If I don’t open the email, it didn’t happen yet.
I met a guy who, I swear to god, thought that Central Pennsylvania was Africa - man, was that guy in denial.
He stood at the top of Jumper’s Peak, looking out upon his humble little city in the valley eating away at the surrounding forrest with its large, rectangular apartment building teeth, and the wind whipped at his back, and the lone wolf howled in the distance, and he could just make out the sound of a car alarm - smell the pine on the air (tinged with the toxic smoke) - and he decided, then, not to … leave; he turned on his heel, and was met by a cop on patrol (they’d take it in nightly rounds to check the peak, and the base for “lifies” and “deadies”) and the cop scared him then, on the edge, and the cop shined the light in his eyes, and he reeled back a step, and the ledge didn’t hold, but he did a flip or two on the long, long long way down.
“Which way do you think a roll of toilet paper should hang?”
No matter what it does, I’ll probably want it.
In those days, schools called in cancellations to be run under the story of a dog who could bark to the tune of the alphabet, or some early morning PBS cartoon, and I think that is why I still watch the news in the morning - hoping to get lucky, hoping that they haven’t called his name in to the war’s death count, like my mother when she couldn’t afford another day off of work for ice.
She hired Mubarek as her personal dictator, with immediate results at work and at home.
Maybe I wouldn’t like it so much if I was stuck in a blizzard featuring it in Chicago, but I’m totally naming my next band “Thunder Snow.”
She ripened slowly, like a mango.
There is one man’s voice in this whole world which I abhor, which makes my blood boil, and sends me to trembling, which I fear, and I always get his messages before going to bed.
Not doing something is an option, and always will be an option - though our mothers, and countless protagonists will have us believe that there will come a time when you can’t tunnel around mandatory.
In the battle of windows versus apples, the abandoned old farmhouse next to the orchard never stood a chance against little Jimmy’s pitching arm.
Some days Cherri saw no point to battling it and other days she couldn’t even see what there was to battle.
Beth was surprised and amused every time she waltzed right through customs.
My fiberless cloth and I, we can clean the dust specks and smudge marks off the world.
Some words sound far ruder than they ever could be.
A suggestion
(in the succulent center)
of kissing
the painted
light
fingers
who made morsels of
cookie crumbs
and
I can almost taste you on the rim
of the glass
of milk
you left alone
on my lip-red counter.
Covered in flour
, and nothing else,
you lay in a sprawl on the kitchen floor -
scattered baked goods,
dashed hopes (in with the salt) -
and
I return from the chocolate
on your neck
to the perspiring glass of 1%
on the counter
for more.
“I demand to be heard on this matter,” the chipmunk said, then stomped his tiny feet three or four times for emphasis, which only made the other animals in attendance giggle, except for opossum, which was unfortunate, since he was the club’s secretary and had a sworn duty to maintain accurate minutes of the weekly meetings.
The number of angels that can dance upon the head of the pin varies, for example, angels doing a Virgina Reel have larger space requirements vs. angels doing a simple Rhumba or Cha-Cha
The people in your life that create, blend, sculpt, repair, and tend the physical things around them will always leave a deep and lasting impression, beyond even what you can comprehend.
Nate decided to will himself taller, though his friends recommended lifts in his shoes.
Kiki, the cat, brings my wife a dead bird as a “please don’t ever go on vacation without me again” present and she scritches his ears and goes on about how cute he is; I bring her a dead rat and she looks at me like I’m some kind of axe murderer.
Fairy tales never last in real life, do they?
I contemplate the work boots under coat on its rack - the orangey soles worn off, the holes the socks bathe in when it rains or snows or blusters on beaches hundreds of thousands of shoe-lengths from home, the wrinkles where the pad bends in a step, who begin to crack with the age, consider the miles, perpend the roads man has walked down, wrap in tape once a day before work before thought - I buy a new set, steeled heart, after my head opens like an egg on the pavement in a fall; I cannot sleep at night, and wish the coat would fall, but it doesn’t - boots contemplate me, too young for boots like them, consider me, perpend the first perpent, and the trash.
I. Sneeze the colour purple.
2. Walk along a long, winding cat.
Why is the crescent moon all twisted over like a cheshire cat grin in the evening lately?
There is an angry hedgehog trapped inside my chest.
I sure hope I get picked for the jury for that assault case where the guy punched out the Catholic priest who molested him 30 years ago so I can find him not-guilty and pin a medal on him.
