“Hey Computer! You look beautiful today.. Just awesome.” - Calculator said.

“Thanks”, Computer chirps back.

″ Mornin’ ” , Trolley jumps down from the ramp.

"Good morning", Calculator and Computer greet in unison.

The vacuum cleaner cleans its pipes.. " I think guys.. We should go on strike.. What do you say?"

Mouse jumps up- " I got pressed too hard yesterday. My left half is still paining.."

"And I was thrown away. I hit the wall and broke my power button", Calculator was furious.

Trolley sighs.. " I've chipped off here and here and here.. The customers are better at banging me against the racks. The children make a rush with me.. I like it though.."

"My screen has got a very big scratch. The accountant did that.. She was fighting with the cashier and didn't bother to pay me any notice."- a small tear leaked down Computer's eyes.

" And the old man.. I always get kicked on my side for being too noisy.. I can't take it anymore. We're going on a strike. "

A few hours later.. The shop had the sign "Repairing" on the door.

Surprisingly no machine was working that morning. ...

Did it surprise you?

This had been a difficult, disturbing year for me and I was exhausted as I fell back on my chair seeking the relief of a deep sleep, maybe even a permanent one. But as I tossed and turned on my chair, I opened my tormented eyes to see my past thumbing its nose at me from the chair across the room. I saw his demeaning face berating me, telling me I was worthless, his face contorted in a rage with veins bulging on his forehead.

“Can’t I even escape you in my nightmares?” I moaned in utter dismay.

Suddenly, it dawned on me that I was the master of my dreams. I could change my destiny by tweaking the circumstances, molding them to my needs and wants. I decided to get rid of the albatross that had been hanging on my neck for far too long. But I had so many fates to choose from. I decided that an unknown force would slice the artery in his neck and leave him suffering while he bled out. I laughed out loud, knowing that I would never have the courage to watch him die if I were awake.

The next morning, for the first time in many months, I awoke refreshed and feeling ready to face the future. I realized it had only been a dream but it forced me to realize that I needed to excise him, neatly, from my life forever. Getting up to start some coffee, I was horrified to see a large crimson stain on my chair. I hated knowing that I had to get rid of my brand new chair!

Kiss the galaxies of his yet unborn universe slumbering in his soul and blaze them awake.

Hold his eyes, weave your fingers in his till you both are so tangled together there’s no way to know what it feels like to be alone or lonely anymore.

Love him and make the world yours.

Atom to atom, bond together with no spaces in between.

Then, set the world on flames and build your fortress from golden ashes born from the death of stars.

Rise as phoenixes from depths of hell, spread your scarlet wings across the expanse of sky blue above.

Grip the world with your hand and kiss him

With life, with everything.

Taste sweet victory sharp, vivid on your toungue

and then, go beyond.

Jack of all trades

hit the Jackpot

Played some blackjack and met a woman named Jill

Jack and Jill (went up the hill)

and drank some Jack Daniels

Jack fell down in a drunken stupor (and Jill came tumbling after)

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick

lit up his jack-o-lantern with a candle stick

He ate some crackerjacks and went bed

and woke up hungover with a jackhammer in his head

©Heather Ann

#Poem #Poetry #Challenge #ProseChallenge #Humor

they say you feel blue and that’s true but it’s more than that you actually feel the color and i don’t know how to explain other than you just do like the ocean- navy and maybe indigo and a whole lot of black too a jay bird’s feather not the weather- for that you make me feel grey. like low hanging clouds and fog and mist i'm lost and i'm pissed all i wanted was a kiss maybe a little more but definitely more than this strike me like lightning i just feel like fighting and then you make me feel red with rage like spilt blood from the cuts i made on the page i just want to sink into the copper lakes of oklahoma that stain my shoes and the color white- but that’s one color i’ll never feel because no matter how far back i peel my skin i’m bruised and beaten and reeling about from your clouts steal my heart i don’t want to fall apart but i never was that smart most brains are pink but mine is not and that’s another color i won’t ever feel- pink is innocence and contentment but you were scared of commitment and threw me aside like an unwanted shipment god dammit

i’m sick and tired of feeling colors

they said rainbows were beautiful and symbolize promises but promises are made to be broken i'm broken you did this to me you made me feel green like i was growing but you made sure to treat me like a weed maybe i am maybe that's all i'll ever be but maybe i'm not tired of feeling colors

maybe i'm tired of feeling me

Wombs once filled with blooming flowers

Now obscured by clouds and threatening showers

What is love when there is no heartbeat

The room filled with hatred and deceit

Into the shadows I tiptoe and creep

Slipping into bloodstained sheets

Tattered with the aroma of defeat

Through the mattress misery seeps

The deafening stench of rotten decay

Has overthrown and eaten away

At any aspirations of what was had yesterday

Like an untouchable dream on display

Composed to desecrate and betray

Abandoned in a petrified dismay

Silence spreads like the darkest night

Smothering all former communication

Twin flames no longer ignite

Under a hypnotic spell of sedation

Not knowing wrong from right

Words immobilized by justification

Lost dreams of love at first sight

My most oppressive realization

What passion once burned so bright

Is now a mirage of radiation contamination

I’ve lost my mind, my soul, my insight

Drowning out all illumination

Waiting for a glimpse of twilight

In the coldest of isolation

Possessed by foreign parasites

Immune to the abusive violations

Coinciding with the moonlight

Longing for your admiration

Hoping we can reunite

Leave behind and rebuild from devastation

So tightly I keep holding on

I never want to let go

I cling to this mystical phenomenon

Frightened by what waits below

I’d give it all to have you back

Cradled in my arms

Staring harshly past the zodiac

Far away from manipulation and harm

I was your beautiful firefly

Always there to light your way

Still staring deeply into the midnight sky

I’m still dreaming of that yesterday, I pray....

