--THIS IS EVERYTHING THERE IS

…Oh, Wednesday, don’t you look good?  Yes, you really do.

…This week I’ve been struggling with a rewrite on my novel.  Apparently it’s in bad taste to kill a four year old off in your book, or so I’ve been told.  The problem is (sadly so) it worked on one level, but my writing friend is right that it swings the novel in a direction it probably shouldn’t go and it might be off-putting for readers.  So, the girl is now in a coma.  Will she come out of it?  We’ll see.

…I’m poised for a very fun weekend with my best friend from Vancouver coming up for a visit.  I’m a bachelor this weekend as well, so look out.

…I did an interview for Flash Fiction Chronicles that went live yesterday:

http://www.everydayfiction.com/flashfictionblog/why-i-write-flash-fiction-kuntz/

…And I wrote this very sad (shocking, I know) poem the other day:

Sediment

I sink down into a bathtub filled with milk

and it’s the closest thing I’ve ever come to feeling alive,

the cool, sluicing touch of ghost fingers fluttering across my skin,

whispering nothing,

wanting nothing

satiated by mere existence,

not caring whether or I am thin or large,

not minding whether I have ever kissed a boy or girl or

my father

whose open mouth was the black gutter

that filleted me.

Inside this milky cocoon,

I am just me for the first time.

I am finally sixteen

or eight

or infinity.

It doesn’t matter

because I am whole with the milk

unspoiled this once,

rich and thick as if drawn from the teats of a Guernsey cow,

sediment resting at the bottom of the tub, rough as bits of shaved rock,

sediment instead of sin,

perfectly natural.

When I go under,

I may not be able to breathe.

I may not be able to see what hovers above,

yet it’s safe here.

The lies and scars are--

for the time being--

washed away in white,

a Jesus-kind-of-miracle.

And if I open my mind

--even just a spec--

I can see the real me,

how I am not so bad at all,

not so different than you
or the little girl

who was never touched that way

by that man

in that room

all those times.

I just float,

or imagine I do.

I can do anything now.

You should see me--

under this ocean of ivory--

because I am smiling.

Yes,

smiling.

Drown me if you must,

but I am glad.