Manners.

Cat fight
Street fight
Fur and flesh
and blood
everywhere.
“Didn’t your mother
never teach you
no manners?”
No. What’s
manners,
any how?
Manners is
when you
hate somebody
but you
smile anyway.
Manners is
not stealing
quarters from
the tip jar.
Manners is
when your
brother is
stupid but
you don’t
beat him up.
That ain’t
Manners,
dummy.
Manners ’s
the big houses
that rich fo’ks
lives in up
on the hill.
No, Manners
is what the
lady in the
newspaper
got named.
It ain’t her
fault her pop
was called
Manners.
I still says
Manners is
not beatin’
up on your
brother.
Youse is all
wrong!
Manners is
drinking tea
an’ girls
wearin’ party
dresses an’
when boys
hafta wear
neckties an’
stuff like
that.

it's a blessing and a curse.

Maybe if I think really hard, I can remember the first time I remember remembering. I was two. Or maybe three. But either way I was wearing my red dress at Christmastime, and Santa Claus gave me a red lollipop, one of the ones with the loop so you could put your finger through it and you didn’t lose it so easily. And then there was the time when I was four and I remember remembering the dream I had when I was sleeping. I was in a canoe or a kayak or something but it was just me and of course I was much bigger than four but most four-year-olds think they are, anyway. And all of a sudden my canoe or kayak or whatever came to a waterfall and just as I was about to go over the edge, there was Superman flying by! I was saved! Except he didn’t notice me screaming and failing my arms at him and I just fell off over the edge and he flew by a billboard with the baby Jodie Foster sunscreen ad and I plunged to what must have been my four-year-old death. But I woke up and it was only a dream. I still don’t like Superman much, though.

I remember the first time I met you. You sat behind me and you giggled louder than I did which was funny because you were a boy and I was the girl, but you gave me a piece of gum and so it was okay. I only like that kind of gum now. It’s all your fault. You kept giving me that silly green gum and now I don’t even like the blue kind and certainly not the yellow or pink ones. You didn’t really ever give me anything other than that gum, excepting an awful lot of silly memories. There was the once when I was supposed to be about to say something, but you kept whispering funny things in my ear and when it was my turn to talk I was so red and flushed I don’t know how I remembered what I was to say. Maybe it’s because I just remember everything.

Once upon a time on a certain day, another certain boy I knew was very mean and told me something he did not really mean. But I am quite trusting of most people and I thoroughly believed him. And two weeks later I disbelieved him. It took four mix cds, two road trips, seventeen pots of coffee, and seven hours on the phone to forget the hurt. I’m not sure why it took all that much since it was only two weeks in the first place. But it did and then I got myself a cat. I still have the cat. I can’t say the same for him. In fact, I think he may be the only person I ever really hated. I don’t anymore. But I did. I thought he was the most horrible person I’d ever had the misfortune to know. And not only that, but we were friends. And not only that, but it took four mix cds, two road trips, seventeen pots of coffee, and seven hours on the phone to forget about it. Incidentally, six of the seven hours were spent talking to him about, well, him. His favorite topic. But after four mix cds, two road trips, seventeen pots of coffee, and seven hours on the phone, I forgot about it and now we don’t talk anymore except for sometimes when we have to.

My best friend and I met by chance. Not by chance, but by divine ordination, I am sure. However, it seemed quite by chance at the time. A girl I had known forever had a friend who seemed wonderful. She liked the same comic strip as I did, and the same tv show, and she liked coffee. So I sent her an email and suddenly we were friends. Three months later we met at the zoo. Yes, the zoo. And then we were the most best of friends. And a year later we were incandescently happy. And a year after that we haven’t quite reached yet. Somehow we’re exactly alike and yet completely different, but we think the same things t the same time but we go to each other for advice and it’s a brilliant new revelation that neither of us had thought of. I’m not entirely sure how that’s even possible but it is and we are.

One day last week I was talking to some people and as I am sure it would seem that my entire life is everyone else’s business, it suddenly came up in conversation about if I were getting married to a certain other friend of the group and I did not quite know what to say. I’m not getting married. Presently. But who am I to say I would not ever? I perhaps could and if I ever did but had said that I would not I would never hear the end of it for my entire life so I try to avoid those kinds of certain decisions on things I cannot really make authoritative statements on with certainty which I cannot do about anything. But at any rate, my personal life was suddenly the topic of conversation for the entire group. I am not quite sure when that became socially acceptable, at least in front of said person (For at least in the gossip circles of old and of new, you shouldn’t talk about someone right in front of them. It just isn’t polite.), especially concerning such sensitive material. I have a cat, remember?

I remember the first time I ever cried over a boy. I was four and he was five and we were in Kindergarten. He didn’t like me and I knew it but I liked him anyway and actually he really did not like me at all and he told me so on several occasions up through fourth grade when I stopped liking him because he wasn’t very brave and couldn’t even really just tell me himself. He sent another boy to tell me instead. Funny. The other boy and I are best friends now. And I’m not quite sure why. Somewhere between fifth and eighth grade we talked a few times and then we were just joined in spirit forever. Even if we never talk it doesn’t matter. It used to matter. It would bother me immensely and I would tell him so and I would cry and he would yell and we would fight but we would make up and be the best of friends again. We don’t even really have anything in common excepting each other. And that’s about the extent of it. So I really just don’t know how we got to being friends but we are and that’s all there is to it.

