I was an exception to the phrase "we were all born with a voice" I was born a mute, had it not been for my mother pressing her lips to mine and passing on her voice I would have walked this earth in silence. But my mother felt she had said enough in this lifetime and gave me a chance to shout from the rooftops and whisper to the ones I love. She spent the rest of her days scribbling on napkins and pressing her lips to my ears so they could feel her secrets.

When I was nothing but a small child I would chew on the tips of my fingers in hopes that one day I would grow up to a be a good boy. I wanted to grow up and stand straight while me and my wife served snacks to the crowd. But I was born in a different world and grew up with a bowed back. pockets full of phone numbers and the sin of other woman beneath my nails. I hid my passion in wooden boxes buried beneath the house and on the nights I held her hand I held back tears while I thought of how you ran from your mother and sent letters down the river..

He practiced the gospel every chance he got, turning the other cheek to feel the lips from the neighbors wife. He was known by many, but not in the way you and I would like to be known. The townspeople knew him as the man who rummaged through their mail, opening private letters from overseas, birthday cards and the occasional pre-approved credit card, looking to strike some sort of fire in his dried up heart. By law this is a capital offense but nobody had the heart to turn him in. They let him live vicariously through their lives, there was even an older man who would write the occasional letter full of scandalous acts for him, and it wasn't a surprise to see half a sandwich bundled up behind the readers digest. Visiting family and friends wondered why the townspeople put up with such nonsense and even in a small way enabled it, but nobody had an answer. It was an unwritten law, a sort of code one would say. They never turned their backs to a fellow man, even if he had wronged them in every which way possible. They were just common folks, no different than you and I, they read the same books as us and laughed at the television just like we do, they had their secrets, hidden taboos under the bed sheets and dark pasts but they were just better at keeping it hidden than him. And maybe that's why they tolerated his ways, because deep down he was more honest then everyone one of them, he put it out for everyone to see. And whether we admit it or not, all of us truly want that...to be completely honest with the world no matter the cost.

We were raised in a house of superstition, brother and I. Always putting the left shoe on first, keeping a bucket of buckeyes under the foot of our bed, or never breaking a twig on the Sabbath. Small things to the eyes of the world, but in our parents eyes these small traditions or superstitions kept the universe in tact. Folks felt sorry for us on account of our families odd habits but i'll be honest with you. We had a good home life, if the biggest thing they fussed about was us leaving our closet door open while the sun was still up I'd say we were pretty lucky, considering how rough others had it. I knew a boy in grade school who'd come to school beat to kingdom come just because he walked in front of his daddy. Growing up I questioned a lot, as most kids do. But I never heard my friends asking why they couldn't brush their teeth between 6:45 and 7:15. Mom and dad would sit me and my brother down and start to tell us about how the world used to be, how people took reverence in the small things and kept the world in order. But those ways were leaving, people lost their reverence and the ways of old were all but forgotten. And these traditions they were teaching us, silly as they may seem were greater than we could ever imagine, in a way they were keeping the universe alive. Now you tell two little boys that keeping two nickles in their back pockets is saving the universe, you better believe they never left the house without two worn down nickles. And even today, twenty-two years later I still got two nickles in my pack pocket. And I guarantee if you looked in that casket you'd find two nickles under mom and a bucket of buckeyes at her feet. Cause even on her way to the grave she stood by her beliefs, dad and brother were the same way. And the day someone is standing over me, talking about how I kept my bottom button undone or never broke a twig on the Sabbath I hope i'm just like my mom and dad. Going to the grave with nickles in my back pockets and knowing my family did they best they could to make the universe a better place.

And everywhere her bare foot stepped my words fell off her heels...

Since the day of my birth I have been sick. A bafflement to the medical fields, I have a rare condition with no name and no history of it happening to anyone else. The place I was born is where I have to spend the rest of my life, luckily I was born in fathers study and not some cold over lit hospital. My steps have been limited by a house, and the farthest my eyes will ever see is out of sixteen windows. I have no visitors nor do I have any friends. When I became older and more aware of what my future held I started to write my dreams, thoughts, made up memories anything that came to my mind on the palms of my hands. At night I would offer to rub my sisters feet, my palms pressing against her foot letting her heels soak up every word. Sister never wore shoes when she left the house, her bare feet felt meadows, river beds, the cobblestone of the town below and even the shop floors where she defied all "no shoes no service" laws. And everywhere her bare foot stepped my words fell off her heels, soaking into the earth, collecting in the corner with dust or washing down streams. I was bound to four walls but my words had no boundaries. My nightmares were soaked into the flowers that men picked for the gals. Every made up friend was collected in the dust between stones. The fields sister ran through were now plowed, upturning all my thoughts. Seeds were planted and mighty rows of crops were produced. Corn with memories of my first made up kiss, tomatoes full of secrets about mothers hidden liquor bottle in the medicine cabinet. Potatoes holding witness to the first time I saw mother and father fight. Every ocean in the world had a piece of me in it. The creek beds riddled with the images of my father passing away and how sister sat in the corner not saying a word, just shaking her legs. Eager to run away, eager to spread my words. She had no idea that her heels were writing to the world, the morning before they put her in the ground I wrote to her. Telling her all that she had done for me, thanking her. I'm not sure what happened to those words, maybe they soaked into the casket and kept her company while she passed over. Maybe a few even touched heavens floor, I like the thought of them saints soaking me up. I have no one to spread my words now, mother will occasionally go out and i'll sneak a few secrets on her. But most of the time it's just me, writing on anything I can find. So when I pass on over and they burn this old house down, the wind will pick up the ashes and this little girl who never left the house will touch every corner of the world.

