Inktober #25: Prickly (October 25th, 2018)

Prickly

the young hair of a Chia pet doesn't properly convey
how much bite your sting infected me.
nor, does my lie, that there was anything worth
surmising with tangles of telephone cord.
handset was torn off the wall as your cacti skin
rubbed against my cheek and i could not, for the life
of me see a way to change how i felt.  so i might say
that you are cast out, though it be more true that
i am the castaway.  so when the sun bites me with
energetic notions of warmth and vitamin D, i will refuse
and slip in arsenic to provide as a salve for my skin.
be it tomorrow or yesterday there is not enough in god's
blue marble to warrant my own persecution.   looking
myself in the eye as blades scratch off peach fuzz
from a face unable to construct the semblance of manhood.
secondary sex characteristics limited to groin, and no
way of fathoming how i ever got to a place where i cared
to man-scape for your sake.   let's back off a moment as i hang up
the phone and drop it down among coiled snake of cord
and realize that there was nothing new.  the old story
retold the rebuked, rebuked again, and this ultimate
story leading to isolation.   and a hedgehog scurries
forward and plants itself upon my wrist and there
is no topside to poke and prod me but a soft underbelly
that might make him indistinguishable from his distant
cousin - the guinea pig.  i am suited fine to this life,
watching fiction unwind, slasher knives penetrate victims
but id rather cry at romances that last, and your birthday
present sits ten years on, a Chia pet that stings me
but has yet to be thrown away.

Inktober #24: Chop (October 24th, 2018)

Chop

How I begin,
edit...
How I began this story was to tell a whole truth
edit....
....tell a false truth
edit.....
a false half truth, but the whole truth in a sense
edit....
.....truth in a sense is what you made of it, but I'm certain of my stance
edit....
I have no idea what my stance is
edit....
I naively bask in the consequences of my action though they do not fully have evidenced outcomes
edit....
My existence is futile...
edit....
My life is forfeit....
edit....
My life is my own and exists for as long as chance and happenstance let it be
edit....
......as long as I'm secure in hiding out like hermit in my house
edit.....
....as long as I'm secure in slinking back when fights become imminent
edit....
fighting is a false flag operation...
edit....
fighting is politics of personal finance....
edit.....
fighting is the politics of personal compassion fatigue because another mass shooting strengthens a fist around a gun
edit.....
....compassion fatigue is my krytponite
edit....
.....compassion fatigue the ricochet of sound waves that peal back my coat of venom
edit....
my coat of furs that's splashed with blood....
edit....
that's splashed with the sweat of little boys and girls in faraway lands
edit....
....in houses next door to mine, in a country just next door to mine
edit...
just next door to mine.

Inktober #23: Muddy (October 23rd, 2018)

Muddy

Reality check you've been duped again
as you cozy up to a snake in grass
and let airs of encouragement permeate
swiftly down upon the rigid fractures of friendship.

It's a costly endeavor to betray trusts
of lifelong acquaintances but then again
even family has spouted falsehoods in the names
of getting their ways, but you thought you knew better.

There's a reason that time is the enemy
and that is due to the muddied waters
that awash me in various phases when
rains come pouring down and whisk away the drudge.

But, it isn't enough to be cleaned once or twice
whenever the storm comes to call, eventually
there's a day when the signature on contracts isn't enough
and its time to end this love affair whatever it is because its just more of the same.

Overreaction may be the meal of the day but I will not swallow
this poison anymore, as for shits and giggles you've pushed my buttons
and I've slowly but surely made my own way,
so fuck off where you came from and slink back into your hole

I don't need you any more.

My 2018 Movie Memories

Movies seen (as of 11/13/2018):
underline = favorites

Black Panther
Paddington 2
Game Night
Tomb Raider
Pacific Rim: Uprising
Isle of Dogs
Ready Player One
A Quiet Place
Avengers: Infinity War
Deadpool 2
Solo: A Star Wars Story
The Incredibles 2
Tag
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Sicario: Day of the Soldado
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Skyscraper
Sorry to Bother You
Eighth Grade
Mission: Impossible - Fallout
The Meg
BlacKkKlansmen
The Predator
Mandy
White Boy Rick
Venom
The Hate U Give
Bad Times at the El Royale
First Man
Bohemian Rhapsody
Overlord
The Apostle
Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse
Ralph Breaks the Internet
Mary Poppins Returns
Widows
Aquaman
Vice
Annihlation
Love, Simon
First Reformed
Hereditary
Sorry to Bother You
Blindspotting
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindwald
Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle
Hearts Beat Loud

Favorite Moments in:

Sound:
First Man - If there is one spot that this film is going to clean up on it is the sound quality, and the sense of claustrophobia it creates.  While I was underwhelmed overall with the straightforwardness of the story and the more subtle touches of Goslings acting, the sequences inside the various space and landing crafts made you feel in the moment, more so, I think, than the cinematography.

Ready Player One - The trailers for the film were being released, the marketing material highlighted by a Rush Song, and all that jazz, but I was still put off by the very cartoony visuals, which make absolute sense in the film, and I am not one to judge a film for that, but I wasn't sold on the tangibility of the world.  Sitting in the theater and hearing the various bells and whistles come alive during the opening race was one of the most gratifying moments I had this year that added the extra layer to the visuals to make me believe in them.

Bad Times at the El Royale - The soundtrack for this film is killer, and the score intense enough but not overblown just enough to add to the tension.  But what really sells this movie is the voice of Cynthia Erivo, she captivates the characters who interact with her singing and it actually works into the plot well.

Bohemian Rhapsody - It's a bands biopic, so of course its going to blast us with a what's what of greatest hits, and they sound fantastic in the theater, exploding out in surround sound, and that final 20 minute stretch of concert, the icing on the cake.

A Quiet Place - Another contender for sound awards, all those purposeful and effective sound effects in that stark and empty sound scape, make you crawl, make you tense, and make you pay attention.

Overlord - The sound design in this film was overall impressive.  The very first scene with the troop transports flying through the air is super effective, and the general carnage of war, and the various sound effects, and it was just very nicely put together, and added a lot to the atmosphere.

Widows -

Cinematography/Editing/Mise-en-scene:
Game Night -The fact that they shot this film with a very film noir feel, a tense suspense thrillers eye, but with a quirky and darkly funny story, lends it a level of realism that makes us become more involved, and adds to that quirk in its comedy that might have just been shrugged off if it was shot in a more traditional comedy manner.

Bad Times at the El Royale - A film students dream.   Everything in this film is structured to lend some meaning to the double nature of its plot.  The two-faced hotel, two-faced guests, there placements in the frames, the graphic matches on mirrors and windows, and just the beautiful colors in it.

Bohemian Rhapsody - Mainly its the reenactment of the Live Aid concert that steals the spotlight, providing great feelings of urgency, earning its run time of 20 minutes by setting up our emotional response to Freddy's news to his band mates, and its a tour-de-force of just camera movements, editing, and the power of cinema.

BlacKkKlansmen - The parallel cuts between the watching of Birth of a Nation and its racist legacy, juxtaposed with images of the clan watching it, and the black students listening to a civil rights leader describe the racist fallout is a powerful message to the power of cinema, and the perversions and powers of hatred.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout -The maniacal and mad chase sequences are ridiculous.  The jumping out of the plane, the car chase through European streets, and the eventual helicopter nonsense, happening simultaneously with the hunt for a mastermind are incredibly done, and just take your breath away, mindless entertainment or not.  The surprise hit of the year.

Eighth Grade - I can't believe this is Bo Burnham's directorial debut, the feel and strength in the subtlety here is not lost, and reflects that sense of realism that makes the movie a pain and a joy to watch.  Exploring properly a place in our lives that seldom gets looked at.

Isle of Dogs - Its Wes Anderson through and through.   Beautiful, quirky.  You know it had to be here.

Mandy - I didn't like this movie, but you can't say it didn't have a visual flair all its own, and it was ridiculously and disturbingly beautiful, just a little too out there for my taste, but it was experimental alot, and it stands out in that department.

Widows - 

Annihlation - Acting:
Game Night (Jason Bateman & Rachel McAdams) - The chemistry between these two was contagious and really carries the movie.  I completely bought into their love for each other and their absurdity and it helps ground the film as it gets more and more stupidly complicated.

A Quiet Place (Entire Cast) -There wasn't a sour note in the casting in the film.  Krasinski found levels of pain and fierceness I've never seen him show.  Emily Blunt is always a presence and really does a lot with so little.  And both children sell their horror convincingly.

Bohemian Rhapsody (Rami Malek) - Coming from a very monotone but chilling portrayal in "Mr. Robot" I began to feel shocked at the trailers with how much emotion and feeling was coming out in the images, the final film didn't disappoint in that department.   He embodies those subtle touches, physical body language, and manic stage presence.   The Live Aid concert again, just an extra helping of talent sprinkled on an already impressive portrayal.

First Man (Ryan Gosling & Claire Foy) - Ryan Gosling has an acting style that I both love (Drive, Blade Runner 2049, Lars and the Real Girl) and dislike sometimes.  It's subtle and understated and that's fine, often it feels like he's ready to explode and once again, it is effective here.   Giving us those early smiles, and early tears within the first fifteen minutes of the film to properly tell us whats bubbling under that steely surface.  It doesn't always make for the most dynamic film but you can still feel it.   Claire Foy steals most of the explosion of emotions, allowed to be more pronounced in her stresses, and they create a good foil for eachother that keeps the movie going when at times - i felt - it started to lose its momentum.

Bad Times at the El Royale (Entire Cast) - This is truly an ensemble film, the lobby scene where the dialogue just bounces off one another with Jon Hamm's cocky vacuum salesman, the understated timidness of Cynthia Erivo, the not all he appears to be priest played by Jeff Bridges, and the awkward bell boy all add a layer of dread (given the opening sequence, and trailers) but also alleviates with great touches of humor.   Not to mention when everything starts going to shit each character properly shines in their own private segments but in the end its Chris Hemsworth who scares the pants off of us as one of the best villainous portrayals in the movies this year.

