Excerpts from \"Off The Bus\"

Tossed Deception She can toss out a lie so easily. Any twinge is impossible to detect. I try to believe that twinges do, in fact, exist. The lies are in her blood, taking shape within her veins. She lies like she has a note from God excusing her. Afterthoughts dissolve, like snow, as soon as they hit the ground. They melt, and she knows it's time for yet another toss. Denny's Bottomless Cup-O-Bullshit     I feel a bit odd. A bit upset. I'M sure I'LL get more coffee eventually. Unless it's a conspiracy.... A conspiracy brought on by none other than.... my mother.       "I'M sorry I can't be more supportive of your situation, but I have to think of myself as well. I am your mother, but I feel OK in saying that I don't care if you ever get another cup of coffee.     The nights I spend waiting, drifting in and out of cubic zirconia bonanzas on the home shopping club. I just sit and worry about your caffeine intake.     I know you do this to me on purpose. You look for flavors and sweeteners to cause me as much grief as you can. That's why you don't sleep. You're wired, so you sit up and think of new forms of torture for your father and I.     You're driving him over the edge at top speed. Don't you even care? We're not Thelma and Louise!     And what's this I hear about a cappuccino machine? You will never, I repeat, never bring one of those hideous contraptions into our home. The home you're tearing apart. Can't you just use instant, for our sake?" Lose Your Illusion What have I found this time? Certainly not an obituary of a man I could never have met in a book that cost me a dime at a library sale. The drums are mimicking my mind. The piano floats overhead; trying to remind me to remember the things I always seem to forget. What the hell was that? Maybe a fucked up mirror in a fun house, with an added emphasis of distortion, for fun...I feel like I'VE seen this movie. Body Search for $39.95     I want to leave so desperately. I would just love to go and maybe look back in a few months. Maybe. I could be like Nicholson in Easy Rider, except for ending up by the campfire dead. That scene would definitely grace the cutting room floor.     This pressure is suffocating. I'm not sure I'VE ever felt this trapped before. It's like I'm being followed by a fat detective named Burt, who sits in the parkinng lot in a 1977 Impala eating an astronomical amount of cheese fries from Steak-N-Shake.     He's a little slow for a detective. He probably has one of those commercials they run during Springer, "Body Search for $39.95!" The Club even costs more.     But I digress.... anyway, he throws the Steak-N-Shake containers in my yard. No-no numero uno. He just sits there for hours and hours. I shudder to think about where Colombo on 'Roids might possibly be succumbing to the call of nature. Not to mention the call of cheese fries.     That frightens me the most, and I still haven't the foggiest notion as to why cheddar boy is following me in the first place. Oh well, at least he doesn't eat Burger King food. My Love A flash of recognition Your eyes meet mine Uncomfortable silence You question my smile I'LL love you forever The thought makes me laugh I'LL break your forever The power is in my grasp The fears we had shared kept us as one Your ultimate fear I'LL make real I'M the one My endless tears should send you above I can't feel at all now Say goodbye to my love Caressing the curves The security of my mind Your hatred won't curb the desire I can't hide I'VE just come to resolve What destiny has led And I'LL pull back the trigger... My love is now dead. Spies I tell you, spies...     It's a fucking conspiracy. I feel like Ginsberg's mother. They're all out to get me. Spies I tell you, spies. What kind of writing does anger produce? I guess I'M angry. I wish I worked at the post office. I feel like I'VE been lost beneath layers of others that surround me. What am I saying? I'M still lost. Now that I'm aware I feel like losing myself all over again. I'M trying to tear off the shrouds of confusion and find out what is really supposed to be under there. Cry, beloved Alan They provide answers to questions that bring nothing but more confusion. We sit up straight and nod silently, scurrying to put away thoughts that might possibly be detected by a downward glance, or the blink of an eye.                      A method of escape uncovered by the clearing of an unsteady throat. Steady, we must be steady. Still not moving, with their hypothetical guns pressed into our all too real temples. How can we help but shudder?            