In case anyone is wondering

Being thin is the only way I can make my boobs look proportional.

Informed voter, age 10

D, apropos nothing at 9am, explaining the election using Lego Angry Birds and Jenga blocks:
"Let's say these 2 towers represent Obama and Romney.
And the height, and...and the height and... and complexity of each tower represents what they will do for America.
And these three blue birds are the voters --"

"See? The voters knocked down the Romney tower because it wasn't strong".

raw exposition of dream,330 am, unedited

I don't even want to write this down but I think I HAVE to do so.
In this nightmare D had another family. No - that's not the bad part. D had another MOM.
And she was perfect.
She drew pictures he admired and wanted to emulate. He showed me drawings he had done. I told him they were wonderful. He said "the real genius here is HER"
(She doesn't have a name. I wish she did so i could hang my hurt somewhere.)
She is blonde and athletic. She has 3 other kids, Declan's brothers now, I guess. When I go to visit (the house is beautiful, bright, big) the first time they are sitting at a table making paper houses. On the houses are charts of responsibilities for everyone in the family; you get stars for the successfully completing things.
It's time for school - she, pretty blonde she, dressed in fancy yoga clothes -brings out lunches for them to take to school. they are in charming little boxes, like bento boxes a bit. Everything is carefully and artfully wrapped. D's had a salad, perky greens arrayed like a small terrarium. There was curly, frisee lettuce sprouting from it like Dr Seuss trees. All I can think of is the triscuits I (used to - used to - not anymore because D has ANOTHER MOM NOW ) stuff into a sandwich bag, next to some cereal bars and cookies. I ask him "do you actually EAT that?" He opens the box and plucks out a cucumber dripping with vinaigrette. Takes a bite. "It's really good, and i dont have a choice." She kisses his head.
I startle awake.

Grip

Gripping onto the chair rail
Staring at the plaster nubs on the ceiling
blurry,
Unflattering, snot wiped on the inside of my t-shirt
How is this beautiful, except thin?

Any other thing

Someday I will get to the point where my first impulse, when hungry, will not be to think "how can I put this off? How can I distract myself?".

I delay gratification so poorly in every other way.

Oakland Park Boulevard, 6/12/12

While I often think about mortality, and will willingly talk about it, I balk at writing about it. Printed words on death seem either too glib, or too fraught, or too sentimental. (Discworld's DEATH being one notable exception).
Committing the words to paper feels like tempting fate.
Tonight I had (as I often do on the way home in traffic) a mortal moment. Not due to any near-collision or car malfunction -  but the proximity and the possibility put me in a reflective mood.

No thanatological revelation.
No poetry.
No resignation, and no real fear.
Just this one sentence: I will always want more life. I will always want more life. I will always want more life.

Saturday, bored. A quickie:

Two-cent persuasion
such a breath-sized snip,
A pinch -
I love this trinket; my finger flaunts it

There are less treacherous landscapes

There are less treacherous landscapes

to follow until

the place you finally stop has only a makeshift comfort, a lean-to of rock and plank
And a filthy cloth drape,  shedding mites into the sand

No fire tonight. Staring at the empty ring
Without crackle, or light.

Things that drift now scud -
Scud wood under scudding clouds;
Thoughts scud back and away
Catching the scud of a tide
Or a joke
Until scud is the ugliest word you can think of to use
Over,
and over again

At midnight near the wall

I'm listening to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY3VrpyZnhs

and thinking about a damp, misted night in Sligo over 20 years ago, walking back to my rented room with Kieran, too young by a rounding error, by the tiniest margin of appropriate.
We stop on a bridge - to kiss, to relent, above the rush of the dark river. We condense, wipe the drops from our eyes.

My cynical Valentine

The whole lurid, rose-tinted cellophane day grates on me; every last pink-lace inch makes me itch.

The ostentatious parade of those in love carrying banners of flowers, chocolates and distressingly sexualized teddy bears; the pasted-smile lament of those alone, who seethe inside, or violently retaliate in fits of self-righteous bitterness.
Over it all lies a (however frilled) patina of guilt, disappointment and amends: that we do not love, that we are not loved, we do not love right enough, or that we are too loved, on this one, particular card-infested day.

This is not meant to disparage those who enjoy the day on its merits (Flowers! Candy! Chocolates! Dinner! Sexy time!) - by all means love, and be loved, and find love.

But do so every day.

In progress

By day's end I'm foxed and bent.
Dismount from the bland dais,
shut down market stall, the four-corners
where I spend the dimes of smiles.

Close me up, fold my shades
feed me silent selfishness
until the caw of 6am
when I must do it all, again.

The Insomnabulator

Left sleep on the 3:12, window seat,
cheek against the square, cold frame.
Murmuring riders - the too hot, the too cold
the knitters, the readers,
the lonely lustful prayers
unwound from dreams;
The one who strikes the door with his fist
and begs to be turned back.
Some press the pinhole light above
stare straight ahead, lint and stains
counted, recounted.
There are pacers in the aisle, stumbling
into anxious talkers, and the late-night foragers
faces refrigerator-white.
We rumble and shudder forward,
and the morning revolves
into our varied, intrepid journeys.

The rare remembered dream

Half-submerged steel city in the shadow of a broken bridge, its clockwork parts askew.
I am leading an expedition through rusty water that stains our shins and ankles. Reaching the entrance, we crawl, foot-to-head, through the sandbagged tunnels.
If you want light you must touch the walls just so.
We come out into a maze of thin streets, rimed with old graffiti. No sky. Just ceiling A barefoot figure turns a corner, then darts into a hidden door.
"You never knew people lived here, did you?"

Wake.

commute

 I smell the remaining perfume in the crook of my arm as I fight with the errant blinkers and the roaming Corolla in front of me; double-take at strip mall signs, brush ash from my business casual.