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I sat in an AA meeting
saw a guy who annoyed me walk through the door Behind him came a girl I’d never seen before STOP She was pretty in that dropdead sexy death grip kind of way STOP My heart was leapfrogging She wore a grey collared shirt and a grey, frilly skirt Her hair was brown She was short Her legs looked soft like they’d absorb me if I were only STOP The guy led her to the coffee station That was the first time I caught her eyes They were brown big & devious like they’d seen things out of this world STOP I smiled at her while I poured my coffee and she poured her own. Then I sat down and she sat down beside me The guy that annoyed me sat down on the other side No words were spoken between us until the end of the meeting when she turned to me and said: HI, I’M DIANNE. STOP She died recently of a drug overdose Smoked fentanyl thinking it was only regular, run-of-the-mill crack cocaine I never realized how important she was to me. Until she died We never dated. No but we did hook up once or twice STOP I know what the rumors said about her she was a prostitute but I’d rather not soil her name anymore than it already is she liked me that’s what mattered I liked her back There was no other major exchange between us STOP She brought me to this strange guy’s house after I had run into her down the street I was sober for a bit She was not I was 23 she was I’m guessing 20 The guy whose house she had brought me to he would let any bozo come through the door. I forgot his name He had an open-door policy Anyone could come in at any time he didn’t care STOP I met Colin’s mom there She was drunk gave me a drunken lapdance right in front of everyone STOP She brought me to a rock ‘n’ roll show at the Knights of Columbus later that night She kept kissing me all night long until I had to go home Samantha was pissed when I told her about what had transpired that night STOP When I moved to my new apartment Johnny helped me lug over all my belongings in a stolen shopping cart She came by that night We had sex in my new bedroom while everyone else hung out in my new living room STOP She once called me because she was having a terrible night I brought her over to my place thought I’d get laid but she liked some other guy We sat around watched some cheesy teen movie She slept on my couch as I stayed up smoking ginseng out of the jar I had bought at the Asian market in Boston then drew penises and other things on her face. She was so angry at me because I used Sharpie but then she laughed I walked her to her friend’s house She hugged me said goodbye STOP I told her if she ever wanted to laugh, she can call me any time STOP A few years went by I neglected most my friends who were there at the beginning of my new journey because I screwed up so much and made a fool of myself so often that I didn’t want to be reminded I was standing outside of Pub 42 in Rutland She ran over and hugged me She was a little bit older She had gained some weight She was sober I said that’s great! But I was confused as to why she was so happy to see me like none of the old memories of her meant anything STOP Every now & then she would LIKE or comment on my posts on Facebook I would respond with very little passion Last week Wyatt asked me if I remembered her I hadn’t thought of her in ages but yeah of course I did She’s in a coma, he told me They’re going to cut the cord because she has no hope My heart was broken STOP All those memories of her came flooding in
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I see the boy
sitting by himself in the park He looks nervous twitching fingers scratching at his crotch He’s there to meet some friends They come in an instant The boy stands there silently as all his friends converse I see them walk away I follow them down lonely streets filled with wild action The boy and his friends hurry after the moment I follow them through the alley where drugs are sold One of his friends suggests they buy some drugs from the nice older gentleman with his hands in his pockets A toothpick set on his tongue the man passes a bag of something naughty to the kids they are off I keep a close eye on the boy He stays hidden in the pack as they stroll across the bridge vanish around the back They descend the steps I follow them to the edge I know the boy would someday find himself drowning I watch them from atop the bridge as they each take a turn smoking the pipe This isn’t pot I smell It smells bitter someone coughs Someone is talking fast Someone is talking faster I see their twitching bodies The boy sits there and stares at the river as I stand on the ledge He’s quiet He seems lonely I watch them talk like nothing in the world matters at this moment The boy is silent He watches as three fishes flee from the menacing snake which slithers on the surface of the wakes The boy is so quiet His friends speak of dreams The boy takes the pipe flies away or so it seems He disappears down a burnt maze of ashes He runs as his approaching destiny devours him like cereal I watch him fall from the sky in a visceral kaleidoscopic tumble Confetti is everywhere I stand there on the bridge The boy comes down fast crashes into the river I feel an abrupt sadness and anger when his friends keep smoking because they are just too fucked up to care The boy is flailing thrashing his arms & legs His friends couldn’t even fathom that this might happen to them My heart is a to-do list
