Chasing Friday

A journey beyond adventure every Friday.

[chasingfridayon]

X. Frames by the Foot

She crushed frames in the dark for the sound of it Picture frames and door frames, and now - his glasses too All went underfoot in the blue kindling light Of the run down gas house

I watch her foot smash them into the concrete, as if she wished the concrete would just open up and swallow them. Is this how much she loved him? Two birds lost in the dark. It's cold and I'm thinking about where you are. If you're okay. If you're still wearing my One Piece shirt or if you've returned to be swallowed by the cherry blossoms. Then she crushes the frame and speaks.

"What was I doing?!"                    I don't know really                        I don't even really know you, why are you asking me?            Instead I say: "You broke up with my best friend and have now dragged me out to watch you destroy said friend's property." "It's not the one he wears." "Which makes it all--- better."

CRUSH

There's little left to be stepped upon, but she somehow evokes a crunching of crab apples from his glasses. "I called you here so you could make me feel     better"                    Did his heart make that sound when she crushed him? "That's why I'm here listening to you and not saving my friend's glasses."                    I thought he was the one who made you feel better.

She decides this is a good time to collapse onto the gaslit floor and cry over what she broke. Is this love? Finding something you want so much you crush it, then breaking yourself over it? If this is love, I want nothing of it.

She lays herself over the glass shards Knees folded in, head tucked down, hands pressed together Her mouth was pursed together as if she was afraid her prayer would spill out of her mouth all wrong And god would hear her And give him back to her

How come in all the portraits painted in biblical times, the saints and virgins pray with a glory chipped in their eyes and their head tilted upwards? When did we learn to look down when asking for something?

She's wishing she crushed the frame that held her in And held them apart Like she did with picture frames and door frames And his frames She frames herself with                "I was always so anxious, a baby bird too afraid to fall to fly." She backs herself into a corner, into a cage, into the night which she wanted everything from

What if it did matter? What if she never said what she meant? What if that was misunderstood? What if he would never talk to her again? What if he became a psychopath thirty years later and came to kill women like her to get back at her? What if she became so worried and anxious she wouldn't cook the burger long enough? What if a customer got sick because of her burger? And sued and the place would close and she would lose her job? What if the customer worked at Metropole Nuclear and got so sick he accidentally causes a meltdown at the powerplant? And the world ended with her a bankrupt, nervous wreck who couldn't even make burgers right and he a serial killer made out of a misunderstanding

And she never told him how much she loved him

What if tomorrow she woke up, and didn't want to be in these frames anymore? And she told him how much she loved him.

Instead I watched her squeeze her eyes so tight She doesn't see the lights from a smooth sedan Shine past in those broken frames' reflection

[chasingfridayon]

In the Lion’s Pen

The Order of the Lion's Pen gathered in a dimly lit farmhouse. Converted from a pigsty, the feeble wood house was bound together by sheer desperation. The cattle rancher convened the meeting with a great knock on the wood. The farmhouse shuddered. Two figures huddled in to the waning light of a single candle. The Order of the Lion's Pen was headed by that cattle rancher who maintained all the museums in Manhattan. The two other figures were the only other members who did not have a family obligations that night so they gathered in shaking bones to the meeting. The figure on the right was a slender woman who could barely have become an adult. She had no family obligations because they had all died in an arson case. The Red Hand was thought to be the culprit, but only under speculation. The figure on the left owned all living plant life in the three mile radius from city square, including the marijuana sown under town hall. They, along with the other members of the Order of the Lion's Pen, were the greatest and most influential figures in the area and because of this, it was they who determined the worth of the living word.

[chasingfridayon]

Lost in Translation

"Maybe he could've been a hero."

This is thought by a lonesome fly in the supermarket. It's life has not been long, but it has grown upon musing over the lives of the customers in the supermarket. The fly's puny brain has just latched onto it's newest victim and was growing a collage of arms and legs upon their sufficiencies. 

"The mediocre man soaked in his mediocrity till any vestiges of his potential had long since been watered into numbness"

The fly is of the tragic archetypal - spinning everything into some sort of pathetical situation. (But it was quite pathetic itself, so can you blame it for viewing everything else as it viewed itself?)

"Pulling together his groceries, he peeked up barely over the rim of his collar. The grocery lady smiled up at him."

Her Harvard graduate face shined as she pulled a bottle of milk over the scanner. The fringes of her short hair waved as she moved

"as if there was a wind blowing in that cold grocery store, the hovel of  a fly."

The man's face brightened under hers, until he casually tucked it back in again "an immediate reaction" of one unaccustomed to the unwavering smile of an ivy league graduate that found herself shelving canned goods that would be inevitably knocked over by some toddler in red shoes. 

The fly began to cry.

"He was afraid that after all, the truth was, and it so was, that she only smiled because his milk paid her to do so."

