—AT TIMES I THINK WE’RE DRIFTERS, STILL SEARCHING FOR A FRIEND

 

 

In Her Skin

 

 

“You’ve stopped talking altogether,” I say. 

So, she points.

“It’s okay,” I say. “You can take the mask off now.” 

So, she points again. Where the ear straps once were, there are now twisted black barbs permanently stuck in her skin.

“If you love me, you’ll say something.”

She points to the top, bottom then the sides of the mask where those same spider barbs have been sewn deep in her skin.

“So, this is it?” I ask. “We’ll never speak again?”

            She points at the door, takes a watery step in that direction, then another and another until she floats through it, like gossamer, worn too thin to see. 

—DON’T BREAK A HEART

 

 

Snake Skin

 

My beautiful ego hangs on a clothesline, like a drying rattler about to be beaten to pulp by a baseball bat, by either friend or foe, Palm Spring sun draining every unnecessary juice, even the most bloodshot, until I’m jerky, one eye twitching like a faltering bulb, the other bulging north, just bulging and bulging. 

 —WHAT IF YOU HAD IT ALL, AND NOBODY TO CALL?

 

 

She Said I Looked Like Jesus

 

She said I looked like Jesus and therefore would no longer kiss me. I’d grown a beard. Let my hair run a little. We’d been married years. Ironically, her name was Mary. Ironically, she’d had a virgin birth, which I learned after months of Mary not kissing me. Her child’s name was Alex, her lover’s name, Pete.

 

—DON’T LOSE SIGHT, BABY, DON’T LOSE SIGHT

 

Fully Loaded

 

See it was set up so

there was no way out

a flight to Cleveland

sprawling conference

bars everywhere afterward

freedom and sin smoldering

inside a glass of pearl-colored Scotch

You get the idea

She’d be gone in the morning

I’d be hung like a crooked painting

and in time her name would become

Your Mother

You get the idea

All these years have bit and pinched

my neck my throat my pulse like a bungee cord

My chest got stunted twice and

I don’t wanna die a guilty man though I am

That’s why I’m telling you this

That’s why the money and gun are fully loaded

It’s just the two of us here

so you can choose to use

either or both just make it last

It’s a reckoning I’m after

some sort of deliverance or

release from the haunt

I can tell by the zealous way

you’re reaching right now

that you get the idea

  

—IT’S NOT SOMETHING THAT I SAY IN JEST

 

 

We sit in the rickety treehouse sharing a jar of your grandad’s clear. “This has bullets in it. I can feel them shooting stars around my soul.”

Tomorrow you will tell me about Mailman Fred, how he wears nothing beneath his pale blue shorts, how thin the air became when he showed you.

But for now, you giggle and gurgle, the alcohol dribbling down your chin like a leaky hose someone forgot to put away.

 

—NOW I KNOW YOU'RE LYING 

 

 

…It takes a lot to admit you’re a Silly Goose, even if you’re not one.

 

…I used to hate it when people would say, “It’s going to be okay.” Like, how do they know? 

Now I’d die to hear someone say it.

 

…“No, there’s nothing left, it’s only me and you, holding onto Heaven.”

 

…Unconditional love is really love at its bravest, at its weakest, and its most extraordinary.

 

…Paradise is what you make it, but then there’s the real paradise. Fuck, just look at it.

 

…People who live in the sun all the time are so lucky. But then so am I, here in the pouring rain.

 

…Some people are so kind and genuine that you can’t hug them hard enough.

 

…“Nothing lasts forever, nothing goes to plan.”

 

…Gosh, what a road. I’m still thinking about it.

 

…I think there’s this point where you look at your belly and you go, Heck with it, who cares? And then you just swell because it’s easier that way. I’m almost there.

 

…I’ve got voices in my head, but I have to remind myself that they’re not me.

 

…“I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.” Sylvia Plath

 

…“I love you, Dad,”—hearing that never gets old, no matter how many times its spoken, or typed.

 

…What I wouldn’t give for a hug.

 

…Numbers? I mean, why do they have to be such a thing?

 

…I look and I look and I look. Such a child, really.

 

…When I was a child, well, it was something else. Amen.

 

…Fuck off yesterday. Don’t you have someone else to pester?

 

…I’m ready for a nap, and I don’t nap. 

 

…Lean closer. Give me your shoulder and anything else you trust me with.

 

…How are your New Year’s Resolutions working out for you thus far? I’m 50-50, but still trying, and isn’t trying the point?

 

…“Here we go, growing old and tired in the silence. Never know ‘til you hear all the sirens.”

 

…The differences in people—sorting them out, the ability to do that calmly, without judgment, or malice—that’s really the key to everything.

 

...“I should go but if this is the end of the line, hold me close, and we can lay here one last time.”

 

…Tomorrow could be sunnier, but we’ve still got today, right?

 

 

—GLORY TO UKRAINE

 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced during a televised address on Wednesday that nearly 6,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since the start of the invasion.

"Think of this number: almost 6,000 Russians died. Russian military. In six days of war," Zelensky noted in his speech. "This is without counting the losses of the enemy last night. Six thousand. To get what? Get Ukraine? It is impossible."

Zelensky also encouraged Ukrainians to keep fighting.

“We are on our native land. And for the war against us there will be an International Tribunal for them," he said. "My dears, the time will come when we will be able to sleep. But it will be after the war, after the victory in a peaceful country, as we need."

"I ask all of you to take care of your loved ones. Take care of your brothers in arms. I admire you. The whole world admires you," he continued. Today, you, Ukrainians, are a symbol of invincibility. A symbol that people in any country can become the best people on earth at any moment. Glory to Ukraine!"