that never gets completed My soul is like a date book that never gets addressed My mind is a series of unfortunate events My spirit is a coloring book that never gets its shades I was unsure
about where I was going but I was determined to go there with both feet facing forward Someone once said rather than test the temperature of the water with my foot as most sane people do I dive right in no holding back I was to get married to a woman I had dated for an entire tumultuous six months I was in for a surprise Nothing good in my life ever lasted for very long I knew this to be true I sat beside her every day for an entire year or more before the snowball took form and once it rolled it grew, and as it grew we danced to the tune of a homeless piano player above the Skinny Pancake It was a surprise I was a scared little boy about to step into his big boy pants We got married, just us two and her daughter in an artistic loft located above Skinny Pancake We met the woman who would act as our officiant for the event in the restaurant downstairs It was very lowkey She led us upstairs through a hallway lined with artistic depictions She brought us to a large room with a piano in the corner and there was a homeless man seated behind the piano playing a beautiful tune that would be the theme for the future proceedings He didn’t cost anything but I might have given him some money in the end which he stuffed inside his pack Then he wandered off in his ragged clothing and the officiant took pictures of us the groom the bride & the daughter outside in the blowing wind throwing the leaves around her blond hair flowing and my green eyes glowing I sit at the window
and watch as the bear prowls my backyard My music plays like an emotional jackhammer The lights flicker The TV enacts silently a void of images searching for reason The bear rises to its feet an impressive mound of muscles and looks up at me My mind is a painter It draws blank pages across a terrifying ether I blabber intentional verses I comb my hair with a switchblade The bear stands there casting its shadow beneath the dull moon’s glow My worldviews implode I forgot why I’m here My thoughts are slighted The sounds of war ring loudly in my heart like a series of overly used tropes The bear leaves my backyard with an enthusiastic gallop because I know that it knows that I was watching Walking Velvet, our eight-pound black Maltipoo, through the neighborhood—with my speaker blasting and some neighbors looking upon me with approval and some shaking their heads in annoyance. Velvet barks too much but, like a baby, she just wants to be held. She always has to be in the middle of me and Michelle when we cuddle in bed. Makes it hard to be intimate with each other when she is always nudging her head in to be a part of it. We push her to the end of the bed but she is so sweet that it would seem gritty and shameful to do it while her curious, loving eyes fall upon us like they always do. Sometimes she falls asleep, but other times she gets lonely and restless and decides to pounce. It’s really a mood-killer, so we relocate her to the floor. Last week we came downstairs to find a Christmas ornament chewed up, with the broken pieces all scattered around the living room. Another time, Michelle went downstairs for a glass of water and I heard her scream: “OH NO! WHAT THE FUUUCK!” I said: “What’s going on?” “Velvet ate a DO NOT EAT packet!” “Where did she get one of those?” I said, running down the stairs to make sure Velvet was okay. Velvet was sitting in her favorite spot in the house—in front of the fireplace. She had a grin on her face that said: Serves you right for kicking me off the bed. She’s a crazy dog. She used to lick electrical outlets when she was just a pup. One time she was standing by the door with something brown and mushy in her mouth. She was so tiny, we’d only had her for a couple weeks. She eats everything, so I went to take it from her. I grabbed it, then dropped it, and shouted: “That was poop! She was eating her own fuckin poop.” We had to sprinkle a probiotic in her food, which would make the smell of her poop unappealing to her. I’m pretty sure if it smelled at all, like anything good or bad, she was thrilled to eat it. On walks Michelle would hold a dandelion up to her face and Velvet would sniff it, like she was marveling at this magnificent specimen, then she would lean in and chomp it down. Walking her is the worst on days I just want to be a mute. Most days I don’t want people to talk to me. Nor do I want to talk to them. But trying to say no to her when she wants to say hi to someone is impossible. She pulls and pulls and cries and cries, and I try to direct her away but then the person in her sight looks up and says: “Oh, Velvet. You’re such a good girl.” Velvet pulls me toward them, and jumps and yaps and scurries around their feet. I just stay quiet, and then when Velvet tires out I nudge her in the way of the