—I NEVER SAID YOU HAD TO OFFER ME A SECOND CHANCE

 

 

…As they say, and it’s true, “Timing is everything.”

 

…It’s no fun when you feel like you’re out there on your own, when no one has your back.

 

…The only jokes I remember, and can retell, might either get me shunned, or put in jail.

 

…I’m convinced racism is taught.

 

…A dead squirrel on your road feels like a bad omen, even if it’s not your fault.

 

…That’s way above my Pay Grade, as most things are.

 

…When you talk about bad luck before the thing has happened or not happened, you’ve already invited bad luck in the door.

 

…Sometimes a chew solves everything. Or at least the small things.

 

…It was only yesterday that I thought I knew you completely. But now it’s today.

 

…All I do, sometimes, is worry about you.

 

…I’m an organ donor, leaving my body to science, and so I’m not sure if I should also carry an apology note inside my wallet.

 

…I was told by a former prosecutor that drug dealers are really hard-workers. I never thought of it that way, but I guess it’s probably true.

 

…Even if it wasn’t really real, it still feels good, all this time later.

 

…When someone offers you, “Sparkling water?” or “Sparkling wine?” the answer should be obvious.

 

…Red is my favorite brand of wine.

 

…When someone stops asking you questions, that should tell you the whole story.

 

…I’m not going to forget, but even the memories will be different.

 

…For a long stretch there, I’d become a cranky bastard and I’m not sure what that means because I’m really not a cranky person, though I very well could be a bastard.

 

…When I’m grouchy, I think to myself, WWSD (“What Would Steve Do?), and so I do something obnoxious that only irritates me more for having done it.

 

…I petted a dog on the lap of a woman on an airplane the other day and it only made me feel somewhat sad, which is a bit of a victory, right? I mean, I didn't sob or anything, standing right there in the aisle like a stooge.

 

…I know, I know, I know... I need to try more new things. But give me some space. Give me some time, while I still have it.

 

…Sometimes, when the temperature is just perfect, it feels like I could stay in the shower forever. Like I could live, and die, under the spray. (Not a bad way to go.)

 

…I saw a woman wearing a t-shirt that said, I WILL STUFF YOU IN A TRUNK AND HELP PEOPLE LOOK FOR YOU. Yikes. Like, who is ever going to have the balls to date that woman? Travis Kelsey maybe.

 

…It’s almost always not as bad as people make it out to be, but the thing is, you remember those few times when it was worse than they made it out to be, and that's what you cling to.

 

…I know I’m a good person. It’s just that, sometimes, I swim in the cracks, and it looks awfully murky down there, just me and the fishes. 

 

…When life gets hard, the most important thing you need to know is that you aren’t alone. (Sounds like a Public Service Announcement, I know, but it's true.)

 

…Time always wins.

...I still talk to you every day. I hope you can still hear me.

 

—OLD DAYS, GOOD TIMES I REMEMBER

 

 

OUTLINE OF MY LOVER    /    Douglas A. Martin

 

 

He becomes my lesson in want, is my want, my only.

 

Desire is all I have. It’s all I can hold onto.

 

My love makes me stubborn.

 

I recognize my hatred was masked love, the lack of his presence.

 

There has to be some way to cover up this left hole.

 

He’s everywhere. My life becomes this pattern controlled by him. His face is everywhere, and his name. Written, spoken, print.

 

He wonders why I can’t get on with my life.

 

He talks about emotions as someone else’s. Don’t confuse the singer with his songs.

 

I no longer believe anything.

 

I just have to keep my wits and looks about me. Charm, my heart.

 

He is being stupid with me.

 

He brings up history. Says we have a lot of it together.

 

He says he’s happy to hear my sister is having a baby. He’s become just another man who can’t understand.

 

His body is a piece of paper.

 

I have nothing more to pull from my eyes.

 

You have to trust completely, or it doesn’t work.

 

What did we used to mean to each other? I forget.

 

 

In my family, every holiday becomes a reminder of how abnormal we are.

 

In that house, constantly trying to second guess the correct thing to say in order to keep semblance of unity.

 

We aren’t what we’re supposed to be.

 

We’re taken to a place with no roots.

 

When we weren’t in the house, there would be a possibility for magic, something new. We would sit quietly in the back seat, looking at the lights. Lights like stars, but closer.

 

My sister and I watch her cry, knowing how you could just want somebody to go away.

 

I should at least be entitled to my own feelings, since they’re all I have.

 

I want something that is mine to care for.

 

There is always some part of life that will remain empty.

 

I always wanted to be known, for someone to know I exist.

 

I forgot how to breathe.

 

You either continue together, or you don’t.

 —IS THERE ANYTHING LEFT, MAYBE STEAK AND EGGS?

 

 

Growing Older; A Memory

 

 

You sometimes forget that your mom is a woman. It’s nothing at all misogynistic, but you’re 14 and your mom is just your mom.

And so, it’s more than jolting when you come home early from school with a migraine and find her bedroom door cracked, the screen on her wall filled with the image of entangled naked limbs, moans coming forth in an unsteady and syncopated rhythm.

