—HEY THERE, MR. BLUE

 

 

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This Friday reminds me of the summer my nose wouldn’t stop bleeding, a weak trickle of Cabernet slowly slaking over my upper lip, zig-zagging from cheek to chin like a bolt of lightning. I had one friend whose dad was a doctor and he cauterized my nostrils with some kind of branding tool. The blood stopped for a spell, but then came back before each weekend, a liquid taunt, Friday’s cousin or curse.

 —I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU 

 

 

“Tell me about a time when you were laughed at in public.”

 

“When did you last cry in front of another person?”

 

“Describe the moment in your life when you were most afraid.”

 

“Describe the first object you ever loved.”

 

“Do you have a hunch about how you’re going to die?”

 

“If you died tonight, what would be your biggest regret?”

 

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how loved were you by your parents?

 

“Describe exactly what you find most physically attractive about me.”

 

“Do you believe in love at first sight?”

 

—Wellness” Nathan Hill

—WE CAN WATCH THE SNOW FALL, FOREVER AND EVER

 

 

SOME THINGS YOU NEED TO READ TODAY…

 

It is definitely enough. You have bought more than enough. Repeat…More. Than. Enough.

You cannot, CANNOT, please everyone. Some people will find issue in an empty room. Let them. You know who you are and your heart is most definitely in the right place. 

You’re supposed to enjoy this too. Memories are wonderful but they’re even better if you’re right in the middle enjoying. And get in the photos. That’s history right there.

None of the fuss really matters. Your time matters. Your intent matters. Your love matters.

Everything else is just frosting. 

No one remembers the gifts, a few years later. But you do very much remember the feelings of safety, of togetherness, of joy. Those Kodak moments, when the tree twinkles just as your loved ones laugh at the worst joke, and suddenly the world feels right. They stay. Watch for those, let everything else play out as it will.

And also, please, PLEASE sit down. Really sit down and take stock. You have created a world of love, you did that. Now enjoy it my friend. 

And for those you miss, call them close. 

They will come.

--Donna Ashworth

—IT’S A LONG WAY DOWN THE HOLIDAY ROAD

 

 

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Friday takes me hostage because I’m an easy steal, light as an infectious disease, made of straw. My tongue is bankrupt, my skin bereft. What’s left of the sun has hijacked the moon which it’s holding for ransom. Tomorrow’s a new, worn footpath, people trotting everywhere, blind and amorous.

—I CAN’T GO FOR THAT

 

 

Boy in the Window

 

The boy’s window was more than a window. So many hours a day, a night, he’d stare through it, the glass shield that separated him from the other world, the real one lurking outside.

He was always erring, doing one thing or another wrong, and so his mother would lock him inside saying, “You’re lucky I don’t beat you instead.”

And in a way, he did feel fortunate to be sequestered and not having to deal with his mother’s anger, her lunacy. Since his dad left, his mother had become a kind of demon human, flinging words like jackknives, shouting in molten fire.

Outside his door he watched hawks soar, piercing the sky like crosses. He watched crimson-bellied robins pounce along the rug of dirt and weed grass that was their lawn. At night he counted stars and gave each a new name, kids’ names, his imaginary friends, and once they were identified in this way, he was able to have chats and to laugh at jokes that others might not find funny.

Sometimes the window reflected his face back to him, and he would look away as if the image was a menace or predator. He spoke through it instead. He created stories about a boy who becomes a man, buys a sword and slices through every enemy he encounters, making not only himself safe, but the world at large. 

On the last night he is locked in his room, he hears his mother, later, in the hall convulsing like a slayed dragon. He runs to the door, listens, pounds on it, screaming, “Mom, open up! Mom!”

And then there’s the sound of her body collapsing on the floor. Sound of choking. Of gasping. Writhing. Then nothing.

The boy pulls out a dresser drawer, goes to the window and tells it he’s sorry. He swings and swings, some wood shards winging off, until at last the glass breaks and the rest of it is easily cracked off, the night air pooling around him like chilly ghosts.

He’s smart enough to wrap his body in blankets as he climbs over the edge, smart enough to invent wings that lift him through the night, high up into the sky, where his friends, the stars, stand up and applaud, even as he’s only halfway there.

 

—WHILE EVERYONE’S LOST, THE BATTLE’S ALREADY BEEN WON 

 

 

…It’s not a sympathy play, but no matter what, I’m always on the outside, looking in.

 

…Wait, so therapy doesn’t count?