walk and she goes, and the person standing there says: “Thanks a bunch. She’s so sweet.” I nod my head and hurry off, until someone else leaves their house. She stops and pulls so much on walks that at one point in the summer I was trying to lose weight and I would walk without her and everyone came up to me and said: “Where’s Velvet? Is she okay?” and then I’d have to explain that I’m just trying to lose weight and Velvet is okay but she slows me down and I need to do this on my own. Then they would say: “Well, I’m glad she’s okay.” One time Michelle took Velvet to New Hampshire without me and I was so lonely without the two of them here and I’d have to take the bus to do errands, and people would be like: “Where’s Velvet?” and I’d say: “Not today, she’s not here today.” I’m such a messy eater that Michelle would be up in bed with Velvet while I’m in the kitchen eating something and then I’d go upstairs and Velvet would smell the food on my breath and she’d go right to the end of the bed and cry because she wants to see what crumbs I left on the floor for her to eat. If I eat anything poisonous to her, like chocolate for example, I eat it over the sink so I don’t drop any pieces on the floor. When we watch TV in the living room she barks at the screen the whole time and it’s so annoying so now we can only watch TV on our computers in bed, and Velvet loves to sit there and watch it with us. She has this intrigued, upright look that makes it obvious that she is watching, now that the screen is closer to her size and therefore much safer to be around. Her bark is the most annoying bark. Saying no to her is incredibly hard because she barks so loud in the middle of the night that we’re afraid it’ll wake up the neighbors, and when she does it right next to me, my ears actually sting. When she was a puppy she would scream when she got hurt because she didn’t understand this strange land and she was scared. Once, my stepdaughter Annmarie dropped her and she howled; it sounded almost human but as loud as a sasquatch, and it just rang on until Michelle picked her up and held her so she would calm down. Now she is four years old. She runs when we go to pick her up; it’s just a game to her. In the last year, I started saying: “Stop running,” and she’d immediately stop so I could pick her up. This one time she got out in New Hampshire when I wasn’t nearby, and I heard Michelle screaming VELVET, and I ran to the door and Michelle was out there trying to catch her and she saw me coming through the door and ran straight toward me and leapt into my arms. That’s why it’s my job to catch her if she gets away. She got out the back door once and ran around to the front of the house and then I came out the front door and she ran straight to me. When she was a little puppy I had to chase her around the parking lot for 20 to 30 minutes when she got out. I only caught her because one of the neighbors was walking to her car and she ran to greet the woman and I asked her to pick up Velvet, and she did, and she handed her to me. She doesn’t run because she wants to get away, but it’s just how she plays. She didn’t leave the parking lot that day, she circled around the grass, and the garages, and the lot, while I would dive in the mud to try and catch her but she’d always slip away from me. I’m glad those days are over. When I come home she gets so excited to see me. She barks her loud nasty bark, accusing me of abandoning her. I get it, I have abandonment issues too, so I understand; and that is why this dog, she is the second love of my life.
There is a beast
inside of me I’m so afraid of the consequences of the rippling effect that comes every time I succumb to the disfunction I hide away from the painful struggle so I don’t have to destroy everything I’m tormented by sin My hampered attempts to contain this demon that arises from my closet when no one is looking at me The demon I see when I’m faced with shimmering indecisions keeps me crippled with anxiety Please don’t leave me to my own devices Hold me down and lock me out of your world for it’s only a matter of time\\\ Restless tired irritable & discontent
I stare at the board of numbers The sticks are stuck clicking clicking and inching this way but not that My brain is like a Cadillac with the top down I drive it in the breakdown lane chucking ideas into the ether One after another I follow the words on the page My eyes are burning confusion I’m in an elusive state I write thoughts on my face Life’s glorious floating vessel is lost at sea I stand on the riverbanks of time rearing to jump into the maelstrom of indecision It’s a cold reality in which I spend most my time The heated edges of life burn symbols in the rear end of my third cornea Then I go about doing things that need to be done I think about things that are mere nuances Life’s inconsequential fury is something that I must overcome before the boredom of lesser dimensions leaves me pleasureless & disturbed as the clock’s thunderous chirp My brother found me outside the airport. She and I were tucked neatly beside one another, puffing our cigarettes and staring at the taxi traffic and the herds of people rushing around searching for their rides.
