#9 (488 words)

March 15, 2000
One sky
One sky like one word
Gives
I want your eyes

How I long to share your tongue
Sweet, sweet

Guide me Guardian Jack
Live inside of me

-K.B.

 

just breathe. slow, easy. your nose, not your mouth. slow, slow. in… out…

in…

out…

One eye is swollen shut. The other stares out. She can’t discern anything with one working eye. Each breath brings pain and she can feel the nakedness of her body. Something thick and sick is stuffed into her mouth. Her hand tries to go to this object (the object is foreign) and finds itself bound with the other behind her. Tears begin to slide out of her good eye and collect in a pool on the bridge of her nose. She strains that eye to see more but it is dark. Dark all around.

She thrashes, growls then drifts.

My thumb is up. I’ve been walking for miles and now it’s raining. My thumb is up. I just need a ride into the next town. I‘ll get a room. Clean up, write, sleep.

There is a shape darker than everything else, a monster. It speaks like a man. “You awake? I‘ve been waitin for ya.”

She shuts her eye. “Uh-uh-uh-” the shape says. “Too late, sugar.” Her bladder drains warm and stinging over her thighs. The shape grows, and she can make out a moustache, thin like scribbles over a hole. She is overwhelmed by the odor of sweetrot. She knows what’s coming in her pussy. It’s burning there. Her eye tightens. It burns.

Oh thank, God. He looks okay. Hicky but harmless.

“Where you headin?”

“To Creekville. Thank you so much.”

“Dint anybody ever tell ya hitchhiking is dangerous, sugar.”

“Well, I’m doing this whole ‘On The Road’ type of thing.” He’s probably never even heard of Kerouac. “You know- traveling, wandering, and writing down poems and stories about my experiences.”

“Sounds kinda like a waste.”

Pssh. “Well, maybe to some. Not me. I’ve met lots of interesting people.”

“Reckon I’ll be the most interesting.”

And I know…

She feels the heat near her skin- the back of her thigh. She grunts, grunts, struggles. The monster bites down. The monster pushes the heat into her flesh. She screams into the gag, her body goes rigid.

“Ima letcha go. You gonna get a good little pome outta this, sugar. But if ya don’t quit yer hollerin I’ll break all those fingers uh yours.”

Air. Air. Dampness. The stench of burnt flesh, urine, shit. Skin pulling taut around burns. Shivering. Jumping. Looking all around.

Something always behind. 

 

Someone help me.

 

April 27 2000
Because I loved your words and followed
Abraham is dead
So is his god
And so are you
Instead the devil lives
He drives a dusty red pickup
Smokes women like “sugar”
And now I’m dead too
-K. B.

 

#8 (496 words)

Marie remembers when she first saw her. Her hair, dark gray marbled with veins of white. Marie wanted to feel it in her hand, its frizz tangled in her fingers. She imagined it smelled of alfalfa- fresh, mineral, healthy. And Marie loved it best when she wore it loose, a symbol of freedom, abandon, openness. So many women her age had that butcher job- short, practical, died some unnatural reddish color- but easy to manage.

“What?” Polly’s hand goes to her hair, tries to smooth it down, tuck it behind her ears.

“Don’t.” Marie says, taking the other woman‘s hand into her own. Marie is not afraid of this. She has thought about it since the first time she saw her. Marie has thought about it her entire life- through her marriage to Tiny who was a good man. While raising Moses and Shiloh. Tiny’s dead and the children are grown and busy. It’s sad that she had to be gray before loving and being loved the way she was meant to.

Marie can walk on her own. Her dark skin is still quite supple at age sixty-seven- as is her shape. Polly’s teeth are her own, big clean incisors, minute serrations, beautiful. They had to be gray, but happy to be able to, if only for a while, if only with this brief touch, with this other woman, be the most real she‘s ever been in her life.

She stares at that head of hair. Polly feels those dark eyes combing through it slowly, her face weathered not by hard things but fullness, and smiles completely. “Let’s walk.”

