killing me!” was all the boy could respond. Finally the man and woman called for our man to serve them in some way and the man walked away waving. there wasn’t anything he could do and all the boy could talk about was his pain, his torture and his death.

 this the man would learn over time, was the main thing all the dead remembered. they died and went to the waters. trapped in memories of their deaths. some reasoned after time had passed, but mostly they were shadows of their deaths. 

 When, after many years, and likely the deaths of those he served he had made it to an ocean he saw more of them. wandering, crying. some in the process of sinking, but all the dead of the world were there.

 years later, in another period of extended suicide attempts he had jumped into the ocean to drown for a hundred years continuously and saw the deeper ones. the older dead tended to sink over time. slipping deeper he had seen men no more than apes. all saddened, all pained. the years as they passed brought more and more to the waves. So he lived near the oceans for as long as he could. often in hopes to see a face he remembered, a lost one to sit with.

__________________

end for now.

because you

you talk to me every day

always someone different being you

and the whole time

all i can think about is shooting myself

every time

i toss some responses

but the whole time i’m fitting

a gun in my mouth, or temple

ear, throat, bottom of my chin

Since it’s all pretty bad.

my eight year old self has a twitch in his eye and is making noise in his brain.
i am ticker tack
i am like dog, like cat.
good doggy
good kitty
we’re thundering down concrete and he says
i am like ticker tacky, so cracky
i am like bad doggy, bad kitty
we’ll just keep this noise level high and he’ll sleep while i sit like doggy
dangerous doggy
dangerous kitty

i was just outside hanging the laundry and thinking of the time you didn’t want to go to the movies with me because i had lint on my shirt.”it’s embarrassing” you said.i should have realized then that the depth you had often professed was just pretense, not fact, not real.what did it matter in a dark theater with the two of us if my shirt had lint? who would see that would cause distress to our lives?clothing and costume and that’s all we had?this lint, would it stop me from paying a bill? eating? loving you, or alternately you loving me?would they no longer allow me to vote? to work? to voice an opinion?would it be the stocks in the square?whichever. it was lint.
earlier i was wondering about what you were trying to say when you would park the car and listen to sad songs while i sat inside waiting.when asked “nothing” was often the response. what was this secret communication and for how many of you is it the same? did you think i would fulfill the not so secret desire of mindreader? skilled mentalist? were the windshield wipers antennae to reach my cortex, he warble of a sad young man with no real idea as to how rough it actually can get supposed to be the key that unlocked my latent talents?it seems to be the same every time. guess what your thinking and i have intruded, sit quietly and wait for the response and i am lost.i am not so gifted, i do not know.recently i saw a movie about love and in a scene a woman jumped off a boat to get away from her mate. the implied message was that he should get out and catch her, but that can’t be right.to imprison someone because of your needs seem an odd monkey response.better to get out and swim as far as possible alongside. letting them know you will go as far as they allow and no further. and, if left behind and longer desired as company. swim another direction.everyone drowns in this sea, alone or not it makes little difference.so, yes. i was wondering what you have been trying to say without your saying it.body language is not a word i can understand. i was not raised to understand the way you move.i only loved it.and the odd warnings not to say what was on my mind, was this the trick?learn to speak without speaking?
how can anyone accomplish this? there are no real psychics, just humans. who taught you this would work?oh, i get it, i need to learn to read your mind.well, it looks like there aren’t any risks of that anytime soon. just guesswork.

