Poem - Shift

Jake says graduation is coming up too fast

Jenni has quite the wonderful ass

I’m always staring at it when we’re in gym

Those shorts? The ones with pink trim?

Jake’s being paranoid, it’s still weeks away

When he’s being so depressing, what can I say?

“Okay, Jake, we’ve got two weeks, it’s true.

But there’s no reason to have that kind of view!

We’ve had a great run, no denying that

Now get up to the plate, it’s your turn to bat!”

Jake grabs a bat and approaches the plate

An opportunity for me to lay the bait

I approach Jenni, with a casual smile

But in a blink of an eye, she’s talking to Kyle

Jake returns, having grounded out

He sits next to me, his face filled with doubt.

“What if, in the future, we aren’t still friends?

I don’t want our friendships to reach their ends.”

“Jeez, Jake, would you forget this for once?

We’ll still be friends, quit being a dunce!”

I hadn’t talked to Jake in ten years

When he was found in the parking lot of a Sears

His wife had just left him, taken the children

I wonder what I’d say if I could talk to him again.

Poem - Jog

Wednesday morning.

Peg says I should run more

Coffee before or after?

Socks, shoes, banana.

Gulp of water then out the front door

What tunes for this run?

No, no, no, no, no

Zeppelin, finally

Alright, so twice round the block?

So foggy this morning

Make the first turn after the cul-de-sac

See Fred heading out to work

Remember to mow the lawn after work

Ugh, far enough now

Got through 2 full songs, nice solid jog

Hands on knees, chest in and out

Back up the stairs, jump in shower

Before I walk out, see Peg walking out of bathroom

She asks me to sit, okay

Shows me a white stick with a line on it

Jump out of my seat

Wrap her entirely

Never let her go.

Poem - Gen

First breath, first thought

Blinding light, all is light

Feelings -- what is a feeling?

Thump in my chest, touch around my back

Floating in the air, but still all light

Screaming, gasping for air, anything

Floating is gone, now feel stable

Sharp pain, somewhere? Is that mine?

Losing connections to what used to be

Screaming, unstopping screaming

Can anyone hear me? What is this?

Feel these things at my side, what are these?

Wave them up and down,

Long things with littler things on the end

Light finally relents, and I see something strange --

A big hulking thing like me, looking over

Staring back at me, my screaming ends for a moment

Who is that? Who is he? Or it?

He lifts up his long thing at his side and moves it back and forth

What is that? Why did he do that? I keep staring

He walks over, picks me up and puts a long cloth on me

He’s making sounds, noises that I’m just starting to make out

What does he mean? Is he making noises at me?

Another big hulking thing gives him a long flowy thing

He wraps the flowy thing around me, and it’s dark for a moment

All of a sudden I’m warm, almost as warm as…

As what? Where was I before now?

I’m not sure, but now it feels safe.

Short Story - The Deal

“So I became a drug dealer, because everyone has that time in their lives when they have to be a drug dealer. Mostly small-time shit, weed, pills, etcetera, the like. At my peak I was probably making around a grand a week, but there were times we were slinging more than that.” He looked down at the cigarette burning between his fingers, rolling it with his index finger and thumb. He put the orange cellulose filter in front of his mouth and looked back at the person across from him. “Fuck kinda job is this anyway, huh? I never had a screening before a run.”

The woman across from him moved back in her seat and adjusted her suit coat, avoiding eye contact as much as possible. Her fingers instinctively went up to her hair, passing through her thick, blonde locks with a tense feeling. She knew that fair was fair, her husband had come up with the plan so she had to be the one to deal with the cretin. But it certainly didn’t make it any easier to have to sit across a diner table from this delinquent.

“Well, I’m not sure what Bob told you, but this is a slightly different job than you’re probably used to.” She paused for a moment, looking back down at the table and at the man’s ashtray, dusted with the butts of cigarettes gone by. She wanted to gag, but maintained her composure.