By what higher power have we been kept still? Why must we continue to be kept? Could running to the door of a certain death take us anywhere more horrible? Shouldn't we try? Maybe we should ask them.... again. Puzzle How could one person be so perfect for you, or me? Like a puzzle that no one but God could have created.  Total happiness.                                          Exuding a little bit of fear beneath your laughter of disbelief.              For something so perfect, the dream you thought could never exist, is staring into your eyes. Struggling to accept this completion of mind, body, and soul, but still waiting for an anvil to drop on your head as soon as you turn the corner. This love is too real, it's movie material, so it really is possible, but for how long? 2-3 hours with commercials? Maybe I should buy a helmet... Color Me Somatose I found a lizard in the storeroom. I made him a lizard salad. I hope he didn't leave. I was going to name him Emilio, my universal lizard name, but I guess I won't. I saw George Harrison again, but I'm not naming the lizard after him. I didn't make a salad for George. Praise Soma!                                                                I'VE been thrice removed from the world, certainly the Gas World, Mr. Low-who? I offered to tape shut a mouth belonging to an arrogant yuppie golfer. He needs a nine iron shoved up his ass. If he even had facial hair, which I doubt, the duct tape would have taken it right off. He and I should do an infomercial. He knew when my birthday was. I wonder how???? Oh LaToya, psychic, Arnold Palmer, mother fucker who wanted me to handcuff him... Maybe he needs a couple of caddies and a golf cart shoved up his ass next. This is my somatic literary interpretation. Kerouac I'M certainly not. This is useless. I'm more like Kerouac's lawyer's goldfish. Yeah, he's dead. Lawyers are much more beneficial to people once they're dead. No, you don't get your fucking Yoo Hoo until I see your ID Yoo Hoo, the lizard? No. No, Emilio the lizard? Maytag Man, the lizard? By George, not Harrison, I've got it! Somilio. Half Soma, half Emilio. Yippee. Delusions # 937 OK, this girl comes in here, in cutoffs, and a bikini top. Relatively attractive until your gaze is fixed, and believe me, it will be fixed, on her upper lip. She's sporting an unbelievably conspicuous, if not well-manicured mustache. She was buying cigarettes. Being the ID monger that I am, I had to gander. I have no idea how old she was (Fire me again?), but sure enough, there it was! Couldn't she have at least been clean-shaven on license day? Now I'm in turmoil. Was this intentional? "Five dollars on pump seven, Winston's in a box, and I guess that's it." My response (Fire me again?), "OK, Winston's in a box and an Epilady on pump seven? Have a good day!" Nobody told me . . . I should stop, drop, roll, and listen to Bill Cosby. Fire's cool, heh, heh.      Look both ways before crossing, or uncrossing, and never cross dress. I learned that from the other guy on I Spy. What I really meant to say was, don't give up. Hope can salvage even the smallest bit of a banana peel stuck in the wheel of a shopping cart filled with mangos. Strategically placed in the corner of the produce department of a really dusty grocery store. Shalom. Mannequin Head You're praying to the Tiki God in your kitchen that all of my writing will be the bitter, angry woman kind, because you, the man, have destroyed my image of a perfect relationship. Open the refrigerator, stick your head in, and keep it there until you realize that you are as real as that pseudo-lemon looking thing holding the lemon juice that really does nothing but strips your voice. Strip your voice. Match your emotions, unless you've been hiding them in the freezer. Reality in the kitchen. 36 Hours The steam is rising. The flames are drawing near. He skillfully avoids the fire, with a flick of his wrist that makes you shudder when your fear is already long gone. He reaches in with a desire that never fades. Approaching each task, however mundane, as if it were a maiden voyage. Humming, singing along, perhaps thinking of a lost love from long ago. Returning to the fire with nary a thought that anyone could be observing him as closely as I. Scrubbing with a vengeance. Such hard work I've never seen, for so little reward. Why? Synchronized Coughing Seven-dollar Nyquil. Apathy. Botched watch negotiations. Fever. Apathy Ren . . . Vanilla ice cream. I just sneezed on my rough draft. Now it's a wet draft. For five amazing hours that weren't supposed to exist, time disintegrated.      