They hold hands strolling the garden and talk about the orange sunsets of their youths, their mothers, men, their children. At night, in Polly’s apartment, they sip coffee and laugh and argue because they are strong. Later, they kiss each other. This is their first time. Their first time that is meant and honest. Of them. They touch skin and look at each other and Marie rubs Polly‘s hair across her breasts.

When Delia notices them walking the dewy garden one morning, notices Marie’s fingers twirling and twisting a lock of Polly’s hideous scraggly hair, dislikes the tilt of their heads toward each other, she complains to the Resident Manager, Frank. “It’s not natural, Frank. It’s disgusting. They‘re swooning like dykes.”

Frank understands Delia’s discomfort and his own, but corrects Delia saying, “The correct term is lesbian, Miss Delia. Please don’t use other terms,” and invites the women to his office for a chat. He explains that he’s been getting complaints about them. “I know you two are close friends but the affection is a little disturbing. People are getting the wrong idea.”

They know it’s strange to others. Polly’s son disowned her when she came out and Marie has never told her children. “Once my daughter told me that as far as she was concerned, I had no vagina.”

She and Polly had howled at that.

dust  (Copyright 2008 beezies)
04.28.07

 

 

#7 (335words)

I find her again, lying in bed.
Johnnie- one hand numb beneath her pillow, the fingers of the other rest against her mouth. I see the smooth shine of her shoulder, the aching bend of her hip, the crush of thighs against her belly.
The stare of her eyes infinite.

I note the bedclothes amassed about her ankles, hiding her feet.
It is meaningful.
She is captivated by anguish.

you ain’t goin nowhere

The room is dusty- the bookshelf and the books in it; layered on the lampshade and swirling in the air with that thick sweet odor coming off her body, remnants of her thoughts.
All dust and sick.
And it is dim.
I’ve drawn the curtains thinking sun may move her, reanimate her eyes, bring her back to me, but no- she remained inert.
She hasn’t moved for days and she is beginning to soften.
I finally had to close the curtains again.
Her faded skin and empty eyes become more horrific in the bright light.
The present dimness makes her languishing glamorous, even lovely and romantic.

I wonder what she sees now- if she sees me standing over her.
Does she know what I’m thinking?
I am tempted by the dark eyes, mutilation of her mouth with my thick ropy fingers, her body silent and bent like a fetus to go to her.
Embrace her or berate her, to uncurl her person.

It’s not so much that I’d like to fix her but more that I want to join her, spoon her, bend my thighs up behind hers and press my own aching stomach against her back, press my face into her hair and sleep.
I think I could do that and wake up in another time to everything fixed and in its place- even if a little dusty.
My own hair long but my body unaged, my mind wizened by years of dreams.

I do this. I do this and more.
Johnnie’s so tight, so cool.
I love her to death.

 

die my anguish  (Copyright 2008 beezies)
04.15.08

Word count: 335

#6 (500 words)

He grasped her right hand, caressed her knuckles with his thumb. The hand was tight-skinned, white-skinned, unadorned. Her defined joints were all she needed for decoration. He thought her fragile as her regarded the strange convergence of blue green veins at the nape of her hand. This excited him. A thin, white gold chain draped her wrist, shining over the bone. He thought- gaunt, haunt, taunt. He liked thin women.

His eyes traveled up her arm to her shoulder, to her clavicle. He imagined tracing that piece of her structure with an index finger, then his lips, then his tongue. He imagined mashing her into a primitive meal made up of marrow and blood.

He had asked her, on their first date, how she kept so fit.

I’ve always been thin. I have a fast metabolism but I still work out every day. Also, I am a vegan.

She wasn’t sickly looking. She didn’t look anorexic. And he did not find that type of bony woman attractive. He merely sought the hint of bones- prominent cheek bones, the feel of a hip bone below the inclining slope of abdomen, knobby knees…

She glowed from within. She possessed the slightest curves, but did not appear soft. Instead she was lean, her body efficient, and that is what he desired in women- efficiency. Efficiency and control. Coolness. He was drawn to the idea of bones; this brought him closer to her inner self, even if it was mere physiology, structure, rather than heart or spirit. Still it was below the surface and for this he felt like a deep man, a man seeking more in a woman than his peers.