“I honestly could give a shit what ‘kind’ of job it is. I’ll give you the same deal I give everyone:  It’s $1,000 up front, period.” She watched as the cigarette rose to his lips and went back to the ashtray. “Anything up to five g’s is ten percent, ten g’s is fifteen percent, etcetera, and so on. It’s the same deal I’d give my brother.”

She reached under the table to get her $3,000 bag and got a good look at this delinquent’s boots. They were dark, leather, imposing boots with real spurs on the back. They had a pointed toe and a design on the ankle of the boot that looked like it came from a bandana or something else like it. There was a strap on the boot that had a metal clasp that looked like it had some sort of personal design on it. A small stainless steel daisy was in the center of the clasp, and she could see scratch marks along the edges of the boot. She wondered how much they had cost.

She rose back up from underneath the table and placed her $3,000 bag on the table. She put her hand inside her $3,000 bag and pulled out her $250 wallet, which had her checkbook between it’s folds. The checkbook was free, because she was sleeping with her bank teller. Not like getting free checkbooks was the only perk of sleeping with the bank teller, but she wasn’t complaining.

Her checks had 2 ginger cats on them, and the cats had just knocked over a potted plant. They were curled up next to the astrewn dirt along the patio ground, looking as innocent as they could possibly be. Their backs were in the dirt and their paws were toying with the air above them.

She scribbled a very high dollar amount on the check, ripped it out and pushed it towards the man sitting across from her. She stuffed her checkbook back into the folds of her $250 wallet and put her $250 wallet back in her $3,000 bag, keeping it at her side of the booth.

“Well, shit. You guys aren’t playing here. So, what kind of job are we talking about here?” he asked. He’d never been offered ten g’s for a run of the mill pickup before, and now he was starting to wonder what was really going on.

“Okay, here’s our plan. You will come to the Shell gas station at 1:00 PM exactly, and you’ll pick up our daughter, Sarah, and you’ll take her on one of your ‘runs.’ How long does one of your ‘runs’ typically take?”

He put the cigarette down in the ashtray, giving the woman across from him a wide-eyed stare. “Maybe we should take a step back there. I’m taking who on a heroin run?”

Immediately, the trigger word “heroin” forced her to slam her hand down on the table in disbelief. “Oh, good God, you aren’t taking her to get heroin!” She put her head down, close to the table and spoke in a hushed whisper. “You’re taking her to get…” she looked around the diner, to make sure no one was looking at them, as she spoke the words of one of her mother’s forbidden fruits, “... Marijuana.”

“Holy shit, you’re telling me this is just for some pot? Jeez…” he thought for a moment. Ten grand for, what, probably a quad of weed? And the driving to get to his dealer’s house and back? Well, shit, this was like taking candy from a baby!

His tone changed to become as hushed as hers was. “Wow, marijuana, huh?” The woman shook her head in a furious nod.

“Tell you what. I’ll do the job for ten g’s, but I don’t want any trouble. I don’t know what you’re thinking of planning here by having your daughter, who’s how old, a teenager?”

“She’s 18, about to go off to college.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what your deal is with this, but I don’t want any kind of funny business. If you’re on some sort of mission to try and teach her a lesson or something, that’s not my problem, but I’m not getting mixed up in it. We got a deal?”

He reached out his hand to seal the agreement, and she recoiled in surprise. She gingerly reached over with her hand, shook it gracefully, and then went into her $3,000 bag to find her hand sanitizer.

“Jesus…” He muttered to himself as he stuffed his pack of cigarettes and his lighter back into his coat pocket. “So, should I get a phone number or something before I go? In case anything happens?”

“Oh no, that won’t be necessary. We’ll talk through Enrique the janitor, like we did before. You will let him know the second you drop her back off at the Shell, understood?”

“Understood.” He got up to leave, before she stopped him with a hand in his face.