you are made of small parts, smaller than you can imagine. they are struck and passed through constantly by other small parts. so many that you cannot count, nor i. those parts making up larger parts, still small but larger. those parts growing, reproducing rapidly. destroying as many other parts for their own survival as possible.
these parts are combined into larger parts. for the form of even larger parts.
these parts communicate through violence, chemical, and tension to benefit the larger organism that makes you up.
the parts, smaller and larger constantly fight outside other things, small to defend themselves. that assault is merciless, but has no understanding of mercy as a concept since it has very little reference or reason to.
the larger organism runs on instinct before thought. that isn’t a fault, it is the organism dictating it’s own survival. the larger organism runs an intricate set of organs that interact constantly within themselves and outside stimuli.
built from within is an organ designed to manipulate the whole, with stimulus and input from the whole also guiding decisions on a partnership basis.
outside stimuli will include the interfaces with organs designed to judge the macro system outside of the whole.
those organs will also run their information into not just the main organ that will decode those stimuli but into the other organs who will also have some capability to decode parts of that information for their own positive outcomes, or alarm for negative outcomes.
there will be smells and sights, though neither will be the main impetus for decisions made by the larger organism. the larger organism will have a built system that will run from a series of baser elements and somewhat more primitive though holding instructions developed over a great deal of time and trial and error to a more developed though smaller organ that will decode for other pressures for survival.
the organ most considered responsible will form the concept of an “i” to better protect the organism as a whole with pattern recognition and more so it can anticipate possible threats and rewards for the organism as a whole. this organ will consider itself the seat of judgement for the organism as whole so as to better protect the whole organ. 

you, in this case the organ in relative charge of the many organisms that make up the whole will have preset commands that will also be tied into the mechanism that creates more of these organisms so as to improve the future efficiencies of future organisms that are similar as the parts of the organism depend on the larger for future progeny similar.

you will grow and decline constantly. at some point growth will give way to decline as the organism is still largely inefficient in regards to it’s own survival. it will fail, but as there has been no organism similar at this point it is beneficial as the more trial and error occurs the more likely a wholly efficient organism has an increased chance to occur. one that can only benefit from it’s surroundings.

you will have macro concepts you will apply to outside and internal stimuli to increase survival of not just your individual self but also other organisms that you will declare “positives” for your survival or for concepts that you feel are necessary for organisms like yourself to survive past you.
you will have many concepts.
you will have a heart that’s not your biological heart, but like that heart can fill, burst, break, empty in a conceptual sense.
you will be born and from what i understand will develop based not only on your genetic base but also your social base.
if given enough positive reinforcement a part of you will develop that can connect to others similar to you. if left alone, will atrophy and have a greater difficulty developing later. this may be cause for concern as it may impact your survival, though many survive without it. harming the set of organisms as a whole but seeing short term benefits.
you will wake with pillow at neck, or concrete and dust. these things will impact not only your decision making at the macro level but micro level management will be impacted.
you will consume other organism for breaking down as nutrition and building blocks for the micro level you.
your heart will wake on pillows and depending on the day be looking through trees at bright skies or living at sundown, some days being overcast, some being blank and dry. there will be bright cold days, and dark nights sitting cold waiting for some treat to benefit you. some times there will be warmth and heat, the body will excrete water in the hopes of cooling the organism. some days it will harden it’s external covering in some desire to shield itself from temperature loss and the possible damage of the smaller or more delicate organisms that make itself up.
these routines will and can be applied to the macro concepts your organ declaring itself a “me” and will be used accordingly.
you will declare some other organisms similar as threat or beneficial system to your own.
you will learn your “a,b,c’s”.
someone will love you, some will hate you. both responses based in a survival mechanism for the whole organism. like the smaller organisms there will be trial and error. neither guaranteed results outside of the widest ranges.
you will make mistakes. you and your parts.
there will be days of riding in someone’s car looking out of windows at passing environments. sometimes they will be green, sometimes brown, sometimes an explosion of color, grays with purpled green running with light that reflects the small blacks of dark spires. too small to see any other way. you will feel the breeze and wish the ride never ended as someone pushes a button and sound manufactures the new theme of thought you will have. your heart will burst, fill, deflate and you will wish that the whole of you could last forever to see the next corner of tress or the growing horizon.
sometimes the organ that recognizes this input will not exist and it will be dark. there will always be organs that fail.

