On some days, much like the present, I am the perpetrator and the victim. I can be cynical and abrupt. Much like the barrier reef, that refuses to move away from the bay. So here I sit, cut up and bruised in places most people have never been invited to visit. Kind of how toothpicks are found lying on the floor. Surely, this was not an homage to the trees that produced them. Dislodged food and clean breath are as novel as an afternoon nap on the arm of a worn out, blue chair. Very few understand the loneliness of perpetual company, and even fewer can raise a thumb in solidarity. I suspect that introversion is a genetic cruelty and at the same time, a blessed sanctuary that can mend. Even now as the argument has drifted off with the possums and the nighttime breeze, my anxiety tells me that another invitation is coming. I curl up in a ball with gratitude, thankful that by myself, I am reunited with the emptiness of my best friend.

I overheard a man complaining about toilet paper and soap dispensers. Apparently, one was down to cardboard and the other was completely empty. Thankfully, my tongue made sure that neither would ever be my issue. This man was sad, and I suspect, had always been old. He did not cry but the full-figured woman who routinely bent his ear and spent his money kept the sun below the horizon and the clouds around his neck. They choked and stifled his ability to do more than gasp and complain. That he had been gifted a place in life, generations before he was born, made me angry at times. He had no reason to incessantly moan about such insignificant mishaps, while his trivial sense of purpose sprayed from the shovel that put the cursive in the letters of his family name. It bothered me more as he laughed and smiled at inopportune times, mainly when my guardian asked for what he was owed. The cycle was always the same, no matter the era and no matter the tools, someone would eventually find themselves born into a good situation and the others were left trying to avoid filling the narrowest of slots and dampest of cracks. And now, the big woman who could have just as easily been blessed with a plunger and broom was making demands from her seat at the table. I found the cold front that was soon to be arriving quite necessary- despite my well-being feeling hopeful of ascension. I had not been out much these last few weeks and now my food dish seemed unappealing, but at least my fortune felt brave, and my experiences could be easily taught. But then again, if my shoulders had been scaled a few inches wider and my back more rigid than fluff, my kind would be ruling the edges of the countryside. Maybe then the man would have nothing to complain about. With no freedom to plant a future fortune, and no power to airbrush manners and class, the fat woman would be begging us to sit down and have a kindhearted talk-for a few dollars more, she would happily take out the trash.

Christmas is a wonderful time of year, based upon a wonderful time for a birth. Clear skies, winter burn and here I crouch under a German tree. This year’s crop may have come from the edge of the Mid Atlantic. The tips of the pine are dangling a bit lower than last week when my holiday season arrived, from roof top to a metal guided stand. Sap and slobber can break the resolve of any dried-out branch or the intentions of any well-conditioned hand. Clearly, we would be right at home in the fields of the Tar Heel State. But stickiness and residue do not make for comfortable bedding or for a flock of sheep to remain intact. Personally, I have adapted quite well to where the roots and the water conflux. It is not a perfectly executed illustration, but Bethlehem has its issues too. There should always be room at the Inn and modern-day peace should always triumph over ages of open ambivalence. This is why I leave the ornaments alone. Sure, dangling tin and blown glass are easy to annoy and even easier to bump when pressed. Still, the lower that I crouch, the cozier I feel. There was and always will be safety in a manger. Since, I have never witnessed a sermon, neon colors will have to serve as good tidings from the spirit and the wind. The lights shine brightest, as the Holy World lays us down. Confinement can be a straw bed, and history, an understanding next of kin.

