Category: PROSE

Next Thing You Know…

No music rights: just homage to a soundtrackscape.

⊙

I am sick like dog: I say in my bestest, thickest Eastern European accent to the chef.

I am too ignorant to have a specific dialect, but the rasp in my voice is too deep to not enjoy, even if it hurts.

Ill since three a.m. The tasty haze of the deliciously grey day suits my fever.

⊙

Seven

a.m. texts go out.

1. The manager working.

I say: Ain’t well. Looking for a cover. If you don’t hear from me again, it means you guys are stuck with me doing my best.

I include exactly zero emoti-cons.

2. The potential covers.

I say: I’m sick. Host this morning?

⊙

No cover expected. Restaurant folk, generally do not rise before the early afternoon, at best, unless they are working. Were situations reversed, I would not come through either.

I sit on the patio and watch the day arrive between seven and eight.

Still and grey.

/Buckle up and endure, now, sweet thing./

I take puffs off my electronic nicotine machine, knowing full well it will help nothing.

My inhaler: I love calling it.

/Cancer for the cure/?

⊙

Ya know I can’t cite the source, but I recall a study saying folks are statistically more likely to prefer being shocked with a low charge, over sitting in a room, alone, in silence for fifteen minutes.

So I put on an album called electro shock blues.

I don’t mind stillness. I can shock myself with my own thoughts.

So who is the glutton for pain? The ones who like a bit of shock-pain because being alone is too painful or the ones who get off on stillness?

/well, hee hee hee hee/

⊙

/Next thing you know/ You’re eat’n hospital food/

⊙

I arrive to work. I am released and sent home after an hour. I think they wanted see if I would show up and try.

It’s good to have reasons to persevere and

over-come:

I say and i mean.

Because I get off on my intent to not let feeling bad make others feel bad or me feel worse.

Seems quite silly to say, as I put it into words now.

I am mostly light and love, but with a little bit of why-don’t-you-go-fuck-yourself for counterbalance.

⊙

Back home.

Bare beneath a grey robe.

Leg warmers over calves and most of my feet.

Earl Gray tea with a bit of cream and vanilla extract.

An American Werewolf in London Faux-Fog: I silently entitle the bootleg concoction, in homage of the traditional London Fog tincture.

⊙

Back on the patio.

The wind chops and dices the waters of

the Sound

into tiny, white-capped waves.

Little peaks of liquid mountains.

⊙

/What/

/What/

/I can hear you/

/I was…/

⊙

/Sing the one about the cat that’s always get’n wet/

Comes down the wires, from my tablet, into my Blue headphones.

I giggle.

The Undercutters: A Banana Nut Muffin Introduction.

“You look ridulous.”

“What? I’m in all black. Scarf for my face. A colorful leotard beneath.”

“Scoff. The Undercutters use bandanas, not scarves. You look like a server.”

“It is my day job. Quite similar to yours. In fact, I have seen you wear that top and those pants at work, girl.”

“Well, girl, all will become clear. We will probably end up running from the police. Now, here. Take this bin of banana nut muffins and hide in the alley while I set us up in front of the bakery. They open in fifteen minutes.”

“What the fuck are we doing here? Where did you get these muffins?”

“I stole them from this very bakery’s dumpster last night. It’s what they didn’t sell yesterday. Idiots even collected them up in the box you now hold, before throwing them out. They aren’t even dirty.”

“Per se.”

“Oh shut up and do what I asked you to. We are gonna be legends.”

“Only cuz I am curious. Also, no legend begins with a box of banana nut muffins.”

“Yeah. This will be the introduction to The Undercutters.”

“Like a prologue?”

“No. The prologue was yesterday’s conversation.”

“No one likes a story with too many opening vignettes. Especially ones about banana nut muffins.”

“Yeah, cuz they are gross. Thank god you wore such an embarrassing leotard under your cover. Stripping off the black clothing to reveal a leotard? That will become legendary when you run from the police.”

“Why are we worried about cops? That’s a bit distressing. Especially since you keep calling us Undercutters.”

“Oh stuff it dummy. And, please, we are The Undercutters. “Undercutters” just sounds stupid. Let’s get set.”

“I need to know: have we brought muffins to a knife fight?”

The Undercutters: Prologue

“I couldn’t get accreditation. I simply lack credibility.”

“Too damn incredible, eh?”

“Am I working too hard?”

“Harder than most.”

