—I DON’T WANT TO BE ME TODAY

 

 

You Have No New Messages

 

At the Grief Center we share everything, including our spleens and leftover spinal fluid because we’ve learned how to step outside of our distress and exoskeletons. One person offers up her waist-down bones stuffed in a burlap sack. “They can’t control me any longer,” he says, claiming Imposter Syndrome. Another uncovers a silver room service dome, saying, “See, he really did steal my heart,” blood popping hot in the center of our ill-formed circle. The instructor huffs on his air-filled pipe, rolling his hand like a wave or propeller, More, More. Let’s hear more. The dead child, who is a ghost, hovers like a constipated cherub with nothing to divulge, occasionally dropping scat. Someone’s cell pings, then someone else’s, until the instructor relents and rolls his propeller hand again, Go ahead. Take it. Maybe it’s important. At last, a new ghost child enters late, every head turning, then applauding as if it’s the messiah, that toddler holding the steering wheel her mother was gripping when she drove them all off the bridge.

 

—GUESS WHO’S BACK?

 

Right There Right Now

 

   (after Bailey Kuntz)

 

I tried to 

drown with you 

to see what’s

under that cryptic swell

your siren breasts 

pert and gleaming

intoxicating like an 

invitation to a snuff film 

kept under lock and key

I floated from the ceiling 

clinging for a foothold

mountainside chips 

ricocheting in the maw

while you or I filled 

refilled emptied and refilled 

the cemetery plot

like a mercenary 

with an unquenchable 

thirst for slaughter

The fires I used to set  

were once meant for me 

yet as I watched 

the flames flicker 

and smolder this time around

I floated down 

stood up 

and 

let the sun 

hit my face 

square as a slap 

impertinent deliverance 

and damn 

God damn

I’m telling you now

I danced

a jig or twelve

right there 

right then

loved lucky and learning

how to really 

be alive

  

—HELLO, SHAKY WEDNESDAY

 

                                              The Swimming Pool

 

We are stick figures now.  Damp matches.  Raggedy Ann and Andy.

But nobody knows.

When the kids call, we marry our fictile voices.  Find excuses for lack of laughter.  Paint our days in Technicolor.  

If one of them asks, we shade the edges.  Haze meaning.  Throw tarps over the residual debris. 

If the other asks, we wrap ourselves in ropes of gleaming tinsel.  Attach a bow.  Say, “See?  Everything is shiny here.”

This morning, I study the empty pool.  Its moss and leaf-clogged drain.  Corroded step ladder.  Flaccid diving board.  

A stench comes off it.  So strong, that even the rats avoid it.

Through the barren trees, a diffident sun struggles to yawn.  Reluctant to rise.  As if it’s like us, and doesn’t want to face the truth.

A squirrel scurries by.  Stops to pick up what looks like a spent Band-Aid.  Flaps it at me.  Flings it in the shallow end while chittering like a cartoon.

Upstairs you are putting on a bathing suit.  Applying suntan lotion.  Taking a towel from the rack, as oblivious as a broken mirror.

The wind swirls shawls of dust and pine needles when you show up.  Older, but still beautiful.  Still defiant.

You look my way.  Smile.  Curtsey.  Smile.  Smile.

You dip your toe in the deep end.  Adjust your swim cap.  Adjust your nose plugs.  Take a huge breath.

I watch you float through the air.  Diving in slow-motion.  Arms outstretched.  Palms pressed together.  As if in prayer.

Seated on a lawn chair, I mimic your hands.  Bow my head.  Say, “Amen.”  So be it.

 

   

—KEEP IT UP AND GO ON

 

A Mouse Life 

 

The day I turn into a mouse, everything that came before disappears.  

So I scurry. I pause to smooth my whiskers. I pant just a little bit, wondering what to make of the world.  

There’s a peephole straight ahead, small as a shirt button, but I manage to squeeze my exoskeleton through it, as if I’m made of shapeless glue.  

On the other side there’s a family. A party going on. A boy at the end of the table leans over a cake littered with nine candles, blowing their flames to gray wisps as he makes his wish.  

At the other end is a woman, a mother maybe, who smokes a stick, blows a broken halo that breaks apart further once it hits the ceiling and dissolves into the spackling. 

