—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.”

 

 

—WE’VE BOTH GOT SOMEWHERE ELSE TO GO

 

 

…Usually when someone says they’re not going to judge you, they already have.

 

…It’s strange how someone can be an enormous part of your life and then—poof!—nothing.

 

…Feet are so weird looking. They really are.

 

…Who in the world has ever used that underwear (boy’s) flap to pee? Not me.

 

…Here’s all I can say: “Okay, I know things are rough, yet you’re not the only one.”

 

…When a 16-year-old calls you “Bitch,” you know things are pretty damn good.

 

…Not being able to find your kids, no matter their age, is the only thing worse than not being able to find yourself.

 

…Tatt up all you want, just leave me out of it.

 

…Any 16-year-old who knows both “I Think I’m Going to Kill Myself Tonight” by Elton and “Tomorrow is Today” by Billy Joel, is a kid you need to pay attention to.

 

…Don’t tell me there’s no pressure, or that it’s stupid to play fantasy football, until you’ve done it yourself. Just don’t.

 

…When you live with, and in, privilege, you don’t even know it most of the time. 

 

…All I really want to know is, Do you still care?

 

…I see, or hear, my son with the kids he teaches, and I think: God, who is luckier here—him, the kids, or me?

 

…Watching Angus Cloud felt like a gift to me. It felt like he was going to be legendary. So what happened really hurt.

 

…Anymore, typo’s are like homeless people—nobody, sadly, seems to care about them.

 

…The last time I laughed incredibly hard? All weekend. Yay. 

 

…You hear a large of group women together for an extended period of time, as I do often, and it’s shocking how different their conversations are from that of a large group of men. Neither is better than the other. But different? Oh yeah.  

 

…My phone is always suggesting I look at old photographs, and for that, I’m very grateful.

 

…Writers don’t have to explain themselves, or even make sense of their writing, but I always feel disappointed when it’s not one or both.

 

…I’ve always thought a double-rainbow is like a small miracle. There was a shimmering one over The Freedom Towers in Manhattan two weeks ago, on September 11^th. I thought for sure it was photo-shopped. Nope. Some things, you can’t explain. Or maybe you can.

 

…I guess, if you’re allowed to brag in your bio, you probably should. After all, it’s professional. Where else would anyone else even care, or better yet, not be put off? Where else it is acceptable?

 

…If you don’t understand the expression, “Once bitten, twice shy,” I’m not sure you’ve ever really been bitten. Or maybe you just never felt it appropriately.

 

…I’d really like to be pals with Stevie Nicks. Often, she looks so incredibly lonely over there, always sunning herself on the deck or else barking at the wind as if she’s possessed.

 

…Your faves—sunrises or sunsets? I’m going with the latter. You should see what I’m looking at right now. (I’m writing this the night before posting.)

 

…“Things can disappear when you're not looking at them.” Kathryn Rantala

 

..."You Appeared in 105 Searches This Week.” Yeah, sure. 

 

...I must be the very last one on the call list. But I’m still grateful to be there at all, still on the list.

 

…Some Bitches (men with small penises) don’t know when to stop jabbering, plus they don’t know how to spell. 

 

…Why is it a contradiction to love both football and poetry? And who wouldn’t love both? They’re the best things ever.

 

…--”I bet you can smell that.”

----“Nope.” 

----“Lucky for you.”

 

…Maybe the fog that I’ve been living in, has lifted for the first time in weeks.

 

…It’s hard to imagine a world without other people in it. Even people you don’t favor.

 

…--”So, your blog—if that’s what it’s called—is kind of rambunctious and obnoxious. Like it runs all over the place. What are you trying to tell people?
--“Sometimes walk. Sometimes run.”

--"Often, it doesn’t make sense. It sounds like gibberish."

--"Exactly.”

--“Seriously, though. What's it supposed to mean?” 

--“Exactly.”

 

…There’s always so much more to say, so I’m just skipping to the ending.

disappearing debutantes    /     Meg Pokrass & Aimee Parkison

  

 

It’s hard, and a bit tiring, having an all-night expedition taking place in one’s vagina.

 

What did I know? I was just a girl in trouble.

 

That year I’d become pretty, and a few boys at school called me “A la Mode,” as if I brought my own vanilla ice cream with me, as if I were an act worth paying for.

 

At the park where your ex meets you, he confesses he and the new girl, an underwear model, are finally having sex and doing it doggie style. You remain calm, detached, wondering, “And what’s that like, David?”

 

My husband can see everything I lost inside of me. He’s down there like a miner, searching for parts that he’s sure are missing. The reason my vagina glows, the reason I’m luminous, is I swallowed mercury as a child.