Ole tub water

We used to fill up that old tub in the back and share the bath water, when folks heard word of it they made a fuss but we defended ourselves. Saying "Ah, we're just saving some water, no need in wastin' two tub fulls" But truth is. We were scared. We were scared of washing off our sins alone, so we shared that tub. Scrubbing at every little sin we could find, and if some were to stick back on our bodies when we got out..well, that'd be fine, cause we'd be carrying them together. And Lord knows we could use all the help we can get.

part I

I never owned many pairs of pants. Sure I could have bought a pair for every occasion. Some flashy pair for when I go dancing down at Ed's. A pair with fine hems for paroosing around town. A pair that matched my jacket and tie for when I fill a seat in the old Baptist church. And of course a good pair for sitting on the porch and ignoring the ever so changing world around me. Well I actually own that pair. AS for the other, I don't need special occasion pants because I don't partake in "special occasions" I find dancing redundant and a hurt on my feet. I got no need for "paroosing" around town..making a spectacle of myself just so I can go into ole Maney's store and buy some pipe tobacco and whatever nickel book they got stuffed behind one of them flashy girl magazines. I can do all that in my regular pants. I owned a suit and on the day they put my daddy in the ground next to momma and her sister I went down to the river, wrote a letter to dad. Confessing every lie. every time I took a sip of his jug or a pinch of his baccy. I thanked him for the things a boy should thanks his father for. I also put a few secrets along the edges then stuck it in my right pocket. Filled the left pocket with a handful of creek rock and I drowned that old suit. Maybe the creek beds got a use for a suit. I sure didn't. Besides I ain't filling no seat in that church, I got no problem with a church and i've been talking to the good Lord before I even had a tooth in my head. But that ole building with its velvet pews and a preacher who couldn't hold water if it wasn't for a little whiskey in his blood. That ain't for me. There's an old spring house in the valley, it's mostly a spot for kids to break their bottles and see how far they can get their hands up some good mans daughters shirt, but for me. It was the first place I was put on my knees and just hollered to the Lord. for me. It's my broken down springhouse church.
Some call me bitter and others don't call me at all, I've slipped between the floorboards in their minds and that's just fine by me. But I think all to often my lack of interest in people and their going ons has been misunderstood as "being bitter/hateful a mean old hermit" ah hell..maybe I am. But don't get me wrong I don't hate every person who comes strolling by my house(but I must say for one to "stroll by my house" one must abandon his or her vehicle. Trek in woods that even deer get lost in and avoid old mine-shafts that i've "forgotten" to mark off) there are the occasional fellas whom I don't mind sharing shade with and there's been a few lady folk who stuck by me for a bit. no longer than three months. I guess ladies get bored with the same ole thing everyday, beats me. There's also two youngins that i've taken a liken to. Brother and sister. The sister acts more like the boy, always got her finger in something and blood on her knees. She constantly reminds me that i'm alright by myself: "You know, ain't nothing wrong with a man who sticks to himself, if I was a man i'd stick to myself" she always followed that up with a long stare at my boots, a subtle grin and a quick spit onto my porch. Then she'd be off the poke at my ole goat or see what I had to eat "All you eat is bolonga and stale saltines!!" she said that every time..she's consistent. I liked that, hell it's one of few things I can actually respect. Now the young boy..men say i'm quiet, even my mother said so. But this boy beats all you've seen. If he didn't have such a haunting presence about him you'd forget he was there. When they first stumbled on my house she ran her mouth a mile a minute. Asking me everything from how many hairs I think I got to what I thought was really in the sky besides the clouds and good parents. But the boy he just sat in the corner picking at his britches and winding the dial on an old broken watch. The more they came around the more comfortable he became, he brought me stories he had wrote in school or the old watches he found. He gave me one for my birthday. Well it wasn't my birthday. "Here, I want you to have this. It don't work or anything but you've been around for a while and I assume you've had a few birthdays so think of this as a make-up gift." he handed over a bulky fake gold watch with "To Pete, my strong strong man" engraved on the back. My names not Pete and i'm sure as hell ain't strong. The boy knows that. at least I think he does. I wore it for a few months, I knew it didn't work but I caught myself checking it anyways. Fortunately I had no need for time. still don't. doubt I ever will. Eventually the band broke so I stuck it in my pocket and that's where it's slept ever since. The day I get buried I'll have that watch in my pocket unless some dimwit rummages around in my pockets and steals it. Stealing from the dead, now that's something that ought to make folk lose sleep at night (I don't) stealing in general disgusts me, mainly because i've never truly wanted to own something I didn't already have or knew would come in due time.