That could mean something. 

Maybe there are cheers. Maybe there’s a future for him, this boy. It’s hard to understand or predict anything reasonably when you’re a mouse and everything else looms so large, while the clock on the wall stands still, petrified, =waiting for something to happen.   

 

—MAYBE I’M NOT CUT OUT FOR THIS

 

 

…Even when you play bad, there’s not much better than playing puck with your kid, especially on National Shuffleboard Day. 

 

--L___:              “So, John’s not here this year...”

--Everybody:    “Yay!!!

 

…Sometimes I just want to win at anything, something.

 

…Sometimes it’s an impossible choice.

 

…I mean, but what can you really do?

 

…7am, I’m waking up, guess that I should have kept the curtains shut.

 

…What do you do when no one believes you when you finally ask for help?

 

…That’s a hard act to follow and I doubt anyone will be following.

 

…I keep wanting to call it quits.

 

…Good day sun, Good day sunshine!

 

…Yeah, you, too.

 

…“Have you ever been diagnosed?”

 

…I’ve been telling you I’m okay for a while, but then I’ve gotten pretty good at telling people what they need to hear.

 

…You smell like old times, if I could smell that.

 

…“Didn’t anyone tell you, the real monsters aren’t the ones under you’re bed.” Eric

 

…Sometimes it’s just something you say and other times you really mean it.

 

…Just being honest doesn’t always get you into the club.

 

…Never write, or say LOL, and never make a heart with your fingers. Like never. 

 

…“You got a lost boy to find. Who else is going to do it?” Eric

 

…It’s incredibly easy to get annoyed with someone can’t live without, and yet, it still happens on occasion.

 

…I just don’t know anymore.

 

… “I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over.” F. Scott Fitzgerald

 

…It’s something to hate the favorite, but someone’s gotta root for the underdog.

Go Cougs!!

 

…Would you rather be wrong, than lose? I’d rather be wrong every time.

 

…Will it matter when we all turn into ash?

 

…It doesn’t take much for bad thoughts to grow wings.

 

…All those half-folded pieces of paper with scribbles on them? They’re the story of my life.

 

…I ain’t lyin,’ I would die for ya.

 

…One thing I’ve learned is you can’t use your bullets too quickly.

 

…I’m healthier, and so are you, so that much is good, right?

 

…Well, that’s probably a fair question.

 

…The time to really watch it is when everyone thinks you have it all together.

 

…Sometimes I think and think and think, and then I remind myself not to over-think it.

 

…It isn’t so bad, if you think about it.

 

…What if I’m hopeless and dependent once again?

 

…YOU APPEARED IN 47 SEARCHES THIS WEEK

 

…Whatever I do, I can’t seem to forget what I want to forget. 

 

…It’s not like I mess up and don’t deserve it.

 

…I’m quiet like that last “e” in silence.

 

…When I’m out with someone now, I always try to capture a photograph. Sometimes they (the person I’m with) act surly about it, but I don’t care. Afterward I’ll have that moment forever, and so will they.

 

…‘Good luck with that,’ whispered the dead.” Sarah Manguso

 

…“If I could stop,” said every addict ever.

 

…What I’m told and what I believe always seem to have a hard time co-existing.

 

…Everything that’s ever happen has left its little wound.

 

…“You know that place between sleep and awake, the place you can still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you. That’s where I’ll be waiting.” J.M. Barrie

 

…Whatever you think happened, it was ten times worse.

 

…I think I’ve figured it out—be less excited about things.

 

…“I much prefer people who just showed up . . . and found their own way without any particular itinerary, who left themselves open to things happening, to mistakes… because that’s the most important part of travel.” Anthony Bourdain

 

…There’s a very slim chance you’ll remember this, but I’ll say it anyway; I love you.

 

…If we put this into context, no one would believe it.

 

…Good God, here we go again.

  

—SIGN, SIGN, EVERYWHERE A SIGN                           

                                    

                                             The Repairman

 

         Both fathers—step and biological—were mechanics, could tear apart an engine and put it back together blindfolded.  Both smelled like axel grease and soap that was sharp but not strong enough to disintegrate the oil stains beneath their cuticles, their fingertips which would rub my cheek and pinch my neck when they’d say, “You’re gonna be someone someday, I know it.”  And here I am, a surgeon.  Inside opened-up chests, I put down my hands and I hold my weapons.  I can fix everyone else’s heart, it seems, but my own.