The BlacKkKlansmen (Adam Driver) - Driver plot wise is given the most to stretch his legs on.   The sequences with his undercover cops dealing with the clan, in particular the lie detector scene offer a level of reproach and defensiveness that he is very good at portraying.  (those who discounted his acting in The Last Jedi, should take note of this film, even though his "please" delivery in the space opera was beautiful).   He is very good at injecting a "real" sense of sarcasm and anger to his lines that I think highlights the range of his acting that people tend to miss.

The Hate U Give (Amanda Stenberg & Russel Hornsby) - This socially concious teen film, real life parable wouldn't be nearly as effective if it wasn't for the lead performance by Amanda Stenberg and the man who plays her father Russel Hornsby.  Their dynamic together is tangible and it carries most of the film, and Stenberg's individual scenes, and boiling resentment play out beautiful, in one of the most important and heartbreaking films of the year.

White Boy Rick (Matthew McConaughey) - While the full film is a little bit hit and miss in its effectiveness.  McConaughey is committed and heartbreaking, loving and foolhardy, and above all a loving father, despite any glaring flaws or miseducation he might bring, you always feel like he's trying to do the right thing with cards he's been given, even if those right things are misplaced.   He's incredibley sympathetic and tired, and I was thoroughly impressed with every scene he was in.

Widows (Viola Davis & Elizabeth Debicki) -
Vice (Christian Bale) -
Blindspotting (Daveed Diggs) -

Action/Suspense:
A Quiet Place (Entire Film) - The entire atmosphere of this film is what sold it.  As mentioned by the sound section, the lack of sound, the heightened sound effects, the waiting, and listening incorporated levels of susepsne that were not based upon a cheating score, or on jump scares, but of anticipating and waiting, and listening.

Ready Player One (Opening Race, Final Battle) - Again mostly due to the sound, the opening race was a great way to sell the fullness and reality of the gaming world the movie presented.  It shouldn't be understated just how effective and important the sound was in this sequence, the clashing of cars, engines revving, the film wouldn't work without that sound, and more CGI heavy films should take note of that extra dimension good sound really offers to compliment the visuals.   The final Battle is just a chaotic fun mess, that takes joy in just the pure carnage of escapist cinema, paying lip and fan service to a myriad of different pop culture references and just overall being a silly battlefield that gains importance because of the stakes of the plot.

Avengers Infinity War (Hulk vs. Thanos, The Foiled Plan) - Although it is brief the fight between Thanos and the Hulk was my favorite overall fight of the film.  There was weight to the characters, the sound was amazing, and it felt more grounded in a reality than some of the later fight scenes seemed, even though I did like those sequences I felt that the first small fist fight was the best.   A close runner up is the ingenuity of everyones favorite Avengers and Guardians coming together to "defeat" Thanos, the way each member got to be involved in the overall fight and the final drop of Mantis onto Thanos' head via a Strange portal was my favorite part.  It was smart, and you could tell that a lot of thought went into the designing of the plan, and it pays off.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Indoraptor in the Display Room) - Overall many of the sequences in this film were alright, there was good cinematography involved but what really had me going was the sequence inside the displays in the mansion.  The use of light against a window and just the overall haunted house atmosphere I thought was very well done, and more original than most of the moments.

Eighth Grade (Parked Car) - Stomach turning, painful, scream at the screen sort of stuff.   This is a real life sort of terror that just left me muttering "no, no, no" under my breath that the predatory high school punk wouldn't get our beloved lead, and take advantage of her quests for social acceptance.  At that point in the film it felt that the scene could legit go either way, given the context of the story, and the seriousness and realistic portrayal of its story, and I was legit nervous as all hell the entire time.

Mission Impossible Fallout (Everything except the opening) - The opening sequence left me worried.  It was unfocused, odd, and just not a very exciting place.  I got relaxed in my seat, was prepared for disappointment.  Then, the shot of halo jump and the beautifully seemless drop through the sky to the roof of the target site, and I was in.  Everything that followed was jaw dropping and tense.  (more on that fist fight later) and there was just no stopping the momentum of the film as it ducked and dived around expectations, and just got more and more ludicrous ending up with one of the silliest most awe inducing helicopter chases in recent movie memory.  An action/adventure classic now.   Who woulda thought after several films in a franchise it would still surprise.

The Hate U Give (the shooting, protesting, the gun) - Knowing where the film is going may lend to the feeling of dread going into the sequence, but by providing a victim who doesn't follow exact instructions, and arguably ignores his friends protests added an extra layer to an already tense scene, there is just enough in the sequence to let you sympathize slightly with the officer so as to not make him simply a cold blooded killer but also make his judgement and paranoia reprensible, adding that extra layer to the tragedy caused more of a stomach turn.   Then the shots rang out, and frigthened me, an effective use of sound effects, and build up.  The other big moment comes during the protest sequence with the face-off with police, now i didn't expect things to go terribly for the protagonist, but her boiling up and giving her speech really gave a punch to everything.  Then the child with the gun, a movie with a message could go in any direction, and instead leaves it with the prospect of stuff going down and that gives a enough of a stop to the heart over anything else.

Bad Times at the El Royale (Singing Distraction, Billy Lee) - the most intense singular moment happens as Dakota Johnson's character stares through the two way mirror and ponders shooting our singer, unsure who is good and who is bad.   She stands in the way of the mirror, the people on one side knowing whats going on with the mirrors, the woman on the other finding it out for the first time, and its a beautiful use of cinematography and voice to lend a length of dread to the proceedings.  Then the big show, Chris Hemsworth's cult leader Billy Lee, and terrifying and prideful POS who enjoys having the upper hand over his victims, and shameless shoots one of the more righteous characters in the story.   Chris Hemsworth steals the movie.

First Man (Inside the crafts) - Any of the sequences inside the crafts, shuttles, landing craft, are all superbly done, as mentioned before the use of sound adding to the atmosphere of claustrophobia.  Then, in particular the tragic fire in the cockpit of the one of the crafts, a build up as you wait, then know things are going wrong, and then trapped as the pilots are, and then the cut away as the explosion occurs to an indent on the body of the cockpit.  Chills.


Tear Jerking:
A Quiet Place (goodbye son, goodbye dad) -
Avengers: Infinity War (goodbye brother, goodbye spidey)-
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (goodbye long neck) -
Eighth Grade (good dad) -
BlacKkKlansmen (Birth of a Nation: commentary vs. exploitation) -
White Boy Rick (failed father)-
The Hate U Give (the shooting, speech, kids with guns) -
First Man (losing a child)-
Bohemian Rhapsody (sickness ,dad hug, finale)-
Bad Times at the El Royale (goodbye veteran) -

Humor:
Bad Times at the El Royale (lobby chit chat) -
Game Night ('fake' gun, removing a 'bullet', "not with that ass")-
Isle of Dogs (entire thing) -
Avengers: Infinity War (Thor and Starlord competition)-
Deadpool 2 (X-squad assault) -
Incredibles 2 (raccoon vs. jack-jack)-
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (tranquilized Owen) -
Ant-Man and the Wasp (mini-Rudd) -
Eighth Grade (painful awkwardness = "Gucci")-
BlacKkKlansmen (hey Mr. Duke guess what) -
Venom (Hardy's comedic mania, Venom's personality) -

Bad Ass Moments:
Mission: Impossible - Fallout (Bathroom Fight) -
Bad Times at the El Royale (Just talk talk talk) -
Bohemian Rhapsody (Live Aid) -
Widows (Slaps) -

Inktober#22: Expensive (October 22nd, 2018)

Expensive

See this shirt?
it cost a penny to make
but I sell it for a dollar
made a dozen
reaping a buttload
of cash profit
credit checked
cashed my check
profiting for capitalism
contributing to education
of the public discourse
seeking refuge in my refusal
to bargain
up the ante, production cost
the same.  little boys in sweat
shops constructing
each seem, half a penny for every
hour, by end of a day
not enough to buy canned
soda from vending machine
each shirt thirty dollars
profit margin extended
fat cat in a tight coat
big bellied prancing
along on pogo stick on
assembly line floor
flattening puppies
skin tight to bones
starving, investing in iPhone
relishing my cash flow
spread it on my oatmeal
gratifying to dump it
down drains in front of friends
peripheral vision of hungry
baby unable to suckle
because mommas run dry
have mansion on a hill
a brothel in my office
swimming in dimes and nickels
showering with Benjamin bills
fireplace stoked with George Washington's face
to keep me warm
my yacht beached on my Arizona lawn
sit in captains quarters sucking on
quarters, snorting up coke
off a strippers ass crack
while little girls get
arthritic pains in overworked hands
donate a grand to a  charity cause
get a million dollar tax break
to buy another home
smelling of pine sol and window cleaner
little child deposits penny in piggy bank
almost able to by soda pop
but spends it on slop
to take care of sister and pops
out of sight out of mind
dollar shirt is a designers dream
wear it on red carpets
I'm living American dream

Inktober #21: Drain (October 21st, 2018)

Drain

energy
sapped
slinking
down
in
whirlpool

gurgles
bubble
from
void
belching
curse
words
unto
air

moisture
left
behind
but
nothing
to
wipe
it
with.

Inktober #20: Breakable (October 20th, 2018)

Breakable

Collision is imminent between those that needed love and those that required a hand to hold
these entities that had no qualms before, crush their mutual wants into a spiral of chaos
and in this world of marriages and vows, what can anyone hope to achieve by ignoring their
instincts.

