Mourning the Mollusks

It was early afternoon,
or later--
the clouds hung low and
dark, looking bruised from bustling
into each other.

At a drab cafe
facing Pontchartrain,
I sat--
smoking cigarettes
and watching a fat woman
devour oysters.

She'd cup each one into her
pink, pudgy palm
and slurp the brackish slime
into her mouth--
lemon and butter
dribbled down her myriad
of corpulent chins.

Her eyes darted back
and forth like a
treacherous walrus as she
carpentered a terrific
mountain of shells--
opalescent homes
that shone dully under the
gray specter of sun.

I felt a twinge of sadness
for those piteous little bivalves
as the woman tossed her crumpled napkin
upon them like a death shroud.
I hoped their limp, succulent souls
had more auspicious futures--
to jettison from
their calcified tears like
small Aphrodites.

It's raining in Denton again

these stony blocks
raise muted hues
willingly to the
dingy wool jacket
of sky, but the trees
collide:
all verdant and crashing--

bright flash-
es of green-
ness against

the oyster lid,
wet and murky.

it's almost brazen
the way they
bare
those shivering ornaments.
veins swollen with water
pulse with electric
escarole souls.

and the cars are beeping,
screeching
tires shriek
homage to the
slick streets,
onyx sheets
of asphalt,
as they dodge
umbrella-huddled
hunchbacks that
hopscotch
a cr os s
puddled intersections.

pregnant sky,
mother sky,
meets infant earth
with wailing city mouth
that drinks and drinks
her nectar.

Hallelujah
hallelujah
hallelu
jah.

Austin, TX Revision

One might have seen us there, stepping in and out of the sunlight that sifted through the trees and the gaps of the Congress St. Bridge, sashaying down the cracked sidewalk like we were one of them and we might have been. We might have been
one of the leathery men playing Woody Guthrie for just enough money to buy a beer,

“I just blowed in, and I’ll blow back out again”
plucking rusty strings with fingernails that had collected so much dirt, so much dust, so much dirt. We could have had the ruddy cheeks of giggling girls, our legs like satin ribbons dipped into cowboy boots and licit lips that hold back cherry secrets. It's quite possible one might have spotted us in between the hipsters and their hand rolled cigarettes. We could have been reflecting the clouds off our sunglasses or making new ones with the tufts of white acridness, little wonderland caterpillars dressed in stovepipe jeans asking
A-
E-
I-
O-
Who-Are-You?

We were all of them when we ate our rice bowls by the river while bats peppered the sky. We were all of them when we sucked down SoCo on the roofs of squatty buildings nestled between skyscrapers and loft apartments. We were all of them when we made love in that shapeless hotel.

And then one night, the rain began. It spilled out over the oily streets, washing all that sin and soul into hopeless rain gutters. And somewhere to the west, the hills lifted and pitched while the rain kicked up dust over the rocks. Our bodies rocked gently with the pop and hiss of beer cans and high heels down on 6th Street, and I curled my coral toes into the disquietude of that city.

paper airplane

i hate paris
and your reverence for it,
though i've never been,
because you never forget a thing like
cafes in antiquarian dusk light
or the taste of a kiss beneath the arc de triomphe,
sweet like ripe melons and warm like heady
humid Spring,
and i despise having to fit inside
these echoes of yours,
shaped for smaller hips and
thicker accents.

jitterbug

i'll let that kiss hang in the air
for just
one
minute
more
before i forget about it,
just need to
forget
about
it.

forget about the paper lantern lips
with parchment light
because my breath is scattering
across the floor,
clacking against itself like glass beads
and i've got to collect
what i can.

i've got to claw at things like
"it'll be okay"
and minute hands
and coffee rings
and wait until your smile
and strong brow
stop making me feel like
i just
need
to
forget it.

gas station

It's August
and so all the cicadas are exhaling together.
The air is boiling above the gum-speckled asphalt,
shapeless blobs turned black from
tire-treads
and muddy boots.

It's August
and oily water leaks from grumbling trucks
muttering lazily in their torrid disgust,
forming rainbow toxic pools left to sizzle
under the globed fruit that burns
and burns in the blue.

The attendant plunks
on cash register keys with sinewy fingers,
the whorls of which are lined with
russet dirt and money soot.

