Posts for June 1, 2018 (page 6)

If you don’t have a sturdy umbrella your hair is wet-dark, cloak sodden heavy by rains in the forms of mists that become drizzles, downpours that mature to gully washers. It never stops here. There are legends, passed from mothers to daughters at cauldrons and dressing tables, of an impossible country where laundry is dried outside, absorbing different freshnesses depending on the current season. Fathers warn their sons against loving the woman who leaves no ripples when they walk her home from the dance at night. There are as many words for rain as there are changes in intensity and direction, as many tales as generations, but no verbs for the act itself. Saying it’s raining is invoking the obvious and eternal, like saying your heart beats inside mine.

They do not kill their hosts
Living on the host’s surface
Living inside the host’s body
Reducing their fitness
Stealing their food
Obligates completing their life cycle
Castrators diverting the host’s energy
Often close relatives
Taking advantage of interspecific interactions
Modifying host behavior
Exploiting their hosts
Sooner or later they will kill their hosts

Landing

i know i spend most of my time
jumping out of my skin
while you are cool
like some black freighter
but i harbor things
too
like you disrupt some waters
we are
swings
we are
watching a black cat
chase leaves
and
we are
people swinging on us
we are
something in the backyard
creaks
the chains
swing and creak
i am
jumping off
the swing seat
you are
making the shadow
we land
in 

The hearse cruises by
as I lift five-pound weights
at the High Street Y

Just took some Ambien.

N-word, N-word, N-word,
C-word, C-word, C-word.

I could go on
OK, I will.

N-word, N-word, N-word,
C-word, C-word, C-word.

Ambien, the new Devil.

i used to breathe fire.
i used to be brave.
you made me believe 
i was a ghost-
an alien-
your imagination-
everything but real.
i have a faint recollection 
of a bright beautiful
bang of a light
but my hero turned away.
i wish i could
make my mind remember 
how to weave my hair
into war.

Ice cubes settle. 
Wind moves a shutter.
The furnace thumps. 
The fan hums. 
The screen door expands.
The cats nibble kibble. 
The magnolia scrapes the window. 

My grateful ears accept the music
Of motion with gratitude rejecting
Solitary notions of dread that assail
This single dweller. The sounds wiggle
Comfort between my shoulder blades.
 I fill crossword spaces while coffee
Mist drifts toward the empty chair. 

K. Bruce Florence
(I do not know why my name is listed as N/A. I have asked that it be changed and maybe it will be later.)

The quest for night became an 
obsession,
for daytime leant itself to
torment; ebbing to the 
forefront of her ceaseless
mind. 
But in the dark,
solace wraps
its calming, quiet arms around
her, singing soft lullabies like a 
tender kiss…
This rapture of dreamy sleep
does not come easy, and is
regarded in the early morning
light as a precious and
unexpected gift.
A satisfied smile and a cat-like 
stretch of contentment are
fleeting as the ebb of 
conjured-up-evils begin their
slow but constant descent
back into their woeful nest. 

Where does fear go when it dies—
no, that’s not the right question,
it was never fear who lay
beneath bleached sheets, caged eyes wild,
then not. Now fear’s talons have
nowhere to land. Mother’s safe
in ground. Above, I circle.

As mass murderers steal headlines
I wonder about when I was bullied.
I feel the emotions I felt then.

In Japanese class, we latched onto the cool kid,
P__.
It was me, B__, A__, and P__,
tables at the back of the room
so we could point at the anime kids
with colored hair
and laugh
with P__.

B__ and I were in Middle School anime club
I liked Pat Labor and Sailor Moon.
After the first day of laughing, 
I remember B__ pulled me aside in the hallway:
“You’re not gonna tell P__ that we were in anime club,
are you?”

I never did. But who cares?

Now I think back to when I was bullied
by myself,
refusing to enjoy what I liked
and shoving everyone else,
anyone else,
into the crosshairs.

As mass murderers steal headlines,
I wonder about when I was bullied
and whether or not they, too,
were bullies, not victims,
and don’t know the difference.