This is What it Feels Like

Scene one:
moist grass
heated faces
magnetic air
no eye contact.

This is what "doubt" feels like.

Scene two:
cold grass
focused vacant stares
the blurring and smearing of tears
self-loathing bitterness
a warm hand on a fragile knee.

This is what "heartbreak" feels like.

Scene three:
soft fingers
red empty plastic cups
warm hearth
hollow laughter
buttercream frosting
a tight embrace
a horse with blinders.

This is what "denial" feels like.

Scene four:
empty desks
agitated bees
racing heart strings
frozen tongues against their throats.

This is what "anger" feels like.

Scene five:
sleepless eyes
intuition
crowded church
week-old release
tears, heavy tears
wheezing ribcages
familiar room, without the monument.

This is what "grief" feels like.

Scene six:
a placid lake
downy feathers
dizziness
meditation.

This is what "acceptance" feels like.

Scene seven: (blending with Scene eight)
familiar classrooms
static air
attention to detail
a recipe for quiche
tumbling from a stool
bitter buttercream frosting
sincere compliments, given with hesitant eyes
uneasy bridge walk
broken bracelets, broken promises.

This is what "replacement" feels like.

Scene nine:
full belly laughter
maniac grin
harshest words
opportunity
rubber shield.

This is what "vindctive" feels like.

Scene ten:
adrenaline screaming
panic, panic
sick coincidence
hysterical giggling
unecessary guilt
guilty pleasure
new beginning.

This is what "karma" feels like.

Epilogue:
stationary afternoon
dry, rough, patchy
an eggshell
overcooked spaghetti heaped on a plate
an airplane running over the sky
wax sliding over glass
anticipation of improvement
lies, secrets, secrets, lies
warmer eyes
greater risks.

This is what I feel like.

Unresolved Issues With the Animal Kingdom: Deer

I like to believe I am a rational person so I will explain this as rationally as possible: I am afraid of deer.

Yes. Bambi-and-friends-frolicking-through-the-woods-eating-grass deer. They unsettle me the way horror movies disturb toddlers.

Did you know that more people die in car versus deer accidents than deer? A Park Ranger in Yellowstone told me that. They’re just small enough to be flung up onto the windshield, but just large enough to smash through the glass and lacerate you with their razor-sharp hooves. That’s right. They have razor-sharp hooves.

Why, you may ask, does a deer need sharp hooves? They do not need to kill to eat, nor do they dig, or do anything with their feet but walk-anything but fight, that is. Their sharp hooves are supposedly for “self-defense”, so clearly they are fighting something. All the members of the alces family attack threats to their young in a specific manner: they rear up on their hind legs, then smash their pointy front feet into the hapless victim’s skull with the force of their entire body. It’s true; it happened to my great-great grandmother. She survived by waiting until the animal reared and then stepping calmly just outside hoof range, over and over again. Eventually the ungulate’s hamstring was bitten by a dog and the fight ended. This doesn’t seem like a defensive maneuver to me.

Deer have no concept of personal space, or dignity. They wander into people’s yards and eat the grass off of graves in cemeteries. They clearly have no respect for our dead or our living. They’ve been left by the side of the road bleeding to death at the mercy of cruel motorists too many times and now they’re out for revenge. When they’re munching the lush green on grandma’s grave, they’re using those uncommonly large eyes to say “You killed my great-grandfather, and now you must pay. Om nom nom.”

We’ve pushed them off their land and destroyed their food sources, eaten their brethren, and hit them with our cars. It was only a matter of time before a major uprising began. It is my firm belief that they are gathering together to fight the ultimate fight against mankind. Soon, they will control us with their hypnotic eyes, hooves to our backs as we slave to restore their forest and protect them from other natural enemies. They will find every last trophy head and place them over our beds, a sick reminder of how the tables have turned.

Slowly, they will become more sadistic. The ritual killings will increase and deer will control all species. These plans have been in the works since the first deer-human battles, and the deer will stop at nothing to reclaim their pride. When the deer apocalypse comes, and you don’t have your bear-guarded shelter prepared, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Bambi’s mother had it coming.

