soup

rain stick
i have a new boss.
i’m supposed to eventually adjust
to having her.

i spent the day holding a three-hole punch
over the trash can
and rotating it clockwise.
i did this until my hand got tired.
then, i switched hands.
if i was doing it right,
it’d sound like a rain stick,
which means it wouldn’t sound like rain at all.

one time, i saw a woman demonstrate
how to use one of those,
but she didn’t know what she was talking about.

citrus
if a tree falls in the woods,
i want to know what you knew
and when you knew it.

rocky colavito
a good friend of mine died last night.
he was eighty-four years young old.
his last words to me were pretty ambiguous
because i guess he figured
there wasn’t anything
that needed explaining, blah.
he said,
“i’ve left the party because i wasn’t having any fun.”

every morning up until today, i’ve gone for a walk.
today, i’m jogging.
i’m only doing this for one reason.
you see,
when i used to watch people running
past my window–
younger or sometimes, hopefully, my age,
i’d wonder
how they could keep it all so together.

with good reason,
there’s a sudden, sharp pain in my side and in my chest.
it hurts and it doesn’t,
but i’m beyond the window.
perhaps, i can even make it as far as helen’s now,
so i can tell her how–

presents
every christmas,
my grandmother gives me a toy.
usually, it’s inexpensive or secondhand,
and, if i’m lucky,
it’s something she’s made herself.
when she calls,
i make sure to say thank you
and mean it.
that is my gift to her,
pretending that i haven’t grown up completely,
that there’s still something between us
that doesn’t have to change.

reasons to be used to fire me:
-uses paintbrush to make comics for his blog
-blogs
-doesn’t work
-isn’t working out
-doesn’t work out enough
-works through problems out loud
-has personal problems

i’ll have what she’s having
“let’s go out tonight,” i say.
“okay. same place?”
we’ve never been able
to make up at dinner,
but it’s always been a start.
“if you don’t say anything,
i’m assuming same place.”
our problem, i think, is that
we both operate under the flawed logic
that we’re all right
as long as we both admit
we were wrong.
“same place.”
“it’s on me.”
because i owe her that much, at least.
maybe i owe her for everything.
it’s like i’m brian de palma,
and she’s my hitchcock.
wait– no, she’s not.
that’s a terrible analogy
(life is terrible).

i meet up with her after she gets off work.
as we’re talking, all i can think about
are the funny things i’m going to write
on the bathroom wa[15:10] ts: yesssssssssssssssss
[15:10] ts: yeeeeesss
[15:10] ts: yes
[15:10] ts: yes!
[15:10] ts: yessssssssssssss
[15:10] ts: oh yessssssss!
[15:10] ts: oh
[15:10] ts: yeeeeesssssssssssssssssss
[15:11] ts: i’ll have what she’s having

[16:49] ts: this sucks
[16:49] JT: yeah
[16:49] ts: i’ve live
[16:49] JT: LOL