Drive through Waffle House. The Majic station is screwed. Texaco brings neighbors. 205. A guy across the street thinks I'm a coke addict, or an extra from the movie, The Stand. O.J. and a pocket of gel caps. Gloves would cost less. Where do you buy your shoes? These are my people. 3 X a Dayquil and a quart. Craving pizza and hash browns. The underworld, the art of it. A witness protection cough. UPN makes my fingers numb. A comma (Mom). Trapped in a Yoko nightmare. I'm calling in sick. Painting in flashbacks, through windows that should never have been broken, or cleaned.          Wagner, music to kill yourself by.                                            What do you do when your shade has been discontinued? This connection comes once in a lifetime. An Abstract attempt at a Warhol on a roof. Norma Jean. Beverly. Flaming Groovies. And I love Him. I need to have my Young Fresh Fellows tape back. Ziploc and ice on my head will never numb the pain. Erase this bond. Come back, deletion can't be forever. I pushed the wrong key. Now that you've found another key, what are you going to play? Oedipus Crashes The Guns of Navarone suck. Woody Allen - save me from remote control suicide. He's beautiful. Wipe the prints off the cradle, some directors wonder why, But when it's Woody Allen, you don't ask why. Mia, brown water, Satan's child with the in-laws from Hell. How can such a hairless twit be so damn sexy? I worship you, Woody; I guess I'm too old now. 22. Past my prime. I have parents, too. Adopt me anyway. When do you take off your glasses? Metal rims in Central Park in a lightning storm. An Obligatory kiss in front of the refrigerator. Goodnight. Chili Beach Bingo Because the macaroni is generic, it makes me cry. I don't need a nest of salt."Everything is never my fault." Blame me for wars. I killed the damn waiter. But does it really make it better in the end? Teach your children to blame everyone else. Fault is a word you can't hear. I cringe and tiptoe in insomnia's minefield. Praying for nightmares again. The macaroni has borrowed the salt from my tears, which is good. I think we were out. This seems reminiscent of the Hitler-ette days. It's amazing the way his fear can never be erased. Free Parking     I feel like Kerouac. On the road, more like trapped in the parking lot. The mall lot, Dec. 26. An inferno would be much more pleasant. Occupational hazards, knives, sanity, lack thereof, TIME, and parking. I'm just trying to escape. Superman, save me, you know what's happening. I want you. Lois is an undeserving bitch. You've got a run in your tights. I've got blue nail polish. Let me apply it. Interdependence, my man of steel, you scratch my back; I'll certainly scratch yours. Ah, Wallflowers, Bob should be proud, or jealous. Someone abandoned their car, the piece of fertilizer kind, in the middle of          an exit lane in this mind-destructing massacre of parking. Try Depend next time. Duran Duran. Traffic jam. Save me. I'll take my tire iron, leave the car, and hobble at ludicrous speed to the station and beat the unassuming DJ. It's an unwritten FCC law to ignore the play list whenever Duran Duran comes up. I'll finish him off and soak his blood in the blue foam on the walls of the studio. They needed to redecorate anyway. Blue and red are my love gerbil Superman's colors anyway. Faster than a Chinese fire drill, in much less time than it takes to go through the express lane. They always seem to have more than eight items . . . A flip-floppy role reversal that changes your life forever. In an ironic (for some reason, I can't recall, I hate the word ironic) twist, the least sane of them all, is in control. Calm. This was the first time I'd ever felt more stable than the people surrounding me. I'm usually the flying cow in the twister, but I was the bridge this time, I wasn't even going to jump. Strangely liberating for a split second or two. I've been on both sides now, and I think I'll go back to being Manic Depression's cover girl. Does anybody know how the story really goes? Our most recent goodbye seemed like a forever goodbye. I can't shake this feeling. It almost seems that if my name were John, you'd send me a Dear Autumn or Henry postcard. Something was looming over our embrace in an otherwise perfect sky. Could you feel it? Could you know? Can you dig it? Would you care to let it go? A love altering conversation was bound to have an effect. Alarms went off.  