Food Issues: Nasty Fruit Chunks

Yogurt is exceedingly difficult to buy. There are so many choices, and so many ways you can end up with something disgusting instead of something wonderful. This issue is compounded with a universal inability for yogurt manufacturers to properly label their yogurt.

I have a problem with the hunks of fruit so commonly found floating in innocent yogurt. It’s not even really fruit by the time it makes it into the little plastic cup. Instead, it’s the hollow, tasteless pulp of what used to be a delicious strawberry. There is no flavor to those leathery excuses for food- it’s all been squeezed out into the yogurt already. Nobody wants it anymore. It’s gross. If I wanted pieces of fruit in my yogurt, I would put them there myself, using fresh fruit, pure fruit, unadulterated by a food processor.

Usually avoiding these nasty fruit chunks is easy, like when the yogurt people put the words “Fruit on the bottom!” on the outside, as though it’s something to be proud of. There are also those horrible, sneaky, good-for-nothing yogurt manufacturers who write NOTHING on the outside which indicates the level of nasty, leaving the poor consumer in the dark about whether or not their pina colada is chunky and full of hairy coconut bits. But they are not the worst offenders. Oh no. The worst are those yogurts which claim to be “whipped” or “smooth” which seem to imply that they are, well, not lumpy, but when you open the yogurt, there sit those poor, lifeless fruit droppings you’ve come to detest.

I’m telling you, yogurt buying is a dangerous mission. You best watch your back, and know your brands.

Nostalgia

When I see
your neck
It is too easy to
Slip
and remember how
my left hand
fits on the
right side,
cradling your face.

If I focus
I remeber where you could put
both your hands
(around my waist)
to pull me in for a
Kiss.

It is also easy to
Slip Out.

I can remember how
your neck
twisted out of
my left hand
to keep your eyes
locked away from me.

I can feel the void
from where
both your hands
no longer tug
(my empty waist).

Unresolved Issues With the Animal Kingdom: Pigeons

I was in New York City for the first time the summer before 8th grade. It was magical; the city was so new and different and exciting. My hometown couldn't hold a candle to its radiance. Unfortunately, there was a similarity:

Pigeons.

I loathe pigeons. There is not a single creature on this earth which I find as hideous as the pigeon, and they are everywhere on this planet. You cannot escape them. That is one of their most unattractive features-they have such vast numbers that there is no escape. They stare at you with their round, watery eyes, make that chilling cooing noise, and you can immediately tell that they are plotting something nefarious involving fecal matter.

Pigeons crap wherever they please, whenever they please, but only after eating something difficult to digest. Then they locate a target, usually someone doing something exciting, who is wearing an outfit that is either expensive, difficult to clean, or both. For instance, a pigeon will see a girl in the audience for the Today Show wearing a brand new white t-shirt and think to itself, "That violently green pesto I just consumed is making my tummy feel weird. It's time for it to move on. That pretty girl in white surely understands my sorrow." Then it will let loose and you are left covered in warm, green, stinking bird feces that will leave a horrible grey shadow on your shirt as a painful, permanent reminder.

The last offense I take with the psychology of pigeons is their (lack of) intelligence. Birds who sit on busy thoroughfares and do not fly away when approached by SUVs deserve to be crushed under the wheels of the vehicle. This is called "survival of the fittest" and rumor has it that's what makes the creatures of this earth maintain standards. These standards are important. After all, no one wants a dog that can't fetch, or a city populated by birds too stupid to use their God-given wings to save themselves from automobiles, particularly not me.

It's not just their behavior is off-putting, however. There's also the problem of their appearance. Once enough of these animals are crowded into an area populated by fools who feed them and garbage cans line the sidewalks, even the dumbest of the dumb survives. There are incidents of horrid inbreeding and terrifying accidents. This leaves us with deformed pigeons. Regular, oil-spill green birds are unattractive enough, but add goiters, extra toes, and bulbous tumors, then suddenly pigeons are infinitely worse. It may make me cruel, but I find deformed pigeons repulsive.

Unfortunately, there is no way to escape these vile creatures without moving to a remote, and likely undeveloped, part of the world, where the climate is too dramatic for lowly pigeons. That, or we use them to feed the world's hungry until we can effectively reorganize food distribution and solve world hunger. Perhaps I have a new life goal.