Patchouli Day

Wow, a happy poem?  From me? 

 

 

Patchouli Day

And he’s out of town

So you’re alone in the car

And you can play what you want

And you can be who you are

And the Santa Ana wind

With its SoCal heat

Whips the dry sand dust

Across the hot black street

And the convoys pass by

All the humvees in their line

But you remember who you are

And you know you’re doing fine

Steel guitar on the radio

And paisley on your shirt

Body oil smelling like rain

And home and dirt

And you can sing with the music

‘Cause no one can hear what you say

And you can go where you’re going

And yeah, it’s a patchouli day

An Open Letter to Ponyboy Curtis

Dear Ponyboy,

    It’s been a while hasn’t it?  I’m sorry about that.  I promise I’ve never stopped thinking about you.  I guess no book really moves you like your first.  You were my first.  You were the first to make me cry for hours.  The first to stay in my mind for months after I was done reading.  The first to make me really want to write.  You dig, right?  You understand about sunsets, so I’m sure you can get this too.

    We’ve been through a lot together.  Remember the time I put blistex in my hair because I thought it would look like hair grease?  It took ages to wash it all out.  I read Gone with the Wind for you.  I started reading The Carpetbaggers for you.  (I wasn’t old enough to read it either.)  

    In seventh grade, when I had no friends, I told people my best friend’s name was Curtis and that he went to a different school.  I knew they’d never believe me if I said your name was Ponyboy.  

    You’re the reason I don’t like bologna.  You’re the reason I still wear boots or tennis shoes everywhere.  You were the reason I bought my first jean jacket.  I never took up smoking for you.  But I did used to put cinnamon sticks in my mouth and pretend they were smokes.  

    After the first few times I stopped reading the book before the church burned down.  Who says nothing gold can stay?  It’s kind of funny isn’t it?  I’m twenty-eight and you’re still fourteen.  You used to be older than me.  I couldn’t wait to be the same age as you.  I thought fourteen was the age to be.  Then I thought maybe it was sixteen.  Or eighteen.  Or twenty-one.  

    I guess things can’t be the same between us as they were then.  I don’t know what I’d make of you if we met for the first time today.  But we didn’t.  We met a long time ago and for that I’m grateful.  You’ll always be my first.  Stay Gold Ponyboy.

Love always,

Walls

Warnings: depression maybe?

There was a girl who lived in a room with gray walls.  When she could no longer stand the oppressive gray she painted over it with rainbows, but the gray still showed through and made her colors forever dingy.  She sprayed the room with sandalwood and lavender and told herself she was happy now but everyone who visited could smell the rot of paperwhites underneath.  

Talking Boxes

Warnings: violence, death, home invasion

 

Televisions don’t talk

Not when there’s no power

They can’t predict the future

They can’t warn of your last hour

They can’t yell the way you’ll die

Through their static you can’t hear it

They can’t murmur of your murder

And the fact you’re very near it

They don’t say he’ll wear a trench coat

They don’t know he has a bat

They don’t know he has a lock pick

In the brim of his old hat

They can’t know he walks so lightly

That the stairs they never creak

They can’t see his rat eyes peering

Till he finds the room he seeks

They can’t see the brutal slaughter

Or hear the silence after screams

They can’t feel the hot blood dripping

Or know half finished dreams

TVs don’t know laughter

And it’s just an actor you hear cry

TVs don’t know nothing

so how’d it tell me how I die?

Notes: I wrote this ages ago and just recently found it.  It's based on a creepy broken old TV my family had when I was a kid.  It definitely creeped me out a bit rereading it, especially since we recently had a break-in.  (Everyone was fine, but some of our stuff was not.)

Mommy Wars

Warnings: Violence and possible death involving small children

   

 

    Michaela tried to keep her eyes straight ahead as she strode down the corridor.  She focused on the soft thuds of her boots against the slick dark floor.  She didn’t want to look at the gray boxes that lined the walls.  The boxes were opaque.  Naturally they were.  Michaela couldn’t see the little bodies.  But they were there.  Of course they were there.

    Michaela stopped at the end of the corridor and pulled a crumpled slip of paper from her pocket.  Jean worked there as a tech and she’d been able to supply them with the codes.  Michaela punched in the combination and pushed open the door.  Another corridor.  More gray boxes.

    Michaela shook her head.  What kind of parent would do this?  She couldn’t imagine.  She wouldn’t ever.  Not in a million years.  No decent parent would.  She might have thought about it, just for a second.  Just for a fraction of a second when she’d been nine months pregnant with Phil, and Dani had just whined constantly and wanted to be carried everywhere.  It was natural to think about it.  Of course it was.  They made it so easy, especially with the government covering the first six months.  They said it increased birth rates.  Was for the good of the country.  What did they know?  Well that would stop now.  

    Michaela kept moving.  The sooner she got this over with the better.  Then she could go home.  Go home to Phil and Dani.

    Michaela took care of her kids.  She was a real mother.  Not like them.  Maybe it made things a little simpler to cryogenically freeze your oldest child for a few months when the next was born, but it just wasn’t right.

    There were even reports that it could be dangerous.  If the engineers didn’t monitor the process closely during the unfreezing then the kids could die.  Parents just didn’t care.

    She had reached the computers.  It was almost over.  People were going to realize how barbaric this was.  They’d see what their selfishness cost them.  Michaela took a deep breath and began shut down procedures for the center.  Maybe this would teach women to be good mothers.  Good mothers like her.