Guilt and math. They drag me forward like the pig-tailed girl at recess-tearing the sleeves from my familial dignity-better known as the fabric of my favorite shirt. There is something about purple that I have always found fascinating, especially when the colored tinge is the basis for a flashy pattern or a subservient life to sort. I have checkers bordered by shadows on the tip of my tongue. I plan to speak on the insinuation, as soon as my body stops twitching from the rash of the frictioned heat. Clearly, I am deviating from the benefits of being a tailor, of which I am not an appropriate displacement or a sanctioned trope of conceit. It is hardly that confusing when you consider my position from the register of a store. If I had power over a stitch and a steam, I would have kept grinning-lips parsed tight, teeth grinding with precision. But objection calls on the overmatched to deliver. At least my bouncing ribs will not require waxing. Mt. Fuji is framed in corresponding fashion. The flowers are as resilient as they are enchanting-every post and every lantern is endeared to the epitome of yesterday-happiness comes from the ability to recollect a photo’s insistent bloom-even if heaven slowed, while passing by-were you caught wondering when the aggressor might issue a reprieve or cut the ropes loose? Hapless debris is rapidly filling my nose, yet I can still smell the blossoming dye that is now draining a leather emblem’s carefully, crafted pose. Replacement value is based upon what a consumer can ingest. At the current speed, an occasional strobe introduces a lighter shade that may one day be a relative to a salmon’s gills and the fluorite of a lake. But for now, the design should sag from a mannequin’s rounded shoulder, while being smitten from a jester’s vexatious grin. The cars hover in unison, which leads me to believe that my attacker is not native to a manageable, lesser gear. Eventually, mirrors attach to my perimeter. Glass seems to pulse from an electric 80s wave. I miss the wrapped box and gift receipt. To be off my feet was to be fluttering like a fallen ribbon, and does a date really exist to eliminate being classified as defective and unsought? These last few tics have not been enlightening or less anesthetic. Wherever the tank empties will castigate an opportunistic and hesitant embryonic trend. I would like to think that what remains will be fully glowing–for wearing shorts today cannot be imagined as anything but wrong. Over the mountain is the output of being shifty, sob stories are the recipe for being frustratingly enigmatic and disproportionally strong. Those who get blessed twice are worthy of headings in a book. I will settle for drifting off the grid with a proper masquerade. Eventually, everyone else becomes a distant logo- skimming across the crushed grooves of a circular highway- listening to the wing-clipped mutton, there is no such harmony between pigmented calculation and restitution from a tiny blonde in a cage.

I ask, “is there a timetable for captured knowledge to shoulder a reversible commute?” I aspire to move away from seasonal metaphor and holiday enchantment, still, descriptives are rebuilt friends and the harvest is pleasing and plentiful*. On this stroll, you can claw inside the asterisk-pulling equity from a whimsy investment-trading within a point-blank scope or beyond the gambit-and the depth of a fielded frame. Sometimes, I wonder how the sunlight feels upon facing a cloudy roadblock? For me, when a freckled suit gets torn, I almost always encounter a Sicilian defense, and its pieces are not confined to the squares or the board. How can the wind and physics coexist as one? Should not everything graduate to becoming minimalistic? If everyone was honest, only a page or a palette would have a viable option to flaunt. I am often amazed as to how a racing mind, and a racing day can allow for a still shot to name anything that brings joy or merit. There are actual, recorded citizens trademarking an insatiable landscape that inspires 10,000 written words per day. I can preface the next sentence with ‘no offense’, for my response has been and will always remain ‘none taken’-but the hardware scans-and triggers the register by certifying that each action is perpetuated-only by a mosaic approval summoning a future project with an abrupt ring and a tapping susurrant. Otherwise, compulsive cart hopping would yield a world governed by coat collars and leashes for keys. I do not pretend to know about you, but I am sure that given the opportunity, you would promote an intact imagination to a flock of loosened politicians and their auxiliary supply of graft, screaming from behind the well-fastened springs and jiggling locks that keep them callous and fat. And then, there is another scene, sunny and light. Even the air feels as if it is comfortable labelling you as an ancient master. Yet for some reason, I am flicking at my ear. Have I not trotted on from the previous boredom? I just now noticed that the interior blinds, that cover the left half of the window, appear to be moving- but only if I release their promises of privacy from the delayed analytics of my filtering brain. Could that mean that all acknowledged interpretations do not even qualify as dalliances? I can honestly say that I hope I do not live long enough to realize that there is more time left than memories to sort. Inside the gaps of the clock, my keystrokes can comfortably jog without so much as a hang nail or a flea. That is what the harrow tells itself. Even though it is just one of many productive purchases whose needs can be universally, agreed upon- by itself-the output does not make for an unadventurous or unpalatable home. Somewhere in the middle of artful description and icy truth, there is experience and law, I hope you have pointed north from your original mast, for accomplishment moves the given tool repeatedly, until the subject matter begs for an acquitted, modified cost to skew. I have little faith, so I say once more, “please tell me that you have purposefully plotted a course and solution- one that is happily married-protecting the field of view.” Still, not every pinch yields a perception that is friendly or bouffant– is not an alternative- the comedic realization of what we in return should syphon and classify as an arrowed ‘want’? Neither of us are in any position to raise the white flag or claim an objected stretch of propriety. * If not for a better process to unwind, then observation and maturity will remain unlatched—just as returning home is as simple as a preamble to persuasion -well-timed-the Alapin is more satiable than the imminence of a uniform, festive scratch.