you will be any number of sets of thoughts and descriptors as are necessary for the whole to survive. though this will fail as well.
there will be great passing of time, whether you see them or not they will be occurring. there is no solution for this as it’s not really a problem, just an occurrence. part of the mechanics of the environment as a whole. perhaps some day to manipulated but for the moment just to be swept up in.
you will sleep alone more often than you sleep with others, but you will wish the opposite.
there will be a row of black cars in your future. this outcome you can control somewhat but only through request. not because you will really have any control.
maybe you’ll have children. you’re wondering now or perhaps you aren’t. maybe there is nothing you want, just the passage of another day.
you will make mistakes, the system is too complicated not to. there are no right answers beyond a certain point. you will select perspectives based on social pressures, upbringing and mood.
you will be effected by tidal forces further out than you can ever cross physically without building the prepare tools.
there will be giant balls of flaming gasses beyond your comprehension effecting your health and well being. there will be chemical chains that will cause you to behave in many different ways, often without your even being aware.
you will lose those things you hold dear, through no fault of your own (though this will also occur. you will make bad decisions,. though “bad” is a concept not just defined by the organism, but the groups of organisms you belong to).
some will miss you, some will not. all of these will pass. the truth of you will disappear. not to be replicated because that falls into the realm of impossibility.
no one like you will exist before or after because the now you inhabit will not exist then, or in the future.
i can see you, as a little girl. learning to poop, hugging your mother because you were frightened though you knew not who she was as it was all new.
i can see you standing in a dress waiting for a feeling you know is coming can’t make it happen yet. older, waiting for some truth to become clear where the truths often have no actual perspective anymore.
kissing a boy, feeling the pressure of defining yourself as a human or as a specific part of humanity.
you will work in gas stations, diners. as a mechanic, as something you do not enjoy, as something you think you do and just might.
you will wear a face, then pick another. none of these are your true faces. you do not know what it is, you can only pick one.
“i like this” and “i like that” though you’re often not sure that you do.
you will sometimes be imperious, sometimes defeated.

but, above you will be distances you cannot count or see, and below the same.

i will be what i am. i will not fit in or do well by the markers of the group. but, for some short period i will survive.
perhaps to find purpose, or to create others. i will be alone more than i will be part of a group.
there will be no long row of black cars for me and i will have no control of what comes after. 
i will hope to see more truth of what things are before i pass, but i will be limited in my understanding and at times interest in knowing.
i will be tired, and exuberant. a good lover and a bad one.
there are more than billions of each of us, we will not really be able to understand each other. some will try, some will not.
there will be more myths than facts.
our descendants will not remember us, only abstracts of ourselves built into individuals that were likely not the people remembered.
we will sit at a table. things that happened will be remembered.

due fall. it had risen and there we all were stood and shaking ran over by tears . pulled at it while the patrons sat in wait in their metal thrones. i have brought the desert it’s quiet. scenes did pass. pass the structure and the men and women sat inside to only speak code. i was not always bright, 
stop.


i did not always know. sometimes we press our palms to our walls they say, but no one will listen to these palms they are alone on these streets of cotton dress and wheels. who can stand in the way of the way and not see those sturdy children. here you are awash in the green, it smells of plastics and glue, while your people tapped and tapping out the codes to those who cared. waiting for the stone to listen and stand. to walk away and let them know congress within larger cities.
the ones who sat outside slipped the leash while your celled companions wailed. carry the cold beer and i’ll bring the food, we will sit around like we used to. talk distance until we become it and hang bright in someone else’s eye. 
first, if there were reason for the ways those of us were made did know they could not be told,
stop.


for none could tell each other. should i risk an adventure? curtains do slip, they do fall and rise to call out for succor that cannot come. when i was a boy and had worn my first mask i saw their face. she asked for marriage when she did not love him and there was nothing but shame for me in any answer that could drop from unwanted and still. they only get one and it is always full. she died and left me standing at the grave while the mourners wore summer shirts. no one die for you, 
stop.


everyone stand up and run there is storm due and there will be no more turf. you wanted. they had all of you beaten. you cried when you left but you left. they can know that there is no longer “remember what was stolen” it has shifted and it is lost. 
all just codes and keys, one door to unlock another. each door opening and closing to the other.

to write you some poetry i would

for a little while

since i know it’s all too brief

and rarely matters

i would think about slow mornings and your head ona pillow

as much as i would think about all the uncomfortable moments

of which there will be too few

because there will be

too few

if anything that is all i have learned

for all of the politics

and gameplay

the moments are too few

and then you’re gone

and i’m gone

so here’s to the time we couldn’t fuck because it was too hot

and i was too tired

and had smoked too much and had no breath

and the time we found our smells offensive for some reason animal

because those were gone

and in the ground

and the time we laughed about pearl necklaces and boobs too small

and you left me here

with these people

and i don’t know them, or understand them

i just know why they do the things they do and nothing else

as it makes no difference anymore

and here’s to you and your drama which you were upset that i didn’t understand

all of it gone

like your favorite band

or artist

or movie star

or writer

and those jackasses with religion win

because they hold sway over the too few human items we could have kept

time for bed

and back to the job in the morning

whichever job it is

 ”she’s coming!!! Really’s!? For here!!!”