Barriers were formed on disillusionment. Words and statements are becoming scripted. Premeditation. Stepping around words that bring pain and confusion to false love      We can zone together quite well, and happily, but love isn't, and will never be, an option. I've accepted this, and I imagine this was similar to the feelings I experienced the first time trust was removed from my childhood. A painfully slow, gradual separation. It came together in such a whirlwind of impulse and beauty. Beauty I can't resist. All that is left is a goodbye, trying to hide under shrouds of suggestion.  Los Paranoias. Ah, Superman, you must save me once more. Remove me from his perpetual aloof demeanor. Distraction that forces stifled conversation into a dwindling limelight. Catch me, as I seem to be falling into a pit of my own creation. Take off your tights and tie him to the tracks until he loves me. Throw me under your arm and we'll swoop down to save him from the train, in a second shy of the nick of time. Transport us to a land filled with music, smurfs, and a lasting euphoria that will last as long as we don't eat the red berries. Red and blue . . . smurf colors . . . I'm beginning to detect a pattern here . . . Drive in Donation for Research A skeleton of a screen. A monument of nostalgia nearing extinction. The faint scent of popcorn permeates the air. Infinite footprints leading to the ladies' restroom twice wrapped around the snack bar. The bar that separates the lines inside is perfect for flipping over, or hanging onto in anticipation of a gold medal, or being scolded and denied of your Junior Mints. Speaker boxes scattered, the cords still intact. It seemed amazingly appropriate for a lasso effect. Swinging the box over your head, and letting go at a most opportune time, coinciding with the swirly mosquito repellent incense promo. Cutting the intermission short for the unsuspecting recipient of the blow to the head from the flying speaker. In search of consciousness, the victim has visions . . . conceptions in Buicks, tightwads pouring out of trunks, dancing candy, Travolta on a swing . . . The desolate ticket booth, left with nothing but aspirations of possibly becoming a stunt double for the telephone booth on Dr. Who. The bathroom walls are graced with more graffiti than in all the projects in Philly, combined. I'm here, seemingly the victim, in my car and another low budget sequel. The swings have rusted. No crowd, no reel, no diabetic coma enhancers sticking to the screen. It's only me, looking for scalpers, praying I can catch that double feature of Project X and Mannequin 2 once more, before I die, and the llama credits begin to roll. The Queen of Negativity Wins Again  I can see you. Your motives are so transparent. I can predict your actions, simply because they mirror so many of my own from the past. I wish our lives could take us and keep us in a neutral zone where everything is dripping in honey. A place where love can exist, and shun betrayal and apathy. We could be. We could have been there. If even for a few short minutes. But a few minutes of pure love could quite possibly be worth all of the pain I endure today. If only I could take those two minutes to surround myself with. Suspended in the time of my life. Only to watch it disappear on second 120.                    Does my time really need to march on? The Time of the Season All of my love, joy, hope, and happiness dissipate as soon as I cross the threshold. It disintegrates; my sanity is lost . . . as soon as I try to find a space behind the blue line. Mary, Mary . . . A vision of Mary concocted by Turner We're selling Mary shirts down on the corner A miracle for capitalists right here in the lot Mary Juice four dollars, five-fifty if it's hot We'd be really rich if we'd thought to sell candles But we've got umbrellas with Mary shaped handles Cans of cheap spray paint with nativity stencils Twelve for ten dollars, "I saw Mary!" pencils. An act of God or a hoax, I'm not quite sure which One thing's authentic, though, and that's my getting rich *Inspired by the vision of Mary on the bank building in Clearwater. 