I should probably buy a new toothbrush. I tend to use mine until it’s splayed, flattened, and soft. This task, buying a new toothbrush, should be as easy as picking it up at the grocery store on one of my weekly or more than weekly trips. Except… I’m pretty sure everything in the aisle with…
Thanks Void, Sorry for Screaming
Politically and emotionally, it’s been a dark week / week-and-a-half. I suspect that’s the point of the new administration: create in groups and out groups and demoralize, terrorize, and exhaust the out groups. Part of their strategy to ram through their agenda, regardless of how unpopular it may be, is to cause so much disruption…
A Man Walks Into a Bar
Not long ago I found myself in one of those conversations where I just didn’t like the other person. Not only did I struggle to find common ground with him, but I had trouble finding any redeeming qualities in him. Our conversation started out innocently enough. We’ve seen each other at the bar a few…
January Twenty-First
On an otherwise empty bookshelf in my sparsely decorated apartment in Memphis, Tennessee, I used to have displayed (perhaps arranged is a better word) two or three rocks and a small piece of driftwood. I don’t remember the significance of two of the rocks. I think they were picked up on a beach in San…
This Is Fine
This morning I felt my first earthquake. 3.7 magnitude, not more than a few miles away. I was still in bed. Despite going to bed early, and drinking fluids, and all of those things, the remnants of having the flu are still kicking my ass. Coughing through the night meant I wasn’t sleeping. Not sleeping…
Reason Number 27 on Why I’m Not a Better Writer
Among the things that hold me back as a writer/poet (besides talent, practice, and perseverance) is this pesky adherence to or proximity to the truth. I suppose it’s a little more complicated than that… but in a nutshell, when I write a poem, the you or the he or the she tends to be based…
A Beadrel in the Barn
“Beadrel with a barn.” That’s what the note on my phone from 3:06am says. It’s possible it was supposed to say, “Beadrel in a barn.” This is what my wife shouted as she walked up the stairs to find that I was taking a shower but had left the bathroom door open. “There’s a Beadrel…
Duck Season, Wabbit Season, Flu Season
She was a redhead. Most of them are. She was flirting with me and a guy who looked like Ronald Weasley from Harry Potter (also a redhead). He seemed to have the upper hand in gaining her favor. She said I’d have to show her that I was serious about us if we were ever…
Hell in a Handbasket
In addition to feeling sick (yesterday morning’s sleepiness may have been the onset of something), I’m experiencing that mild sense of trepidation that I feel when I think about world events – trepidation and powerlessness. I don’t know how to move forward in a post-truth world. Yesterday was January 6. It should be a day…
A Sleepy Monday Morning
I awoke from a dream to the low bellow of a passing ship sounding its foghorn. While only connected by that temporal moment (the ship and the dream) – the passing of each seemed heavy with metaphor. I couldn’t see the ship nor the fog, and I couldn’t remember any of the dream’s details. Soon…
Dating Sunday
Today, the first Sunday after New Years, has been dubbed by the dating industry “Dating Sunday.” It’s when the various online dating platforms see a surge in sign ups and subscriptions. I’d be lying if I said I’m impervious to the hint of optimism that comes at this time of year and carries with it…
Sticking to It
Every morning of this new year, I’ve tried to write… or I wrote, or I am writing. It’s not always what I want to write, and the effort is usually short-lived. On Thursday, I had too much narrative in me in the morning to distill my thinking and words into images or something more poetic….