capricecake

this is called "i am too big for the spaces i used to love" i am too sad to take care of the heart that fights for me every day and i am too tired of waking up and watching the silent world of my depression swirl around me i don't fit anywhere not with my family, not in my bed, not in my lover's arms not even my worn out jeans will have me this is called "i hope my body kills me before my mind does" this spine with its minor curve and its unbearable ache this chest and this stomach that is too heavy to carry too full of thoughts and words and blood and swallowed tears i hope these hands that shake and betray me are cutt off and burned along

For every biblical reference I scribble down a haiku in the margins. For every mention of Queequeg's tattoos I describe a lover's skin at the bottom of the page. Whenever Ishmael wolfs down a helping of chowder or wakes to the sound of Ahab's peg-leg stomping the deck overhead I draw a crescent moon over a wavy line describing calm seas. When Ishmael mentions the ocean air I write: "She pushes my head down beneath the sheets." The entire book takes me forever-- I read slowly, trying to remember it all the way a man might pass slowly along a road on which most of his life has occurred. For every man overboard I sketch a monk li

He knows something I don't-- it's as if he were there for the building of the pyramids, as if he lived through the plagues, watching horrors unfold and cities burn while calmly licking his balls. I stare back and wonder how long the zoo animals watch each other through the bars at night before looking away. He stares at me through an elaborate diamond of indifference. I scratch his ear to break the spell, I pet him skull to spine, quickly, the way a busboy might smooth a tablecloth or brush crumbs off a chair at the end of his shift. It doesn't work, he keeps his eyes fixed on me until I feel detached from my body, numb as

Mrs B started every class by reading a few jokes It was an early morning class so it was bittersweet we held off the actual work as long as possible but the joke-time never lasted that long Still we appreciated it and did our best not to give her a hard time One morning she didn't show then a day went by then another Substitutes kept up the tradition of joke-reading but they didn't have her talent for timing or her ridiculous but genuine sense of humor We learned later that week that her husband had killed a man They were duck-hunting on the bayou in a small boat and as Mr B stood firing shot after shot in an arc following a c