Something about thin women brought to mind death. And he wanted to fuck death, tonight maybe in the ass. She seemed open. The only thing about her that bothered him was her smile. It ruined the stoic, reserved physicality of her face, which was diamond shaped, pale and round-eyed. Her smile was a bit on the horsy side, on the verge of silly. Death doesn’t smile, despite society’s caricature of the specter in black carrying a sickle. Death does not revel in itself. It is a calm state, it is tasteful. It just is. It just does. And he wanted to push himself inside, be calm.

His mother came to mind at this thought. She is dead. Alive, she was the most efficient woman he has ever encountered. Her hugs, too rare and almost too sharp, are what he searched for in each thin armed lover. She never wasted a word or kindness. When he was younger, he tried to overlook softness in women whose personalities were great, whose faces were almost lovely, except for a fullness of cheek or plump lips. But they were too warm and overwhelming.

Are you ready, he asked.

Yes, she said. Her blue-lidded eyes stirred his impatience. He took her home and mashed her pelvis.

Respectfully, dryly, he kissed her bones.

skinnies (Copyright 2008 beezies)
03.27.08

#5 (125 words)

She bends to him, to his words that press themselves into her ears- the folds of which quiver at their soft heat.   They are nice words.   They do his dirty work.  

She and he, they walk in the mist.  It is night.  The dim orange light of the street lamps make her look ugly.  Their hands are clasped.  A bubble of heat is trapped between their palms.  That space separating them, between their palms, steals her thoughts, melts them, thick wet glowing.   

And this is all she needs, the slim hot spaces betwixt, the almost, the sip, the whetting.

They walk and fall silent.  They part at the corner with no other affection than releasing their hands, heat from between them lost in the cold.

 taste (Copyright 2008 beezies)
02.29.08

#4- Guest Post by *Johnny Peepers (438 words)

*Please visit www.http://dillsnapcogitation.wordpress.com.

 

Reflections on Reg

I first met Reg in elementary school. He was buck-toothed, had a sandy mop of hair, and seemed to own only one pair of blue jeans. I would later find out why they were never traded in for shorts, even in the sweltering months of late spring.

Reg fought against the world’s binding judgment, and emerged the desperate product of his father’s violent behavioral lessons with only his tear stained pillow to comfort him. He might have made it, had it not been for the latent demon creeping into his mind. Mental illness eventually emerged to snuff out his aspirations like a candle in an air-tight Tupperware container. I wanted to save him, but there is little one can do when you know a man is marked for destruction and personal failure.

Banished to the basement floor of a house, Reg was imprisoned by fear and delusion. Duck patterned wallpaper covered his room. Reg loved ducks and his parents used the wallpaper as a pacifying theme to calm Reg and remind him of a happier time and childish giggles. For Reg, the memories of childhood were ushered forth not with glee, but horror and constant fright.

The man with the strap, or switch, or clenched fist was never more than yards away. The piercing eyes and virtual omniscience could not be escaped. “I know what you been up to boy” was the verbal elixir used to usher the truth forth from Reg. He could not lie to his father, even when it meant being denied his freedom. His father would trail him in his vehicle, staying just enough back to remain unseen, but Reg always knew he was there.

Reg lived a lifetime in a matter of several years. Beset with losses of love, sanity, and a father’s pride, Reg struggled to unfetter the burdens that hurled themselves upon him.

I am sure Reg is lying strapped to a gurney, in a puke-green tiled room, swimming in a Thorazine haze and drooling on his pink Polo shirt. A man like Reg could have only existed for a snippet of time. Like Johnny from the BadCo song “Shootin’ Star”, Reg’s star was too bright and could not sustain itself indefinitely.