“Then have I diminished my own returns?”

“Maybe.”

⊙

“I have a business proposal: The Undercutters,” says Effie.

“Go on.”

“Meet in front of the bakery at 8 a.m. tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

“Wear two layers of clothes. All black on the exterior, but colorful clothing beneath. Bring a bandana. We may wanna cover our faces.”

A Coy Pond

A

Deritive is an infinite difference.

An

Integral is an infinite sum.

That’s why they are

Inverse operations.

The difference between contrived and derived

can be found in the [con] of poor artistry.

Decoy or coy?

I am not unlike a koi pond: he responds.

What, swimming in your own shit under bridges you may not cross?: I challenge.

Everytime with this one: we both think

but, we do not say.

Can you cross the zigzag bridge over my fish head: he koi-ly bubbles.

Oh howl you want to know if I am a demon, hum huh?: I think.

Yeah, I can. Many times have I crossed the eight branches of an iris-strewn river. You are merely a pond, doll. Turning left, turning right? Not problematic to a whirling dervish. A modern ballerina. Do you, sweet koi, have the tenacity of a salmon?: I say.

Can you cross my moonbridge?: I ask

Do you have the potential energy required to achieve the kinetic momentum required to overcome the archway: I wonder.

~

An enlivening of a skin abrasion.

A salmon swimming upstream.

Bears with fish scales stuck between incisors.

~

Rub it til it bleeds, said PJ Harvey.

Clears my crown and your heads.

You wait seven days.

It keeps you, freshly.

It keeps you integral and not derivative.

Æ whispering to Parçigal

You want me to write right now, right?: I ask.

Yes: he says.

Well, I want you to stay hard; and I want to talk to Maplethorpe. So…you win because I am tip tapping. Here’s my hangup. These housemates of mine are always here. In the living room. I am trying to read/-a-just to being around people. Where can /I/ make My noises? Where do /i/ do my movements? Their energy is perceived by me as invasive. Encroachment on my energy. They feel like hungry animals. I let it oppress me because all my energy is focused on not regressing. I think I have achieved this ability, to not let myself regress. I now move to the next challenge of not having my energy allowed to be oppressed. Because this feeling is what leads me to want a beer. Taking drugs is taking sacrament to me. Purposed and not medicine. I am now able to recognize when I drink to sedate and when I drink to take sacrament. This is step one. I move to the two step now. Giggle [cuz giggle is the way I get by, {h/owl} ].

I gave everything to my metaphysical considerations because why the h/owl else do we keep on keeping on? I found treasure so I try to be patient with myself as i face the consequences. Even if I had found nothing, I would be patient with myself. But, reliance on the others in my life seems more for their peace of mind. But, such a statement is on me. I wilt figure out how to make manifest the opportunities available to me.

And, you need to buy shoelaces, so you can walk more: he kindly whispers.

Thank you. The difference between a chastisement and a kindly reminder.: I say: I must like you.: I say in honest exhalation.

Have you eaten?: he asks.

Kind. No. Only beer. I am not hungry; but I want to eat. What do you make of that?: I ask.

Oh, just like the good old days. I know what you mean.: he says but guesses.

Thank you for telling me what you think about that which you do not know: I groan, wet now: ewe make me smile. I wilt reward you for this, in my way.

(My eyebrow arches; because I like it when you say:

She cums.)

What if this is all one, big lucid dreaming experiment?: I conjecture, in fantasy.

What does that mean?: he quietly, quite justly asks.

Good question. Ask me again in a day and I can say it better. Rumination.: I say.

You said you could tell me about one of your three triple embodiment experiences.: he reminded.

I can do that. Be patient. I have been virgin, mother, and crone in body and mind between the last five years. Virgin to the sulky, sociopath, mother to the recovering addict, (I re enlivened him thru his will), then I became single and rekindled by the other one. I gained 60 lbs as mother, but have not ever become pregnant. I lost 60 becumming virgin, Artemis, despite having slept with men. I am the she Archer and some hunters chose to fall with me.

I thought you were Parçigal: he says.

I am many things and my head hurts: I say.

You drank two pints: he replies.

Uh hum, huh. Water. Hummus. A ham sandwich with mayonnaise, lettuce, and tomatoes.

Liquid Breezes

The curls of my hair,

a kelp forest waving in the currents

of the jet streams and trade winds.

I deal in oxygen as well as molecules of water.

I may suspend myself in the watery depths,

adjusting my buoyancy.