My hair like my father, when I was in my mid-teens, and before my first girlfriend could have the delight of the acquaintance - I imagine it now, the wig of my old bowl cut creaking open the door to my room, and giving me a kiss on the head, suitcase in one hairy hand, keys to the all but broken down chevrolet palmed in the other.
By using a banana for the condom demonstration, don’t you think you’re setting young women’s expectations a bit high?
…who found a way for me to hear “Central Park ‘n’ West” by Ian Hunter for the first time since I was fifteen years old.
As long as they are used for good, and not evil, filling out forms can be a downright satisfying way to spend a Friday.
There’s someone inside of me that loves you more than she loves me.
As inspired by: for JadedBeauty
I heartily recommend titling things with incoherence, whimsy, anonymity or, if all else fails, a meaningless word masquerading as a series.
I feel like there was a perfect moment somewhere in the haze of cigarette smoke and faux fog, a moment in the blinding light of the strobe stop motioning your dip to the dance floor, and the wanton tuck of the bang behind the ear, when your fingers and inhibitions caved to carved v edges of my hip, and without missing a beat you pushed your stomach, your breasts against me like I was being robbed, the alcohol and bass your ski mask from tomorrow.
I wouldn’t mind having a three way with you and your boyfriend while he’s taken that trip up north, and you taste of Pinot noir.
Peter’s first butterfly hat had a funny way of fluttering off his head at the most inopportune moments.
While Peter wore his w-hat, he couldn’t help but question his taste in hats.
I met a guy who, I swear to god, thought that Central Pennsylvania was Africa - man, was that guy in denial.
The wine and cheese tasting party in the middle of the woods had been going surprisingly well, until a grizzly was drawn in by our camembert.
Perspiring is such a dirty word; like moist, it makes me need to take a shower.
I’m not condoning this mind you, but if you’re having trouble with neighbours and want something relatively harmless that says “screw you”, apparently you could do worse than filling a bin with grass clippings, letting it get drenched, leaving it for about 3 weeks in full sun, then pouring it out.
There is nothing like a steaming bowl of taco-tobasco soup to agitate the sinuses into submission.
I challenge you to name a food better than the peanut-butter chocolate milkshake.
Palm trees, light breeze, sand, ocean, period.
Humans are such fragile creatures; humans are so resilient.
“Please, everyone,” the rooster demanded, proud of his ability to take charge of a meeting, but not realizing the impact his next words would have on the course of chicken history, “I insist everyone hold their squawking until after we vote on the new “Everything Tastes Like Chicken” campaign.”
Today for lunch I just had some excellent split-pea with ham soup made from the leftover bone from my Honeybaked Christmas ham.
I’d like to say something profound here about the joys of using tools and building something like a redwood fence, but I’m just to blissed out (and cold and wet in a not-bad way) for profundity.
I can’t decide if I’m appalled or ecstatic to discovery a little tiny jar of homemade blackberry jam that’s been hiding in the back of the pantry for nearly a decade… (pop!) (sniff, sniff) ecstatic.
“Dad, what’s a ‘home phone?’”
The contrast between weekday and weekend was so abrupt that she decided to change her name and move to Idaho, just to try for some continuity.
Last night I had an incredibly long detailed, tactile vivid dream complete with sound, touch and smell—about installing a tow-hitch on my truck.
The paucity of material in my clothing left me feeling postively naked everytime the winter caressed me with her chilly embrace.
“In a commercial lease dispute, the trial court’s ruling is affirmed where the lessor waived an antiwaiver provision in a commercial lease and the lessor cites no authority that an antiwaiver provision in a lease cannot itself be waived.”
Steer into the skid.
Having just looked at my Gmail spam folder, Google helpfully offered me a link to a recipe for “Ginger Spam Salad.”
Singer drags at the flask close to his heart, bassist’s fingers roll like thunder in spring over E - pedal kick it into our skulls, the nicotine of the hipsters waiting outside, the idyllic life imagined in the amp, the wanton, wandering loss of the hook; threaten our women’s monogamy with a glance over the mic so long as we can pull them from the sweat and warm bruises of the ritual-esque mosh for you, and for the night and for the god of this hallowed construct, wood and concrete; finally, importantly, ultimately sing what we understand, or make us dream that we do.
Arriving at his new job, the chief soon realized that his predecessor must have been the universe’s king of maintenance procrastination.
Neil Gaiman ruined my childhood.
He awakened groggily from the dream of suicide and realized sadly that it was not symbolic.
Janis’s voice, and each screaming guitar chord, manifested as temporary but perfect rips and tears bursting through the black, cold silence of space.