 

…I’ve probably written over 70 stories about twins, usually a boy and girl. Often times, the only way they communicate is through telepathy, or else sign language. I wonder what that means, what it says about me.

 

…I should have asked more questions. And better ones.

 

…It’s a good thing God doesn’t care about football, or else I’d think there was no God.

 

…Ouch. That last one is going to leave a mark.

 

…Maybe it’s actually Sunday that I hate.

 

…If you say what you mean, sometimes it’s going to bite you in the ass, like really sharp and hard.

 

…Once bitten, twice shy.

 

…Everybody’s looking for something. Or so I’ve been told.

 

…I just want to smile like I mean it.

 

…I could use a dog, or a cat, something soft nearby, to touch.

 

…It’s no one’s fault if we’ve run out of things to say.

 

…Why in the fuck would Kayne, or his handlers, think selling hoodies with swastikas on them, is a good idea?

 

…Love who you love. Take the meds you need. Make your own body decisions. Fuck the Supreme Court. Don’t listen to the noise.

 

…“I need your help,” is not something I like to say very often, even when I very much should.

 

…Hate on Amazon all you want, but they get it done, and quickly, sometimes within seven hours.

 

…It’s not worth looking back when there’s nothing there.

 

…Death by papercuts is the very worst way to die.

 

…He’s got the whole world in his hands.

 

…I’m trying to feel a lot less, while feeling a whole lot more.

 

…Poor Glenn Campbell.

 

…I see it, New Year’s, staring straight me in the eye, like it doesn’t trust me or believe me, same as you—a different set of twins, yet the same.

 

…You can paint that picture any way you like, but I still know how it looked upon first view.

 

…I’m guessing “bouncy” walking isn’t a good sign of things to come.

 

…I’m guessing a straw in your champagne flute isn’t either.

 

…But a good omen is I saw a white butterfly today, so there’s that.

 

…I should keep these one-liners to myself.

 

…I don’t know if it’s so much communicating as it is seeing things differently.

 

…I used to think Christmas was the worst holiday ever, but I’ve come around, if even this slowly.

 

…That could have been “Holding,” or a “False Start,” or even a “Horse Collar.” As always, it depends on the Ref.

 

…I can, “Give a Fuck,” when there’s reasonable effort on the other side.

 

…Gunner!!!

 

…I can’t wait for the Winter Solstice, so that these days grow longer. I don’t want to bitch, but man, it sure gets Big-Dark this time of year. Just ask anyone.

 

…You’ve gotta love where you live for a reason. Same as who you love.

 

…Adult tantrums always remind us that we haven’t lost the “kid” in us.

 

…Our kids, and their kids, are really going to have a rough go. There’s no getting around that. I seriously hope they can make it.

 

…Property management—someone’s got to do it.

 

…Demon Copperhead blew my head off. All 500 pages of it.

 

…What we don’t need now is to be called for “Unnecessary Roughness.”

 

…“Time permitting,” I might even say what I really think.

 

…I don’t think there’s another marathon in my future.

 

…I think I got a lot of things wrong, and I’m sorry for that, but I really did try.

 

…I think I think too much, and sometimes, not enough.

 

…After everything is said and done, I still think you’re pretty wonderful.

 

…I think I just might delete this entire post.

 

—DO THAT TO ME ONE MORE TIME, ONCE IS NEVER ENOUGH

 

 

…That’s it, then. 

 

…But not really.

 

…“It’s so much better to be safe than sorry.”

 

…Why you gotta be so mean?

 

…So much to be thankful for.

 

…Friday, I’ll try not to hate you today. And also, just so you know, it’s never your fault. It’s always on me.

 

…It’s probably a good idea to remind yourself that happiness is free. And a choice.

 

…I can’t get out of my own way, which is saying something since I’m not much more than a shadow.

 

…You give up that easy, you just give up. And maybe that’s okay if  nothing really mattered to you.

 

…Exasperating isn’t the half of it.

 

…A 91-year-old can teach you almost everything you need to know about life.

 

…Be More Like Ray… I need to remember that.

 

…All these years later and I’m still looking for answers that I’m pretty sure I’ll never find.

 

…Never thought I’d have an old person’s penmanship, but, well…

 

…I remember working really hard on my handwriting as a kid. I also remember, in 7^th grade, Mr. Weir asking me, in front of the entire class, why I wrote like a girl.

 

…When you’re slapped so hard your nose bleeds is when you know you’ve really been slapped the right way.

 

…It’s amazing the difference a $100 bill can make.

 

…Most surprises aren’t good ones, so, I’m not a fan of them.