“Nuh uh, I’m going first. You stay here for another five minutes or so, and we never met here.” She put on her $200 sunglasses, did another take around the diner, and walked out the door.

Poem - Peek

Boys

Always looking

Staring, glaring

Caring?

Funny, charming ones

Chubby, swarming ones

Haha, good one, yeah, nice try!

It’s just you and your hand tonight!

P!nk is SO EFFING COOL.

Beyonce makes me want to drool

And Taylor Swift is just like me!

She gets that boys just don’t see

They’re just so mean!

And a little unclean!

Oh who, me? I’m not interested.

But there is one boy for whom I would spread

Cute, talkative, won’t stare at my chest

Wait, this guy doesn’t like my breasts?

“Down here, buddy!” My V-neck whispers

Maybe now he won’t flinch when I graze him with fingers

Subtle, always subtle, my mother would say

Always be subtle when luring your prey

“Cute, right?” I tell all my friends,

“Oh yeah, for sure!” “Let him get in your pants!”

Eventually, the guy picks up on a hint

His eyes twinkle with an unfamiliar glint

“Hey, Christine,” he says with a smile

“I feel like we haven’t talked in a while”

“I just got Argo on DVD”

“And my television is 3D!”

“So come on over, don’t be shy”

“You know me, I’m a standup guy!”

I say “Yes, Jacob,” with a sultry reply

“I’ll head over right around nine.”

I hop in the Jeep and arrive at the door.

Hopefully he doesn’t think I’m a whore.

“Hi, how are you?” The door opens wide

Motioning for me to come on inside

The couch is set, the popcorn popped

Parents upstairs so we can’t be stopped

A half hour in, a blanket procured

It’s role is clear and in no way obscured

Soon, a hand reaches barely across the way.

Good! I thought, I knew he wasn’t gay!

I know what to do, I reciprocate

I hope he knows I don’t want to wait

Speeding it up, I look in his eyes

I see nothing in them but pure surprise

I lean in, carefully, making the move

My hand’s on his thigh, I’ve got nothing to prove

I feel him lean back, a curious reaction

Does he not feel this imminent attraction?

A hand, so slightly, meets my lips

Goddamn it, I thought, I’m starting to get pissed!

“Sorry, Christine,” he mumbles quite lowly

“But I’d prefer if we take things more slowly!”

“You see, I’m trying to save myself until marriage.”

“We don’t want some sort of unwanted carriage!”

I sigh, sit back, and look at the screen.

Well, I thought, that’s the end of that scene.

Good byes, a hug, from that lame ass pussy

Or did I come off as kind of pushy?

Forget it, I thought, as I started the Wrangler.

Last time I deal with some amateur!

In fact, I’m quits! Screw it, I’m done!

Girls just clearly are way more fun!

On my way home, phone buzzes, a text.

Who could it be, but Johnny, my ex

“Hey baby,” it reads, “I’m sorry I dumped you”

“Wanna come over and let me hump you?”

Whatever, why not? I thought as I made my U-turn

Better than going home and watching some porn

We do it, he cums, that’s the end of that

It’s not like I came over there for us to chat

Home, I drive, thinking things over

I wonder, why did I do all of this sober?

As I lay in my bed, I figure it’s best

Boys are okay, I humbly confess

Maybe I like them, only a little

But I’ll always strive to be noncommittal

It’s my life! I do what I please!

I dump boys swiftly, and with great ease!

Article - New Sorority “Kappa Kappa Kappa” Holds Charity Event

BLOOMINGTON - A brand new sorority has arrived at Indiana’s Bloomington campus, and has already made the first step in becoming a full-fledged member of IU’s Greek community: hosting charity events to keep the IFC happy.

The new sorority established goes by the name of Kappa Kappa Kappa, sometimes referred to as “Tri Kaps” or “White Hoods” for their distinctive white hoodies that have been seen on campus recently.