Repression explodes out so that shards of ourselves attach themselves into flesh, embedded
so that blood seeps forward and builds on the wound causing a wince of pain that stings
and denigrates their souls all because it was bad to see naughty parts, as if it were injustice
to speak: vagina.

In the hopes of scheming for a worthy cause good people cant help but fuel the fire of their
oppressors, hope for ideals, but sinking fully into a mud that deems people worthy of death
as if they spoke god's words while also denoting that he were one to work in mysterious
ways.

Yet, after all of that talk, and all of those tears the pitiful causes self destruct, and embed those that already housed the glass with more glass, shards of broken people, who deemed that women were lesser than men, when women carried the oven that baked the human species in order that it sustain
into tomorrow.

How then, are we fathoming our own demise, when we are smart enough to spot the pitch
before we purchase a car we no longer require, and we justify our reasoning for beating our sons
as something not primal, but you wanted to, showing dominion, and you can't face it that you wanted
to be God.

Inktober #19: Scorched (October 19th, 2018)

Scorched

what i remember most about election 2016,
in which my fellow country men elected
a showboat assassin, is that i had won my argument
that evangelical christian were hypocrites,
not every single person inside the organization
but every single one that changed stances
to promote hatred I'd seen seething in their hearts.
day one it's a dismissal of someone who
did not follow the rules, day two it's a refusal
of popular culture, art, that might say anything
beyond texts of  bible, day three it is
a neo-testament proclaiming fiction of boy
wizards and psychic pocket monsters are
a threat to fabrics of faith, day four its saving
fetus' but starving children that don't carry
crosses round their necks, day five its choosing
between broadcasting to strangers or feeding
your neighbors, day six its abandoning
supposed friends to let them linger out in
that big bad world where syringes full of
poison can more easily find the way to their veins,
and day seven its watching the world weary
suffer while you praise satan sitting inside
his blood soaked white house but spew it out
of your lips as in god's almighty name.  I recall
2016 when my biggest concern for hypocrisy
in my previous church-home had hit home run
across fields and moral bankrupcty was finally
achieved.   ruined for good ones, faith followers
who wanted to leave a better world for children
not a repetition of history in hopes of an
eventual apocalypse.   congratulations! i renounce
your institution, evangelical liars, i hope pentocost
finds you and casts you into pits of shit, and those
that you despised who never hurt a fly get to huddle
round your lord and savior while you bask
too late in the hell you were always primed for.

Intober #18: Bottle (October 18th, 2018)

Bottle

My message was written on paper, tightly
rolled up in a scrolled style, and placed inside
mouth of wine bottle.

I pulled back my arm, bottle in hand,
and relinquished it with a force only I
could muster.

As it sailed through the air it hissed at the wind,
my notes life enlivened with bile, and the wind
knowing it would poison water.

The splash was whispered in hollowing air
and the collision of glass with sea surface
could almost be said never to have happened.

I pondered the universe as it floated away,
but stopped my thought process when it was
forced back to me by wave after wave.

The beach hugged it, and indented it in sand
and I pulled it up into my arms and was
indebted to the beach.

My message was filth, meant to harm its
holder, and I did not want to force that
hate on anyone,

even if for a moment,
I did.

Inktober #17: Swollen (October 17th, 2018)

Swollen

When bee sting

stung and made me

wince to have been

harmed by insect

tool, I collapsed

into a pile

of leaves carefully

assembled to break

my fall.  In my

heart I felt

rush of venom

hit me, with

no more a care than

to fall asleep

in a cushioning

that God gave

me.

Inktober #16: Angular (October 16th, 2018)

Angular

if attempts to eschew the facts is any measurement of oddities then it should be noted that there is nothing to calm the masses who want nothing but to be entertained by people on the brink of society.

as marginalized people choke on their predicaments poor trash gawk and grin as show tunes permeate the air from their lips in a shallow assertion of their dominance with the backing of their faux Jesus Christ.

they spew out hymnal music, though its been ages since they've cracked open the book and feces smells emanate from pew seats, made up of wood and tarnished with the asses of a million false prophets.

if looked at through a bloodied prism their religion of aiding the poor has been entrenched in a snapping dogs jaws so that the poor are horror movie villains, and the victimized are now the monsters.

if we attempt to justify our hate, we can always find a way to vomit expletive's without ever saying them, without an enunciation of: fuck, shit, damn, hell, piss and cunt, we exalt a higher level of blasphemy as we God damn the ones who need to be pitied.

eschewing the words of a love they neighbor lord and savior man is the largest affront to his name than anything mortal man can say, and using him to claim a higher authority, that is the greatest curse word of all, and when that after life comes and the heaven you so crave is in reach, you shouldn't be shocked to find yourself in the company of thine fuhrer.

Inktober #15: Weak (October 15th, 2018)

Weak

idealism
as a weakness
thats the concept
they want to permeate
as though cruelty and selfish-
ness were the right of way just because
of complacency.  Or how school work is busy
work when real work is death, and as they symbolically
commit suicide from the roof of the church-school they can
claim they were correct.   when self-fulfilling prophecy's of fatalistic
men are seen to be the order of the day they ignore that the only reason they
are choking is because they wouldn't throw the bones away.  They will stare into
the afterburners of a ballistic missle and proclaim, "the good lord almighty is punishing
the wicked," and from across the sea another friendly missile zeroes in with a prayer behind it
aimed at praying one unaware he'd cursed himself.   And as the world recovers from its dick measuring contest
the children will be silent, wondering how their parents could squander their bread.

Inktober #14: Clock (October 14th, 2018)

Clock

They think of faces with hands pointing at numbers
digits dictating time to people who sit stoic in chairs.

They think of a tick tock, like a trick clock that beats
per second, towards minutes, humming the hour as
each day passes into months, before years become
centuries to eaons.

They think its a one way street because they haven't
cared to walk it back because they have not power
to time travel to a distant time before hellfire spilled
upon mechanisms.

They think its a cycle when its really limitless
how we can hate eachother but also love, and how
loud the hate can sound, so that soothing sounds
of love are but whispers in the crowd.

They think as  the digital read outs blink and scream out
signallying the morning bell that they do not need to
be ready for yesterday as moon plots murder of sun
because he is always flashing him his junk.

They think it's silly to ponder it, that time is but a construct,
wristwatches ranked pointless, alongside chains of pocket
watch that jingle and jangle even as they dangle out of
pockets of old timers who still can't fathom that tomorrow
is not forever, but who cast votes as though time is limitless,
because it is, but you're children are not.

Inktober #13: Guarded (October 13th, 2018)

Guarded

Who has had access to her heart but a pair of careless hands
that encroached upon her sanctity, fouling it up under scrutiny
like ants under focused light of magnifying glass being kissed
by the sun, and the result was just as damaging.
So, who can assume to understand her reservations when the men
beckon on her, when they call, and they holler, and whistle as if
she'd been wearing a dog collar, how they'd fondle her as if she
were a piece of prime meat, but discard her like a piece of trash,
and somehow get the media to join in spitting on what's already
been maimed.
What could be more suspected: that she was careful because of history?
Or that she simply spurned their advances because those hands had
never considered her demise?
Who can judge a guarded heart?   When unprotected they are often
sullied by careless fingers, and cruel intentions and only the lucky
get out unphased.

Inktober #12: Whale (October 12th, 2018)

Whale

when i called her a whale
she took it as insult
but how could i have expected her to
understand the misunderstanding
associated with that aquatic mammal

when i called her a whale
i meant it as compliment
because her beauty was larger than life
her voice reverbing through
watersheds and collapsing in harmony
on the sea bed

when i called her a whale
i meant it with absolute endearment
for boundless by the limitations
of man, she had a whole ocean to
explore inside her mind, everytime
she picked up the pen.

when i called her a whale
she took it as an insult
but how could i have expected her
to understand that i misunderstood
the question when she asked me,
my back to her, what she most resembled
-while wearing her cocktail dress.

Inktober #11: Cruel (October 11th, 2018)

Cruel

Didn't notice children amongst men mowed down with hails of rat-a-tap-tats of fanfare
as American as apple pie,
Refocused, reloaded, packing mortars into mounts and exploding babes from mothers hands
as American as football sundays,
Detonating removal of sprites from mothers who breast fed but one day previous in aftermath
as American as rape culture,
Reissuing edicts as old as man knew how to keep a woman down in her place where she gave birth and nothing else
as American as misogyny
Simple little men worried about whats between their legs, laughing always en route to courthouse
as American as victim blaming
Seems a strange system to be party to when ones with guns are scared of caravans of starving men and women
as American as genoicide

Inktober #10: Flowing (October 10th)

Flowing

Faucet on full
blast, executing particles
left over from party
plans.   Detachment
when wet, jet stream
pummels leftover
melted cheese platters
accumulated with mold
because binge drinking,
never good idea.  Alcohol
down gullet slip sliding
toward stomach, splish
splash with acidic juices
layering layers of stomach.
Echo of drip drops heard
by neighboring capillaries,
veins, arteries that house
life force molecules a certain
tinge of rusty redness, plasma
cellular migrations to and fro
about heart to head.   Gray matter
of brain slinking synapses
bungee cording to kiss
another trapeze artist as an
injunction for movement,
creativity, or lizard brains boasts
of posturing through rage,
love, or momentary lapses
as gurgles intercede as go-between
of alcoholic consternation.
Inebriation slimy, bunched
up, hogging blood stream
to interfere with circus factory
performing in brain so that
thoughts to shield face
from grime launched off in splashes
of faucet release don't
smack cheeks, eyes, ears,
hair and make a mess, though
regurgitation might erupt
from belches as though river
water rushing with a current
matching mighty Mississippi.