 

His kisses last long enough for you to realize foreplay can be returned like the six-piece screwdriver set he bought you for your birthday. It can be reversed and backfire like a rubber band stretched too tight.

 

I shuddered, wondering if more suffering could make everything right.

 

His teeth looked like condemned buildings in his beautiful mouth.

 

After that much pain, terror is bliss.

 

“It’s like buying a bag of 99-cent tacos and realizing you paid too much."

 

And sometimes we would talk about how different he and I were. How he loved me like the coffee at the bottom of the pot. “Bitter but strong.”

 

You’re sweating beer when you realize what’s about to happen is as private as your power bill and as romantic as scarfing down food on rotting picnic tables near public restrooms.

 

Becoming another woman is not the same as stealing her identity. It starts by seeing yourself in her until the two of you become one. It’s like love: you feel yourself disappearing into her if you’re doing it right.

 

My apartment is decorated with prints by Patrick Nagel. If you know me well enough, you get the irony. If you don’t know me well enough, get the hell out of my apartment.

 

Why bother with jewelry when you can wear snakes?

 

I look at you and wonder when was it, exactly, you stopped breathing?

 

Would anybody ever love me the way the letter-writer loved the dead girl?

 

“The same old feelings,” you say, “they keep coming back to bite our asses.”

 

There are many ways to change your face without surgery.

 

My dark-haired lover explained marriage was like an animal. “There’s a smell when it dies.”

 

When our house burnt down with Mom inside it, I grew up learning to trust ruin. 

 

That was our way, always dancing with death.

 

If you are reading this, it’s never too late to love me.

 

 

WHERE TO BUY THIS BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/Disappearing-Debutantes-Meg-Pokrass/dp/1944853871?fbclid=IwAR1XOTPsN53xZfMICn3u_GqQwZjA1JVoUMQ0vm7awPuE5KLXmcmAct3hvAc

 —CHASE AWAY MY HEART AND HEARTACHE

 

 

 

…Sorry, but this day started out especially cranky and never bothered to improve itself.

 

…While it’s always well-intended, sometimes the last thing you want to hear is, “Hang in there.”

 

…Lately what I wish most is that I knew where I was going.

 

…Waking up angry has to be the ruin of many a good man.

 

…“Patience, Grasshopper.”

 

…I know this lake has no appendages, but some mornings it very much feels like the water is flipping me off.

 

…It would probably be an awful world if we all said what we really think about other people.

 

…Sometimes the little victories are the biggest, and I could use a few of them about now.

 

…People get desperate, I understand that, but I still don’t think you should ever give ultimatums.

 

…I know he’s really messed up, surrounded by bad handlers, but I’m still in Kayne’s corner.

 

…“So, I think it’s time for us to have a toast…”

 

…I think I’m finally appreciating the value of sleep.

 

…What’s great is you have every right to be a dick, and yet I also have every right to think of you as one.

 

…Working through your shit on your own is probably not ideal.

 

…I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this movie before.

 

…‘Cause I really wanna know, will anybody ever love me?

 

…It’s pretty amazing, if not also alarming, how a certain song can strike you when you’re entirely open to hearing it.

 

…Misery supposedly loves company, but whenever I’m miserable I don’t want to be around anyone.

 

…It’s pretty hard not to love squirrels. They’re like fluffy scarves that move on their own volition. 

 

…I think Sinead was right after all—the Catholic church just needs to go away forever.  

 

…Who gets presented with a cane and thinks, Yay! Just what I’ve been wanting!

 

…I’m not very good at being angry. My mom, my dad—they were pro’s though.

 

…It’s “Dane Weekend,” so lots of deep talks.

 

…I made it two steps out of the shower before throwing up in the sink this morning. I must have perpetual morning sickness. Good grief. But maybe I’ll give myself grandchildren.

 

…“Can a brother get paid?” is a pretty great text to receive or send. Just sayin’.

 

…I can’t figure out how something can come up or out of you if you’ve put nothing in your body.

 

….When you read something like this, it’s hard to proud to be an American: Alabama is planning to use nitrogen gas to put condemned prisoners to death. The first execution will amount to a human experiment, because neither Alabama nor any other state has ever tried to kill people this way.

Late last month, prison guards distributed the state’s new execution protocol to prisoners in solitary confinement on Alabama’s death row. One hundred and sixty men and five women await execution in Alabama. They would be secured to a gurney, their nose and mouth would be covered by a mask, and nitrogen would be pumped into their lungs until they suffocate.

