Rant - Alex (H8URPL8)

H8URPL8

Oh hey, I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel so intensely strong about something that I can't imagine any other way to profess it to the world than through my license plate.  What better way to ask the question "RU DOWN" or let the inquiring minds behind you know that you "LUVSELYN"?  Of course, you'll never know if we are indeed down, and us poor people stuck behind you will have to live with the hauntingly unsolvable mystery of never knowing what, in fact, you sell ?  All I can assume is that you have a nauseating spelling handicap, leaving me with the plague of wanting to help.

You may think the regulation plate holders surrounding your vehicle are dying to make sure that you are the "NBR1PIMP" or a "PLYRH8R", or that the guy in the red Ferrari now has a "FSTRCAR" than his old one, but the truth is we don't give a cat's paw.  In fact, I now think you are an idiot and don't deserve a car.
So, in an effort to not lose my mind or go mental on one of you, I've made a game of decifering your riddles. I can usually MacGyver out the message, but sometimes it seems, passion is too great to fit within the allotted spaces on the sinner's license plate, and it comes out looking like someone from Sesame Street randomly threw up the alphabet.  Is that even worth shelling out extra dough for? Were you going to die if "L2MKUVT" (aka, "Love to Make You Vomit") wasn't on the back of your car? Blarf.

Oh, and apparently, single numbers are a hot ticket! The number "5" sold for 6.8 million dollars, and the number "1" is supposed to go for 15-20 million.  Personally, I can't think of any better way to spend that money.  Nope, not a single better way. Seriously, folks, you are pillars of society.

FUK U.

Protection - Alex

You didn’t ask me to stay (how could you?). In fact, you encouraged me to leave, with a silence I misheard as the promise you would be there upon my return—whenever that may be. We would both be different, but for the better. I would slide effortlessly into your open arms, and after a little reacquainting, we would pick up where we left off. It was the kind of foolish that only the luxury of confidence and contentment can buy. 

You slipped away. Slowly at first. And then completely. I barely even noticed, distracted by self-indulgence, separated by space. Until it was too late. 

Sometimes, I wonder what we would be if I had never left. You: the sun, warm smiles, barbeques, book clubs, covered in paint, tickled with laughter. Me: full and happy enough to breed the arrogant assumption that my absence would have only but a slight effect. We are an energy magnified by memory.

Here, there is nothing—not a voice, not a street, not a picture. It’s like you are a ghost, something fictional I made up; your greatness, a rose-colored hyperbole, red-hot, iron branded onto my brain to make myself feel worse about who I am, where I am, and who I am with. Would you even recognize me now? I am a shell, walls cracking from within.

So, I protect myself. I play with him, I brunch with her, I drink. I surround myself with to-do lists, friends and tedious details to forget that you ever existed, that you are presently, constantly missed. I drink. I dream. I make jokes and laugh if others do the same. I follow suit; I am a good girl. And, I drink. 

Sometimes I catch myself laughing so hard my eyes shut out everything, and in these moments, I am able to forget you. But as soon as my eyes open and the corners of my mouth fall back down into place, I aware of your absence tenfold. I am aware of what I happily—no, eagerly—forfeited for something better, something different. 

What would we be? Whom would we know? Are we really that much better? Are we really that much worse? 

I am angry. You cripple my every move, my every advance. The memory of you belittles every victory, seems to spoil every achievement. You are a constant plaguing eclipse. However, it is far too much to pretend you did not exist. I am who I am and where I am because of you. 

I miss you. I love you. And at times I may want you back more than I can stomach. But mostly I just want to move on. 

If I could take a pill and erase every step, I think would swallow the entire bottle. I wouldn’t wait for water; my mouth dry, throat sticky. But then, I would wake up in bed with you again, staring out the window, wondering what I was missing. 

We had our time together, it was great, but it’s over. 

Now, right now, 

we can be whatever we want;

We are something new. 

And instead,

I’ll drink to that.

Resurrection - Alex (Lord Lazarus)

Stillborn. Four minutes.

Twelve years, nailed to a tree. Eleven minutes.

Eighteen years, overdose on sleep meds. Seven minutes, coma for four months.

Twenty-seven years, another overdose. Dead for forty-five minutes. A syncopated syncope.  

Thirty-three years old, car accident. Seventeen pumping minutes to “Stayin’ Alive”. Only three minutes of silence.

Forty-nine years old, heart failure. Twenty-five failed minutes of defibrillation. Ten minutes before I feel my body ache and head throb.

Sixty-one years old, an abdominal aneurysm. Another fourty-five minute flatline. I awoke in a morgue drawer with a tag taunting me, dangling from my left toe.

Lord Lazarus. Again.

Insomnia - Alex (I had this dream...)

I wrote this when I had a bit of self-inflicted insomnia. I was afraid to go to sleep because of things I would dream. I've tweaked it a little. It's a bit of a cop out, but I've been really busy (as has everyone) and this is all I got!

I had this dream
and
I was wearing white.
My hair was long,
brown, flowing and full.
My dress was
a few sizes too big
and
I was barefoot,
inhaling chlorophyll
running through soft grass,
and glass
and broken asphalt
tasting blood.

My dress kept getting in the way
weighing me down.
It grew richer, thicker
more. It was heavy like wet pulling down
on my arms
my shoulders
pulling my thighs towards the ground
slowing me
making me retarded.
 It was all I could do to hold it up.

And I was running
and I thought it was to you,
but I was running
going nowhere
running in place while the background
blurred behind me.

i never fell.
but I tired of holding up my
big fat heavy
dress.
and then everything-
me, the ground, the dress
we all just
disappeared.

and then it was black
like at the end of a film
but there were no credits

and it was over.