Fell upon a sixteen-pound cookie baked by Eleanor Roosevelt,
then tumbled into the mine shaft connecting Florida to Wyoming.
Made a right turn at wherever the wild prairies blew ragweed,
but had to double back away from the prairie dogs.
Ran through a tunnel built for giants to feast within,
realized those giants were hungry for supper,
leapt out of my skin and bled to death.
A half-baked carp cheek croissant smears in the oven
as the room rotates itself a full 90 degrees,
never to return to its original orientation.
Spread too thin, the pastry burns within minutes
and catches fire, as any good pastry should.
The fire, fueled by neglect,
engulfs the cabinets and cutting boards
before the leisurely smoke detector decides it’s had enough.
A dull thud emanated from the cabinet last week as I passed by the kitchen. I didn’t investigate, but the thud got louder and louder while I camped out in the living room. Not one to be entirely superstitious, I shrugged it off and continued drinking my beer. You know, I couldn’t tell you what the thud was, but my next-door neighbor happened to see movement in my kitchen from their window at allegedly the same time as the thuds. Frightened, I packed up and moved away from that house as quickly as I possibly could. There’s no way in hell I’m going to live next to a nosy neighbor.
We clearly didn’t get enough sleep, and now I can’t even focus for more than four seconds without staring off into space like some kind of nutjob. It’s impossible to plan to feel this way, but we could certainly have predicted it based upon our nightly behavior.
At these times, it’s important to remember that stomach lining can be replaced, and your muscles don’t always feel this tight. Nobody’s looking at you funny, so stop squenching up your face like you’re staring at the sun before you give me a heart attack.
I’m prone to sudden spasms, you know that.
If I have no option other than to sweat here like a pig in heat (the humid Texas Gulf Coast, no less), shouldn’t I at least have a say in what kind of clothes I wear? I’m really disappointed in you for signing that uniform contract without at least reading it first. Isn’t that the first rule to contract negotiation? I’m not angry that I have to wear a uniform, I’m just pissed that you initialed the box right next to the statement that reads, and I quote: “All employees are now required to wear spandex undergarments to work, for sanitary purposes.”
Forever mine, forever yours, we always have a state of transit between us and our breakthroughs, outbreaks, whatever you want to call them, those typical bursts of exquisite time unfolding through the mantelpiece and unimaginable pincushion sadness, tied together with grief and an inordinate number of pineapple chicken beak massacres.
It’s not as though we lose our typical digestion when something of this magnitude pops up, but there’s no telling the typical dragon-like experience necessary to be taken seriously around here for a change. If there were any kind of scrutiny to be had, scruples to withhold for times when tile melds with rock melds with bedrock melds with molten core, then we’d be in a different boat entirely.
But as it stands, there’s not even a raft in play here. Forget about paddles, there’s no way we can even keep above water long enough to contemplate navigating a body of water. We might be naturally buoyant, but there’s no reason to believe that floating like a cork for six hours is a given, even in the fairly gentle salty brine.
It’s like I’m trying to crack
some Russian terrorist organization’s database
before the rubber ducky
explodes all over the train tracks
during the afternoon commute
away from the lovely metropolis
that affords so many people
the luxury of living 30 miles away
and commuting every day
to earn their big fat paychecks
while leaving bigfoot carbon prints
if they choose not to commute by rail.
But they can do anything they want,
because having substantial sums of money
makes a person immune from criticism
and the need to change lifestyle.
WHARVED 