By the time that I spoke up, against the primal rule of three and the excesses of a puddling encampment, soggy trappings emerged- cool and slick -confidants- for a room full of interplanetary gases. My throat jerked- front to back, but not to the point that the air burnt along the skeletal byway with each apportioned breath, that went out with the yellow. Instead, it was as if the recipient had become the benefactor, in softness, I felt relief from supervision–that was the caveat of a clever limp. Although my thoughts were oxygen deprived and hazy, my awareness was clear and forward leaning, occasionally wrapped with faint sounds that lined the turnstiles from a musty, parched dance floor inside a seaside club that was made of a pithy, translucent hay. It was therapeutic to balance a syrupy revere along the tip of a piped bassline. Overtly, I proclaimed that all of the upper fashion was to fray well above the waistline, my whiskers would scout the terrain that jiggled against her trembling thigh bone-I promised the tiny, peaked bumps that paleness was a lauded derivative of an aqua cooled frontier. Being noticed was arousing and brave. The sun rose from the sky and the moon refused to job to the distance. The neighborhood tom had moved on in the same way -espousing contempt while chasing glory. The marked occasion pulled close by way of flattery and subtractive mixing. Still, my shadow refused to admit that the elusive tether made the courtship rhythmic and sore. I ollied above the next pretense, and lavished praise upon the guests who fought the solitude that made many a defiant widow, waiting for a knock, nose and laces pressed firmly against the door. The bell caught all who were leaning. Whether I was cutting the record or stirring the vaporized shore, the melody grinded on around me, the giant world separated liquid from aroma, just as velvet ropes reminded hope that an audience was wanted by the seat backs of a fleeing car. Thankfully, my sense of decency was not predicated upon crumpled dollar bills and synthetic, bouncing lashes. Mint colored gelatin smooths lines and cushions braces, under the dampness of a pelt that supersedes all sculpted styles and works of art. Yet once again, I felt a converted plan—now, much more urbanized- and grandiose–an heir to an artisan’s highway, whose rest stop is the very nature of a resurgent carouser who bats at his own reflection, the shade of this scale has not been seen in these parts before. There were no coordinates that offered a plausible comparison between forced evacuation and guided math. But if I am being couth, I prefer the illusion of perspective to the hierarchical offspring of a warming towel and a well-trimmed lap. Anonymity has a powerful pull, and curbside appeal is more background than the sum of the artic fodder. A drying scalp can be a twitch or a trigger for a set of casual eyes to unknowingly follow– away from where the brushes can overtly run. Involuntary coloring is frequently needed— to prod what’s beneath the tale–the pa—and the ever-mottling pun.