 

 

—SMILE LIKE YOU MEAN IT

                                                      Soup

         It’s not the only thing she possesses, this crust of bread in her hand, but it feels as if it is.  The girl holds it like an apple or a snow globe needing to be shaken, like a magic cue ball filled with inky black liquid ready to grant blunt answers to your questions.  She scrunches the bread and watches crumbs sprinkle her shoes with a dozen tawny-colored freckles.  Her mother asks what’s wrong with her, is she nuts?  Her mother thinks she is, and her mother might be right.

         The girl is dizzy and confused most of the time.

         She has no name or she takes the name they give her if they want her to have one.  She has been Amy, Mandy, Little Sue, Big Red, Tokyo Rose, Momma, Mrs. Schweitzer, Beth.

         The girl has exactly two mix-and-match outfits, but she has clean underwear: white with red lace and different sized lady bugs.  She hates that pair because the insects sometimes come to life and crawl around her private parts and when she scratches she gets screamed at and made fun of or called crazy.

         Yes, now that she thinks of it, the girl is certain that she is insane.

The girl is thin, bony.  She can count her ribs without stretching or sucking in her belly because she has no belly.

“All this talk of food is overrated,” her mother says.  “Same as television.  Same as Obama.”

The girl’s favorite part about this is watching the cars go by, imagining what the automobiles smell like inside, what the people are discussing and thinking, the song on the radio, or maybe it’s a smart person talking about wars overseas.  The inside of a car is like being inside a hut, a tent.  You can tell secrets there, or ghost stories.  You can snore if you want to because it’ll only be the bears that hear.

Usually there are three men a day.  On occasion there are three at once.  One time there was a line stretching around the alley and the girl did what she had to do but while she did it she looked at the column of paying customers, their faces eaten away by shame, their steaming eyes and sweaty mouths the only signal they were alive.  The scene reminded her of a photograph she’d seen from olden days when it was in fashion to dress formal and wear hats, and in the picture she recalls that most of these men were looking for employment but some were merely seeking soup, sustenance, something warm to fill their bellies.

She is slender and skinny.  She wonders: If I can get thin enough, can I be soup?

There is no business to be had on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so they go to see her mother’s boyfriend, James who works at the store called Video & Pawn.  She has to wait outside.  She doesn’t mind.  The air stinks of fresh vomit and baby diapers but it smells worse in Video & Pawn.

The girl looks at the sky.  It’s as gray as a donkey, yet one disintegrating cloud limps along.  She fixes it in her mind, adds a few appendages, and then the cloud becomes a kangaroo and it bounces away from here, on its way back to Australia or perhaps heaven.

Inside the store a television show plays.  The actress is her age only she’s beautiful, so gorgeous and clean, with berry-colored lipstick and shimmering skin.  But the actress wags her finger the same way the girl’s mother does.  The actress’s mouth moves so quickly the girl thinks it must be a trick or fast motion.  The actress has had it.  She’s fed up.  Her boyfriend isn’t good enough for her.  She deserves better.

The girl hears all this or imagines she does.

The actress slaps the boy and shoves him down on the couch and runs out the door, slamming it so hard the screen shakes.

The boy actor starts to cry.

The girl has never seen a male person cry.

She leans forward, and even though the glass is smudged and dusted with dirt and grime, she closes her eyes and presses her lips to the glass.  She holds steady and strong.  Men have put their lips on hers before, but until now she’s never really been kissed.

 —I WANNA NEW DRUG

  

…Good morning, Midnight. Goodbye, Thursday, thank God.

 

…Well, it’s been a whole week and I somehow survived yet another Draft Day. That’s Sunday Lease above, an incredibly sweet woman who recently suffered a stroke. Her husband, Mike, began the fantasy league almost 50 years ago and sadly, he passed away seven years prior. We’re all still soldiering on, if that’s what you call it, on his behalf.

 

…Actually, how patient am I supposed to be?

 

…“One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.” I sure hope that’s true.

 

…The good news is I never have to buy another piece of clothing as long as I live.