These august pumps
his empire, these perspiry bodies,
his serfs.

if p, then q

what am i on the verge of here?

strange quantities of knowing and undoing the knowing,
stringy bits of information that once were the finite pieces of personality



but we are all so very limitless.




and you,
with your chasms of secrets i can only manage to catch flashes of,

one day i will figure you out and i will make sure that you know
i have every intention of drawing the hush-hush out of you
like a black and yellow humor.

the further i get,
the more apprehensive i become.

what is it, what is nestled in those umber eyes i always seem to see right through?
i can't make them give anything away,

and i'm not even sure i want them to.

L'fabuleaux destin d'moi

She was an immutable muttering,
a perpetual prattle tottering by
like a beetle on brittle stilts.

Her t-shirts and citrus-colored jumpers were
murals of quotidian stains,
stretched taut across a tawny tummy filled
with juice and Cherry Mash.

Odd and outre,
she was always glazed
in some sort of whimsy,
and she laughed during uncomfortable silences.

In a room that faced the street
where children's voices flitted by,
and the blur of their bodies
zipped by on bikes or bare feet,

the cantaloupe twilight splashes across her face.
Her eyes grew wide as she watched herself
glide in on slippered feet, her path illumed
in gossamer and violets.

Her cinnamon skin consented to
the gracious curves of her body,
fluid and fulgent as silk.
She was zaftig and rosy,
with a presence like her mother's old stills of Mae West.

Now the neighborhood grows silent
with the sleepy hush of dusk,
and the crickets twitter in the wake
of the children's fading footsteps.

Amber lamplight guides her hands
brushing through her tangled hair,
clammy fingers picking at the knots,

and she tries to count to infinity.

wish you were here

Now you're sending out pavement flavored postcards from your rear bumper and i feel the hitch of loneliness welling up like a stone in my throat.

Someone please give me the mountains again so I can sleep these days away under that cavernous umbrella of aspen trees and pink stucco.

It is not good to be alone on such a hopeless day.

monday secrets

I put myself in all the pictures of your beloved landscapes, your droll side-street cafes, your hills that stand like verdant petrified waves.

It makes me hope that if I ever get to see them, if you're ever there right next to me pointing out rue this or calle that,

it'll be like you're seeing them for the first time with me, instead of remembering who you were there with last.

In so many ways, I'm still just a girl.

Headquarters To Damage Control

What a mess
What a beautifully crafted mess,
And I'm letting it roll off of my shoulders like
Hot wax.

Your last look was a chandelier
Your words granite columns
All toppling into a landscape I trudged through,
Bare feet.

In the most sideways manner,
It was exactly what you needed.
I hacked at the tendons, the muscle, the tissue
That held you so organically to my side.

One calcified tumor,
Was it you or I?

And we'll go on existing,
Our membranes of being so separate,
Just like we were always meant to be
Before
We came careening into each other.

Austin, TX- A Prose Poem

One might have seen us there, stepping in and out of the sunlight that sifted through the trees and the gaps of the Congress St. Bridge, sashaying down the cracked sidewalk like we were one of them. We might have been one of the leathery men playing Woodie Guthrie for just enough money to buy a beer, plucking rusty strings with fingernails that had collected so much dirt, so much dust, so much dirt. We could have had the ruddy cheeks of giggling girls, our legs like satin ribbons dipped into cowboy boots and licit lips that hold back cherry secrets. It's quite possible one might have spotted us in between the hipsters and their hand rolled cigarettes. We could have been reflecting the clouds off our sunglasses or making new ones with the tufts of white acridness, little wonderland caterpillars dressed in stovepipe jeans asking A-E-I-O-Who-Are-You?

We were all of them when we ate our rice bowls by the river while bats peppered the sky. We were all of them when we sucked down SoCo on the roofs of squatty buildings nestled between skyscrapers and loft apartments. We were all of them when we made love in that shapeless hotel.

And then one night, the rain began. It spilled out over the oily streets, washing all that sin and soul into hopeless rain gutters. And somewhere to the west, the hills lifted and pitched while the rain kicked up dust over the rocks. Our bodies rocked gently with the pop and hiss of beer cans and high heels down on sixth street, and I curled my coral toes into the disquietude of that city.

