Precipice of Danger
Why did I go to Peru? To a rustic camp somewhere high in the mountains? With a broken foot and ankle in a cast and resting on a leg scooter?
Our guide utters something not in English, and other campers pick up the pace of clearing a new site for our encampment. Shoveling snow. Moving rocks. Erecting tents. Building fire pits.
Why is everyone glancing at me and shaking their heads? Because I am just sorting gear? Because I appear to be the only American of the dozen or so campers? And the only one not pulling his or her weight? Fine, you try hard labor with a bad leg.
Break time at sunset and everybody huddles around a large barrel with a blazing fire inside. Everyone but me. I try to scoot in but other campers won't let me. Snickering faces are bathed in the warm, orange glow from the barrel.
Soon, everyone leaves the barrel but me. They line up on a rocky ledge to retrieve dinner from a wagon. It looks like chipped beef, but I can't get close enough to be sure. I guess I'll miss dinner again. They find rocks to sit on and drag the fire barrel away from me, so they can stay warm.
I look for a rock to sit on. I go up a slight incline, and I find one 10 yards from the group. But as I lift my leg off the scooter, somebody from the group yells. I look up, and others are shouting at me. I don't know what they are saying.
I sit on the rock, and my leg scooter rolls backward toward a cliff. It disappears. I stand to look, and I find that I am on the precipice. I topple backward and fall, but my right hand grasps a branch. I do not know how a tree got up there, but I hang on tightly. Now both hands are on the branch as my body dangles helplessly in nothingness. The group's screams have stopped. I hear a crack. I yell for help, but no one comes. Another crack, and a big piece of bark falls away. I yell for help, but no one comes. I can see the yellow innards of the branch. I yell for help, and now I have to pee.
I awake in my warm bed and head to the bathroom.
An Anxious Man at a Party
The dawning of the New Year,
the dropping of the ball -
the countdown leads to revelry
as it begins to fall.
At this party is a man
mired by a lack of confidence;
meek and mild-mannered,
he goes unnoticed without consequence.
And so his gaze shifts towards the earth
and to the feet of passersby.
He turns to clues upon their shoes
to ascertain their lives:
’There’s a pair of working boots,
endowed with mud and grime.
Working days are dreadfully long,
so he appreciates good times.'
'A pair of heels strut past,
her date has a lot of money.
She laughs at all his jokes,
but they’re painfully unfunny.’
You see, these observations
are a ritual of sorts.
Diffidence,
he cannot look upon the eyes of his cohorts.
This man sips his beer in solitude,
out of fear of being noticed.
His only solace rests within
the shoes that claim his focus.
He takes notice of the details,
deduces the paths on which they walk -
it’s his way of meeting people,
for he lacks the strength to talk:
’A pair of crocs go stomping by,
she’s cursing up a storm.
Across the floor and out the door;
tale of a woman scorned.'
'The sight of sneakers stumbling by
in swerving steps of stupor…’
They stop and pivot towards the man,
“I was wondering where you were!”
The man recoils, taken aback,
with the strength that he can muster,
he breathes in deep and takes the leap
and he turns his gaze on upward.
The face he’s met with wears a smile,
and calls him by his name.
That look brings equanimity
and washes away shame.
At last, he sees the festival
of color and excitement.
An extension of acknowledgement
made the present moment vibrant.
Run..RUn..RUN!!!!!!
Running through a dark and creepy forest at night
no light in sight, nothing to brighten up the dark abyss
that's alright..everything is fine.. you're gonna be fine..
is what I would've never said if I knew what was coming next
a pack of wolves on the prowl.. they saw me.. and started to howl.
Now I'm on the run which isn't much fun.. when you're running from wild animals that want to eat you or rip you apart whichever comes first. it's hard not to overthink when I could die in a blink of an eye.. oh God I don't wanna die... God please save my life I say knowing I never pray but this time is as good as any to ask the man of many for some help in this dangerous and scary situation.
I run into a cave, I will say I was feeling pretty brave going into this cave not knowing what would be in there, anything would be good except for a bear.. my heart was pounding as fast as it could go.. I needed to get home but I'm stuck in this cave in the woods..I can try to lay down and rest now..
Staring at screens
scrolling. scrolling.
the loop keeps
getting shorter
closing in
closing
in
no closer
to the finish line.
“why did I come here?”
I forget
to ask myself
anymore, ever- ywhere I
go
I‘m robbed of
my biometeric ID
by dozens of cameras
streaming, storing
uploading to
A cloud or
on a server somewhere
with a roof,
and four walls,
air conditioning
and private security.
While people die outside and
there’s no hiding
The calamity or
the mundane
And the addiction
to crack -ed screen
protectors
And tragedy.
