-
I wonder if it’s at all strange that this black, gay, schizophrenic, one-eyed, heroin addict was one of my biggest influences growing up.
-
Les McCann is one bad mother hushyomouth.
-
Fluer-de-lis
When I was a kid, my brother used to smash pillows on my face and sit on them until I gave up breathing; until I relaxed and accepted death.
Sometimes, when I look at you, I see cream colored cotton with tiny green fleurs-de-lis.
-
First Position
You came over after school on Fridays to play ballerina on my balance beam. You taught me how to do plies listening to Lionel Richie albums. “Point your toes and let your arms curve. Your head, back, and hips should be straight but soft.” You walked around me, posing me like someone had once posed you.
“This is First Position,” you said.
On the basement floor, in my sleeping bag, we made fun of our mothers. They were upstairs in the kitchen laughing and drinking Fuzzy Navels.
You pressed your fingers into my belly button and I laughed at the way you made your tongue twist out at me; at the way you moved your fingers in circles to make me tickle.
“Why do you only remember the sad parts of songs?” you asked.
I rubbed my eyes and pretended I was tired.
“You have too many freckles on your nose to count,” you told me.
I wished you’d turn off the flashlight so that I didn’t have freckles anymore, so that I could disappear in the dark along with them.
“Do you know what sex is?” you whispered.
“Yes,” I lied at the ceiling.
I held my breath and waited. You would say something else soon, something different.
You were soft against me; fuzzy like our mothers’ drinks. When you pushed into me, my back arched and I pulled at your shirt. When you pet me, my legs splayed like the legs of a doll. When you kissed me I curled up inside myself; your mouth discovering where I was weakest, those places that made me shake.When we danced, your blonde hair fell to your waist; swung out from behind your ears as you bent to touch your toes. You were taller and older and beautiful. When you left, I tried to walk like you; made my hips go side-to-side.
- K: geese?
- A: I hate how they have teeth and you don't know why...
- why do they have teeth and bills?
- K: i hate that 9 times out of 10 they are flying in the wrong direction
- brb
- A: Don't you think it's interesting that geese fly in a boomerang shape?
- I think its interesting because boomerangs are things that fly through the air, traveling, only return back to where they came from...
- GEESE DO THAT TOO!
- K: nice observation
- A: Thanks!
- I'm an observer
- I observe
- K: i'm just plain old hung over
-
I made this today during the baby’s morning nap. Made with a still camera, my great uncle’s scrap butterfly art and istopmotion. This is straight-from-camera stop motion. I liked it better unedited.This is the story of a butterfly who escapes from her ordinary life in the search for love. The love she finds is one that can never be. then I got sick of trying to make her wings flap so I gave up. enjoy.
-
Hiccups
My grandpa once grew a cabbage that was bigger than my dog. He also grew a carrot that was bigger than my grandmother. He won awards. Gramps grew everything huge. He ate healthy before it was cool and made his own pasta, tomato sauce, and wine from his own grapes. He boiled water to purify it before you could buy it bottled at the store. He died at 60 from a rare cancer of the stomach lining.
One day he got the hiccups and they didn’t stop. He saw the doctor a few days later and was diagnosed with a tumor the size of a golf ball. He died a month later. The tumor was nearly the size of a basket ball. Gramps grew everything huge. -
Hand Holding a Bird
There were tornadoes tonight. They touched down in Elyria and in Summit County, near Reminderville where my mother used to live. They spun out from the clouds above and took out farmhouses and old, proud trees below. They were loud and out-of-the-blue, arriving like a plane crash. I wonder if somewhere a little girl was naked, fresh from her bath, running down the basement stairs to fall into the arms of her big brother—long, wet hair sticking to her back. She is screaming, “We’re all going to die!” while her mother throws open the sliding glass doors of the great room; so the rain soaks her water colors; so the yellows bleed into the reds; so the ’Hand Holding a Bird’ she painted in college (her daughter’s favorite —the one she still dreams about) fades and runs and spreads across the canvass like fire.
-
Oatmeal for Breakfast
I stepped outside my door this morning to a winter wonderland; every branch on every tree shining white. The icicles— dripping, dancing, dripping. When I see this, I think of my mother driving me to school on a morning when I’d forgotten my lunch and missed the bus. She’d swear awhile and look mean. Then, she’d look around at the winter landscape, at the icicles, at my breath fogging the car window, at my finger tracing a heart on the glass – and the tension would melt away.
“It’s a fairy land!” She’d say.“Do you see them? They are in the air; they are all around us!”
And somehow, before me, the snow flakes would sprout wings and come to life.
Today, there are millions of them. They are schooling like cavefishes; like doves; like whip-poor-wills. They are at the edge of the cliff where the swallows dive deep into their caverns, into the warm earth.
-
How to Build an Igloo with a Girl
When we were kids, my brother and I built igloos. They were carefully sculpted into the high snow mounds that the plow left in our driveway. After a hard day’s work, we’d lie on our backs, side by side, on the floor of our igloo; so close I could smell the peanut butter on his breath. The heat from our bodies melted thin spots in the ice-ceiling so that the sunlight filtered through in colorful waves.
“My sock is off in my boot.”
“Mine too.”
“Jenny Rider said Dad slept with her mom.”
“Did you fart?”
Sometimes we would lie there until we heard the low rumble of the plow coming back.
“PLOW!! Get OUT! …Allie, GET UP!”
I would lie there while our igloo caved in around me; filled my ears with quiet snow; our ice-ceiling shattered like glass…or until my brother dragged me out by my boots screaming, “You stupid GIRL!”
