Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

It didn't seem possible. People don't build houses with their bare hands. But I've seen the photographs. I've heard the stories.

In 1981, my parents built a house out of bricks. They put in carpet and painted the walls. My sister and I each had our own room. The basement was always cold and the backyard was fenced in.

Good times, noodle salad.

Endless Love by Diana Ross & Lionel Richie was #2 on the charts.

But nothing lasts forever and these days everyone's pictures are digital. Things can be erased. It could take years, it could take seconds. My black cat was hit by a car in the street across from my house. I didn't find out for two months. My mom knew all along, but she let me think maybe he just ran away and would make his way back one day.

He never came home.

I have summer memories made out of sticks. The songs in our home videos are made out of straw. Somewhere in the basement, I wrote my name on the wall. But someone else lives there now. And everything seems to have floated away.

What was I supposed to do? I loved the Big Bad Wolf, and he loved me.

bereft

I miss something and I can't remember what it is. Or when I saw it last. Or if it remembers me.

Maybe dementia is just around the corner.

I thought I saw my childhood the other day, but it didn't recognize me. The eye contact we made was awkward, and I don't know if we'll ever see each other again.

It was the happiest I've been in a while.

It made me want to call my brother late Sunday night and talk about the good old days. When we sat outside with our shirts off and the music on. We forgot the bad times and how the grass made our backs itch. Mom yelled out the front door that it was time to come in. But the sun was the only one who could ever control us.  

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but somehow a photograph is worth more. It's worth everything in your memory and everything in your pockets.

But we spent it all, Jack. We spent it all.

Please write soon.

goodbye, farewell, until we meet again

I started writing about me but I don't want to write about me anymore. I want to write about you. I want to write about you before you disappear and become a lyric on the tip of my tongue. I want to write about you before the story ends and gets turned into a movie that never made me feel the same way as the book did. I've spent 5 months underlining my favorite parts about you and folding the corners of your pages and spilling coffee all over you. I look around the room now and i want to take a picture of your misleading cover and broken spine. Sometimes I wish you were small enough to carry around in my pocket so I could pull you out when I'm riding Trax. You'd make a great waiting room companion if only as an excuse to avoid making eye contact with all the sick people in the world.

Because the world is full of sick people. And the worst part about it is that they don't know they're sick and neither do the doctors. Their guts are all broken and their insides are dead. They thought creative writing was just a class and never listened to any of the songs. They never wondered about bricks and paper clips or whether love really exists. And they probably never will.

I was working on a PowerPoint that would explain all of this for you, but we ran out of time. Your visa expired and college was on the other line. I told her not to break you or lose you but you never belonged to me in the first place. My adopted baby who, when people see us at the mall together they talk about how cute you are and how your tiny fingers look just like mine and how that one face you make is me to a tee, and you have my eyes. They say that you have my eyes. And I never have the heart to correct them. I've taken full credit for your dark hair and fair skin and I just wanted to let you know that I'm not sorry.

Because when you walk across the aisle to grab your diploma and enter the real world...just before you shake the superintendent's hand, I'm going to stand up and tell everyone that I'm the one who gives this woman away and I don't give a damn if your parents don't understand what's happening. Because I never believed in nature to begin with. You were a blank slate all along and when you wrote a tiny heart in the corner, I was the one who gave you the crayon.

Dead Duck

It's not that the pond was especially clean or pure or anything. But still, I didn't expect to see a body floating in it.

Dead Duck

I don't know that much about ducks. I don't know what they eat or how they have babies. It's probably bread and, you know, eggs, but I don't know for sure.

I don't usually hang out around ponds and almost all of my neighbors are humans. So I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about ducks. I don't know what they dream about or what they want to be when they grow up. I don't know what they're afraid of or how easy it is for them to fall in love.

But I know that that duck was dead.

And I must've been the only one who knew it, because everyone else had moved on. People walked by and talked about how nice the day was. I watched a young couple, strolling and laughing, as if they hadn't yet figured out that love doesn't last forever. And a boy- he skipped rocks across the water like that wasn't going to be him some day.

I don't know if he was too young to understand or if maybe the rocks were just his way of forgetting for a while.

Because we are all dead ducks. Even if we can't fly and even if we don't spend much time around water. I heard that white bread is bad for us- so then why does everyone keep trying to feed it to me?