Inktober #9: Precious (October 9th)

Precious

Don't kiss goodbye memories gone by, because they will sneak back on you with a knuckle sandwhich, fit to find your teeth,

just as you've grown comfortable to the guise of lies that shimmy on up flagpoles, waving toward setting sun that smiles on everyone,

that is when rumination begins, as a sparkle of sunlight spreads openly on spectacles inching off your face gritting into beams,

it will floor you, land you on your back like a capsized ship on cement seas, seasonsed with pebbles varying in size,

sharpened in degrees, fables slide down deciding to deviate from their message because they belong to you, digging into your chest cavity,

bleeding will subside, once you decide to abandoned a way that was derelict, youth will spit as they pass rolling on skateboards,

but feasting would not be done, for goodbye was a memory you wouldn't, couldn't, shouldn't survive if life is to thrive,

pray it not find you, hound you, haunt you until blood erupts in geyser pools to tickle dust immediately near in air up there,

collapsing on sentimentality, that is your face, and smothering you, drowning forgetfulness so that always knows how it choked,

for memories escape entrenchment yet seldom are bodies unbruised, ruined for lack of safety, lack of confrontation, so that haunting occurs,

more of a sneak attack, good or ill, depending on what you done, memories as precious gems that you wear in your crown, or choke on.

Inktober #8: Star (October 8th)

Star

twinkle twinkle little star
parental supervision, shuttled by car
smoking men in dinner jackets
pushed you in limelight whined
and dined you proceeded to feed
on those bones and spit you out
all alone, surrounded by lights
but all alone amongst garish wolves
who howl in sunlight as your face
is shown in standard letterbox
in a million homes.

Inktober #7: Exhausted (October 7th)

Exhausted

Imagine how hard it was for the tree to grow
And think of how ugly we find its barren branches in cold
After a lifetime of patient tugging and stretching
      out towards the sun,
            we insult the tree just because it needed a moment to rest.
Its leaves may have been dead and fallen gracefully
To our earth, but think of how much it took for it to sprout
Break out of tiny seed and embed itself into the ground
        digging and clawing
              finding its way through a hardened earth
                      and we insult it for wanting to rest.
Imagine that tree trying its damnedest to be free
Lifting its hands up in praise and constantly being
A home for rodents and birds who drilled holes inside,
         and how it was happy to oblige.   How it
                carried the weight of those leaves on those branches
                      and shook them off to rest
                           And we had the gaul to insult it
When it was the most beautiful God of all.

Inktober #6: Drooling (October 6th)

Drooling

I am not a Pavlov dog
a sick em, bite em
tear it up kind of man
I am not a man prone
to violence or given
to shout out my demands
I am not a beast
set about to devour
my bounty stolen
from its own hands
I am not a monster set
upon by god to do
what i please
I am not a predator
taking what i like
when i like and proud
i always get away
I am not an excuser
claiming its my way
because of a sack
tucked between my legs
I am not drooling
over those who just
walk to find their way
home,
I am not a Pavlov dog
conditioned to make
excuses for the boys
who are all those things
I am not.

Inktober #5: Chicken (October 5th)

Chicken

A lone coyote wandered inside the hen house,
spying all the spry chicken legs
and perusing and deciding to sniff them out one by one
he searched high and low for just the right scent
and gave a lick upon the face of whatever one he liked
and snapped its neck inside his jaws
and left the other chickens mortified.

As he wandered across hills and across fields
he decided he didn't like that particular chicken no more
so he dropped it in the dirt and wandered back onto
hen house.   With his sniffer on turbo and his eyes keen
to kill, he spied another one just minding its business
and snapped its neck too.

About half way back to home, the coyote dropped his kill,
passed his first on way back to hen house and didn't
give it a second thought.  Inside the hen house the chickens cawed
and clucked and hoped for help but none came, and the farmer
snored away inside his house.  Another snapped neck, another
dead hen and dropped in the grass all the same.

The lone coyote went back again, and found another chicken
and they cried out for help.   The rooster stood to the side,
the farm hand came out to see what was the matter, and though
he spotted the dogged cousin wandering into the hen house
every time, and though he had a shotgun loaded and ready
to deliver that dogged soul to Jesus, the farm hand stood by

he supposed it was just natural that the predator get the prey,
never mind prevention, he thought, mine as well let every dog
have his day.

Inktober #4: Spell (October 4th)

Spell

hidden pools of vomit green asked god for a reason
that sun abandoned reach of arm at canopy
god said, look, its not my place to force sun's response
but should grimy things such as yourself find
need of kiss from father time just ask trees to move
so fowl coasting in water was begged of my grime
to pardon branches way up high to be bothered
yet when birds flapped upwards a breeze mighty blew
them back to muck mutilated amongst foliage
vomit green pool hidden in forest begged god again
to which god replied, once asked me to intervene
with sun, now ask me to punish wind who only protects
canopy from birds, a small pool need not beg favors
from those above it, so treat your position as lesser
for bottom laying to feed maggots is where you should
remain.  vomit green pool took great offense to man
in sky, lashing out with a fist to strangle wind into
a dance and wind begged of pool to stop but vomit
green would not adhere cycloned a twirl to tippy top
tearing away the winds, a delicate kiss on the cheek
of vomit green sent it back relaxed finally to bottom
of the pool and water fowl cursed out wind as they
bathed in pool of vomit green.   with hiss of agitation
wind traveled to god listing senseless grievances done
upon him by wet hidden pools but god folded arms,
laughed and said, have you know pride in what you've done,
do you not need it spelled out for you, if you cannot
figure it out yourself, said he, then tempest you and pool
will be.

InkTober #3: Roasted (October 3rd)

My capacity for drawing, or painting is limited, my art form is written word, so I figured why let that stop me in participating in this creative endeavor.  The follow series is following the prompts for each day of October that other artists are doing.

Roasted

See him king of fools
sitting in his inflamed chair.

As hands of fire reach up for heir
of the trash heap that is today.

In ridicule and jestered haste
the people point, cracking smiles

and in the hands of the king of fools
a red canister of petrol.

Combustion at any point,
he goes on laughing, for of course

he is a he.  And his followers speak in tongues
and throw their money in the pit

and seven heads grin back at them
but their rose colored glasses

see seven halos resting above.  So
king of fools shimmies can in fists

so that splashes awash the masses
and those in balls and chains who did not

participate are all splattered just the same.
Jokes on them and less on him for why should progress

matter, if the world ends tomorrow and there is
but a warm spot for us, to create

smores round the worlds
embers.

Inktober #2: Tranquil (October 2nd)

My capacity for drawing, or painting is limited, my art form is written word, so I figured why let that stop me in participating in this creative endeavor.  The follow series is following the prompts for each day of October that other artists are doing.

Tranquil
Crowded room of background noise
Background noise in a crowded room
Room for no one to respond
Responses limited to the mind
Mindful of sinful resonance
Resonating amongst the sinful minded
Minding their own business
Businesses comprised of ownership
Ships that pass through nights
Nights of loss and regret
Regretful etchings on walls
Walls of brick of sweat and pain
Painful bricks of sweat beading on walls
Walls beaten with fists as red as sunset
Sunsetting to the bleeding of fists
Fist raised to sky in reaction shot
Shot for reaction but left to die by the side
Siding with the shooter as presidents shout
Shout till red in the face and sunset ashamed
Ashamed of comparisons to lustrous beauty
For beauty lusted for luster is lost to the fostered people
People lost in the guise of paintings
Painted out of spite but never in need of it
It needn't be a pause of reflection
Reflections seldom pause because of time
Time never pauses for the seldom reflected
Reflection that's overworked in a mind that ticks
Ticks and tocks like the clock
Clock tower housing bells
Bell tower housing clock
Clock tolling bells
Bells tolling for the man in the crowded room
Room crowded with background noise
Noise that hides his pause for a breath
Breaths that seem to exists out of context
Context hidden in the noise pollution
Pollution hiding the context of a breath
A breath, a moment, in background noise.

InkTober #1: Poisonous (October 1st)

My capacity for drawing, or painting is limited, my art form is written word, so I figured why let that stop me in participating in this creative endeavor.  The follow series is following the prompts for each day of October that other artists are doing.

Poisonous

venom,
constricting a piece of my dream scape
as an epiphany of damage
metaphorically draining
life out of memory.

venom,
cruises through rivers in my arms
extending out of fingertips
raging on keys
creating a clickity clack of spite
in written word.

venom,
a due diligence stifled for need
of revenge,
but failing to smother everything
because corroded blood
is still blood
pure residuals exist.

venom,
leaking out of pours as
sun pummels it out
leaking on earth, which absorbs
it then through photosynthesis
giving air to breathe.

venom,
another name for regret
in manifestations of monsters
but not truly, not really, not absolutely
for venom is a natural
reaction to

heartbreak.

Cataclysm

Collision orchestrated by a band of thieves who
    wanted nothing more than to win the hand
     of a headstrong maiden.
In the brunt of the wreckage they witnessed
     a mutilated truth that related to obscure
       truth.
It was, pure, it was, simple, but it was not
     easily digested and so they choked violently
        on their purposeful ignorance.
And as they died, these goons, took down a
     nation of blatant racist grandfathers, as
       tho foundation of their boys club shook
          and crumbled.
The maiden too, sweet, and brutal, died in
    this context, though she was innocent of
        of their crimes, she did share their
           foot spaces.

Heavy - a poem

go ahead
           plant your garden in the back of a theater
           a place where performances,
                                                         are pelted by tomatoes
                                                         and seeds seep,
                                                                     deeply into
                                                                     the divides
                                                         of the floorboards
                                                         as cracks began to form
             where potatoes, with their heavy skins house
             small boulders of starch
contrast.

A Trio of Warnings - Prose Poems

Ignorance

A solicioutess microscopic morsel began to eat at her audience for no other reason than to rectify the spatial deformity between it and its world.  As in darkness the being has but to eat the last of the world and then it enters the vacuum of space.  In the back of their minds they developed a certain attitude about the darkness they were living in.  There was nothing.