When the boy first came around he wore "special occasion" pants, now everyday, he wears those same ole "watching the world pass by" pants. Maybe I should tell him that just because I find "special occasion pants" absurd doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them. It'd break my heart to know the boy passed up life just to be like me. I've never once hated myself. But i've also never wished this life upon anyone else. The boy and girl always came together and outside the view of my porch and yard I didn't know what their lives were like. I never asked. Well I did once, but I didn't ask them. I asked old Maney, he called me a "pervert" and said he had half the mind to tell their folks I was asking about 'em. "Old man Maney! you're right about one thing, you do got half a mind. Now stop sucking air around me before I burn this store down." That's what a part of me wanted to say, that part never gets what he wants. Instead I bought my bolonga and stale saltines for half the price not bothering with friendly salutations or bonding farewells. A man like me shouldn't ask questions, it's not because i'm undeserving of an answer. It's just that when I really think about it..I either already know the answer or i've went this long without knowing and i've been doing just fine. Occasionally the kids will bring me a left-over plate of roast and taters, sometimes even a jelly biscuit. I feed the roast to my goat when they leave, I love roast..well I used to but a man becomes accustom to a certain diet and adding change upsets my stomach. I eat the taters though, the kids watch and you can tell they feel accomplished. On the days they bring biscuits I act extra stuffed from my taters and insist they eat the biscuit. I'm sure they know i'm not stuffed and i'm sure they know I feed their mama's roast to my goat. But it's our routine. It's consistent and it's safe.
Now about my goat, she's a good goat. Of course I have nothing to base this opinion off of but I still like to think she's a good goat. I got her when she was no bigger than a fat ole baby, I found her father with his head stuck in a fence, the breath from his lungs long gone and she was gnawing on a root half expecting him to wake up. or hell I don't know that, she probably knew what was going on. I never named her, the kids call her anne. I call her goat and i'm sure she calls me: dad, roast man or David(that's not my name but she heard it repeadatly one night when I felt real good and sang an old church song about David and Bathsheba at the top of my lungs) or for all I know she don't call me anything. And that's just fine by me. I know my name, although I forget it sometimes. Not on purpose..I just lose track of words.
In the children's eyes I had always been the man sitting on the porch in his "watching the world go by pants" who forgot the use of a razor and owned a goat. But I assured them that I was their age once. Telling them brief stories of my childhood and about growing up. I told them I was an only child, I was on purpose. I hear so many people say their kids was an accident. "an accident?! did they just fall out of your wife?" that's what a part of me wants to say, but that part doesn't say very much. My parents promised me I was on purpose. Mom cleaned for elderly folks around town and dad knew everyone's secretes. He was the garbage man. When I was too young to remember I laid at my mothers ankles while she washed clothes, the water was dripping on me. Mama said that's why i'm such an old soul(now i'm actually an old soul who couldn't stop himself from pissing the bed if his life depended on it..who knows maybe one day it will.) She'd say all the water dripping from those old folks clothes must've got in my soul and aged me real fast. She sang and read to me, songs she made up and words she read off of anything she could find. I learned how to read at an early age, I'd read anything and i'd read it carefully,slowly and close. So close that mama would slap my head "ruin your eyes doing that!!" I listened. That was my only fear growing up. To lose my eyesight and never be able to read. Forced to only hear what people had to say for the rest of my life, even back then what folks had to say did me no good. I'd been in school for years till one day it burnt down, by that time I had found myself..well somewhat, I recreated myself in works of fiction and lined my pockets with poetry and prose and only let my mom and dad see the true me. Thirty-seven days after the school burned down moms sister-my aunt-moved in. She took kindly to drinking and making eyes at anything that walked by. She died a year later, why? i'm not sure. The police came by a lot after the funeral, constantly asking questions and requesting to speak in private. Dad gave them a shoebox of hers one day and that was the last I saw of them. I was starting to write more, on the days I wasn't working with dad I wrote. Filling notebooks and napkins with children's stories or fictitious love letters. I quit working with dad and sold neck ties to men with dry necks and damp pockets. That didn't last long and in the next few years I tried out many jobs. Always leaving after getting to comfortable of just the lack of interest. I cut trees, I sold pets, dug graves, sold magazines and was the only guy to ever bar-tend in the next town sober. During all this I wrote and mailed off Three-hundred and seventy-five children's stories. In which seventeen got published under the pseudo name Thomas Brauty. I didn't receive much money but it was enough to put away for old age (it gets my bolonga and stale saltines) also nobody(minus the kids) knew I wrote them. I told dad in the note that I wrote on his funeral, i'm sure he would have been proud. I was twenty-three when mom fell victim to "old age" she wore a blue dress and even on her death bed her fingers were wrinkled from the washing of people who were long gone. I was somewhat seeing a gal when mama died. After the service she made the comment that blue wasn't my mom's color. That was the eleventh time in my life where that brutally honest part of me got his way. I didn't tell the kids what I told her. And I never plan on repeating those words ever again. Exactly One-hundred and four days after mama died dad sat in his chair. Lit his pipe with the cheapest tobacco he could find. Drank two fingers of thirty year scotch. Opened the paper and died. That was the day I started to smoke a pipe, never read the paper again and put on my suit for the last time..

