I was blessed with a deformity. Linking my modulla-oblongata to my cerebral cortex is a story bone. I discovered this personal anomaly about six years ago, believing it to be just another part of a mostly scattered brain that seldom sees use, much like the part that is in there for the express purpose of deciphering poetry, or the way too thin slice that is supposedly dedicated to resolving algebraic equations; those sleepy sections of my brain which always lie lowest when called upon for duty, but I was wrong. It seems that for all of those undiscovered years this story bone I have was actually hard at work up there, collecting trivial data; facts, figures, moments, sayings, useful little behavioral oddities in myself and others. This little bone was observing, categorizing, possibly even unknowingly creating experiences to be gnawed upon at a later date. No one would have guessed there was something in there so hard at work. Well, maybe my mom might have guessed, certainly not my dad. My wife was absolutely flabbergasted to find that I had a bent for storytelling, but then we were twenty years “in“ when the bone was discovered, and my brain had given her few previous indications of activity… but then it wasn’t my brain she married me for, was it?

You have found your way to this site, so I will presume that you possess a story bone as well, though yours may still lie dormant, so that you have no idea what I am talking about. For this reason I will try an analogy to better acquaint you. With nothing else to compare this section of brain too, and having one currently lying at my feet, I have chosen to use a dog with a bone, thus the title. You have observed, I am sure, how when a free-willed dog happens upon a bone in the great out of doors she will pause before approaching it. She will circle it, inspecting it from many angles, giving it a wide berth and testing its scent before creeping still closer, her nose curious, her mouth watering, yet allowing her cautious instincts to remain predominant, as this is a confusing situation. ”Who,” the dog wonders as it creeps forward, “would leave a perfectly good bone right out here in the open where any dog that chances past might find it?” Who indeed? So the dog stops her creeping to take a sly glance around for a moment, her posture tense, her head lowered, her eyes raised wide, expecting… someone? But the way seems clear, and all smells kosher, so her nose sets back to working til she has crept overtop the bone. After one more quick glance she picks the bone up with careful incisors before dropping it again and taking a quick leap back, feeling out for booby-type traps. When nothing happens, emboldened, she will pick it up for real this time, harder, testing its mettle with her jaws. Satisfied she trots, prances more like, proud of her find to some more likely nearby locale where she can lie down in a dewy, grassy spot grown cool and thick under the warm morning sun. Here she will drop the bone again for another look around and give out a happy, slant-eyed pant before reaching a clawed paw to pull her treasure closer up between her knobby knees for enjoyments’ sake.

Now, hopefully you can see what I mean when I say “story bone”.

Because I am the same with a story as that dog is with her bone. Satisfied with this idea I have found I must take time now to gnaw over it, to claim ownership of it, and to give it a good working over until the delicious marrow is freed from it’s hardened shell to the delight of my more delicate senses… and hopefully to the delight of a reader’s as well, though that is not the end game. The real thrill is in finding that my curious nose was right! That there is something up there! Some indescribable sweetness inside that time-toughened shell of mine that has waited all this time to ooze satisfyingly out onto a late-night blue-screen. And I have used it enough now to know the bone is there to be dug back up at will and re-enjoyed, and oh, what a delightful pleasure that knowledge affords me.

I have a story bone!

Of course, I would like to write better, but not so much to the point that I would actually try to improve my writing skills. I mean, I have no interest in taking courses or some other such nonsense as that. It is more-so like a wish to be a better writer; a sophomoric fantasy like wanting to hit the big home run in the championship game, or to have the head cheerleader call me up after school one afternoon straight out of the blue. Writing better is one of those things that is never likely to happen, but is of little consequence regardless, as what I always was capable of was stealing home plate after a bunt single. And Meg Bell (who was certainly no cheerleader in the classical, nor costumed sense) did call me up after school one day with a rather incredulous offer, so… cheerleaders-schmearleaders, say I. Bigger ain’t always better! After all, in the grand scheme of things is a run scored not a run scored? Does it really matter how far the ball travels so long as you have rounded third base and are digging for home? Meg Bell would not have thunk so (but that is a different… and probably better story).

Say, where did I put that darned bone anyways?

But anyways, by wanting to “write better”, in my case I refer to the more refined aspects of writing; typing, spelling, sentence structure… the trivial technicalities of writing, those things that make a story easier for a reader to continue his navigation, and which possibly even makes the writing itself easier (I wouldn’t know much about that). You see, it is never my intent to write for perfection. I write for the juice of it… the marrow. I gnaw the bone. My words, when it is good, when they are good, come out of me with the build-up and force of an ejaculate. There is no time for punctuation. No room for worry. There is only a splatter on the page, with no thought of facial expression, or sounds made, or toes curled as the scene sets, watching as the character comes to life, waiting, his drama building. Not until “it“ comes, that is... the resolution; that deep breath at the ending, along with the realization that this thing that happened to my poor character did not and could not happen alone. There is someone here along with him to consider, someone coaxing him towards the final thrilling paragraph… a faceless, fantasy reader. Eee-cads! But I hope I have pleased this lover of stories as she has pleased me by riding along with!