 

…This time feels like forever.

 

...It feels better feeling lighter.

 

…I’m not sure why I care more about a 70-calorie pudding versus a 120-calorie pudding, yet I do.

 

…Everything feels like a contest that I’m not participating in.

 

...24 hours in a day. No more. No less. Or so I’ve been told.

 

…It’s pretty incredible, remarkable really, to have a friend like that, after all this time. And damn, I do feel lucky.

 

…There’s something to be said for those who expect nothing yet seem somehow happier than the rest of us.

 

…It’s a luxury and a sin to waste time, yet I do it all the time.

 

…If someone close to you makes you second-guess yourself every time, well, maybe that’s an answer you haven’t been looking for or can’t see.

 

…When you get an email with the subject line reading “Epic Fail,” well, you pay close attention and maybe even say a prayer or two.

 

…“The Smiths” are like that friend you care about but aren’t sure if you want to take it further. 

 

…Everybody’s misunderstood by somebody else, but you took it to another level.

 

…“Fall Risk” would actually make a good band name.

 

…In my heart there’s a holy ghost writhing on the floor from an overdose.  

 

…The times I should have known better are endless.

 

…“There’s millions of people who say how I should be.”

 

…I guess I didn’t want to hear what I didn’t want to hear.

 

…What do six books mean? I’m so grateful, but that’s what I’m trying to figure out.

 

…Apparently there is nothing new under the sun.

 

…If I could eavesdrop on everyone without them knowing it, I surely would, though I don’t think I’d want to hear smack-talk about myself. I know it happens, but it might change how I feel about someone who’s supposed to be close to me, have my back.

 

…Starting from scratch sounds pretty simple, but it’s anything but that.

 

…Maybe I was trying to make you think, or else make myself think.

 

…“Nice guys finish last.” I’m afraid that may be all but true. 

 

…“I wanted to remember what I could bear to remember and convince myself it was all there.” Sarah Manguso

 

…“I want to live forever, and watch you dancing in the air…”

 

…I wonder what other people need, and if it’s enough.

 

…I could be a voyeur my whole life and be happy. I’m just so curious about other people’s lives.

 

…Too much of everything is a privileged and strange problem to have, but it’s a problem nonetheless.

 

…When someone says they don’t care is why you should pull up your trousers and pay better attention.

 

…“Who cares?” Isn’t that it? But maybe it’s not.

 

…Therapy is there for a reason.

 

...If you can’t tell your therapist, there’s your issue.

 

…I hope I’m enough, and you agree.

 

…You figure so much stuff out by yourself, it’s no wonder you don’t think you can’t make sense of it all that way.

 

…And the lies and make-believe, the very things that one day leave.

 

…“What’s a best friend?” That’s something I’ve asked myself a lot lately.

 

…What hurts, what’s frustrating and confusing, is when you don’t know the best way to help.

 

…A guy who shoots a deer dead for sport—I don’t think I can look at that guy without a boatload of judgment on my behalf.

 

…Did I mention that deer are my second favorite animal? 

 

…If you listen, but never hold on, what’s the point?

 

…Strike one and strike two, I guess we’re both out.

 

…I wish I knew the guy that had 250 pieces published in one year a long time ago. I think we might have some things to talk about.

 

…I think I could be good at that, if you’d just show me what it means and what you want.

 

…“Why won’t you give up this imaginary problem?... Sarah Manguso

 

…Maybe it’s better this way for us.

 

…It’s not as easy as people think.

 

…Honesty is easier said than done.

 

…If we put it all into context, no one would believe it.

 

…Sometimes it’s an impossible choice.

 

…Just being honest doesn’t always get you into the club.

 

...That was a pretty steady beat, but you didn’t even notice.

 

…You can’t make sense of what you don’t understand, but it can still make you feel something.

 

…I can honestly say I’m not sure what I have to offer.

 

…“Who Cares?” What a great album, and great question.

 

…It’s funny, the little things that make you miss a person.

 

“It was a failure of imagination that kept making me leave people.  All I could see in the world were beginnings and endings: moments to survive, record, and, once recorded, safely forget.” Sarah Manguso

 

…“I knew I was getting somewhere when I began losing interest in the beginning and ends of things.” Sarah Manguso

 

...A lot of times I think, “Who in the fuck built this house?” Then I think, “Oh, yeah that’s right.”