The Inheritance

“Dad is dying.”
Evangeline St. Clair telephoned her brother Vincent for the first time in ten years to relay the news.
“What? Are you sure?”
The sound of men cursing and a tinny voice over the loud speaker caused Evangeline to wince in pain.
“What do you mean ‘Are you sure’? They don’t tell you that you’ve got terminal cancer if they’re not 100% sure. I’ve booked a flight for you back to Pembroke. We’re all meeting at the estate at 8:30. Don’t be late,” she snapped into the receiver. Evangeline hung up the phone and sipped her vodka tonic.
“Idiot,” she whispered under her breath.
On the other end, Vincent St. Clair rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to the track where his lucky number 12 dog, Juniper, had just finished last place and was licking his crotch near the jump start gate. Vincent crumpled the ticket in his pocket and threw it on the ground near his feet. He reached down to grab the plastic cup full of flat beer and take a long drink, realizing just in time that the jerk-off next to him had thrown a cigar butt in there before leaving. The sun was setting on Griffin Park in east L.A. Somewhere, the sound of sirens filled the spaces between the cars on the Santa Monica Freeway, and Vince sat listening to the disquietude of the city, the clamor of his thoughts, on a flimsy rise of steel bleachers. He reached in his shirt pocket for another Lucky Strike only to discover that he’d smoked his last one.
“Just my luck,” Vincent grumbled, tossing the empty pack to the stairwell as he grabbed his moth-eaten coat. He rubbed one calloused hand on the back of his sunburned neck and wondered if his old pal Geoff the Chef would make him another sympathy meal at the diner. His father was dying, after all.
~
“C-C-Can you just check one more time? Y-Yes, Alfred St. Clair,” Charles St. Clair stammered into the phone to the nurse on duty at Our Lady of Mercy Hospital.
“I’m sorry sir, it appears that line is still busy. I can have him call you later if you’d like,” the nurse replied calmly, with a tinge of frustration in her voice.
“N-No, that won’t be necessary. Thank you,” Charles responded, sighing.
He adjusted his tie in the hall mirror and attempted to flatten the sparse mass of salt and pepper hair over his ever-expanding bald spot. With a quick check of his watch, Charles grabbed his briefcase and headed out the door to visit his father. The sun reflected off the silver frames of his glasses and warmed the frail looking man into a light perspiration that almost always collected at the armpits of his white collared shirts. Charles stopped at the driver’s side door of his silver sedan and fumbled for the keys in his pants pocket. Today, he was a little more nervous than usual, as he’d be seeing his sister Evangeline for the first time in years. After much grappling with his case, the keys found themselves into the door and Charles was on his way.
He arrived at room 323 in little time and knocked politely on the door before letting himself in. He was surprised to see Evangeline standing over their father’s bed, her lithe figure dressed smartly in a black blazer and patterned skirt. She flipped her short, black bob and balanced a cigarette holder between two fingers decorated with French-manicured nails.
“I uh, d-don’t think they let you sm-sm-smoke in here, Evangeline,” Charles said, in almost a whisper.
Evangeline looked up from the bed to the overwrought man standing in the doorway. She regarded him with a raised eyebrow and defiantly took another drag from the end of the holder before removing the cigarette and ashing it on the windowsill.
“Oh, come now, Charlie. I’ve already got cancer, what’s she going to do to me?” Alfred St. Clair jested from his bed. His joke started a throaty chuckle which resulted in a raspy cough that shook his portly body.
“W-Well it can’t be helping you, any-anyhow,” Charles muttered.
“Good to see you again, Charlie,” Evangeline said, in a voice that was only slightly facetious.
“Have you h-heard from Vincent yet?” Charles asked, setting his briefcase down by the door and sliding up next to the hospital bed in a vacant chair.
“I called him yesterday and told him to meet us at the estate tomorrow morning. He’ll most likely be there by late afternoon. Dad’s been granted leave for a while so we’ll have time to discuss-,” Evangeline was cut off by a sharp ringing. She reached into the pocket of her blazer and flipped open a cell phone.
“Yeah? What’s the problem?” She reached into her purse on the bedside table and procured another skinny cigarette that she deftly fixed into the holder.
“I told Joan to sell when they got to that rate. Doesn’t that girl listen to a word I tell her? Look, I can’t talk about this right now. I’m at the hospital with my father for chrissake. Just fix it, Bob,” Evangeline yammered into the phone while she balanced it between her face and her bony shoulder. She lit the cigarette with a match and shook it out vehemently.
Charles shook his head and grabbed his father’s hand.
“How you feeling, D-D-Dad?” he asked tenderly.
“Good, Charlie. Just fine for an old fuddy-duddy like myself. I’ll be glad to get out of this bed for a while though, that’s for sure,” Alfred chortled.
Charles was sad to see the once ruddy color of his father’s cheeks had turned a wan and lifeless shade of gray. He knew his father hadn’t much time left. The two sat there like that for several minutes while Evangeline babbled into the phone. The acrid smoke from her cigarette curled around the scene like a hazy curtain.
~
“It’s almost f-four o’clock. Where is he?” Charles sat at the dining room table and tapped his fingers against the side of his head.