And that is the time for sad reflection, the end. That is the time to recall the misplaced comma, or the run-on sentence, those uglinesses found in retrospection that will drive your reader into the welcoming arms of another’s words, and you to a lesser writing app where your short-fallings are as yet unrevealed. Proofing is not the fun part, though your reader will appreciate some careful, introspective examination of narrative styling and dialogue. Don’t be proud. Gnaw the bone. Skipping this step while caught up in a writer’s high is an easy though deadly mistake, and has embarrassingly driven more than one typo-prone writer away from Prose forever, thank God.

Fair warning: In your rush to share the tale, don’t fail to tell it well! Gnaw the bone.

I have been guilty of rushing myself, and most certainly will be again. I do get tired of proofing. Especially as my bigger OCD problem lies not with form or punctuation, but in seeking the perfect descriptive word, for the perfectly descriptive sentence. I am more particular about character names and settings than the reader could possibly care about. Those are the kinds of things I notice while re-reading and I change them, and change, and change them again while the poor grammar remains bleeding on the sidewalk in desperate need of resuscitation. It is good that I am not an EMT, else bodies would pile up while I straighten ties and re-apply lipstick.

I am very selfish with my story bone. I enjoy it best alone, so I dig it up in the early hours while the world sleeps. The bone is a fickle and moody thing, so I never know what I will get once it is unearthed. Sometimes it tickles me, and sometimes it makes me sad. Sometimes it is angry and sometimes grateful, or maybe those are my thoughts as I chew the fat of my mind, it is hard to say which, but no doubt it would not happen without the bone, so to it goes the credit. I have fashioned myself it’s tool, rather than the other way ’round. I do it’s bidding willingly, as I would miss it if it went away as I suppose it could, just as it appeared to me, dropped down from out of the ether.

So the credit for any success I have enjoyed through my Prose ramblings, the nine likes and two reposts, must go to my story bone, as I am nothing without it. It seeps the goods out while I merely chew and lick, and lick and chew until satisfied. And once satisfied I carefully re-bury the bone in its secreted spot so that it cannot be found by another. (Oh, to think of the joys Pooky-Bear might discover were she to happen upon my bone, and the stories she might tell from it, heaven forbid.)

So there it is, per ‘Ol Huck. If you want to be a writer, go to school and learn technique. But if it is stories you must tell, damning the formalities, then you‘ve got to be a dog. Go find your bone and chew it. Suck the life and marrow from it. Exhume it often and then re-inter it for another day.

So there. You are now in on the secret, and it is the only way.

Find your story bone, young pup, and give it a good gnaw.

as the Infection never ceases to spread

neither shall the doctor of Death quit his Search

for a Cure or a Fix or an Eradication of all that keep it bred

it is all for the good of Life

if they live they can spread and they can die

it is not an obsession it is a Cure it is a help for the Bugs

without Him . who would even try

The honey fungus has such a nice name,

sweet like Honey but Sickly to the trees it infects

they All die

But it wants to Live, how else can it Get what it needs for existence

this Infection is not like a parasite to a tree

it is a parasite to the earth and to the life around it

without the Russula . who would save the poor bugs

from the fate that beheld them

No

there are No lives to save or to Fix

they are all gone and all dead

but the Search for a Cure cannot be stopped

because without him,

None could Live

it is not an Obsession it is a Fix that all the souls would beg for

the souls trapped behind Orange

an Infection

and obsession for a Fix

a Cure

an insatiable need to fix what CanNot be changed

what has existed for centuries

what one Bug what the doctor who now is one of Death cannot change

an Insatiable Search for Knowledge

for a fix not One unalive soul had asked

for insatiability blocks out Life

for the Search only hurts worse than the Infection ever had

I want the likes, the challenge, the double shot of vodka in my lemon drop martini, on the rocks. I want to write at a bar, order and sip, write and publish, make people's jaws drop at my prose, my ability to shock and make noise in the literary world.

I just wrote a letter to someone and sealed it with a kiss, but isn't that how everything is on the internet? You put forth writing on a writing website, and people click 'like', without knowing that your saliva is all over the font, the punctuation kicking me in the gut every time someone comments.

I don't get recognized for my writing, or maybe I do. There's a condom ad where a dad is at a grocery store, and his toddler is throwing a temper tantrum, throwing all the produce on the ground, screaming and causing a scene. I wonder if my writing is used somewhere as caution, use protection, never whine and complain about your WASP life, because you have everything.

I am thirty-one. In one month, I turn thirty-two. Pretty obvious, right? Except that it’s not that easy when you’re suicidal, pushing the limits of your serotonin. When do I get famous? Probably never, and that‘s okay, that’s the logistics of both my genetic lottery and this game I play where I write out my feelings.

I am insatiable. I want to be the greatest writer ever created, until I look at the writing of Ernest Hemingway, and my dog who I named after him (we call him "Ern"), and see that his corgi legs are too small to hold the weight of my expectations about myself, that the real Ernest Hemingway is somewhere looking down, but not at me, at everyone else who wants a place in history.

