Friday, February 28, 2014

2 minutes. Go!

Hey, writer-type folks. Every Friday we do a fun free-write. No reason. Just ending the week in style.

Basically, you can write whatever you want in the comments section. You have two minutes. Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. Play as many times as you like (doesn't have to be today, even). 


So, tell a friend. If you have one. If not, tell your enemies. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play. 

I swear, I'm trying. The words coming in get drowned out. It's fucking loud in my head, you gotta understand. I know vacant looks aren't appealing. I know I'm sweating a little. There's a water mark on the wall and that thing says it all. I am tired and the building is tired and it's raining like hell.

I don't mind the rain, don't get it twisted. Rather fond of rain actually. And that's not just one of those pretentious things writers say. Poets, yeah, don't get me started on the poets. I have plenty of poetic friends. They like the rain, too. They don't like it when I make fun of their berets, though. 

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Why?

I don't know why I did it - does that suffice? I can't find the words to say what I need to say without inflicting pain - can you forgive my silence? It is slowly killing us. It floats around our heads, vapor. I try to ignore the cowardice, but it is like a big, toothy dog - it smells of those mints your grandmother always had. They were tasty, but covered in lint - we all make our sartorial choices.

I know that every time I don't say it that I am worse than a liar - I am a builder of walls unfit to hide behind. My father was a Mason; he would be so ashamed. My walls always crumble no matter how strong I think I've made them. They crumble like middle school egos. There is no hiding.

I get mad for the strangest reasons. Your love enrages me. I hate me, and I want you to agree.

Dog fight memories dance in jubilant circles. The past creeps on tepid stalks, just below the sight line - I don't want to hear about it. I'll pick up my guitar and strum the apathy away - that's not true, this is not about me, it's about you.

First person confuses things. I get that. 

I want to be the man who walks into a room, stops - looking thoughtful - sits, quietly observant. But I want it to be natural. I am tiring of contrivances.

What should you call me? You can call me anything you want. I have no stake in it - I played the sly deuce and payed the price. My pride is a skittish foal. I write sentences that make me want to cleave my own skull with an axe. Who the fuck says 'skittish foal' and doesn't hate themselves? Horse folk, I guess. 

What does it MEAN? Why does it have to be this way? I don't have a goddamn clue. Ask me in forty years and I still won't have an answer for you. Unless I'm dead - then, that will be all the answer you need.

But I won't die. Genetics. I am descended from factory workers and laborers. My ancestors would probably enjoy beating me with picks and shovels. The irony is not lost on me.

There is no plot, get that anxious look off your face. It's making me nervous, itchy - makes my heart race. 

I stare at bright things. I walk through hallways sniffing; I don't know what I am expecting to smell. Some calamity. Sulphur madness. Sewage and cigarette butts. Do you SMELL that? They never do.

When I was young, things happened to me. Good things, bad things, happy and sad things. They were the mortar that should have held the bricks, but I threw the bricks through the windows of my soul. People never seem to understand. Break a window, punch a wall, fucking yell your head off - why? What do you mean 'why'? Seriously, it's pretty simple. 

If I gave you all the why's, you still wouldn't get your answer. Because your answer is everything. It is nothing. Its scope is beyond you. It smells like hot pine needles. It tastes like good scotch - too sweet - it would set your teeth on edge. 

So where does this leave us? In the middle of the woods, wishing we'd dropped bread crumbs? Or is it even worse - were the woods ever really there?

We've had about enough of this. I know you have. I certainly have. They have. You don't know who "they" are? Just wait, the sound of their arrival will be a reckoning centuries in the making - we will all quake and shiver, saluting nothing but ourselves.

Friday, February 21, 2014

2 Minutes. Go!

Hey, writer-type folks. Every Friday we do a fun free-write. No reason. Just ending the week in style.

Basically, you can write whatever you want in the comments section. You have two minutes. Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. Play as many times as you like (doesn't have to be today, even). 


So, tell a friend. If you have one. If not, tell your enemies. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play. 

Someday the rules will make sense, and I'll be free of all these yellow cards. Carte Blanche, that's the stuff I'm looking for. I want to fall from the sky in invisible droplets - cold, hard - like hail but without the danger of misinterpretation. I am not a king. 

All hail those that are not kings. Kings are overrated. I've never met one, but I read books and stuff. And I can imagine, you know? I get it. I would be a terrible king. It would be all harems and massive parties I didn't have to clean up after. You know, how kings do.