Scrolling into controversy
Like surfers paddle til they catch a wave
And beauty surrounds us
And ugliness engulfs our whims
Where death is entertainment
or a plot device to get rid of the most inconvenient character
Or maybe a bus load of them.
“that’s a shame” we say
but
We gripe if their doom lacks our preferred amount of suspense
or knows no scapegoat
No villain
needed to pursue
For endless
instant gratification.
I want to put it down but
Never
Seem to unfix my
pupils fixed to pixels
to pay rent
to buy bread
and gasoline
to determine the quickest route to Grandma’s house
despite traffic
Always traffic
And smog so thick we’re all smoking
Carbon monoxide
My cigarettes filter that shit though
and nobody gets out of here alive.
loss of a fungus
Is the black Soul leaving the skull a sign of death
Is it rebirth or is it what Fate Wished to beheld
the Bug the creature
the Mask of Life
a Nail right through the chest
Penetrate the chitin, see through their Dreams
the Russula cradles the Honey
two Fungi and Bugs Die in each others arms
Why me, Why you all along
when the parasite only Wished to help
why does the Knight take the life
of the savior of the Land
the Trees Weep but the Hollow Husks know not of the tragedy
the Moss cradles the the Shell
the Broken Mask along a Green Path
and Orange eyes watch from the Wasps
as the last of the soul leaks from the hole
and enters the Abyss
The Value Menu and Sharpie Areolas
He should've known better. Now, after a couple of hours on the road he realizes that Taco Bell wasn't the best choice for dinner before starting an eighteen hour road trip. He feels his stomach twist, the pain so intense that his foot involuntarily lifts from the accelerator. His gut announces its displeasure with a noise that is reminiscent of a grey whale's mating song with a buzzing chainsaw with a fouled spark plug serving as backup vocals.
"Fuck," he groans, frantically checking the off-ramps that pass by with increasing infrequency, looking for an exit that would lead him to anything still open at midnight that would have a restroom.
Unfortunately for him, this particular stretch of Interstate 5 is almost exclusively farmland with no offramp gas stations or truck stops to be found. All he can see for miles and miles is barely visible crops in the headlights just beyond the asphalt's lightless shoulder. Accelerating to a speed that'd guarantee a ticket for reckless driving, he barrels down the freeway praying to find a sign advertising a place with a restroom. His stomach gurgles menacingly, sending a shockwave through his intestines. The increasing pressure feels like a tiny bulldozer covered in battery acid is pushing the contents of his bowels to their only south bound exit, threatening to overwhelm his normally stout sphincter.
Sweating, he tries to maintain a fine balance between the muscles he needs to drive and the tensing muscles he's using to hold back that Burrito Supreme and Nachos Bell Grande he'd eaten just hours ago. Now, if he'd have been wise, he would've asked a Taco Bell employee what food wouldn't cause his gastrointestinal system to declare mutiny against the underwear that served as a demilitarized zone between his anal blow hole and his Levi's. If he had, the Taco Bellian would've warned him that his particular choice in dinner was known as, "The Seat Blaster," guaranteed to obliterate any remaining new car smell a car still has while also doing enough damage to require new upholstery wherever the foolish eater sits.
Twenty, then thirty miles pass. Each grueling second forces him to strain trying to avoid the imminent ass eruption. His butt cheek clench causes him to sweat, the beads of perspiration that form on his forehead smell like red sauce and nacho cheese. Still it goes unnoticed as his fight with rebellious refried beans consumes his senses. Finally, a faded green sign proclaims that there is a rest stop at the next exit just four miles ahead.
"I'm gonna make it!" He thinks, pounding the steering wheel in victory. Oops! He let his attention slip and nearly experienced a rectal jailbreak. "Concentrate!" He admonishes himself because he hadn't packed any extra underwear for this trip. A blow out now would have him going commando until he got home tomorrow late afternoon.
FINALLY, he hits the offramp leading to the rest area. This late at night the remote oasis is deserted, so he parks in the spot closest to the men's room. He can only hope his muscles can take the transition from sitting to standing because getting to a toilet will require a new level of strain to keep the flotsam and jetsam of digested beef, beans, nacho cheese, and sour cream from chumming the sidewalk that leads into the restroom.
