I'm a Lincoln monologue...

So
mutha
fuckin
uninspired.
I don't even have the words for dumb blondes in ill-fitting denim jumpsuits.
the pillow too cool to want out of bed-
my body too heavy-
the ground too wet.
And you
too phone addicted for conversation.
And me
all décolletage,
and blunt bangs before botox.


unfinished books
unread mail
unfiltered cigarettes


pressure points
pressure gauges
pressure cookers


I have no insults for your inadvertent normcore,
no patience for your incoherent intonation.


fabric walls
Velcro
ergonomics


flu shots and pot lucks


I can't even muster up a hard on for my side piece.
I can't even bring myself to judge.
I.
can't.
even.
bored by my own stories
bored by my own songs
bored by my own breath
so




mutha




fuckin...

Motion in the ocean! Ooo Ahhh...

Road Trip 2016.  Part Quatre.

We left Salem and drove toward Maine--straight into a nor'easter.  OK, it probably wasn't actually a nor'easter.  But the sky was black, the lightning was fierce, and the rain came hard-and then harder.  So I creeped off of an exit in New Hampshire and into the parking lot of a not new 7-Eleven connected to a crappy car lot behind a chain link fence.  I'm not sure what I was expecting--Jessica Fletcher tending her flowers?--I just feel like New England should be all duck shoes and chinos with sensible haircuts.  But there I was eating gas station pickles looking at giant pickups and windowless Pontiacs.  And the same ol' rednecks I could see at home.   I guess I know now how bro-country got so popular.  It's not just a regional problem.
When we finally reached Maine I wanted to tell everyone that I'd survived a "wicked pissah!!"  But almost immediately upon arrival I learned that a wicked pissah is not a storm.  It's a good time of sorts-and I had not had one of those.  But just like I knew it would, the Pine Tree State stole my heart.  Aside from a liquor war with NH, a racist Governor, and the homophobic LL Bean, it's exactly where I'd like to be someday. 
I lost myself in ridiculous book stores.  I wondered how there could be zero garbage in the streets when there were zero garbage cans to be found anywhere (side note: there is also no place to buy gum).  I reveled in an art scene with nary a millennial hipster in sight--though a man-bun did serve me the most beautiful cup of coffee I've ever had.  I touched a piece of the Berlin wall (because what Jew wants to actually go to Germany?)  I fell in love with the roadside motels of Orchard Beach.  Further north I wandered into local bars with neon Budweiser signs and faux wood paneled walls. Toothless lady bartenders eyed my bag and stared at my nails.  Craggy old regulars offered me shots. 
I went into the smallest place I could find to experience a lobster roll for the first time.  I took a seat on a torn vinyl stool at the bar.  A latte-skinned woman glistening with sweat called me babe and slid it to me in a plastic basket.  It was the classic. No frills.  A buttered English roll overflowing with hunks of lobster meat.  Just a touch of dressing.  I'm not usually a lobster girl but I do as the Romans do--and it was perfect. My wife on the other hand, skeptical of her surroundings, decided to hold out for something else.  Somewhere along the way we ended up in a slick, trendy distillery where an unimpressed girl with an ironic 60s librarian haircut served up wifey's lunch.  Fuck around in a foodie town and find yourself picking pork rinds and pickled radishes out of your 'lobster roll'.
The last day there I went full tourist.  Whale watching and swimming with dolphins, their babies no bigger than my house cat-so close I could hear their little baby blow holes. I watched an adorable seal brutally mutilate and eat some poor sea creature, and let that be my consolation for not seeing any puffins.  And though I was warned by highway signs to be on the lookout for them, I did not see a single moose.  Maybe next time...

#FBF

I first noticed my imminent adulthood in an abandoned hospital bathroom. I had a cousin who contracted spinal meningitis as a toddler and my parents funded the majority of his recovery. During this time I spent most of my weekends with my grandmother at the children's hospital while my parents were away. I stayed bored and often found myself exploring places I probably shouldn't have been. One day I took what was left of my amputated kin along for the ride. I pushed his wheelchair into a wing of the hospital that had been closed for years. The walls were a sickly green, decorated with mosaics haphazardly glued by special needs children years ago. The halls smelled of stale sickness, and every step I took brought a tinny echo back to me. Our voices seemed like screams in the vacant halls. And even though it would be a while before I saw a place like this in the movies, I still felt a fear that something wicked could jump from any shadow. I realized I had to use the bathroom and just left him and his wheelchair outside of the avocado green bathroom door. It was there that I looked down and saw the most vile thing that could've ever happened in that wing. There they were, two, maybe three of them--course and black against the pale baby skin of my pubic bone. I couldn't stop looking at them. I knew what it meant but didn't know what it meant next. I didn't want to touch them for fear they would fall out, and I couldn't tell anyone because--well, because. I know I stood in that old bathroom for 20 minutes while my invalid cousin sat outside the door--legless, probably terrified or in excruciating pain. When I finally got myself together and came out, I told him I was shitting. He giggled all the way back to his room. When we were asked what we were doing for so long, he looked at me and said we had gone to the fountain outside. He thought he was keeping a grown up secret--that I had cursed, or maybe that I had shit. But what he didn't know is that he was helping me hold on to my childhood.