I realize suddenly I lived this day yesterday
This happened when I saw the clock
7:18 and I wondered a.m. or p.m.?
Just like yesterday
then I saw the dirty knife on the counter
with crusty peanut butter on it.
Not again! I thought
This is a day I have lived three days already.
I know this is day four, and I do not feel like doing it again.
For three days I did the same exact things.
Today I will not watch TV, I will not play word games.
I will not paint or play with my dogs.
I will sit in this chair and pout.
Because exercising and eating healthy is definitely out.
I might want to break my routine
But not that much!
they were the club’s power couple
Fred was the owner of the Gaslight Lounge
where men showed they were men
and guns settled things in disturbing ways
Shelly had walked in on a Tuesday six months ago
with her azure blue eyes and her winsome ways
Fred played it nonchalant, acted cool towards her
we bartenders knew it meant he was insanely interested
Shelly has one of those stories she is not sharing
we did not know a thing about her, except that she was on his wavelength
if Fred wore yellow, Shelly would appear wearing the same exact color
she had a second sense about him; it was uncanny and unnatural
they dillydallied around each other for a few months
we all saw the night they fell in love; it was kismet
as if they had lived several lifetimes together,
they came together like two flames of the same bonfire
they are together now, intense and passionate
both ready to pull a gun on anybody and everybody
we bartenders serve them quickly
ready to duck from flying bullets or sparks at a second’s notice
They are volatile up and ready for action.
Gangster and moll, twin flames,
they have shot up this place twice
in the last two weeks.
Blue-haired faerie Frisky had fallen into a land of weird.
An angry teapot was the one giant thing she feared.
He was irritated that the dress she wore, washed in Tide
Was the same exact color as his paint on the outside
He yelled at her unmercifully, wanting her to take it off
But she had no other clothes, so she merely scampered off.
His voice followed her all around the place, as did his magic cat.
She was thrilled when she finally woke up on her own bed mat.
Tired of reaching out for something not yet touched.
Tired of living for something not yet found.
Tired of listening to something not yet heard.
Tired of picturing something not yet seen
Tired of hoping and praying for something not yet made.
I reach out for help as I can feel myself drowning in my own sorrows.
I live to see another day just to feel the same exact way.
I sit and listen for something to get me out of this prison.
I try to picture my future but all I can see are flickers and dreadful blisters.
I hope but all I can do is try and cope.
I pray and all I can do is dread another day.
"Help!" Is the only thing that leaves my mouth.
Tears are the only things that leave my eyes.
Blood is the only thing that leaves my skin,
Yet all I can do is say "I'm fine".
Mad at the school
mad at the teacher
she singles us out like we are cheaters
we play by her rules play by the game
yet she says we're still doing the same
she yelled at us once so we changed
she yelled at us again for the same exact thing
yells at us three time and dictates our move
how is that fair we played by the rules
Everybody’s life is very
Different from our own,
For preferences and habits
Are just ours and ours alone.
It’s strange, but even family
And yes, our closest friends,
Will make choices not in sync
With what our being recommends.
Of course, there are no rights or wrongs -
Each person is unique
And finding what works best for us
Is what we all do seek.
I marvel at the ways in which
We choose from life’s buffet,
Our meals so varied though we face
The same exact display.
A creature of habit am I
Change my routine, I might die
My daily meals taken at the same exact times
Five minutes off ~ five unspeakable crimes
Around this same exact time,
Exactly one year ago.
I wrote a really mediocre poem,
About 7th grade moving "slow".
But, boy, was I wrong.
8th grade is full of waiting.
I've been at my school for 11 years,
This month is just frustrating!
Luckily, there's some "fun" ahead,
Including our 8th grade trip.
Yea, it sounds kinda lame, but still,
It's one whole day we can skip.
Everyone's forgotten we have finals.
In only three various subjects!
I guess we can study for the next week,
Let's not forget all the projects!
I think all that I want to say,
Is that I'm super antsy to leave.
I got that scholarship for high school,
Let's go, Falcons! Whoo-hoo, DC!
Average person has two hundred and six bones.
Not all of us have the same, we are unique you know.
More sesamoids are lingering in some of our homes.
Varying in size and number, some more apt to glow.
From person to person, is our blood even truly the same?
Is Type A in me the same exact Type A in you?
What about identical twins, and the DNA game?
Are their fingerprints often identical too?
I barely know how you bear it, I said to the grapefruit
Of course, true to form, she tried to smooth everything out.
I was irked because no words arrived to sooth me.
