Happy Monday!

In workplace hell

I hope this e-mail

Finds you well

/

"Dear Stranger,

I hope this e-mail

Finds you well"

There is no danger

Truth will prevail

Answer: "I feel like hell."

/

A Workplace Fancy / New E-mail Visions

When I compose

a brand new draft:

"I hope this finds you well"

I think of panicked searching

maybe something like

running, through

gnarly limbs and snatching roots

hungered growls and ghoulish sounds

running, calling out your

[name]

hello, dear, hello, dear, hello!

and then I find you.

Bother me / Preoccupy me as

One shoe,

Thunder,

...

Ominous.

A lone farmhouse

Electricity out

The car breaks down

...

Ominous.

A torn dress

Sad eyes

Blankly following you to your car

...

Ominous.

Midnight bus ride

Florescents glare

A hoodie lifts

...

Ominous.

A narrow bridge

A teenage dare

Waves crest

...

Ominous.

At least three words

In three lines

Three dots ...

No matter how smothering

Heat is an embrace.

Cold air is knives

Ode to Shore

I’ve heard them praise the widest seas

I’ve heard them praise the vastest skies

But here’s an ode to my home shore

A paddle boat adrift,

One shoe,

Thunder,

...

The garden tools 

used by fools

are the same as by the wise.

The difference is wholly

the sharp edges smoothed

by the rough sandpaper of the everyday grind.

smoother, rounder . . .

Random word generator: explode 

Ever felt the rising tide--

The lava bubbling ever higher--

Of an oncoming rage?

Ever felt the slow build

--not slow enough to be unconscious--

Where you feel the anger accumulate

And-- 

like bubbles-- 

Rise up

Getting stuck in your throat

, like something too big in the neck of a bottle. 

And then bam,

an explosion.

You’ve yelled.

Turned the “Tomorrow” post on E’s poeticism into a haiku:

It can be the same

But it will feel different 

The Wave

For now,

I’m coasting

on the current of my old personality,

old interactions.

I wonder

How long I can keep riding this wave.

I dread the crash:

The water frigid,

Lungs screaming for air

Heart thumping twice as fast

to beat as much as it can

before it ceases forever

and I’m only a corpse

tossing.

words of wisdom from E, after a depressive breakdown of tears triggered by the incompetence of filling out the wrong FAFSA year (you know, what it showed me about my character--incompetent little girl trying to navigate a big world and so incapable and incompetent and incoherent) (she texted me after the cry session, about hopefully tomorrow I will feel better)

It can b the same

But will feel different 

random word: symptom 

The Symptom Symposium 

You have a fever?—Covid

You have a headache?—Covid

You feel tired?—Covid

Chills?

Sore throat?

Short breath?

Runny nose?

Covid.

Bluish lips or face?—emergency Covid. 

But aren’t we all blue?

I 

seek praise

dismiss praise