Open Doors and Empty Drawers

I'm not sure you know me even though we share a bed and I know intimately the mole on your ass that has a long hair that should be plucked. It's not your fault. I've never told you about the wandering eyes that lead wandering hands. I just smile and flirt. That's what I say. At least that is what I say to you. I just want our love as measured by the volume of your snoring. It's the only sound that eases my mind and puts me to sleep. I love sleep. It's dreams I don't care for; their hope is false.

You are waking now, and I am creepily staring. You hate waking up to me hovering over your head. I like counting your gray hairs and freckles. 358. Just a week shy of a year. It's symbolic I tell myself, and you are looking annoyed. You don't want my roving hand, so I turn my eyes and find somewhere else to rove. There. It is on the computer screen I should have closed. It's on your computer. I shouldn't have used it, but it was there last night open and beckoning after you fell asleep. He's still staring back at me paused just before completion. I never get to finish.

I've wanted to tell you for so long, and each time I start I yield. I've wanted that feeling of connectedness that others talk about in relation to their spouses. We touch. We never connect. I miss the feeling of being with someone. Why aren't you with me?

You lay there breathing heavily, eyes blinking sleepily, hand slamming snooze. I'm about to tell you that there is a virtual other, that he comforts and warms me with his electric impulses. I can feel his resistance in the keyboard, and that is so much more real than the depression of your body in this bed. It's about to be over. We are about to become you and me again.

But I am terrified. I don't want you to know me. I am safer behind a screen and blinking cursor. I am stronger not next to you.

There you are:next to me. I can't do it this way. I cannot. I cannot break your heart and shatter your illusion of me. Or I cannot do it while we share this bed.

I rise. You turn over on your side annoyed at my fidgitiness. I do this ever morning. Except today is different. Today, I leave.

Your computer is in front of me, and he is still paused. I press play and instantly he cums. He knows me and sees me for who I am: misery and hopeless dreams. He knows what comes next. It happens every time: he door opens and he walks away. That's how everything ends.

I rewind two minutes and pause. There is a not in my hand. It is for you. It is the only way I know how to show you who I really am.

You are finally awake and out of bed. The back door hangs open. It is cold and rainy and dreary. You notice a hot pink post-it on your computer screen and empty drawers.

It reads, "Press play." And all you can do is pause.

He-Man Versus the Devo Poison Oak People

I woke up this morning with a headache today stemming from a spot in between my left shoulder blade and my spine. It made breathing and remembering difficult almost painful but only slightly. It was like the dull ache and burning itch of poison oak, which reminds me of my dream; the one I hoped the headache would drown out. Obviously, the pain isn't great enough to make me forget.

I was standing on a cliff looking at a large island in the rough sea that kept being hidden by coastal fog. Only, I wasn't me. I was floating above me, and my body was in the form of He-Man, Master of the Universe. My greased muscles shone like the sun that was beginning to set: bronze. I was a less precious metal.

I don't know how I got to that cliff of sandstone. I was just there and had a vague memory of a machete and gigantic wild plants that chased me over uneven ground. I think they had human teeth. They also had new wave haircuts. I despised them; they were trying to be too hip. That was some of the only clarity.

Another clear thought was: Joel Osteen and Tammy Faye Baker. They were keynote speakers about the power of visualization and self-determination. Evidently, anything is possible if you only have ambition and faith. I have neither. I like it that way; it make living surprisingly easy. I am content with my minimum wage job and lack of insurance precisely because I don' give a shit.

But...He-Man cared, and he wanted to listen to the keynote speakers. He believed in "the POWER OF GRAYSKULL!", which he thought, based solely on its conceptual designs, was the epitome of both ambition and faith. It's how Prince Adam became He-Man: he believe. Plus, he had a mantra.

The speech was to take place on the island. Only, the sea separated us. And a cliff. And the fact that I, who was He-Man and floating above him, couldn't care less about Joel Osteen. Tammy Faye, on the other hand, was a different story. I wanted to know her beauty secrets. How exactly does one get that much mascara on one's eyelashes? It is still a mystery to me, and I've tried fake eyelashes, Mac mascara, and that stupid eyelash "grower" that Brooke Shields sells. I think it is called Activia or Boniva or Truvia or something ...via. Then again, I could be confusing it with solutions to irritable bowel syndrome, which I think is a "side" effect of that lash "grower". My bowels were definitely irritated, but that has nothing to do with eyelashes.

I am digressing form my dream. I, He-Man, was standing on a cliff looking at the island in the middle of the choppy sea when the plants from that hidden memory burst forth through the line of palm trees that stood twenty-seven feet away from the edge of the cliff. I had only a moment to decide what to do. That's when I noticed the plant people with the Devo outfits were poison oak. I could tell by the leaves of three and the slightly reddish-brown hue to their supposedly green leaves.

I had two options: fight or flight. Flight meant jumping off the cliff, falling at least six stories, and most likely dieing on impact. I jumped. Or rather He-Man jumped. I still floated there above him.

Only, he didn't fall. He flew upward and in a bizarre moment of lucidity I really was He-Man. I was no longer floating above him.

Then, I woke up with a headache.

Now, I am popping three Advil hoping it will subside and that I can forget my dream. I just wish I could have learned Tammy Faye's beauty secrets before I woke up. God damn Devo poison oak people ruining my strange dream!

A Plastic Coffee Cup

She has a coffee in her hand. It is melting the plastic cup it is in and blistering her hand. Soon, it will be all over the counter. She notices none of it. She's lost. I can tell. I'm sitting above her staring at her blank eyes and tapping feet.

I think she wants burning hands. she brought the plastic cup with her and demanded the coffee be poured in it, which makes me question my observation: she notices none of it. This makes me ponder whether any of my observations are real or accurate or truth. It seems all things do come undone if you observe long enough and know how to ask questions. I wonder if the same thing can be said of rising and convergence. I also wonder if dunces can form a confederacy. But that has nothing to do with her. Just my love of literature.

Now she's left and the counter is covered in her coffee. I'm still above. I'm still looking down. And I'm still observing. Maybe I should act and help clean it up. I watched it all unfold and did noting before, so something after may be in order. But I'm no good at action. It is why I write and love literature.