—UNTRUE, UNKIND, AND UNNATURAL

 

 

Sometimes

 

Sometimes you just wanna die, but not like literally.

Sometimes the lake is all too still and nothing’s jumping, not even fish, while your friends remain distracted by their life, and so you think about a blade cut to the wrist, how that will work out, a crimson river flowing freely.

Sometimes there’s no one else around to scold you, to hold you, if that is even a thing.

Sometimes it’s just best to sleep, even if the sun is a beam boiling your afternoon eyes into glue.

Sometimes it’s enough to simply smile at the folly of it all, when the phone’s not ringing, and there’s no one there, no one saying, “I love you. I miss you. Please tell me you’re okay. Okay?”

 

—WELL, THAT’S A BLEAK SUNRISE

  

… It’s really boring to be in a room with somebody who you agree with about everything. Who wants to be friends with somebody who’s just like you?” Anthony Bourdain

…“To sit alone or with a few friends, half-drunk under a full moon, you just understand how lucky you are; it’s a story you can’t tell. It’s a story you almost by definition, can’t share. I’ve learned in real time to look at those things and realize: I just had a really good moment.” Anthony Bourdain

  

…“Why do I read?

I just can't help myself.

I read to learn and to grow, to laugh

and to be motivated.

I read to understand things I've never

been exposed to.

I read when I'm crabby, when I've just

said monumentally dumb things to the

people I love.

I read for strength to help me when I

feel broken, discouraged, and afraid.

I read when I'm angry at the whole

world.

I read when everything is going right.

I read to find hope.

I read because I'm made up not just of

skin and bones, of sights, feelings,

and a deep need for chocolate, but I'm

also made up of words.

Words describe my thoughts and what's

hidden in my heart.

Words are alive--when I've found a

story that I love, I read it again and

again, like playing a favorite song

over and over.

Reading isn't passive--I enter the

story with the characters, breathe

their air, feel their frustrations,

scream at them to stop when they're

about to do something stupid, cry with

them, laugh with them.

Reading for me, is spending time with a

friend.

A book is a friend.

You can never have too many.”

--Gary Paulsen

 

…“Where does all of our love go, when we once held it beating in our hand?” Paul Lynch, Prophet Song”

 

“Panicking by yourself is the same as laughing alone in an empty room. You feel really silly.” Chuck Palahniuk

 

…“It's possible, in a poem or short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things—a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman's earring—with immense, even startling power.” Raymond Carver

 

… When somebody's offering you food, they're telling you a story. They're telling you what they like, who they are. Presumably, it's a proud reflection of their culture, their history, often a very tough history. You turn your nose up at that important moment, the whole relationship changes, and it will never be the same.”

–Anthony Bourdain

 

…“Tell every terrible thing you’ve ever done, and let me love you anyway.” Edgar Allen Poe

 

…“The vacation gone wrong in Paris is almost always because people try to do too many things. Most of us are lucky to see Paris once in a lifetime. Please, make the most of it by doing as little as possible. Walk a little. Get lost a bit. Eat. Catch a breakfast buzz. Have a nap. Try and have sex if you can, just not with a mime. Eat again. Lounge around drinking coffee. Maybe read a book. Drink some wine. Eat. Repeat. See? It's easy.”

–Anthony Bourdain

 

… “Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.” Mary Oliver

 

…“In the end, we all become stories.” Margaret Atwood

 

…God only knows, where this thing could go.

 

… “The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.” Frank Lloyd Wright

 

…“To write is to be eaten. To read, to be full.”  Natalie Díaz

 

…Joan Kwon Glass

Garland-Eating Hungry Ghosts 食鬘鬼   摩羅婆叉

How many calories 

are there in a flower? 

If I tear a chain of marigolds 

into tiny pieces will I 

feel full faster?

Now that I’m dead

do carbs count 

less? How do I

decide how much 

to eat now 

that no one 

can see me?

How do I measure 

my progress when I weigh

less than an ounce?

How many flowers

equal one brownie

in fat grams?

Where does yellow go

when we have crushed

all of the petals

between our teeth?

 

…“Sometimes you risk everything for a life worth living, even if you're not the one that'll be alive to see it.”  Cherie Dimaline

 

…“We meet saints everywhere. They can be anywhere. They are people behaving decently in an indecent society.” Kurt Vonnegut

 

…Ham on Rye, Chapter 37

 

“Then it was head to head, no boxing. 