I may crest your foaming waves to reach the sky,

propelled by the energy of

the momentum of your surface tension,

; and, catch the breeze with my fins

which, repurposed, are now little wings.

Tight lips and all.

There is nothing I would imbibe to dull this edge,

but memories of you which I may use, spurning future potentialities.

You help me project myself into the future.

I lay-line.

Silly, sad boys abound, but I see depths in your aged eyes.

Your crows well-footed and begging,

leaving their foot tracks below your lower lids.

They are just as fine when you smile as when you frown.

Assertive Ask[d]ance

Your enervated state is the reason why I request your prostration.

I do not require it; but,

I wilt accept it from you.

Until you understand this, I can neither refill nor refine you.

Your acquiescence does not appease me; but rather[,]

(It may prove to please me)

enables you.

Do not give me attitude simply because

your lassitude overcomes you, wild thing.

I know how to respond; but,

do you know how to af-

firm that you need a demon cleaner?

Speculatively responsive

Did you think about what I said?: he asked.

(My nostrils flare)

I said: You said alot; but, yet again, I thought more about what you did not say.

I tried to answer your questions: he said.

I guess I’m more interested in what you think about the questions you don’t know how to answer: I reply.

I don’t know what to say about that which I do not know: he said.

Soft words, volutary: I respond: what did your mind howl in

speculative

response and resistance?

A ghost ship at full clip

Fighting-as-discipline haunts me with every new face I meet. (Invariably they are black belts, INK’D athletes, ex MMA fighters, etc.)

Cannily uncanny. It may be inspiring my clip this morning. I certainly find the trend personally inspiring. The same way the numbers 93, 13, 11, and 777 hook my attention. Do I see them at every turn because they occur in a disproportionate amount or do my expectations simply enliven significance?

My feet carry my brain to work, propelled as though by the will of something outside of my conscious thought.

I walk too fast. I don’t know why. Mind still foggy from tying one on with the family last night.

Damn. I can barely keep up with my own pace.: I think, walking.

Click, click.

Click, click.

Quick.

Oh well, the energy required to change my momentum seems more consuming than just continuing to walk along, too fast.

It is a grey sky morning.

Have I actually woken up?

°

The sun finally arrives and beats the cloud cover into smashed splinters. It makes the day seem real. I feel my heart finally kick start, keeping rhythm with the coffee coursing through my system.

Howllelujah.: says the newly given up ghost,

in a whisper of surrender to this new day.

Viynl Track Intro

I notice

a bonfire,

(alit via a couple of cotton balls, a lighter, and a tube of

lip balm)

burning high,

(especially when being properly blown into)

sounds a lot like a needle, with

a diamond tip,

sliding around and around,

a viynl record’s groove.

Shhhhtshhht.

Right before the song starts.

Still/s

And,

still,

I howl.

What is this extraneous energy I feel coursing inside me?

Whose is it?

I need some wing-wo/man to deal with the secrets

people impart to the queen of magnets.

You said: she get it from her momma?

I said: eff right off.

{Not you, doll.

You look fine.

I love your snarl.

You are fine;

yet, I, still, worry you run cold.

I don’t get cold.}

I don’t exist in orgiastic ecstasy.

I exist in an ecstasy of sincerity that happens to be orgiastic.

And, yes, it seems like an eternity.

{An eternity for which I am already too late.}

Last Open Table: Trade Secret Talk

Hey Aimme, I only have table 18 open…: I say, hostessing.

Oh, the four top, newly remodeled to a three?: she says, jokingly but without a smile.

~

{trans: yeah, that guy that joined table 19, without a word, stole the fourth chair from table 18 and has blocked access to table 18.

/Some men appear to need to take up an unnecessary amount of space. The cunt in me thinks they are the same men who feel compelled to drive large trucks with flat beds they will never use/

Additionally, the small dining room of this restaurant is filled with only tables for two and tables for four. This makes table 18 a hot commodity to a hostess. Especially, a patient, thoughtful one working Sunday morning.

But, push has come to shove. I won’t run a waitlist for him, this joiner, unless my server says she thinks they deserve it.}

/some posers know how to tip/

~

[She should have been cut an hour ago.

We should have dropped to two servers already; but the gal closing told her: yeah, we could cut you if I wanted to work harder.

I overheard this. It disappointed; but, there may be reasons such a statement is more reasonable than it may sound to my ears.]

