Baroque

It's not fair that I have to be the bad guy. Why are these simple things so twisted and convoluted? Why is our love so polluted by the days and the words and the world? I suppose nothing is ever as simple as I would like, but just this once, couldn't we put our scars away and be fine with one another?

Nosocomial

These jokes are like a disease, a contagion spreading laughter and wit. If only this cheer were what spread most often. (If only I wasn't thinking of you.)

Turbid

Her long legs were encased in rubber wading boots, and she stood in the middle of the marsh. Dark hair pulled back, khaki hat on her head, she grinned and waved her companions over. The samples here would be perfect.

She reached into her knapsack and retrieved a glass tube and rubber stopper. She scooped the sediment slowly, covered the tube, shook. The layers separated into dirt, sand, and muddy water. Debris floated at the top.

Slowly she waded back to shore, then she took off her hat and soaked up the sun. Satisfied with her day, she began to hum. She'd go back out for more later.

Cockalorum

I want to tell you about the ugly bird I saw strutting on stage tonight, and a hero who spoke with the words of a mortal, and the planet that fell down upon my shoulders. I want to tell you everything, and I want you to listen, and I want you to care. I want to know that I am safe with you, not just physically. I want to be free from fear of retribution from you. I want a lot of things, and I'm sorry for that. I wish I knew how not to want.

Fraught

Your lies are fraught with bitterness, and I can smell it on you like the foulest odor. It pains me that people smile when you drop your punchline, because they do not realize what it has cost the flesh-and-blood people on whom you base your two-dimensional life. Maybe someday you'll know Truth while he hits you in the face. Your cheeks are already red, but he is invisible to you.

Inchoate

She was only half of herself this way. Without sleep, without hope, without him. Perhaps even less than half. Only partly formed, only somewhat in existence. Imperfect, like her thoughts and her words and her movements. Clumsy, scattered, strained. She feared a breaking point. She had to survive.

Baconian

For twenty years, I did everything for that man. I ironed his shirts, I cooked his dinners, I relieved his stresses at the end of each day. Sometimes I even did his work for him, if we thought I could get away with it. I read his assignments, wrote his papers, made his corrections. Then, when the publication came out, his name was in print. I told myself it didn't matter, because he appreciated me, and that was credit enough.

For twenty years, I deluded myself into thinking I was loved.

Interpolate

A vase of flowers on the table. She walked in and saw them. Pink roses, her favorite. She liked their delicacy, their softness, their aroma. They were surrounded by a wreath of baby breath, like a halo. She wondered how long it had taken him to arrange.

However long -- fifteen minutes, an hour, six days -- nothing would have been enough. He could not sufficiently make up for his betrayal. Not with flowers, or chocolate, or groveling, or anything. The only thing he could do to make her feel better was to have never done what he did, and that, certainly, was impossible. As impossible as her forgiveness now. He had destroyed her love, her faith, and worst of all, her self-confidence.

She went to the kitchen. She brought back a knife. She hacked off every rose blossom. Then she stuck the knife in the middle of what had been a beautiful bouquet, and she walked out of the house again. She would find someplace else to sleep that night.

Animadversion

There's a whiteboard in the classroom. It is blank, and shines in the florescent light. It waits.

The boy picks up a blue marker. He writes his name. Then he writes the name of every other person he can think of. Then he writes down what they've done wrong. Mother - adultery. Father - blackmail. And so on. Next to his name, he writes a question mark. He knows it's only a matter of time.

We all do something wrong.

Fey

If I had foreseen this, would I have changed anything? Would I have protected myself from you? From your indifference, your hypocrisy?

Or was this worth it? Were you -- the brief flicker of you in my life, the little spark that I thought was a steady flame, a bright and beautiful flame that drew me like a moth -- were you worth it?

Only time will tell. (But I don't really believe in regrets.)

Ombudsman

Maybe I am not the one who should be telling what's right and wrong. Maybe this is for a bigger person, a better man. Maybe this is why you're all walking away. You are turning your backs on me, and it hurts. So I tell you what I think is wrong with your thoughts and your words, because I can't tell you how I really feel about your actions. Because I don't think that you'd investigate my claims, were I ever to voice them. I don't think you care that much, so I'm trying to stop as well.