Somehow, he makes it into men's room and into the nearest stall. So intense is his journey that he doesn't even smell the stale urine or the scent of a million phantasmic turds that will forever haunt the cinder block restroom. Now, if the sound barrier could be broken by removing clothing, he would've caused a sonic boom as he yanked down his pants just in time to hit the toilet seat. Oh, the pain is exquisite! He forgot that he'd asked for jalapenos on the nachos and their burning exit makes him squirm on the toilet's cracked seat. The torturous expulsion of waste feels like liquid magma pouring out of his body. His eyes squeezed in catharsis inducing pain, he muses that Taco Bell has to be the Liquid Plumr of foods. The pseudo-Mexican cuisine is likely capable of cleansing the colon while simultaneously burning any cancerous or benign polyps lining the poop shoot to anal ashes.
FINALLY, after ten minutes, the fiery bullet train of waste that roared through his intestines has disappeared into the porcelain tunnel. He sighs and reaches for the toilet paper. It's single ply, of course, but he doesn't care. What is a problem is that there appears to be just the terminating four inch long strip of glued toilet paper left on the stall's only economy sized roll. Thinking of what he'd just left in the toilet bowl, there is little doubt that he'd need a full yard of single-ply TP for cleanup. Trying to use just four inches of single ply toilet paper in this situation would be like trying to clean up the Exxon Valdez oil spill with a cocktail napkin!
"Yo Quiero some fucking Charmin!" He cries, his frustrated wail echoing mournfully in the empty restroom.
His next thought is one of desperation, and he knows that he isn't going to enjoy the paper cuts his anus will likely receive from wiping with ass gaskets. In fact, he's pretty sure wiping with the questionably hygienic paper commode covers will make his ass burn worse than the first morning after a prison cell honey moon. Unfortunately, this idea gets scratched immediately because one look at the toilet seat cover dispenser tells him he'll need a Plan B. It's empty.
So, he sits, defeated. "What the fuck am I gonna do?" He asks the graffiti covered door of the restroom stall.
Unfortunately, he has only one option. Check the other stalls for toilet paper. His problem, he doesn't dare pull his pants all the way up because of the very real possibility of walking out of the restroom with the seat of his jeans so soiled that they resemble mud flaps after a mud bogging competition. He pauses, listening for any new arrivals to the rest area. Thankfully, he hears nothing, but he'll have to move fast because he doesn't want to get caught literally with his pants down. With his luck, a highway patrolman could walk in at any moment. Being arrested for indecent exposure and placed on the sex offender registry because someone didn't stock the fucking toilet paper dispenser was not how he wanted to remember this trip.
Gathering up his jeans and holding them just below the fleshy canyon of his ass, he sticks his head out of the stall. All clear. So, he steps out and opens the first empty stall. One look at the stall and he realizes that there's no way he would go in there. The interior of the stall looks like someone strapped a lit stick of dynamite to a box of wet king sized Baby Ruths and threw it in the stall's toilet.
"Jeebus Christo!" He exclaims. "How did I not smell that!" Without a doubt, any toilet paper in excrement splattered, open sewer of a stall would likely be unusable. Besides, he didn't have the hazmat suit he'd need to escape the stall without contracting hepatis, anal warts, a tape worm, and a yeast infection capable of making a lifetime supply of Wonder Bread. So, holding his breath, he moves on.
Thankfully, the next stall appears to be clean, well as clean as a rest area bathroom stall can be. Unfortunately, this stall is also lacking toilet paper and razor-blade ass gaskets. However, the graffiti gracing the back wall catches his eye. Written in bold, black, words, "Hell's Angels Sacramento Chapter Was Here" are menacingly written above the commode. To his surprise, just beneath the outlaw biker gang calling card is a surprisingly good sketch of a naked woman done in the artistic medium of Sharpie. With pants dangling below his bum, he doesn't have time to spend admiring the artwork, but later he'd marvel at the sketch's intricate detail. Who knew that an outlaw biker could also be a Picasso of the potty, or a Rembrandt of the restroom? Everything from the moisture on the pornographic doodle's pouty lips to the little bumps that pebble the areolas that sit like islands on the drawings impossibly large breasts are recreated with shocking precision. Later, during his freeway musings he would theorize that the biker must've honed his artistic skill (along with the occasional shiv) in a penitentiary art class, which to his thinking was tax dollars well spent.
To his relief, the final stall provides him with a new roll of single-ply salvation. He's so elated he doesn't even mind that the toilet paper is so rough and of such low quality that he'll likely walk away with splinters in his ass. Disaster and what would've been the mother of all skid marks averted, he wipes with no less than two yards of TP and with a sigh of pleasure, washes his hands while singing happy birthday to himself twice. After grabbing a Coke at the rest area's vending machine, he gets behind the wheel and makes his way back to the freeway.
Flying down the freeway at 70 mph and no longer afraid that he'll blow his anal o-ring, he tries to calculate where he'll need to stop for gas and something to eat. He figures he should be in Redding by 7 am to top off the gas tank. Now what for breakfast? He only has to think for a second.
