"Fools Are My Theme

i’ve been approached by peace and love, an apparition from above told me to relay these new facts: it is so wrong, the way you act. male must be best, black must be white gay must be straight, left must be right. all my beliefs must match with yours, or else spend years in pointless wars. we must not change, but stay the same, choose just one group, give them the blame. progress is wrong, the past was great, immerse yourself in old-school hate. don’t ever act, just sit and pray, if things need fixed, He has a way. just stay content with having less, With being murdered, and oppressed. you may think some of this sounds odd, but this is the glory of God! so do not fear, you’re in good hands, you can sit down, don’t take a stand.

     “I’m sorry. I’m new to this,” the hooded figure says, as she begins flipping through some of the papers on her clipboard. I just stare, bewildered by what can only be an elaborate prank. There is an abnormally tall, black-robed, scythe grasping figure standing on my porch. And it isn’t even halloween.      “Um. That’s alright,” I mutter, more out of instinct than actual politeness. The hooded figure sighs.      “Do you mind if I take this hood off? My supervisor says we’re not supposed to, but it is so hot out here,” she pulls the hood back, and there is suddenly a head where there used to be only impenetrable void.      She’s pale, with short black hair. What I thought was some horrifying hell sound is proved to be only the smacking of her gum, which she chews far too loudly.      “You seem kind of young for this,” I try and make conversation as she continues flipping through papers, but my attempt sounds stupid after it leaves my mouth. Too young for what? I don’t even know

Some mirror somewhere showed me a me, so that’s the me I’ll somewhat be. But something says that some mirrors lie, so that someone might not be I. If it is not, how can I know, who is the someone that mirrors show?

there is a dog barking, proabably a big one, a strong dog because you can hear how his entire being is thrown into that bark. the bark has a lot of being in it. i don’t know what makes a dog want to shout like that but, if it were a person i would’ve called the police hours ago because i can’t hear myself trying to be important.

there is some slanted sort of speak, that is coming from the leaves. some sort of ancient incantation whispered in its secrecy. and in their talk, these kind of words, these parts of speech that are all blurred. some sort of other-wordly wiseness that’s seemingly just left unheard. and some small part of me believes that this magic would not deceive. if only we humans would listen closely to the language of the leaves.

freedom rang, last night, her message filled with thrill, and might, despising that apple pie and (geno)cider left cooling on the windowsill. and still, her voice held that sour bite, the hope filled until of willpower spilled from lips sealed tight. yet, in her earful her words were slurred, and lost behind that mindless wave of chat and lack of chance, and gave that grave sense of misbehaving, with rabble-rousing on her breath. and she was mumbling something, maybe, about when you were only blooming. how you had this voice, this soothing something, this grooving, dancing, flame unmoving that now, abusing, still you claim what was only ever her in name.

Most people I know regret the things they did. Fry, who we all knew had something wrong with him, had killed a man. He had enough human in him to regret it. Mutt, who was too loud and too fast and too much, was fucking a married woman. And her husband. That was his regret. Even Squito, who mostly stayed quiet and calm, had done something to regret. He would leave late at night to drink, despite his wife and kids who thought he was sober. But I wasn’t like that. Most people I know regret the things they did. I regret the things I haven’t. It started when Mutt and I had been smoking something he’d gotten somewhere. “This is top notch shit, big time, the good stuff, the great stuff, the fucking blow your mind and make you religious kind of shit,” he kept going, on and on. All of his words just blended into noises that my mind moved to the background. This shit wasn’t anything special. I’d had better. “Mutt,” I interrupted, passing it back to him to shut him up, “why do you do the

i get the groceries. i spend my hard-earned my big bucks, my green. i give it all to you, for you, (from you), and still, you sit in that big throne of yours, and give me what? life, but that was too many years ago, and your part was only half the job. i spend money, while you spend words on going-away gifts for people who will never go away. so give me the cash, give me the house, and i’ll get the groceries.

when you are abraham, and finally you see what all your life has worked toward, and you know you can trust him, because he said so, but, he needs you to need his trust, will you grab that what used to be your son, but now they all are, and you their father, and who can tell the difference anyway?, and give it up to him and be the prophet and jewishchristianmuslim, or will you love more than he could ever, this life he claims he made but can’t control? because, dreaming isn’t the time for decisions or to show your face, let me see you with open eyes, then we’ll talk.