Somewhere down the line I met all of these people and some of them I kind of wish I hadn’t but most of them I’m so terribly glad I did, but either way I wouldn’t change it for anything. I’ve met so many others and some may have been there longer but these are the ones for to mentioning today. Somewhere along the line I got another cat. Having two cats is a trial. They fight and play and they like to do it very late and very early and I don’t like either but I love both. Cats, that is. The people, too. I guess this is my love letter to my friends. Salutations to my relatives, best regards to my acquaintances (that’s most of you, as I am quite sure you didn’t know it. I have my friends, my heart-soul friends I intend to never leave, and then I have my “friends,” whom I do love dearly but if by some freak chance you were to move to Idaho and quit talking to me, I would survive just fine.), and something or nothing to everyone else.

I kind of like remembering everything, sometimes.

mama, they're out to get me.

I suppose this is the end. I could go on like this for a week or maybe two and quite possibly a month or year. So I guess I'll just say this is the end but it's probably a lie or at the very least a minor deception.

In case there has ever been any question, this is really how my mind rolls about from one to another and back again and never forgetting and never letting anything go or finish or anything.

Just in case there has ever been any question.

(And by the end I mean the end of the eighteen thousand stanza epic I have thus constructed for you.)




Mama they’re out to get me
All the people on the street
I ran inside the drugstore
To try and get away but when
I came back out they were still there
They were still there waiting.

What’d I do to get the mob?
How’d I ever get this job?
Running in and out of grocery stores
Running down the street.
Everywhere I go, everyone I meet
Seems like they got it a ‘gin me.

I run and run and run and run
Every time I think it’s safe I find one
More who wants to see me gone
Who wants to see me out
Out of the fight out of the running
I’m always running.

I’m not joking.

If I say I worry about the economy
Would you make fun of me?
I would make fun of me.
Who cares about the economy?
It’s all fake realty.
I think we lost reality.

What is reality?
This is this and that is that
and what is not is just not.
Not so and not sure and just
not. What is not? What is no?
I don’t know.

Somewhere back there I said yes.
It only made a bigger mess.
So I quit and slept instead.
Rest and sleep and such are
good when yes is no
and no is yes. Yes.

You said no but did you
Really mean yes? I’m on
A quest to find the elusive yes.
So far I’ve been as far as Dallas but
I expect before the end I’ll get
At least as far as the Palace.

Not the one in Las Vegas but in
England somewhere. With the
guards and tourists and I’ll
be just as foolish as anyone.
Maybe even as foolish as the
yes I’m looking for.

Because yes is a very silly
thing to go all the way to
England for. I can think of
fifteen thousand better reasons.
Or maybe only six. Seven.
That’s as far as I counted.

And yet somehow it never
amounted to more than
nothing. What is nothing,
anyway? It seems like just a
way to say no again without
saying no and not yes.

I think I’m going to go rest
again and maybe when I
come back from England or
wherever I’ll have gotten a
yes or whatever. Then I can
stop always saying nothing.

Or never saying anything,
except that I say a lot but
what I really mean is not that
I don’t say anything ever but
that I always say nothing,
if you follow me.

Please don’t follow me
unless you intend to be
a yes and not a no and
always a maybe but never
a not. Otherwise I’ll just
kindly ask you to go rot.

And never say forever unless
you really mean for it to
continually mean ever and
for being so sure you may
end up lost or lonely or some
other such great cost.

I think I’m lost. No, I
know I’m lost. I haven’t
gotten anywhere and yet
somehow I have distinctly
gotten nowhere, which is
even further than anywhere.

It isn’t fair. That I should
care or that you should not
or that not means not which
really means no which in all
actuality is just the opposite
of yes. Is this some kind of test?

I think I failed. I know I did,
because when I lose I get that
sick feeling inside like everything
is coming loose and I want to
throw up but it’d all come out
words and numbers anyway.

And memories and songs and
all the little wrongs you ever
did me. I’m sorry I remember
it all but there’s nothing I can do.
There’s that nothing again. Maybe
all of this is just nothing, too.

the Man in the moon

Mommy don't make me
grow up so soon.
I want to be like
the Man in the moon.

Never changing,
never aging.
He always stays the same;
He doesn't play the game.

The Game of Life:
Full of strife,
and love and joy and fear.
Playing on with every year.

I don't like playing games
with hope and hate and pain.
But you rolled the dice,
now go play nice.

Love and joy and fear--
Do I have to grow this year?
Hope and hate and pain--
Why can't I stay the same?

Mommy don't make me,
World don't take me.
Let me stay like
the Man in the moon.

"Please use other door."

Please use other door:
The one you tried is locked.
Push and pull and push some more,
you cannot open this here door.

Read the signs before you try
to enter through that exit door.
The sign says "Closed," but
you tried to come in anyway.

Anyway.
Do not push that pulling door,
and do not pull the push--
Read the signs, you must, you must.

"Push," not "pull."
--exit only.
Try I will,
though you told me,

"Please use other door."