Trash

I bought this book at the library sale, not because I wanted to read it so much as I was drawn to this first yellowed page.....

How
perfectly
and neatly
the librarian stamped
the word
"DISCARD"
under the title....

placed there with great care,
or caution,
or trepidation.

I can't help, but wonder, what thoughts passed, when this jacket was opened....
The words, "LOVE is the drug"
hanging there,
an empty prescription bottle on
a dusty bathroom shelf......

And how hard it was, for even the slightest addict, to reach up and touch it, pull it down from it's ageless safe place,
and finally
throw it out.....

Knock-Knock, Who's there?

“You need to stay out of the sun tomorrow”

I pulled on the frayed edges of my cut-offs, twirled my cigarette in the ashtray….

“Why?”

“Your face”
“You’re getting wrinkles”

“Hmmmm”
“Is it supposed to rain tomorrow?”

“No, its supposed to be beautiful”

“Then so am I”

Vanity and arrogance dribbled from the corner of his lips like tobacco spittle on an old lady. Didn’t your Mama ever teach you if you can’t say anything nice, not to say anything at all? Hey big boy…..whatcha gotta say?

Silence.

He can’t say anything nice, so he just sits there. Stewing. Trying to dream up something else that will crawl under my very last nerve and get to me. He hates when he can’t.

I laugh.

These wrinkles aren’t from the sun, you silly fool. They’re from living. From failing. From falling. From flailing on the living room floor and living through “that” night. From laying down in the middle of the road in front of a car driven by a 16 year old maniac and bellowing “over my dead body”. From the Christmas Eve “Ma, I think she’s pregnant” revelations and the "oh, thank God she's nots". From kissing dirt and kicking it into gravesites 25-35 years too soon. From wars and ghettos and moments we weren’t poor, but broke as hell. From laughing hard and late in life. From loving and taking chances. From running, climbing, crawling to get here.

The sunshine just watercolors the lines on my face. Makes them glow in the dark. I’m proud of them. I've lived through them.

I believe in peace and love…

Take that, and put it,
Where the sun doesn’t shine!

Trust me......

It's my favorite movie. "A chic flick" he said, lazily swooshing the margarita in the oversized, salted glass. Mmmmmmmm.

"We're watching it" I purred, flopping on the leopard skin rug just behind him. The first afternoon of the Long Hot Summer had arrived and after floating in the hammock and lolling around in the pool, it wasn't quite time to throw the steaks on. "We're watching it" I whispered, reaching around him to hit play.

Sometime during the can-can, boredom left his eyes and without an audience to notice him, he drifted into the story. Margarita in his right hand, absentmindly swished just every now and then. He didn't notice when I topped it off again.

Mmmmmmmmmmm.....

I scooched the markers closer. Snuck them into my space behind him. NOW, I thought. I traced a word on his back with my finger. "Know what that says?" Mmmmmmm, noooooo"...blue eyes following Satine's every move.

The markers followed her every word......

Saturday afternoon at the movies.
Trust me, you're gonna like it.

I Must be Dreaming....

I woke up swallowing words. Whole words. Big chunks. It made my throat feel raspy, smoke scratched. Like trying to swallow Saltine crackers in the desert.

I blinked. There was no sunshine billowing through the curtains. It was dark. But morning still. I could hear birds. Chirping. Sqwauking actually. The cats were playing round-da-round, flying through the halls chasing the mischevious poltergeists that only come out to play in the last moments of night.

I almost choked. Swallowing whole phrases. Instant replay of every NEVER I ever said.... rushing past me, through me, into me. Eyes wide open now. Night vision working. Everything is the same. The same old comforter piled in a heap at my feet. The wooden floors scratched and carpeted with cat and dog hair dancing just above it's surface. The alarm clock glaring, the time set two hours and twenty minutes into the future. A reminder that I need to wake up confused, because the comfort of actually knowing what time it really is, will lull me back to sleep. I gulp. It's O.K. Everything is the same. I was just dreaming.

But I wasn't. That was hours ago, and there are words stuck in my throat, tatooing the sides, hanging on like tonsilitis..... I can't swallow them yet. Go there.

I said I would never ever again feel this way. Never ever again go this way. Never ever again.

I was wrong. Welcome to my World. It's all good, baby...
I still feel the butterflies....