Perfect is imperfect.

If theres no problems, we have no fun.

We can't read books with villians, we can't imagine anything we've never been through, and we can't be happy.

We'd always be bored, with no flaws to entertain us.

We wouldn't be able to apriciate goodness, because it's all we've ever know. You don't have to work for anything, and we would get encridably lazy. We could eat a whole package of Nutty Butty Butter Bars with no concequences.

None of us would bee better at anything than anyone, and there wouldn't be real pride. I could ramble about this all day- but my main meaning is, you can't have good without the evil.

No light without the darkness, and no releif without the pain.

We must have; balance.

Today’s “Reunification Drill” procedure:

When the PA declares “At this time we need to lock down the building,” I first

A) tell my sophomores to huddle in the corner, hypothetically out of sight from the

B) door I open to check for hallway kids before

C) locking, not to unlock until

D) a police officer comes in to identify himself and tell us we need to

E) evacuate the building and go to the primary school across campus, so we

F) exit and walk through the warm, non-rainy halls to get there (only a drill, after all) till

G) proceeding to the elementary gymnasium, where yesterday my daughter played

foursquare and now all my students

H) sit while I take attendance,

I) walk the sheet to the “Reunification Tables” where our guidance staff wears fluorescent

yellow vests,

J) return to my students and colleagues, so together we can all

K) wait, and

L) play games on our phones and joke about Halloween and weather and varsity soccer

sectionals so we

M) do not think too hard about the weeping screaming trauma for which we attempt to

prepare.

In my mind, they were all splattered in red.

But on the plus side, you can still buy 100 round magazines throughout cities in 41 states.

Like Dayton.

So that’s neat.

We had been to Munnar, Kerala for a tour in a group. There in the hotel, some rooms had fans. We had got a room which didn’t have a fan. Though the weather was cold there, I was feeling hot. All others didn’t feel that. I was the only one who was feeling that. It was a hill station and it was cold. I asked the hotel person, “Why some rooms have fans and our room doesn’t have a fan. The person replied,

Here there is no necessity of fans.

Swirling, drowing, sinking under

the waves of empty

dark dismay

and black inky depth of forever shadows

covering the moonlit skies

gemstones glowing

flickering dimly

dripping depths

azure droplets falling

to obsidian ground

raven infinity

closing in

apocalypse coming

blinding nothing

take my hand

blazing star

pull me up

save me

drag me under

starlit apathy

shining midnight

black hole echoes

radiant light

perfect lies

you and I

one more time

forever

and

never

again

Everyday I live the scheduled, ordinary life that everyone else does. It could not possibly be less unique. Perfectly understandable, in every way unimaginable, and I'm supposed to be invested in the entire plot of it all. But I'm not. The lugging steps. The boring breaths. Everything is a haze and everyone communicates in grunts. I can't tell if I'm too sober or too drunk. The only thing extraordinary about it is how ordinary it really is. Am I awake? Or will I wake up soon? Either I've yet to enter the real world, or the real world is just boring.

Either way, I need to find something to do.

His zits were like rotten red roses adorning a putrefied carton of milk, repulsive, but slightly endearing. He reaches for my long hair thats as oily as the ocean. His fart like stench fills my bubbly red champagne lungs, his breaths panting like a dog.

Crackle, pop and crackle. Crick, crack, crick crack. His knees and back moan and groan like a door desperate for oil as he clomped along. I followed with steps a swan would be envious of, gliding across the floor like a Roomba. His swampy palms inclose over my pustule covered hand that match his face as he leads me to the table covered in fairy lights that remind me of the beady eyed spiders that adorn my bedroom at night.

His eyes meet mine as I avoid making eye contact with the green and yellow well done creepy crawlies in the edges of his eyes and stare into his booger colored pupils, his stringy fried truffula tree textured hair grazing my clammy cottage cheese skin. The fungus colored slabs of hair on his forehead move up and down like an elevator as his left eye twitches like a squirrel after three cups of coffee.

His smile spreads across his face like eczema and a cheshire worthy grimace spreads across mine.

“I love you more than bed bugs love Tea Tree oil.” He mewls softly, like the murmur of the humid wind that surrounds me.

“I love you more than elephants love mice,” I reply as loud as the clattering of the rickety old radiator in the corner of the sewer like room. He stands like a bent toy soldier and trudges as if through a swamp to the other side of the sweating room. With a clatter and a bang he hauls a witchy cauldron into his twig arms and drops it onto the table with a loud crack. The cauldron as black as as the withering soul in my body is filled with a slimy creature like a blobfish dyed green, it rolls and stews releasing toxins into the room like pollution. With the flourishing swoop of a crane he ladles the roiling stew into two bowls like a scientist scooping the brains from cadavers and putting them away for later. With a loud snap, his elbow bends like a broken hinge, slowly and hesitant, towards me, bowl in his Jack Skellington like hands. I flutter my spider-legged fake lashes and reach for the spoon, taking a heap as big as the trash islands in the ocean and take a bite, hungry as a vulture. The melody of smacks and slurps fill the cave of a room.

“Dear, Dear Drazella, I love thee more than Mrs. Addams loved Mr. Addams” He sneers like a moldy fox.

“Oh my darling, darling Vlad, I love thee more than Victoria loved Victor.” I reply soft as the shuffling of the extra large roaches in the corner.

With a smile that turns stomach, full of spiders and green residue he leans in. With a smile as intoxicating as the wine beside us I lean in as well. Then our lizard like lips meet and we share a kiss only 2 slimy and repulsive creatures like us could achieve.