I was seven the first time I sewed scripture to the cuffs of my suits. I was attending my uncle’s funeral. I say uncle because legally that’s all he was to me. I don’t even know his name, mom had this to say about him: “oh him? yeah sweety(I hated when she called me sweety) he’s your uncle. Wanna have a little secret? before your daddy married me your “uncle” used to make kisses on me” I ignored mother that day, I ignored mother most days. Now don’t get me wrong, I loved her. But I did not love her words. I haven’t loved someones words since I was three. The last words I loved I heard on the radio “we offer a discount on towels” we offer something about those two words stuck with me. Anyways. I borrowed thread. I kidnapped a needle and I sewed a chapter of Habakkuk to the cuff of my “dashing suit” thats what my aunt called it. She’s the type that calls everything dashing. Makes me sick. I sat in the pew of a musty church, pinching my leg. stepping on one foot. occasionaly peeking at my scriptures. I do the same thing now that i’m older. My wife. when she picks me out a shirt she asks: “Hey babe, what scripture do you want to wear today?” I never answer. She knows. That was a day. Thats what I would say, “That was a day” I never learned descriptive words. Later when my age became larger I learned that “weird” would have been an appropriate word. “That was a weird day, I saw my first bra, dead person and realized I look nothing like my family” You’re probably wondering what my age is. Well by calender talk i’m 27. But in the world of science i’m only 13. I never paid much attention to science. Why do people want answers for everything? I have to stop talking now, sorry for such a weird ending but I have to sew.

Evelyn made sure the sleeves of her sweater or the hems of her skirt never rose up around the other children in school. She wasn’t ashamed of her skin, Evelyn used to sit in the tub on the nights she was allowed to use water admiring the fairness of her skin. But that was before her mother started losing things. That was before Evelyn sat up at night pulling off the sins and memories that stuck to the bottom of her mothers foot. Ones that had slid off her body without her knowing or even if she did know she no longer had the strength to hold onto memories or sins. Not after the “storm”. Not after the night her mother came home crying with two men from the Police station all wrapped up in a blanket and led to her bed to sleep the storm away. Evelyn didn’t want to overhear the Policeman as they left, but a child’s ear is a mysterious thing. “I’ve seen her before, she never was a lady of the evening..but she also never favored the mornings.” Evelyn’s ears made no sense of what they heard and that was for the best. A child’s ear has no need for ignorant words. She stayed up with her storm battered mother, reciting her poems, singing made up songs and counting the hairs on her head. Now things are much more complex, her mother never recovered from the storm. She lost all her memories, the humanity of sin, the grace that lived in her. It was falling off her as she walked, washed off her wrists when she scrubbed the same dish for 20 minutes. But Evelyn walked behind her, slept at the edge of her bed and drained the tub for her. Collecting all the memories, grace and sin that she so unwillingly lost. Evelyn saved her lunch money for a ink and quill set so she could take all things lost and write them between her thighs, under her arms. Covering all her flesh with her mother in hopes that one day she would want it all back. And if not..she would walk this earth with her mother on her skin…

sleep writing

I used to bury my nickles under mothers porch so the aunts and uncles of my father wouldn’t steal them from me. I buried my shoes behind the old truck that dad pretends to drive. I cover the cuts on my ankles with the mud from the hill. In hopes that one day I will grow roots and become one of those trees that sit so safely in the distance.