I'm sick of Bugs Bunny acting like everybody loves him. Like every season is duck season and none of us are rooting for the underdog. Sometimes I feel like my beak has been shot off. Like I'm tap dancing, trying to get someone's attention, but everyone's too busy talking about the weather, or skipping rocks, or being in love.

And this poem isn't about ducks. It's not about ponds or cartoons or how I fell asleep the first time I watched Gladiator. It's about the water that surrounds us all, as we try to hold still and think about other things. It's about all the reflections in all the ponds and why I couldn't help but see myself when I looked down at the duck.

This is me pretending that I'm going to live forever. This is me trying to dry out my wet guts. This is me still figuring everything out because sometimes I just like to see how long I can hold my breath.

We're all happy, we just haven't noticed yet. We're all in love, we just haven't told our parents. We're all dead, we just haven't drowned yet.

And someday, just past the spot where our bodies float, a young couple will walk by laughing - whispering nothing into each other's ears. And a young boy will avoid all the difficult questions as he skips his rocks across the water.

everything i wish someone had told me when i was 17

i saw a young writer eating lunch by himself
a turkey sandwich lay next to his open moleskine notebook
(at least i think it was turkey)
i asked what he wanted to be when he grew up,
but he didn't answer me

because i didn't say it out loud.

i wanted to tell him everything was going to be okay
that everything our 2nd grade teachers told us was true
we are special

and even if everyone's special,
that means no one's special,
i still want to believe that i'm special, he's special, you're special, we're special

and i know i sound like an after school special,
but i want to keep these kids safe, out of trouble,
in a bubble

until it pops.

an elevator only goes up,
until it drops
inspiration moves us,
until it stops.
so while we have it,
let's make rockin' out a habit,
and act like lady gaga and just

dance.

cause actions speak louder than clothes
and amateur poetry speaks louder than prose.
i want to sell out
not for money, but for profit.

stand on top of the world and don't ever get off it
so if you're going through the motions, knock it off
if you're hurt, walk it off
to the ledge at the edge of the world
and don't let anybody talk you off
cause we're all dying

and despite everything that 2nd grade teacher told us,
she was lying
and this kid, sitting alone
eating his sandwich, writing a poem
he gets it

and i'm not saying he's better off
i'm just saying he gets it.

my first nature poem

this morning i sat on the balcony and tried to see the beauty.

no phones or ipods.

just sunrises and birds and mountains.

my mother's voice telling me to stop and look around at god's grandeur and i wanted to enjoy it. i really did.

but i got bored and pulled out an old photo album instead. and i don't know about you, but have you ever been looking through a bunch of pictures and there's one of a sunset, and some trees, and the horizon, and another sunset, and some mountains, flowers, rainbows, and how many pictures of a sunset can you take?

i mean, where are all the people, you know...the humans, the ones with faces and emotions, and really i'm just looking for pictures of me, cause that's all i really care about anyway. pictures of me. pictures with me in them. what am i wearing and what does my face look like, and am i ever gonna get a tan, and why do I look so weird in that picture?

like this one right here.

i'm sitting in my garage with a look on my face that screams happiness and i remember that day. i remember the excitement. it's my 15th birthday and my hair looks crazy terrible because i let josh cut it and he's never cut anyone's hair before and i let him cut mine. and i haven't seen him in 15 years and i miss him.

i miss him.

i miss him like the other half of the world misses the sun and raindrops miss the clouds and the waves crashing on the shore miss the ocean. and maybe i don't appreciate nature like i should.

but i know that every year flowers die and trees lose their leaves

and nobody cries.

Resonate

Here's what doesn't inspire me:

Robots. 

Adults.

The rain.

Gas prices and discussions about the weather.

Being too cool.

Awkward silence.

Eye contact. 

Other people's dreams.

Wind.

Loud music (and I'm not talking about the volume).

Clutter.

Deadlines.

Authority.

Money.

Chemistry.

SAGE tests.

Other people's problems.

And here's what does:

Robots.

Poetry.

Lonely keys.

Lonely chairs.

Anything that's lonely.

Pictures of places I've never been.

Your relationship with your dad.

Sunshine.

What you want to be when you grow up.

Pictures with me in them.

Cigarettes.

The moon.

Other things.