The salesman trumpeted earthly heat over the currents of an electrical field of radiation. The red-hot coals crackled, a flick of the switch was less frumpy, the sales pitch mocked its segregation–one worked wonders on the road, the other required hysteria for breaking. “Innovation” was a new breed of pagan, fluttering eyes console me. The overgrown message delivered more than wax build up and sticky tape, the wind slipped up for a change and left a freckled, white print–I could be an arbitrary next of kin, I suppose– if the fat man flying through the air would embrace me. Encouragement lead to coverups dropping, sliding with or without a crippling residuum. I nibbled and dribbled as the charred branch became the serrated edge of a vagabond’s stick. I leaned forward until the boiling lens pushed me fast away from a symposium of posterity. It was as if deliverance and exposure were the divining rod of a mechanical rabbit’s electrocution. Being jostled to the lead was a strategy that ensured a mountain zone low on chill and sting- a proposal our route was never meant to accept as the gateway to affusion. What could possibly have us looking back–educating a toddler who found handling a marooned jellyfish akin to an eclipsed sibling that would ultimately return as more playful and demanding? As the dustbowl parsed us off to the extremes of a silver, gravel lining, the flatbed tugged at fraying ropes and religious understanding. Daily devotions welcomed home the handsome, forward scout who had endured and feared little enough to avoid cowering among the loose rocks atop the scape which extoled a higher grade to pursue, between the lush fields of raked leaves and the backlit felt of a glowing folly. Polls indicated that entombment found favor under mossy oaks or widening banyans. Both trees grew diligently enough to provide the newly dead with a softer landing–and a lighter load against a ramshackle set of brakes. I rumbled on until the pavement mixed with the sky to trap the sweat-soaked fuel against the kicked-up ashes. Oh, how I would never fight off a bath again. On more than one occasion, I feared my insides burning, as if I could not be trusted around a capless container of hydrochloric acid or the quench of liquid chlorine. Blended smoke and a drenched yellow painting—traversed underneath a newly christened countryside. It was my hope that those who made the trip considered a likeness of non- consent to be of heavenly refrain–and the stifling heat- a pilferer’s viable remainder. Hanging poetry on a wall or stamping a furrowed letter–without the plug, the ideals tumbled directionless, but faster. The chiseled land was solely my design—there was no such thing as sour grapes— or a tonic for radioactive dander.

I was not always a tired and emotionless schism, just as my energy did not equate to a posture of eternal lounging, nor a namesake touting a stubborn and disobedient cat. Food was a vessel by way of a logical landing, from my urges came a winding slide to supply an imperious, rumbling vat–and so now at age 13, I preferred a presence in the middle of my second course, communion always tabled the offering, my stomach a sanctified cache. Digestion was an appointment at the high noon of the cinematic manifest. While the hors d’ oeuvres were memorialized as lukewarm and spineless, their flavors remained close to the nativity of first impressions, and I- part of the same intolerable, yet hopelessly charismatic, summer cast. My consumption had frequently been seen as flawless, despite the intricate efforts of my throat to slow the circling down–all raptors eventually dropped prey against the skyway. Much like the rest of us, the details had been sublime, even if the majority had been bounced against the curb or scolded by the stalker for getting in the way of a number and a hug. The bedroom was dim and cool, the mint-colored sheets showed a general distaste for the modern philosophy of housing. I did not need to be on guard to know that I could overpower the last of the spinsters, fumbling around their machinery, clanging against the puffing columns of heat with a sobering haste, symptomatic of tussling with an heirloom for charity. Though my eyes were tightened, I was above mercy, just as a storm can cause damage, without waiting for its arrival to be worthy of a name. We should all be weary of descriptions that have the evidence to support an offer that makes perfect sense from unreliable senses. It is quite possible that the warmest of throws is no match for the encouragement from my lids’ darkened jaunts. Secretly, I suspect that my neighbors are no longer happy with how the mirror reports their winnings. Deep creases and forgotten errands can easily attach themselves to the crusted edges of a yearbook page– revisionism is alive and well in first period math. The nights were growing longer, and this had nothing to do with theory or hesitation. The contrary was not of purpose nor strife, it made me want to sleep more during the unproven accuracy of what the shortened day was attempting to mask. We were well into October, tomorrow’s census of pondering-would birth a maddening path to a bruised restitution– consumption had led quite the double life–as a set of feathery, gluttonous traps.