3 nights ago I was sleeping in granny and papaws old bed while dad slept on the couch, I woke up that morning and was throwing my pillow around trying to find my shirt and I found this wadded up piece of paper that I had scribbled on. I seem to always hide my sleep writing under my pillow

How Whales Communicate

When I was seven I knew a man who collected paper cuts. He traveled from library to library adding to his collection. The collection he hid on his spine and under his socks. When I was eight he showed me his spine. riddled with cuts. A spine painted in fiction, horror, living and children's books. When I was nine he would lay on his stomach and let me read his spine with eager fingers. That's where I learned what a kiss was. What it is to lie to your parents. How to grow flowers in a tub. By the age of twelve I had started my own collection of paper cuts. "How Whales communicate" was the first cut to sink itself behind my knees. When I turned fifteen he let me peak beneath his socks. He wouldn't let me read. Just look. He promised by my eighteenth birthday I could read the cuts between his toes. By the time I was seventeen he had moved on. He hadn't died, in fact i'm not sure if he was ever born. He simply moved on. Leaving me. a young man. a young man with knees full of paper cuts and fingers that craved a spine.

When I learned of how mother cut her tongue on those pages my tongue cried to feel the sting of sacred edges. My bones ached for the breaking I knew those pages could bring. hit me. cut me. rip my sides out. I would scream at her locked door. The door she hid behind cutting her tongue on those sacred edges. The day mother let me in I walked in on all fours with a hunger for anything she left. But mothers tongue was gone. Her bones were no more. She licked all those sacred edges. She was broken by every last page. She was no more and I fed upon her flesh. But a child shouldn’t feed upon a sacrifice such as this. A child. me. a young girl. never left that room again. never tasted the sacred edges and felt the breaking of pages. I just was and never could be. For the rest of my days until my spine was worn down by the windows light and my legs married the dust.

I used to ask my knees why they smelt like the sea, I only asked because my knees have never seen the sea. But somehow their wrinkled faces held the scent of traveling winds. I used to know this man who carried bottles by his side. Bottles full of truths but he bottled them up. to afraid of how they would make people feel. I used to be the type of sinner that only prayed for my forgiveness on sunday afternoons. I used to be the type of sinner that held hands to tightly and left bruises on toddlers wrist. I was a vessel of holy water with not a drop to spare. And when you came crawling out from under my legs I knew your face. I knew your wrists and I remembered your thighs. But you remembered not. You didn’t know my face or know my wrists.

I never asked to be accountable for all the sins my father committed down in those mines. I’m sure if he knew i’d be the one paying for his wicked ways he would have thought twice about doing them. At least that’s the way I like to think about it. Nobody wants to think of their father as a wicked man. Last month he put on his nicest pair of slacks, took the change from grandmas rainy day bucket and went down to those mines. That was the last time I saw him. Cracked hands digging for a few quarters, pennies and mistakingly picking up a button is the last image I have of him. Days later the post man came, the one with the limp that seems to switch legs depending on the weather. He brought me a letter. Boys like me never get letters, I get the occasional Happy Birthday card from my aunt in the city but it’s nothing more than an obligatory gesture. I stood on that porch with the heaviest letter my hands had ever held. My old dull schrade knife slide right through that letters spine only to find hundreds of paper scraps all with black bold face letters on them. My fathers sins. They mailed me my fathers sins. I carried that letter till my hands were just as cracked as his. I carried that letter till there no longer was any rainy day money in grandmas bucket. I never married and I never became promiscuous. I never wanted children. I never wanted them to receive my letter full of scraps of paper with black bold face letters on them. I never wanted them to be accountable for my sins.

Before sister was born brother and I cut down the old weeping willow behind our house. We made sister a crib out of that old weeping willows bones in hopes that it would save her from falling between the cracks of mothers worn down bed.

After sister was born brother fell from the kitchen table with rope around his dry neck. And a note stuck in his sock. “I got the job”

After brother was buried mother started dancing with the pastors who carried hollowed out Bibles. She wore long dresses and no longer hid in her worn down bed. Mother left a note on the kitchen table. “I took the job, feed your sister”

After mother took the job I fed my sister leaves and fresh water from the stream that runs under our porch. Sister and I never left notes about jobs. We never ate at the kitchen table and our beds never became worn down. I grew old. She grew up. She married a man who already had a job. She had children who never feared falling between the cracks of her worn down bed.

After sister married. After sister became her own. I left a note on the bathroom sink. “I never could hold a steady job” I fell between the cracks in mothers worn down bed.

I never sang during the shuffle of grandfathers decks. My tongues became numb and my lips danced with the praises of elders younger than me. We were only children living in a foster home built with plastic walls. They begged for our escapes. Knowing that our legs couldn’t make it past the lips of lucky leaping tigers. Our bodies meant nothing to the pianos playing in the dining halls of lust. Guardians prayed to an idol erected upon their stomachs while fathers and mother gave us to them for loafs of bread and a promise written by the illiterates.

