The things she told me
were so terrifying
I could only take her in
for a short moment a day

So I decided for
what you may consider
a pedantic structure
one without considered sensitivity,
but may I remind you,
after six rounds of 25 minutes of
interval writing
my fingers are nearly frozen

When I round off my writing sessions
I’m usually exhausted
and I make myself a warm meal
I eat in silence
and if the electricity has been on
for enough time to let me charge my phone,
I call someone,
a family member or a friend
These days
they are all in remote places

If I’m feeling social,
as in chatty,
or a bit needy,
I visit my neighbor
who lives down the street
near the abandoned antique shop
there are not many of us left
on this formerly busy street
most shops relocated
when the electricity broke
what must have been
10 months ago
Her head is gently bent down
as she reads through
the last edition of stories
It’s read off a tablet
tied to her hand
by some weave
Sometimes little mechanical butterflies
arrive at her hand,
settle for a moment,
held up by their
metal-like structures

She looks at them the stern way
a dog owner looks at their dog
as the dog lets out its uninhabited side
for a minute
with a mixture of discipline
and fascination

Sometimes they stay for a moment,
flutter their emerald coloured wings,
eyes open, eyes close,
they mimic looking,
like looking at the world
and then closing your eyes again,
thinking it will look different
next time your eyes open

all that is called world is ungraspable

you cannot retouch it

you need to erase it

to rebuild it

There I sit
in the tranquil bath of
efflorescence
All whilst the surroundings
keep bashing the pulse
of ambulance sirens,
children screaming
from a nearby school yard,
dogs beating their tails
like little whisks
in a batter full of
freshly cut grass

Keeping my eyes closed
I envision someone
passing me by,
perhaps in the company of a small dog
running up to me,
clumsily with its tiny paws
making harmless scratches
on my bare knees,
and me exchanging a few words
with its owner
Maybe I make a comment
about the weather
that appraises
the shifting of seasons

Oh,
(“I could never really tell if that girl Cheryl was a flake or a flirt”)
the cherry blossoms
and their ephemeral life
that envelope me in their fragrance

I remember the line
in some old house track,
that lonesome statement repeating itself
like a broken record,
trying to create a mantra
that dissolves in the listener's
consciousness
as smoothly as honey
dissolves in hot water

Flake?
Flirt?
I bet Cheryl just wasn’t that into you
I bet she was busy
exploring life amidst the brief
blossoming period
of a month a year
My routine is dear to me,
shoot me!
I’ve come to rely on routines
In the absence of external
and seasonal change

At first the adherence to routine
prompted a sense of memory loss,
as I’ve taught my memories
to accompany the patterns
of seasonal and cyclical
metamorphosis
then I found a mnemonic routine

As I like doing from time to time,
I went to see my neighbor yesterday,
one of few left in our street
She invited me to relax on her sofa,
with her cat
playing with the paper wraps
from an old hamburger,
and asked if I’d eaten
as I looked boney
gazing at my body
as trying to pierce through all my layers
I’d twined myself with

My neighbor’s apartment was right above
the former McDonald’s shop
and as desperation does to people,
she’d recently abandoned her
nutritional ideologies
for frozen burgers
from her former in-house butcher

She said she was tired,
couldn’t make plans ahead any longer
and no crops
would grow at this temperature
Even the greenhouse
that she had built
was too cold
and the glass was starting to break
Regulated temperature is fine,
when you know things on the outside are shifting,
but I can’t find myself breaking from my lethargy,
she said and asked me a third time
if I was sure I didn’t want something

After we’d shared a strong drink
we said goodbye,
embracing one another
She asked if I was sure
I didn’t want to spend the night?
Despite my yearn for another body
I returned home to fall asleep
at my regular hour
Knowing that I’d need to be somewhere
within the hour

<3 - 2023-12-29 13:36:28 - <3<333333

adolphus50@moneysquad.org - 2022-10-06 00:56:37 -

- 2022-10-06 00:56:37 -

adolphus50@moneysquad.org - 2022-10-06 00:56:35 -

joan14 - 2022-10-06 00:56:35 -

Developer - 2022-10-06 00:56:33 -

Developer - 2022-10-06 00:56:25 -

shannon_boyer@moneysquad.org - 2022-10-06 00:56:09 -

- 2022-10-06 00:56:08 -

shannon_boyer@moneysquad.org - 2022-10-06 00:56:06 -

joan14 - 2022-10-06 00:56:05 -

shannon_boyer@moneysquad.org - 2022-10-06 00:56:03 -

joan14 - 2022-10-06 00:55:57 -

118 Yundt Burg - 2022-10-06 00:51:14 -

- 2022-10-06 00:51:14 -

118 Yundt Burg - 2022-10-06 00:51:13 -

Suite 574 - 2022-10-06 00:51:12 -

118 Yundt Burg - 2022-10-06 00:51:11 -

Suite 574 - 2022-10-06 00:51:03 -

lonnie46 - 2022-10-06 00:50:45 -

- 2022-10-06 00:50:44 -

lonnie46 - 2022-10-06 00:50:43 -

nico.franecki@bdcimail.com - 2022-10-06 00:50:42 -

nico.franecki@bdcimail.com - 2022-10-06 00:50:40 -

lonnie46 - 2022-10-06 00:50:38 -

lonnie46 - 2022-10-06 00:50:21 -

- 2022-10-06 00:50:19 -

lonnie46 - 2022-10-06 00:50:17 -

baylee_harris@bdcimail.com - 2022-10-06 00:50:15 -

baylee_harris@bdcimail.com - 2022-10-06 00:50:13 -

lonnie46 - 2022-10-06 00:50:08 -

E - 2022-04-11 00:22:06 - so beautiful

- 2022-04-11 00:21:49 -

- 2022-04-11 00:20:38 -

*_* - 2022-03-31 12:01:05 - I love it!!