A Good Reminder
This one time I was teaching in front of my second-grade class and I made a silly math mistake that the students caught for me and as I corrected it I said "Ha, I'm so dumb." The next lesson, a small group, a little boy in my class asked me if I knew everything after I gave them an extra tidbit of information not located in the text and when I said "No, but I do know some stuff" he reminded me I had called myself dumb earlier. "You are not dumb, you are smart; never call yourself dumb again" he said grabbing my arm as he spoke and I promised not to. Thanks, little one.
What A Little Cliche Baby
It used to be these cold, gray days in which I went walking, wanting to feel free.
I always ended up at a bar. Sometimes I drank alone, sometimes with a friend, but I was always drinking, always smoking, always drinking and smoking.
Here is what I would pack in my backpack:
1. A book
2. A notebook and pen
3. Cigs and a lighter
5. Some weed
6. Tinted lip balm
7. My LG flip phone and wallet
8. Headphones and my Mp3 player
Rash Rant
I fucking hate when you come home
and deflate my happiness like a balloon on the floor three days after a birthday.
Check that shit at the door next time,
And I won't get that attitude you hate that I think you deserve.
It's not my fault you hate your job.
It's not my fault you have no friends.
It's not my fault you hate this city.
I like my job.
I have friends.
I was born in this city.
What did you think was going to happen when you stayed for me?
Wish you had told me that's what you were doing.
My mom always told me "forewarned is forearmed."
Melinda
I know I'm tied to you
and you are tied to me
because when I fall alseep
I see you in my dreams.
The men, they trail behind us,
as we whisper and we share
the truama we encounter
of those for whom we care.
No one else I know
could ever talk to me
about these darker aspects
of humanity.
Sometimes we have fun
like jumping off a cliff
but mostly we just talk
our words float above our heads
quietly, they drift.
I miss you I miss you
In my head I scream
"Please come home"
but where I live
isn't home to you anymore
it seems.
Thoughts of Predecessors at the End of the First Day
She could picture them now: sitting in a dimly lit, hazy room, griping about so-and-so. They munch on cold-cut sandwiches while sipping stale coffee and make predictions about the future. Not their futures, but the futures of others, like who'll probably wind up in jail, enter an Ivy League school, or be pregnant by 15. They gripe about budget cuts and bitch that the new one is already on maternity leave. The pension better be worth it, they laugh before stubbing out their cigarettes and returning to their stack of papers.
She could picture them now as she stared at the twenty-five empty desks and floor littered with crayons and pencil shavings, her ears still ringing from the shrieks echoing through the hallways at dismissal. Too bad they no longer allow smoking in the teacher's lounge.
What Am I Doing Down Here?
In the snow I lie down and open my mouth and out comes a balloon which floats up to the sky and I watch it until it disappears.
When the snow melts from underneath my body the grass starts to poke little holes though my coat like needles or bits of glass and those holes form a constellation that I do not recognize because I have never bothered to learn many of them.
A Friend Comes to Visit
When I see you
I know I make sense.
When I see you
the rest of the world
fades away.
When I see you
I don't run out of things to say.
When I see you
I question my whole life.
When I see you
I wish I hadn't stayed.
When I see you
I want to go back
to those days
we laughed in bed,
drank in booths,
shared meals in the kitchen.
When I see you
I want you to return home
and stay
for good.