That’s the youngest you hear on the tape, they were very excited for your visit your Highness. Gina with her tight little face and screwed up cheeks and eyes all mushed together in excitement. Children can open their eyes so widely and innocently when excited and there they both were, so very trembly and shivery with anticipation.

 ”The queen of Ossitalia!?!?” this from Stephen the older of the two. his excitement heightened by  the brief sugar rush he received from the celebratory ice cream and in his bright blue pajamas zipped up tight. honestly, children’s clothes are something i will never understand.

 We had told them earlier in the day, Michael and I directly after admonishing them for fighting. which of course Gina took as an excuse to explain why her use of violence in defense of her favorite doll was completely justified.

 ”the Queen would have! she would have fought for her little friends.”

 ’It’s a bit different , her friends are different than your toys. They have feelings and are real and can stick up for themselves Gina’ i said knowing more than i let on.

 No Mommy! Like Mister Hisster!” from stephen, small cut from Gina’s little nails still shiny red from their quick wrestle.

 ”Yes mooooomies” from both of them “Hisssssssterrrr” as they made little grimaces all of teeth and hissed like Mister Hisster. I wonder. it’s such an odd thing how your marketing people have changed him into something every small child likes. why shouldn’t they really? he’s every inch the moppet sociopath that every child is i suppose. But you and i know a bit more about him.  All that you’ve done to protect him even though he’s a grotesque thing. All teeth and black fur on two legs with his ridiculous cape. he follows you everywhere and neither you nor the others have ever been able to catch him.  the things he has done…

  ”Do you know her Mommmmmsies?”

‘I do’ for i should, shouldn’t i?

  ”how comes?” now they both stop and Stephen stops hissing and spitting and i’m staring at two upturned faces trying to come up with some semblance of an answer.

‘it’s complicated’ is about all i could come up with as i thought about how this is going to be a struggle to bathe and clothe them, but that’s why Michael insisted we buy them their Queen of Ossitalia bed sheets etc. ha, sigh… you have such an impact on them.

  ’You know the story of the first ones she made, right?’

“yes mommy” again, Gina always quick and smart. “The queen was a beautiful princess in a taxidermist’s shop in Ossitalia and one day her heart was broken when one of her pets died. So she made-ed him alive again and he was Peter ” Oh, my Queen it’s funny how something true can be made storybook. I remember little peter the mouse. the first of the toys. Not quite as smart as the later models, but so sweet. He would dance for anyone who came by. 

 ”and then she made Mister Hisster” and again they make the Mister Hisster face. If only they knew.

 ’ and what was Mister Hisster?’

“He was a Puma she was working on and she wanted to try something bigger, but he was smart and ran away” hungry and ridiculous no doubt. like usual, hardly clever. I know I shouldn’t complain but he is a nasty thing and I am not fond of him, but I respect your love for him and your desire to protect him as he was so early in the family.

 ’and then what happened?’

“C’mon mommy!” Stephen “When is she going to be here?”

“Shush, I’m talking about the toys!” and then the pushing and squabbling. Michael came in and separated the two of them. He is always so sad. He reminds me of your third prince. the one that Hisster pushed off the cliff. though certainly that time it wasn’t Hisster’s fault and he looked terrified (as much as he could with that face). How was he to know that the Prince had long since given up and a playful push would simply be accepted? he hadn’t known how sad the Prince was. I remember watching him fall and thinking that it was a waste that he had finally been given his want. he was always so kind to everyone. When we picked him up off the rocks he looked so wistful, as if the long fall had shown him just how disappointing the world was and how the fall was for the best.