[chasingfridayon]

He said that he was falling out of love with her and started crying. She hugged him and told him it would be okay. He said he didn't want this. She told them they would figure out a way, blinking away her own sadness, they would be okay. As if he had fallen ill, and it was a disease neither of them wanted entreating in what they held. I wonder how they reached here.

[chasingfridayon]

IX. When You Woke Up in My Bed

It was April 29th when you arrived in my bed, like a midnight delivery, in your gown of shredded butterfly wings. Your eyes fluttered open, characteristically. You wake from reality into a dream. And I am rubbing my eyes - glasses half full and half being drunken from leaving prints from warm breath. I am startled and you look like a deer that has just gotten run over As if somehow you were not the one who entered through the creaky window in my room I don't know you at this point So to me you were either a goddess Or some girl I had somehow miraculously coerced into bed with me under the good influence of my elder brother's drink You, on the other hand, know of all the circumstances that lead you to my bed And they were not of some silly girl infatuated with the stench of loss and keeping down vomit with French kisses (Which I am adept at by the way) You were the other So upon that April morning I pulled open the blinds and let the light touch the shoulder blades of a girl shedding a monarch's wings Somewhere in the world there are startling men strutting in penguin suits with a briefcase of a woman tucked under hand, dressed in champagne. But I had the beauty of white shutters And black hair like spider's webs Falling over the alps of shoulders

[chasingfridayon]

VIII. Here's to Mud In Your Eye

Before I grow up and the world takes me Let me run

He watches the cogs whir in her head He can see them in her eyes The thoughts caressing her soul, pounding like loud drums "Does she hate me?" "Is she mad?" "Am I too pushy?"

"I should stop being mean"

He doesn't know how to assure her He loves her so much, but doesn't know how to put those words in his mouth in her head Because those cogs burn down rubber and sugar alike Stirring out worry in her eyes and a heartbeat pounding like loud drums "Does he love me?" "How can I tell?" "What if he's just pretending?"

"He can't actually like me"

And the mud begins to froth Pulling them down

They were as birds who wanted nothing from the dark But stayed up by the candle wax of the moon To just relive the darkness again To be cloaked in anxiety and oppression once more Pleasure and pain are quite the same In the time of lidless eyes When birds perch on the line

She extends her arm His touch is live wire, moving up her arm His mind full of questions and snakes and a girl whose skin is brushing up  against his desire He moves up her arm as if there on her neck Was somehow etched the answers And she unwittingly allowed herself to indulge in the pleasure That for one second she was an answer

Silent car by the gasoline light Fluttering eyelashes in a wax night What is in his mouth is not the answer, but she finds her tongue searching it anyways There is a slippery fork rubbing her teeth And she can't breathe She mistakes her suffocation for passion She sucks mud from his mouth

They are as blind birds in the night Believing the dark to be what was seen

He is pulling off her shirt She is ripping at his pants Snakes fill the car seat Mud flakes off like dead skin from beneath her hair, his armpits, and the places their questions meet What is it they want? What is it the clothes hide? The skin? The flesh? The bones? The heart? What is in the cavern they so desperately fill with themselves

Their questions disappear Unanswered

Once the light collapses and two figures fall apart After all their groping and reaching and meeting Two birds find themselves truly in the dark And it comforts them once they've lost themselves to one another With the empty kind of thought That they really never knew the other Just two strangers who were looking for answers Only happening to wreck hearts                         And leave mud in their eye

Before the world takes you and I grow up Won't you run away with me?

[chasingfridayon]

VII. When Human Voices Wake Us

I know what you screamed that day because I watched what you became

RIP

You were in your bed hidden in the concrete jungle. But then you are in hell

Hollow scream You're sure there must be tears flowing Because the pain is unbearable It woke you up and You scream and scream and scream

And SCREAM

Your voice feels empty, as if you had shrieked something into a hollow cavern and somewhere along the way it was rendered insubstantial After all No one cares in hell

You cannot see You're gripping the butterfly folds of your ceremonial dress desperately You scream for someone to help

RIP-

You tear off a wing of the butterfly The golden strip lies disconnected, sinews forming from the cloth It doesn't help Not ripping Not the golden silk now soiled Not the tainted dress of the temple's daughter

SCREAMING WHY ISN'T ANYONE RUNNING?

The only fingers that touch you Are pale white bones wringing the pain from your flesh Because there is something in your leg

IT SCREAMS

A jar of worms? Whatever it is it's writhing Your muscles are burning and they won't stop Clenched tight like the virgin's ass Except you don't have time to think of virgins or asses Because your leg. Is. In. Hell.

RIP- Rip rip

Minutes later you stop screaming You are out of breath, alone, and exhausted The muscles in your leg no longer burning you, because they've already taken everything from you (And some more) Phantoms of pain still whispering softly into your pillow The pillow with no tears Even though you tried

You curl up into a ball Empty and hollow In the middle of your nest of torn wings from your dress.

