five four sixteen go

All was so promising so walk around the streets not made for walking. Step in front of the cars and ask for a ride. Someone gives you one. A big guy who used to drive a truck but now he's on disability, threw out his back. The fixed income has him stationary mostly, except when he gets behind the wheel of his powder blue Olds. Makes him feel young and picking me up reminds him of the sixties when hitching was proper. I can hold this hope with you, my friend. Fuck it. Roll down the windows and roll up a joint and let the edge off. I can feel you steppin on it, you take good care of it. We are together in this as the numbers roll over to zero. The sun hasn't changed in all these years, and tires are still made of rubber and pressured air. I lay my fingers on the back of your neck, and you smile and push down with one arm hooked out the window, the other latched to the top of the wheel. It's gonna be a brighter day than most.

Antipathy and the Six Million Villains - Part 7

Blue Dreams

Here I was born in the USA and sandwiched between my two brothers, and I got the blues and they got the pinks and the kitchen sinks and the water was still good around here, maybe a little hard, and mom would boil it just to be sure. We were loved, that’s for sure. Dad had hurt his back carrying us around when we were little, and by the time he reached forty he began to really feel it. See what loving does? After all the medical leave dried up he had to go on disability. Life would get harder day by day. Dad was cross easy and all the time, and spent long days lying on his back in bed, in pain. Mom moved the television in there, and I sure didn’t miss it. We all chipped in to do the things Dad could no longer do, and we would have to do it well cause Mom was hard to please. We lived in a big old house probably wasn’t gonna survive the next hurricane. Everytime I saw one of those puppies swirling on the news, off the coast of Florida and comin our way, I got scared. My little brother he wanted to see it happen, he liked to see things destroyed. Big brother was the opposite. If it happened, if the swirling beauty bounced on up the eastern seaboard and reached us with still gale force winds drawing energy off the Atlantic shelf; if we got slammed, well, he would be the first one to begin rebuilding, after he made sure we were all okay.


Excerpt from BLUE DREAMS

my nanowrimo novel. 2015