“I’m gonna go play with dese bricks and block.”
“We po’ed all that rubar over in the cut.”
“Gonna get me some ravioli.”
“Not everyone’s bad.”
“She told me I didn’t have to take the test again.”
“All ya gotta do is ask.”
“It’s all donated.”
“This tastes like vitamins.”
“There’s no can opener. There’s no knives in case someone goes crazy and stabs somebody. Nothing but plastic like the pen. Nothing but butter knives and no butter.”
“Laughter heals.”
ever been lost then found without inching?
ever felt the world tilt?
ever vibrate spacelessness?
ever stop being a miniscule
beep in a global positioning system
as you fill the agape diluted pupils
of your beloveds?
the recovery intoxicates
my heart’s gps.
no recalculations.
“What am I doing messing around with a 23 year-”
“So, why did you stop drinking?”
Groan.
“Boxers.”
“What?”
“My poor behavior made my mother cry.”
“So, you stopped drinking, cause your mother cried?”
“I looked into ways of learning how to stop.”
“What did you do so bad to make your mom cry?”
“Maybe if I add more pebbles to my stony silence, he will stop probing. I am going to be silent for five, slow steps in a row. Maybe, he will shut up. One. Two. Three. Four.”
“Well, how bad of an alcoholic were you? Did you drink every day?”
“No, I didn’t drink every day.”
“So, what did you do that was so bad, your mother-”
“I fucked men, so they would buy me drinks.”
She knows he will never touch her or look at her the same.
Regret.
Red face.
Eyes darting and lowered.
A sharp stone slips into her right cowboy boot’s hole and cuts her soft sole.
She hardens.
veehaunanifitzhugh 