non/fiction and poetry
The heat’s breathing heavy and my stuffed elephant wants to shake off her heavy skin, I can tell.We hung fake stars in our window to drown out the lights from the cars driving by and the phones walking by and the eyes poking in because all of that keeps us awake and alert and reminds [...]
I have a vision of an insect coming across the giant strawberry in the sink late at night and nibbling at it until it is a massive, monstrous creature moving around my house, two legs at a time, leaving indentations in the carpet with its huge, heavy feet.
He wonders how good he would be at reading lips, and tries to make himself say something he doesn’t know he is going to say and then read his own lips to decipher it. This does not work. Tim fishes his Blackberry back out of the depths of his pocket and balances it on his nose
“Yeah, I got knocked up when I was nine, but I’m one hell of a soccer mom!” I can’t even drive yet. I would have to hire a minivan. The absurdity of this makes me laugh out loud, in “Miss Carol’s” blonde, neck-less face, and she pulls her features back into their fatty cushion, offended. I have a mouthful of turkey.
“1 COFFEE: ASK ME.” What did she do that she was out and about at eight-thirty every evening? I suspected she was a spy for the higher customers, sent by them to fish for the best caffeine to fuel the addictions of the upper class. Armed with a dollar and six cents and her knowledge of the willingness of us, the Creatures With Hats, she demanded the best grounds and the freshest poison for her drowsy employers. Well, her game was up. I knew of her secret night-life and the reasons for the stains on her teeth.
And one day, you wake up with your cheap comforter in your fist and you realize you’re literally pinching bluebells and it’s time to go back.
It is the girl who always sits in the front-left seat, and once I blink my eyes dry, I can see her dyed, red hair beneath her black hood. Another panic attacks me when I take my seat (always the Emergency Exit seat: it’s easy to remember and applicable to every other bus I will ever ride) and peer around my brown “leather” fortress to see that the scalp reflected in the long mirror above the windshield is thin, and covered in an orange-knit hat. Not blonde, with brown glasses perched in the thin waves. I blink again, but the snow is definitely gone and that is definitely not my bus driver.
Mrs. Green nodded happily, and went home to make a lasagna for Mr. Green, who had had a difficult day at the office.
I pushed the box into the freezer of my guts and felt it rumbling around. I wanted him to put his hand on my stomach so he could feel that I had contained it and be proud.
It is a tile out of the sky. The sun sets to border it and clouds float in purple broth about its crown. The tallest child throws the football furthest in the grassy cradle of its lap, but the child is an ant under The Screen’s wide chin.
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