Duck Soup (A Dream)

Duck soup. I didn't know how to make it. I had no idea!

"Go, Kevin! Make it!" they yelled at me. I was holding an aluminum foil bag, packaged in the shape of a ramen packet. Inside, presumably, was duck soup. I cut open the the top of it, and saw the yellow-orange pre-cooked broth. It was disgusting.

"I don't know how to make it," I whined to their glee. The more whiny I sounded, the funnier it seemed to them. "I don't know how!"

I could feel something forming in the bag, but it felt like it was supposed to be there.

"Someone get it away from me!" I whined. They continued to laugh. I began to feel the thing inside the bag hardening into a shape. It was the skeleton of a duck.

"I can feel the bones!" I whined. They laughed. The duck began to move inside the bag, sloshing around inside the uncooked, pre-made soup. I set it down in a cabinet. They laughed.

I was the duck, I thought, and I was forming, and I am different parts, but they're all jelly-like and separated, and I'm forming now, and I am almost solid now, the jelly parts coalescing together, and I need to get out of this water, and...and... I'm Kevin Arnold, a character from the hit sitcom The Wonder Years, and I was walking along in ocean water, sand beneath my feet. I was walking maybe knee-deep in water at night, but as far as I could see, there was no beach. There was just that area on a beach where you're about knee-deep in water, except there was no deeper end and no shallower end. Waves were coming from...somewhere.

My best friend Paul was with me. We were walking together, and we see Natalie Portman, but she looked really young, like she was our age, about 12. No girl should be walking alone, this young, without someone to walk with her. Her hair was so beautiful, too. It almost didn't look solid so near to the water. It looked gelatinous. If I touched it...no. It wasn't my hair to touch.

"Are you lost?" I ask her. "I'm Kevin. This is my friend Paul."
"I'm Natalie," she replied timidly.
"Come with us. We know where we're going," I said. We did? Where were we going? Why am I Kevin Arnold?

We could have taken advantage of her in her fragile state. She really was quite beautiful, and honestly, no one is around. We could have, but we aren't men like that. Still, she seemed oddly inviting to men in her vulnerability. We walked along the beach that wasn't a beach for a few miles, three 12-year-olds, one almost angelically beautiful and vulnerable, like she had fallen from heaven and was left to the whimsy of Man. Except as far as I know, things didn't look like the land of Man.

We were in a restaurant, the three of us, and Natalie was crying and falling in the arms of every man around. She must have kissed many of them, but promised nothing more. She didn't seem like a 12-year-old, I thought, but then again, neither did I. Maybe she was 18, I thought.

I pried her away from a middle-aged man.

"I'm so sorry," she said, and I knew it wasn't her fault. She was just too beautiful. It's okay, though. I was there to protect her from being temptation for men. We left.

I called my dad to pick me up when we were on the beach that wasn't a beach. I sat in the back seat, and she sat in the front. My dad was driving and talking to her.

"So, you're a friend of Kevin's, huh?" he said in his distinct tone. It was flat and inviting at the same time.

"Yeah, Kevin's real nice," she said, smiling back at me. I returned my own proud smile.

"Aren't you a little too young to be walking around?" he asked. Don't embarrass her, dad. Don't make this poor angel uncomfortable.

"Well, aren't you a bit young to be a father?" she countered coyly. My dad chuckled. Was she flirting with him? My dad was an old man. Why would she...

"I guess you're not that young after all," he chuckled. He figured out what took me a few hours to figure out. This Natalie Portman lookalike was definitely not 12, even though at a certain light, she could look like it. She might even be as old as her mid-twenties, I thought. How old am I?

They talked for a few more hours as we drove in the waters of the beach that wasn't a beach, no surf nor tide in sight. We saw a few trees and large rocks, but they served as monuments to me, not necessarily indicative of a natural road. It's okay, I thought, my dad always knows where he's going. She probably told him.

"We're here," he said abruptly.

"Oh, thanks, Jack," she giggled.

"You know, you have a gift," he told her. "You could look as young as 12 and as old as 30 all in one glance."

She just smiled. That hair of hers, like the slimy skin of an eel, so elusive and yet shimmering so beautifully. I just wanted to know if it felt like it looked. But I didn't. I'm a gentleman, I thought.

The three of us walked along the beach that wasn't a beach some more, miles away from where we were.

"He's right over here," she told us.

He? I thought. She must mean her boyfriend or something. Eventually, we see a middle-aged man. His pants were rolled up to his knees to accommodate the water. The three adults talked together, and I followed, not knowing what they were talking about. They seemed to be getting along, I thought. She was much older than I thought she was, this angel I found wandering. It's a good thing I protected her, I thought, but I couldn't help but feel a little betrayed. She was supposed to be my age. My friend. My angel. I could feel the pangs of youthful jealousy sprout in me, but I suppressed them.

