“A pack of bubble gum?”
“Yup.” Albert said nonchalantly, giving only a small up nod with his head.
“Seriously?” Angie said with a scoff, mumbling something that sounded a lot like “retard” under her breath.
Albert let the bubble he was blowing pop against his lips as he kicked his sandles off haphazardly onto the nearby mossy rock he wasn’t sitting on. He mentally apluaded himself for giving Angie the impression of him being incompetent. Little did she know, underestimating him would be her pivotal downfall. She will carry him as her scrap goat, and he will leech off her as long as he can. Hopefully until the bitter end.
Angie paced back and forth, shaking her head. “You could’ve brought something actually ‘useful’ Albert. Like I dunno- pills to clear potentially deadly bacteria from dirty water like ‘I’ brought. Or at least food containing actual ‘calories’. “
Albert payed no mind, calmly staring off into the swamp, analyzing where the best place to stick his first wad of chewed gum would be.
“Ugghhhhh” Angie let out a long sigh of frustration. “Did you even hear a word I said pea brain!?”
Gentle cold air Frosted grass Numbness in my fingers From the strength of your grasp
Unwillingly lead Through shadows of trees The buttstock of the gun in your pocket Brushing up against me
Not a look of despair Surrendering to the pull I’m incredibly still Staying detained in your hold
You don’t meet my eyes when you’re scanning my face If you’d arch my back I would let myself collapse Not growing a backbone Nor caring at all I lay limp If you won’t catch me, I’ll let myself fall
I’m wearing grey And like storm clouds I’m murky Unclear and not fully explained I am a gamut of a shade
The sun you cannot see A path covered in piles of dead leaves
Indifference with lack of modesty Not attracting too much attention Never approaching each thing with a great sense of apprehension
The fleas that still jump the same height as the jar The way Hubble’s law explains the absence of stars Missing pieces to my lives puzzle
Black and white as extremes Lonely people idiosyncratically perceive And I run with the trees Contradicting what I’ve been lead to believe
Past Halfway Three quarters more or less It’s not my legs begging for rest
My own mind confines myself To my committed word
When I asked What am I doing this for really?
With no valid reason coming to mind I dropped it all Despite pouring in all that effort And giving it so much time
Because why, If I don’t care Should I force myself to be there?
Rusted rim An old age stiff No push nor shove Can make it lift
Stuck in its place The cold air keeps out Shackles of frost Secure it further down
Spring brings vines on the sill Wrap tightly around From deep within the dirt Secured all around the house
Closed by the seasons Every change adding power To its stubbornness
Cut me up and sown through my skin without a thread Traced my veins with delicate lace and tied down my legs Silk through my hair Knots entwined with my stare Bows of thick ribbons wrap under my bones The pressure is galant Pleasure is havoc
Kiss of etched buttons Spools of loose string I’m twisted and tangled There’s now rips in my seams
Tear through the parched A maple thirst Crawls up my arms Fuck- It hurts
Lamenting the death of my partner, now 5 years alone.
Over this time I’ve come to pick up their old habits and routines. Sitting crisscrossed in their dining chair as they always have. Saying farewell to the sun as it sets in the evening as they always have. I exhibit their facial expressions. I project their tone.
Wearing their clothes, reading their favorite stories. I’ve inhabited their scent, their thoughts.
They’re not gone, for I am them.
My hand trembles as I grasp the back of its frayed cover and frantically flip through it’s pages. I stop when I see the water droplets on my skin have mixed in with fresh ink, making smudges, the mixture’s tar black color seeping into the bed of my fingernails. I bite my lip to keep myself from yelling out in frustration as I angrily huck the journal into a nearby tree. I ruined it. I smeared the confession into total illegibility. “Berlyn?” I hear a voice callout from behind me. I freeze into place. I want to shout and cry and say it isn’t what it looks like. It isn’t what it looks like. “What are y-“ the voice pauses. But in the realm of the living, it continued.
Where you cannot fly, You’re left to improvise. That’s why the blind people hear better- Or rather, they are more attuned To senses other than their sight. For there is no use in pouring water into a pot with no seeds. Because then, what will grow?
Caged birds can’t fly. All the energy, time, effort they would give towards flying, is allocated elsewhere.
The caged bird has it’s voice. The speak has seeds. The caged bird can give it more water.
And thus, the caged bird sings Because you get better at things When you focus on less, You get to do more with that less It’s a simple principle, really.