 

…It’s hard to stay sober. Really hard. I listen to myself now and I think I’m the last person I’d like to be listening to.

 

…I went for a morning walk, my ritual now, and saw a deer chomping away on some plants. She looked at me like she knew me. We had a short discussion, then I walked on by and she keep eating. I wondered what she made of that.

 

…About their birthday, after I asked them how it was, they said, “I was just feeling grateful to be alive.” That sounds really trite, but what a statement.

 

…A lot of people just want to have fun, and I don’t negate that. I just want to feel something, and if it’s fun or not, or if it’s a shock, I’ll bear it if I can.

 

…I keep reminding people that this is my space. Convoluted or not, it’s me in the raw, and you can’t change it. 

 

…All my memories, packed away so no one can ever find them.

 

…Am I a better person that way, funnier, more likeable? Probably. And that sucks a lot.

 

…I wonder what the world would be like if everyone told the truth all of the time.

 

…I wonder what the world would look like if everyone took John’s advice to me: “For 60 seconds, twice a day, tell someone how important they are to you, and why.”

 

…And, yeah, not a day goes by that I don’t think about him.

 

…There are two ways this story can go and you get to pick which one.

 

…“Say something?”

 

…There we go. Good job.

 

…Maybe I’m the new Truman Capote.

 

...Patience is something I’ve never been able to grasp, but I get the idea of it.

 

…Maybe we could try this again. What do you think?

 

…Stay Golden.

 

—IF I TREATED YOU MEAN, I DIDN’T REALLY MEAN TO

 

Show Me a Hero

 

A teenager on the bus in the aisle seat next to me has a jackknife that he keeps flicking open and closed, open and closed, like a heartbeat or tinny metronome and my pulse has picked up since he started this.  I don’t want to stare so I steal peripheral glances.  The blade is five inches long with a sharp tip.  No other passengers seem to notice.  They all wear ear buds and are busy tapping on their phones.

I read in the news last week that in the Middle East there are posters on telephone poles with the title HOW TO STAB A JEW and then instructions below it.  I’m not Jewish, but I sort of look like I could be, and I wonder if this guy has read the same article.  I can’t really see his expression unless I look at him full on and I’m not about to do that as he may think I’m taunting him.

I consider getting up and reporting him to the bus driver but that could get me stabbed in the leg or back.  I’m not paranoid, but hey, this kid has a switchblade.  I’m not paranoid but I’ve been called a coward before by all kinds of people—my boss, my dad, my wife when she left me.  It doesn’t seem to me that I’ve had a lot of chances in life to be a hero and I don’t really know what a hero is anyway.  LeBron James is supposedly a hero.  A lot of people claim Kayne West is their hero, Kim Kardashian and Bernie Sanders, too.

But I get it; this is a chance to do something on the heroic level.  I could try to swipe the knife out the guy’s hand, ask him to put it away, take him down somehow, though that would be awkward given that we’re seated, and likely there would be blood spilled by one, if not both, of us.

I’m thinking all this when a young girl, maybe five or six, comes up the aisle from the back and stops.  “Is that a toy?” she asks.  

The teenager smiles.  He has a nice smile actually, authentic looking.  “Nah,” he says.

“Then why’re you playing with it?”

“I’m not anymore,” the teenager says, stashing the switchblade in his coat pocket.

At home that night I tell my new wife about what happened only I give her a different story where there was a struggle and I pinned the teenager on the ground while our fellow passengers cheered me on.  I tell her I held him there till the cops came and how the rowdy applause was like something out of an Itzhak Perlman concert.

I’ve never seen her so happy, not even the night I proposed.  

She says, “I knew it.”

I ask, “Knew what?”

She takes my hand, kisses my knuckles, and says, “Meet me in the bedroom.”

During our love-making I can’t help it but I keep thinking about people who may or may not be heroes.  It’s a quagmire of questionable candidates.  Five minutes in I’m flaccid.  That’s never happened to me before.

“It’s okay,” my wife says.  

“No, it’s not,” I say.

She rolls over, turns of the night stand light and tells me, “It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”