--I LOVE EVERYTHING YOU’VE DONE FOR ME

…I’ve gotten back on the submission wagon finally and have come into some good fortune having published close to thirty pieces so far.  Here are a few recent ones:

https://peekingcatpoetry.co.uk/len-kuntz?fbclid=IwAR3fRthXn4Y4mPk6OGM_ghby09kohr_MiPv3OlAfgi4jqOSuLesqI9Sr3ZQ

https://fictivedream.com/2016/11/22/boots/?fbclid=IwAR0_6FRslGqFPYy7C3FdQNt-nVXH8mrFIAnz9_Tn1gQSD-s-DBk_483d1uA

https://literallystories2014.com/2019/04/24/i-was-a-roulette-wheel-by-len-kuntz/?fbclid=IwAR2JF2JcMPIiFm_NPZJELUtgMW8v-POY7kVD9O26xVFMRRGVs-ZlGRxIo1Q

http://ghostparachute.com/the-thing-about-wonder/?fbclid=IwAR1tpSY9oHntp8BJ6iZbwWe-a5u0zW_A3ItMicYwV4LjlTVKIbsPupCQfTM

https://fictivedream.com/2019/04/12/precipice/?fbclid=IwAR30EPJ2jBXrccXHKn4xMjtHQ1A9widPhaQLabooXEMX2kGhojOUtDJwcbE

…Sometimes other people know me better than I know myself, I guess.  I woke up at 2:30am, wheezing, having quite a difficult time breathing.  Finally got that under control, but I stayed up.  Played some inane games on my phone.  Drifted around the internet. Wrote an odd, but pretty strong poem.  Got an email from Apple at 5:14am saying Your Sleep Schedule Is Making You Sick. 

…I read where over one third of the world is stressed out.  55 percent of Americans recall feeling stressed “much of the day”.  The next worse county is Greece at 58 percent.  Yikes.

…“Having a kid means raising a person.”  I heard that the other day and I thought, yep.  But it really changes the way you think about having kids.

…When do you need me?  That’s all I really want to know.

…Every time I go searching for answers it seems like I just end up with more questions.

…Maybe it was wrong not to tell somebody it happened.  Maybe that would have changed a lot of things.  Who knows?

…The more you push away, the more it haunts you.

…I’ve still got that ringing in my ears.

…Hey, hey, what’s going on over there?

…I’ve spent my entire life in these boxes.  Time to take the tape off.

…If we turned over the stone that explained everything, would we really feel better?  Because it’s never just one stone, but rather it’s a stack of them stacked on top of each other meaning something else.

…Sit with me please.  Tell me everything that I did wrong.

…You’ll be broken into better shape before you know it.

…I might be groggy, but I’m not drunk.

…You gotta survive somehow, some way, poison or pills.

…“Either you’re fucked up, or you’re getting fucked up.”  That’s what someone told me not too long ago.

…“Happy accidents.”  That’s what you call optimism.

…I wrote about wonder the other day.  It perked me up.  It’s funny how writing something down—even if you end up later deleting it—can be so therapeutic. 

…Do you call it a career if you make little or no money doing it?  Just a question.

…The other day the wind was blowing so hard that I swore I heard full-on conversations, children giggling, someone screaming.  It was a little unnerving.

…I don’t want you thinking I’m unhappy, but I don’t want you thinking I’m that happy.

…Some things just can’t be explained, no matter how badly you want an answer.

…I’m not sure I believe in karma, but I’ll let you know once things swing around.

…I don’t expect you to be here, but if you are, let me know.

…Even after all this, you’re still my best friend.

…All right, Roomie, grab your coat.  We’re going for a walk.

—I DON’T WANNA LIVE LIKE THIS, BUT I DON’T WANNA DIE      

                                 

                                   Madagascar

Clumsy girl, always falling.  That’s what her mother says. 

Others say something similar. 

Her father, her brothers say, Klutz.  Say, Idiot.  Say, Retard.  Say, Yo, Helen Keller missed a step.  

And so yes, of course, she’s fallen again. 

This time a new gash, shaped like Madagascar, rises over one knee.

When she blows on the fresh blood, the blonde hairs beneath the wound seem to sway like stalks of wheat.

She bends her leg and feels the burn sing a Capello all the way up to her throat. 

She perches her chin on the part of her knee that is unmarred, and stares down at the other rapt, as if she is meeting Jesus or the Devil.

The girl thinks it beautiful, spectacular even, though she keeps this to herself. 

                                 *   *   *

Initially, her falling is accidental.  She really is a Klutz, an idiot, Helen Keller missing a step.

But then the idea blooms without her, like a weed or virus, and it becomes a plaything, a hobby, like scrapbooking.

She loves the ceremonial aspect of it, the predictability, the belief that here is something she can both cause and control.

There’s also an intimacy in self-wounding.  A decadent thrill in the quick bite and lingering sting.  It reminds her she’s alive and that life is ultimately painful yet meant to be endured.

What fascinates her most, though, is the scab, how it grows surreptitiously, hardening magically, as if a separate limb is trying to sprout.

                                   *   *   *

Before long, the girl discovers an added benefit.

It happens the night she’s done something wrong again. 

Her father beats her across the back of the head with a hairbrush.  They’re in the bathroom, alone.  Her father swings and swings.  He shouts, Rude! Rude! Rude! into the mirror, before God, before the angels, before both their reflections.  While the girl clasps the towel tighter around her body, her father presses and presses from behind.

                                *   *   *

Afterward, the scab becomes a rabid monkey gone berserk, screaming for attention.

To drown out the noise, the girl rakes her nails across the scab, light as butterflies at first, then hard as a cheese-grater.  She picks out crusty slivers.  She taps the pasty blood and uses some to draw a pair of wings across her calf.  She claws at the mashed-up scab some more.  Blood keeps oozing out, so she dips a fingertip and paints a body between the wings.  Then a face.  It’s a cartoonish depiction at best, yet she recognizes the person as herself.

Someone’s at her bedroom door, working the locked knob.  The girl only half-hears it.  She’s focused on the scab that’s become a fresh wound, no longer looking anything like Madagascar. 

Still that’s where she sends herself.

She lifts off her own calf, crimson wings spread in flight.  She flies through the ceiling, the roof, the clouds.  She flies past the night and everything it wants to do to her.  She soars and never looks down, never looks back.