His punches came hard and fast. 

He was more accurate, had more power, yet I was landing some hard shots too and it made me feel good. 

The more he hit me the less I felt. 

I had my gut sucked in, I liked the action. Then Gene and Dan were between us. 

They pulled us apart. 

"What’s wrong?" I asked. "Don't stop this thing! I can take him!"

"Cut the shit, Hank," said Gene. "Look at yourself."

--Charles Bukowski

 

…“Who wouldn’t travel, if they could? It’s unthinkable to me. Who wouldn’t want to enjoy different, new sensations, especially when the world is filled with so much great stuff? I like new things. I like to feel good. I like learning about stuff. It makes me happy. I like being wrong about stuff.” Anthony Bourdain

   

—FLY ME TO THE MOON

 

Milky Way

 

 

Middle 5^th grade. Mrs. Marshall, with her witch’s gray-black hair and glue-colored face, tells me to stay after.

My classmates, none of whom I’ve ever spoken to, shuffle out while taking turns, looking back at me with a mixture of curiosity, pity and disgust.

Mrs. Marshall sits on the edge of the desk, her hands flat matts, fingers gripping the edge. She looks me over as if I’m something to be sold, or ignored altogether.

“Mr. Kuntz, is it? Len?”

I nod, suddenly having to urinate.

“You don’t like science, do you?”

“I—”
“Just tell the truth.”

“No.”

Mrs. Marshall flings a finger in the air like a poison dart, pointing over my shoulder. “That on the projector there, on the screen, that’s The Milky Way.”

I look over my shoulder and take in the purple swirls with the yellow bellybutton center. 

“How does it make you feel when you look at it? Turn around and give it a close inspection, since you didn’t bother in class.”

I hadn’t really seen it before. I was too anxious, thinking of bedsheets.

“Well?”

“It’s, uh, uh, pretty.”

“It makes you feel pretty?” 

“No, I mean, not me.”

“What you’re looking at is 100,000 light years in diameter.”

I scrubbed hard prior to school, before dawn. I used the hottest water my bathroom sink could cough up. I scoured so hard my knuckles bled and are now raw and pink-tender.

“The Milky Way is nearly 14 billion years old. It contains about 200 billion stars.”

I figure Mrs. Marshall is fibbing about this last part. I’ve only seen twelve whole stars in my lifetime. Maybe she’s like Mother, a pathological liar.

“How does that make you feel?”

I hung my sheets on the low branch of an evergreen in the backyard behind our trailer. It was too dark to see if the stains were still there.

         “Mr. Kuntz, are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then?”

“I guess I feel confused.”

“It’s NOT confusing! It’s science.”

The bar of soap I use is worn down to a nub no bigger than a rabbit’s foot. It might be good for two more washings. 

“Does it make you feel small?”

Months ago, the trailer door chain came off its socket, and instead of the belt, that’s what Mother uses when I can’t control my body, when I should know better.

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“I feel small and tiny, like a spec of dirt on a picture,” I say, because that’s what Mrs. Marshall wants to hear, and because that’s how I feel every minute of every day. 

Mrs. Marshall starts to smile, but swallows it like a yawn she won’t let escape.

If I skip the bus and tear through Lemley’s field, I’ll have a chance to make it home before mother gets off work. From the last school bell, it’s a differential of fifty-three minutes. It’s tight, but I’ve done it before.

“Is everything okay at home, Len?” My name sounds distrustful in her voice, like a smiling adult who seems safe but wants to touch you too much.

“Yes,” I lie.

She clucks her tongue, rocks back and forth on the desk and then hops up into a standing position. I flinch involuntarily, thinking she is going to strike me. Instead, she looks down on me like an eagle about to snatch prey.

“You’ve nothing else to say?”

I shake my head, feeling a warm spray spread across my crotch.

“I want you to write a 500-word essay on The Milky Way tonight.”

I have the cows to milk and feed, the chickens, their coop to clean. But before any of that, I have the sheets.

“You’re not retarded, are you?”

I’ve been called that so many times, I often wonder.

“Okay, then I look forward to reading your paper tomorrow.” 

After Mrs. Marshall’s gone, I stare at the image of the galaxy.  It reminds me of a sink sucking down spools of holy water, or two dance partners where they twirl over the floor, so in love and in unison, it’s as if they’re pasted together for all time. 