“We really take pride in our iconic look,” sorority president Jenn Watson said on the girl’s hoodies. “When we walk into an event, and when our girls walk around campus, we want everyone there to know that the KKK has arrived!”

The Tri Kaps are wasting no time with getting the ball rolling on creative and meaningful charity events - although this charity event might be a little more creative than IU’s Greek community usually partake in. Instead of the typical 3K, bake sale, or talent show that have become a staple for Greeks at IU, the KKK is hosting a charity book burning on the front lawn of their house on the Jordan Extension.

“Although the traditional charity events are great for raising money, we wanted to try a creative new way for everyone to help out - bring all your unused or impure books right to the KKK front lawn on Saturday from 12-3, and we’ll add it to our huge pile we’ve already collected!” said social chair Annie Crane. “Just hand everything to one of the White Hoods, and soon enough your formerly undesirable books will be ashes!”

The KKK won’t stop with just the book burning - the activist group of girls currently have plans to take their message of individualism all over campus next weekend with what they are calling their “Midnight White Pride Walk.”

“Around 11:30 on Saturday night of next weekend, we’re gonna gather up some torches, strap on our white hoods and walk through the campus! It’ll be a big way for all the students at IU to see us for who we are. If we have to stick our torches on people’s lawns to get the message of the KKK out, then that’s what we’ll do!” Watson passionately exclaimed.

All proceeds from the book burning and the pride walk will be donated to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s scholarship fund.

Short Story - Fishing at Lake McMurray

It was September, and my dad told me he wanted to take me out fishing on Lake McMurray. I was ten at the time. It was a Tuesday evening, and because Dad didn’t have to plow the fields on this Wednesday, he decided we would go the next day. I told Dad that I’d be ready to fish, and I ran upstairs to find my fishing gear.

Dad had taken me fishing last week too, but that was on the tinier Round Lake, where the catch wasn’t close to anything what Lake McMurray would give us. As I dug through my closet to find my tackle, I thought about what Timmy O’Hara had gotten on Lake McMurray earlier that month; a real live 10 inch yellow bullhead catfish. Timmy O’Hara claimed that this was the furthest north anyone could find a yellow bullhead, and he bragged about it a great deal last Thursday. I was pretty envious of him, because catfish were some of my favorite dinners.

I retrieved my tackle from my closet soon enough and put it on the counter for my father to inspect tomorrow morning. I then put on my pajamas and went straight to bed. My mother came in for a moment to tuck me in and lay out some of my clothes for tomorrow. My nice overalls, my favorite Vikings T-Shirt, and my wool socks that Grandma had knit me for Christmas the past year were all musts for this trip. As I was thinking of myself catching a fish twice the size of Timmy’s, I fell sound asleep.

We woke up two hours earlier than usual, 4:30, but it was because my dad wanted to get a “fresh start.” My dad loved waking up early, because he liked having more time to do more things. On some days my mom would want to sleep in later until like 8 o’clock or even later than that, and Dad would always get annoyed with her. Dad got up pretty quick and fried a couple eggs for a quick breakfast. He stuffed a loaf of bread, jam, and peanut butter in a mini cooler, and after we gobbled down our eggs we fired up the truck and began driving north.

My dad usually didn’t have much to say when he was at home, but when we went on our fishing trips, he always liked introducing the land that we were travelling on to me. I think it was because his dad had done the same with him, going on fishing trips and teaching about the local hills, ponds, and other landmarks. He would always click off the radio station before he would say something about a landmark, and I was always keen to listen to what he had to say. He let me sit in the front seat and liked pointing at each landmark as they passed. He knew the county probably better than anyone did. He had lived there for 40 years and never really left, except for school for a few years.

Within the first ten minutes of our drive up to Lake McMurray, the sun still hiding behind the eastern horizon, he clicked off the radio (currently playing Neil Diamond’s new album) and pointed out the window. “See that bluff over there?” I did see it. It looked like an old dirt bluff, made up of old dirt. A tree sat on the peak of the bluff. I didn’t think much of it, and soon our pickup flew past it, leaving the bluff to my memories. My dad then said “that bluff is where I first broke my leg. My bicycle chain got entangled with my foot, and I fell pretty hard.” He paused for a moment.