Reginald P. Harris emerged beaten and weathered, shown no mercy time-outs or first-downs in life’s wicked game. He became a shell of a man, defeated by tricks of the mind and cast aside like a small-time informant after the bust goes down. Reg is a man whose destiny will not be denied; nor will the memories of his achievements be lost in the never-ending ebbs and flows of time.

reflections on reg
by Johnnypeepers
(Copyright 200
02.28.08

#3 (492 words)

Daddy said he’d be right back. He went over to a little house with sheets for curtains and walked in without knocking.

She rolled her window down, leaned out. She looked up at the sky. It wasn’t hot or cold. Not smoggy. A few thin stretches of cloud slid toward the mountains. It was breezy. She grew dizzy with the feeling of it slipping over her face, in her ears, of floating up toward the sky. Two crows glided above electrical wires. She wished she were a bird.

She sat up and looked over at the door of the house. It was still closed. What was Daddy doing in there? She looked in the side mirror. She licked her lips and made them shiny with her spit. She smiled. She winked. She looked up her nose, each nostril a different kind of round. Moving a little to the left, she could see a faded red truck parked behind them down the street, other yards, a boy on roller skates. He was skating toward her. He grew bigger and bigger in the mirror, then he was there. He skated circles in front of her on the sidewalk.

“You wanna play?” he asked. He didn’t look at her. He watched his skates and kept up his circles.

“I have to wait for my dad,” she said. The boy skated away. She was sad, a soft glob in the back of her throat. She checked the house again. Nothing. She bit her fingernails, stared at the cracked dashboard. What if Daddy forgot about her? Should she go knock? The thought made her stomach flutter. Maybe honk the horn? Daddy might get mad.

She had to pee.

She wanted Mama now, to hug her tight. Then, she heard Daddy’s voice. He was walking to the car. A laughing woman followed him. The woman was tall with shiny legs. Her teeth were big, white, frightening. Big Tooths leaned into the window. Plump pieces of the her boobs curved out of her shirt.

“Hey,” Big Tooths said. “Thanks for bein a good girl.” She tried to hand her a candy bar.

She didn’t like this woman, looked away from her, crossed her arms. She loved candy and didn’t have it often, but she didn’t want this woman’s candy. Daddy said, “Don’t be rude.” She didn’t want to embarrass him. She took it but she wasn’t going to eat it.

“What do you say?” Daddy’s voice sounded like he was annoyed but trying to hide it.

She mumbled a thank you, not looking at Daddy or the woman, who said, “Bye, Benny.” Benny? She hated the way it sounded in Big Tooths’ mouth.

“Aren’t you going to eat your candy” Daddy asked, driving away.

“I don’t like that woman,” she said.

Daddy looked at her with mean eyes. “Shut up and eat it.”

She unwrapped it but didn’t take one bite. She let it melt all over her fist.

candy
(Copyright 2008 beezies)
02.25.08

#2 (495 words)

Mrs. Duke says to practice, looking down her nose at me. She can tell I haven’t been practicing. Daddy had a used piano delivered and tuned. “Practice,” he says. I bang out chopsticks, bang out scales. I destroy Have A nice Clam Bake. Daddy sighs. Mama shuts the bedroom door. Finally, he puts a hand on my shoulder to stop me.

“You’re getting better,” he says. I’m not. He’s had enough. Me, too. My knuckles ache.

Mrs. Duke smells like an ashtray. Her house smells like an ashtray. I sit next to her on the piano bench. She is smoking a long brown cigarette. I look up her nose. A crisp red booger- like a twig- is sticking out of it. This embarrasses me, glees me. So when she smacks my fingers for a mistake, I take comfort in that gross display. I know something she doesn’t. She opens the music book.

“Have A Nice Clambake,” says Mrs. Duke. “You practice like I say?” I nod. I lie. The lines around her mouth droop. Her yellow-gray bun droops. Her long curved line of cigarette ash droops. She pushes on my back. “Sit up straight. Don’t I always say to you?” Smoke chugs through her nostrils down into my hair, face. Her bloody booger trembles.