Not the Sacramento Kings, though. I don't know shit about them. And I don't have their ransom. I wish they'd put their sticks down and leave me the fuck alone. Bastards. I'm heating up the oil.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

It's Stupid 'Cause It Rhymes

I don't want to tell you, and you don't want to hear it. I'm sick of all this pantomiming, build idol, revere it. Tear it down and start again, always the beginning. Would it matter if I didn't play or would you still be winning?

You can ask all kinds of questions with a smile on your face. The smile's not quite strong enough though, it's burnt out, please replace. It's like a faded quilt where the stitches won't stay down. And I feel like a circus; the whole world is a clown.


Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Big Fish

It was dark, but I knew they were watching me, feeling me ... they could sense the jaw-snap fear. The old man had told me not to fear the dark. Easy for him to say. I lay in the dark feeling them ... it didn't matter. Light or dark. It didn't matter. They lived on my shoulder, in my ears, they played their games ... electrical static in my brain.

They're not real. The old man always says it. And I always agree because, well, what's the fucking point? You can't convince him, and you sure can't convince me. Not when I hear their whispers. Not when the smell of old blood follows me like prank perfume - they are real, no matter what he says.

They found me several years ago. I don't know how, and I don't know why I was picked. I had lived a boring, if easy, life - I was not some kind of spy, not some soul scouring superhero. I was just a man. Until they made me even less than that.

They play me like a big fish. They never pull too hard. Sometimes I can feel their hot breath in my ears, but they know when to back off, when to stand in the corner and just watch.


Friday, February 14, 2014

2 Minutes. Go!

Hey, writer-type folks. Every Friday we do a fun free-write. No reason. Just ending the week in style.

Basically, you can write whatever you want in the comments section. You have two minutes. Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. Play as many times as you like (doesn't have to be today, even). 


So, tell a friend. If you have one. If not, tell your enemies. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play.

Have a great weekend! Happy Valentine's Day.


The paper lunch sacks were taped to the desks, decorated with glitter and stickers, begging for validation, recognition. Zack's was overflowing in seconds. He had that kind of thick blonde hair that goes so well with an Izod shirt. He didn't stutter either. 

You passed your cards quickly like a croupier on crack. You wanted it done. You wanted to know if everyone noticed that your bag swung a little more freely than the others. None of it mattered though. Cardboard and chalky hearts and girls with cute sweaters they had been given just for the day.

You told yourself it didn't matter all the way home. And when she asked, you told your Mom that it had been the best Valentine's ever.

It sure wasn't the worst.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Blah, Blah, Blah...

Look at my lips move. Look at my skin blanche. Feel the heat from my neck, slick. Check out the marks left by the sun, they might kill me someday. Listen to me yell. I yell so loud. My yell is like a thousand nuclear dragons screaming. Look at my wry fucking smile. Do you get what it's all about? How, sometimes, it's 'I don't hear so well' and sometimes it's 'I could give two shits what you're saying' ... sometimes both. Can I carve through the layers of meat that cover the intricacy of my damaged insides? Breathe my breath, look at the scars on my tongue. I get them at night, teeth gnashing in my sleep, tongue clamped between busted teeth. You think that's bullshit, I bet.

Amateur.

Sixties AM Gold

Man, you wield that passive aggression like a scythe! I feel it, deep down in the bones of me - embedded, it doesn't even bleed. I don't care, see. I understand that it's hard to understand. Your bubble is thick and viscous, it is a force field - damn effective, at that.

See, I get it. Everybody's gotta be all worried because I have human feelings, right? Maybe I don't? Maybe I lowered my expectations long ago. Maybe my mind is wandering the back allies cause I fucking like back alleys.

In real life, I do like fields of wildflowers. I like hugs and smiles and 'Sixties AM Gold'. You want to read about that shit? Cause I sure don't want to write about it.

Friday, February 7, 2014

FOUR minutes. Go!

Hey, writer-type folks. Every Friday we do a fun free-write. No reason. Just ending the week in style.

Basically, you can write whatever you want in the comments section. You have four minutes. Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. Play as many times as you like (doesn't have to be today, even). 


So, tell a friend. If you have one. If not, tell your enemies. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play. Have a great weekend!

They'd pushed her chair into a corner again. The spot got a lot of sun; she knew they were trying to be kind. And what could she do? She lived her days on wheels, and that changed the power dynamics drastically. So, she sat and felt the warmth of the sun mingling with the cold memory of childhood afternoons sitting in the corner. Not speaking. She tried to remember that she was not in the corner because she had done anything wrong. Most times, she did.