This is all great, I'm sure - you'll hit the "like" button, or move on, or just forget this post ever got written. I'll drink my martini, the one I made a double, because the bartender asked, and I had nothing to lose - and now, I press "publish" and hold my breath that someone reads this and isn't lost in my line of thinking.

I gave you the world, you asked for the moon.

I gave you the moon, you longed for the sun.

I burned alive but you still weren't done.

In the name of love, it is never enough.

you can never get enough

of miserable

an addiction

that eats itself and young

alive and kicking

torment devours

everything so thoroughly

insatiably erasing

the needs to plan

for anything but failure

self predictable

but satisfying

in a ravenous regurgitation

loss spawns losing defeated

without trying

It fed me, and I bit the hand it used to do so.

And I will do it again and again.

Two insatiable beings, seeing who'll run out of edible matter first.

I'm not used to losing.

Deep in a cavern,

In the highest mountain in the world,

A fair hero entered

To find a girl.

There he knew some wretched thing

Did dwell,

Who ate the precious things

That he was brought

By treacherous bring.

Into the dark he walked,

A torch to break the soft,

Wading foul waters

Where sulked the creature oft.

A sword in hand

To ready cleanse

The pool and portent

Of the land.

He heard him creep around.

Above his head

Or on the ground

He could not tell...

Until upon his face he fell,

A smiling wretch from writhing hell,

Grinning with a foul delight,

Hungry for a light

He could not keep now for himself,

As he had fled the former blight

That, had he held,

His fight would fight.

"It treads my waters," said the thing

As it slunk around the dark.

The hero's mark he knew too well,

The fiery heart, the stalwart stark.

*****

Eric began to wade into the dank waters of the creature’s cave, sword in one hand and torch in the other. He heard the creature’s movements stop.

“It treads my waters,” said the creature.

Silence followed, and in the next instant Eric’s sword was knocked away from his hand. Something sprung from the shadows, knocking Eric on his back.

“So you want to be a mad duck?” said the wide-mouthed face of the devouring creature, menacing and excited.

It laughed like a madman as it furiously grappled with him, sinking his teeth into his neck and shoulder. Eric cried out, growling as he rolled to reach his sword. When his hand touched the hilt, the creature scurried back into the dark, laughing still.

"Where is she!" Eric shouted, coming to his feet.

The laughter turned to a hissing chuckle. "Which one? The girl or the other girl? I already ate her."

Eric's stomach turned, and for a moment he faltered. His eyes drifted, but another laugh from the creature tightened his grip on his sword.

"You lie!" he hissed.

Another hysterical laugh came from the dark. "A pagan! A pagan would say! Such sight is gone away! Come and see! Come and see..."

*****

The snows were still there when Eric left the cave.

The young girl was close at hand, shivering, but looking starkly into the cold. The other girl was not...

Oh, Wileina... Eric thought.

He cleaned the blood from his blade... red as any man's.

My hunger hides out in a diner,

The one in that painting Nighthawks by Edward Hopper

Which lays suspended in the mood

Of the neglected city...

I ache like the city aches in it's amalgam of pockets

Where busy shoes refuse to shuffle,

And the crowds leave gaping snags

Of prosperity in the lurch...

God bless those teeming time capsules of so-called unimportance!...

...When I pray for rain

It's the hot ecstasy and passion of the muse for which I sing

I seek it's intoxication to seep into my body

As I wait it out like a fine wine awaits

A great feast where it can splash it's lifeblood out vigorously

Over the heads of it's partygoers...

O, Rain, come for me again!...

I need you, as I am as chapped and dry as a lizard on a rock

Seeking some forgone conclusion,

Hoping that the walls will talk

And repay me for the many times they only served as straws

To gobble up my restless, fuming, venom that was flawed,

As my snakeskins drop off left and right

Piling up like soiled linen...

Like space food I've been sapped to serve!...

Please cleanse my venal dirty words,

And materialize before me like some sprite

Within a glen...

I'll wait you out until I die...

Though forest fires may

Blacken clouds...

I'll still remain with wretched tongue

Stretched out to greet the pregnant skies

For your sweet drops to tumble down,

Though I'm exhaustingly aware

That you may seal up like a tomb

And leave me scarred and aching

At the threshold of despair...

...An envelope discarded to the

Famished womb of night...

5/19/24

Bunny Villaire

Her love’s like a winning lottery ticket. So don’t tell me having her with the rare condition was like getting struck by lightning severe. That sounds like bad luck when she’s my sweetest lucky charm.

White coats explain she might not walk. She might not talk. No chances of playing chess with her dad. And I had an insatiable urge to question the doctors.

How can you write story that’s not ready to be written?

Even so why can’t we let a one year old write her own story without them foreshadowing a future dim. Don’t they know wherever she goes she brings rainbows and a pot gold.

There was a greedy man from Nepal

Whose appetite was insatiable

When asked to stop eating

He said without ceasing,

“Chomp, chomp, urp, I am unable.”