hee hee

Jump

She’s standing on the edge of a bridge, her arms are outstretched, her eyes meet mine from a million miles distant. The wind whips her hair around, the long strands stinging her face. She’s laughing. I miss the moment when her body leans past that critical angle, when her center of gravity is no longer pulled toward the pavement, but to the river. A graceful arc in a captured moment, she hangs suspended. I feel like an intruder when something in my mind snaps a picture, fixing this image against the backs of my eyelids like a playbill that will reappear against every wall, tree, window and post.



She hits the water with a smack and the breath I’ve been holding explodes out of me.

hai-who?

of poisons, the best
enter through the patient's lungs
or the victim's ears

winter window

Something in her tells her this isn't right. Something bone-deep that's been screaming for longer than she can remember. Something with claws that tries to rip its way out of her skin.

She's curled up on her desk, leaning against a window. Cold glass presses against her forehead and shoulder as she watches the world lurch by through the branches of a barren tree. She watches broken people leave houses with peeling paint, cross dead brown lawns, and fold themselves up into rusty cars. She wonders how she got here, then wonders if they wonder too.

When she closes her eyes, the people are smiling. The houses are neat, the lawns are fresh and the cars run smooth and quiet. She calls this place "Should've Been" and tries hard not to see it. After she sees it, when she opens her eyes, the screaming thing inside screams that much louder.

"People aren't supposed to live like this."

He looks up from his magazine and she realizes she's spoken aloud.

"Like what?"

"Like this." Without uncrossing her arms, she gestures towards the window - towards the broken people, towards herself. She wants him to recognize the problem, to wrap her in his arms and make a little of the Shouldn't Be go away.

He shrugs. "That's life," he says, turning a page and returning his attention to the latest news in punk rock. He listens to music that tells him everything is empty, in order to fill himself up. The screaming thing inside her wants to tear at him. The spell is being tightened, slow stitching crafting careful scars.

a few questions

Who told you the truth would be pretty? Who told you that you would like it? Who told you that it would be "fair"?

Who told you that it should be packaged and presented in a fashion more appealing to fringe groups and swing voters? Or that you could choose which version applied to your community?

Who told you that it would be offered in installment plans that you could buy into, a little bit at a time? Or that you could return it if you got it home and discovered it didn't fit your preconceptions?

Who told you that it should be seasoned to your educated palate? Or that you could send it back if it was too hot or too cold?

Various Poetry

ink never ran
as fast as thoughts fly
nor words usher in
'ere intent was ushered out

---

crack open the head
the symmetry must be perfect
slide in through the split
clotting, black & viscous

film over the eyes
stop up the ears
a clogged throat stays silent
then pour coagulated rivulets

through some one else's lips

Bus Ride

One never gets the sense of being connected to anything in Baltimore. The only common threads that run through the city are chipped concrete, plywood covered doors and aluminum siding. Walk long enough and you’ll find the newly discovered wealth of Canton, but look closely at the cookie-cutter condos and you can almost see the poverty of North Avenue waiting to creep in. I’m sitting at North Avenue now, eyes glazed and not really seeing the dilapidated chicken shack at the corner of Saint Paul. Maryland may be known for crabs, but Baltimore’s staple food is fried chicken.


It’s at about this point that I decide buses must be the same the world over. A combined stench of fuel and human sweat wafts gently across a color scheme seemingly designed to lay siege to the eyes and take no prisoners. The rumble of an idling engine is interrupted by the hiss of pistons closing doors, followed by the throaty complaint of gears manhandled into submission as the rumble escalates into a whine and we’re on our way.


I shift uncomfortably in my seat, glancing up and down the aisle and wondering with vague disgust when these people and I became a “we.” I do not belong with these people – I work for a living, I avoid drugs, and I bathe regularly. In fact, in my heart-of-hearts I’m quite certain that this is not my life.


Well, I was working for a living, before. Before what, I couldn’t say. Sometimes I wish I could say, but other times I’m just as glad I don’t know. No one likes admitting that they’re a failure, and those who do seldom want to reflect on it any more than they must – which isn’t much. People who sink to my level have usually mastered the art of Not Thinking About It. It’s kind of a prerequisite.


Right now I’m Not Thinking About the fact that I’m two months behind on my rent (again), out of work (again) and out of shampoo. Somehow that last bit bothers me more than the other two – maybe because I haven’t had as long to adjust to it. I count the change in my pocket, consider how many stops ahead I’d have to get off to get to the discount store, and give careful consideration to whether dish soap might be used on human hair without negative consequences – discounting of course the lemon-fresh scent.


Now, your average procrastinator can drag a question like that out for at least a half hour, maybe longer, until the bus stop has been passed, he’s almost home, and the entire question has become moot.

A Moment With Jim

I never know how to explain it to people when they ask how my brother died. He didn’t die. I just woke up one day and he wasn’t there any more.


“Ten-fucking-fold,” the voice from the papasan insisted. When no one seemed inclined to take this pronouncement seriously, the owner of the voice waved his hand negligently at the whole group. From the depths of the enormous chair, the gesture carried with it the distinctive air of divine dismissal.


“Whatever, man,” the speaker continued, punctuating his words with an elongated drag. Eyes closed tightly, fat lips pulled back in what might’ve been a grimace, he suppressed a cough before exhaling. “But when this crap you’re pulling comes around to bite you in the ass, don’t come crying to me.” From a corner of the room, I watched with glazed eyes as he passed the blunt to his left.


“C’mon, Jim, you know this asshole deserves it,” TJ answered, taking the lit smoke gingerly as it came around. “It’s like the hand of God, or something.” He inhaled, choked, then took a second drag when I waived the blunt away with a gesture that mirrored my brother’s. As if retaining the smoldering joint emboldened him, he continued before passing it over my head to Harley. “This is bullshit – do you really think he should get away with it?”


I leaned back against the wall and surveyed the room, only peripherally aware of the droning sound of my brother’s voice expounding on the laws of karmic retribution. Conversation moved in sync with the marijuana, passing to the left one person at a time. Somewhere in the back of my marijuana blighted mind, I marveled at so simple a form of etiquette as this. “He who holds the weed holds the floor.”


I giggled suddenly at my own cleverness, then shook my head when inquiring heads turned my way, stifling laughter at the impromptu symposium inspired when someone named “T Dog” was rumored to have sold the fruit of his basement garden without the benefit of proper quality control.


“Wednesday,” insisted John earnestly, “this is serious!”


I just shook my head; not knowing how to politely point out that while “T Dog” may indeed deserve his comeuppance, the chances of it coming from this bunch of would be philosophers were slim at best. Maybe they could still quote the Buddha at this point, but I very much doubted that any of them could find the door unaided.


“Look,” Jim said, “Maybe he deserves a beating. Maybe worse. But if you decided to take that into your own hands, I’m telling you it’ll come back around to kick you in the ass. Ten. Fucking. Fold.” He stood up, brushing dried leaves off of his pants. Unfolded from the chair, he towered above the rest of us at a respectable 6 foot 2, enhanced by the fact that everyone else sat Indian-style on the floor. “Now if y’all will excuse me, I need to drain the snake.”


Without another word, he stumped out onto the patio of his second story apartment, scratching unselfconsciously at some blight in the dim nether regions below the waist.