I hope it doesn’t fall on me, on my head. I watch it to keep track of it. This aggravates Mrs. Duke. “Don’t stare at Mrs. Duke,” she says. “Play!” She puts her cigarette into one of several filled ashtrays and places her hands above mine. They are translucent, her veins large and green bulge over her bones. The hills of her knuckles are spotted. Her long nails are painted bright pink. pressed into my nail beds. It hurts. I don’t say anything.

“Look at music, not hands!” I look up at the notes, odd shapes- some pointy knives, heavy bottomed like stinging wasps, others droopy like Mrs. Duke. Her fingers play my fingers. My fingers stumble over the keys like drunks. Whole notes like eyes stare at me, mocking my assault on the keys. I can’t find them- the notes.

“Oh word, oh word,” Mrs. Duke gulps at her cigarette and pushes the smoke out through her nose. And it falls, the booger, but I don’t see where. “That is sloppy work. You not practice like I tell you. You will regret this for the recital.” She crushes out her cigarette and begins to play the song herself. It’s light, happy. I watch as her fingers dance and pop, picking out the right notes. Her eyes are closed. I shrink. I should practice like she tells me every Saturday.

Mama and Daddy pick me up after an hour. I burst out into the clean air, drinking lungfuls greedily. “She smells like an ashtray,” Daddy complains. “Well, you chose her,” Mama says. “She was the cheapest, remember?” They argue. I don’t listen. I’m wondering where Mrs. Duke will find that booger.

at the piano, mrs. duke
(Copyright 2008 beezies)
c. A. Hughes

#1 (459 words)

Under the bathroom sink, it sits among rolls of toilet paper, a box of tampons and one of cotton swabs- Mother’s bag. It is thick black cotton and red and yellow hibiscus grows up from the seam along its bottom- an inanimate garden at midnight. She loves the bright flowers. She believes they grow out through the loops of black thread. There is a ball-clasp top made of hard and shiny wood. The bag is pretty and heavy. Her hands, puffy and curious like baby-girl hands tend to be, struggle to unfasten its clasp. She uses all of her strength but it is not enough to open Mother’s bag.

Mother goes into the bathroom each morning. Her eyes puffy and her hair is wild. C. C. stands at the door listening to Mother sing in the shower. She cannot hear the words, but Mother’s voice rises and falls, drifts from beneath the door. She pushes her fingers there and wriggles her fingers. She wants to catch these sounds and swallow them. All she is able to grasp is steam, which melts moist on her fingers.

The water stops drumming the tub. The rings of the shower curtain skate across the pole. She takes back her hand and waits. She knows Mother is opening the black bag- easy for Mother with her big hands. C. C. hears the rattle of objects as Mother searches through it. She’s seen its contents before. There are plastic tubes of color, little dishes of glittery powder, a little silver mirror with a lid, paintbrushes, small jars of liquid skin and perfume (she likes to imagine the bottles of smell come from the flowers on the bag) and plastic combs with flowers on them, but she likes to imagine new items that are secret. Maybe there are fairies, too. They fix Mother’s hair like the birds in that Cinderella cartoon. Maybe that is where Mother keeps the medicine that fixes her lips when they are swollen and cracking.

Sometimes C. C. pictures Mother stepping into the bag, because it is actually a magic bag, and disappearing into another world. That world is always night and its sky is filled with yellow and red blooms. The ground there is made up of shimmering dust from Mother’s cakes of eye color- a powdery muted rainbow. Mother is the queen of that place. Little people like in The Wizard of Oz greet her every morning, giving her lollipops and flowers and songs about how pretty she is.

C. C.’s heart quickens. What if she decides to stay? That is her fear. Maybe she would be happier there because there she is a queen. There, she get gifts and songs instead of headaches and bruises.

mother’s magic
(Copyright 2008 beezies)
02.21.08