She did pretty well most days. That was what she thought. She was wrong, but no one ever told her different. They smiled and brought trays of food and fluffed the pillows in her room and every day was exactly the damn same. Who could tell anything in this place?

The TV was always on. It had tortured her at first. Now, she was used to it. Like the little cage of birds that were supposed to cheer them. She could not bear to look at them. They should have been outside, flying. Outside, free. Outside, where the world was not a rotating platter of jello and medication. All of them. 

The birds couldn't leave, and she couldn't leave. She often wished she had the courage to open the latch. Or to find out what the hell was going on...

Thursday, February 6, 2014

They Never Are

"So, what now?"

"What do you mean? We bury her."

"That's it? You're good with that. We bury her..."

"What do you want me to say?"

"I don't know, she was our mother."

"She was no fucking mother."

"That's the whole point, though. She can't hurt us now. We can get some kind of ... what the hell do they call it ... closure?"

"Yeah, we'll close it by putting her in the ground and hoping there's a hell."

"That's it?"

"That's it, Sis."

They walked up the steep path, puffing slightly. At 34 and 32, neither Sean nor Maddy were in 'sprinting up the hill' shape anymore. They knew the hill, and it knew them. It had even changed with them. Where once the hill had been an oasis of green, there were now stunted scrub bushes and empty beer cans. It was sad. It made Maddy especially sad. Sean was more concerned with his elevated heart rate.

When they reached the top, there was an awkward silence. The hill looked down over the whole neighborhood, including their mother's house. It was theirs now. Neither of them wanted it. They didn't even want to go inside. They'd sell it to a neighbor. Get rid of the damn thing. Exorcise the demons.

Sean lit a joint and passed it.

"Just like old times."

Maddy looked at the joint and frowned, then she shrugged and took it, inhaling deep.

"I thought I'd stop hating her when she died, Sis."

"Me, too. But now I just feel like I'll never get a chance to tell her how badly she screwed everything up."

"At least Dad got out."

"He fucking died, Sean. I don't know if that's a 'win'."

"Can you imagine if he hadn't?"

"Jesus."

They sat in silence, passing the joint until it was hard to hold. Maddy ground it out under the heel of her running shoe.

"Do you think she knew?"

"What?"

"How much we hated her?"

"Naw, Sis. I doubt it. She was fucking evil. And if she did know, it probably made her happy."

"Anything you want before we sell?"

"Nope. Literally, not one goddamn thing."

"I want her jewelry."

Sean cocked an eyebrow.

"Why? You gonna sell it?"

"Nope. I always wanted to see it ... touch it ... when we were kids. She never let me. I think 'things' were the only thing she loved. Especially the valuable shit. It's all that mattered to her. I'm gonna throw it all in a fucking lake."

"Will that make you feel better?"

"I don't know yet."

"That's a good point. I brought some booze, want some?"

"What the hell..."

The flask was filled with vodka.

"You drink too much."

"Yeah, I know. I do a lot of things too much."

"Why?"

"Really?"

"Yeah, I guess it was worse for you, huh?"

"Maybe. Different. She didn't ... she hurt you in different ways."

Maddy lifted the flask.

"To Mom. Rest in misery, you sadistic bitch."

Sean laughed, and then they were both laughing. Bright-eyed laughter that lived around the corner from sadness. It had been like that as long as either of them could remember. Laughter and tears. Both important.

They started back down the hill. They walked around the shining neighborhood and looked at the houses. Same old houses. Most of the same people, older now. Maddy wondered if any of them knew, but she doubted it. Mom had always kept the crazy at home. No one ever talked about it.

They saw a figure approaching through the darkness. An old man. Then they saw the little dog. Mr. Johnson. They had dreamed about living with the Johnsons as kids. Their house had always been filled with games and smiles. It hadn't been brittle. Their house had always seemed about to split down the middle.

"Evening kids. I was real sorry to hear about your Mom. We all were. If there's anything we can do, let me know."

Sean's mind raced. He couldn't think of anything to say. Maddy stepped forward and began to sob. The old man put his arms around her. It felt nice.

"It's OK, sweetheart. Everything will be OK."

"She wasn't how you think she was..."

The old man's face went blank, there was a sadness there.

"They never are, sweetheart. They never are."