[chasingfridayon]

VI. A Sudden Bout of Spring Rain

From dead earth Breaks youth green lips Of leaves tearing open Barked skin It hurts after so long No wonder it rained

Her words were like that sudden bout of spring rain Cool and refreshing and gushing Livelihood danced in its steps As it skipped across the concrete floors Painting the asphalt green and blue

"I'm fake"

Tears mixed in with spring rain Who could find them He almost lost it when it dribbled into his palms She said it so fast

drum drum drip drop

Piano keys in pain It's not the first time they cry and this is not when I first hear them That is saved for the propitious May 22nd You only ever play one song Over and over again But it never got boring Because you never play it the same twice

plip plop flit flit

Your fingers are light that day Like a tear drawing a crescent on to a blushed cheek The notes throb with spring rain They sound as if they've drowned Drowned in tears and sorrow and have become choked and muffled in their sound But your fingers disobey you And your right hand begins gradually plays louder Your left hand reaches to match it At the pace of the daughter lugging the coffin on a funeral march across the hills With the volume of the lone wolf calling atop the highest mist to his lady on the moon

Your notes scream

The cat sitting on the piano bench nudges your arm

Your notes are screaming and crying Alone in a sudden bout of spring rain

[chasingfridayon]

V. The Carp on the Tip of a Blade

Half the story is in the way it's told was what his mother was arguing with his father about. His father felt half the story was in the way it's read.

He on the other hand was absentmindedly watching the new-born trees Struggling like new-born deer to walk.

They were listening to some tinkly ballet music He imagined ballerinas like green nymphs taking a twirl by each tree they passed in their smooth sedan.

But the car was too fast and soon they drove faster than He could imagine her pirouette.

They were driving away from the house my dad was trying to sell. I was there that day when he came in. We became friends over the house he wouldn't buy.

Cherry red house at the mouth of street It'd always been nice to drive straight in from the entrance to the driveway without a single turn

But his wrinkled mother wouldn't stop muttering about how it was a house open to bad luck

"Mouth open like carp"

She was wringing her hands in distaste when she first drove up to the house and I was shaking hands with him.

"House on the tip of knife"

She shook her knobbed head at the gravel around the house.

"Surround with bad river"

When she came back from the bathroom, she was still pulling up her pants with an out of place dignity while condemning the windows as

"Too small, morning sun pass by and no look in"

She left the place with a grim expression Only taking one last glance in But then spotting our generations old clock Hobbled over and took it down Placing it neatly into a pile of dust Then smiled as if she had done us a service Proclaiming

"Circle clock bring evil, no head no tail, you run in circles"

We dismissed her with a wave And they left the house with a mouth like a carp

But maybe that's why we got stuck in the world Maybe all the rotten thoughts in my head came from that house on the tip of a knife. Maybe that's why I needed you To chop off the middle to find an end

[chasingfridayon]

IV. Games Played Between Spoonfuls of Complex Carbohydrates

What if you were a boy I met on a bus. Pressed up against by accident. (Open a box of cereal) A deep worry growing in my heart, that intentions were misjudged. And then you get off the bus. And we passed each other without knowing. Hearts centimeters apart. (Find the box empty) Just one person who walked too fast And another who turned too slow. (Scan the cabinet)

What if when you walked, I would smell cherry blossoms as you passed (Open a new box) Each footstep a quiet piano note Calling delicately After one just passing by And you never saw my face And I never heard your accent Blended like coffee between a young gazelle in the brush and a dolphin of the deep.

(Find a pair of scissors) What if he knew That she thought dreams were As clouds in a pail of water That the things she loved Were submerged in that bright Apple red Pail (Cut open plastic package) That she thought if she got too close (Grab the first bowl) Like the picture in the water breaks (Pour out cereal) Her love would break too (Fill bowl with milk)

He got too close (Place spoon in hand)

What if I never saved my words (Dip) And instead let them like the chimes (Spill) Be torn away into the wind Away from a future I'll never know (Eat)

[chasingfridayon]

III. The Tale of the Backwards Butterfly

It's the kind of story people tell to their children to scare them about something. Like that Japanese story that warns if you cut your nails at night a monster will rip the paper door in half by midnight, stalk into your room, and cleave your blood from your bone.

Right. So there was a butterfly with wings of mahogany. At birth, it was a blind caterpillar but it always heard the whispering of other wings fluttering in the wind Without having seen, it fell in love with those wings like the sailor's wife falls in love with the light house operator.

Imagine if you fell in love with something you couldn't see. It's in a metaphorical sealed box. And we've ripped out your eyes Sorry says God but in return I'll let you love what I put in this box.