“I told you he’d be late. That worthless son-of-a-bitch couldn’t get to his own funeral on time, let alone his father’s. He’ll be here. Where’s Dad?” Evangeline asked, rummaging through an old oak liquor cabinet that stood collecting dust in the corner of a dimly lit dining hall.
“I th-thought you said you were picking him up from the h-h-hospital,” Charles stuttered.
“No, I asked when you were picking him up. I had a meeting this morning, I couldn’t have gotten him,” Evangeline grumbled. She seized a bottle of scotch whiskey from the back of the cabinet and dusted off a cocktail glass from the top of the cabinet.
The two stared at one another in disbelief in a moment of recognition.
“Dammit, Charlie. For a college professor, you sure are a dunce sometimes. Call the hospital,” Evangeline barked.
Charles scraped his chair across the hard-wood floor and jogged into the kitchen. Evangeline gulped down the shot of whiskey and grabbed her blazer from the back of a chair. She sifted through the pockets for a cigarette and raced out the door to her sports car. Charles ambled out moments later, and the two raced down the quiet suburban road to retrieve their father from the hospital. He was waiting outside in a wheelchair when they arrived, and Charles stumbled out of the compact vehicle.
“D-D-Dad, I’m so sorry! Have you been waiting here l-long?” Charles asked, out of breath as he wheeled his father toward the car.
Evangeline scooped up her belongings from the back seat and shoved them into her trunk. She walked around to the side of the car and opened one of the tiny doors so her father could get in.
“Where are we supposed to put the wh-wheelchair?” Charles asked, after helping his father into the miniscule back seat.
“Just park it over there. He’s going to be sitting down most of the time anyway,” Evangeline ordered.
With a little hesitation, Charles left the wheelchair in the handicapped parking spot at the hospital and hopped into the passenger seat. A quick shift into drive sent the family speeding back down the road to their father’s estate.
“Wow, Honey, that’s some little roadster you’ve got there!” Alfred laughed. He braced himself on his son’s thin arms and hobbled inside.
Vincent was sprawled out on a leather couch in the den. Startled, he awoke when he heard the front door slam closed and Evangeline’s stiletto heels clacking through the front foyer. He wiped away the drool from the corner of his mouth and went to meet his family in the kitchen.
“Chuckie! Evie! And dear old Dad. How the hell’ve you guys been?” He greeted each one with a firm pat on the back.
“Let’s just get this over with,” Evangeline said, shoving past her brothers and into the cavernous dining room. She resumed her afternoon cocktail by pouring another glass of scotch.
Vincent followed behind her, with Charles and Alfred pulling up the rear slowly but surely. The family sat down at the long table, with Alfred sitting at the head underneath a giant portrait of Mrs. St. Clair, long since deceased.
“Can you pour me one of those, Evie?” Vincent asked, gesturing toward the glass bottle.
“Y-You smell like you’ve h-h-had your fair share already,” Charles groused from his seat.
“Kids, kids, kids. Let’s cut the bickering and get down to business!” Alfred announced.
“Evangeline, would you mind getting my valise from the front sitting room, dear? It’s got all the paperwork in it,” Alfred requested. The amber light turned his white hair a dismal yellow color and caused the circles under his eyes to deepen.
Evangeline made her way to the room where Vincent had previously been asleep and retrieved a brown and battered case from a coffee table. She glanced on either side of her before opening the clasp and rummaging through the paperwork. The case contained her father’s will, and Evangeline wanted to know exactly how much of her father’s fortune she was getting before he went into a long winded speech about the importance of family.
A few minutes passed before Vincent walked up behind her.
“Find anything good, Evie?” He asked.
Evangeline jumped and quickly closed the case. She glared at her brother who stood there sheepishly in a suit he’d probably been sleeping in for the past three days. A mass of graying brown curls crowned his head in a pathetic looking halo, and his bushy eyebrows were raised in amusement.
“Fuck off,” she replied, embarrassed at being caught.
She walked hurriedly past him into the dining room and set the case in front of her father.
“Have some trouble finding it, honey?” Alfred asked. His eyes told her that he knew otherwise.
“Uh, yeah Dad. I just um, had walked right past it,” Evangeline mumbled, sitting at the table and staring at her hands.
Vincent walked back in and plopped down in a chair next to his father. Alfred stacked the papers neatly together and folded his hands over them. He pulled a pair of half-moon glasses from inside the case and glanced around the table at his three children.
“Well, it’s no secret I’m dying. Who knows how long it’ll be before I’ve gone to lie with your mother, God rest her soul. I suppose all that’s left now is the matter of who gets left with what,” he began. Alfred cleared his throat and sorted the papers into three piles.
“It was a tough decision,” he explained.
“Y-y-you know Dad, I would have been happy to let someone look th-th-things over for you. Y-you shouldn’t be having all this extra stress,” Charles interjected, patting his father’s hand.
Evangeline rolled her eyes and made a sound of disgust. Vincent shook his head and chuckled in his seat.
“That’s just like you, Chuckie Boy. Always being the first one to stick your nose up someone’s ass for a good sniff at their gullibility,” Vincent rubbed the sides of his temples.
“I-I told you not to c-c-call me Chuckie anymore. And besides, I’m the o-o-only one who’s ever even stuck around to t-t-t-take care of Dad,” Charles said indignantly. His beady eyes scowled at his younger brother behind the thick lenses of his glasses.