Two kids, peering through the near-shut door, shoot a series of rubber bands, one nicking my nose. “Bullseye!”

I just want to sit here, talking to no one, trying not to let The Milky Way swallow me whole, while counting breaths, getting my legs and feet kick-started. This afternoon, I decide, when the last bell clangs, I will be the fastest man alive. I’ll run and run, and no one will ever catch me. 

—THEY DON’T LIKE ME WHEN I’M DOWN

 

 

…If you’re going through hell, at least act like you own the place.

 

...You’d be really comfortable here, maybe even astonished, and you’d gawk at the view, the lake, and all that has to offer, but after a few hours, you might see how it can be a prison, if one is not careful.

 

…I’m pretty good at faking it when I need to, which is a lot of the time.

 

...What I don’t need is another referral asking if I’m going to kill myself.

 

…And the times, they are a’changing. Ain’t that the truth?

 

...You’re lucky enough to get one great friend in life. Any more than that, well, it must be magic. I spent the first fourteen years of my life without a friend I could call, “Best.”

 

...Sometimes all it takes is Andy Gibb on an 8-track.

 

…I know this much—I’ve got to stop playing with my food and eat it.

 

…Actually, it’s nothing new. It’s been a long time coming.

 

 …There is a great lesson in running as fast as you can and not getting anywhere. 

 

…Sing when you want and give grace to what you can.

 

…“Touch me, remind me who I am…” Stanley Kunitz

 

…I’m not asleep, but that doesn’t mean I’m awake 

 

…I guess everyone feels a little off-kilter now and then.  Just ask my cerebellum. 

 

…I watched a crow tear off a nest from a tree and frantically stab at it, jutting its shoulders and working the center. I’m pretty sure he ate all of the eggs because when I went outside and got to it, there was just a torn-up nest and a few shells laying on the ground like turquoise flecks of dandruff. It made me a little sad, but then I thought, that’s nature taking its course. 

 

…When you need a friend, is when you find out if you really have one.

 

“Now I live here, another island,

that doesn’t seem like one, but who decides?

My blood was full of them; my brain

bred islands. But that archipelago

has petered out. I’m old.

I’m bored, too, drinking my real tea,

surrounded by uninteresting lumber.”

– Elizabeth Bishop

 

…Sometimes my thoughts are quiet and loud at the same time, but I keep on trying to breathe nonetheless.

 

…I have read my obituary for years now, and I still don’t understand what it all means.

 

…I’m going to have to write differently, think differently, and live differently.

 

…Sometimes what hurts you is also what you need.

 

…Maybe reasonable doubt is a state of mind, the only state of mind there really is. 

 

…It’s hard to forget the things that hurt you, but you can try.

 

…That guy on the boat, fishing, nestling up on the dock, if he gets any closer, he’ll be able to look up inside my nostrils, or my underwear.

 

…A starving person knows the price of food best.

 

…I don’t begrudge anyone from making money, but the first three reported salaries to come for CEO’s in 2023 are $14. Million, $36 million and $81 million. Sorry, but no human being needs to make $81 million in a single year. No way.

 

…It’s awfully hard to dance when you’re crying.

 

…Yeah, I see you, wine glass, smirking on the counter.

 

…If this is all there is, I’ll take it, as long as you’ll let me have it, that little bit of you.

 

…The problem with being a fan is the same as being a lover—your heart just gets stomped on, and most times there are no believable apologies.

 

…I walk each morning, and I watch the seconds tick off, and I think, Fuck that’s my life. And then it’s 30 minutes over. Thirty minutes of my life I’ll never get back.

 

…Hey, Bllll!!! Have a drink for me. And not a short one.