So now what? You're in love with what's in the box You can feel it pressed up against the sides You can feel its warmth through oak wood And you feel your heart Beating at your rib cage Begging you 'Let me in'

So the caterpillar, like you, opens the box

Never before have you ever wanted to-

The caterpillar curls up And the change begins. Mahogany wings unfold. White silk threads twist Like A straight jacket? Thorns? Twisting like a ballerina whose toes are knives Twisting into your side

-close a box so badly.

The butterfly is crying. You are crying. The butterfly never leaves its cocoon. In hopes it will turn back.

And what you've realized is the box you've opened Is your coffin What you've loved inside Was what you were

And the butterfly dies inside its life's work

Parents wag their fingers while the children shake in their sheets Not sure why they are so scared (Maybe because it dies?) But they find themselves awake all night anyways

[chasingfridayon]

II. The Becoming of a God Who Fears Sharp Turns

It begins on a day I would go to work at 8am. The rest of the world has already woken up and your car is stuck on one of those windy bridge things that always made you want to puke. But you just pull the cloth of your ceremonial robes over your eyes.

I decided not to go to work. She yells at me, moths flying from her teeth. She complains about her ring, her rock, all her hard work. I am reprimanded for not doing my part in growing up. I chew a bagel she paid for and stare out the window.

Nobody knows today is the day. I don't write that in a way as if I do. If I did, I might have gone to work. I might have thrown her ring and rock out the window at "all her hard work". Maybe then I would have grown up. I would still have chewed her bagel with fog in my eyes.

You probably deal with the rest of your ride into the ugly concrete jungle with oblivion in the colorful, butterfly folds of your dress.

I wouldn't know.

I only see you once, as you pass in the parade A foreign creature Walking with a confidence unbeknownst to even the seventy one year old man climbing into his own bathtub (Wrinkles like an accordion folding in upon themselves As they submerse into the foaming water) Your robes flutter behind you like wings You have black hair Thin and winding Like a spider's web Just like that smile I get stuck on Then you are swallowed by the yoshino cherry blossoms in front of the temple

[chasingfridayon]

I. Bad Metaphors About the Lady

If cereal boxes printed the faces of missing children on their cardboard spines, I would have seen your face that day On the back of my cheerio box right before I would rip out that Sudoku puzzle in the corner (A great marketing addition as it is the sole reason I buy them other than to You know Eat) Except you weren't missing Lost Or kidnapped And also, cereal boxes don't do that.

So it's a bad metaphor. Big deal. The world is made of bad metaphors.

You are the type of girl a man would see for one second as he was driving on the turnpike for four hours. (Waiting for relief from the country music that is the only station she could find. He would turn it off, but she hates silence. Thwanging banjos are much more bearable than his lips clamped shut. But of course all of this is hypothetical) When he looks left, he would see you. You are sitting shotgun in a black tank top that makes your shoulders look so. unbelievably. sexy. In a way that makes him understand why they're against school dress code. And your gaze is resting upon the world as if it were some enigma that was gradually placing an albatross on your sexy shoulders. But then the moment passes and they've sped past each other and he forgets about you. (Surrendering again to the crash of the music) And you never even knew about him.

Except that's a bad metaphor, because he never saw you.

But I never forgot you.

It doesn't get more straightforward than that.

[chasingfridayon]

When Friday Forgets Her Tongue

her eyes will change color. sometimes the space bar becomes harder to press andher words would flow together. instead he is warm. and for now that would be enough. but she would think too much. one sweat drop would wonder if her meanings did not reach him. another would dribble in question that maybe she overthought it. then another would bead down her face knowing she wanted to make him blush.

[chasingfridayon]

When You Miss Friday

He remembers the way she moved when she arrived late. How did he move when he missed her?

[chasingfridayon]

Three Have Gathered like Sleeping Flowers

"Tell me about the color of beauty„ she slings a prompt at him with ease, "30 seconds„ Deep breath, and he waited for thirty seconds to pass on the one minture timer before starting:

"Beauty is whatever color she wakes up in. Morning dew gripping to her face, strappling her cheeks like mundane Christmas. Beauty starts out slowly and grows forever.„ She flings a grin at him. He deliberates and decides,

"30 seconds: how does a candle feel?

[chasingfridayon]

Another Not Friday Walks By

if i described her room i would describe her heart. loose poems secured by a wisp of a paperclip cling strung words together - like our love fragmented and childish but she memorized them all the same

bed full of me and my scent and promises she sleeps not knowing she smells me in every rustle in every dream. I wait for the morning she will wake not to the alarm but to me

disjointed memories replace books in their domain things she'll never use but will pretend so for you maybe you'll love the jade horses or russian dolls but you will never love her more than I do

desk of papers made of papers - she hangs possibilities on window frames in between toes of her music lies a jar full of stars of enclosed wishes she will never kiss them but she will kiss you -