I love the way you look at me.

It's like a dream come true.

Why can't you see that it's just me.

I am always here for you.

I love the way you are & how you make me feel inside.

But when you look at me, in the eyes.

I know that it's all lies.

You lie to me, when you say you love me.

Oh how you stop & stare.

I wish that you were looking right at me, but you really don't seem to care.

I know it's all lies, still I stay & I don't know why.

Probably because I can't live without you.

Without you I will die.

I love the way you lie, though it's not where you wanna be.

But just to be wherever you are, is good enough for me.

The driftwood creatures chitter at the scuff and click of sandals, passing the Arno in waves. The crocodile made of washed-up olive wood has a voice like a saltwater eddy.

"I feel a storm coming."

The stag cranes his cypress antlers toward the footsteps on the bridge. He and the crocodile watch from their hollowed-out knots, as a little boy's arm bobs like a kite string, yanked along the piazza by an angry gust.

The Matchstick Man on the "No Entry" sign sets down his beam, following the path of the boy and his padre with his featureless stare. The Matchstick Man shimmies down his sign pole and sneaks along the wall. He climbs into the frame of a David replica by a handbag store on the Lungarno delle Grazie. The David gives him a side-ways glance; the Matchstick Man jabs his square hand at the man, snapping at the boy.

"You are an ungrateful child! A hateful beast. No, a beast would be a fine thing!”

The David sighs.

“Did no one tell him what the Boar of Florence will do to an unwanted child?”

He rolls his eyes into statuesque blanks until they pass.The Matchstick Man vaults the David's curls and heads for help from the Cat and Mouse in the stop sign before the Corridoio Vasariano. The man’s yell follows through the backstreets.

“Perhaps I will give your bed to a pig tonight, and enjoy some civility beneath my roof!”

The Mouse snuffles his ball-shaped nose at the noise. The Cat's ears wiggle behind the stop beam barricade. Exchanging a glance, the Mouse and the Matchstick Man squeak along the tightropes of cement to the Balloonman, hiding near a crack on the Palazzo Giorlami.

The Balloonman peers through his red rubber windows.

“Perhaps a pig will not fill his bed, but empty it.”

The Mouse scampers for the nearest hole. The determined Matchstick Man hurries ahead, tripping headfirst into the sunk Botticelli's Venus in her tank. A stream of bubbles protest from her snorkel. She smears on her spray-paint glass:

“He’ll float in the walls soon, too.”

The Matchstick Man shudders. Darting through the shadows, he scutters past Perseus, bending his sun-warmed brass; the closed eyes of The Kiss, plaster pouting from a trattoria wall; the stoic apostles, sleeping in their coves. He runs through the brickwork, the cries of the boy echoing behind, until he reaches The Boar.

The ancient brass pig turns his snout down to regard the trembling stick figure.

“I heard you were fearful of me and my ways, Matchstick Man,” the Boar grunts. “I suppose since you are a simple man of ours, and younger than so many of the artworks here, I will explain myself, and soothe your fear.”

The Boar shuffles about in his fountain, splashing wishes on the cobblestones.

“Long ago, my parents had a desperate desire for a child. They hoped and prayed, and through cruel benevolence, I was the answer to their cries: a baby born resembling a boar.

“I grew crooked, in the shame of my parents’ dismay. I grew hard and heavy as a statue - doomed by my misery. I solidified here, too sad to properly live, too stubborn to finally die.

“Decades passed, before I came to understand I had petrified into a thing of beauty. People came here to scatter their wishes at my feet, and pet my snout for luck. Would you believe it! I felt beloved.

“A century later, and the voices of the city’s art began to whisper their ways.

“I no longer lived alone; I was no longer ugly. I was beloved.

“I made a pact with the crafted peoples to share my good fortune. I promised to myself and they, that no babe of Florence would suffer the way I did; that any child of the city unwanted would become a ward of ours. We have peopled this place with them since - in the cherubs and the stick figures, the mice and the rays of sunshine that populate our walls. And they have been happier for it.”

The Matchstick Man presses his square palms together, sinking to his knees. He begs without a mouth, wishes without a coin. The Boar regards him with pity.

“I wish you’d never been born! You hear me? I wish you were never mine!”

From the shadows, the boy and his padre round the corner.

The Boar sighs. He nuzzles the Matchstick Man with his lucky snout.

“I am a granter of wishes, and an omen of them.”

The Boar climbs down off his fountain, as the boy and his padre gape, open-mouthed, at his approach.