 

—AND I RAN, I RAN SO FAR AWAY 

 

https://www.mcneese.edu/thereview/2024/04/30/fences/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR28-7BEIg51IXyHNXt10YCH4vT3Ka_d_sO7QrBo0tJXPl9QQmI85jF_OtY_aem_ATyTm8DEbih6CFLEbvngJLuOYTLDOTRlZKjZwUNgGD9m3HVyG-d2Ad270BZEOOonok1emBB1F2GhKNxWHILLrudj

 

—I  DON’T LIKE SPIDERS AND SNAKES

 

Blackfin

 

I’m eating Capricorn 

and Sagittarius 

mouth full 

trying not to choke

trying to get my fill 

of romance and bullshit 

satisfied and sanctified

in a single setting 

because there’s nothing 

you can say to 

make me take back 

what you said 

or how you said it

what you did

with your alligator trap

long and wide as a

high-dive board

Words matter 

like the ocean does 

every tide is different 

but the waves all hold 

the same stitch of truth 

like a shelf of filthy flotsam 

bobbing on the surface

Even as a beaten child 

I knew that much 

how the swell 

looks astonishing 

from the golden

safety of the shore

as it slaps then wraps 

you into the undertow 

clenching your chest 

with a vice-grip tenacity 

while your dreams end up 

as air bubbles staggering 

through the liquid murk

slowly breaching the scrim 

where there’s finally sunshine 

a strand of consolation 

and a sprig of reluctant contrition 

 —KISSED MY HEAD AND SAID, “SEE YOU NEXT WEEK.”

 

 

Lamb

 

    I might not have understood it all when on our sixth date you said you were in a cult for four years that all you ate were figs kale and bruised papaya that the leader looked like Moses was called Moses and was never seen not wearing a billowy white robe unless he was fucking one of the girls and that you were his favorite starting at age fourteen staring toward the ceiling coked up on bliss and confusion your sense of reality glossed over by the constant flow of wine you were served how it made you stilted made you think in broken circles about the other world outside the one we’re in now seated at a café while you ask if you’re too defective and hideous if I could ever love a person like that if I’m not scared as hell or if I’m like all the others just wanting to fleece another lamb

—WE ALWAYS WANTED MONEY NOW THE MONEY’S NOT THE SAME

 

 

…“Writing, then, was a substitute for myself: if you don't love me, love my writing & love me for my writing. It is also much more: a way of ordering and reordering the chaos of experience.” Sylvia Plath

 

“Everything, I know dies, but this does not grieve me right now. Because at this moment everything is so brilliantly, almost ridiculously, alive.” Karen Friedland

 

… “It’s amazing what you find out about yourself when you write in the first person about someone very different from you.” Doris Lessing

 

…“At this point I think my body is like an old car. Another dent ain’t gonna make a whole lot of difference. At best it’s a reminder that you’re still alive and lucky as hell. Another tattoo, another thing you did, another place you’ve been.” Anthony Bourdain

 

…“We are always telling two stories about ourselves: the one about who we want to believe we are, and the one about who we know ourselves to be.” Steve Almond.

 

…“ She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice. It was supposed to make you feel something.” Ray Kay

 

… “Don't look for meaning in the words. Listen to the silences.”  Samuel Beckett

 

…“The past I never dead. It’s not even the past.” Faulkner

 

…“Art would be useless if the world were perfect.”  Andrei Tarkovsky

 

…“People confuse me. Food doesn't.” Anthony Bourdain

 

…“I have always loved a window, especially an open one.” Wendell Berry

 

…“ Go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.” Kurt Vonnegut 

 

…“Music: what so many sentences aspire to be.” Mary Oliver

 

… I wish I could do whatever I liked behind the curtain of “madness”. Then: I’d arrange flowers, all day long, I’d paint; pain, love and tenderness, I would laugh as much as I feel like at the stupidity of others, and they would all say: “Poor thing, she’s crazy!” (Above all I would laugh at my own stupidity.) I would build my world which while I lived, would be in agreement with all the worlds. The day, or the hour, or the minute that I lived would be mine and everyone else’s - my madness would not be an escape from “reality.”—Frida Kahlo

 

…“I think I am probably in love with silence, that other world. And that I write, in some way, to negotiate seriously with it.”  Jorie Graham

 

…”Perhaps wisdom. . . is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.” Anthony Bourdain

 

… "I made a wish on a sliver of moonlight, a sly grin, and a bowl full of stars." Tom Waits, Lucinda

 

…“The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love - whether we call it friendship or family or romance - is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other's light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for another.” James Baldwin

 

… “Look at the birds. Even flying

is born

out of nothing. The first sky

is inside you, open

at either end of day.

The work of wings

was always freedom, fastening

one heart to every falling thing.

– Li-Young Lee

 

…“Isn’t it funny to imagine hope not much more than a toddler, wielding rage in its fist like a cudgel?” Dianne Seuss