My mother counted coins on the kitchen table while father brought home letters from other mothers. My sister hid her novels under blankets and sheets while brother hit his girlfriend in the living room of grandmothers. Our family held no secrets. Shame was not our thing. Uncle called our sister while our power flickered out. Brother begged for his inheritance in hopes to move away. Brother moved away with camel cash and a used out zippo. Mother read the bible but never read the words. Sister still hid her novels. Father kissed the floors of bankrupt restrooms. I sat. I stood. I watched and I cried. I was I and they were they but in the end they saw us as them. My attemps to break out never prevailed. Until that day. When the wrecking balls came. Tore down my flesh and ripped up my legs. I was a house. I was a broken shelter. You thought I was a child but your thoughts were wrong. I was four walls with a ceiling and a scared floor. I had four eyes one on each wall and a door that never offered freedom.

Your tattered legs all stained with salt while mother clutches rubble and calls out fathers fault. You sat on uneven legs in sister marys chair, she combed your nails while you bit your hair. And for seven years you wore bandages on your knees in hopes of removing them in your brothers sacred seas.

You wore a borrowed dress to the party of senses. Your skin crawled. Your bones ached and your stomached cried for the comforts of home but your arms went forward. Your legs craved the attention of the floor. And your eyes preyed on the ones drinking their elixirs and smoking their poison. You were caught up in the gusts of an age in which an existentialistic heart was the only thing that could get you by. Your fingers danced on freshly washed linens while your legs dangled on sheets stained with tears. Your eyes met the ceiling. Your feet never touched sacred ground. Your palms full of paper cuts. Your eyes full of dust.

I haven’t washed my lips since that night I kissed her casket. Since the night I hid behind the pew and waited for everyone to go home so I could stay up with her all night and play one more game of checkers. Hear one more story. Make sure she didn’t need a glass of water. And after she let me win at checkers. After I fixed her flowers and sat a glass of water beside her bed. I crawled back behind the pew and hid till the sun woke up.

secondhand

When I was a young person my secondhand clothes never fit. The laces on my off brand shoes were uneven. But I held back the cold. I kept cool when the sun cried. I sat in my yard talking to the bees, crying to the flowers that you blow on and let their children free. I carried treasures in my pocket one being an old green toothbrush. The generic rocks that lived in my driveway were a mystery to me. I lived on my hands and knees. brushing and digging. looking for the bones of an ancient beast that once danced on my soil. I never found the bones. I found average rocks and bumble bees. But it didn’t matter to me. Nothing mattered to me. I was me and you were you and I was he.

My fingers would witness to spines while my lips collected dust from the tongues of the idle.

My fingers would witness to spines while my lips collected dust from the tongues of the idle. Tongues that once held great speech now sit in silence behind the rotten teeth of tradition. When I was a young girl I didn’t pay much attention to flowers or the frilly dresses that my sister wore. I watched my father. I watched his teeth and I watched his lips as they sang to the innocent and wretched that lived on our street. He wore a suit with one pocket on the side that was riddled with holes. I would sneak in his study at night with my borrowed needle and thin thread. Sewing. Repairing the holes in my fathers skin. And by the time he came home that night the stitches were cut. The hole was open and all his trinkets had fallen to the ground. He admired my concern for his skin but he admired the people that grabbed the treasures from his pockets even more. He was a man of many words. He was a man with a wife and two daughters. But he was not a man of this world. When my father died they buried him face down. His spine faced the heavens. His humble dried out tongue and cracked lips facing the ground. I left before they placed him in the ground. I never returned to his grave. I spent the rest of my days looking for those trinkets he so willingly dropped. I was the daughter of a man who the world never knew. I was the daughter of a man who had impacted lives without them ever knowing it. My fingers would witness to spines while my lips collected dust from the tongues of the idle.

Smacking the alarm to hush it’s cries I slowly wake up. My warm feet pressing against the cold ground. Sleeping lungs awoken by the afternoon air. My suit laid out on the chair ironed and ready. I dress myself in the mirror making sure not to miss a button. You always made fun of me for missing buttons: “You’ve been doing this for fifteen years and yet you still miss a button, silly man.” All my buttons aligned. Tie tied right. Pants and belt on. Jacket resting on my shoulders and a freshly combed beard. ”I sure hope her parents don’t bring up grandchildren again.” I whispered to myself while fixing my hair.

The gate cired like it always does. Your father and mother in their regular spots. I sat across from you and adjusted my tie.

“Your mother liked her flowers”..

“I still think your father hates me”

Twirling my fingers while I stare at my shoes.

“Well..the place on Elm is still for sale, I know we can’t afford it right now but it’s nice to dream.”

Fixing my already fixed hair.

“I’ve missed you at my place, you left your brush on my nightstand. I was going to clean it for you but I know you like to do things a certain way”

Looking forward.