Which made her easier to eat, actually – more palpable.
Masticating my cereal is never easy these days,
especially when the news is on, so I shut that puppy down.
If it is not good news, I do not need it, especially in the morning.
There was a wreck at 17th and Lamar, as usual.
I see one there almost every morning,
Yet I continue driving this same exact route.
And me, the woman who loathes routine,
Actually living one now. Is it my age, do you suppose?
The car radio is on some 1970’s music but not folk music.
The one channel I had on before my husband drove
And ruined things by changing my channel.
He is going to be eating mothballs for supper tonight.
My girlfriend calls to yack about her dead husband again.
I wish he was still alive so I could beat his ass, she says.
I have heard it about sixty-nine times, still it never gets old
Especially this morning as listen to the wrong freaking station.
I gleaned and imagined your presence
As assured as the Lazy-Boy in my living room
She smirked at me and poked fun
It mattered not
For I was in love
You have no idea how many times I have died
Watching you watching me watching you
Crisp and crunchy, fresh, new, fulfilled,
Salty as a Lay’s potato chip, but tasty too
Let’s not go there
I did not realize that I was not me
Until there was you.
I was a clown, a buffoon, a joker, a jokester
A Mad Hatter wearing Alice’s head as a disguise
Laugh if you must, but I will laugh at the same exact time
Each and every time, like when we watch movies.
Any movie.
Choose one. Hell. Choose them all.
I recognized you almost instantly as my destiny
Dependable and unwavering, not unlike clocks that never wind down
Blowing into my life with decency and innocence
You were my wonderland, my forever,
My destiny
I was not me
Until there was you
Picasso sold only one painting to his brother.
I have sold at least ten to my best friends, maybe fifteen.
So can I die happy? Not yet.
Never understood Monet’s consistent drawings of tree after tree
Until I began painting the same face over and over and over
and over and over and over and over and over and over and over
Never getting it “right”.
As soon as I am satisfied with it, I can quit painting. Right?
I snatch up six canvases. Draw them out one by one.
Always starting with the eyes and eyelashes, then the nose.
The same exact face, the same pattern.
Sometimes I give her elf ears. Other times she has a pixie chin.
But the eyes and the nose are always the same.
The exact same. Just like Picasso and Monet
I am stuck until I feel I have gotten her
exactly right.
Then I can
Die
happy….
after the umpteenth
day of rest god
messed up not
paying mind
to Adam's
naming
game
on that same exact
day of days was
created not one
but two birds
one doomed
and to be
used
in meaning not so
worthy absurdly
to become
extinct but
not from
his now
known
name but from dogs
pigs and people
not stupidity as
we all take from
history saying
the name
dodo
but the other bird that
on that day of days
later in the evening
came out so
contrary
even
more
then a canary swearing
it could speak because
this bird's tweet so
to speak from out
its beak was
not a
dog
but the mew of certainly
a positively confused
bird trying to contact
even attract his
foe a cat
so that
Adam
without a gasp or question
never asked but simply
named this bird
tip your
black
cap
a
god
never
made a
dogbird
stay silent
and stay still
you dodo Catbird
With her eyes gently closed she can see all too well,
The corridor inside her dark mind,
Sterile and clean, tiled floor, walls and roof,
Where her happy and free had both died,
And the doors made of iron open out from each side,
Some white, some black and some blue,
Each of them having the same exact square,
With shattered glass that she can look through,
To view the black empty inside each dark room,
To see the same face staring back,
She can see her own eyes both hollow and drained,
Herself, just a bit more abstract,
But what strikes her the most is the final small room,
Same face that will never forgive,
With a mouth open wide screaming right into her,
Her insane that refuses to leave.
Some people find comfort in living the same day
Every day doing what they did yesterday in the same way.
I know a man who ate a ham sandwich with cheese plain
No condiments every day and cut exactly the same
I thrive on change. Daily seek out something new.
Learning racquetball kept me entertained in 1982.
As soon as we had the tournament all interest was gone.
I dropped racquetball never going back. For tournament I’d won.
Some women wear the same exact haircut for twenty years
To change it up would instigate and initiate such fears
I know a woman whose hair looks like 1960’s Loretta Lynn
A different style is suggested every decade by her kin.
My hair has been black and blue, beige and turquoise too.
If I had to keep it the same way twice it would make me blue.
Some teachers can print their worksheets a month in advance.
Given a choice, I would rather have gigantic wood-ticks in my pants.
Some people live the same year every single year.
That would be my absolute biggest baddest fear.
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