When I was thirteen I stepped into the grocery store and cut my stomach open and let my guts pour out over the iceberg lettuce. Those who used similes and alliteration said I was looking to cause a scene and wanted to lash out against my mothers screams. But those who use such simple things know just about as much as my toe knows. And I hate to break it to the good Lord but he made my toes and forgot to add the smarts. My aunt kissed my neck and caught a glimpse of my newly found piercing. “your body is a temple! treat it as such!” I had never heard this carriage of mine called a temple and I refused to clutter it up with such silly things. Tubes, veins and the squishy stuff in between. Take it all back I haven’t a use for it. My body is a temple a place for holy congregations and I don’t know about you but i’ve never stepped into a holy temple that actually had anything worth mentioning in it. So on the third day of December I split my stomach open and did a little spring cleaning during the winter winds and now here I lay. In this hospital named after someone who would probably appreciate my temple. With tubes surrounding me and there’s a constant beep from the box to my left and I’m confident that my sexual orientation was considered when placing me in this room. Tubes. I rid myself of something and the ungodly institutions shove them right back in me. “Oh Mr. Bark these are the good tubes. feeding you the good things and making you all good.” Good. What a silly thing. So as I lay here in this cold box having my temple repainted from the inside out I considered my aunt, I considered the nails attached to my toes and I worried for a few more minutes. Just long enough to make love to my bandages and slip off into a silly kinda sleep.

Wildfire

"Your father was a damn fine man"…"Oh son, he was a good one"…"You take care son" I found it a bit annoying that at my fathers funeral I kept on being called son. What a load of shit. You hear tales of folks "coming out of the woodwork" when you win the lottery and I reckon to some souls a funeral is like winning the lottery. They awoke and thanked their good Lord for another day and found out that ole Angler down the street had passed away. "Well praise be the good Lord, it wasn’t me" They have images of the Lord scratching off that silly silver flake and just by chance ole Anglers name appeared before theirs. But the moment their boot laces get hung up on the gas pedal or the sandwich they chose didn’t come with mayo they curse that good Lord who just gambled with their little souls. So there’s father hiding in the box we picked out all those days ago and I’ve grown bitter and stale towards the soft hands swallowing my palms. I smell the beer on my uncles necks and I watch my sister pinch her leg in some sad attempt to cry. She hasn’t cried in years, dad knew and he wouldn’t mind her dry eyes but of course mother took offense to the lack of tear stains down her acne ridden cheeks. so there’s father sleeping in the box we picked out all those days ago and I’m gonna miss his hairless legs and the way he pointed at me when I farted at the table. "Son? do you need to go wipe" and if you’re the kind to say words of prayer, you mind saying one or two for me. I’d say thanks but my dad said thanks were used a little to often and man ought to really think about being thankful before spreading it out like wildfire.

wildfire. he said that’s what my mother tasted of. I kissed my mom while she slept once. I anticipated the world to set a blaze but all I felt was cracked lips and aim toothpaste. I reckon a father can only taste the flames on your mothers lips.

I love you.

You have these small moments in your life where you realize that you’re the type of person who could lose a toe and not lose sleep over it, the kind of guy who wears a smelly hat in the bathtub with a shotgun in arms reach. You start to recognize how you try and only wet the bottom half of your fingers, maybe you’re trying to prove something or maybe you’re just an asshole and like denying the top of your hand warm water. And then you just sit there. thinking “this is the moment when all kinds of memories should come running right at me” and nothing but the time you bit a girl in second grade for stealing your pencil comes to mind. Then you think maybe Felecia is sitting in pee water thinking about how some crazy boy bit her arm and you wonder how she’s doing but then remember you hate her for stealing your pencil and its just a vicious cycle. thats what they meant by the circle of life. pee water reflecting over pencil bandits. you pee a little and think I just peed on myself. And at nights you’ve become this person who can’t sleep if theres a fly pissing around your room and on other nights you want the symphony in your closet practicing and every written word you own covering you in hopes to get paper cuts and let those silly authors sink into you so you can walk around spouting off quotes. But who wants to be a quoter. who wants to have the conversation skills of a four shot burst. “oh you will notice all these moments where you discover that you are no longer a child but an adult!” eating the heels in a bag of bread, that was my big moment and for some reason there’s always some mysterious screw just laying in my floor. I believe it was Thomas Jefferson that once said: “hey, how are you” my toes are bruised and i hate being in this pee water alone. minimalist million dollar homes all can lick my (whats that fancy word that starts with an “A” for nipple?) these are just some things that didn’t deserve to be written down but would have probably gave me a pimples had they not been said.

