•showtime•
look best
on the day
I'm not there to see
I O U T S H I N E
you
||again||
(typical of me)
Say nice things at my funeral
《i won't 》
Tell them how much you miss me
》i don't 《
Buy some flowers
for the family that you
h a t e
Stand and watch
as they put me in my
g r a v e
As the thought
{of me}
wakes
you
up
each
night
As old demons
chase you
t/h/r/o/u/g/h/ t/h/e/ l/i/g/h/t/
I hope you think
of all the things I did
I hope you hate me well past
.the end.
Think you're
[safe?]
Who says the dead
//can't kill?\\
Hope you enjoy my funeral
i will
In the style of Aaron Weiss
Oh, never have I found an out for the likes of us.
We ride to the end of the line on a Greyhound bus.
Our hearts punch in cluttered synchronicity.
Hoping for a little chivalry when I get to the city.
And maybe my self-mutilated mind will cut a break
to a girl who’s fallen on hard times.
Missing home, vestiges of pine fading.
Wanna’ lean into oncoming traffic—
wait nevermind. I’m fine.
Totally fine.
Never have I found an in for the likes of us.
Shut out from life, pariahs, anomalies we were.
When the planes came and things changed,
raining fire from above,
it was just the signal to future vigils;
a little smoke to suffocate our love.
A silver scream severed my thoughts,
when silverscreen tableaus of disaster
did manifest.
You looked to the sky with a coin in your teeth.
And a drag in your eyes that could never find rest.
And we couldn’t tell from afar if it was a bird
or a plane. And what fell was either a bomb or,
well...
Recalling those days at the fair where we met,
laughter hanging gently in the air.
Surrounded, complicitly stranded in your care.
Oh, never have I found a clear road for the likes of us.
We’ve taken to paving our own ways.
The chore of dragging our murky hearts falls on us,
lest we lose footing in these strange days.
And we stood at the top of the Ferris Wheel,
looking down on the shapes filing in below.
I looked in your eyes for the very first time,
and unbeknownst to us it began to
snow.
And on the morning of our wedding day,
with undue pride in my voice I rasply declared
“I am a woman of many strong convictions.”
And you retorted.
“I’ve seen your rap sheet. I know.”
Ambivalence my crutch, the sky stood
on my shoulders and grew heavier
each day.
Words like a band of thieves who
cleared out the orchard and fixed our
fence along the way.
Our lives such a spectrum of gray
(or so I thought).
Oh, never have I seen you
shiver that way
as you did the moment before your death.
Puzzle pieces of wall hung to shield us
from nature’s fiery breath.
And as the embers floated away with you,
passengers into the sky,
my screams crumbled to whimpers inside me.
Choked by powder, I couldn’t cry.
And now the rubble is a memory
as I stand at the precipice of this nexus bright.
Ephemera stirs off me with the wind.
The city beckons with artificial light.
And I have nothing to amend this fresh start
but the clothes on my back and
remnants of you in my heart.
And this burnt-out match I once used to keep warm...
Extinguished by a rainstorm.
Recalling by its fiery amb’r brush
your arms,
the pieces of our stolen youth,
the times we
laughed and hawed with nothing
much to prove.
We’d been playing with matches long before the busy sky
fractured our fantasy and drowned us in ‘real’.
In memorium of your burnt body splayed,
I will rein in this fear and try my hardest to heal.
I will make a life for myself.
My past won’t hold me down.
I will take this used match of mine
and burn these nightmares to the ground.
#fiction
The last laugh....
His whole face was unclean and wooly, ripe with Uukie lice.
Unable to wash away sins, soap was an unnecessary foreign luxury lost on the clean residing beyond the trees inside their lofty chambers. He would hide from the vain virtually hairless warm eggheads, not to avoid their taunts and stares, more so because he craved peaceful anonymity as much as the feeling of the dark mud strangling his hairy toes and the ash living under his bropunzel.
Had he overslept past sunrise when the clearing became occupied with the juvenile pitter patter of feet following the rules heading towards the clanging school bell in the distance; if he had a name and was confronted, it would not satisfy the inquisitor, since he would only introduce himself if cajoled and coerced using a soft "U" sound grunt. Of few words, he was comfortable in his quiet lonely form, and as just a rumor to them, as a legend, as an afterthought, he swiftly maintained his distance from the home dwellers with precision, until that one unfortunate lazy day he rose with the sun already up over the ridge. A vision dressed in all white gingham lace, with a red satin ribbon braided through her golden hair, she was too young to be a bride and too old not to know better than to wander away from the others on her way to school. First she screamed, and as he retreated, her uncontrollable laughter reverberated off his deferential back and into his uncomplicated intellect; a laugh universally known as an affront to otherness.
After that day, when he sensed their close proximity, caught like a novel virus he contemplated their peculiarities and intolerance. "Umm, Ugg, Urr, Udd,....." which in Uukie translates into, "With all their words, with all their thoughts, what do they know about living off the land in harmony with nature? Look at them all in their gaudy garments off to a heated room in search of more words, more things, returning at dusk to their elders readily offering abundance to be consumed and absorbed all the while sitting comfortably beside their warm hearths communally. How would any of them know how to fend for themselves should their comforts be blown away? Is it not fair to teach them of my ways, the lesson of simplicity and enlightenment for rudimentary survival? It is not my intention to follow their ways and then laugh last. It is only my intention to catechize."
Long after he burned their homes right down to the solid earth, one after the next catching fire like dry cotton until there were none standing, long after they picked up their pieces from the ash and moved on, they all spoke of the Uukie beast, who grew larger each time the story was told, asking the same question habitually to the only one who had ever caught a glimpse, for as long as she lived.