Through the slit in the open doorway, you spy her bare ankle and up to her mid-thigh, the sheet below compressing and contracting as if its alive and somehow playing a part in all that’s going on.

Minutes later, in your room, you sit down on the edge of the bed and shake your head and shake your head and shake your head. And shake your head again. Right now, you’d very much like for it to snap off, doddle on the floor like a moldy Halloween pumpkin. 

You’d also like to be someone else’s son, with a set of normal parents who love each other, or at least don’t hate each other, but there’s no way that’s happening, and what’s actually happening is your vision is blurry and a drill bit is stealthily boring through your skull as the migraine furthers its meticulous work.

Your father left two years ago today. He’d said how much he loved you, yet you didn’t even hear him say goodbye.

The world in your room at the moment seems both enormous and cloistered, just another paradox that your teenage brain wrestles with.

A half hour later, you find you’ve vomited on yourself and the bedspread—ribbons of orange-yellow foam. 

Through the closed door, your mother asks when you got home, that she didn’t hear you come in.

You say you’ll be out to eat dinner in a few, though you have no idea how you’ll be able to swallow a thing, how you’ll be able to face the woman across from you.

  

—NEXT THING YOU KNOW

Randall Brown

 

“I always have the temptation to sing The Lion Sleeps Tonight. It's always just a whim away, a whim away, a whim away, a whim away.”

 

"I was riding a donkey the other day when someone threw a rock at me and I fell off. I guess I was stoned off my ass."

 

"Did you hear about the shepherd who drove his sheep through town? He was given a ticket for making a ewe turn."

 

“As a kid I was made to walk the plank. We couldn’t afford a dog.”

 

"I tried to make a belt out of watches. It was a waist of time."

 

"As a vegan, I think people who sell meat are disgusting, but apparently people who sell fruits and vegetables are grocer."

 

I’m not an expert on masturbation, but I hold my own.

 

Did you hear about the constipated mathematician? He worked it out with a pencil.

 

I went shopping for cherries and mics the other day. Bought a bing, bought a boom.

 

"People who like trance music are very persistent. They don't techno for an answer."

 

If a math teacher has 5 bottles in one hand and 6 in the other, what does she have?

A drinking problem.

 

A police officer starting crying todays as he was writing me a speeding ticket. When I asked, “Why are you crying?” he said, “It was a moving violation.”

 

It really takes guts to be an organ donor.

 

There’s only one thing I can’t deal with—a deck of cards glued together.

 

(harp meeting) “What’s up, fellow harps?”

“You’re not a real harp.”

“I am so!”

“Nah, you’re too small to be a harp.”

“Are you calling me a lyre?”

 

“What did one body spray say to another? “I can’t understand you, your axe scent is too strong.

 

There are no divorce courts at the North Pole, so when Santa and his wife wanted to split up, they got a semicolon. They're great for separating independent Clauses.

 

Autocorrect has become my worst enema.

 

"Yesterday I couldn’t figure out whether someone was waving at me or the person behind me. In other news, I lost my lifeguard job."

 

To be frank, I'd have to change my name.

 

—I'VE SEEN IT RAIN AND FIRE IN THE SKY

 

 

The Torrent

 

We drove to the clinic in gauche silence while the rain shattered everything, liquid bullets hitting every object, as if it knew our intent and disagreed entirely.

The deluge slammed our car and trees and roofs and paved streets and sent every space popping with what looked like boiling venom.

I could barely swallow. I needed a drink but was afraid to ask Maeve to grab one of Costco waters lolling around in the backseat of my beat-up, VW bug. This was her play after all, and I was just a stooge handling the lighting as best I could.  

We were fifteen miles away, 79,200 feet, 79,200 opportunities to make a different call, rain pinging off the windshield like a hundred murder of crows pecking urgently for survival.

A dog or coyote or something larger leapt into the lane and I had only the time to notice it, but do nothing else. 

The thump felt like a drunken buddy shoulder-punching you, conspicuous but somewhat slight, and so I drove on without stopping.

“You hit something back there,” Maeve said, finally speaking. “A deer maybe.”

I wanted to speak, but my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth like a glued slug and there was no air left inside of the car.

At the clinic, I casually perused the Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, GQ and Esquire magazines that were stacked haphazardly on a wobbly coffee table, all of them with fingered and curled pages. They made me feel born in the wrong age. They made me even more confused. They made me throw up in my mouth and swallow it.

Maeve came out wearing the same clothes, her blonde hair shaped in the same uneven box cut, but something was different that I couldn’t identify. 

No one in the waiting area raised their heads to acknowledge her. Each guy just kept on reading or staring, as if Maeve had turned into a ghost like all of the others.

I stood and whispered, “Hey,” because what else could I say?

Maeve nodded against my hair and jaw stubble, up and down.

“You okay?” I asked.

She didn’t answer, just walked in front of me, out the door, walking away on her own, like a thunder-struck animal, out into the insistent rain. 