 Michael is similar and I think the coming event will give him some ease of mind. He is in the other room doing his duty of course. He has sharpened his knife and cleaned his gun. He knows what’s coming and he loves the children.  I think they’ll survive, he wont though.

 ”so mommy, After Missssster Hissssster” again the spitting, cartoon spit is nowhere near as maniacal looking. “she made more and more and took over Ossitalia with them, but everyone loved her because she was nice and pretty. the prettiest of them all” you really are still, you know that though. “and then because Ossitalia wanted her to be around forever they keep her in a vault and she sleeps, but every so often she wakes up and looks for her toys.”

“am i right mommy?”

‘yes’

“so why is she coming here?”

So i told them. I told them how once you had a siamese cat and she was the most loved and after she died you made her into the newest toys you could make. one that could be anything, but when you went to sleep she had snuck off and become many things. and finally settled into the shape of a woman and fell in love and become a mother.

 They cried of course when i told them you were coming to take me home but how i would be back. 

 then i told them about how Mister Hisster follows you everywhere when you wake up for your travels and how when their father says to stay in their room they should. that they should cover their heads with the sheets because he won’t bother them that way, and that he is scarier than they think.

 now i’m going to sit with michael and say goodbye before you come. I’ve missed you, but i hate that damn cat.

from inside the house I can smell the rain

the damp,

the momentary flood

of this desert summer afternoon.

there were times when you came home

from the open road

your hair sprinkled in rainfall

when you pressed your body to me

at the doorway upon entering

and I breathed in,

took you in my waiting arms

for twenty minutes sometimes

the condensation

of all my hopes,

that each moment would never disperse

into time’s long way,

palpable for once.

I nestled you in

the deepest well of my heart

 the most wanting,

     a cavity ready to be drown

     and cleansed,

     the darkness and strangeness

     that every single human feels

     about themselves, dissolved

and there were rainy seasons,

and seasons of you

that molded me.

it’s been 3 years,

and the rains never fall here.

my human (w)hole is

surrounded by hardy cacti

that seem to achieve the impossible

in a place where the sky never speaks

and filth and memory are never washed

     but this afternoon,

     there is rare rain,

     and you,

         and I find you releasing

         that damn damp memory

     I let it flow

         to the ground,

         salt like the sea,

         gone

         like you and me.

Sooo… is this still a thing?

I have moved only three times in my life.  The first was between fifth and sixth grade, from Long Island to Tucson.  It was horrible.  Back in New York, I was in a “self-contained” gifted program, meaning that I had been with the same class for years and we had all become good friends.  I was the class clown and somewhat of a rebel (which for a nine year old girl meant stealing candy from the 7-Eleven, cursing a lot, setting small fires, and playing chicken with my best friend on our pink Huffy’s). 
    In Tucson I was an immediate weirdo, despite my attempts to fit in or impress my peers (wearing jellies, more swearing, being good at the flute… wtf?)  I was picked on, even at Hebrew school, where I wasn’t invited to the cooler kids’ Bar Mitzvah parties.  I was failing many of my middle school classes due to a combination of ADD and general lack of giving a shit.   I had made one friend, thankfully, and we are still friends today, over 15 years later.
    The second move (really in two parts) was joining the Navy.  Fast forward from age ten to age 25.  Still not giving a shit about school, I had dropped out of college for the third time (with only 16 units left to graduate)  in order to really focus on my passion- drug addiction and lying.  Eventually even I had enough of it and saw the military as a way to straighten out and attend a school (DLI) that would ultimately lead me to a career, whether I stuck with the Navy or not.  I left for Great Lakes, Il, in the dead of winter to do my two months of boot camp and then begin my work as a linguist for Navy cryptology.
    Let’s take a moment and go a little off topic.  Are you literate?  Have you ever read a book for fun?  Do you have a sense of humor that includes an understanding of irony and sarcasm?  Are you over age 21?  Can you follow simple instructions?  Are you not a racist (to include hatred of non-Christians) or homophobe?  Congratulations.  If you answered Yes to most of those questions you qualify as a super-genius in a boot-camp environment.  <fist bump + sparkle fingers>
    Long story short, I made it through boot camp (and to my surprise had a lot of fun) and arrived at my training station in Moneterey, Ca.  Just like high school or college, it was a somewhat unnatural social environment.  You live with your “shipmates” and you go to class with them.  Making friends was pretty easy, once you suss out the weirdos, idiots, drama-mongers and more weirdos.  I was fortunate to have had a roommate who was (and still is) super cool, despite being seven years my junior.  Actually, a lot of fortunate events seemed to happen there.  I managed to lasso an unsuspecting male and make him my boyfriend, breaking my several-years long cold streak.  Yes, that included “down there.”  I was assigned the target language of my choice, Korean, and not only had an amazing and hilarious class, but also did well enough to land on the Commandant’s List.  (The better of the two honor rolls).  My string of fortune ended shortly after a year of being there.  First I was dumped by my boyfriend, then I was dumped by the Navy. 
    I came back home to Tucson, bearing the Rock of Shame (in the form of a seabag full of uniforms I will never be able to wear again) and with my chin in my chest.  I finished my bullshit degree in sociology between May and December, all the while collecting unemployment checks and growing fatter and more complacent.  I was too comfortable- living with my parents, nibbling on government cheese, and going out drinking with friends.  Throw in a few casino visits and the grim specter of death, I imagine that’s what retirement is like.  Eventually I was given an ultimatum from Dad- 30 days then get the fuck out.  Okay, fine. 
    Two weeks later I had sold my car and moved to Chicago with two suitcases of clothes and my computer.