"Oh yeah!' He remembers. "Taco Bell now has a breakfast menu!"
STRESS MESS
The stress that is enveloping me is the fear of not knowing when these stress attackers will come to visit me again. They can surprise you at any moment - uninvited guests that have no boundaries and have unlimited brazenness. Their name is widespread amongst those who have been stricken in the past by this enemy, a gang known as'The Stressors.' They usually attack without any warning and take no heed of your pleadings to "go away, not now." They are a powerful gang and have complete control over their victims. They barge in unannounced and spread paralyzing fear to those who are most susceptible to their war- like attacks. They can break the strongest of men and take no heed of your status in life - whether you're rich or poor, strong or weak, young or old, male or female, college-educated, or a high school dropout. They can visit you for several seconds, countless hours, or remain for years and years. The damage they impart can be temporary or permanent.
You may receive some subtle warning that they are on their way to get you. Your breathing accelerates, your palms feel moist and you try to utilize resources that have helped you in the past. Some people have the strength and the luck to be successful and the enemy is forced to go into hiding/remission. But others, like me, have failed in the past and know that this time, 'The Stressors,' will win this war and that I will be powerless to confront or stop them. The full-fledged panic attack begins. My heart rate increases and rapidly goes out of control. I have tried counting the beats of my heart but I become so stressed out that I cannot concentrate and am unable to count past one hundred. Next, they climb into my chest and turn the volume of my beating heart up so loud that I can't hear myself think. Can you hear it from across the room?
The gang makes my now fragile heart pound so strongly that it pushes against the fabric of my shirt and I am positive that at any second it will rip apart, exposing my bare skin to the chilliness that has suddenly swept through the room and that all eyes will be upon me. I am now so cold that I can't stop shaking; my knees are knocking together and my teeth are chattering. What magic have they used to make my palms so wet? Palms so slicked with sweat that the papers I was holding have disintegrated into a messy mass of pulp. My limbs start to quiver and I am afraid that I will fall down and you will laugh at me.
The worst is the breathlessness - I know I am dying, but if I call 911 again they will most likely bring that psychologist in to talk with me and pretend that I am not nuts, but only need 'to rest a bit' in that brick structure down the road. My stomach is wound up so tight that it feels like a spring that is ready to release itself and tear my insides apart. I wrap my arms around myself and try not to cry. I feel a little sense of relief when I realize that my mouth is so dry that I couldn't cry or speak a word if I wanted to. My teeth ache from clenching them so tightly together and my nails have dug into my palms and have caused drops of blood to fall. Help! Am I going to bleed to death?
This mess of stress is trying to control my life and the nasty gang of Stressors is attacking me more frequently. I've spoken to doctors and have taken their pills. I've attended those 'mindfulness' and 'meditation' classes and have read hundreds of self-help books. I've tried so many breathing techniques that I've lost my breath. Nothing has worked to beat this relentless gang.
I want to go online and look up 'Stress-Busters' but I get so stressed that I might tap the wrong key that I can't make myself do it. But, I will somehow find the strength to click on the 'send' button and send this to you. Please let me know if you receive this - if not, I will be awake all night, wondering if you received this.
Thank You.
Sunday Brunch
Groups of people pile into little booths.
So tight they can't move without bumping into eachother.
Pervasive odors overpower the room.
Her perfume and his deodorant.
Grilled fish, pancake syrup,
And steamy dishsoap.
Conversations overlap,
A collision of voices.
Mouths smack open and close,
Slurping and crunching between words.
Teeth tear into bits of meat and flesh.
The continuous clatter of utensils,
It's coming,
It always does.
The searing screech.
How they drag and scrape metal against ceramic.
I feel it in my teeth,
Under my skin,
My face,
It burns.
Look normal,
Look normal,
Look normal.
All the eyes,
Fixated on me.
"Hi there. What can I get you?"
Panic attack
Sharp!
Sharper than the biggest knife
Sharper than the heaviest sword
Like a dagger stabbing in me
Right into the center of my heart
Gasp!
Gasping for clean and fresh air
Longing for oxygen in my lungs
Like a way maker finding its way
Right to the heart of my existence
Shake!
Shaking off the fear which has grip on me
Fearing of being lonely and alone
Wishing for someone who understands
me and my heart truly, fully and deeply
Breathe!
Breathing deeply again so I’m back alive
Thinking clearly of who I really am
Of what I already have in my life
Being blessed of the love around me
Think!
Thinking of all the lovely people around me
who give me their love, care and support
Cherishing them in my sensitive heart
They put with their love the sharp dagger
out of my broken and fragile heart…
…softly