Arrogance

Too many kindergartners named the source as a white supremacist with skin as red as bloodied snow, the children demonstrated in the streets, picketed non-violence against the savagery of murderous Santa clauses who did not know how to eat the fables told them by jezebels that sang with food down their throats.

Pestilence

A bird flutters as it slinks overhead slithering as it warbles and waddles along icy patches.  Divided by atmosphere secure in its lack of oxygen spaces where men died to intercept and kill it.  Some succeeded most did not, for the fowl are more agile than the foul stenches of steam that escape from the rectum of cavities burrowed in earth’s crust.  Kidding themselves that the odor of their boisterous arrogance would attract with audacity the beguiling beautify that bewildered them eons.  Even those God’s envied the feathered, casting them down to create a kind with arms of flesh, and hair scattered in patterns upon their lumps.

Planet Earth - a poem

There is a version of a song that when sung out loud

gave the men an instant gratification.  They looked

abound, seeing their whole world brightened

by the song from lips of angel.  Decided to create

a utopia reminiscent of the tune heard from around

the world.   In the place of the stars they placed

light bulbs, yellow and whorish, blurred amongst

the black of night, and in that garish sense they

spurned the advances of color determining a tainted

white of urine to illuminate what beauty they

surmised they felt.  As the darkness cascaded

from the beauty of that heavenly song the men

took to cutting down trees, erecting drywall

with shoddy plaster not caring that each swing

of hammer swung, left holes behind them, dented

in nails before them, and allowed no scenery to hang

thereupon.  These men with white robes, and serene

suits belted orange faced to the masses of people

gathered to live in this perfect world, and after

slaughtering a virginal girl decided red would

be the color to paint their halls.   The angels kept on singing

up until guillotine came down upon neck, abandoned

that world but the men still tried to sing it, what they stole,

they pretended to repeat it, but they could only scream

it.

A Prayer for My Head - a poem

Broken mind, mending itself
through aid of prescription medication
latching synapses together
attempting to achieve a positive reinforcement
to better the mind, broken as itself.

Rising to anger, when unnecesary
spilling out words like a faucet left
unattended, but not meaning to harm
but it was the hot turned up, heat
decimating the coating of a best friend.

Want to be better, am a better person
than head let on, feel a hundred percent
could be that person, but pain already
suffered by my people, hard to mend,
hard to not see the boils and think that
I can ever be trusted to not do it again.

Broken mind, not realizing how broken
or when the fits, dips of depression would
go and fearing that expectations were not
being met, and wondering just who I am
that couldn't stop to ponder what it was
I was saying.  Broken mind,
letting flowers wilt because I bought
them at the end of our season.

Jealousy, rising up, like Mr. Brightside
as I go out of my cage, imagining worst
case scenario after bomb drop, after
suffering through fallout, after putting
my skin back on because I can be human
again and not these zombified remains.

Wanted to be better, was better, somehow
let mind get thick with arrogance, when
I'm not normally like that, let myself build
up towers to peer down on best friend with
and I should have built towers up because
I wanted to see what they saw.

Broken mind, trying and failing to get out of
funk because pieces were missing, and
attempting too late to remedy this illness
of insecurity, of overthinking, of the sins of
anxiety.   Not being strong enough, becuase
I am a broken human being, fragile, should
be carried like eggs, but packaged myself
faulty, broken mind, trying to reattach itself
trying to be a better friend, trying to be a better
self.

Immense pressure to be spied as attempting
the impossible of growing back into myself
and hoping that watching millimeter by
millimeter journey she might witness my rebirth
not changing, but growing and evolving to
better fit her flowers, and worrying that I am
an evolution to late, that those flowers won't grow
here now, but hoping, always hoping.

For what is hope but faith in the impossibility
of life, of a situation, of a mustard seed transaction
between soul to heaven, and even if praying has
been a stranger, speaking to the sky, and hoping
he's still listening to you, after you've neglected
to say anything for years, wondering, wondering
and praying, and hoping.

Broken mind, be mended soon, be bathed in balms,
and soothed with bandages, let the swelling
go down, let your history inform your present but not
define it, may you heal, may you heel to peace
inside that mind, broken mind, be mended soon,
be mended soon.

Here's to Hope - a poem

The scariest thing on this planet earth is to hope.

               It drags you by the heels into a place dug deep into the bedrock

               and the more stubborn you are, the more it creates loose gravel

               as the tether tugs you forward into the horizon.

The scariest thing on this planet earth is to hope.

               You can feel the pain it causes you but you continue

               getting a contact high from the faint smell of the asphalt

               because it smells just like every other road you’ve been on.

The scariest thing on this planet earth is to hope.

               To believe so strongly in a future that seems so uncertain

               but believing through the goodwill of your actions that

               you might find the paradise you seek at the end of all

               of that ankle busting, and you look back on the torn

               up earth and you think, hell, I’ve come this far what’s

               a couple million miles more.

The scariest thing on this planet earth is to hope.

               It’s like praying to the wall but directing it up into

               some ethereal realms, its seeing a future, time travelling

               if you will into a possible nirvana, but knowing

               that multiple dimensions all vie for your head but

               you just want to be happy, you want to be happy,

               you just want to be happy.

The scariest thing on this planet earth is to hope.

Day to Day - a poem

A ghost felt flash of heart beat

while floating about old room

with made-up bed, fluffed pillows

reminding him of what he once

was.  It did not take much for

life to find the ectoplasmic

existence inadequate for a lively

ghost.  In matters of seconds

life was restored, beeping monitor

beeped away nighttime, hid

away nightmares in beep-beep-

beep tones, and the thumpity, thump,

thump of a mass of muscle

inside chest cavity.   Ghost felt

summer winds again, smiled through

transition, wondering if it was

permanent, but not caring much

to ponder negativity inherent

in that thinking.  Optimistically

floating in the heat of moments

enjoying life, with a pulse

again. 

Circus Doctors - a freewrite poem

a routine check up decided by sacrilegious people
determines the ultimate trajectory of my bone marrow,
it is juxtaposed with a flying circus full of clowns
and freaks that travels from cloud to cloud
scaring many and entertaining nobody.

as the doctors poke and prod my arms to find
what veins i have left for them to insert their needles
I am mortified by the memorization of a soliloquy
of swear words performed by a dancing bear whose
partner is a standard issue folding chair.

blood is drawn and the mind deceived as attractive
nurse pats my head with damp cloth and tells me how
I will ultimately leave this earth, she says in a rocket ship
piloted by Jesus to transition me through cannoned
trajectory to flying circus on a cumulonimbus cloud
formation, because only storm clouds house circus clowns
because all other clouds are scared of said clowns.

i drift into a daze as 100th vial is filled to the brim and I feel
the yanking of needle that tries to haphazardly lift my arms
and I assume I am being brought to the human cannon man
but instead I am deposited in wheel chair and pushed to the curb
and dumped forward like an important red wheel barrow
and the door man taps his feet on my backside to see if I
am dead or alive.

as i drool out spittle onto pavement, only there thanks to
tranquilizers delivered prior to operation that kept me
from simple human decency I can picture lion tamer
mauled by leopards and shit on by tigers, and its an
interesting comedy show that the french acrobats could
never hope to match.

one hand goes flat, so palm can level itself, and then me
in return when i use other one and i raise myself up as
the snow first begins to fall.  I'm weak from blood loss, deceptively
perceptive and I've discovered frost bite has consumed my toes.
doorman comes and says he's called the doctors to come take
a look, and i say no thanks, call them off, I'd rather keep my dead
toes than let them give me something else to lose,  door man says
some choice words, and i nod that he is right, and i limp
passed the emergency room sign and flip it the bird.

once in my car my foot can't use the peddle and I am too blind
to drive, i turn the key anyways and put it in neutral and let
myself glide where i may, but I don't get far and i think about
how it'd be cool, like the crows said, if an elephant could fly.

How to Disappear Completely - a short story assignment from GVSU Winter 2018

How to Disappear Completely

Katie Dawson was one of those annoyingly giddy people who couldn’t seem to stop smiling. She tried to annoy you to death in hopes that in your last agonizing moments, before your heart stops, you might be smiling too.  If I was smiling it would be out of relief.  On top of that she was also an obnoxious flirt and had no qualms if everyone knew about it.   She’d be in the Wal-Mart break room, and I’d see her across the room chatting up any semi-attractive male that might have walked in.  Laughing at corny jokes, hand on her upper chest because her boobs pulled her shirt forward to reveal the string of cleavage at the top, and then the hand would go up to a shoulder and, I’m certain, there was a slight pinch of the arm.   I’m not going to call her a slut, the words a double standard, but she was what she was.  More power to her, I just found it sort of pathetic.   Maybe it’s because when a cute guy walked up to me I tended to give a death stare, or roll my eyes at what he might say and I wouldn’t say anything more than “hi” or “hello” because I’m not a bitch and that is just polite.

Katie would always ask me, “Hey Moira, how was your weekend?”  To which I would reply, “Yeah, it was alright.”   Then she’d say, “Just alright?”  And I’d say, “Yeah.”  Then she’d giggle, and make me want to strangle her or at least punch her in the face.  It didn’t matter, I just wanted that invasive conversation and that smile stricken from the record of my life.   There were only four months of working customer service that were pure bliss – as far as working in customer service can be pure bliss.  I had listened to ill structured lies, to people trying to return soccer cleats that their son had worn all season but claiming that they were purchased a week ago.  Grass stains and the general shit of the exteriors spoke otherwise.  The sweaty adolescent foot smell wafting out of the interiors made me dazed, wanting to pass out or gag.   The woman would stare at me with wide eyed, I-dare-you-to-defy-me-bitch eyes, and I would smile and say, “Would you be okay with store credit?”   Then she would lighten up and beam at me.  Liars always have elaborate stories.