When the merchant had wished for a son, no matter what the circumstances, he had not in his wildest dreams thought that those circumstances might be that his son would be the unholy combination of hedgehog and human. He knew something was wrong when the midwife shouted and dropped the child on the ground with a thud so she could pull a quill from one of her fingers. As he glanced at his newborn child, he began to regret his wish. The child’s snout pointed up at his father curiously and his wide eyes glittered with hope. The merchant turned away and retched. Out of spite, he named his newborn Hans My Hedgehog, the sort of alliteration typically reserved for children’s books and poetry. This name also ensured the child would always be branded with his deformity as his defining feature. The merchant smirked at his cleverness. However, the merchant did have a heart, so, he let the child stay until it could be decided if any money could be made of this ridiculous situation. Over the yea

“Did you see that?” officer Cross asked, nodding deftly toward the window. “What?” his younger partner turned clumsily, eyes wide with a curiosity that the years had not yet killed. “Someone was peeking behind the curtain. He’s in there. And he knows we’re out here.” The partner looked wildly from side to side, his mind likely running with stories he’d heard in the academy about shootouts and psychopaths. These stories were told by people not much older than him, and were often eerily similar to action movies and detective shows. “I’m gonna kick the door in. He isn’t dangerous, but you can’t be too careful, so keep your eyes open kid,” Cross got in position and looked at his partner, who was still staring blankly at the window. “There’ll be time for daydreaming later kid. Were you listenin’ to a word I said?” he asked gruffly, the wrinkles on his forehead deepening. “Yeah,” the kid snapped suddenly out of his internal reenactment of Lethal Weapon and moved to side of the door. “

His cardboard sign whimpered at us from the side of the road. I turned to see if mom had noticed him, but she was focused on the changing of the traffic light, not the tiny moments while it was blushing. Not this man’s red light tale. His face was gray and dull. It sagged toward the earth as if it might fall off if it weren’t being held on by a strap of steel wool hair connecting his long, graying beard and the uncombed animal’s nest sitting on his head. His clothes were tattered, and the gray of his skin and the gray of his jacket had become one: the rough, textured skin of elephants stretched across his entire being. Whatever white had used to live in his shirt was lost in a sea of unidentifiable yellow, orange, and even purple stains. It was no longer a shirt, but a canvas for a sunset painting that would sell for millions if painted anywhere else. His eyes were gray, but like his shirt, they may have once been crisp. Somewhere in them, behind their crust and moisture, a fain

     My wall’s newfound appendages reached like plaster trees out toward the world. Where had these arms that my wall had suddenly grown come from? Could it be that the wall itself was grasping for something? Perhaps it had grown lonely. Or maybe a person living inside it had realized there was a world outside his claustrophobic wonderland.      I walked carefully around them, feeling up and down the arms awkwardly. They felt like a part of the wall. Where normally fingerprints would spin in their spiral dance, textured plaster stuck out here and there like water drops. There was a complete and utter lack of wrinkles and identifying features,  instead opting for the same feel as the fingers. The arms themselves were far to sturdy: the tree trunk arms of giants, unbendable and as stiff as the walls themselves.      And yet, they were undeniably human. Undeniably one of us. The positioning of them was an odd formation of desperation and longing. An uncomfortable combination of emotion

     The man was taller than I would have given him credit for. So tall, in fact, that I could see nothing of his face, which entered the clouds. And beyond presumably.      No, I can’t say whether he was a pale, wrinkled, wise  dude with long, flowing white hair and beard, or some dude with meth teeth and a hat screaming “Make America Great Again”. What I could see were his enormous hands, which he moved dramatically as he talked, as if it were expected of him.      Hopefully he understood that I personally didn’t expect anything of him. Hell, I certainly didn’t expect to meet him.      His palms were old, that was certain. But, they were also young, which made me less certain. The wrinkles on them ran like rivers, deep and pink, like the grand canyon illuminated by a ripe, rising sun. The wrinkles alone told stories, and the words that seemed to crawl on them were often distracting while he was talking, to the point that several times he had to call me back to attention.      Lik