“You know I love you..right? I always will. I always have. Jenny and Ted invited us to one of those dress up parties. I know you hate those kind of things but I thought it’d be nice to go”

“Yeah you’re right, let’s just stay in tonight”

“Sir. Sir.” I look around to see a man in his blue jumpsuit with part of his supper still in his beard. “Sir, it’s after 8 I’ve gotta close this place up.” sighing. “A few more minutes?” he gives me a look of obligation. “Sorry sir, it’s cemetery policy. not mine.” “I understand” I say while brushing the dirt off the back of my pants. “I’ll see you tomorrow dear. Sleep well, I’ll be sure to say night to your parents. I still think your dad doesn’t like me. Night”

She held onto my ankles as she was swept out to sea.

Her hair full of salt. Her eyes full of me.

She held onto my ankles as she was swept out to sea.

Her body becoming the waves as they crashed upon me.

My feet no longer stand on those shores.

I've barred up my windows and sealed up my doors.

I sensed your storms a coming a long time ago.

Now I hide in solitude humming the songs I only know.

Humming the songs you only taught me.

The day you held my ankles and were swept out to sea.

I laid outside. Trading stories with the stars. He told me of his love. He told me that he never demanded his children to shine. They chose to. He began to tell me the names of the stars. I listened. Held the names close to my heart. My humble lips could never pronounce their names. For they were names which I’ve never heard. Names of kings and queens that ruled lands in my dreams. I yelled.shouted and cried out questions. He replied with the simplest of answers. i have not the heart to repeat them. He spoke of my children. He spoke of seeing my future.youwerethere. As I laid there and heard his tales he began to dance for me. Thousands of his children danced for me. silent dances. silent moves. yet they were so loud to my soul. when he began to say goodnight I cried. he saw my tears. a cold breeze crept up my spine and I knew it was his way of saying hed be back.

Thank you moon. Thank you sky. you make me feel small. So small that I can barely see. yet I feel your great love inside of me.

-jason.

you always knew.

We were both so young. But in our hearts we felt brave and old. We were inseperable. If I ran through fire I knew youd be right behind me. On the nights you weren’t in my bed I laid and starred at the glow in the dark stars we put up last summer. I could always spot our star. As I laid there counting fake stars Id wonder if you were doing the same thing. if you were ok. if you found the note i hid under your pillow. And some nights Id lay there wide awake hoping to hear you tap at my window and carry me off into the neighbors field. Where wed run barefoot. jump. dance. twirl. fall to the ground. Having perfect conversation..without ever speaking. And wed sneak back to my window. id crawl through. turning around to help you in but youve already ran off. you always knew when to run off. you always knew how to hold onto to the perfect moments. Id fall back in bed. pull out the tiny pebble you snuck in my pocket. hold it. and sleep.

Bending Dream

“He sat on his porch smoking his pipe, rocking in his chair while taking in the sweet but stout flavor of his pipe. As the smoke bellowed from his beak he noticed her in the corner of his eye. Standing there calmly waiting for him to notice her. He slowly turned his head letting her know that he knew, then slowy turning his head back. Removing his worn down pipe from his beak, the last bit of smoke flowed out.

“I missed you.”


As she stepped off the path the smell of his pipe urged her to go on. She knew he would be on the porch, he always sat on the porch on days like this -would he even want me back?, did he he even realize I was gone?- She spotted the cabin. The cabin she had learned to love and the same one that drove her away. She could hear the rocking of his chair and the subtle draws from his pipe. Turning the corner. There he was just as she had imagined, time froze as she stood there waiting for him to notice her. Her stomach dropping as he slowly looked at her, then looked away. Hearing him say “I missed you” she no longer saw him, she only saw the tears.”

-anonymous

bones.

My bones have been moaning and ever so slightly growing. It started the day that you slept on my hollowed out chest. It started the day you left your little treasures in my palms. We were convinced we had stopped growing before we met you. We were confident that our arms would never reach the top shelf. We were wrong. As are most who think they will never grow. For we started to grow and now we can reach the highest of shelves. And our bones owe it all to you. You whispered into them. Begged them to grow along side yours. Sang them the songs that others sang to you when you thought you had stopped growing. But now we grow. you. me. i and us. Our bones are growing and we are ready to dance upon the legs of others and beg them to grow with us. To show them. To teach them. To tell them that their tiny bones can grow.

Dirty old creek rock on my chest.