I had punished myself this morning as I often do. Three times per week my twitching skin matched the uncertain wishes of the early, purple sky. No longer was my stock beholden to the chipped clanging of the heavy dumbbells. I preferred straps and handled bands to the flecked iron that pledged itself to my sticky face. The harder I pulled or the longer I pushed, the elastic resistance grew more taught, matching the constrictions of every muscle that was up for promotion or renewal. I had no idea why the cause was so dear, most fanatics never do. I felt ill and gullible during and after every exercise–that I was also becoming terrified as I mentally prepped my body on its day of rest, made me a humbled, amateur fellow. There was no need to lie to the self-appointed council, even if the folly was benign or accidental, I always knew that eventually the incarceration would be over and the equipment would once again be stowed from sound philosophy and redundant sight. Upon completion, I promised to retaliate inside the living and make peace with an affable, well-earned social position. Not amongst the leafy people, but with the experiences that they oozed. There was a rule that I tried my best to adhere to; no passing would be repeated unless all previous novelties had been properly seen off–or ascribed as regretful or distrait. Today, I was heading out the front door. The backyard fashioned paths lingering amidst the overgrown hedges and burned out trees. But, I had promised my waffling morale that I needed to do a better job of being seen. I had never been married, which meant that I was morally vigilant in not having any children. I was no role model, my beliefs had been supplanted by urges from time to time. The inner slave was an exceptional litigator even though the proper jury often left him unsatisfied and feeling betrayed. The neighbors were much fewer than had been anticipated. Many homes had been shuttered. Those windows barricaded by splintered, knotted wood were sliding towards the impenitent jaws of the unkind, open market, while those residences that reflected a piercing, metallic light, urged the Yankees to return to the north to scheme. Their foreign payoffs would take place on the golf course or at a broadway play. I had crested the first speed bump and noticed the rooftop of the cabana that accompanied the community pool. From this vantage point, the amenities always looked their best. I kept that image as I lowered my head and powered on- past the flattened toads and severed curly tails, eventually, I was overwhelmed by the fumes of chemicals and the sputtering of the overworked filtration machine. Both were conceded as a joint appellation. More technical information was required for my restraint to demonstrate a proper snub. Thankfully, the outside breeze picked up and blew the humidity elsewhere. I was not sure of the exact location, there was so much new construction closing in from all directions, the air often resembled the fumblesome route that a poorly tied shoelace would be inclined to take. That was how my doubts processed the lack of a solid, visible ceiling. But in reality, my home had far too often emerged as the victor, usually by count out or submission. Now I was prepared to shake lose my anchored feet. As I continued on, I realized that my resilience did not need to be proven to exist, futility was an aggregate of being “dubiously possible”. I had family that lived just across the boundary street. There was a hot beer and a cold steak waiting. I considered looking back, yet did it really matter if the stove was still on or the door had been left unlocked? The temple-and all of its ashes and riches were fully mobile. Even if walls were implored to swaddle my brooding, my heels and the outline of my sculpted back afforded me the chance to remain forgetful and marginally ahead on bulleted points. I jiggled the deadbolt one last time and happily grabbed my suitcase. Free weights were not the problem–real discipline was being alone, grappling with an inadequate mystique. I was sure that the old limbs in the backyard could use a deserved break from my timely spasms. But would they go so far– as to applaud me for taking the middle seat?

I sprawled across my new diversion, a toughened, square rug that had once bravely entertained the dalliances of a venerable life. So much so, that the colors twirled away in every insipid direction. The blues or blacks, depending on the amount of remaining light or the observer’s level of self-absorption, were either heading towards the wall, at which the rusty past was purposely staring–renouncing the reach of derivation– or debuting a kinder intention by banishing my contortions from an imperishable, blustering range. The stems and petals were nowhere near as vibrant as their outdoor relatives, I am no longer convinced that there was any real color remaining for the reconditioned prints, as they were cropped as a creamy reserve that necessitated a nudge to be curious enough to crawl. Vines could become hedges if weary. Still, in fairness, I was heavily placed on top of the designed recesses of hope. There was a faint scent left by those who were suckered in before me. Perhaps in their time, the cause was more noble, and the patterns were bright and dyed to represent a regal life whose birthright was guaranteed by full warranty. Could I be the accessory that was burnt orange and brazenly defective? Or was there no crime in planning my authority, while apologizing for momentarily going soft? I counted at least three cats and two dogs as I thought about which one was remembered as the most loyal and who was disparaged for being pretend. As for the decorum, that involved one’s choice of synonym. My auto-response presented me with “ground” and “floor”, average the two and the median preferences were accepted in most circles as interchangeable. But when objectified–as in being held–I was retained by the compressions of a rectangle, two vexing borders if ranking an intruder as defiant. Now the conjunction that personified the depth of my queries was merely a life raft that had been perforated, while being raked across the crest of a boiling dream. Inside the brilliance of the late day, chilly sun- even a few of the splashiest bracts were falling. “Ground floor” was not a prism that yielded a clever escape, above the fluffy new world, I would long be remembered as the captive prince–whose redolence the monochrome era would never believe to fade—or accept as the aspiration— the travels of a bluenose- woven amidst the bright spotted weeds —-tattooed by the archaic copper plate.