Allege

I can say whatever I want, but that doesn't make it true. They can say whatever they want, but I would hope you know me better than they do.

Peculation

Theft. Plain and simple, you are stealing the life from me. Everything I used to be, I gave to you. I thought you needed it more. But I can see how you've squandered it, and now we are both left at a loss. This isn't fair, and I won't stand for it anymore.

Cognate

It doesn't compute. The word hate does not translate to this. It cannot. Nothing can. Nothing can explain this, nothing can make it better, nothing can make it okay. This is not mere hate. This is not real life. This must be a dream. A nightmare.

Note: I wrote this sometime during the summer of 2005 (I think) and just recently found it on a file on my computer.


We went to the shipyard where we keep our sailboat, and the light was reflecting off the water, and a man was fishing on a bridge, and the air was cool and wet with the rain that had just passed. I wondered if you'd ever been sailing before, and how you felt about being out on the water. For me, there's this immense tranquility, like peace itself is a blanket that falls over you, wraps you up, insulates you from the world, but without disconnecting you. You watch all the houses as you go by -- and I thought about how lovely it would be to have a house on the water -- and you watch the gulls fly overhead. You feel the breeze against your skin and you listen to the sound of the waves chopping against the side of the boat. You sit at the front of the boat and you don't worry about where you're going or how you're getting there; the wind and the sails will take care of everything. All you have to do is enjoy.

Tetralogy

What if I told you this wasn't the end? What if I said there was more to go, no matter where you go? Would you believe me this time, or would you push me away again? They say the third time's the charm; what's the fourth?

Encroach

The phone rings, and she resents it for encroaching upon her private time. There is a process here that cannot be interrupted. She works to remember her last thought, struggles to tune out the voice on the answering machine, the cars on the street, the rejection letter she'd just tossed in the trash can. People think it's so easy, people look down on what she does. She sighs and wishes they were right.

Circumvent

"Was there anyway this could have been prevented?"
"No."
"But I thought we were in love."
"I think we were."
"And now?"
"No."
"Oh. Well then."
"Yeah."
"So... what comes next?"
"For you or me?"
"Either. Both. For us."
"There is no us. That's the point."
"Ah. You then."
"I don't know. Something different, maybe."
"You mean someone different, don't you?"
"Maybe."
"Me too."
"That's okay."
"Is it?"
"For me, sure."
"Oh."
"Not for you?"
"Not really."
"I'm sorry."
"Me too."

Lavation

I noticed gross water sitting in the bowl and the mug. "Did you pour this in here?" I asked.

"Yes," she said like it was the most natural, sensible thing in the world. "So I can wash them."

I'd told her not to.

So I just rolled my eyes and ignored it.

Sometimes I forget how much like her I am.

Doughty

I used to close my eyes and imagine dragons. That was the goal: get the valiant prince to the cave to slay the evil dragon and save the beautiful princess. Does that tell you something about me? That fairytales used to get me off? It should.

Polyonymous

She's so afraid of not being loved. She carries names with her in a bag, all the people in her life. Each time one walks away, she takes out their name, kisses it, and blows it to the wind. She lets them fly, even though each time makes her die a little inside.

Beau geste

He considered it his duty never to breathe a word of that summer to anyone. He knew Ann certainly didn't want him to, and for the past five years, all he'd wanted was to make her happy. She'd let him do it, just for those few blistering hot months they'd spent together in France, the only two Americans in that small wine country town. He'd been the cause of her laughter, of her shining eyes. He'd gotten to run his hands through her silky blonde hair. He'd kissed that sweet spot on the back of her neck.

Now that they were back in school, she'd returned to her friends, and he to his. Neither group suspected, and neither ever would. Not from anything he said or did, anyway. If he stared moony-eyed at her across the classroom, or slowed his pace as they passed her locker, well that was normal. In fact, they would have been more suspicious if he hadn't.

So he was able to keep quietly dreaming, hoping, fantasizing about the day when Ann would come back to him.