“Oh, right. And did what exactly? Suck up his money to pay for your thirty-three weddings and divorces? I’m the one who’s helped him expand his company. I’m the one who invested my own profits into his ideas. If anyone deserves anything it’s me,” Evangeline griped. She had leaned across the table and was jabbing her square nail into Charles’ shoulder.
“At least I was able to get married, you sh-shrew!” Charles shot back, standing from his seat.
“Hey, come on pals and gals. Let’s not sit here and squabble while our father’s wasting away. Let the old man speak!” Vincent interrupted, throwing his arms between the two.
“Oh don’t get me started on you, you shiftless sack of sh-,” Evangeline began.
“Okay, okay. Everyone just shut the hell up!” Alfred shouted, slamming his fists on the table.
The siblings turned to stare at him and awkwardly sat down in their seats.
“These piles have your names on them and discuss the matter of inheritance. I’m tired now, so you kids just sort through this yourselves. Vincent, my boy, would you mind wheeling me to the bedroom so I can get some shuteye?” Alfred’s voice was haggard.
“Sure, Pop,” Vincent agreed, pulling his father away from the table and letting his eyes linger on the stacks of papers to see who’s was bigger.
“I’ve not done teaching you the things you need to learn, my children. But I’ve done my best,” Alfred called back to them as he disappeared into the shadows of the other rooms.
As soon as the squeaking from the wheelchair was out of earshot, Evangeline shot out of her chair and snatched up the pile of papers with her name on it. Charles bounded after her, stumbling over the leg of one of the dining chairs and scattering his stack all over the floor. Evangeline snickered, but soon her malicious mirth was cut short when her eyes scanned the first page. Vincent came gamboling into the dining room and scooped up his pile.
“So what’d you get, Evie? A lampshade, some of Mom’s old nightgowns, a pair of ivory dice?” Vincent joked. His laughter too was interrupted by the draining of the color from his face.
“W-w-well what is it? D-did you guys make a fortune or…” Charles voice trailed off as he looked from face to face. He had finally managed to collect his papers in order and wondered if he even wanted to read them.
Evangeline snapped out of her bewilderment and plucked the papers away from Charles.
“What does yours say?” She asked ferociously.
“Oh, Jesus. You’’ve got to be kidding me,” she whispered under her breath. She threw Charles’ papers back onto the floor, sending him scrambling after each one.
“Is this a joke? I mean, Dad always loved a good knee-slapper but this is… this…” Vincent trailed off as he traded pages with Evangeline.
Each pile had the same message written on it in their father’s perfect scrawl. It read:
To my children:
The matter of my inheritance has been a very difficult one to struggle with. Each one of you has taken part of my life in equal ways, and there was simply no way for me to decide who ended up with what. So I present each of you with a challenge. The entirety of my fortune has been separated into three locked boxes which can be found in the same location. Each one of you has been mailed a key which will open all three of the boxes. Inside the envelope containing the key is your first clue. Whoever reaches the boxes first gets to keep however much of the inheritance they want. Good luck to you, my kids. I love you all.
--Alfred James St. Clair
“Maybe we should just talk to him about this tomorrow. I’ll make a few phone calls, get a decent lawyer over here, and we’ll settle this like adults. This had to be the chemo talking,” Evangeline explained. She shook her head and walked out of the room.
“Sh-She’s right you know. D-D-Dad was probably just making this up to sc-scare us into getting along or something. We really should j-just talk to him,” Charles said to Vincent, who was busy gawking over the letter.
“Yeah. Yeah, talk to him,” Vincent mumbled.
“Well, good night, Vince,” Charles patted his brother on the back and headed off to sleep.
“Good night, Chuckie Boy,” Vince replied, to no one in particular.
The next morning, Charles knocked on the door to his father’s room and let himself in. Evangeline was already there dressed in her usual business attire and standing over the bed.
“He’s dead,” she said flatly.
Charles’ eyes shot wide open and he dashed to his father’s bedside. Alfred’s eyes looked like two gray stones, lined with tiny lashes. His face looked like it had been molded out of clay, and his arms lied lifeless against his bloated belly. Evangeline stared for a moment longer before gliding across the floor and out of the bedroom.
“Vince is gone, too,” she called after Charles, who could not tear his eyes away from his father, lying in his bed as dead as anything could be.
“W-what?” Charles asked suddenly. He chased Evangeline into the kitchen. She was collecting her belongings in her hands and had stepped out into the misty morning.
“He left last night, I think. I’ve already called the ambulance and made arrangements with a funeral home. You can take care of all of this, right Charles?” She tossed her purse and her coat into the passenger’s seat of her sports car and hopped in.
“W-w-well I guess I…” Charles began.
“Good. See you at the finish line,” Evangeline cut him off and zipped away down the road into the encompassing fog.
Charles dashed back inside and fetched his briefcase from the dining room. Without a second thought, he slammed the front door and was racing down the road toward his home, toward the mailbox that contained the key to his fortune. The sound of a siren rolled somewhere up a hill, and Alfred St. Clair lay dead in an upstairs bedroom, his final plan unfolding just the way he would’ve liked.

