Message from Amanda

I love you so much
I had to dial your number
and see you one last time
and make sure to break your heart
real good
so you feel what I felt
and now I'm over you
and I wish you a good life
and a good wife
and beautiful children
and all that crap.

Bluebeard

Breadwinner. New for her.
Her new office has a window, lots of light, just underneath the glass ceiling.
A big promotion, more money, more security for her family.
A wolvish grin, a laughing heartbeat.

Her new office has a window, lots of light, just underneath the glass ceiling.
Bluebeard creeps behind her chair; she feels the horsehair beard against her cheek.
A wolvish grin, a laughing hearbeat.
He grabs a fistful of her hair with one huge hand.

Bluebeard creeps behind her chair; she feels the horsehair beard against her cheek.
He smells of dying leaves.
He grabs a fistful of her hair with one huge hand.
In the other hand, a goblet of the most delicious liquid.

He smells of dying leaves.
Bad mother, he says. Bad woman.
In the other hand, a goblet of the most delicious liquid.
Leaving your children behind to work under the glass. False goddess.

Bad mother, he says. Bad woman.
You know too much, you do too much. Who are you to have all this?
Leaving your children behind to work under the glass. False goddess.
He caresses her cheek with his, she leans against him.

You know too much, you do too much. Who are you to have all this?
He brings the goblet to her lips; the juice mixes with her lipstick.
He caresses her cheek with his, she leans against him.
Your home will come to ruins.

He brings the goblet to her lips; the juice mixes with her lipstick.
Softly, she brings her hand to his beard.
Your home will come to ruins.
She pulls the hair from his chin and he cries in pain.

Softly, she brings her hand to his beard.
"Bluebeard," she says, "you have the wrong office."
She pulls the hair from his chin and he cries in pain.
Breadwinner. New for her.

Melodramatica

Two hours of firearms training gives me three bulged discs.

I can't run or lift weights.

I walk into rooms and don't remember how I came to be there or what for.

I say things like, "Those damn kids."

My boobs are two inches lower.

I wear flat-soled shoes.

My coworkers, boss, acupuncturist, family doctor, physical therapist - along with my mom - tell me to take it easy.

I have to do stupid things like bend at the knees to lift boxes.

I expect to see gray hairs in my gold locks any day now.

That girl on the dance floor with the honky tonk badonkadonk used to be me.

The Old Man might as well skip ahead to his midlife crisis and trade up for a newer model.

Thus begins the

slow
........downhill
.......................slide into

senescence.

Characters

Two characters in my head just interact with each other in the most banal way and refuse to allow any action or point or plot into their story. Sure, they're interesting and one smells like mold and the other has fake piercings, but that only gets you so far. Well, screw you two until you can grow up and help me find a middle and an end.

Fall

http://www.ahandfulofstones.com/

Look for my poem on a handful of stones blog, under Thursday, September 30th, 2010.

Colorado's seasons are like a woman who changes her mind, changes her clothes and her perfume. Fall in Colorado to me is dusty dirt roads lined five feet deep on either side with wild sunflowers. It's hot and the air is filled with insects. Noisy and quiet at the same time. The sunflowers take over the eastern plains and front range, just east of the mountains.

Fall in the mountains is different - crisper, clear, filled with bugling elk and city people driving slow on the winding roads, craning their necks to see turning leaves.

Working Parents

What image pops into your brain when you think "working mother?" Is it a bedraggled, tired woman focused on a laptop, ignoring her screaming baby on the floor? Is it a woman with a cell phone in one hand and a crying baby in the other?

The image is a blatant stereotype of yesteryear, the invention of Stone Age guilt-mongers.

Here's the reality today: working moms and dads ARE struggling to keep their heads above water. But as they are wading through, they are holding their children up, passing them back and forth, doing everything they can to make sure their kids are happy, warm, safe, dry, rocked, cuddled and played with. Working parents - often to the detriment of their own health and schedules - go far to make sure their children are content and cared for.

Here's a new image: a muscled woman bouncing her happy smiling baby in one arm and turning off her cell phone, because she leaves work at work, where it belongs.

Animal Cruelty

When it looks hopeless
'cause my back's in screaming pain
and I'm running on three hours of sleep
and The Baby's screaming
and The Kid's whining
and the neighborhood dogs bark

little shits,
all I can imagine is
beatiful
quiet
dead
dogs
strewn about the neighborhood

it takes the Trite Cake
when I say
that what fixes it all
is reading to The Kid
about how the little boy
shot the Nightmare In His Closet
and yelled at it to stop crying
and dragged it to bed with him
to shut it up.

And The Kid's tears clear up
and he smiles.

That's all it takes
to save the neighborhood dogs
from a silenced .22.