2000 Pieces of Sara She's a bit bent out of shape over her puzzle, in concentration that's peacefully intense. She'll search for a piece until she's overcome by exhaustion. Stand up to stretch, take a walk, and find some fresh air before she forgets how. She returns to find something missing. Gone for such a short time, such a subtle change. Yet it's a change she simply can't ignore. Hours have passed; pieces have fit, though she feels she hasn't accomplished anything. It's destined to fit, eventually. She's struggling to avoid defeat. In the puzzle she's lost her concept of time. Years, hours, or just a few seconds? Another stretch and a breather provide little relief. She's returned with a life she can't quite put together. She scatters the pieces in solid disarray. They fit back in the box to piece another day. WWWWW I'm weak, wavering, weaving, weeping, wondering why, wistfully wandering, watching worlds, where I'm waving, welcoming, wading, wagging, waging war with a waiter, waiving wages, wasting my waning wanderlust, warranting my wayward wasteland, weathering wavy wax, wearily withstanding whimsical weight, with or without words. Snipers No one will ever believe what I saw in his eyes. I felt some strange connection the instant I saw him. I had to shake his hand. The further we walked through the crowd, the more our surroundings didn't exist. He was certainly all I could see. I felt so strange, displaced; I couldn't believe it was happening. To make it more insane, I felt like he knew the thoughts that were running through my mind. Those were thoughts I'm too afraid to write down. As if recording them is actual proof that they were, in fact, there. Those thoughts . . . could it really be? Run away! Run away! For the Price of a Cup of Coffee The world goes around me and all that I see is there some beauty in this world for me? Beauty, define beauty. I seem to be filled with useless beauty, in a world where we defy recognition, searching, reaching, and grasping the air . . . Never quite getting what we need. Searching through blinding tears, Possibly just to find our greatest fears. Yet we keep searching, looking for the impossible. Toodles I'm saying goodbye, I'm screaming goodbye, and I'm all but tattooing it on my forehead. Will you hear me? Will you care? Will you wonder what could have been? Will you realize that your words of love were as false as any I've heard? Words are wonderful, combining my sanity; love is the one thing that can tear them apart. Love me, really love me, I'm so certain you do. Cool, detached, incapable of love, I'm so certain that you are. Where have I gone? As I search for answers, the darkness surrounds me again. If I decide, I'll never know. It's always the beginning of an end. I take my mark, but I know I can't run, though I'm always looking to leave. Convinced in my mind it won't hurt anyone. In a love that will never quite be. Gaze into my eyes and you'll find it there, a love that's too rare to be true. I need dreams and promises to be shattered by lies, so I can walk away from you. The sounds of the Night, I love you . . . Scratches on Lou Reed, helicopters hovering in search of a killer, who may have more compassion that the senate, the tenants above must be Sumo wrestling again. Yoko, the frog, never makes a sound, but I felt the need to bring up my beloved amphibian. Hey babe, take a walk off the Skyway. The horns and sirens form a hideous duet, worse than Bono and Sinatra. Speak Now She thought she was speaking with conviction as she brushed away an imaginary strand of hair. "Our minds have become incoherent. Our emotions are merely recycled from a previous event that brought forth a similar response. Creativity is all but extinct. Advancement in technology has taken our potential, as humans, past the point of no return." The crowd provided little response, simply staring, in silence. Music, Sweet Music You continue to amaze me, like a song, a wonderful song that you know. You can feel it deep inside of you, and recognize it in an instant. But every time you hear it, you find new variations, wonderful, subtle additions to what was already perfection, like listening to the Kinks with one speaker. Words you could never decipher becoming completely lucid, all at once the music surrounds us, with our lone speakers simultaneously merging To create a song that can only be called love. Kiss My Grits! Descend, dive into the pool of grits. Let the half-settled cream surround your body. All the better if sweet from arsenic and bitter from Equal. Nitroglycerin pepper sprinkled on your tongue. Stay away from the blue pepper, I repeat, the blue pepper. Alas, the cream will never cease. Overflowing, it shall remain forever and ever . . . Waffleluia, Waffleluia. Geoffrey I sit in depression I can't quite recall, yet I stay awake half the night trying. In fear of life, love, and loss of control.                                  