I tracked it backwards to see her again. She looked like she was posing, but pretending not to. An actress. Maybe a hooker. Maybe all hookers were actresses, because they kind of had to be. I went forwards, watched her disappear, and then, a few frames later, saw her again, at the top of the screen, just as perfect and tan and naked and awkward as she’d been before. I ran a finger down her flat stomach.
They say the first thing
you should do, should you
find yourself unexpectedly released into
the immense void
is to exhale.
If you follow all the above steps correctly, you are guaranteed, or your money back, that you will see Phantasm II, as not even the director intended, and your concept of reality will be transformed, and you will be both glad and horrified, and you will realize that reality is a flying silver ball ready to lodge itself into your head and turn your mind to mush.
You’ve had your moments & your reckless abandon.
Eggshell skull theory: you can’t know how much slapstick
a life can take. It does not absolve you
of responsibility.
Because it has already happened--even though it is happening for you right now.
Because you should prepare yourself for disappointments, or maybe the apocalypse.
I explode with the food of myself – all slick, all orange dripping grease. I ooze. With the feast comes wealth and the meals born from these organs build franchises with enough money to collect the bounty of an android bodyguard. If there is a hustle in the galaxy, I am behind it.
You start to notice the same phenomenon
in real life. It’s harmless enough—
the new postal carrier looks like the old
grocery store clerk, minus the apron and plus
a blue hat and pants.
And I watch her from my tan bean bag
with my black UGG slippers and camo joggers
eat brainz while looking on point, become the leader
of a human smuggling operation, nab the villains
I am ten seconds in to Episode 1 and it appears Sam Wilson (aka Falcon) is getting ready for a funeral. No one puts on a suit and dress shirt in Marvelworld unless there is a funeral. He is also doing the sad gazey face thing. Oh, it’s Captain America’s shield! Aw, the shield has its own bag. Do you think the bag is comic book canon? I bet at least twelve (12) videos on YouTube can provide me guidance on this question, and I guarantee you that, due to my MDD (Marvel Disarrangement Disorder), I will eventually watch all of them. But I digress.
admittedly your teaching methods
caused chaos stress exasperation
exploriationis always bold
Of the 613 mitzvot, or commandments of the Jewish religion, number 207 is this: “You must love the convert.” Astrid Weissman, like me, for all her earnest, eager, excessive energy, formally converted and entered the tribe of Judaism, and her commitment should be lauded, not derided. Long live the passionate Jew-by-choice. May she never feel guilty for buying oversized Judaica or awkward for her limited mastery of Yiddish. Wherever we will go, she will go. Our people will be her people and our God her God. Amen.
I didn’t think growing up
would mean staring at
so many tiny screens.
I thought it would be
expansive like the universe
and ant hills.
so where are we now then,
this strange waiting place
standing by our windows,
a sinking feeling slipping in
The sweet scent of peach lemonade and vodka seeps from my pores as the temperature rises near the bar at the back of the Starland Ballroom. Oversized flannels hang off the bodies of girls wearing ripped skinny jeans, and a crowd of t-shirts with different tour dates printed on their backs moves in waves – to a standing spot, to the bar, and back again. I hold my plastic cup close to my chest, careful to sip the vodka slowly; I need to be able to stand to see the stage. An advertisement for IHOP flashes across the projector screen, and the crowd roars, a symphony of chants honoring buttermilk pancakes. I clap, too, imagining a side of crispy bacon, a cheese omelette, and hot coffee running down my freshly sore throat when the concert is over.
Bob pulls a Glock 9 from his waist. Prepared to go out in a blazing battle.
“Helen,” he says. “I didn’t mean to drag you and the kids into this.”
I slip neon string onto my finger
like a noose
like a noose to perform
to perform tricks
Back in 2007, when the seventh and final Harry Potter book came out, there was nothing but grief and regret once “the truth” about Snape was revealed. The character had already acquired an icon status that few in the series had managed to, when in 2011 the last film came out and - greatly due the late Alan Rickman’s breath-taking performance- there was yet another wave of sympathy for Snape as those who had not read the book realised Snape was with the good guys all along.
This time around I don't
wait for the sky to clear because
there you are on your knees
begging for forgiveness, begging for
me
Given the butterfly effect of time and history, it is not a stretch to say that if LMFAO had not announced their indefinite hiatus, Donald Trump may never have been elected president. The COVID-19 pandemic may never have settled its jaws over our great nation. We could honestly be, rather than working from home in our sweatpants, out on the dance floor, shuffling to whatever genius music LMFAO released in this alternate timeline.
I kept it mostly to early Beatles stuff at that age. I was too young for the drugs and weird outfits that came later, some 25 years before. Once, as I was checking out library books about the band – I just grabbed them without looking too closely – I discovered one that detailed their sexual escapades. I read a passage about passing girls around from bed to bed – that was as far as I got before something about the appearance of the book tipped my mom off to its contents, and it disappeared. She firmly grabbed the wheel and turned the car around before I could travel too far down that road.