⊙

Am I cleared by you to do my thing with this guy: I ask?

She nods immediately. It is louder than words to my ears.

I wonder if she noticed I kept seating her out of rotation, when a table in her section became available. I made sure she did not lose a table because of the joiner.

I don’t mention this.

⊙

A table for three arrives.

One moment: I say, wearing a smile, for them alone, that says “I’m gonna let you in on a trade secret.”

I take two steps over to table 19 and begin with

a big, genuine (“here goes no-thing”) smile

{In a way it is my job to do so. /You see, hosti are notoriously flighty. /otherwise they’d be servers, right?/ giggle}

I say: hey there!

[I do panto, panto, panto, then a little soft shoe.]

{Sic. Hosti trade secret}

The entire family at table 19 laughs.

Me and the five year old are now waltzing in a tiny square.

The people standing, waiting, start laughing,

for a different reason.

We should get out of your hair: says the dad at table 19.

{This family had finished eating over an hour ago. We call such folk [campers].}

Well, I do need to get access to that table over there, to seat these fine folk: I say, motioning to actual humans waiting.

Table 19 kindly slide themselves aside while making small talk with the family I am about to seat at table 18.

I am now waiting on the waiting list.

The best kind of professional inconvenience, to me.

⊙

Table 19 leaves.

Table 18 is seated.

Thank you: says Aimme.

I am immediately and acutely overwhelmed by deja-vu.

I grab Aimme by the arm and say: I just got the most intense deja-vu I’ve felt in years.

Because, I experience the feeling not infrequently.

Because, Aimme is empathic, too.

Because, it feels so strong it calls into question scales of magnitude.

She stops.

You must be in the right place: she says before springing back into action.

…

I dig the gravity of her spontaneous response.

Over her shoulder, she calls out: thank you for making sure I got as many tables as the others.

Physicsical Moaning

I smile: I am pleased you like the work, but not particularly interested in why.

You liked how it felt.

Instead, tell me about the last dream you had while sleeping?

Did you like how it made you feel?

⊙

I dreamt a record store called All ‘N Analog. It was no analogue.

And,

What if it turned out that Paul Revere was just a Boy who cried Wolf?

Let’s incorporate.

A stem [becomes]

steAm.
Repetition of action is

not repeating oneself;

though, care must be taken, of course, so you

don’t repeat yourself;

but, sometimes I love it when

you repeat yourself

(or ask me questions, the answers to which you believe you already know.)

⊙

Self-awareness of ignorance can nearly

overcome it.
Just don’t over-commit.

You will, still, scratch that itching nose with a finger, whether you are aware you do so,

or not.

⊙

You skate on a bead of water produced from the ice you melted as the blade of your skate skirted over it.

You have not cut the ice.

Boiling point is dependent upon the local atmospheric pressure, sweet thing.

Are you at an elevation of simple sea level?

The triple point of water.

A bathtub producing water, ice, and steAm from its faucet head.

All states

existing simultaneously; and, at the same time,

the ultraviolet exposure at my atmospheric level, fries, while I watched the sun rise

from my spectacular, secularly sacred space.

Labouring in Unkind Kindness.

A day I play like Cool Hand Luke.

If you labo(u)r, you probably do not have Labor Day off.

You are probably extra busy with your labor, in fact,

because of all those non-physical labourers who do have the day off.

No judgement, just observation derived from experience as someone who has been on both sides.

This is pure assumption: I can tell if you have ever worked on your feet, by how you interact with me when I am running a waiting list for the restaurant.

Open secret x: I am the hostess. I want you happy.

Open secret x’: you will not piss me off nor will I say anything unkind.

You know why?

Because, nothing pisses cranky people off more than someone who will not take your anger bait.

Killing you with kindness quite literally, you silly folks.

This is where the Tao of Cool Hand Luke comes into play.

You trying to put me down on the ground?

I just keeping getting back up with a giggle and a smile.

I have been through far worse.

I can do it until you are uncomfortable.

Every now and then, I can even make you smile.

Score.

I appear daft. Too stupid to realize I am being insulted.

I appear sugary sweet, but I speak in a calm, deep, resonant voice.

Just so you get a grip on the power of my gravity.

Unkindly kind.

The benefits of walking the block

I decide I need a tab, as they say.

American Spirit: ingredients: water and tobacco.

And some kind of paper, right?: I wonder.

The point is moot as I have already inhaled the combustion of fire to leaf.

