Semi-Daily Scribbles

Secondhand

I don't like telling another person's story. Not if I wasn't an active participant in it or given written permission. Reckon it's due to my dislike of fictional memoirs and the scourge of humanity: fake news. I also realize this self-imposed creative restraint is the death knell for a writer. I go back-and-forth on the guidelines and bylaws of my little literary quirk. But then again, we steal from one another and make things out of the throwaway lies lines overheard while we wait for coffee, the bus, the rain to stop as we're huddled in a doorway. The truth goes something like this, so help yourself:

Oh my God. I can hear you laugh. It's high-pitched and deliciously girlish and I love it! You've always had a silent snicker until now.

I'm saging the whole goddamn neighborhood.

My birds say you've come out of your shell because this is our year to be counted as one.

I'm being vague, huh?

Seed the heavens with your intent.

I'd rather go hungry than taste disappointment.

How many people offered to help you today?

I've walked the nighttime streets of Gamla Stan in these shoes.

The ocean holds a certain uncertain truth.

I'm bloated and missing me some trees something fierce.

That is deep shit if you're speaking from the heart.

Language is in flux. My 12 hours of closure? Thought and memory.

We Dream

The Silver Needle Theatre appears when foresight steals the spotlight. She's the only venue equipped to show what can only be seen inside the mind. So here I am in the balcony, watching you speak to a packed house. You are dressed in your best white button down, blue jeans, and grey suede shoes. Your thick, wavy hair is still black while your beard is entirely white. These things happen after years of turning over rocks. But what knowledge and beauty you found in the loam! You discovered The Five that formed the foundation which supports you tonight:

 

The Word
The Stone
The Canvas
The Crone
The Way

 

The slideshow above you chronicles your 10-year quest to seize the unseen. To collect the disparate pieces that tell a unified story. Your work is the lexicon that enables us to say what we mean. This is why we dream.

Presentation

Ok Melody, listen up. Truthie Ruthie here to help an old friend.

 

You don't get a second chance to make a first ... Quick! First thought that popped up ... I wonder where my copy of A Confederacy of Dunces is I read in college and carried around with me like an In Case of Emergency tampon? Let me jot down a few thoughts about the internal and external worlds. After sleeping in you didn't go to work because you thought it was your day off. TRANSLATION: boss man says let's put this flake on the shortlist to get riffed (always happens Qtr4). What really occurred? You stayed up all night putzing about with your novel. I mean, c'mon! That's the real work, right? WRITE WRITE WRITE!!! Your endearing yet off-putting dreamy far-away-ness (Ooh, and the way you listen. Eyes wide, head bent, lips doing that funny pucker thing. You ain't heard a word I said, but boy do you put on a good show!) is due to you living in two realms at once. You can bounce between one plane of existence to the other, but it leaves you breathless and blurry around the edges. People just think you're a messy mouth-breather. They give you a wide berth but think you're friendly enough. OBSERVATION AND A BIT OF UNSOLICITED ADVICE: We are all judged and we are all judgmental. The trick is to own your quirks and prejudices and know you are whole in spite of your disheveled self. This is why when someone offers you love, take it. BUT BUT BUT!!! No overthinking. THE CHOICES: Be you or be someone else. You're in for a ride no matter what (don't worry sweet cheeks, you're still my girl.)

Courtly Love

Gary's less stressed these days. The lights he used to see when he closed his eyes now follow him around like fireflies. Those firefly-like lights create a shimmery rooster tail in Gary's wake as he makes his way through the Food Court. Even the tinkling ring of cat bells, once confined solely to Gary's auris interna, replaces the mall's Muzak loop of 80's pop hits. Gary's feeling more in his skin than ever before. He credits this new-found sense of wholeness to his two daily 6 oz doses of apple cider vinegar and the intriguing vixen he pretends to ignore who, Gary assumes, is writing something of major significance. Gary's Great Secret, which once weighed upon his entire being and made it really hard to take deep, vivifying breaths, is about to be blown wide open. All he has to do is gather up his gumption and approach the aforementioned writerly vixen and tell her he's been having ...

Courting Disaster

Another bitch looking at me. This one's brown. GO THE FUCK BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM. Where did she get $$$ for that computer? Stole it -- bought it with $$$ dealing drugs -- sucking dick. That welfare cunt is looking at me again. Maybe she likes my coat. What the fuck??? She's looking at me then starts typing. Looks up, looks down, type your shit, I don't care. I need to wrap up this plan. Later today drive by church and get service times -- let Dylan know. Might be ready to go tomorrow. Now crazy bitch is looking at crazier bitch talking to a fucking chair. I DO NOT WANT TO GET OLD LIKE CHAIR WHORE. Cute bitch at McDonalds will give me a refill. Bet crazy bitch will type that I'm going to get coffee. They'll remember me.

