A Noise So Loud

No way to drown out the vulnerability. But hiding is possible. Anger is only the top of too boiled soup. Bubbling. Beneath is, always, fear. And generalized depictions. Estranged, momentarily, by strong diagonal lines. Invading gaze through imperceptible glass. No way in, but to look.

I like to be reminded that I’m listening to or reading or watching a story. The breaks keep from getting too caught up. Distraction is fine. Too much make-believe makes reality too bright. Or too dim. Either way, something that can’t be lived up to.

Above, and slightly removed. Or perpendicular to those on screen.

Questions to Ask of Characters Before Bothering to Write Anything

What is the regular intrusive thought the character has as they are about to fall asleep? How do they feel as they wake up? What would they have for breakfast, if they could have anything?

Do they shower, start fresh, or linger in the previous day?

With nothing but free time, what do they do? Why do they feel trapped? How long does it take them to shake the urge to jump when looking down from a high place?

What do they do when the sun goes down and they are forced back inside?

Have they enjoyed themselves? A little?

Ran From, and Why

Fuck this music swell telling me how to feel. There was a question mark at the end of that sentence. And I have to wonder if I put it there on purpose? Move on to some podcast. The speaker said inpalpable, and I’d never use that word, but wish I could just drop it in everyday conversation. Holy fuck, wouldn’t that be impressive?

Have you dealt with how you felt today?
Have you named it? Or made it a metaphor?
Is it a folded crane or a crumpled ball?

There should be a sharp line drawn across somewhere up there.

Warm Side of the Pillow

You can hit the snooze button again, but it’ll start ringing again in nine minutes. Sleep in segments, with that damn ring-ring-ringing infiltrating your dreams. You sleepwalk and turned off ten alarms. The stove beeped, saying it had reached temperature.

But you rolled over, pleading with it to stop. A few more minutes is all you ask.

What sleep you had is fitful, and the only meaningful bit was between beeps. The walls seem closer than yesterday, and you know they’ll be even closer tomorrow.

A day is a day is a day, and they all roll into one, eventually.

157 Millilitres

Self-assurance makes people complacent. We need doubt to keep moving forward. If others respond to us in a way that confirms our self-image, then the world is as it should be. Isn’t it?

We can’t see ourselves, so we look to others’ reactions to understand how we feel, to know who we might be. We make them our mirrors. But mirrors don’t reflect the truest of truths. That isn’t what most of us are after, anyway. We want comforting half-truths, and balms to sooth the rough parts of our souls.

We want to be the two thirds best we can.

Used for Milk, Meat, Fur and Skins

Men dressed in overcoats and three-piece suits. Hair pomaded back, slick as a duck’s belly. Threatening concrete shoes out of the sides of their mouths.

Done crossed us too many times a voice in the darkness cries out. Another, closer, yours, maybe, says it isn’t like that. Never was like that. A big misunderstanding, and if they’d just stopped hitting you, you could explain the whole situation, and they’d see what a mistake they’d made. If they could do that, there’s be no hard feelings. Everyone could just right the apple cart, and go on their merry way.

Couldn’t they?

Mustangs

Matron’s apron strings like reins on wild horses. You weren’t local unless your family had been here for five generations, and even some of those who had been, weren’t. They never would be. House too small. Grass too tall. Worked too long, or not nearly enough. Whinny and bray. Gallop and pace. Wipe the flour from your hands. The dough will rise, but not if the rent keeps going up.

Out back, between tall fences, they gathered, hunched, and ran. Wore circles in the fields, trampled grasses. Kicked up the dust that fell in a wide circle. Like a halo.

The Sky’s The Limit

A fifty year old yogurt container washed ashore the other day, making headlines around the world. Most people spent that morning outraged, and then that outrage moved to the artifice of the social contract.

The world was painted in stark shadows and vibrant reds, but it was really mostly beige.

“Did you know they used cannon sound effects for the pistols in cowboy movies,” a coworker asked, right when you were in the middle of getting something done. Deadlines loomed. “That’s why they are so booming. I watched a video about it last night. I can send you a link.”

30 Gallons to the Mile

They wore dingy white t-shirts and designer jeans. Played craps in the condo’s lobby. The third party security guard tried to chase them off, but gave up, and knelt down to roll after a few days.

The penthouses dowagers took their private elevators down to the garage, when their drivers waited in running cars.

The lobby hoodlums, would sneak down the stairs, hide behind pillars. Jump out at the car, cackling. Or, if the doors were unlocked, shove themselves in, start pouring champagne into flutes and saying things like “well, I never,” or clucking their tongues at the neighbourhood riffraff.

Sleeve

Sing out in the shower, get caught up in the chorus, but forget to wash your hair, and only realize later, too late, in fact, as you pull on your pants and socks and shirt. Hands, still wet, pushing through the knots in the sleeve, created when you pulled it off while still lying in bed. Listen to the song again. The needle skips on the dust and bumps back and then it starts all over, all over again, and you stare at it as it happens a fifth time and wonder, thinking to yourself, shit, this is something here.

Prompt courtesy of the Daily Post.

Conjunctions

I told you it wasn’t important. But I lied. To you or myself. I can’t remember which. And if I can’t, then it can’t have been important. I think that’s how that works anyway. Or maybe some other burden ballooned, taking up all the available space in the Worry section. There’s only Worry and Shame. And sometimes Need. The borders are porous. One spills into the other. I remember now. It was important.

But only to me.

And only at that moment.

If you wanted to, you could, you know. Anything, I mean, If you don’t want this, that’s fine.

Harmony

I don’t believe in anything, but admire people who do, and create beautiful things because of it. She said it’d been twenty years, in a way you knew it was almost too late for any apology to mean anything. I’m selfish, I realize. But everyone else has known for years. Does it help that I realize it now, I want to say, but shame and guilt kill the words. Eight voices sing in unison. A handful of others, off melody, pitch, rhythm, try earnestly to keep up, or time along.

Crows big as eagles sit on the electric lines. Quiet.

Reverberatory Sound Heard at Some Distance

Every day, I told myself, tomorrow.

Tomorrow when you get home, you need to dust. It’s thick as a sheet. When I’d get home, something else would come up and I’d put it off. Too tired. Long day. Phone’s ringing. Too late now. I woke up early,  a woodpecker drumming on a hydro pole outside. But they’re not nocturnal, apparently, and it’s almost December, so the sun won’t rise for hours. I must have imagined it. The sound did stop when I went into the kitchen, but it might be that I’m just too far to hear it now.

Right?

Early To Bed, and Earlier To Rise

Cynicism crowed along with the rooster. Brows furrowed deep enough to plant kidney beans, canyoned down from his widow’s peak. Heavy socks, clothes pulled on and boots, sleeves rolled and arms slipped into sweater. Kettle set on the oven, its whine only slightly louder than the one he let escape.

Fed the dog, fed the cat, fed himself, looking for something to fill the growing emptiness gnawing inside, and stepped out. Feet crunching frosted leaves, slipping on iced curbs.

Bus groaning to a stop, as though saying, “you think you got it bad, well brother let me tell you something.”

They’re Calling For Precipitation

Linger or roam, it all means the same, in the end, but only there. Those nights spent wandering from room to room, listless, itching, listening, urged for more, or maybe for less. Your childhood screams from inside for adventure, daring deeds, while the adult accepts things as they are, browbeaten and worried about trivialities like food and safety. Might as well wear a life-preserver about your neck, in case it rains. Socked foot sweeps, or slips, on the dust corralled to corners of every room.

Don’t think about it too much, the silence sings, you’ll only end up getting upset.