Alabama is seeking to conduct the first such experiment on Kenneth Eugene Smith, who already survived a botched execution. Last November, Mr. Smith spent hours strapped to a lethal-injection gurney as the execution team needled around in several locations to insert two intravenous lines without success, before calling off the execution. It is hard to imagine a more ghastly ordeal than being marched back a second time to face the executioner and a new method of execution that has the possibility of unknown agony after decades in prison awaiting death.

 …Seems like a good time for a walk. Be right back…

 

 …Chase away my heart and heartache

Run me over, throw me over, cast me out
Find a river running to the west wind
Just above the shoreline you will see a cloud
Tie me to a tiny wooden raft
Burn my body, point me to the undertow
Push me off into the void at last
Watch me drift and watch me struggle, let me go

–AND TONIGHT, EVERY SINGLE STAR IS SHINING, THE POWER LINES ALL SIZZLE AND BUZZ

 

 

 

Enigmas, Atrocities and Miracles

 

They clung to obscurity the way all long-lasting lovers do, reliability being a key endorphin. 

After so many years, their bones knew each other like twins engaged in backseat telepathy. The man’s frame was now bent into a question mark and to straighten into the shape of an exclamation mark meant considerable and sustained pain.

But that was love for you, or something like it.

She spent a great deal of time dancing with herself, a marvelous hobby for someone of her age and he did not begrudge her merriment and dexterity. Often, in fact, he eavesdropped, wondering to himself, Who is this woman really? and, However did I end up here?

But wasn’t life stuffed with enigmas and mysteries?

The only thing they knew with certainty was that one of them would die first, though they never discussed this looming fact aloud. Death, after all, was to them like bodily functions performed in the bathroom—best left unnoted and undescribed.

Their dog, cuter than Shirley Temple had ever been at her apex, had died years ago, and so now they spent a fair amount of time petting plush toy monkeys and other furry beings. Loneliness could often be a tough beast to shake.

        They both believed in miracles despite all the atrocities occurring daily throughout the planet, and in the end, a miracle is what they received. While she suffered a fatal stroke, his fright brought on a heart attack, and like a bedroom door shut for the final time, the pair passed together, clutched in each other’s’ arms, from this world to that one.     

—I’M SO GIFTED AT FINDING WHAT I DON’T LIKE THE MOST

 

 

It’s another stroll/Monday/Sunday/next day in Heaven, clouds split like corn silk combed into two perfect rows. Moses is out there on his boat again, rowing aimlessly, expectant about a proper parting, sea or see, and I can’t remember shit. 

But I’m alive, man, and the sun’s posing for magazines, chest-forward, bulky and built, so how bad could today possibly be?

I’ll tell you tomorrow.

—IT’S HARD FOR YOU, I KNOW, TO ACT LIKE YOU’RE NOT GIVING UP

 

 

It’s the wrong time of day or night to be writing, listening to Don’t Send Me Away, syringe by the ready, and I’ve got a full tank of something, while the muffler smells like Schlitz and I’m remembering things no one should ever recall, and the snare and cadence are doing their crafty work, and it’s late enough to be morning somewhere, all of those broken halos glittering like a beer glass above the trees, spelling out code I can’t comprehend, the ragged lessons of my life.

 —THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO TURN ME AWAY

 

 

 

I (Still) Love Lucy

 

 

You must have been 

dying

long before it was obvious

Today I walk again 

past those goldfinch 

stains imbedded 

in the carpet 

tattoos from your 

frothy vomit 

and it’s impossible 

to shake off 

the exhaust and dread

I should have known

and you should have 

bit my leg

Goddamn you

One of us should have 

done something differently 

while we still had the chance

—THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING THERE TO REMIND ME

 

 

A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8-year-olds, 'What does love mean?'

 

'When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore... 

So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. 

That's love.' Rebecca - age 8

 

'When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.' Billy - age 4

 

'Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.' Karl - age 5

 

'Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.' Chrissy - age 6

 

'Love is what makes you smile when you're tired.' Terri - age 4

 

'Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.' Danny - age 8

 

'Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and just listen.' 

Bobby - age 7 

 

'If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate.' Nikka - age 6 

 

'Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it every day.' Noelle - age 7

 

'Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.' Tommy - age 6

 

'During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore.' Cindy - age 8

 

'My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.' Clare - age 6

 

'Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.' Elaine - age 5

 

'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.' Chris - age 7

 

'Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.' Mary Ann - age 4

 

'I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.' Lauren - age 4

 

'When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.' 

Karen - age 7

 

'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross...' Mark - age 6

 

'You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot.  People forget.' Jessica - age 8