1. Write down three of your favorite things
2. Write a story of a 13-year-old member of the opposite sex who obsessively needs and wants those three things, but must not (for whatever reason) have them.
3. Repeat your first line at least 5 times.  In context, allow it to shift meaning.
4.  You can not use the word obsess (or any varient)

Though it might be crass to say you lost your ass
I’ll look askance and then take the chance
at your hurt and your vibrance and sass

Imagine a perfect glass floor.
Imagine an endless supply of marbles.
Imagine that the floor is endless.
Imagine that one marble falls from nowhere and lands somewhere on the floor.
When it hits, it strikes another marble, and another and another.
Each of these marbles in turn strikes other marbles.

Now imagine that you are the space around the marbles.
Every marble that drops, changes the shape of who you are.
Every tiny change precipitates and endless series of other changes, none of which are completely predictable.
Very quickly, you aren’t at all who you thought you were.

Soon, it’s hard to remember where you started.

The marbles keep falling.
Rolling. Bouncing. Striking each other.
Changing the space around them.

The title of this piece is, “My Family Defines Me”

Your name is Sidhartha.
Your Mother’s Name is Mary.
Your Father’s name is Lao.
You may or may not have siblings. If you do, they are all rabbits. If you don’t, they are catholic.

You live by a river.
You make silk.

You believe in something, there are only three possible  things to believe, but you can only believe one:
a) Beauty
b) Love
c) Truth.

Write on McFluff. Write on.

Moonlight is a holy thing
a sacred event that bows the eyes
to a pious dream.

The pine creeks beneath
the leather shod foot

Stars are obscured here
and there behind the small
of darkling clouds

A breeze speaks the last of day
a chill saunters the spine

Water is the transformation
the endless now
that drifts below a ever-changing surface.

When the old owl sobs a scream
it is the proclamation
that the present is his.

He, and only he
tells the story of this rotting bridge
to the other side

I see her blond hair
watch her on the bench
separating men from their souls
with a smile

she might harvest them
but she has no need

I marvel at her hand
pulling strands of gold
from her eyes
sanctifying a hundred marriages
as they walk by

she might not harvest them
she has no desire

I gaze on her lips
read the words as they roll
to the rubbish barrel
seduce the bees
they zip away to a sweetness
only she can know for sure

she might release them
she smiles

he did not know if he
were tree, or a bug
under the bark

he asked himself
why do i crawl?
why am I so araid
of sunlight?

he knew that he was flat
and his soul
segmented

when the hummingbird came to him
and danced there on his flesh

he wanted for everything
that was him
to become everything
that was him

he did not know
if his breath
would fill the emptiness

he did not know
if his flesh was wooden
and reaching

he tried
lord, he tried
but it is so dark
beneath the bark.

Perhaps, Letty thinks
she is a duck.

Her words never echo
even in the vast vacuum of this new premises

If she has benefactors
(but she doesn’t)
the cash would make the loss
of words much easier,
she thinks.

And old lover flatters Elizabeth,
and Letty is hurt. For not reason.
His dick was limp as his soul
and she was glad to be rid of him.

But Letty was sad when she absently brushed
her left hand over her right forearm.

He says to Elizabeth
he needs 3-4 thousand pounds.

She yells, “James needs chocolate,
Pronto.”

He rolls his eyes, and shows Hannah Webster
around the new space.

Letty hears Elizabeth invite that disheveled ass
Marcus to dine with her.

In the lady’s room, after their new desks are full
of office supplies, Elizabeth says
“Letty, he interests me. I know he tries to seduce women
for profit and most probably pleasure.

But he he interests me. Did you see the photos
of the orphanage?

He helped put in heat and sanitation.
And he flatters me.”

Letty hugs her, and confides
“I have still not told James.
that I hate him.”

Elizabeth hugs her back.

In the ladies room, the voices almost echo
again.

This is the story of the only real pleasure that exists. It is the truest lie I can share about Meg. Don’t get all upset. I know, You think you hate lies, but you’re lying to yourself.

The best lies are the ones that trickle out slowly, all covered in truey litte bits. They look delicious, they’re a bit salty, a bit sweet, a bit scary to look at if you know, but they’re perfect in their own way.