think like a writer

i've decided to post every draft of anything i ever wrote on here, even if i don't think it's good or even if it's not finished. it makes me feel better about the things i've started, knowing they are all full of potential and that i can come back to them at anytime.

i don't even know why i'm writing this... i just feel like i'm talking to myself :P

A Study on 'Place' In the Short Story

Stuart Hicks sat on the front porch of his parents' weathered plantation home, waiting. He fiddled with the strap of his grimy looking overalls where the buckle was starting to come loose from the denim. He scratched the ever-expanding bald spot in the middle of his sweaty head, smoothing down the remaining strands of thin black hair that barely knew what to do with themselves. He tapped his dusty work boots on the unswept porch. He did anything he could to pass the time, noting that there was a good deal of work to be done on the house, if only fall would go ahead and start falling. It had been a good two or three decades since anyone had decided to paint the house's yellow clapboard siding, and the sun had seen to bleaching it a funny looking eggshell hue. He stared out over the dusty landscape of the front lawn, long since abandoned by the care and keeping of leathery field hands. The southerly wind blew like air off a hot engine all around the place, kicking up dust and scattering it across the brittle veranda that surrounded the Hicks' place.

Stuart sat stared at all the rural desolation around him and waited for the postman to arrive. Normally, he would've been there by 1:00, but it was now 1:45, and Stuart was starting to think the postman might never arrive with his special invitation. It was probably because, as Stuart's mother said, "A watched pot never boils." Stuart's mother had been a good one, wise and fair; she had taught Stuart everything he ever needed to know, just like she always said she would.

"Stu," she'd say, just as she was about to show him how to work the plow or make dough rise, "this here's just another thing you gotta know before I leave this here Earth. Just do what Momma says, and you'll learn everything you ever need to know." She kept right on saying that until she was on her deathbed, and even then she'd said that dying was just another part of living that you had to learn about. "And that's all you ever need to know," she'd whispered, before closing her eyes and sighing like she'd just laid down for a well needed rest.

After that, Stuart started going into town less and less. The haunted reflection of his gaunt figure in the storefront windows unsettled him. The town became a looming specter with the whispering voices of townsfolk coming up between the alleys like echoes.

and words float out like holograms

i keep writing and deleting,
writing and deleting...

there's so much i could say to fill this blank screen, but i keep swallowing it down so you'll think i'm doing fine.

but really,
really the truth is honestly sincerely

i miss you and
whatever else i could say would amount to nothing more than those three words.

i did everything wrong. i tried to rebuild it so that we might not notice how really cracked and fragile we were. i didn't pay attention to the screaming siren in my head that said the only thing that matters is you&me. that was the only foundation i needed.

but i rebuilt this in the sand, and now i'm out to sea, trying to keep myself afloat on the splintered hope scattered about me.

i'm sorry. i'm sorry for ever thinking that we were both invincible to anything outside of us. we're only human after all.

my first instinct is to say
let me fix this, let me fix this, let me fix this.

but maybe what i should be saying is
let me love you, let me love you.

i'm holding my breath for the next leap into who knows. i just hope it comes soon.

