quintessence

There once was a time  

when nothing I owned came from online. But now  

most of it arrives by order—  

even my cat food and prescriptions.

And in Japan, there are bars  

where you can pay to be slapped  

and thrown around  

by their muscle-mommy staff.

When I’m especially lonely,  

I always seem to get ads  

about all the hot MILFs in my area,  

as if I could Grubhub a pussy, hot and ready  

like a Little Caesars pizza,  

right to my door.

And for a moment, I wonder  

what my ancestors would think  

of all these pleasures: pizza,  

brain chemicals, muscle mommies,  

straight to my door.

Not the way-way-way-back ones,  

but the ones who immigrated here  

from Germany—if that’s even true.

But I read Sarah, Plain and Tall:  

bitches by mail have always  

been the norm.

true to a T

True love, taut and tied,

tipping through tough times,

tempting and tangible,

true to a T.

Today, she realized she was probably depressed. It happened when she started crying while doing the dishes. Not that crying had been particularly rare for her these days. Actually, she had likely been depressed for months; it had just become more apparent over the past few weeks. She’d been calling it stress. Isn’t that what it was? Stress?

Why did it have to come to this? Months deep into the hole before she even realized? Shouldn’t her Fitbit send a notification?

Alert: Seems like you’re getting depressed. Here’s an article with 10 quick and easy tips to stop depression dead in its tracks.

And her husband says that’s how the worst wounds always go: you’re always the last to know.

Actually, what he said was:

“When I was shot, I thought it was just a piece of metal that hit me. Haha. Guess it was. But I was worried about the guys around me. Wouldn’t have fathomed I was the one hit. Didn’t feel anything but a hard pinch. Even the blood, I figured it was Bobby’s. Wasn’t till after my shirt was removed and I saw the hole in my own chest, and Bobby’s hands covering it, that I felt the pain. Same time I was stabbed, too. Saw the knife go in and still didn’t believe it was true.”

To which she replied, “That’s different.”

“Ah, so you think you have more than one brain, and the one that feels pain is so different from the one that feels sad?”

today we would have been married 14 years

Made this placehilder weeks ago...

For the poem I would write...

For what would have been our 14 year wedding anniversary...

But now, day of, I still cannot think of a thing to say...

Maybe that's closure.

more reward than punishment

 

sleepwalker

Sometimes, after finally falling asleep when I couldn’t before, I dream that I can’t sleep. While I’m resting, my Fitbit tells me so; while I’m in REM, my body is still, yet my mind plays out what feels like a memory of complete restlessness.

I have everything I wanted and needed—sleep—yet my brain tricks me into feeling as though I got none of it all night.

And that’s kind of where I’m at with my life right now. Everything is good, fine. Objectively, I have everything I want and need. Yet somehow, I keep envisioning holes and empty spaces—all those places of lack that don’t even exist.

I’m getting all the rest my body needs, but my mind is wandering again.

I am nostalgic for a time that never existed.