She made me kiss a rock once, did I ever tell you that? It was the same summer she stopped talking to me because she started to shave her legs. even though there was nothing to shave. “it’s there. you just can’t see it.” I’d just snarl my nose and run off to catch some frogs. Now back to how she made me kiss a rock. She knew I loved her. She knew that every boy loved her but she had a special liking towards me. She asked me if I ever thought about kissing her. Of course I said no. but she knew I watched those lips of hers. if she knew I practiced on the back of my hand or a pillow she’d make fun of me but deep down she’d be impressed. We were picking up creek rocks to build a dam down on Old Sacklers creek, he was a gentle man with a firm heart but he didn’t mind us messing around with his creek as long as we didn’t spook the cows. She threw a piece of mud at me and shouted out: “Go stand beside that tree and put your hand on your head and the other in your back pocket” “why?!” I shouted back while picking the mud out of my ear. “Im gonna kiss you silly, and thats how grown ups kiss.” I knew she was wrong but that small part of me thought maybe. just maybe she was right so I stood beside the tree and I placed one hand on my head that was hot from the good Lords sun and the other in my back pocket. well what little was left of it. I lost the back part of my britches last week when I was running from this duck. yes a duck. they can be mean when you’re messing with the eggs. She walked over and told me to close my eyes. She said something about how grown ups when they kiss they like to close their eyes because it makes them feel like it’s a dream or something like that. So I shut my eyes and waited. Before I could even get into that grown up dream I felt a warm wetness press up against my lips. I held my eyes shut for a few seconds before opening them to see her standing there with a hand covering her mouth and the other holding a rock up to my lips. “damit all!! I have no need to be kissing creek rocks.” I stormed off and cussed her silly name all the way home. She stopped talking to me that summer because she started to shave her legs and hang out with the boys who had hairs on their lips. We went our seperate ways. She told everyone about me kissing that old creek rock. But what she didn’t tell them mustached boys and shaved legged gals was that two nights after she tricked me she climbed up the tree behind our house and snuck in my window. She laid down beside me in my bed that didn’t even fit me and played with an old creek rock. the same one that she made me kiss. We didn’t say a word. I could hear her breathing and slightly dozing off but I didn’t close my eyes once. or my ears. I took in every second. every sound and every breath. She eventually rose up looked at me with eyes that had so much to say. so much potential. she took that old creek rock and kissed it. laid it on my chest and went out my window. We didn’t speak for many years after that but occasionally we’d steal a glance at each other and just grin. I still have that old creek rock. I’m sure when I get to be an old man and they decide to put me in the ground the people will look in my casket and wonder why theres a dirty old creek rock on my chest

Fist fights with the constellations

There was a fist fight with the constellations and I was the heavy hitter but I walked out with two black eyes and a broken wrist. I entered that smokeless hospital with a fire burning in my throat and smoke bellowing out of my pores. I was asked to sit but I chose to stand and when told to run I took my time. I took your time. I took his time and some of hers. I saw the doctor and I sang him my song but he had no time for my silly songs or elegant rhymes. He was a serious man. A man of serious. He told me I had died already but was able to bring me back. I told him he had no idea. I told him I had died four times since I entered this room and fell in love twice. I told him my lungs are full of engines and my veins had all but been drained. He prescribed me worldly medicine but I told him I don’t need this mess. I have a prescription given to me by a girl with soft hands and strong blood. he laughed. i cried. I left that hospital with gloves in my pocket and my hand in my hair. My car was rusty. My car hasn’t worked for six years but it gets me where I need to go. to those dusty parking lots. to those swinging bridges and around the corner. I was worried that your door would be open. I hate when your door is open. I want to knock. I want to wait. I want to anticipate the jiggle of that knob and then tune my lungs to the key of your door bell. I was wrong and oh how I was so right. Your door was cracked. your door ajar and you on the bed where you have been for the past 23 years. Your pillows worn down and your sheets untucked. I slid into the harmony of your blankets and made shadows with my hands. i sang to you but you were deaf. I tasted you but you were tasteless. You were an empty vessel in which I poured so much. You were a vessel with a hole in your corner. So I left the harmony and I broke out into a dance for one last time. I knew what had to be done. I knew my car would only make it as far as wall street but you lived on Elk Wood. but i would walk. and i would ware down these new shoes. i’d sell my shoes to be in your arms. you knew this and yet you never asked me to sell my shoes. you loved my shoes and when we met you asked them to tell you a tale. but we all know shoes can’t talk. just the laces. the laces that wrapped around your ankles and brought you into my veins. veins. I entered your house and i tore down a wall. I ran my hands in your hair and i tasted the tasteful. *you listened with your lips and you spoke with your ears. you were my knight in shining armor. the pea to my pod and you made everything taste like a holiday. i told you my secrets and i told you my past. I even mentioned my future. you included yourself in my arms and you ate ice cream while i painted you a portrait of someone i once knew. and then burned it to make one of someone i just met. we found your old bed and slept in it. legs stretched over the side. a blanket for one. and a pillow for two. i whispered good morning as soon as you fell asleep. you whispered i love you when i was waking up. and that is how this story begins.