Mr. Peter Pan

       Peter Pan was my favorite movie as a kid. I loved the impish Peter and the caricatured pirates. It’s still my favorite movie as an adult. But now I love it for the wishing children and the bumbling Lost Boys. It might be a kids’ movie, but sometimes as I look down at my professional black high heels and my colleagues’ manila folders I realize that I’m the one following the leader. 

       We are the Lost Boys. I know exactly how to get to the bookstore but I forgot how to get into the book’s story. We are ageing children, old but never grown up, pretending to be adults to hide the fact that we’re still Lost and that we’ve always been Lost. Past the secretary’s nametag there is a secret heartbeat drumming out I won’t grow up I won’t grow up I won’t grow up, trying to block out the constant ticking crocodile clock that has an alarm set for every possible mistake she’ll ever make. The boss is Mister Peter Pan, shadow stapled to his feet, dragging dejection behind him with every step he doesn’t fly. In our endless, desperate quest to find the buried gold, we ignore the treasures in our lives—we make ourselves grow old. We fight with politics, not pirates, and mermaids fade in the face of our paycheck. It doesn’t pay to check for interesting clouds when you could be playing Angry Birds. I no longer look up. I walk with my head down and my heart down and my voice down and my dreams down, past more people with eyes on their shoes and no wishes to use on even a lucky penny.  Professional black heels click-clack-splash in puddles, muddling all reflections of the daydreams adulthood stole from us. We never look up, at rooftops or the sky, let alone the second star to the right.
       I don’t believe in faeries.
       But sometimes I clap anyway (to turn on my remote-activated ceiling light) and when the light flashes on as if by magic I secretly hope that someday, I can take the never out of Neverland and remember that to live is an awfully big adventure. And someday, I can go from the second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning—and I won’t get lost on the way.

TCAS

I'm thinking of using the stuff in italics as my Flash Fiction piece and then the rest of it is just me dabbling... Let me know. This is kind of a rough rough rough prose version of a poem I found in a long lost journal from 2008, I think, and I like the concept, but I'm not sure I like the presentation if that makes sense? Just comment :)

The Cloud Appreciation Society meets every Monday and Thursday at 1:28 p.m., unless it’s too sunny. We meet on the hill behind the ice cream shop that still serves Classic Bubblegum. You may bring your dog or fish, but cats and lizards are not allowed. New members are always welcome, but if you don’t believe in fate, don’t come. You must be able to make two paper airplanes in under 95 seconds. They don’t have to be able to fly. Contradictory statements are allowed to be said, but don’t expect The Society to truly understand you.

The woman that ran The Cloud Appreciation Society, or TCAS for short, always smelled like hot glue. None of us knew what she did for a living and none of us asked. We didn’t care about jobs or relationships outside of TCAS. We weren’t there to bring outside life in The Society, we were just there to be.

TCAS fizzles out in the winter, when it gets too cold to lie on the ground, and when it is too cloudy to really appreciate them all individually. But we all could tell when it started again. So we’d leave our jobs, our homes, or classes, and we’d all convene on that hill, some of us holding Classic Bubblegum ice cream, others not. We’d all lie down on the grass and then start again. 

Is This Why the World Won't Fight Back?

Have you dealt with the ‘no offense’ beginners? The ones who have the nerve to duck behind that fragile phrase, believing it to be an excuse, because -- excuse me, I need to vent  -- I have. I've seen the class crows deal out more backhanded cards than blink, begin more sentences with iron remarks than think, I know the ones who can’t work into their thick skulls that ‘no offense’ is an offense in itself, and the insult that follows is not constructive criticism. It’s simply a Comment, right? This is not a question of right or wrong, but if it were, it would be wrong.

Who are they to choose the right from the wrong? The grey from the silver? Who are we to tell them what, and who, and how and when and where, who are people but walking mistakes…? But the failed capacity for memory is imagination, which just goes to show that mistakes can be beautiful. But does that make us beautiful? The implication of can does not create is. Could, should, would, complain and cry for past mistakes, not pausing to see if they are beauty, but run. They run from their mistakes, and from is, are, did, does, do, the becoming. Do the parties of becoming see mistakes as beautiful? Surely not all mistakes, though they have the potential. Or are all mistakes beautiful? Does all really have a hidden lining of precious buried behind the thick layers of view? If mistakes are considered ugly, but are actually beautiful, does that make perfection--?

