[This is poverty]

This is my first prose entry. I've yet to really write something coherent, cohesive, and complete. All of my prose thusfar have been sad attempts at beginning short stories, only to succumb to the lacadaisacal attitude I have that turns these attempts into masterpieces of Flash Fiction. That was a joke.
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This is poverty. This is poverty and winter. This is the attempt to salvage leftovers from three nights ago as a decent dinner tonight and tomorrow's breakfast. This is shitting in a can that hasn't been flushed in a week to cut down on the water bill. This is cold showers where the faucet is turned more off than on (to cut down on water and heating bills).

Step in.
Turn on.
Rinse.
Turn off.
Lather.
Turn on.
Rinse.
Turn off.
Step out.

Easy peasy fucking freezy. And I'm sorry: not cold--lukewarm (I've gotta offer myself some kinda break).

This is Ramen noodles every night and every night sleeping to the smooth rhythms of a disgruntled stomach churning and decaying and mashing nothing but the opposite walls of itself. This is not being able to sleep because all of the sweaters, socks, blankets and hats can't save you from shivering yourself awake. Shivering yourself awake after your fatigue kicks into stage-desperation. This is attempting to sleep next to the heating vent on the floor of my one bedroom-one bathroom closet, trying to scrape a breath that feels like the crust of a burnt out sun. The downstairspeople aren't as tiphungry, or aren't as careful.

Ignorance might mean smiles and dandelions now, but it'll mean change cups and wet socks later.

That breath helps, but it's so shallow. This is staring at a bunch of smoke-black bananas as your last resort for this weekend's meal, a gift from some dismissive and inadvertently generous coworker received earlier this week.
"Here, have a ball. My son bought too many for a Boy Scout Sundae-Sunday...thing."
This is no family.
Junkie and phoneless "friends."
It's not the 30s.
I'm not in the city.
I'm not--...
I'm trying to get by and failing.

If I Say When...

When it happens
(and I hope it's a when and not an if)
we will be ecstatic.

Our eyes will glaze
(with ours seizing hours, no alones notting moments)
and our gaze will run.

War

In honor of those who have suffered the horrors of Hurricane Katrina.

So this is what war looks like.
Sporadic bright whites behind a distant graphite sky.
Days and nights in which the morning and evening horizons
will have no color, only ashly anvils gliding forward.
A ceaselessly downing wall of bullets shooting the earth,
breaking its skin and evacuating its strivetosurvive inhabitants--
if they don't drown, they'll die drying, but at least they died trying to survive.

So this is what war sounds like.
A crescendoing cacophony of lo-fi booms pocking vast grasslands.
Of airy whistles both shrill and groaning and pops and screams falsetto and tenor.
Of near-ear cracks that make you wince and of a voluminous static enveloping all.
And the sounds abound remain around so long as
the defense's steadfast and passionate as the defenseless
offense idles in its convulsing cowering.

So this is what war feels like.
A cold that'd put a blanket of ice to shame.
Sharp stings everywhere like a guerilla militia of bee pricks.
A blowing pushing that'll have your body in a hypotenuse if it can,
and blendering with wood and glass torpedoes if it can't.
A cracking and snapping whip-tail whipping if you're too close.
A subtle and sly breeze if you're too far.

You think this is false, that wars like this are mere battles?
Or worse yet, that wars like this do not exist, do not happen?
Tell that to the blitzkreig conniption fits of our dear Mother.
She is spontaneity-incarnate. She is merciless and spectacular.
She is nameless as a whole but we name her wars and battles.

We live in her home and if we keep kickin' up,
she'll keep kickin' out.

An Observation

So long as the wind kicks,
that leaf is a brief (fleeting) butterfly.

And Though The Horizon Burns Spectacular

I'll walk you home if it gets dark,
but we both know that
you've only just arrived.

And though the horizon burns spectacular,
wailing rain drapes
will goad us to stay in and kiss

until the fire is out, when oranges and pinks
fade to hues of blue, cool and smooth
steam reaching from the street to the jaundiced moon.