While they are the ones who are dying. Bombs and dead bodies are pelting the screen. I'll be drawing the shades again. We've fallen apart, though, intact at the seams. Past destruction, no hope for amends. Gaze into the mirror in your beautiful strife. Convince yourself that you care. Such suffering in your nonchalant life, and concern that was simply never there. Fountain Fate He's waiting, watching. His back is to her as she occupies the vacant bench. He glances back. She smiles in an aloof manner. He turns away. Nearly three feet away from one another, they seem as if they're meant to be together. Observing, I feel I'm almost intruding on the passing of these two strangers.            It was as if only to destroy the imagery I had going here, he wandered off as I began to record this. Asshole. I Love Men! You want to shoot the old man on the corner because he's got a hearing aid. You killed your ex and her new boyfriend, to compensate for you not getting laid. You never paid your phone bill, and they've repossessed your car. You can't go out and get a job if it's too far from the bar. But you're the Man, society's Man. You think you've got it all. Oh, the Man, and what a Man. Someone needs to grab you by the . . . Just say no to date rape. You don't know what that means. Tune into the testosterone channel. It will drown out all her screams. You gave your girlfriend a candlelight dinner, yes; she's the love of your life. I just wonder how much she'd have eaten, if she knew it was cooked by your wife. But you're the king, the Man of the hour. Though she won't accept your calls. And if she can't accept the terms of your love, just strangle her in the hall. *Somehow derived and inspired by The Ballad of the Skeletons. Calamine The New Year is foggy. Seven is lucky, the mailman is plucky, and Will should have called him Pucky, I've got my log rolls from Stuckey's, baby. Do it again. Dali loved Tell, who could be in Hell, hopscotch is swell, what is that smell, Got lotion to sell. Hit my head on a bell, writing from my cell, damn near where I fell. Swoop Swoop Kites can be your friends, look at how well he bends, smashed by a bus, But she'll mend, whip letters ready to send, look at what he can bend, Pa's got some heifers to tend; spandex is an infinite trend, Wish I could sell a pop song to Depend, still thinking that nothing will end. Oslo Plastic poetry sucks, I've got thirteen bucks, customized nips and tucks, from a hose that lyposucks. Keeping the King Amused While Losing a Game of Chess. Wayne Newton, my savior? Clawing my way through concrete. My toothbrush has left me. The egg timer is ticking . . . Balanced on your head. With a Ray Davies smile, I knew, yes, I knew . . . In extended denial. You're in love with suede, And my fuzzy sweater. Multipurpose lint remover. Erasing implications of love. 2-Year Guarantee Mosquito repellent headbands, in a sea of lime green. A shimmering orange band is rising like the sun on a dreary-free dawn. He is the illuminated Astrid of my existence. Capturing a thread of a moment that is passing too soon. Lovett or Leavitt She teasingly drips lukewarm coffee on the forehead of Lyle. He doesn't blink, he doesn't flinch, he blindly accepts his fate. To be but a mere sculpture, passing in and out of sanity, a transitory existence. Soon to arrive in the bargain bin, the garbage disposal, or murky dishwater. Run Lyle run. 30 Seconds of The 3-Minute Egg That Ruined the World The petitions, the glorious petitions are falling, Floating through the sky like a Fried Joy Luck Gump. Keep us in our condos, save our beloved Evergleggs. Give us Lubriderm and margaritas. Who needs sugar? Settle for pink and blue packets. The forecast for today: 89 degrees Fahrenheit and a 72% chance of Grit Blizzards throughout the Bay area. Actually, make that 100%. The streets are already covered. The supermarkets are swarmed with shoppers and requests for milk and pink and blue packets. We're all partaking in a last kiss on this, the final day of the Gritageddon. They're blowing up Walnut Grove. Our series has been canceled.  The camera crew is engulfed. Gritty and Mallory in their reign of tickle me silly. Written April 10th, 2001 © on May 15 2001 09:18 AM PST   0 • 10