...There are the ‘to-the-point’ types of peoples, with their simple Comments of “No offense, but that sucks.” I know you've dealt with the more ‘refined’, with their veiled “No offense, but it doesn't really look” or “it doesn’t really sound” and while I will admit that perhaps I have been harsh, am being harsh, I will not stoop to the level of writing 'no offense' in thick black sharpie over the title, because maybe I want it to be harsh. Maybe I want it to hurt, to smart, to sting, to offend because perhaps through this prescription something can finally reach the corrupted immune system through which senseless remarks stem. Maybe this can stop the flow of your volcanic fumes that promise nature's fury but only deliver rain that chokes. Maybe the rain is nature's fury, whatever's upstairs does seem to like answering queries in ways we do and did not want, but it remains beside the point of wrongness and right enough, triangled at the tip of insecurity and confidence.

We know the context of 'no offense, but' and 'I love her, but' means that the following text will be offensive and ringing with the dagger's sharp side. Here we were, thinking that holding the dagger was being given the handle, but instead we must let it stand in our chests until we do one of three things: (1) bleed dry and die for a cause none will rise on the flagpole, (2) rip out the offender and spray weedkiller in your wounds for hope of being rid of poison, or (3) there is no three, I lied and that is wrong but so are they. Or perhaps I am too afraid to share the secret of 3 because it is a path a someone took  whom was once a good friend of mine and I don't want to give you the option of embarking on that.

However, I will give you the third answer to the test because I will not be so lonely then and you won't be alone to start. Now then, the third path which remains mostly untrodden would be the path of letting go of pretty, petty emotion, and letting the rupture of seams bulge until it is your heart of pubs and needles; from here let it burst and shatter like a bladder on laxatives, no, not pretty imagery but it gets the point across. Breaking is never pretty.

Nor is the no offense defense. They are the demolition crew, and they are not permitted inside a family's home, however fractured, or school facilities, but--

Too late!

-- they've already made their way inside, through pockets and lollipops, through Children.

Yes, this is why the world won't fight back, yes, this is what we should fear and why be afraid but discussion took this topic from us earlier,

Yes, this is why we are afraid and we do fear and we doubt the monster, yes this is exactly what we need to fix, but what we refuse to see, yes.

Children are born of mistakes from mistakes to a generation of failures and mistakes but we  are still so blind that we will admit that we are mistakes but not our children. Good Lord, not the children! Not our babies! Yes our children. Yes,  our babies, yes, can't you see or are you as blind as the rest? This is how they get across the ashen clouds that wait for magma. This is how they work.

This is why I am afraid, this is why I fear.

This is how they work.

Oh.

How clever they must think they are.

Fortune Cookies

Last Friday, they were serving chow mein in the lunch hall. Also, they had fortune cookies. My fortune said: “You will never know hunger,” which, I suppose in the long run, is better than my sister’s which merely said: “relationships.”

I could take a minute to psycho-analyze one word hoping to unlock the code woven deeply between thirteen letters: why it wasn’t capitalized, why it was punctuated with a period- not a comma or a dash, why it was justified centered, why was it typed in Cambria (Body) not Times New Roman or Comic Sans MS

or I could just make a mockery of it- for mockery’s sake. Like people who hold up signs that read: “I am holding a sign”. And people who have never known passion; who have never had a strong desire to do something with their lives, who have never craved to be loved - -

Like those people who will never know hunger.

Periods at a time

I thought I was forgot.

Thrown aside, left undone

but the world I had so gently cast away 

loved me back

I was simply blind.

I thought I was forgot,

but I was not. 

I was merely hiding in the back

unseen, unloved, 

not left but gone. 

I thought I was forgot,

through dark halls and white tile

but I was changing dresses

periods at a time.

I thought I was forgot,

but well worn gray carpet 

was under my feet as it 

was under theirs in the blue hues of the room.

I thought I was forgot

but the brick walls were there 

one was hollow… 

leading to a far away land.

I thought I was forgot

washed out under cold burning lights and piles of cloth.

I thought I was forgot

but I was locked

in a Box

I don’t think I’m out of yet. 