I thought back to that bluff, and how it seemed so plain. Was this memory so momentous? My father continued. “I learned a valuable lesson that day, Corey - sometimes, life gets in the way of things. But you’ve just got to deal with the problems you get as they come along.” He stopped again, apparently done with his lesson.

I wanted to believe that this bluff had some sort of value to my life, but it just didn’t make much sense to me. What did getting his bike chain screwed up have to do with us going fishing? And what about that lesson at the end? It was a bit much for me to grasp at the time. I couldn’t see the landmarks we passed as any sort of lesson or having any other meaning.

A scant five minutes later and we were at the old Goettler Mill, which stood at the mouth of the Kilarney River. The river flowed south through my town, but the source of the river was the lake. We parked the pickup on the gravel road leading up to the mill and grabbed our gear out of the back. Light had just begun it’s creep across the Minnesota morning, glistening through the trees and barely gracing the water. We walked for about 20 minutes along the lake, to find the best dock to fish. Along the way, my father tried explaining about the first time that his father had taken him up to Lake McMurray, but I was too busy day dreaming.

We arrived at the dock and began the tedious and never ending process of attaching the worm to the hook, the hook to the lines, the lines to the rod. My dad was the first one to cast his line, and I followed a few minutes later. He let me do mine myself, because last time I went fishing with him he had showed me the whole process.

We were waiting for about ten minutes until we heard a small plop from the lake. My dad began reeling in his line, until we noticed that it had in fact been my line which was caught.

“Well, what’re you doing bud - Reel it in!” my dad said. I shook my head furiously, and began tugging on my rod and reeling in the line. I soon realized that this fish was much bigger than I could possibly manage, and within a matter of seconds after I tried bringing in the fish, the fish had thrown my ten year old body off the dock.

The water was ice cold, and it stung my body like fire. At this point, I had lost the rod entirely to the depths beneath me. It felt like icicles were piercing my skull. I flailed in the cold murk for what seemed like years, until I felt a massive hand grab my overall loop and swing me back up from the water. I remember getting out of the water, my body beginning to adjust to the rush of warmth before passing out entirely.

I awoke in the back of the pickup, covered head to toe in whatever blankets my dad could find from the inside of the truck. He had hot tea for me somehow, and I drank it graciously. He looked at me for a long time. I was still shivering when he said plainly, “Now you’ll have your own memory when you take your son up here to fish.”

Update - An Apology

Hello all! Sorry that I haven't posted on here in a while, but school has been hectic in the past 2 months. I plan on posting on here more regularly from now on, so stay tuned! In fact, I'll be posting some work from recently tonight, and more to come later. Thanks!

Short Story - Dark Romance

It was a Tuesday. The rain did it’s usual pitter patter on the window as Leonard Gilbert awoke to his alarm blaring. It lay about a foot away from him on his nightstand, and he read the time to determine if it was a valid time to rise. “6:30 AM” the clock read in a glaring infrared, still beeping and flashing in his face. His arm arose to make a haphazard attempt at silencing the mechanic beast which lay before him, but his first endeavor fell short as he instead knocked over his needle and cell phone.

“Fuck!” he exclaimed as he made another try at the accursed object. This time, he not only knocked the alarm clock off his dainty night stand, but he also knocked off his packet of smack. This caused his stash to spill out onto the floor, fogging up a blotch of the carpet in a dark powdery snowstorm. The heroin lay on the ground in a quaint pile, with his precious needle laying about a foot away from it.

Leonard realized what he had done a split second after his alarm made contact with his soft carpet. It landed on the furry forest akin to a skydiver screaming his way the whole way down, and touching ground as graceful as any swan. The alarm’s harmful blares continued to resonate within Leonard’s very being, every ring seeming louder than the last. And then, the headache hit.