—DRAIN THE WHOLE SEA

 

 

…My grandkids are apparently huge football fans. You should hear them cheer when the crowd gets fired up.

 

…It’s hard to understand if you don’t know.

 

…I guess I’m always going to be under surveillance and just need to get used to it.

 

…I wish Stevie Nicks would stop staring at me like I’m a heartless bastard.

 

…“The previous play is under review.”

 

…Three weeks without football is going to be a record. God help me.

 

…We’ll just live with it, like forever.

 

…A life without friends would be pretty meaningless.

 

…Who can I trust? is always right there at the top of my list. 

 

…It’s a good thing that’s only air or we’d all be dead about now.

 

…If you're an eagle and you’re hungry enough, you’re totally going after that lone duckling. It’s sad, but you just are.

 

…I wonder what it would be like not to have to pick a side. Can’t a guy just be like Switzerland?

 

…I wonder how many days I could go without eating before I died. I’m pretty sure I’d set a record.

 

…The other day someone told me that the way to happiness is having really low expectations. I’m not so sure about that.

 

…“Everybody is somebody’s fool.” Orson Welles

 

…You don’t know good it is to feel normal until you haven’t for an extended period of time.

 

…“You’re on earth. There’s no cure for that.” Samuel Beckett

 

…It’s hard to win when you only have “I’s” left.

 

…When you don’t know what to say to someone, all that white noise sounds deafening.

 

…What’s so wrong with having an orange phone? Fine me. Oh, wait, you already did.

 

…Picking the edges is a hard way to make it, but if you’re that good, you should.

 

…“It’s now or never,” is a daunting statement, yet mostly true.

 

…What’s great is how close you can be to someone you never see, so long as both of you make an effort.

 

…$8.20 for a breakfast sandwich and small drip coffee seems sort of criminal. Just sayin’.

 

…Sugar ants are both a mystery and a nuisance.

 

…I walked by Cinnabon the other day and stopped to breathe in but couldn’t smell a damn thing.

 

…Nobody likes being laughed at.

 

…It can get tricky having too many second thoughts.

 

…Usually the more complicated a relationship is, the more dysfunctional it is.

 

…Sometimes liking yourself takes a lot of work.

 

…If you’re going to write something, make it honest, even if it’s fiction.

 

…I can tell you about it, but it doesn’t mean anything if you don’t believe it, right?

 

…It’s great to be here.

 

…Just so you know, it’s all good on my end.

 

…Take me to church.

—I’LL WORSHIP LIKE A DOG AT THE SHRINE OF YOUR LIES

 

 

The Errand Boy and the Blind Woman

 

 

The old woman was blind and had been for some time. She asked what color my eyes were. She asked what the sky looked like.  How many trees still had leaves. If there were squirrels in the yard. When it rained, she asked about the depth of the puddles and potholes. 

Her hands shook like tendrils waving under the sea. She might have been made of straw or pure imagination, but my mother had sent me to look after her, we being neighborly, or trying to.

“What does thirteen look like?” the old woman asked and stumped me at once. Did she mean just the number, or my age, or what? It was another ridiculous question.

“I guess,” I said, “it’s kind of blurry, like if your windshield is full of dead bugs or your glasses are super smudged. It’s tough to know where you’re going.”

“Hmm. I see.”

I wondered how long she’d been blind. It might have been forever. I wanted to tell her how sorry I was, but didn’t want to come across as condescending or better than. People were always apologizing for my mangled leg, the one some guy’s car ran over without stopping. Humiliation wears a lot of different shirts and none of them fit quite right.

I was the blind woman’s errand boy, but mostly I listened and replied. She’d rather talk and learn than eat. She was as thin as a mantis, but ever smiling.

She might have been a hundred years older than me, yet she was graceful, wise and exceptionally curious. If it was possible for me to love a woman like that at my age, well, then I surely did.

“I suppose you’ll be getting a real job soon,” she said, softly swatting the scone of sunlight in front of her. 

I hadn’t told her about my leg, how it slid and dragged with each step, though she certainly must have been aware. It seemed she noticed everything. As a cripple, there weren’t a lot of jobs open to me.

“I’m happy here with you,” I said, and it made my feet tingle to tell the truth so brazenly.

“So, are you going to be a writer?” the blind woman asked.

How did she know? I guess, how did she not know? She could easily hear me scribbling down random thoughts each day, sometimes reciting them back in a muffled whisper.

“Well,” I said, “I want to, but—”

“Then you will! Then you must!” the blind woman said, twirling her arms like an overactive squid, with more commotion than I’d seen in months.

“Okay,” I said because it felt like I had to speak.

“Read me something,” she said, leaning forward so that I could smell she’d had green tea with a speck of basil and mango. “Read something imagined, but honest.”

Who was this woman? Something imagined but honest? What the fuck was that?

“I, I, I don’t have anything—”

“Yes, you do.”

“I really don’t.”

“Then write it right now. I’ll wait. I’ve got time. I’m patient but I can’t wait forever.”