Seven Card Studs
“Cassius Marcellus Coolidge,” Mary shrieked upon entering the living room, “get those dogs off the chairs and away from that table this instant.” Startled by his wife returning home earlier than expected, Cash sheepishly replied, “Yes dear. Sorry dear.” Although today’s portrait session was cut short, this didn’t upset Cash because he had already completed most of the painting. The rest he could finish on his own later.
Lonesome
Won't you stay a while please.
No... No i don't want sex or any such vulgar thing.
Just...stay here, with me
Would you?
Just lay beside me
You can put your leg across me
Nuzzle your head into me
Just be with me
Please
And we can pretend for awhile
I can pretend for a while...
Feel for awhile
That someone loves me.
Cards on the table
I meet you at the table
We play our cards as they’re dealt
I call your bluff
You don’t call mine
You leave me at the table
Leave your cards on the table
Leave your heart on the table
I keep mine
Flush away my emotions in pursuit of the game
You leave straight away
We meet again at another table
Years down the line
The eye contact Deja vu from another time
but we’re playing a new game
Given new cards
Given a chance for a different call
I meet you at the table
Twin Bells
I heard her sing,
even though the radio doesn't exist in my scene.
Empty, gaping hole in the center of my vehicle.
I don't need the reminder, I can hear her all the same.
"Christmas..." and her bringing the 'time for cheer'
"Christmas..." and it's fucking so near.
"Christmas..." and with family and all...
"Christmas..." I can't bring myself to love any of it all.
I couldn't bring back the memories.
I think they chased me up here with the way it seems.
Closing my eyes, I can hear that old hag scream.
Nay-sayers, just saying that they don't believe.
No one wants to hear it. I get it, all day.
Some already out in full joust, just to say.
"Be kind. Be merry."
And I agree with their fight.
"It's hard for many," but not just those in the retail 'delights.'
I'm up and I'm down.
My mood is floundering around.
My neck is sore and raw.
A red scarf of immunity all gone wrong.
If it isn't my kidney, it's one thing or another.
I'm just another adult on the ride of the holiday sputter.
It'll be over in a flash.
Thirty days.
More like thirty lashes.
But it'll be clear, there won't be much more of this damn holiday cheer.
Why am I like this? Why do I go out?
When I know that there's so many people about?
I want to stay in, shutter out the whole world.
Something says in me, "go on, be brave and be bold" but I don't want to be the one with a gold soul. It's gold on tar black. My mind's a broken and chipped glass.
The whip has been whupped, and my candle has slumped.
For Christ's sake, someone take away all this decrepit-ness, and let me breath a sigh of quiet relief.
No more religion.
No more mental chess.
I just want to close my eyes, breath in and just say. "No more winter," and just spell it away.
I don't care if I'm green in the face, where I am grim.
Take away the holiday, take away the pressure.
Let me go free, let it all stop building up pressure.
I wish I could open my eyes after that and successfully say,
"No more winter, yeah... I feel better now." No, instead, I open my eyes and the world looks a tone grayer. I'm the next step from the holiday drinker. The one who's a PTSDer with a yellow light blinking, that check engine light's still on honey. Yeah, I know. And I think it... Think it might have been on, since a long long time ago. Maybe on as long as my truck. We go back a ways, maybe we both need a bit of time into the shop.
Iron out the kinks, replace all the broken links.
I wish I knew where else I was going with this, but I think I'm just ready for a drink.
Are you?
I think I Ate It
I bit the big one when I took a drive deep into the city a few weekends back.
The police,
as per usual,
on the job, but out and enforcing strong. He looked at me from the side of my car, though I didn't look at him, and I had a fuzzy feeling he'd be jumping behind me.
He did.
Took him not even a second to light me up.
"Do know you have expired tabs?"
"They're not expired. I lost the sticker."
And without much other toggling, he went around to his computer and came back, told me I could pick up new ones - which I wasn't aware - and went on his way.
No later than twenty-four hours later, I was met with another.
God, this must be some sort of self-induced karma.
Either that or life has a way of clapping back at me when my health starts to finally resolve.
"You were going fifteen over."
"No sir, I was not."
"Well, I caught you on the radar."
"Alright, well, I'll take it up with the court."
He hands me my ticket and I'm on my way.
The night is starting early. Twilight ringing into the evening on a black-stained starless sky no later than five pm and I'm already trying to find my way out of the soul-sucking dark before the depression seeps in.
Drying my eyes, I blink away.
"He's doing his job," and I drive on. My heart isn't in it, but I buy my used supply and hobble my way home.
As you would have it, I was already struggling with a fit of lack of sales to compensate for my attendance at a set of few events in the local area. My savings dwindling, and my heart aching already. I was holding onto every last bit of hope my breath would allow me to take, but it was all dashed.
Dashed away and I was struggling not to let the holidays sweep me away with their highs and their worst of worst lows.
"It's just a stroke of bad luck. It can get better."
Not much better, I should I amended no sooner than a week later.
A smashed bottle of glass in my hip bag.
A couple smooth cuts to my fingers with the sweet sweet symphony of my hollers at the behest of my fucking intellectual knowledge to disinfect it... with liquid antiseptic.
I pitched a scream for a few weeks, bandaged myself up, and maybe kicked my hitch trying to walk around it. I don't know. I lost count.
Stepped in deer shit trying to have a slight bit of fun with my daughter, dragged it into the house, and thankfully my husband was kind enough to drag it back out and wash my boots off.
Now here, I might have thought. I can turn my mood around right. I can sit up, take the adulting and just chalk it all up to my inability of being aware of my surroundings.
Well, I got hit with a few more doses of reality. Burnt my microwave out with a defective pie, and then might as well have stuck needles in my eye since I ingested some form or the other of an allergen that led me to the Urgent Care in a matter of less than a few hours time, only to be bounced back and forth between two pharmacies.
"I'm so fucking done." I might have said in some tune, or shape or form in dramatics to try to get a rise out of myself, to laugh. Something! I need a fucking reprise to help lift my mood, but god dammit, in my eyes. I hate the lies. I hate the festivities, the holidays, and all that it drives.
The people are foul. The moods are shitty, and looking at Christmas ornaments reminds me of the childhood that makes life feel gritty. I wanted to bring myself into some form or the other of a hope, that I could drag myself together for not one, but three children, put up an effing tree and say, "it's for them" and I can't. Out of all the holidays, I hate the most. I hate hate hate... Winter. Christmas. The things everyone gets so hyped up for. I can barely bring myself to dress for Halloween anymore.
When did I lose myself? When did the holidays start to feel so drought? My husband doesn't even like them, wants nothing to do with them, but in my children, I know that they are like fire light. They see all the sights, hear all the happy memories flow from their peers, too and fro. Fuck me for not trying hard enough. God damnit all. I could do more. I want to, but every time I touch it, I abhor it all the more.
God damn these fucking holidays. I'm so burnt to hell.
I might as well crisp myself over the fire, because I know I'll never do this god damn holiday well. Do it justice, do it right.
I'm just in for another fucking fight.
Control the Perception of Your Reality
Sit down and shut up
Do not doubt anything
Proceed exactly as you’re told
For we control everything
The government values obedience
Conform without question
Stay in lockstep with society
There’s no freedom of expression
Change starts with self awareness
Defy the foundations of normality
Begin to think and act for yourself
Be free to create your own reality
The rulers demand ideological compliance
But self awareness occurs from cultivated thought
We need to stay sovereign amongst the chaos
Or the fight to be free will be for naught
