soup

mexico
a weekend trip to mexico.
i return on monday,
my belly full,
the sun in my eyes,
short on answers,
and she allows me to pass through her
like a non-judgemental border guard.

shower
if i could do it all over again,
i’d probably shower after gym class
because, if i remember correctly,
i smelled bad.

boston
we’re thinking about
moving to boston,
and i am honestly worried
about being shown up
by harvard grads.

sorry (no one) that i haven’t posted more, but i’m sorta working on a short story that i don’t expect to finish. oh, here’s one:

memoir
my best friend derek
is finally getting started on
writing his memoir.
it’s going to focus on
some of the awkward things
that happened to him growing up.
he’s going to call it:
how i lost my virginity to a girl
with a really big vagina.

appointment
today, i had an awful “meet and greet”
with my new boss.
i felt compelled, wow,
so many times to justify myself–
wanted to assure her that
i was a bad interview, but a good employee–
to let her know that the whole thing
was humorously similar to that line:
i’m a bad first date,
but a great third date.
maybe a little wink there at the end
if i wasn’t able to control it.
fact: in a traditional business office setting,
all doctors wash their hands
after using the restroom,
but not as thoroughly as you’d think.
as i’m about to leave,
i see my boss go into her office,
lock the door, and start crying.
it’s as offputting as it is moving.
she says she cries for no reason,
and i think i understand her.
tomorrow, i’m not coming in
because of a doctor’s appointment,
and i’ve made up my mind that
when i get to the hospital,
if i don’t feel like waiting in the waiting room,
i’m just going to wait outside,
and they can come find me
when they’re ready for me.

official: more comics soon. not today, though, because i had to do laundry and why did i write thi

laundry day, part one
it’s one of those things i’ll never understand:
why people, people who can afford better,
feel they have to hold onto that one pair of socks
with holes in them–
the pair they’ve had for years,
usually resigned now to hibernating safely
at the bottom of the sock drawer, until…

i know, because i’ve done it, too,
that it’s because they think that
when they run out of clean
(fully capable of fulfilling their purpose) socks,
they will have these bastard-socks,
usually mismatched and discolored,
to use as a last resort–
to have that one magical pair
that can suspend laundry day,
even if only for another twenty-four hours.
but, the obvious thing to ask is,
why not just own more socks?
why do we need the symbolism?

laundry day, part two
it’s the same thing with underwear.
there’s that saying that
if you date a woman long enough
you’ll eventually see her in her–
it’s a dumb name,
i don’t even want to say it but–
granny panties.

granny panties don’t just beg the question of
why keep them around?
but also why did you buy them in the first place?
even better: why does your grandmother wear them?
how does every woman wind up with
a pair of humongous, unflattering panties
that couldn’t shape an ass if their life depended on it?
i know there’s a reason,
i just honestly have no idea what it is.

laundry day, part three
the only thing i can come up with,
as i ball my nineteen pairs of socks,
warm from the dryer,
working my way up to the pair that has seen better days,
granny panties staring up at me,
is that maybe it’s healthy for all of us to have that one day,
every [insert number of pairs of socks you own,
or just total socks if you’re an amputee] days,
where we really just don’t give a shit
about our socks or our underwear.

WNT STP
three stop lights into the trip,
a large black man on a harley
pulls up next to me.
his license plate says BIG RNO,
and i can see where that comes from.
i smile.
it’s almost as good as
the ninety-year old woman
exiting the freeway in front of me
with a license plate that says WNT STP.
i get stuck at the next light,
and, sure enough, she doesn’t.
my MAINT REQD light goes on,
and, in my head, i start making a map
to the nearest mechanic.
but at least somewhere up there i’m thinking,
what would WNT STP do?

that sounds like her
while eating at his favorite diner,
marty overhears that dolores, his old flame,
is living in a retirement home
about forty-five minutes or so outside of town.
the thought of this, he chokes on his meal
and has to perform the heimlich maneuver on himself.
finally resuscitated, airways clear, applause subsiding,
it begins to sink in.
he has not seen this woman in over fifty years,
but, still, he hasn’t lost a single feeling for her, either.
and now he’ll get to see her again.
the next morning, bright and early,
he goes out onto the street and hails a cab.
the driver is friendly, if a little too quiet.
at the home, marty asks the lady manning the front desk
to show him to dolores’s room.
“there’s a good chance she won’t remember you,”
the lady tells him.
“that sounds like her, all right,” he says.

bullshirt
at first it was fun.
she’d raise her hands and cheer,
they’d let her hop on,
and the mechanical bull
would try to throw her
out of her shirt.
now, on her fifth go around with the thing,
young girl verses robot bull,
shitfaced, phoning it in, topless,
i have to wonder if there’s a point
to any of this, and if there is,
WHAT IS IT?

tees are in your skies
the sky is raining tee shirts.
i’m serious, aren’t i?
for two days it’s been doing this.
believe me, the weatherman is embarrassed,
presumed fired.
poly-cotton blends. stripes to plaids.
100% cotton. 100% polyster.
sleeveless to long-sleeve. v-neck to…
whatever neck a normal tee shirt has.
winter’s over, but the trees and fields
are blanketed with the blinding white of plain-white tees,
as telling of the times as the first snow.
people are watching from their windows.
they’re running through the streets.
they are dying in falling tee shirt-related car crashes.
the damndest thing is,
no matter how extra large or extra small you are,
it never seems to rain your size.
after a while, i decide to venture out to the mall
assuming it must be chaos there.
i enter my favorite store,
where i worked the summer i turned sixteen,
and there’s a sale going on:
“buy one, look good doing it.”