zombie

"i present as a zombie to this world"
this line has become my mantra.
it plays over my pupils,
pulsating
with the dilation of my life.

"i present as a zombie to this world"
is my answer to everything
right now
in this moment
a song drumming against my thoughts
staining my brain waves
reverberating in my skull

"i present as a zombie to this world"
sometimes i am caught by a stranger caring
that is to say i am caught caring by a stranger
or perhaps caught by a caring stranger
i cannot remember the difference now.

this place is built by zombies.
we are everywhere around you
our blank stares telling you we stopped giving a shit a long time ago.
we present ourselves to everyone and
everyone is at sometime, someplace
a zombie
it is our response to those moments in life we find to be
inane.

i present as a zombie to this world.
you know me.
i serve you dinner on the night you got your new promotion
i pump your gas while you curse being late,
i pour your drinks on your 21st birthday,
i am your teacher reading the same prosiac prose
i am a soldier and i am a nurse dressing your wounds
i am an actor and i am a pop star singing vacuous lyrics
i am a family member at a reunion
i am a lover in bed
i am your daughter and son and father and mother

we present as zombies to this world
so when you rattle off a drink order just under the speed of light
and you are blue in the face because you haven't come up for air in five minutes
do not think you are impressing me
or that you're better than me
because the ME part of me
isn't even here.
so take your pompous, self-righteous expanding waist-line
over to the other end of the counter and pick up your 1000 calorie frappucino
and get the hell out of the store.

"will that be all for you today sir? can i interest you in something to eat this morning? no? okay, your total is $7.12 please. do you have 12cents? no? okay. your change is $2.88. thank you, have a good day"


*i wrote this yesterday while on a break from work. i was working the cash register for a while when i was told to clean up the lobby (the place where the customers sit). i was inspired in the bathroom to write this as i bent down to pick up shredded tissue paper.

compilation of thoughts

i wake up some mornings and find myself sitting in a burst of writing energy. i can always tell because the voice in my head is loud and dominant, no other thoughts can even stretch a toe onto center stage. the words come in low and slow and irregular, somehow weighted down with symbolism and significance.

writing is a beautiful and sometimes daunting way of life. to me, it feels like home, so apart of me and essential to me that i would die if i lost it.

as i sit here drinking my coffee i think about all the thoughts spindling out at the fringes of my mind. thoughts of how morning, contrary to popular belief, is my favorite part of the day. how i sometimes think that a perfectly peaceful moment such as this one could be obliterated by a incoming bomb and wayward plane. how fast the environment would change, from order to chaos in a matter of seconds.

i think about how i drink my coffee and from whom i learned the action. do i look like her or him or do i have my own style? i think, if i could study how everyone drank thier coffee/tea i could really learn alot about who they are in that moment. i think about how lucky i am to have all my limbs and digits and to have no noticeable physical malady. i think about how one toasts their marshmellow also says alot about who they are. and what about the way we sleep, on our backs, on our sides, on our stomachs, not at all? how different we are, there is so much to learn about eachother.

i suppose my wonder is a human wonder, what makes us us and what makes this world we live in? all the little things at the fringes of our minds all the seemingly meaningless interactions throughout our days are, in fact, our lives. perhaps that's why Virginia Wolff found it so enticing to write about one woman's life over the course of one day. she couldn't fit it all, there were too many details, too much richness, too many complications and things she couldn't put into words.

as writers how well do we let our readers know us? what do we put in and what do we leave out?

when i have finished writing something i enjoy a happiness that can only be compared to winning some award you're very proud of. i feel like i have fulfilled some essential urge and i sit back, for a moment, satisfied.

A New Day

a new day is stretched out before me.
i look at it optimistically.
i pour another cup of coffee and watch the sun illuminate shadows
outside my window
i tap my frosted toes
against the linoleum
"wake up, wake up"!
my mind cries.
i am enthusiastic
and tranquil
drinking it all in.

a new day is stretched out before me and
i revel
in it's length and purity
not a mark of obligation
not an hour spent scrubbing or serving
to scourge my sanity
nothing but blissful bareness and new
light and
lightness
that comes with being free.

a new day is stretched out before me
like a supple and giving lover
full of enigamatic beauty and endless possibility
i lay my body down
inside this day
the caressing fingers of morning's light
telling me,
"all is now"

a new day is stretched out before me
and it is mine alone
i can do anything
and nothing
if i want to.

the adoration of a star

i am a bright star
in a sky full of stars
i see you
do you see me?

i am a bright star
in the evening
in the morning
behind some other stars

i wave to you
point a pointy star appendage your way
and you twinkle with delight

i am a bright star
somewhere in someone's sky
sometime
i am gleaming
and i reach out to touch you
and you are light years away

i am a bright star
in the northern sky
i am a bright star
grinning
at you and
dancing
with you
next to a new moon

i am a bright star
ever watching you
ever wondering where YOU are.