Doxology

The library was closed, so she walked to the church. She wasn't a religious girl, but she liked to think she was good nonetheless. In Rome, her classmates had purchased alcohol, gotten sick, made mistakes with one another. She'd sat in the hallway of the hotel writing in her journal.

She had never been to this church before. She remembered the ancient ones in Rome, with their incredible vaulted ceilings and their stone archways and their old, musty smell. She'd been filled with awe, despite her disbelief. She had even been tempted to pray, but didn't, because it wasn't right. She didn't belong.

That was when she'd first begun to think of a church as a place of sanctuary, a home that was always open to the homeless or heavy-hearted. To those who held God in their spirits. She wasn't one of those, but maybe today the building could hold her in its arms, shield her from the sun and the dangers of the street, at least until the library opened. She knocked on the door.

There was no answer. This church was closed on a Sunday. She shook her head and headed back home in defeat. She wondered how people could have such unfaltering faith.

Rodomont

He has a nice car and a great haircut and hundred-dollar shoes. But when he goes home at night, and he takes off those shades and those jewels, he walks through an empty house to an empty fridge and falls asleep on his couch to avoid his empty bed.

Don't you see that there's nothing to brag about when success isn't shared with someone you love?

I wish I could tell you, without pretense, without faltering, everything in my head. My heart, I like to think, is crystal clear and already known to you. But sometimes I white-lie or pretend or obscure. It's all because I'm afraid. Afraid that things won't work out the way that I want. I wish some things didn't matter so much to me.

Vernal

She put her coat on the hanger and smiled, thinking it was the last day she'd have to wear it for months. Out her window, the sun was singing, the birds were blooming, the flowers were shining. She let her hair down. She went for a stroll even though she had nowhere to go and nowhere to be.

Two days later, she grudgingly reached in the back of the closet for her coat. She couldn't even see out her window, there was so much snow blown against it. She sighed. Spring had only come for a visit; it wasn't here to stay, yet.


(Note: 'ad hoc' was "written" by Andy.)

Ad hoc

gfbg\

Maquette

Every little vacation, every weekend that I leave here and go there, every minute in that place -- it's like a model of the life that I could have. The life that I want.

In miniature scale, it seems so wonderful. But missing are the realities of money and a job, of disappointment and inconvenient surprises. Sometimes frustration peeks in to remind me that nothing can be perfect, but I don't worry so much about that. That's something I can get over, as I have many times before.

When I'm there, I feel like the child who has discovered a trunk of old clothes in the attic. I am playing dress-up. Soon the grown-ups will come home and end my game. Soon the happy illusion, the fantasy world I create, will vanish.

I'm not afraid of reality, but... But I don't know what.

Deference

She bowed her head. And though he could not see, she smiled. He thought she was submitting. But this was not deference.

She was a queen, and she would be damned before she would stand by and let this traitorous politician destroy all the things that she loved. She would rather see him die first, would rather kill him with her own two hands.

And when the sword gleamed, reflecting a pure light that caught her attention out of the corner of her eye, she realized that that was exactly what she would do.

He never saw it coming. He did not know the blade until it was embedded in his stomach, until his hands wrapped around its hilt, too late to save him, too weak to pull it out. He gasped and stared at her wide-eyed. He fell to his knees.

This time when she smiled, he saw. In fact, it was the last thing he ever saw. Her beauty, and her vengeance.

Sashay

She is a dancer. She chassés across the room, corner to corner, wall to mirror. She balances against the barre. She points one toe to the floor, the other skyward. She pulls herself apart, and that's what holds her together.

She is a flirt. She sashays across the floor, hips moving side to side, heels clicking. She sits down at the bar. She points to her drink of choice, winks at a man on the other end. She falls apart silently, but she holds firmly to the bottle.

Numinous

There is something spiritual about being filled. Some would call my words blasphemous, but I think they cannot understand, refuse to believe that their god might condone my emotions, my actions. Perhaps he created us to fulfill ourselves in a way that he cannot. I think he must understand. Or else, why make two kinds? Why put this drive, this need in us, to find union? Why create puzzle pieces if not for them to fit together? And that's what it feels like: completion. A glorious, sometimes painful, but truly wonderful completion.

It's instinct. It's natural. It's beautiful.