That was bliss to me.  It was heaven as far as jobs go because my original partner in crime, Monique – who had been with the company for several years – wasn’t a chatterbox.  Sure, we’d bitch about work, but that was it.  And then Monique got fired for stealing a Twix candy bar off the front lanes, and I was given Katie Dawson as a replacement.

So, a few days in a row she no called, no showed.  By that time, I’d gotten used to her routine of blabbering on at the mouth about this or that.  Asking me how my weekend was, asking if I was seeing anybody or if I thought about going back to school to study whatever, and I’d politely nod as much as I could but my “I don’t give a shit” face never worked.  That was part of my routine.

First part of my routine consisted of waking up, and then making coffee, followed by spilling coffee on: countertop, floor, self.  It consisted of leaving toast in toaster, and coming out of shower to reveal that toast was scorched and prepped to catch fire.  As I stood in towel dripping wet from shower my phone would ring with my mom on the other end, probably swirling a glass of red wine, waiting for me to answer. I never picked up on the first attempt.  I’d hope she’d leave me alone, or just leave me a voicemail, but she’d click off the phone if my robotic secretary started in with, “We’re sorry the number you are calling is unavailable.”  The phone would be still, and I’d sip at my three-quarter filled lukewarm coffee, with too much cream and too much sugar, and I’d wait to see if it’d try and ring back to life.   It would, convulsing on my countertop, and I’d answer it after three rings, and in my best attempt at a fuck you, I would say, “Hi mom.”

There’s an issue with my parents - Bernard and Susan Reynolds.  They were not religious but terribly concerned about appearing to be.  They didn’t practice their faith outside of the walls of the church, they didn’t speak with any convictions about heaven and hell, or sins and prayers, but by God did we have to sit in those uncomfortable pews every Sunday morning.   All dolled up in our Sunday best, my sister Olivia and I in sun dresses, and my parents all stone faced and praise the lord during worship service.  They drank heavily on the weekend, and light during the week.  My dad swore up a storm with his buddies out in the garage any chance he could, and my mom always seemed to look on the homeless with repulsion.  It wasn’t a surprise when Richard Dean knocked me up, and they got into a hissy fit about how they might be perceived in our community.  After wedding bells, a still birth, a separation, followed by speedy divorce later, I’m not exactly keen on the type of religious faith that puts a seventeen-year-old through that.   As soon as I could, I got a job, and I got out of that house.

“Yes, mom,” I say to her comments about moving on, and meeting “Mr. Right.”  It’s hard to tell your mom how she betrayed you and thrust you out into a world you hadn’t been prepared for.  It’s hard to explain to her that you were drunk and that that was no excuse for a pretty boy to invite himself to enter inside you, and you don’t want to tell her that he didn’t really want to be with you anyways, but that his parents acted the same as she did.  You don’t want to tell her that you tried to make it work, and that you tried to be in love with him, and that yeah, he didn’t hit you but he didn’t give a shit about you either.  You don’t want to tell her that every day the living breathing thing inside you grew from a sea monkey, into something resembling a mole rat, and then into a tiny person, that you started to think life might not be so bad.  You can’t tell her about that because the first thing she’ll say is, “He should have stuck around, you could have tried again for another one,” and maybe she’ll say, “You can’t keep blaming me for your mistakes.”   You can’t tell her when you found out that human being inside you had stopped being, that you had to carry it to term because you were so close.  How you pushed it out, and there was no crying to calm your pains, and that you felt this wave of voided, nothing.  And you continued to feel it for a month and half later when Richard, your husband, decided his reasons for being married to you were over.  You can’t voice that properly into a big enough, “fuck you,” because the first time a man touched you and fucked you it wasn’t consensual, and it resulted in an infant.   And you can’t go to church on Sundays anymore because God fucked you over by taking that infant away.

“Mom, I told you, I’m fine how I am.  I make enough to cover rent, hours will be going back up, I don’t need groceries from you.”  I say this to her on the phone at one point at least every week, and then she’ll show up at the end of one of my shifts and have bags of groceries, and I take them, but I never say Thank you.

Katie no called no showed on a Monday, then on a Tuesday, finally on Wednesday.  Lisa, our manager, came up to me on that Thursday afternoon after a rush of unhappy people - who blamed us for not taking the coupons they never showed us -  and said, “Katie isn’t going to be in for the rest of the week, I will try to get someone to help you out over here.”

I learned that Katie had been driving with her father, and she had crossed into an intersection only to be T-boned by someone running a stop sign.  Impact was on her father’s side, he was gone.  Somehow, she had showed up on Monday, and smiled, and flirted, and I don’t know why but I walked up to her with the intention of giving her a hug but she said, “I’m okay,” without a drop of tears, without a sniffle, without anything.  We worked that day as if nothing had happened, as if there was no funeral the next day for her father, and she put up with the verbal abuse of people who couldn’t grasp that cashiers were people too.   I watched her the entire time, and she never broke character.

I worked the day of her father’s funeral.  I stood there all day, absent mindedly giving off faux concern that the coffee pot being returned to me didn’t come with the advertised coffee.  I didn’t have the energy to explain to the ninety-year-old veteran that he didn’t know how a Keurig machine was supposed to work.   I gave him his refund, and damaged out the coffee maker and imagined the funeral.  It isn’t hard to imagine a funeral, people dressed head to toe in their Sunday best, usually awful black, a bunch of morticians synchronized to cry.

It was probably about nine-o-clock at night when I popped in my DVD of Coco and thought about death and dying, and singing skeletons and had a good cry.   Like an idiot this memory came back to me: Richard sitting next to me and awkwardly holding my hand and kissing my forehead.  That bastard told me it’d be okay, and then he left me there on the sofa that stank of cat piss because he’d promised his friends he’d be over to watch the sports ball game.  It was just me and my belly swelled up like a balloon for no goddamned reason, and I hugged it, I hugged her, she was named Angela.  I wished I’d chosen a different name.  At the service a dozen old ladies, professionals in the grieving process, would tell me, “God just needed another Angel.”  or “Her name suits her new job now.”  I’d never wanted to kill someone more than then.

As the undead strummed the guitar on the PIXAR feature playing on my thirty-two-inch flat screen, my cat Maurice wandered onto my lap.  He purred a while, but when I scratched his neck, he rose up his back to share his pink little butthole and jumped off me.   I wished I had a dog at that moment.  A nice, drooling, annoying little canine, who needed my attention, but I knew once I was passed my crying fit I’d want to be rid of it.  No one deserved that much affection.    I thought about Katie then, her bubbling personality, and her strong demeanor and for some reason – though I hadn’t foreseen it – I was going to invite her to live with me.

It was only a few days after her father’s funeral that her mask of indifference appeared to wear off.  The façade she had built slowly fell to the way side.  At one point when I asked her, “Are you doing alright?” it lead to a full on sobbing fit.  “I just can’t handle walking about that house.  I just see him everywhere, you know?”  She said to me, and the funny thing was I did know.

After I got home from delivering Angela I heard nothing but silence in that house.  I tried to alleviate the weight of that silence with the explosions of a Marvel movie or a binge of alcohol but nothing worked.  I supposed it was different than what Katie was feeling because she had tangible memories to remember, I had fantasies: of nurseries, of softball games, of ballet.  I had plans for breast feeding, and then I had breasts ready but wasted, swelling up as a sick joke.  I couldn’t stand wandering around that house, with all the pink baby shit, the wooden rocking chair, and boxes of diapers, stacks upon stacks of boxes of diapers.   It felt pathetic that I was upset that I would never be able to clean up baby shit, or get puked on, but that’s what I was upset about.  Nine months of prep, for what?  And a house and marriage that existed only for that purpose.   Motherhood was supposed to be the reward, the absolution for the pain I’d endured, but even that was part of the joke and the house knew it.  So, when Richard didn’t come home for a couple days, and he ignored my texts and when his mother called me up and said he needed a break I was ready to light a match and set the whole thing up in flames.  But I didn’t.  So, as an alternative, I filed for divorce against my mother’s wishes.

“You can stay with me,” I told Katie.  “I have a spare couch.  Well, it’s just the one couch, but I have a bed too.  That’s mine.”  She stepped back a moment.   Even she was aware that the invitation was out of character for me.  “Do you mean it?’  She said to me, and I thought about it.  I wanted to take it back, I wanted to collect it from out in the air and scoop it up with both hands to return it to my mouth where I could swallow it back down and let it smolder in my stomach acids, and I could suffer from the reflux.  I smiled, and I sighed, “Yes, of course I mean it.”

***************

Katie was a disaster.  She spilled more coffee than I did, and used up all the hot water every time she showered.  She would always get up before me, and go to bed after me, and I’d hear her traipsing around the apartment at ungodly hours of the night, like ten or ungodly hours in the morning like nine.   But, I didn’t give her the boot.  Maybe it was because I was a glutton for torture or maybe it was because I liked having to clean up after someone else.  Katie was an invasive species to my apartment, she didn’t belong, she disrupted my routines but she didn’t so much destroy me as transform the environment into something else, because I started to open up.

“God, men are such shit aren’t they.”  She said to me one day when I told her how Richard had married me and then left me less than a year later.  I may have had too many Malibu and Coke’s when the conversation about the workday had shifted to talks of sexual conquest.   “Please tell me you’ve had better luck with men after that, please please please.  There’s got to be one good story.”  She had been turned toward me, legs crossed on the couch, a serious look of hunger in those eyes, hunger for information, for dirt.  Then, I disappointed her.

“He was it.”

“How old are you?

“Twenty-five.”