Why are you smoking when all you really want is to be walking, Little Wing?: the No-One man asks me.

Because I need to clear my mind and grease the wheel. So, I can count to ten.
Prove it: he says.

⊙

One is zero and unity. All and everything. I learned this lesson in the woods, whilst listening too hard and asking too many questions.

Two is a perfect number. Mathematically speaking.

Three is a trinity manifested in a pyramide.

Four is a group that trains themselves in martial arts, as advertised.

Five refers to commercial success. Why?

Six makes me recall you, beast. And what it is to rotate this figure about the x-axis.

Seven reminds me of a trinity of 7’s, of Parzival.

Eight is hate not so far past.

Nine is three, six, and itself. This was the universe to Tesla.

And, ten? Ten is an order of magnitude. Ten makes sense for orientation.

Ten let’s me catch my breath: I concede to him.

I near the entrato the condo and a Vietnamese couple pulls aside me in their SUV.

How do we get to the coast?: the driver asks me through his cracked, automatic window.

Take a right at the stop sign, then, at the fountain on Main Street, take a right.

It is a roundabout.

Thank you. How lucky you are to live here: they say, after we struggle through language barriers and we repeat the same sentences between ourselves six times in total.

Yes, I am lucky to stay here: I reply.

I wave as they speed to the stop sign.

I told you that I needed to walk the block: I tell the No-One man.

He rolls his eyes.

A Watery Whale Wail

Have you ever stared, for a long time, at a large body of water?

More than an hour, or

until you can’t remember if the water is actually the sky and perhaps it is you that has been submerged in water the whole time?

Like maybe the horizon is a surfacing point where you and I breathe like whales?

Spouting our exhalations and thrilling the star ships above our surfaces.

It feels like when you sit in a room alone and repeat your own name aloud, for a minimum of three minutes.

Incepting yourself as you dialate time through your subjectI’ve experience.

Like purposefully esoteric, alternative spellings.

Hiss

The flicker of a whisper appears in my ears.

I hiss a response, in kind.

Sssssss.

Only one international phonetic alphabetic difference between:

Sssssss.

[and]

Zzzzzz.

In the English language.

Fricatives

voiced and voiceless.

Aspirated or otherwise.

⊙

My eyes narrow.

Simply evidence of closer observation and inspection,

no signal of disbelief.

Curiosity is the momentary suspension of belief.

Investigative.

Mettle of metal

being testing

in the seriousness of this series of silence.

Energetic Exchanges

I wear all black with saddle leather boots, for work.

Straightened hair business.

As I walk, I unfurl my energetic wings.

My mantle.

Cold steel blades slide out through my shoulder blades.

Clinking.

I shake them. Loosening.

They respond when I dress this way.

I take care to align each blade so they will fold away properly.

Inappropriate for the task at hand.

I call forth the other side.

gossamer feathers.

Carefully unfurling.

One flies a’loose, fluttering into the breeze like a shining bit of a spider’s web.

The feathers still smell of you from last night.

From when you came to my mind with your pain clear in your

energetic, non-corporeal eyes.

Come in: I told you silently.

You stepped behind my back.

Squared with my shoulder blades.

Your pain began pouring out.

I collected you in my steely wings. Making a box.

A safe place. An unobservable vacuum within which you may thrash and wail.

I dropped down my feather mantle for you.

Draping the steely interior in celestial down.

Those who would prey upon your moment of weakness

slay themselves upon my well-honed metallic feather-blades, trying to break in.

Ships, at night, on a rocky coast with no lighthouse.

With each slam of your energetic body against the walls of my wings, you felt nothing but goose down envelope you.

I took great care to ensure this.

You fell asleep inside. I opened the space, covered you, cupped your hipbone, and slept aside you.

Half a mind two

When I am all these fathoms afar,

breath is rest.

I sleep with my eyes open.

My eyes close upon waking.

A nap is a blink.

A micro-sleep.

A relative delusion.

The pull of fo/u/rces enlivening me.

I am force moving through time and space.

Or, maybe, that is you.

Perhaps, I am your optimal conditions.

Your ideal ether enabling materialization.

I see from the vacuum of the abyss.

It is lonely but I am not alone.

Tactile not tactical.

Marco Polo is not a game but a call and response song.

Electricity and light.

Lidar and blackholes

howling in algorithmic keens.

Your mind is a cheshire, Schrödinger’s cat.