And i'll tell you right now that I have never been so revealing in my rambles, i'll tell you how her use of toast in place of a fork brought chills to my bare skin and if it wasn't for the sand covering our toes, the house burning to the ground and the waves breaking on our ankles her whispering I loved you would have felt so different. And when I think about watching your fingers trace my sides, your toes pressed against my cheek, the way your lips cracked when you smiled and how the spot behind your knees felt on my lips I start to cry. Not the cliche type of tears but the kind that actually stain your cheek, and my hands always seem to find your ring in my pocket. My finger pushing through the band and for that second I can smell your skin and feel the tips of your fingers on my teeth. Those letters you hid in the walls, the ones that are wrapped in cloth under my bed, flow in my veins and the rain that fell on our lips will always haunt me. I hate how we changed and I suppose it's all my fault and i'll never forget, Lord knows i've tried....There was a blue light that sang me to sleep and letters covered in borrowed snow. There was a sweetness on my lips that will never be tasted again..and for that i'm sad.

We were raised with soft lips and quick hands, our kin shouted from the mountaintops of the love they found. Our neighbors sat on rooftops and heckled the people walking by, taunting them with the love they found. But we were raised to borrow the ears of the saints. whisper of the love we found and keep it close to our chests. Our kin folk paraded about with their hands to the world and our neighbors embraced the villagers with an open fist. But we were raised to hide our hands and hold tight to the love we found. Our kin folk brandished forked tongues and our neighbors borrowed any ear that turned their way. But we were raised to whisper into the ears of humble of the love we found. Our kin would make riddles that cursed the soft spoken and the neighbors would accuse us of being ashamed of our token. But we were raised to be patient and we were raised to sing, to whisper such a lovely thing. peace to your heart it shall bring. To hold such a passion buried so deep this precious love you shall keep.

I've never been one to count the stars, sitting out in the wind trying to put a number on something I don't even understand seemed pointless. And when I ride in the automobiles the clouds always look like animals, never like people. I've never spotted a cloud and thought it looked like my aunt Linda. You could ask me why but I wouldn't have an answer. You could ask me again and I could lie to you. Stare right into your eyes and tell you that deep down I doubt clouds have any use for mimicking us humans. Why look like something that walks around on two legs when you could look like a wild beast running on all fours with not a care in the world. My first memory was on a summer day, I was dressed in my cowboy vest with my trusty plastic six iron on my side. I was attempting to put the sheets on my bed though I had no idea why. From an early age the idea of making your bed was ridiculous to me. Mom was in the hallway folding clothes and singing an old gospel hymn: "could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made; were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade; To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry; Nor could the scroll contain the whole, Tho stretched from sky to sky" if you walk into the church where I was raised and pick up the ole hymnals. Turn to page 220 and you will find the corner of the page folded down on most of the books. When the choir sang it. hearing my dads voice stand out in the bass parts and the white haired saints singing so beautifully off key my mind went back to the day with my cowboy vest and mom with her denim jeans and hair pulled back in a red hair tie. I never ran away as a child, instead I faked migraines and made myself sick so the other kids wouldn't think I was a weirdo for wanting to be with my mom. I had on a purple tank top and borrowed pants the first time I saw a man holding another mans hand. I was in the grocery store and they made me angry. Not because they held each other hands but they were standing in front of the chips I wanted. Hold whoever s hand you want, just don't stand in front of the tater chips. She was the child of happenstance and had pocketfulls of second chances, and with every palm she kissed a part of her was left behind.

that's all I gotta say.

I pray dear sister that they burn us at the stake. Oh dear sister I pray they bind our hands with twine so when the flames eat at our wrists our bonds break free. My dearest sister I pray that with free hands we embrace and break bread with the fire. And my dearest sister the flame in our hearts will make the pyre around our legs seem nothing more than a campfire made by children in the snow. Oh sister of mine when our voices harmonize with the crackling of the wood I pray the town cover their ears and grow heavy with sorrow. Sister when they go to collect our ash their shovels will be bare. Because dear sister of mine you know better than I that our ashes are not theirs to claim.