Pin drop

I want to go back to a time
when I could skip forward in line
hop up on that platform
tell the operator I may be short
but in the end who cares, I'm fine

I'm holding on tight as it climbs
quads clenched
chest tight
my breath I just can't seem to find

the pin drops
I stick my arms out
let go of it all
skip forward in time
yeah, now I'm flyin

Evaporatively condense

Evaporatively condense;
an oxymoron
who lives on the highway side
along my property line
bordered by intricate trees
swirled into the fabric of an
expansive aluminum fence

Blow Dart Meat Slap

“Honey, I just woke from the darkest dream.”

“I believe it. You were snorting.”

“No.”

“Yes. Tell me.”

“We were on our honeymoon-”

“That's your subconscious telling you how much of a catch I am,” she interjected with a smile.

“You'll probably want to wait and hear what else it thinks about you. Also, it was like you had that ready to fire at me at any moment.”

“Maybe. Did you know you mumble in your sleep sometimes? I find it enduring when you mumble. It's like the words in your head are held captive during the day and are forced to strategize an escape plan while the guard is asleep. You know, because you're such a quiet person when awake. It doesn't bother me you're so quiet. It's just what I know about you.”

“Okay. So, honeymoon on beach chairs and lounging under umbrellas on an exotic beach somewhere tropical. It was cliché. I was shielding my eyes from the reflection of the sun on the bleach-white sand. I complained about it to you and asked if Clorox sponsored this stretch of beach. You looked up from your book and then went back to reading.”

“Sounds like something you'd say.”

“So next thing I know we are walking out towards the shoreline. An unspoken connection rings in my head to the beach scene I imagined while reading the first chapter of Jurassic Park. The scene that didn't make it to the movie. Anyways, the water is still and I watch a few sandpipers dig with their beaks. I get really abstract in my thoughts and see the world from underneath the sand looking upwards as their tiny beaks penetrate into this now inverted world. I think it was my subconscious telling me that you are fertile.”

“Nope,” she says firmly.

“I snap out of the bird thought with the beach having transformed and resembling that beach we went to out on the coast in Oregon. I can't see more than 20 feet out on the ocean through the darkness of low clouds. The wind is soft and moist. To our backs, clouds are rolling in across a barren landscape and we spatially lose track of where the chairs are. It's hard to determine if the sun is out or not. I can hardly make out a figure walking towards us in the mist but I can see that his clothes look like a bad Hollywood film on aboriginals. Tattered wash rags and crap. He gets closer and the clouds instantly disappear as he opens a velcro pouch from his board shorts and takes out a syringe of heroin. The bright sunshine is back.”

“Wait. How'd you know it was heroin?”

“It said heroin down the side like he had taken one of those label guns to it. So he asks if we want to buy any. I tell him no and he walks off.”

“Cool story.”

“So the guy comes back after some time. I'll try and hurry this up if you have somewhere better to be.”

“Sorry. Voldemort is trying to kill Harry and I'm way too into this book,” she explains.

“This aboriginal dude is back with another syringe of heroin and this time he doesn't take my answer of no very well. He produces a blow dart tube thing from behind him like he was anticipating me saying no. He loads the gun with a dart of heroin and brings it up to his mouth. He takes aim at you and I'm frozen. I feel his breath as he takes in air. I contemplate the amount of pain I would suffer if somehow I ended up blocking his dart with my hand. I'm watching his eyes on you as he follows your movements like a hunter following his target; factoring in all courses you might take in escape. His cheeks puff and the sound of the dart impacting your bicep is disturbing. It sounded like when I prep the chicken for grilling. Meat slap. I freak out as I see the plunger push all the heroin into your body. In an instant you collapse and I'm stuck with the dilemma. Do I chase and beat the life out of this crazed local or do I watch as you overdose? Like what the hell could I possibly do? I can't suck it out.”

“What did you do,” she asks.

“No idea. I woke up.”

Explosions in the night

It happened again last night. Around 2am I woke and walked into the bathroom and the creepy tangles of my subconscious tickled the arches of my feet. I'm about to admit something to the Internet in the hopes that I am not entirely alone in this.

So here goes. In my sleepy mind I fear that an earth-ending explosion is imminent. I brace for it in a collected manner similar to someone extremely high on mushrooms forcing themselves to believe that the hallucinations are just that, hallucinations. Flushing the toilet triggers this feeling of impending chaos and it makes zero rational sense to my awake brain when I remember it later, but it happens nonetheless.

Imagine how you would feel in a haunted house as you approach a closed door. Come on! You know the scream is gathering force in your throat as you go to turn the knob. Now inject that spike of adrenaline into your veins and try to go back to sleep. The craziest part about all of this is that I am perfectly fine walking through my house in pitch black at any other point. Wake me up and ask me to go pee in the middle of the night though and I just might become hyper alert to the nothingness outside and think a nuclear bomb is set to go off in the col da sac. 

I've also had a slightly different version happen to me where I fear the collapse of everything around me. Stuff like the walls beginning to hum and out of the darkness comes an ear-piercing wail of a spirit from some realm unknown to mankind. I'm weird I know. I blame it on being told to be creative. Letting go and thinking about the irrational is fun sometimes though. 

Jesus figure in the sand

While climbing along on some wind-swept refuse on my lunch break, I had an odd encounter that might be worth sharing. I make it a habit to walk the ten minutes down to a small beach front on days when the sun is out. Strong winds from the night before lined the shoreline in smooth timber and junk. A rough looking man was digging about, separating and unwinding the sun-baked and awful smelling clumps of sea grass.

Distance has always been difficult for me to judge and this vantage point, nestled comfortably underneath the tendrils of a tree hardened by the salinity of the salt, I sit and look out on the islands. Western Washington University's campus slumbers peacefully to the east like a Goliath tucked and comfortable on the hill with its brick toes jutting out from low-hanging fog. To the west I often lose myself in the scale of color gradient that is Lummi Island, but now we are getting off topic.

So this man, he comes to me. His beard is a mixture of white and gray hair that is maintained at a short length. A center ring of of dark coffee-colored whiskers perfectly matching the outline of his lips provides juxtaposition. He is kempt but also holding a majority of his life in a trash bag.

Anyways, he is excited at his find of a Jesus figure in the mess. Look look what I found man! Looks like someone carved this from a solid piece of wood. I say to him that I find it odd that the arms are missing. He laughs and asks if the owner would mind if he kept it. I tell him probably not. This man, being the talkative type, begins to tell me about the bowling ball he once found on this very same stretch of beach. A bowling ball I asking him incredulously. He says yeah man. People on the islands are known for shooting bowling balls from cannons out into the bay. I am laughing now but not at him. I like what he has to say and how excited he is about it. He quickly ends his sentence about the islanders blasting these balls and hurries in the next sentence about how this bowling ball was probably from some rich fucker who missed a strike on his yacht out in the bay and threw the ball overboard in rage. He tells me this like he had been waiting to share this story with someone for years. It flows off his tongue like he had been rehearsing it. He hit me with the setup and then spiked the ball over the net all without me knowing what happened. Thinking back on it, no wonder he was so excited—he finally got to tell someone that little thing that made him laugh when he first thought of it.