Boston, MA. Logan Airport. He opened the door and said: Are you ready to go? He seemed to be in a rush. He was always in a rush. I tapped out my cigarette. I stared in her eyes for a moment. I barely noticed my brother’s intrusion. Then she leaned in and gave me a tight, satisfying hug. And she was off. To her connecting flight. To rural California. To grow and sell marijuana crop. This was the hippie chick I had met at the airport. It was a few days before Thanksgiving. My brother had invited me to his house for Thanksgiving dinner. I had to fly to Boston from Rutland, VT. I got a ride to the airport earlier than I would have liked, because that was the only time I could get a ride; but it’s okay, I like to be early to most places/// It gives me time to collect myself, and I get to work on my writing and I get to catch up on my reading—all alone. Like the way it usually was, for me…. I checked in at the main desk and lugged my bags upstairs. The Rutland airport was small, which meant you had to hold on to all your checked luggage until you passed through airport security, which wouldn’t be till after your plane had unloaded all of its previous passengers. There was a large sitting area on the second floor, complete with couches and TVs and a bar and a large floor to ceiling, wall to wall, window that looked out on the barren runway. Rutland had only one plane that flew three times a day, to Boston and back, and the runway looked like a sheer wasteland of abandoned machinery and there was a slight fog that festered over the emptiness. I was the only one there. I had the place to myself. I went and ordered a coffee at the bar. Sat down on a couch. Pulled a book from my bag and began reading it. Moments later I saw this girl in her early to mid-20s rolling a suitcase passed the bar and finding a seat a little ways down from me. I don’t know what it was about her, in her flannel shirt and Birkenstock jeans and rugged Timberland boots, with her long, messy blond hair and slightly freckled face. Something about her drew me in. I know what you’re thinking, I used to fall in love with every pretty girl I saw, so this could have just been one of those moments, but nah, she was different, in her own hippy kind of way. And maybe, just maybe, I could read her a story I wrote…. Nah, she’d think I was crazy. I had an hour and a half before the flight came and so why not? why not take a chance? I walked over on cautious footing, with all my luggage in tow, a little worried about how she might react. I didn’t like being rejected, even though rejection was as commonplace to me as anything else. So I guess I was used to it. But riding one hour on a tiny jet plane beside a girl to whom I had made an ass of myself would be rather awkward and so maybe I shouldn’t try. I started to turn around when I guess she noticed me. It wasn’t hard. We were the only ones in this large room and I wasn’t heading toward the bar and the bathrooms were downstairs and I stood there gripping my bags, in the dead center of the room, halfway between where I had previously been sitting and where this pretty girl was smiling at me, and—-- I said: Can I read you a story I wrote? Her smile grew and she nodded and there was a twinkle in her eye that flicked and ebbed and then it was gone. And she said: Sure. I walked the rest of the way and sat down beside her. I propped my bags in the seat on the other side of me. Told her my name. She told me her own///it was Katie. I told her this was a story I wrote just a few days ago called “An American Beauty.” When I got to the end she was still smiling and she told me it read like a rap song. I chuckled. Yeah, I said. I wrote it in a stream of conscious. We talked for a while. She was on her way to California to grow marijuana. I said cool. I told her I wished I could do something like that. I was just going to my brother’s for Thanksgiving dinner. I frowned. She said: It sounds like you’ve had plenty of adventures and I’m sure you’ll have plenty more. I smiled. Maybe you could go to California some time and we’d see each other again. I kept smiling. I know, we’ve only known each other for a few minutes but I was smitten with her, and she seemed to dig me too. I gave her my book Derelict America. We sat there and watched our plane land and we went downstairs and crossed through airport security together. We sat in the flimsy seats and I noticed our legs were touching. Our arms too. When it was time to board the plane I was still smiling and she was dreamily nice to me and there was no awkwardness either; I felt very comfortable around her. I probably stunk of BO and had streams of sweat oozing down the sides of my face, but she didn’t care. We sat in the tiny jet plane, leg to leg, arm to arm, and she rested her head on my shoulder as the plane took off. We touched down in Boston an hour later and we both really needed a cigarette. My brother was texting me to ask where I was, but I didn’t answer; I was lost in the moment, dancing on impulse, excited but sad because I knew this feeling was fleeting and as soon as I responded to my brother’s text, the moment would be gone and I’d have to go. We exited the airport and found the smoking spot and we lit cigarettes and stood side by side, smoking, laughing, and watching the crowds. My brother burst through the door and said: We gotta go now. I said to him: This is Katie. He looked at me like he didn’t care. He said: Really, we gotta go. I tapped out my cigarette and turned to her. I said bye. Started to walk away. She grabbed me and embraced me for a few seconds and whispered in my ear: Goodbye. Who was this angel? I pulled away from her. I went in the door and watched through the window as she stood out there finishing her cigarette the whole way until the wall ended and I was going up the escalator and walking to my brother’s car in the parking lot. I don’t need
to get in the last word anymore I can walk away from the issue in question I can leave the subject alone cuz I am better |
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