    This brings us to now.  Right now.  I finally got a job at a deli and start training this Monday.  I hope to meet some nice people, as making friends is something I was never good at.  The only person I know here is my sister, who mercifully lets me come over and watch TV with her every so often.  It’s really the only think keeping me from cutting my head off, out of both boredom and curiosity.  (How long could I blink for?)  
    I have tried meeting folks- by going to bars and chatting up the bartenders, going out to see bands in my coolest pair of jeans and most flattering shirt, and checking out some other assorted food and comedy events.   The tried and true “Hi, my name is Melanie.  I’m new here,” just isn’t cutting it.  Sometimes it makes me sad and I cry. 
    Well, fuck that. 
    Today I went back to basics- I indulged my independent geek.  Guess what?  I had a great time.
    I had bubble tea and a Vietnamese sandwich at a nearby café, curled up in a corner, happily nibbling away at my lemongrass beef and reading the new Rue Morgue.  Then I hoofed it up Western Ave. and dropped into a comic book store.  Ask a store employee for recommendations and what they like to read, and you have a new best friend for as long as you can stand it.  I left with the first volume of Fable and some League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. 
    Gaining a little more pep in my step, I turned onto Milwaukee and wandered through some art galleries until I felt the back of my neck burning from the gallery owners trying to stare me out of their building.  The squeaky-farty sound was my shoes, jerks!
    I popped into Odd Obsession video, just to check out their horror section.  It’s not their specialty, but I wanted to see just how “odd” it would be.  Arranged by director, nice.  They have all the Phantasm movies.  The store clerk wasn’t really chatty and I don’t have a VHS or DVD player, so I left before it became weird to not rent anything.
    Finally, I got to Aldi’s, the cheapest grocery store nearest me.  I spent one hundred bucks on entirely off-brand foods.  (My fridge and pantry was all sauces, seasonings and a bag or rice as of earlier this morning).  It was almost more than I could carry, but fortunately I am freakishly strong for someone whom science would insist should have lost a foot to diabetes long ago.

    I won’t bore you with any more details of me walking for several hours, so I guess the point I am trying to make is to stop worrying about trying to be happy by meeting people, because eventually it happens. And when you force it, you end up surrounded by people you are simply tolerating.  I had a great day- for a change- because I did all the shit I enjoy doing and not stuff I felt I should be doing. 
    I’ve come to terms with that I will never be “leather jacket cool,” so I stopped going to the bar with the cute tattoo guys and the jukebox that seems to only play Clutch.  Tonight, I’m making a chicken pot pie (complete with smiley face crust punctures), pouring a responsible-sized glass of whiskey and playing Silent Hill until I get scared.
    I feel happy.

-M