Don't stop for fear, waiting at the bus stop

Its suitcase heavy, bulky, old

Never got the right change anyway

Never

any

change

Just trying to catch a free ride

From joy to sorrow

(It'll get you there quick)

Go towards the things that make you

happy

Because smiles are hard to come by

These days

And these days,

They don't come cheap

So go where they are

Don't

stop.

one kind and another.

oy vey, oy vey
king of all wild things
does not believe in childhood
rumpus, rumpus
tell them anything
anything at all

(what will you tell them, Moisha?)

tell them
the day will come
when their wolf suit is worn
and pilled and holey
the clean white fur
has gone grey
and ankles poke out
of too short hems

tell them
to make themselves another
or stop by the store
where I hear they're half off

fill a closet with furs,
a shelf with yellow crowns
tell them
they'll need replacements
because childhood does not exist
tell them
because childhood never ends.

. . .

loose lips

sailing ships.

was that even real?

Reckless abandon was not a trait she commonly associated with herself. No, that was a characteristic better left to those who do it best - hooligans and fools, the stupid and the criminal. She was in control, tightly wound, every motion, every utterance, every decision thoughtfully contrived. She was never one to let her hair down in any sense of the phrase. Which is why, late one summer evening while sitting alone beneath a tree, the events that transpired were so peculiar. She reflected. She cried. Eventually, like a watch overwound she came to a halt. She smiled. She laughed. Recklessness ensued.

To Have and Have Not (read Hemingway)

It was morning and over the two distant mountains the sky was clearing and between them the sun also rose. The month was April and the torrents of spring fell almost everyday bidding winter a farewell to arms but not that day, for that was a dry day. A man and woman stood together on the veranda to witness nature's beauty which was true at first light and four miles away in the village a bell tolled and it was haunting. There were islands in the stream that was now flooded into a river and across the river and into the trees the two saw the garden of Eden and they were moved. The man was an old man and had been a sailor in the navy and often spoke of the sea. Just then he looked at the woman and inquired, "have you read much Hemingway?"

esperando.

She sat beside the phone, head cupped in her hands marked with the tell-tales lines of time and hard work. She had been waiting like this, unmoving, for a length of time unknown. The clock behind her had stopped working some months ago, but nonetheless she turned to look at it. A quarter past nine from now until forever. The phone didn't ring and the sound of its silence deafened her in the darkened room. She moved her hands from face to ears. She'd give him more time, as if time was hers to give.

nighttime.

There's nights you wish you weren't really yourself. There's always those nights, and she was beginning to realize there would there always would be. Try as she might, despite vows to change penned nightly in a diary she kept hidden beneath the loose floorboards of her bedroom, that muted monster known innocently as shyness had his way with her every chance he had. He wrapped himself around her body, constructing the barrier of folded arms she held so tightly against her body. He pushed her legs, one over the other. She became as small as he could make her. But her tongue was what he really got at. Never mind silly expressions of feline - tongue interactions voiced condescendingly by those who have never had to meet him, when he got a hold of it no one was laughing. He ripped it from her mouth. Sometimes she tried to stop him, at those times when her thoughts wandered back under the floorboards, at those times when she thought she was strong enough. She was never strong enough. He laughed and sewed up her lips, chortling all the while. Then he wormed his way into her mind. By now it wouldn't have mattered if her tongue was still in place. He pulled a pink eraser from his pocket and got to work on thoughts and memories here and there. Stories she might have shared disappeared, lost to his merciless handiwork. He had the best of her on many occasions and tonight was no exception. Someday she would fight him. Someday this would end. But tonight, as she saw the one person for whom she wished she could change, for whom she scribbled those vows in spurts of frustrated ink, walk into the room before her, she felt a sharp shove at her elbow. She crossed her arms. Tonight, there would be no fight. Tonight, she realized as she felt him beside her, was going to be one of those nights.

why i'm here.

Along with vitamin pills and exercise, creativity needs to be taken in daily doses.

Doctor's orders.