Posts for June 16, 2024 (page 2)

the scariest things in the world
aren’t monsters or ghosts at all
but what people are capable of
doing to one another; all of the 
horrible things that we see on 
the nightly news are far more
terrifying than any we can just
imagine inside of our own mind

Like an old black & white movie,
the reels of time splice together
bits of days gone by.  It’s only
a dream.  Characters of a past life
fill the stage, playing out scenes.
Scripts rewritten.  Roles recast.
I awaken and wonder what
will take place before the curtain
comes down.  

I slowly wake myself from a nightmare.
The taste of three bottles of pills dissolves
to morning coffee breath. I’d do anything
to decompose the memory, the dream.
So I walk ten miles in place in total today.
I buy a white babydoll dress and four bras,
take the time in the fitting room to untangle
the straps and the lace, hang them back up.
I write in my diary, my little book of horrors.
I note that there is forty nine more days until
I will be an adult. I will try to be a good girl.
I will make all of my healthcare decisions.
I will not make horrible choices in moments
of weakness or panic. The days rot behind me,
my list of to-dos grows longer with the hours
I forfeit to exhaustion. I stand up in the light.
I water my garden in the mouth of the sun,
choking to inflate my lungs with hot June air.
I fade into warm showers. I smear my lips red,
smudge them with the tip of my index finger,
cherry-bitten. I paint my face like a real girl. 
I look human and whole. But I am neither.
I change my clothes. I change my expression.
I do not change. I do not grow horns from my head.
I eat two slices of moldy bread by accident
and vomit them up until stars flood the bathroom.
I cry to my mother about this. I fix my makeup.
I ignore my friends. I ignore my heartbeat rising.
I eat too many chocolate-covered strawberries 
and savor the crunch of ice in my teeth. I melt
myself into sunshine, seem calm, seem sweet, 
seem innocent. They’ve forgotten what I’ve done,
why I dream the horrible things I now dream.
It’s easy to pretend to live beyond that moment,
but I am still there, in hell. Despite, I undo my bed,
go to sleep, and find myself at the start, at home.
This is where the magic happens. I relive time. 
I devolve to iterations of the same story replaying
as I slowly fall asleep into the arms of a nightmare.

If I could 
I’d would 
Make a clean sweep 
Over your life
Fill in all the gaps 
Cracks, holes
That every single 
Person that didn’t 
Give you enough
Of what you deserved 
Throughout your life–
I’d pour every ounce 
Of love and happiness 
Into those voids
So you’d never 
Have to go a day 
Wondering about anything 
You’re better than 
They ever were 
I’ll love you more 
Than your heart 
Can ever hold
This whole lifetime 
And in every hereafter. 

This is Sneaker from the Sneaker and Beeker Morning Show. The date is June 16th, 2044 and the weather is snow. We’re back with another installment of “Court Cases Gone Wild” and, Beeker, it’s a doozy. Today we’re discussing the rise of legal lying in 2028’s Flowers vs Floozy. 

There’s a rain barrel
outside under our bedroom window.
This time of year, there’s a frog

clinging to its edge hollering out every night.
I can’t remember the first year we noticed it,
but it’s become one of those things I expect.

A phenological constant in mid-June,
and although I know it’s not the same frog
from years past, it carries that same sound

echoing into the barrel and out across the
yard yearning for a lover to fulfill its destiny,
to pass down those genes bringing

babies back here to holler some more.
It’s a dollop of wonder in this big ole
mess of a world, one of those things

making me hold on to notions that
maybe everything will be okay.

summer night
I whisper to
……….fireflies

a crisp white tee is

nothing but a magnet for

the brightest red sauce.

There is no poem singing in me today. 
only 
grief. 

The long stretch of highway ahead

The sun beaming through my windshield

I pass all of these cars

Full of people I’ll never meet

I guess growing up in a small town

I could never understand how big the world really is

How many people love the same songs as me

How many people feel deeply like I do

How every single one of these cars

Has someone in it that’s lost in their own thoughts

Maybe turning the music up to drown them out like I am

Or maybe they’re singing with their best friend

Or just married

Or finally escaping their own small town

And these highway thoughts

Both terrify me,

And excite