“Holy shit, listen sister, you can’t let one loser define your love life, you just can’t.   Like me, I’ve been with,” She started to count silently in her head staring up at the ceiling as she did as if she were counting imperfections, “Never mind.”  A nervous laugh later and she backed up a moment and held up both hands, palms out in protest, “Listen, I’m not a slut.  I know that’s the vibe you are getting.  I just, I’m not, okay, just take my word for it.   Zach was my first, when I was about fifteen, I mean we were best friends right and he was my first, and he like wasn’t into it at all but wanted to try it.   Like, he looked at my body with this repulsion, and he didn’t seem like he really wanted to touch any part of me, and I just, I don’t know, I urged him to do it, I gave him a handy, and well, he got hard but like there was no enthusiasm in the act.   I was worried because he just kind of finished, and then broke up with me after, and didn’t return my calls, and we’d see each other at school but he wouldn’t speak to me.  I felt gross.   I felt unwanted, you know.”  She chuckled a moment, a belly laugh, “Turned out he was gay.   He just wanted to try with me, you know to see if he liked it, and well, he didn’t want to be gay then.   Like he resisted it, and so in a way he used me.   I didn’t find this out till like a couple years ago.   I had met up with him at this coffee place, not Starbucks, but the other one.”

“Biggby?”

“Yes,” she snapped her finger as if finally clicking on the light bulb in her head, “it was a Biggby.  He had texted me out of the blue and wanted to meet up, and I hadn’t been doing anything so I thought, what the hell right.  So, he shows up and he tells me he’s gay, and I was shocked, and I went off because here I thought I was this disgusting repulsive thing, and I was horned up you know, I mean I’d wanted to have sex for as long as I knew what it was and then I got it and it was over, but I still had these urges, and I ended up with some terrible people.  I told him this, and he got all high and mighty and said I shouldn’t blame him and his search for his identity or some bullshit, and I kindly reminded him that I was happy he figured out his identity, but I would have liked it if it wasn’t at the expense of me.”  She tilted back her glass and slurped down some of the melted ice at the bottom before taking a cube between her teeth, and biting down on it hard so that it shattered into a hundred little pieces, and then she continued.

“I let Martin Hernandez finger me behind the cafeteria because I wanted someone to want me.  I let Martin Hernandez lay me on his parent’s bed and pin me against the sheets even though I’d told him no, because the first man who tried to fuck me was too scared to admit he was a homosexual to the girl who was supposedly his best friend.  I had a sexual awakening with a gay man who didn’t care to tell me he could be gay, and I couldn’t feel angry or sad about these things because he was simply discovering himself.”   Katie stood up then and walked to the kitchen and placed her glass in the sink.  I could hear her sniffling as she faced away from me.

“I felt so inadequate my entire life.   I once slept with this guy named Dale, he had a girlfriend at the time, and do you know what, she blamed me for that cheating scumbag not being faithful to her.  Why do we do that to each other.  Why do we let men have a way out, why don’t we make them take responsibility for the shitty things they do without it being that I tempted him?   I may have a vagina but it’s not a honey trap.  And I’m left to defend my want for sex, because I’ve had it, and I want it again.”

“I suppose so.”  I say, I have no dog in this fight, I’m content being where I am with what I’m doing.

“We should get laid.   Not like at the same time, but like we shouldn’t let our first encounters define who we are, you know?”

“I don’t want that.”  I say and I don’t want to judge Katheryn for what she wants but it isn’t my style.   Every man that I considered even for a fraction of a second had a glaring flaw.  They were racist, homophobic, uber-virginal, rotten teeth, picked their noses, scratched their ass cracks, or were just plain cocky.

But, what followed that initial conversation was a string of ill advised blind date attempts.   The new routine had been disrupted again, whenever she learned that someone she knew was single she would message them and they would message me, and I would awkwardly try to let them down.  Maurice had gotten jealous and he and his asshole stayed under my bed half the time, and I was left to handle the barrage of a dozen men asking me personal questions, and of course the unsolicited dick pics began to troll in.   I never understood the logic of how a close-up of a hard penis was supposed to make me want to jump into bed with someone.  I would have to assume that somewhere somehow that worked on people, that some girl somewhere when they received the shocking photo of a jungle-covered-ripple of flesh didn’t just vomit but wanted to know more about the intrusive joke.   Not me, it made me want to revert into my shell.

That’s when Allan the pizza boy showed up at my door.  When I say boy, I don’t mean he was sixteen or anything.  No, Allan was a twenty-three-year-old pizza boy who had delivered Pizza Hut to my door when I was wrapped in a towel because Katie had “forgotten” she’d ordered it. She had conveniently had to pee when the buzzer went off.  The man before me was about my height with a big head, and a large mop of shaggy black hair, and an average build.   He blushed when I opened the door, all clean shaven and baby faced, and he tried to be respectable and maintain eye contact but I caught him looking at my shoulders.  “That’ll be twenty-three, umm, seventy-five,” He said as he removed the pizza boxes from the insulated bag that he carried.

I turned around holding one hand over my chest and another tugging down on the bottom of my oversized pink towel so that it was at a constant war with itself to either stay on or slide off.   I shuffled like a penguin to my bedroom leaving him there and gathered my cash out of my wallet.  When I waddled back out he smiled at me and laughed but apologized as he cleared his throat, I handed him a twenty and a ten and told him to keep the change.   Then I pushed the door closed on him so that he had to back up as it pushed on him and closed him out.

As I waddled into the apartment carrying the pizza boxes Katie was smiling and sitting on the couch.  “Don’t be mad, I saw him working last Friday, and I remembered his name, and made a request that he deliver.”  I opened a box and removed a slice.  With a bite of peppers, cheese and mushrooms in my mouth I said, “At least the pizza is hot.”

About four days later he came back, only this time neither of us had ordered pizza, and he stood there in uniform with boxes and said, “I know, I was delivering down the hall and I just wanted to ask if you’d like to go out.”

“What are you doing right now?”  I asked him.

            He looked down at his pizza boxes, “Delivering pizzas.  Working.”

            “When do you get off?”

            “About an hour.  Well, no, not about, exactly an hour.”

            “Pick me up when you’re done.”  I tell him, “Like right when you are done.  I have work tomorrow morning and I don’t have time to wait around for you to get all spruced up.  Does that work?”

            He nodded nervously, and seemed like he was shocked, like I was about to scream, “Not!” or “Psyche!”  But I didn’t.   I supposed it was just the idea of finding some sort of initiative for myself, even if Katie tried to fix it up, because I was taking some semblance of control.

            An hour and some change later the knock on my door came.  I was wearing sweat pants and a hoodie because I didn’t want to be dolled up and form some sort of false expectation of myself.   I did brush my hair back into a taught little pony tail with a small drop of bangs because I didn’t want to look like trash.

            When I opened the passenger side door of his maroon Ford Taurus, he muttered “Shit,” and frantically tried to clean up some receipts and fast food bags, and an occasional French fry that he promptly tossed in the seat behind him so that I could still see it clearly.  “Sorry,” he said and he broke eye contact completely embarrassed as I sat down and told him, “It’s okay.  You should see my apartment.”  I scoffed out a laugh and he nodded and wiped his brow before shutting his door.

            Richard was never that frantic about anything.  He oozed with petty confidence.  Teaching me a thing or two about the world, and I remember nodding at everything he said as though he were king, pretending I’d never known such glorious information.   He’d talk about sports, and so and so running the ball for such and such yards, and I would internalize nothing.   “Nothing you’ll need to worry about,” he’d say to me and I’d giggle and smile, and be nervous as my stomach expanded.    After the disappearing act I’d look back on those memories, and all that talking down of me, and I’d wanted to slap that girl silly.   I wanted to take her hand and drag her down to the clinic and flush the life out of her that.  That life that would eventually be death and give her that measure of religious judgement and pain.  All those judgmental eyes as an avoidance at the rest of the pain that would have come.  It would have been better.

            “Do you have any siblings?”  Is one of his first ice breakers as we sat in a booth at Applebee’s.   It was in time for half off appetizers, and I didn’t feel like making him pay a shit ton of money if things went sour.

            “An older sister.”  I say.   I realized then that I hadn’t given much thought to Olivia.   I knew why too, and I knew it wasn’t fair.  She had taken responsibility for what happened to Richard and me because it was at a house party with a bunch of her friends that it happened at.  She had been trying to help me socialize because I’d spent so much time sitting in a corner in the cafeteria reading books, and when I got home I did my homework and watched TV or a movie, and played the occasional video game.   I didn’t care to be around people much, but I whined to her that I wanted to be around them in some way.  Then the opportunity came up and Olivia offered to let me join her at a party with her friends who were a couple years older than I was and I agreed to go because I felt safe that my sister was going to be there.

            “I have a little brother and sister, they’re pretty sweet kids.   Amy’s twelve and Evan is sixteen.”  He said to me, and he paused a moment after the sweet smile of his siblings faded to draw concern for me and then I stared down blankly at my napkin-wrapped silverware.   I realized that I was not hungry at all.

            There’s something trivial about sitting there and knowing where this is supposed to end up, something trivial about making small talk.  The whole point of this set-up is to “get laid,” according to Katie so why was I supposed to be invested in these norms.   In Katie’s opinion, sex was her oppressor and her liberator, she’d owned it again, taken it back, and if it worked for her perhaps it’d work for me.   I wasn’t threatened by Allan, and his dullness, it was calm. “Do you want to get out of here?”  I said to him.

            “We haven’t ordered anything yet.”  He looked a little anxious as though he were worried about being rude to the waiter who had brought us our glasses of water.  But he looked at me, and seemed to conjure up some strength and he said, “Yeah we can go.”  Then he took out his wallet and dropped a five-dollar bill on the table.

