You Stand Up

You are a mote-spec 
in a sun ray
an unfathomable mind
ocean-deep
a handwritten note 
tied to the tail of a balloon
you are unbreakable
the king of the jungle gym
jumping higher than anyone 
running faster than anyone
throwing down if it comes to that
and every day 
when you get shoved to the ground 
you stand up.

Just Ordinary Cleaning Today

Whenever I leave this one air conditioned room where I am currently doing everything–sleeping, working, eating, hop-scotching, cats-cradle-ing–I realize I've already forgotten how hot it is in the other, non-air conditioned rooms. It's the kind of heat that requires one's brain to play tricks on one. To make one forget, I guess, because otherwise the memory of this heat might permanently damage one's fragile id or ego or, at minimum, prevent one from ever leaving this, the one air conditioned room. Did I mention that it is actually quite hot here in this, the one air conditioned room? It is. It's just at a more reasonable level of oppression. One where a person's brain continues to maintain memories of the heat (what with the air conditioner on High and everything, I should certainly hope so). It seems that whenever I get the bright idea to have a day of extraordinary deep cleaning followed by calming, restorative organizing, that the weather works against me. It seems that I can only deep clean when it is cool with low humidity. That I can not comfortably nor restoratively organize in broiling heat. And, as this cleaning was meant to be a departure (in lieu of going out of town this weekend) as opposed to the normal, everyday kind of cleaning, it is with sadness that I report that I will just be ordinarily cleaning today.

Acceptance

The background on my cell phone is an accurate representation of the weather as it is happening outside in real time. This has been going on for weeks with zero input from me. While at first I didn't know what to do or how I felt about it (it is difficult to express how this makes me feel), I've grown to accept and even enjoy the weather as it is represented on my cell phone. It, by it's very presence, assumes that I am always wondering about the weather which I've decided is 'funny' (and have added to the list of things I'll laugh about later). On average I look to my cell phone, to this particular screen with it's spot-on, constantly updated, intuitively generated replica of today's weather hundreds of times per day. I do it not to see if it's still sunny or warm outside so much as to be reassured that there still is weather outside. And the blue background (given specific coordinates, time of day, season and relative cloudiness) that is meant to represent the current sky-scape with it's various shades of blue and gray and it's, quite frankly, breathtaking sun icon (which is always right there in the center except after sundown when, without any fanfare, it becomes the moon) not only has the local weather down but, somehow, seems to understand me, too. In summary, my cell phone which renders simple, accurate representations of the weather wherever I am without my permission, any self-aggrandizing humble-brag nonsense or so much as a peep--knows. It just knows. And I've grown to accept and even enjoy the weather as it is rendered on my cell phone without any input from me. 

Unknowable Soup

soup!
this soup is my rainbow
this soup is my sun
this is why I return to the 7-11
soup
I just walk in
go right past the Doritos 
barely nod at the Ajax
and then 
the spicy noodle bowl aisle
so colorful
so plentiful
I take one down from the shelf
turn it over 
searching it
thinking about it 
these spicy noodles 
no, this isn't really soup 
this plastic, shrink wrapped 
$6.00 bowl 
this is a slick vehicle 
to an unknown destination
this soup, if we can even call it 
that, is the future 
as it unfolds in 
the imagination's memory
this soup is a killer 
this soup is jamais vu
and it will be the end of me 
this spicy noodle bowl

Driving Home

Fake grape flavored wax candy melted 
in the back seat window
leftover, diagonally cut tomato sandwiches   
unwrapped and covered in sand 
a bottle of coconut suntan oil shattered  
on wet-foot-print pavement 
we were driving home 
in the great big Kojak car 
the plastic beach ball still warm from the sun
and one deflated vinyl seahorse 
that smelled artificial and so happy.
like a sun-induced headache
like endless blue summer skies.