"Tell us again. Why did you laugh?"
I Live Under a Bridge!
I will set your house on fire.
Oh yes such a threat, I live under a bridge arsehole!
I'll eat your food!
Enjoy the side of maggots...
I'll take the clothes off your back!
I'm not sure where my skin starts and the clothes end... Good luck finding out
I'll-I'll kill you!
Please! My feet are getting chilly with all this chit chat of arsen.
Why you-
You're rather boring aren't you? That's why your alone trying to shoot a hobo!
I'm not- how could you tell?
Your bottom lip is trembling, come sit, let's talk about life.
Ok...
They always fall for it don't they?
Dialogue
"Maybe, someday, I’ll set your house on fire."
"I’d like to see you try."
"Is that a challenge?"
"You’re the one who said you’d do it."
"And I will. If it comes to that."
"What’s that supposed to mean?"
"Oh, you know. Will you push me to extremes? That remains to seen."
"Right, so we can all be clear it’s my fault when my house is in flames."
"Exactly."
"And I’m the one pushing you."
"That’s what I said. I mean, it’s always you, right? Can you think of a single time anything has ever been my fault?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"Yes, I can think of many times, actually. In fact, things are usually your fault."
"Such as?"
"Everything else you’ve set on fire, maybe?"
"No, the branch was your fault, the flowers were your fault, and the wagon was… not your fault, but definitely not mine."
"And the doghouse?"
"Oh, that one was obviously the dog’s fault."
"The dog didn’t even do anything!"
"The dog was a menace."
"It just slept all the time! And stared dolefully at the lawn now and then."
"And it had a personal vendetta against me."
"Wouldn’t that mean you murdered its family?"
"It never had any family. I must have murdered its favourite ant or something."
"It had a favourite aunt?"
"No, like the insect. It probably had a fling with a little crawly ant and then got mad when I stepped on it."
"It literally just slept all the time. I never even heard it bark."
"It growled at me, every time I went near it. Every time it saw me."
"So you set its house on fire?"
"No. That was after it died."
"And you’re trying to claim it was the dog’s fault?"
"It was the dog’s fault for dying and leaving the house all empty and wooden and tempting!"
"Right. Because that’s how accountability works."
"Exactly."
"So if I die, that’s when you’ll burn my house down?"
"Sure. Or if you do something else that warrants it, of course."
"Right."
"Yeah."
"What if I burn your house down first?"
"That would definitely warrant it."
"You’re so annoying."
"Where are the matches?"
E, 7.17 v M 5.30
The two sat facing one another not breaking eye contact
"You know why I am here?"
"I do"
"Do you have anything you would like to say... or ask perhaps?"
"I don't"
"Listen I know that you have tried, look at you now- you've let yourself go"
"I put aside time on myself for time in myself"
"What does that even mean?"
"It means I want to get better, and it is difficult enough, and nothing make up fixes"
"You've become quite angry I see" said laughingly
"I have"
"...and your faith, is this mess of you still clinging to faith?"
"I still have faith, I would not be here sitting with you if I didn't" tears slipped out
"but you know I am here to kill you?"
"I do"
"So why need to have the pleasantries? I'm just curious"
"Because I have faith"
"We did cover that you know"
"I do"
"Yet here we are"
"we are"
"I wonder- will this be our last encounter?"
"It could be"
"And let's say it is, tell me- what happens next"
"There is no next, if there were we would not be here... this is it... "
Silence.
Eye contact and silence.
"Do you need help?"
"I don't"
"Alright, and how about one more list of the.."
"...no... no more lists no more guilt, I have no time for lists"
"wow, okay then- no more lists" biting the corner of her mouth, "When?"
"Soon but I don't know and I won't know until it happens"
"... and do you think you will go to hell?"
"I don't know" her head bent lowly shaking side to side
"Well all I need is the permission then" in a slippery tone
"okay"
"Not to be cheeky- but what you want is going to have to be more than an O.K"
"Yeah, I understand that. I will write you a letter"
Silent. Eye contact and silent.
"Sounds pretty standard, that's not like you"
"I am not me anymore"
"I can see it actually, I actually can see it"
"I don't want to talk about this anymore"
"That's fine, but you will let me know then?"
"Yes"
One more look at one another, only this time more in full.
With a deep sigh, she stood- pushed her chair in, and walked away from the mirror.
to barbara millicent roberts’ owner.
i will set your house on fire,
and enjoy it as it lasts.
i'll watch the flames consume the wood,
the windows tremble ash.
i will ask the smoke to conjure
machinations straight from hell,
and maybe when you've seen it all
you'll treat me with respect.
with all my love,
your younger sister.
Acrid or Placid
I will set your house on fire
Before I'm forced to live in it
With you
I will burn your life
Away
Your confidence
Your hope
Before you can kill mine
I will set your world
Into a fire tornado
You know
Like the ones we now see
On TV
I will destroy myself
Before you hurt me
But you just smile
And say
"Okay,
I'll do the dishes tonight."
I open my fist
And you take my hand
And you know what
I'd take it all back
If you do the dishes
Every night
Please?
Ashes
Come and bare your teeth at me
and we will take to the ground.
I’m hot like a fire
when you rule the house
and baby, I’ll burn you down.
Tell me I’m imperfect one more time
and we will see what remains.
I light my match
when you know best
and I’ll put your world in flames.
I’m wild to the touch
and I’m on the move.
My bones adjusting
as I salivate you.
My words will feast
like vultures to their chew.
In warm red destruction
your ashes will do.