 

…I keep getting more and more introverted. Eventually, I might even stop talking to myself.

 

…“These aren’t adult choices we’re talking about.”

 

…I saw the skinniest person I’ve ever seen in real life and, to be honest, I was just a little bit jealous.

 

…I’m pretty sure I was over-served yesterday, and the day before that.

 

…It’s been a couple of weeks since I mentioned how much I miss Lucy, so…

 

…It feels pretty good to pray without any expectations whatsoever. Just to pray, or talk, or whatever you want to call it. 

 

…Hey, if you want to be that way, go for it. Good luck, Chuck.

 

…When I grow up, I want nothing more than to be a teacher.

 

…My watch just told me I have “no events today.” Shocker. It also told me to get up off my ass. Again: Shocker.

 

…It’s hard to abide people who aren’t aware of how loud they talk when in close proximity to others.

 

…Doesn’t everyone want to see an actual ending?

 

…I could hide behind this hair again, but it’d still be thin and grey.

 

…Bulimia isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but then again, steroids aren’t either.

 

…Sometimes you gotta laugh, or else you’re gonna die trying.

 

--Was she cuter than shit? Because I‘m pretty sure she was cuter than shit?

--Dude, she was actually cuter than shit.

 

…Be careful about what you miss too much.

 

…I’m no longer sure I believe any of it, but that’s fiction for you.

 

…I’m definitely writing a story with “bunny” in it somewhere tomorrow. So, there’s that.

 

…I’m too low for zero.

 

 --YOU SCREAMED AT THE MAKE-BELIEVE, YOU SCREAMED AT THE SKY

 

 

Animal Planet

 

 

When The She Wolf got hungry or excitable, it was best to become mist if you could, a vapor, or some floating thing aiming for escape in any sliver or crevice.

If The Bear was there, tomorrow had already become a blackout fantasy, an exit ramp closed off with lights flashing like burst blood corpuscles.

Bear did The She Wolf’s handiwork, red spatter be damned. He was a cuckholded robot wearing fur and donning all kinds of odd torture implements. His favorite thing to say seemed to be, “It’s your turn.”

Sis and I, twins, at eleven years, had the same vision of our future, though for laughs, we took turns guessing which of us would live longest, or wouldn’t.

The She Wolf had a new plan to get more rodents, something called Fostering. She told us in the kitchen right before The Bear shot an arrow through the window above the kitchen sink stuffed full of stink. The glass shards went tapdancing across the pus-colored Linoleum. In a way, it sounded like applause, and so I did the only thing that came to mind—I stood up and clapped, never once looking over at Sis.

—AND IF THE MUSIC AIN’T GOOD, WELL, IT’S JUST TOO BAD, WE’RE GONNA SING ALONG, NO MATTER WHAT

 

 

String Bean 

 

 

At dinner, annoyed as hell again, his third wife said, “For God’s sake, they’re just fucking string beans. I didn’t even use oil. Can you at least eat one, make me happy for once?”

He was a human coat rack, made of flesh and blood, though it rarely felt that way. Normally it seemed as if he was the one hanging.

His third wife flung her napkin and flew from the table herself, saying, “I’m so tired of this shit, your never eating.”

He was tired of it, too. So exasperated by the ghosts slinking through his bones all these many years.

 

Her name was Jenna. The name reminded him of jelly, grape or strawberry with too much juice and sugar. They sat together at lunch that day as the squall of other students chattering filled the hollow.

Then David Davies hopped by, said, “Why are you with that fat fuck? Do you have eyes?”

She opened hers then, and he did as well.

—LOOKING OVERDRESSED, WEARING BUCKETS OF CHEAP COLOGNE

 

 

Wide Out

 

And then one Sunday morning, a week or so after Gordie’s mom died from that freakish spot blotted out like a stain on her calf, Gordie’s dad fed us beer after beer.

We were boys, almost men, but had another and another until the trailer park resembled a carnival, everything lit up like tragic magic. Even the pigs were singing.

Bent Schlitz cans dropped around the shag like hollow secrets no one was going to bother figuring out. The ghost of Gordie’s mom might have been hunched on the end of the couch, but, coward that I was, I kept looking away, staring at a soiled drape, noticing how it resembled a poor girl’s filthy and torn blouse.

At one point, Gordie’s dad yawned wide as the Milky Way and asked, “You boys are fags, right?” his jaw moving side to side like a Guernsey chewing cud.

I waited for Gordie. I waited some more. I waited for the world to end and reopen, but it didn’t.