So, I’ll tell my story like that. Slowly, and let the all that nasty truth back up behind a dam full of words, until a gooey delicious believable lie can form.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve already told you, I’m lying. You won’t believe me. So, I’ll let you figure out what’s true and what’s not. The truth is usually so crazy no one would believe it anyways.

She was out in the woods, I think Muir, maybe, it’s hard to tell, I can’t see so well anymore. And the trees there we so fucking big. So big.

She was swinging a whisky bottle around her left hand, like some trampy bartender in a 90s movie. I guess she’s better than them, she at least used an empty one. No point in wasting some drunken point she might find inside.

“Meg, I didn’t drive all the way here from hell-cross country to watch you whittle away some brain cells, so tell me what’s going on?”

She laughed. She laughed and put down the empty bottle on a picnic table. Sat there, started to sculpt her nails.

“Stephan, you know, I’ve been married a long time. He’s a good guy. I think it might last a bit longer,” she got out some solvent and knocked the cap on the table to loosen it.

“Ok? Um… great?”

“Aww, dammit,” she shook her hand when the remover got into a hangnail and stung her a bit. “I’m not a vain woman you know. I’m not. But sometimes, I just like to feel beautiful. To feel.. sexy. Wanted. Do you understand?”

I nodded, clipped a cigar and started to chew it. No point in smoking it really.

“You know Meg, a few years back, I was in Arizona, driving along some godforsaken noplace road full of dust and that idea of imminent death. I saw this cactus springing out of the desolation. It was huge and alive, and just there in front of me. It was beautiful.”

Meg raised her eyebrow, “So…. how is this related?”

I watched her sharpen her little pink claws.

“It’s all bound up in the truth of things, you know? Beauty. It’s about where you are and what your’e doing and who you’re with.. and who you are. I think maybe who you are .. that’s the hardest part of the whole fucking thing.”

“Darling, I do love you,” she mouthed the words, but didn’t say them.

I forgave her instantly, “It’s ok. I love you too.”

“There’s no shame in doubt you know, just in a bad passport phone really. That’s what shame is.”

We didn’t say much more. We just walked back to the parking lot. She stashed her lovely little ass back into her tiny little put-put car and drove off. She never looked back. She just looked forward to her old man, and the things that love gives you when your body starts to break beneath the weight of years.

I stood there basking in my own ugliness. Understanding that I’m just a man. I’m just flesh.

I folded myself back behind the wheel, let out a long slow yawn and tried not to think of the 3,219 miles I had to drive to get home.

I tried not to think of the 3,219 reasons I’ll never be loved like that again.

I was crying before I could even hit the gas.

1. Set your font to 12pnt Courier.
2. Write your surname vertically
3. Write a single verb for each letter of your last name
4. Reorder the words by character length longest to shortest
5. First word must be in your title
6. Last word must be the last word in the piece.
7. All other words must be used in order

e.g.
A
N
S
T
E
Y

Anticipate
Nudge
Stifle
Trudge
Eavesdrop
Yell

Yell
Nudge
Stifle
Trudge
Eavesdrop
Anticipate

The Fisherman's Yell

The old man sat in silence on the pier, watching the wave's nudge 
a piece of driftwood toward the rocks. It'd been hours since he'd 
had a bite, and it was all he could do to stifle a yawn as the sun 
drew towards its noontime apex. The thought of the long trudge back
to the car without anything to eat gnawed at him even more than 
the boredom. So he sat there and tried to eavesdrop on a couple of 
little boys pretending they wanted to catch something like a shark.
It wasn't that long ago when he was a boy. He remembered those long
summer days when he dreamed of the big fish. Not because he was 
hungry, but because it seemed so exciting. They were so loud as 
they squished their little boy voices into happy shouts. It took 
everything for him to hold on to his voice. It took everything 
in him to love them. It took every bit of strength to be the 
old man who held his anger. "They're boys," he thought. 
"They're boys, and everything is exciting when you still have all 
your fingers." Later, when you don't, it's hard to remember what 
it's like to hope. Eventually, when you've lost everything, you 
give up the childish notion of the joy you felt when you were 
still happy to anticipate.