A soft moan escaped from his breath. His head felt it had been used as the snare drum for a Neil Peart drum solo, to an abusive level. Migraine couldn’t even describe the pain contained inside Leonard’s skull at this moment. Heroin was not going to do the job for getting him up for work today. No, Leonard needed something a little stronger - some of that dirty, beautiful bean.

A full pound of the bitterest, dankest, and highest caffeine content coffee Leonard had ever done before in his life was sitting in a brown paper bag at the foot of his bed. The bag read “1 lb” in a black Sharpie’s scrawled penmanship. As he propped himself up, finally ending his deep slumber, he stuck his hand in the bag to feel the dark beans against his fingers. They felt like small pebbles, just waiting to be ground up by his premium four chamber grinder.

Leonard sat up in bed, finally coming to his senses a little bit. His head still felt like a deflated balloon, but he at least could comprehend reality. The dark clouds billowed over the run down cityscape that greeted Leonard out his window. He wiped his eyes once, twice and then reached over to his night stand drawer. He pulled out his brilliant stainless steel grinder, still with some grounds leftover from yesterday’s cups. He unscrewed the top section and carefully placed his hand back in the bag, grabbing a fistful of that precious dark bean.

As he ground up the coffee beans, he walked over to his cupboard and opened it up, searching for his coffee maker. This revealed a few scattered boxes of old rice, macaroni and cheese, and some pots and pans at the bottom, nothing special. But the crown jewel of his caffeine addiction lay behind some of those pots and pans at the bottom; he shuffled around the old cooking utensils and pulled out an odd, box-sized black machine and plugged it into an outlet next to his toaster. It was an preserved Keurig one cup brewer, which would make one cup of coffee at a time. Absolutely genius. You couldn’t even find these in the states, let alone set a price on one. It was a gem found while cleaning out his parent’s house after their funeral. Best of all, now Leonard didn’t have to share his stash so often with his pothead neighbors.

He finished grinding up the beans he had placed in the grinder, and placed them into the Keurig. He filled the Keurig up with tap water, quietly shaking from excitement as he did it. He put the illegal machine back on top of his countertop and pressed the button that brewed the biggest cup possible. Continuing to follow the instructions he had found in the box, he then placed his mug under the Keurig, and listened to the wonderful machine do it’s work. It revved, churned, and gurgled as it brewed that delicious black drink which he so ravenously craved. He began shaking again, biting his nails, tapping his feet, just trying to pass the horrible 45 seconds or so that the coffee maker took to brew his cup.

As he continued to try and wait out the seemingly infinite time, he stared at his mug, patiently waiting for the dark fluid to pour from the depths of this machine. His mug had a picture of his little brother Ricky on it, dressed for his first year of varsity football. This was another gem stolen from the ruins of the Gilbert family house. It had a chip on the handle, which would cut someone if they weren’t too careful, but Leonard always remembered to hold the mug exactly right.

The Keurig coughed up a few more heaves, and finally began drizzling out coffee into Leonard’s mug. He jumped out of his seat and began holding the mug, waiting for every precious drop to come out. It drizzled like blood from a fresh cut, slowly but consistent. When the coffee reached a certain point on the mug, the machine began letting out coffee slower and slower. Soon enough, the machine stopped dripping and it let out one last rev of it’s internal guts before becoming silent again, refusing to speak again until called upon.

Leonard picked up the mug, took it over to his couch and sat cross legged. He sipped it, letting the hot beverage burn his tongue ever so slightly. The bitter taste and that quick rush of awakeness was the high he craved. This was the way he liked to drink his coffee. 

He thought he heard a knock at the door, or someone outside. As he darted his head toward the door, he sprang up and checked the peephole. Not a thing. Just Leonard, silence, and this delicious dark broth to sooth him over in the waning hours of the morning before he left for work.