Wash and Run

I sat in the car wash and cried.

High impact pre-soak. I'm jumping in the deep end. The briny water is cold against my skin, and goosebumps race to the small of my back in a marathon for the finish.

Foam bath. I'm sinking like a tombstone, flailing my arms and kicking my legs to power myself to the surface. Everything is blue and hazy. Like when you're looking long distances from a high altitude. Same thin spread of oxygen, but a little more disorienting. My clothes drag behind me. Air bubbles from my nose rise past my face and get tangled in my hair. I just want to be suspended there in that cold and silent reverie.

Clear coat wax. The light is brightening and my lungs are burning. I twirl my fingertips in the shimmering, watery sunlight that filters down and warms my face. Or is that less oxygen? A few more kicks yet.

Dry. I push against the azure, break the surface with my head and hands. Damp air blows across my face and I'm floating in miles of it. No sand or rocks or grassy cliffs. I sail where the sun meets the earth for a goodnight kiss and close my eyes.

I'll just go to dinner and pretend like my world didn't turn to liquid beneath my feet. Just a few deep breaths and it'll all be over, falling one way or another. At least now my car is clean.

Fiction Class II

Sunday morning, January 6th. I sit at my dinette table staring at the gray and black boxes of the crossword puzzle and chewing on the cap of an ink pen. It's been three days since you left. The phone rings, but I don't get up to answer it because I know it's you. There's an urgency in the ring I can almost hear. Also, you're the only one who calls at 7 in the morning because you always forget about time zones. You're lucky I couldn't sleep. My answering machine cuts off your opportunity to catch me live and in person.

"Kay here. Can't come to the phone so do your thing."
I changed it 15 minutes after you turned the corner away from our street. For some reason, it was the first thing I thought about, the greeting on the answering machine.

BEEP

"It's me," you say, because you know I'd recognize that exasperation anywhere.
"I really can't stand that voice mail greeting. I said I was coming back, right? I just needed to get away for a while and...Look, I'm not getting into it with your answering machine. Anyway, I just got into Portland. You'd really love it. I have an appointment with a publisher next week, can you believe it? Well, I miss you."

There's a sigh, and then a click as you hang up. I find I've turned myself toward the direction of your voice with my arm bracing the back of the chair, my legs ready to jump up and race to the phone at a moment's notice. I relax my muscles and turn back to 41 down. Eight letters. Leaves, withdraws; as into privacy.
R
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R
E
A
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S


Wednesday afternoon, January 16th. I'm at work skimming through a student's essay about Faulkner

For Nonfiction Class

"How is he? How is he?" My mother asked, panting with exhaustion from the wondrous miracle known as birth (which, as any pregnant mother-to-be will tell you, is not as miraculous when you're staring down over your enormous belly at this red-faced jelly creature that is coming out of you crying when, in fact, it's the one causing YOU all the pain).

"He?" The doctor inquires. "What do you mean 'he'? It's a girl!"

My mother and father both wept. Although I suppose my mother was probably weeping with joy over the fact that it was all over, and my father quite possibly was weeping over his terror of having to raise something he knew absolutely nothing about.

For nine long months, my mother had decided to keep the sex of her second baby a surprise. After having carried and given birth to my brother two years before, she had her maternal intuition that I was going to come out complete with my Xs and Ys. My grandmother had given her the needle test. This old wives tale suggests that if you hang a needle on a thread over the belly of a pregnant woman, the way it spins will denote the sex of the baby. Supposedly, if the needle swings in a circular motion, the baby will be a girl. If it swings to and fro like a pendulum, the sex is a boy. This particular time my grandmother performed the test, the needle chose both methods of movement, confounding both women entirely.

So there I was in my mother's arms, her beautiful baby girl. In the midst of her postpartum bliss, the nurse arrived carrying all the necessary paperwork to introduce a new life to the world.

"And how would you like your child's name spelled on the certificate?" she asked sweetly, pen poised for inscription.

My mother and father stared blankly at each other, as if the attendant had just revealed that they were having a pop quiz about parenting. Krystopher Aaron had been the intended name for the boy that was supposed to be me. But, God had altered me just a little bit more in the female direction, so they chose to alter the name as well.

"Uh. Kryston. K-R-Y-S-T-O-N," my mother spelled out.

"And the middle name?" The nurse asked.

Well now here was the kicker. She needed a first AND a middle name?