            I could tell as we drove back to my apartment that he was nervous and thought he’d fucked the whole thing up.  His nervous grin was gone, and there was a tight furrow in his brow, and I knew he was upset.  It didn’t bother me that he was angry.  I kept staring at him, and thinking about how he looked nothing like Richard, who had a square draw, a tight thick neck.  I recall my heart skipping a beat and being terrified when Richard took off his shirt that first time, when I had wanted it, and he was so comically chiseled.   It’s funny thinking back on this ideal I had built up in my head of what sexy looked like, if that’s what you would have called it.  I tried to make the most out of the sham marriage, whatever that meant.  I suppose he was good to me, he touched me in the right ways, explored my body, but that was only at first.   “I didn’t take initiative enough,” he’d tell me, “I wasn’t dominate,” or some shit like that, and then at one point he commented how the weight gain had made my ass flabby.

            “Do you want to come inside?”  I found myself saying.  He swiftly turned to look at me as though I’d stripped down naked.  He swallowed a lump in his throat and attempted to sound confident by saying, “Yeah I can come in for a minute.”

            I was tired of letting the past define me, I was tired of letting other people define what I should be doing, or who I should be seeing.  I was tired of having my sexual reflexes longing for a man who attacked me in a field because I’d been polite and kissed him back.

            Katie was sitting on the couch when we walked in and I was leading Allan along by his hand and I could feel him wanting to drag his feet.   She gave me a slight smile and I gave her a glare and shake of the head as if to say, “Don’t, say, a word.”

            Once in my room I shut the door and Allan scratched at the back of his head and asked, “What’s your favorite movie?” and I told him to “Shut up,” before grabbing his face and pulling him in for a kiss.  That was the only motivation he needed and his arms wrapped around my back and he pulled me in close and his hands began to wander under my shirt and his chubby little fingers pressed firm but not forceful into the flesh of my back and I knew I was ready.

            I don’t want to get into the nitty gritty of what happened that night.  But, Allan was gentle, patient.  He didn’t last long but I didn’t care about that.   It was the way he touched me, the way his fingers glided over skin as though I was something to be preserved and not broken.  I’m not going to get into the details of body parts, and positions.   In those moments I was defining myself.  There was no contempt or disappointment in that man’s eyes and when he told me, “You’re gorgeous,” I believed him.  We eventually collapsed onto the sheets of my bed, wet and ruffled.

            “By the way,” I said between gulps of breath, “My favorite movie is The Princess Bride.”

            “Can I see you again?”  He said.  I could feel the smile in his voice.

            “Probably.  But you should know I’m a mess.   I have issues.”

            “Everyone has issues.”  He said to me and I agreed and worried that I may have just added a new one.

We had a couple of proper dates after but I couldn’t open-up like I wanted to, I wasn’t a flower, in fact I started to panic.  I’d been stupid and forgot about protection, and I hadn’t bothered with birth control.  When we were alone again and hands began to wander for buckles I stopped him, “Do you have a condom?”  He collapsed exasperated, “No, I guess I just thought you were on something because you didn’t say anything.”  He cuddled up close to me and as our heart beats slowed, and our heaving chests went more muted he placed a palm against my cheek and pulled me in with his fingertips.

            The next time he was prepared.  Eager.  When he touched me it was aggressive, but not violently.  He had gotten familiar, impulsive.  He went for a kiss but I turned my face to the ceiling.  His lips connected to my cheek, down my neck.  I didn’t want him to stop, shivers ran down my spine, but for some reason when he leaned up to kiss me I locked my mouth shut.  Those sausage fingers wandered, outside of my shirt, to my midriff, squeezing at the lumps of flesh around my stomach.  Then his pinky, that smallest of fingers invaded my waist band.

            “I can’t do this.”  I said, and he quickly pulled his hand away.

            “I brought protection.”  He answered, ignorant.

            “I know,” I said, “I just can’t.”

            “Issues?”  He said.

            “Issues.”  I answered.

            “Everyone has issues,” he stated, it mine as well have been a parrot squawk.  “I don’t think you should count me out,” he continued as he laid there and I sat up and tugged my shirt down, “Let me in, let me know, I can help you.”

            I laugh, “Are you going to save me?”

            I feel the distribution of the bed as it shakes from the movement of his weight.  His arm goes over my shoulder, about my neck and he moves in for an embrace, and I break away from it.  “What?”  He says, and when I stand I see his face is angry with embarrassment, red cheeks wounded, and pitiful.

            “You think I need saving?”  I shouldn’t have laughed, I guess.

            “I didn’t say that.”  He backtracks, but he mine as well have.

            “Tell me, Allan, what exactly are you going to help me with?”

            “Well, you have a problem with being touched.”  An exasperated hand swept in front of him.

            “Oh, I see.”  I started in and he slumped back in defeat, “My want to back off is a problem that needs fixing?”  It’s a rhetorical question, “Isn’t that kind of my choice.   Isn’t it kind of my choice to be mended, I mean, I barely know you.  Is that the cure all slogan, everyone has issues?  Is that supposed to make me yank down my pants, unclasp my bra and go all spread eagle for you?”

            “Sex can wait.  I just didn’t know.”  He pleaded, and maybe it was sincere but I was seeing red.

            “Wasn’t that your motivation?  Did you even ask what my issue was, was that ever a consideration?  What if I told you it was that I got raped, impregnated, a doe eyed little idiot who was forced to marry some prick.  Then months of aches, and pains, and vomit, and then she died inside of me and I had to deliver her.  Afterwards, he left me, like a heap of trash, a broken useless thing, garbage.”

            He got up to his feet and attempted to hug me.  I shoved him.  He fell back on the mattress and retorted, “Not all men are like that, I won’t do that, I’m not like that.”

            I laughed again, “How am I supposed to know that?  Because you say so, because you promise?”

            He shook his head, and sighed, “You can’t just disappear a part of yourself, Moira.  That is not how human beings work.”

            “That,” I say, “Is exactly how we work.”

            “What do I do now then?”  He said to me and for a second I felt sorry for him but I didn’t know who he was, what he wanted out of this mess, and I was sorry that I’d let Katie get to me.   When I didn’t respond he stood up, gathered up his jacket, and slid on his shoes.   I could see a conflict in him, as to whether he had done something wrong, and the truth was I knew he hadn’t.   I knew that whatever ignorance he had about my feelings was just a lack of knowledge, of experience.   I stayed standing in that same place for a few minutes after I heard the door shut, he didn’t slam it.

            I loved the movies but I never believed in the romanticism and its ability to remove the hurt, to fix the parts that were broken.   Sex, was nice, it was a fundamental part of the human biology, but it was missing for me.   There was a moment when Allan was holding me, when he collapsed beside me and gathered me up in his arms, and I felt a certain safety.    It was fleeting though, but I remember it, sweaty, smelly, but right.  The act though, the act was empty, and I’d lie if I didn’t say it felt good, but that wasn’t enough.

            I thought about Angela, and I thought about the life that had grown inside of me.  A being that existed suspended in fluids inside my womb.   Ate what I ate, heard what I heard, and lived in perpetual paradise.   Richard once collapsed next to me, sweaty, smelly, and he hugged me close and the lies of chemical reactions in the brain trigged by hormones made him think he loved me.  I trusted that, we had made this thing, this child together, born out of an act of violence, but we were going to make it work.

            And that’s the lie.  I missed him.  He used to cook dinner on Sunday afternoons, and the house would be filled with the charring scent of steaks or pork chops.   He’d spoon out a glob of mashed potatoes on to my plate, and he’d kiss my forehead, and pinch my butt and it was an ideal, it was like a movie.   “At least you’re good looking,” he’d say to me, and now with the benefit of hindsight I might say, that was a shitty thing to say, but it made me feel better about myself.   That was before the comments about my weight gain, before death invaded our existence, but it was still after the rape, after the forcing of a relationship and engagement and marriage.   It was after his parents bought us a house, and I hadn’t thought about escape because he owned me.  He co-created a being that drifted with placenta inside my uterus.  He’d exchanged vows with me, and his family owned the roof over my head.   I was a prisoner but I was content.

            Olivia never visited me.   I shared a bed with my attacker for seven months, but I couldn’t face my own sister.   The only one who believed me about how it’d happened.   I wasn’t always as honest as I became, and it was easier to live a lie.   Olivia ended up with a fiancé and then a husband, and ended up with a little girl, Bethany.   Bethany and Angela would have been a year or so apart, they would have been cousins, would have been friends.

            When I told Richard, “Something’s wrong,” he didn’t second guess me, and he carried me to his pick-up and sped dangerously down the country roads, and through the parking lot of the hospital, and he told me, “I’m sure it’s nothing.  It’s nothing.”   When the news came, he cried.    I don’t like to remember that, but he cried and I felt as though I’d robbed him of something, as though my body had broken his child, and refused to bare her.   Angela was seven pounds and eight ounces, and eighteen inches long.   There were slight, and thin strands of black hair that hung off the side of her head, and when I kissed her I felt the darkness latch onto my spine.

            Richard was a coward, but I was cold, distant, and broken.  I had a right to be, and if he had truly cared he might have stuck around, and maybe if I had the energy to hold on to him, maybe he would have.   That old hindsight gets to me though, and I know that would have dragged out an inevitability.  That’s how I felt as the door shut to my apartment, and I shuffled my feet out into the living room.

            Katie had been watching one of the Avengers movie, the screen paused on an explosion.  I’d known she’d been eavesdropping as soon as she had heard raised voices.  She was curled up in a blanket, hugging the arm rest of the couch, and I collapsed beside her.   “I can’t do it.”  I began to cry, “I can’t do it.”  I wrapped my arms around my stomach, that barren womb that I imagine is filled with cobwebs, and cracked machinery, and I laid my head on Katie’s shoulder.

            She resumed the movie.  As Iron Man saved the day on the TV, I closed my eyes to sleep.  This was my new routine.  Eventually I’d have to face life, sex, men, but I liked simple steps first, giant leaps were too much work.  I knew Katie was going to come home bragging of her conquests, and I’d be there to listen intently, entertained, living through her drama and always a twinge-jealous of that liberation.