#pinkzebras

[jenvaughnart]

Pink zebras make me happy! I’m loving this super sweet patterned piece by @ilanagriffo 💖 #illustration #pattern #pinkzebras #zebra #editorialillustration #childrensbookillustration #illustrator #graphicartist #illustrationagency #jenvaughnart https://www.instagram.com/p/CAVsxhIhLqJ/?igshid=1x87h0i2b38er

[danielsanchezpoetry-blog]

Pink Zebras

This one was really hard to edit, since circumstances dictate that it be deliberately esoteric. That sounds really pretentious, and if you agree with that assessment, or have other comments, let me know!

Original:

There’s no room in this town for two pink zebras. There’s no room in this town for two pink zebras. There’s no room in this town for two pink zebras. Not when the echo takes up so much space. I thought I was the sole tollpayer on the road to your washing machine- I thought a foamy baptism could get me out of an ark of a situation. But I had a mirror for a roommate- and he brought his psycho flamingo girlfriend with him. My potato patch vocabulary dressed itself in a floating famine, thinning, thinning, like cheerleaders or an increasingly jaded haircut, trying to slip in between bubbling and tears. Syllables crashed like flies into a windshield enough times to spell out “Happy Birthday!” and “You May Already Be a Winner!” After my voicebox ejected the tiny ballerina working the controls, I felt lost, but on the way out, she taught me how how to split. So split I did, with about negative twenty-one years on the clock. Now if you are a historian or a physicist, or casually acquainted with my legs, you’d know that I can’t outrun a flood, or outswim a plot. I mean, you probably already saw right through me, you know I’m a ghost, a ghost of a zebra, colored pink as a Pac Man appetizer, but I’m not here to haunt you. I just thought, even though we’re a tiny pink zebra apart, and even though it’s gonna be so fresh and shiny, making my majesty look like rust, and I got a steel wool tongue but I’m a pink zebra, not a dirty cat, I thought we could pass a ping pong ball across its back and stuff updates in its nucleus. It’s just big enough for a shrunken hairdo or a “hello, how are you?” Edited Version: Didja hear me? I said, “There’s no room in this town for two pink zebras! There’s no room in this town for two pink zebras! There’s no room in this town for two pink zebras!” Not when the echo takes up so much space. I was supposed to be alone on the road to your washing machine- the sole tollpayer hoping to make use of your soapbox. But when I showed up for my foamy baptism, I bumped into my new roommate (and my mini mirror image.) The space invader even had the gall to bring his psycho pink flamingo girlfriend with him. “What punks,” I thought. “What conquistadors!” I tried kicking them out, but my blood was boiling white hot, and every word aspiring to escape me was scrubbed into a puff of steam. This trimmed the herd of my vocabulary down to growls and consonants. I was clenching my teeth so hard that any other hopeful syllables crashed like flies into a windshield enough times to spell out, “Happy Birthday!” and “You May Already Be a Winner!” After my voicebox ejected the tiny ballerina working the controls, I felt lost for a second, because most of the time, I can be all talk. Fortunately, on the way out, she taught me how to split. So split I did, but I was way too late to make a clean break. The wash cycle had started, and suds started coming down like lightning. Now, if you are a historian, or a physicist, or casually acquainted with my legs, you’d know that I can’t outrun a flood, and I can’t paddle fast enough to outswim a grave, or irrelevance. (Did you know?) I mean, you probably already saw right through me, and you know I’m a ghost, the ghost of a once-white zebra colored pink as a Pac Man appetizer, but I’m not hear to haunt you. I just thought that even though we’re a tiny pink zebra apart now, and even though it’s gonna be so fresh and shiny like a tiny star, and even though I’m an old pink zebra who shrunk in the wash, I thought we could pass ping pong balls across its back, stuffing updates in the nucleus. It’s just big enough for a photograph and a “hello, how are you?”