In my head, I imagine that the TV they have in the corners of hospital rooms suddenly flipped on to the next show on air. In the case of my birth, that show happened to be Family Ties. My mother will tell you that it was one of her favorite shows at the time, but I think my story adds a little flair to the whole thing. Elyse Keaton might have popped up on the screen, tossing her blond hair and wondering what to do about something Steven did.

"Elyse?" My mother said, her eyes somehow asking the nurse if this was the right answer to her question.

"Mmmkay, and how did you want that spelled?" The nurse asked, her inner monologue going on about how if you were too young to even know how to spell common names, you were too young to be having kids.

Here is where my mother's explanation of the story gets me every time. She claims that she's never seen the name 'Elyse' or 'Elise' or 'Alise' spelled out before. But I say that it's a pretty popular name to not have seen it in some place at some time before. Especially if she got it from a show like Family Ties!

"E-L-L-Y-C-E," my mother concludes. Her winging-it skills at their finest hour.

And thusly I was named. Never again would a teacher feel confident in their abilities to spell, nay, PRONOUNCE, any and all of their students' names again. There went my chances to collect personalized souvenirs from any gift shop in America. Many an hour would I dedicate to finding just the right amount of loops and swoops for my signature. Notes addressed to me by middle school boyfriends would have all sorts of wrong letters. Many of my family members spelled my name wrong on the birthday cards of the the first half of my life.


These days, when they take my order at Starbucks, I give them a pseudonym so I won't have to be subjected to the butchering of my namesake. I try not to go to the same Starbucks twice in the same time of day in any given week so that I have a chance to create new and mysterious identities for myself. I've chosen names from Zelda to Betsy to Margaret and Macy. There isn't a day that passes that people don't point to my name tag at work and say "Is it CRY-stuhn? How do you say that?"

Maybe I'm biased from having lived with the name my whole life, but I honestly don't think it's all THAT difficult to say. Who would name their child CRY-STUHN anyway? The people who venture this guess at the pronunciation of my name are the same ones whose children got names that were about as interesting as a cup of water with no ice in it. Names like Susan or Mary, John or James. These are the people who paint their entire house in Eggshell. The ones who's cooking knows two spices: Salt and Pepper. But if it's Casual Friday they might throw in a little parsley.

I'd like to say that my parents ended their adventurous ways of naming their poor, innocent children. However, years later my half sister would be born. Now, Kendall isn't all that conventional a name to begin with. But put a little of my father's Lopez spin on it, and the name became Kendyl.

Shouldn't you have to PAY to use Ys as liberally as he does? I mean, they're not even legitimate vowels. It's just a consonant with a vowel's moustache or something. He's gotten greedy with them in naming his children, and quite frankly, the man must be stopped. Thank goodness my stepmother stopped at one with him, otherwise who knows what sort of freak show names my hypothetical siblings might have ended up with. Veronica could just as easily have been Vyronyka. Hillary could have been maimed into reading Hyllaryye. The ugly possibilities are endless.

The long and windy (probably Y-shaped) road of my name has been a difficult one for the people that know me to get accustomed to, but it makes me happy that I can claim it as something different about me. There's no other Kryston in the world quite like this Kryston, and that makes me feel like I have some place on this planet carved out for just me.

ol' faithful

see there's a problem with wanting more from something that's been corroded right through. i keep expecting the ghost in the machine to spin some gossamer magic.

and everyone else is so in love, in love.
what is this? this abstracted fraction of god only knows...

maybe it'd fit more snug if we went somewhere cold. somewhere that we could invent names and places for ourselves, weave new lives out of the fragments of happier times and no one would be any the wiser.

Echo

“Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together.”-- Anais Nin

I think it is listening to you sing and watching your rough and calloused fingers dance up and down the strings when I feel most bewildered by you. The little sanctuary of your bed seems miles away from everything else and I hug my knees hoping that you won't hear the way my heart tries so desperately to escape.

And it is these quiet moments of reflection that make me realize that I have found myself in a place I never thought I could return to. Yet...

And yet. The downside to the bliss. The bitter end of my happiness.

Yet there are things I have done which keep you at an arm's length away from me. The mistakes which keep the slow and chill of night seeping into my skin and sliding along my bones.

I know that relationships change. They are malleable volatile things which are never the same as they were five minutes, five months ago. But oh how I wish we could be what we were that lush and halcyon summer of what seems like forever ago. When I could love you without abandon, without constraints and hush-hush.

Behind the dusty, velvet curtains that we drape around our lives, I love you this way.