“Fuck you, Dad,” Gordie said, and when his dad laughed back, in that slow white trash chuckle that sounds like kindling losing the fire war, we laughed with him, guts out. Wide out.

 

—WHY THE FROST IN THE SUMMER TIME?

 

 

Wisdom Teeth

 

 

My dentist seemed to like my fillings too much, fondling my back molars as if they were nipples, or else the subtle toes of a newborn.

I tried to speak, but the drugs were just kicking in and his hands were in my mouth, all pliant and busy, and besides, I wouldn’t have known what to say.

When I awoke from the surgery, my dentist grinned at me with a sad clown smile, yet satisfied, like my dead father.

“How’d that feel?” he asked, as if everything was on the line.

When I replied, (…), he said, “That’s better.” Then, “Take two of these each hour for the first few days, until the swelling goes down.”

 —DON’T HAVE THE POWER BUT WE NEVER SAY NEVER

 

…I’m not squeezing, I’m just holding on.

 

…Sometimes these things are not accidents. I’m almost sure of it.

 

…Time well-spent—isn’t that the whole point of life?

 

…Friends and family is not an exact science. The laws of physics are awfully tricky.

 

…Being great, in whichever way you measure it, almost always begins with listening better.

 

…My shoes are gone, my life spent…

 

 …Sign seen in the kitchen of The Bear: 

"EVERY SECOND COUNTS. "

Oh, yeah.

 

… Just so you know, in case you didn’t…

Former President Trump is facing 91 felony counts in four criminal cases. He was impeached twice and left office under ignominious circumstances after his supporters violently stormed the Capitol, egged on by his claims of a stolen election. Many of his former top advisers have turned into ardent critics. And yet, several polls released in the past few weeks, including one on Sunday by NBC News, show him leading President Biden in battleground states and nationally in a hypothetical rematch in 2024.

 

…The real crux of the matter might be the one you haven’t heard, or seen. yet.

 

…Who knows? Who really knows anything? Other than, God, I mean.

 

…Unspeakable things can be survived. Or so I’ve been told. “They can. And sometimes there might just be joy on the other side.”

 

…“I’m going to make life a little more challenging for you.”

 

…Wonder when I’ll run out of tears.

 

…Wonder when I won’t be able to put up Christmas again.

 

…Wonder when…

…The truth is, nobody likes a whiner.

 

…It’s easy to become careless when you make rough comparisons.

 

…“Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a difference. They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough.”

 

...“We all look pretty much the same when we’re puking in the gutter.”

 

…“Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page.”

 

…“Life isn’t a support-system for art. It’s the other way around.”—Stephen King  

 

…I know I know I know…I wonder too much.

 

…There are very valid reasons why the impossible is impossible, but hey, Schecky.

 

…What’s a wee-bit sad is when you want someone to feel something, to feel it in the same heart-bending way you do, but they don’t.

 

…We’re all different, but when someone says, “I hear you,” or “I can see it,” we don’t seem so different in that moment.

 

…“Way to start strong.”

 

…I don’t trust the sidewalk to tell me where I’m going, same as I don’t trust the weatherman.

 

…I have a rolodex of fears. The numbers are all blacked out by Sharpies, but it’s still there.

 

…I trust you more than I trust myself, and I’m not sure if that’s wise.

 

…It’s hard to lose someone you trust so much.

 

…Do you ever think about purpose, like, What’s my purpose in life?

 

…“If this isn’t fun for you, then what is fucking fun?” The Bear

 

…I was never really sure if anybody was listening.

 

…Some days it looks like November without an exit strategy. Some days it looks like December with its jaws wide open.

 

…Okay, check. So, life is still good. Yep. I know it doesn’t necessarily sound like it, but it is.

 

…Pretty sure you got yourself a Skin.

 

…The videos and songs for “Forever Young,” by Youth Group, and “Nightswimming,” by REM always make me weep, though I’m not quite sure why.

 

…When love becomes suspect, there’s a real problem in the air.

 

…Just get paid.

 

…Bitch, where’s my mfn lime?...

 

…Old man, look at my life. I’m a lot like you were.

 

…The lesser of two evils is still evil. 

 

…I was so shaky on Thanksgiving (Saturday here). that I had to use two hands to hold a drink to my lips, and still there was spillage. 

 

…If you buy my book, that means something. It means quite a lot.

 

…Isn’t it something, crying at the tip of a hat, just like like him, just like my dad?

 

…Sooner or later they’ll all be gone.