A Court Appointment

Chéri, listen up. You've always done a good job with that. Scoot a little closer. That's it. Well, I had the dream again. Zoë's head has much to say. I don't need to tell you how much. You know ... you know? The world! The monsters! You. You with your straight spine and head harder than mine. You let more things in, though. In and out. No one walks all over you, do they? But they lean. Lean on you in hard times like I'm doing now. What's new?! Goddamn the lights are bright today. Floor's more slippery, too. Hmm ... what's that? Yes. The dream again. Here's what happened this time, although I was still 14. Don't think I was ever 14 is what's funny. And please keep that squeaking down. Can't think. But I'm up on the tightrope with gigantic blue winged vulvas circling me. How am I supposed to save you and everybody in this courtyard if I'm busy balancing on a wire fighting off neon genitalia? I'm the only one who can save your sorry ass from the weeping creepers. Because all of you are asleep! Do you know what Alex was doing the entire time I was batting at blue vulvas? Alex had the wire cutters. Why do I even bother? You're all just divots in the curvature of spacetime.

Holding Court

Leesa frequented the Food Court every day. The mission at hand was to record the stories of the people she saw, like the middle aged lady who talked to an empty chair. Leesa also observed the teenage boy who wore an Eisernes Kreuz on his tattered camo jacket, his head bent, surrounded by multiple black composition books and a pencil box. He wrote many, many words before he'd shift his twitchy, restlessness from the left leg to the right. She watched her flame glide by sporting a new hairpiece every few days. Leesa called him Gary the Faery (not to his face) for the lithe, silent way in which he traversed the mall with a shy little smile and the occasional side-eye. The game? The gist of it was to pretend one had not noticed the other. Leesa and Gary always managed to look up or over at the same time anyway, eyeballs colliding as Leesa would snort-cough and act all "I'm too consumed with my work" as she quickly engaged in a steely stare down with her Acer Chromebook. Gary just kept on rollin' while his shy smile transformed into a smirk.

 

Leesa's courtiers would move through their lives to eventually die and their stories would be remembered by no one. She tapped at her keyboard, writing down the scenes of the unseen.

Don't Forget to Write

No fairytale, this. Just fast friends, a gruesome end, and a few fond words shared at the wake. But I pretend, just to mess with make-believe, that love is a redemptive endeavor and not at all about insecurity / jealousy / obsession / regret:

The two of you sip limoncello on Capri. I wait for you to come up for air, to remember why you guys chose this island from all the other (much better hidden) hideouts in your price range. It is because those soulful birds sunbathing on the rocks are exactly your cup of poison. Have another round on me.

I wait for your postcard.

I Can't Explain

And like o.k.: There's this particular writer whose work I've read and enjoyed and whom I find interesting and irritating all in one big, messy mouthful of come-one-come-all (talkin' bout chyoo JD). Yeah so, brutha man goes on about fat folks in his stories and he himself is pretty thin (cute, though - I'm shallow, ok?) Curious bit that I don't quite get unless the writer's a reformed fatty. And if so ??? Ah, the tricky ickiness of body politics (which needs its own moment of contemplation ... like how I've been body-shamed, but yeah I digress.) Anyway, dude also has a fondness for riffin' on why Asian girls go with white guys. But..but..but ... JD's partner is hapa haole. Just like me! So does he believe deep down she should be living with a Chinese man or, at the very least, a half-breed like herself? What is that all about? Does JD worship or despise or just plain could not give two fucks about his lover's DNA that is white-white-whitey-white? Why not go Big, Black & Beautiful, bruh?

Simply put, we like what we like. No tryin' to deny it. Humans, each and every one of us. Being human is a tough gig to pull off no matter the narrative one espouses from atop the mountain.

Well, as I do, here I go to face the day and try to relate to Every Body best I can 'cause we are all dodging one shit storm or another. Ain't it all supposed to be about love? Tolerance, too? Minding one's own bloody business when it comes to affairs of the heart and parts farther south? Fear of a halfie planet, indeed! Bring it. Here's hoping you stay open-minded today, peoples. Best of luck to ya!

Injuries and Outcomes

A quick minute.
A long moment.
A pause that lasts forever.

Phrases to set one's teeth on edge as the meaning of time gets lost in a multitude of interpretations. How many versions of reality play out between the beats of thought and action? To think is to do is to suffer from stage fright from cradle to grave. Oh beware that one false move! In the dance of life and death toes get stepped on so mind the tempo.

Thoughts and consequences.