Good Evening Hon'

Every now and then

the horns blare

loud enough to hear

if you've sat quietly enough

long enough.

The CSX. 

The CSX.

The coal train express.

See excess.

The CSX.

The CSX.

When it didn't matter whose car keys you left

at the fishing hole in the ignition

to make a joke seeing the CSX

on its way to demolition and

fireworks or laughter at keys and fleet feet

while 9 foot poles glimmered

with a bite.

Sometimes 

sitting quietly enough.  The horn blares

and carries through the valleys

of Pittsburgh,

echoes through the trees, 

and rolls across a pillow,

to the ears. 

All of the graffiti

traffic jams,

catfish and mud and grease gloves, 

undrinkable fresh water, 

shores of nails and glass and warm sand,

tunnels and bridges.

The quietly blaring horn

through the depths of Summer's coffin,

the songs of Autumnal pallbearers:

Can you hear? 

You are already home.

Dear (_____)

Dear Popeyes,

Stop sending me ads until you have more locations.  Your chicken sandwich gave me diarrhea, your biscuits are absolute sand (if you put enough butter on anything it tastes like goldschlagger) and the chicken thighs are worth their weight, but not worth the fuel.

Sincerely, 

A truck driving black dude

With A Passion

 I refuse to die.  I think about death just about every day.  Who doesn't.  Yes that is a statement.  I refuse to die.  SHOW ME ALL OF MY LABELS.  I will show you a complete set.  A complete-ish set?  I miss my friends.  Am I alone.  I am alone.  I am l onea.  O, am I lone.  A olo nei. 

Destrega.   I have dreams about the end of the world.  They are fun.  Are you?

Dogfights are luscious.

I dreamt about trees falling and bears coming out of the woods across creek where I used to live in southern Maryland and the spider monster came down out of the bear tree limbs in the middle of winter and before the bears could get to the fawns grazing on what grasses were left behind in a mild thaw before the permafrost killed everything the tree sized monsters began swooping down to harvest the bears.

Their force began tipping the old and dead trees over, held up by ivy.

The entire thing began collapsing.

Have you ever heard the sound

of a tree hitting the ground

that was as large as you

can run?

The shadows were enormous.  I ran fast.  As fast as I could... the entire dream collapsed.  The ground collapsed with the bass of the shear air the trunks displaced as they fell.  The spiders were squashed.  The bears became pelts and powdered glistening bone, when I had time to glance back at the pink mist.

I lived.  The animals died.  I panted.  I watched

more trees fall with thick and thicker trunks, torn asunder like toothpicks before the clouds.  

The troposphere.  The fucking fickle thin layer of air that had just a little too much sun.  God, some single batch would probably kill me so I dont have to know

what's coming next.

That Instant

 a customer speaks to you with words they would not use if they met you ninety five feet away and you know it for a fact because you stood up from the cash register and they realized (very quickly) that you were very able to drag and throw them through the sliding door toward the wrong end of pelletized glass over a difference of two dollars.

Where The Time Went VI

 Empty Set

I've been away for a very long time.

 I am still human.  I don't know how to phrase it exavtly.  i am sad.  I am still me.  

That Instant

you see who they're still in touch with after you had a running fight for three months about them literally sexting them and staying out after hours way too late and magically happening to run into each other and finding out they're a known rapist and telling her and still they're just firing away ... you get the "ewwwwwwww gross, what the fuck?!?!?" feeling of surprise instead of a an "oh yeah, makes sense, why am I shocked at all that her behavior hasn't changed" feeling.

That Instant

you realize you have to move your Al-Anon meeting, but you actually have to move your matinee film to fit around it and you gas at adult problems.

Dear (_____)

Dear Alcohol,

I've been pretty high functioning for a while.  I know I'll never be cured.  There is no cure.  I remember you.  I remember everything you took from me.  You took a person I wanted to marry from me the same way you took me from someone I wanted to marry more than a decade later.  It's unreal being on the other side of you and the heartache.  Feeling like there is nothing I can do to stop you.  More than a decade ago, you snatched the first person that loved me away from me because I didn't know what you are.  A decade of growth later.  More than.  I have changed and can see you for what you are.  I can see your tendrils and suction cups, your butterfly wings that look like fungus and friendly moss, your horned growths and twigs and flowers and sun beam colors.  I can see your off seasonal artisanal aromas and hellishly intriguing recipes for what they are.  Your get togethers and time cheaters and machinery and armors plated with reactive impenetrable metal scales.  I can see you and you've taken someone from me.

We are even.

We are square.

You took some of my friends, both of my uncles and a few aunts, my father's actual father that I never got to meet, my grandmother's husband, cousins, untold family members I'll never know, both of my parents by proxy, my childhood, myself away from my first real love, and my second real love away from me.

Fuck you.

I would say "never again", but the devils greatest feat was convincing the world it didn't exist.

You do.



Sincerely,

Hobbes

That Instant

you walk up to an old man with more teeth missing than present and the few still in silver capped while he's speaking with your charge and he stands up and cannot recognize your face and goes "oooooooh, what's up dog" like he's seen you before, but you know the scars on your face make you pretty god damn unmistakable and you know for a fact he hasn't seen you before, but you play along just to see how comfy he'll try to get and you almost ask him where he knows you from.