"Here," the man said after we walked a few miles. He was much older than I thought at first, his hair graying and frayed. She was old too, and her hair was so beautiful and long. I honestly couldn't tell where her hair ended and the water began.

"Just lay down," he instructed my father and me. We complied. These people were nice. We laid down in the water.

My body felt...distant from itself. Slowly, I could feel parts of my body separating, becoming more dissolved in the water and more gelatinous. What was happening? Let me stand! I thought. I tried to get up, but my body wasn't under the same control anymore. Let me stand! I shrieked in my head. I was in full panic. Where was my father? I thought. He would know what to do.

I somehow managed to turn my head. What was once my father's body was now separated gelatinous blobs suspended in the water. Natalie looked at me and laughed. The old man laughed. Natalie began drinking my father. NO! NOOO! STOP IT! I screamed, but I could do nothing. I watched as she drank him, and she became him. Her body was replaced by his and shifted back to hers.

And I could feel my vision shake, as the old man drank me.

"This is delicious," he said. "You make a good duck soup, Kevin."

They laughed.

Skinner Talks

crumpled leaves and compound words
doghouse, catfish, snakebite,
subtle sounds that are
barely bearable.
like a mouse
in a two-
bit hole
that we
fashioned
out of air and
no air. I don't see
a future for our rodent,
who so silent slumbers in his
single-story home. quiet. timid. taciturn.
it's almost like his rapid breath
is a reminder of our own
mortality, but i hate to
extrapolate mice
actions with
our own.
quickly,
breathe
a bit faster,
for in dreams
mice have more
chance to dream than we,
who own our world. if a mouse
is small, it can only dream big, and in
comparison, our dreams are
nothing but a concrete
maze, and nothing
is at the end.
perhaps
our dreams
were once green
leaves, up higher than
our lowly selves. But now we
dream on asphalt beds and crumpled.
shorter our words and dreams
seem until there's
nothing
left to say.

I'm Not Here

I'm not here
to give you one of those rants
about how life is perfect and nature is beautiful,
how
the sound of silence in a forest
can be the most beautiful thing you ever hear,
or how
the air you breath beside a the ocean
flows straight through the lining
of your lungs
and into your soul.

I'm not here
to tell you that
a moment alone with redwoods
is like being a child again
among adults,
as if their presence alone
is all the security you need from harm's way.

I'm not here
to describe at your leisure
the drowning sounds of a waterfall
on a trail beaten only by deer
and the sound of water in your ears,
or how that moment
is the same as losing yourself
and finding yourself.

I'm not here
to teach you
how to enjoy a rainy day,
whether it's opening your arms
in a thunderstorm to embrace
the millions of water-kisses
on your body,
or wading warmly in your thoughts
to the background music
of nature's shushing,
quieting you and letting you love
yourself by yourself.

I'm not here.
I am there,
and I'm asking you to join me.

Lincoln's Shame

I recently learned on Reddit, that 16 stacked pennies equals an inch and 16 pennies lined up is about a foot. Naturally, the first thing I want to do is measure the length of my penis in pennies.

So I take out my plate of coins and start counting pennies by 16. I then left the pennies on the bed, but having so many pennies stacked was hard (heh) to hold up and measure next to my penis. Nonetheless, I lifted the stack of copper-plated coins up from my bed and over to my chair.

The pennies, of course, burst everywhere, landing on the floor and on chair and bed. I literally made it rain pennies. Dozens of pennies (not quite a dollar's worth haha) all over. And I had to clean it up. This is especially stupid because every man knows the size of his penis already. If he says he doesn't, he's either lying or ashamed to answer.

I'm such a fucking idiot. brb, cleaning up penis. I mean pennies.

I Hate the Rain

i hate rain,
the sound of leaves being hit
all at once
like a constant tide
crashing in cacophony.

the annoying white noise
in the black night
vexes me,
and i find it frustratingly odd
how the grey cement
is a darker shade of grey
when rain drives by.

and how strange our sunrays look,
dressed in an admittedly becoming
frock of clouds.

i tolerate
the feeling of droplets on my skin,
like a soothing massage for which
i did not ask,
and i walk uncaringly
with my hair wet
but only because
my hair is easier to manage
damp than dry.

the beautiful autumn leaves,
now soaked with nature's tears
can't be crumpled,
and i so enjoy crumpling them,
even as i enjoy their beauty
strewn across my path
like the Earth's own stars
in endless constellations.

falling leaves are shooting stars
waiting to be wished,
so i wish upon a falling leaf,
who joins its brothers on the ground,
and in my wishing, i believe,
a quiet solace i have found.

the drizzle turns into
an endless stampede of tiny horses
rushing onto the floor and trees,
and upwards i look,
soaking it all in.

my wish for clarity
has been answered.

and at night,
with my window open,
the rain reminds me of the ocean,
with the leaves a-pitterpatter
in quiet, calming tidal breaking,
but that beach and surf surrounds me
and for once i am part of nature's nature.

and
i suppose,
i may love my rain after all.