Little Girls Won't Always Dream of Roses.

I may be young but I grow so tired.
Tired from covering up tears with laughter.
Tired from pretending to be a pretty girl.
The mirror jeers that I tend to disappoint.
And I agree.
So I'll go to school
just like you want me to,
but in my head
I'm still in my room
with no one around.
Here is where I sit,
cradling the mask I wear.
Listen to the stories it whispers
through the cracks in the wood.
Hear it sing.
The perfect disguise
of mock confidence,
hiding bare skin
and scars
and fears.
It desperately pleads
to be part of the conversation,
but nobody hears
the quiet voice
in the corner
of an empty room.
For now,
no one will listen to the thoughts
that ramble on in my head,
so instead I read my poems to the stars.
Despite cold sweatshirt days and nights
I can sit on my patio
and make wishes on the moon
because nobody else will.
I like to dream
that angels will come down
from that very same moon
and run away with me.
To a place where everyone laughs
but never at each other
and where the only empty chair
is the one that has been waiting for me.
A room where pianos play themselves
and physics is just a storybook
written by a madman.
And the madman himself is standing beside me.
I think I love him,
so I am mad as well.
But these thoughts are always girlish daydreams,
and only pretty girls
can dream of roses.
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So I wrote and posted this pretty late at night a few days ago.
When I reread it I discovered it wasn't as amazing as it sounded when I wrote it and it feels a little awkward but I still like the idea of it... thoughts? 
so yeah
yay

Onstage

The light I turned to was artificial.

            There were drums

and you called me the devil but that’s OK

because for just a second, I didn’t have to be me anymore.

I got to be someone else with other problems

            that I didn’t have to deal with.

I got to be free.

I was allowed to get drunk on my words

            without fear for who was watching.

I didn’t have to think about disappointing you

            because onstage, you don’t exist.

There’s a whole other world that you don’t know about

            and I call it Rehearsal.

Everyday from three to five, I get murdered then come back as a ghost,

            I murder kids, I get betrayed,

I watch a bloody play unfold every day and I would’ve been corrupted,

            but I stopped confusing one story for all stories.

Out here the only black and white belongs in the script:

            no hero, no villain, just words and acting.

Onstage, success means to fail better.

So, if you can't handle the drama,

            get off the stage;

Leave it to the people who know

            that Commedia del Arte means Professional Actors,

                        not Comedy of the Arts.

Leave it to the people who can list off Greek gods and Shakespeare plays;

Leave it to the people who have heard the Origins of Western Drama 

            more times than a kid has heard a bedtime story-

Leave it to the people who are brave enough to rip out their hearts

            and hold it out for you to beat with a stick

                        because onstage, we are trying to find something beautiful.

So, the next time you see me onstage,

            look really close,

because this is what I look like without all the walls and barriers:

This is who I am.

Look past the characters and the plot,

look past the fact that Tyrell kills two innocent children

            and just watch the way she walks.

Look at how she holds herself:

            how she leans back,

            how when she smiles

                        the tip of her tongue taps her top teeth.

Watch the way she bows before King Richard:

            she loves to be big and grandiose.

She speaks slowly,    

savoring the words because she loves the way they sound.

This character, Tyrell can be cut seamlessly from the play.

            You can turn out the lights on the two scenes she has,

but between her lines, backstage between scenes, and during intermission when I was still changing costumes,

            I wrote her a backstory.

The lights always come up on character who was somebody’s daughter.

The ability to cry onstage isn’t the mark of a good actress;

            It doesn’t mean we’ve been possessed by the devil.

We just found ourselves in the character

            and we cry because, in context, we are sad.

Acting is not a career,

            it is not art or a message.

We are not humans telling humans how to be human.

            We just want to tell you a story.

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I really like where this is headed, but I feel like it needs refinement. I'm just not sure where... I feel like cutting from: "So the next time you see me onstage" all the way to "Savoring the words because she loves the way they sound".

Five Minutes to Midnight

They come at night by storm.

When streets are gone

and the blanket of ash grows taller,

            they stand at the horizon.

First one,

            then two,

and ten become twenty

            when light casts their shadows into fire.

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So... thoughts? I'd like to add this to the fairy-tale collection because I find it fairy-ly-ish.