I don’t talk to you. You don’t talk to me.
What happened to us? We used to be so close.
Too close. All we did was annoy each other.
Forget the good times. Forget the laughs.
That was all bullshit, and we both know it.
You’re like an unexplained foul odor, left behind in a room.
A festering sore that I keep picking at?
Is that obsession? Or how deeply you annoyed me?
How long will this last?
Until the next one. The next person to get close.
Too close, and they leave without leaving.
Like an open, bleeding sore.
Tag: cliche
The Can
Preacher say you can’t put God in a bottle or a box.
Or packed inside a wrapper.
Bright colors, big letters.
That’s not where you’ll find God.
You have to put Him in a can.
Not a cheap Aluminum can.
Or a rusty tin can.
You have to put Him in a steel can.
A solid American steel can.
Bigger than a soup can.
But smaller than a barrel. Or a keg.
Like that tomato soup can for prisons and schools.
Or the one restaurants get olives in.
About that big.
Gimme that can opener.
Let’s get us some God.
Revolution!
The revolution is a terrible disappointment.
We should have overthrown the government by now.
But we haven’t.
We go back and read our revolutionary notes.
Che Guevara said that the duty of every revolutionary is to make the revolution.
So sweep the revolutionary streets with revolutionary brooms!
So scrub the revolutionary toilets with revolutionary brushes!
So make the revolutionary donuts with revolutionary dough!
So make the revolutionary coffee with revolutionary coffee machines!
Revolutionary cream? Revolutionary sugar?
You like it black?
Viva la revolution!
And dunk the revolutionary donuts into revolutionary coffee!
Too much coffee.
Too jittery to revolt.
Let’s nap.
The Robe and The Mask
Carlton has worn a mask and robes since the age of seven.
Some say he was burned badly in a fire, but that’s not the kind of thing you ask a kid. Or his parents.
It wasn’t in the papers, and I don’t see any mention of it in the news archives.
And he moves around pretty good.
Like a kid, and not like someone with skin grafts and other debilitating injuries.
He sounds pretty normal, too. Not like his body’s rotting out from under him.
Maybe he just likes the robes and the mask?
Maybe he’s just kinda weird?
Franchise Orgy
Okay, so Ronald McDonald opened up his house to families with children receiving critical medical treatment, but have you ever heard about the wild parties at his apartment in the city?
Yeah, I got photos and videos.
Ronald and the Burger King double-teaming Wendy.
The Colonel giving head to Carl, and the Taco Bell dog humping everybody’s leg.
And Jack… well, you can guess what Jack was doing.
They’ve offered me free food for the tapes and the memory cards, but, there’s no way I’d do that.
Not after what I saw them do with those burgers at the party.
The Walls Have Ears
“The walls have ears,” the nuns tell us.
They are the ears of bad children that talk in class and get dragged by the ear to Mother Superior’s office.
Most kids scream in pain and walk willingly, but the tough ones resist.
The nuns tug harder and… sometimes the lobe tears right off.
After the child is beaten into submission by a flock of nuns with rulers, the prize earlobe is tacked up on the wall as a warning to the rest of the children.
Unless the parents buy it back in the annual Ear Auction.
You know, for charity.
Stolen Dreams
Ever have your dreams stolen from you?
It happens all the time, I know, but what can you do about it?
Can’t call the cops. It’s not a crime to steal dreams.
Can’t file an insurance claim. They’re not covered by homeowner policies.
I tried to put up posters around the neighborhood, but all people called me about was a lost cat and how much I wanted for my lawnmower.
One guy insisted on giving me his credit card number and making me talk dirty to him for two bucks a minute.
And that’s how I got my dreams back.
Limber Me Timbers
When Jill finished her Phys Ed and Business degrees, she opened up a yoga studio.
Business was good, plenty of young mothers and forty-somethings needing to lose a few pounds, or keep pounds away.
Then, Wii Fit and other cheaper options came out, followed by the recession.
She tried pilates classes, but those didn’t draw.
“Try a GroupOn,” said a friend.
Half-off coupons brought in a wave of signups to her studio.
Then… disaster.
First day, the room was filled with buccaneers.
One waved a printout in his good hand.
“Yarrr, I signed up fer Pirates classes!”
Damn you, Autocorrect!
Ill Tempered Dreidel
“I spin my little dreidel
Without a whim or care
No truer words were spoken
Than “A great thing happened there”
I had a little dreidel
I made it out of clay
But the clay came from a golem
Whom the rabbi made obey
Sure, the golem was defeated
By the townspeople of Prague
And the streets were free of evil
Though the sewers all did clog
From the blood of all the victims
That the mighty golem slew
The lesson you should learn
Is to not piss off a Jew”
Rebecca smacked her husband.
“Did you teach him that?”
One Two
When I was a kid, I used to count out time using Mississippi.
One Mississippi… Two Mississippi…
Every kid in our town counted using Mississippi.
But kids in other towns counted out with Hippopotamus.
One Hippopotamus… Two Hippopotamus…
“It’s Hippopotami!” We’d tell those kids.
“No it ain’t!” they shouted back. “And besides that, there only be one Mississippi!”
We’d shout back and forth, sometimes a scuffle would break out.
These days, strolling through the Jackson Zoo, I like to visit the pygmy hippopotamus pond and watch them play in the reeds and mud.
I count them:
One Mississippi… Two Mississippi…