Fat

I have become fat.

I have always been fat in body, but now I have become fat in outlook.

I found someone who loves me. I rejected them.

I ate my dinner and wanted something different.

I faintly remember something I wrote six years ago about flailing for love, flailing for meaning, flailing for self. I faintly remember being starved in spirit. I faintly remember that not all the food on the table is meant for me.

I must drill back down to my core, through these layers of fat, to find truth.

I must drill back down to my core to find self.

I must drill to remember.

Heartbreak Hotel

[Five poems for a story I'm writing, but also because we've all been there. Antedated to Valentine's day.]

Your eyes stop my heart
Your eyes warm my soul
Your picture alone causes my stomach to knot
I want your attention
I want your affection
I want you to text me back

</3

It hurts me to think of you
fishhooks in my heart
I want to spend some time with you
I can't bear to be apart
I know you love another
fishhooks in my heart
but maybe you'll still talk to me?
I can't bear to be apart

Encounter on Bread Street

"Hey Cracker - you're in the wrong neighborhood!" ["yeah!"]

"Oh, shit - sorry! I don't want any trouble. I'm just trying to get to my friend's house."

"You don't have any friends here." ["yeah!"]

"I don't want any trouble - I--"

"Well, you found some!" ["yeah!"]

"Oh, jeez."

Shrimp Story

"Happy Birthday, Master Greg," Thomas said, voice muffled by a gruff of tentacles. He increased his lurch a few degrees in an approximation of a bow before returning to his usual candy cane posture.

"Did you bring me a gift, Creature?" the boy asked, eyes locked on the box Thomas held in his hands.

The Overworked Mailman

[Written Round Robin style in October 2017. Four coauthors. Some small corrections, but mostly untouched.]

Yesterday I got into a fight with my mailman. He tried to tell me that I was ordering too many oversized packages. I was told in no uncertain terms where I could put any further packages - and it wasn't in the mail room. He told me I had to put them in my grandma.

Once I told my grandma about this, she went for her gun in the closet. Grandma was always sensitive over the size of her vagina. I watched her waddle with disgust, her labia lips clearly slapping her knees with each step. It was a sound I'd heard my whole life, I knew she was pissed... but I had also noticed the piss streaming down her leg - time to clean that up.

Slithery Surprise

"Fuck you, you slithery son of a bitch!" I screamed in terror as I kicked at a snake with my pants around my ankles. I let out a few more choice curses as the bendy bastard eluded my kicks but wouldn't leave the strike zone of an angry man on a toilet.

Finally, finally, it made its way under a cabinet so I could perform a quick wipe and regain a full range of motion. I stared the cabinet down as I quickly washed my hands. I soon after began a quest to arm myself against the intruder, toilet unflushed.

My immediate options were limited. Toilet brush? Plunger? Neither really fit the bill, but really, what in the house would? I didn't exactly have a side gig of snake-wrangling that I could go open the toolbox and have all my snake-catching gear available.

I picked up the plunger and made a quick list of non-toilet options. Hammer? Maybe I could use it sideways? A knife probably wasn't the answer, nor was a grilling fork. Anything without a handle was probably a no-go as well, so what was left? A broom?

I could probably flush (heh) the beast out and pin it with the bristles of my little broom, then smack it with a hammer. Maybe. Hopefully. If I were quick.

Wary of letting the thing loose, I went to gather supplies.

---

A fifteen minute sprint, written 27 September 2017.

The Good Shit

Earlier today, I strolled into my office with a great gust of energy. Everyone looked up from their desks to see what all the commotion was - mostly because that gust of energy took the form of me creating a me-sized hole in the door.

Teeth clenched and asshole puckered, I ejaculated an expletive before praising this particular potion. I mentioned a few nearby coworkers should also partake of it at some future time, emphasizing my point by shattering their desks with a few healthy pounds of my fist.

My coworkers convinced me that I should certainly share my enthusiasm with the world and so that's what I did. A few hours and many unhinged doors later, I think I made my point in most of the shops around town.

This shit's fantastic.

After a few hours, I felt the effects wearing off, so I blasted my way home to create and consume another batch. Alas, my glassware kept shattering if I so much as looked at it for too long, so I didn't get to make another batch.

So now I'm writing you this note to see if you have some to spare - please make sure it arrives before the police!

---

A fifteen minute writing sprint from 27 September 2017.

Things my Housemates Do

Taking this blog back to its roots: a place to complain about things.

Things my housemates do:

Moldy milk at the bottom of a "clean" cup

• Throw silverware in the silverware drawer without regard to knives, forks, etc.
• Stack plates on top of bowls (instead of putting them with the other plates).
• Hoard any cup larger than 8oz in their room.
• Leave hair in the shower drain.
• Stack the five? ten? pound cast-iron dutch oven on top of a tupperware container.
• Use the last of a common item (e.g. aluminum foil) and not tell anyone.
• Break something (e.g. many, many pint glasses) and not tell anyone (and just leave the debris).
• Keep the TV on at all times.
• Keep the TV tuned to reality television at all times.
• Throw plastic bags in the recycling bin.
• Leave change everywhere.
• Leave time on the microwave.
• Complain, but never strive to improve.
• Leave cold water on the coffee table, so condensation makes a huge puddle.

Bastrabots

"Oy! Slinks!"

"Slinks? Fuck." The bastrabots trudged toward us, guns armed and aiming systems active.

"Wove livt if we hised earlier." My caddy wonced. I felt the same, but knew better than take him in.

"Nah, will live still! Holep, raliket." I holept raliket fuckin' out, scurry scrounge down the alley, rite far from the bastrabots. Jack rocketed up my ass, raliket.

Weez got to some guvvie bins, what we know the bots won't touch. Grantya, wir rectere to touchem, what we smellem, but our choices ain't aboundin. Wove hised elsewhere if we could, but meetcha whereat. We dug in abrip.

Breathin ain't easy in a bin - don't want the bots to findya, don't want the tummy wasions none neither. We wait, hopin, prayin, and tryin not to toss.

Bastrabots aren't the smarts none though and they past soonish. We smelt, but we livt.

---

A fifteen minute sprint using markov-chain generated words.

On the Level

"I swear it's level," I shot back, level-in-hand.

"It doesn't look all that level - it looks like the left side's just a bit higher than the right." Hands-on-hips, covered in small splotches of paint, my wife had assumed the 'I'm going to win this argument' pose. I sighed and let a beat pass before responding.

"By all objective measure, the painting is level. The bubble was dead center. The measuring tape shows that it's exactly the same distance from both floor and ceiling on both sides. This thing would win awards for being level. I should win an award for leveling it! I can't believe you don't agree."

"Well, it still doesn't look level to me, and that's what matters." I knew where this was going to end and I knew I had to play my part. After one more round of objection, I gave in and began to move the damn thing around. Naturally, I had to move it as she watched from a few feet away - had she adjusted it it wouldn't count as a win in her book.

"There! Perfect!" She delighted after fifteen minutes of directing me to bump one corner, then the other. I was released from service, having hung an obviously crooked painting. It was a small price to pay for a happy wife.

---

A fifteen minute sprint, written 8 October '17.