Them - a micro fiction

There was a moment when nothing really ever seemed to go wrong and it wasn’t that they couldn’t think of anything to say it was that there really was nothing to say.  They had been married for several years and it wasn’t until recently that they finally realized that they were not coming up with anything new.  He would go out to the shed and not work, but look over his tools as if they were museum pieces that were too delicate to touch.  Meanwhile she would sit in her study looking over her library of books - of which there were hundreds - and she couldn’t bring herself to re-read any of them.  In her mind she made up excuses as to why it was illogical to even purchase a new book because there was a lack of shelf space.  In truth all she had to do was purchase another bookshelf and she could once again fill them, but she found it cumbersome and unnecessary.   It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy working with his tools, or that she suddenly became indifferent to the novel, it was that they both knew they were in their respective rooms to avoid the cumbersome boredom of trying to have a non-conversation with one another.   They had been together since high school and in truth had experienced everything together.   They still got excited about things together, but they both were excited by the same things so there was no thrill of convincing anyone of how great something was because as the collective that they were they already new.   It was years since they had pushed their friends away and decided to be exclusively in each others company so it was their own faults that they were stuck with one another.   The love was still there but the surprises had disappeared.  It was not a question of passion, for they still very frequently found themselves in lust for one another and had spent hours in various parts of their home attacking one another in heated copulation.   The outside of observer would have thought they were sick of eachother, but that was not the case.  They had in truth become sick of the familiarity.  The pair of them were not enough, and each of them had had the thought of having a child about the same time.   She had been sitting under the stream of the shower when the thought occurred to her and he had been tucking in his shirt into his khakis before setting out to the office.  He in one room and her in another under the same roof.  This mental observance was never shared.  They thought so much alike that neither of them wanted to be the couple that had children to fill up their time.   They didn’t want to have children to stave off their boredom even though they knew those miniature people would bring hours of entertainment and stress.   They couldn’t be those sort of people.  Without any such family meeting, they as husband and wife silently agreed with each other that that wasn’t the answer.   When he sat in his shed one fateful afternoon he wondered, as he second guessed himself that maybe he was ready for a child, but she was laying in a hospital bed finding out that she couldn’t even if she wanted to.   There were certain things that men and women can physically tell of one another, but in this way he was lost.  He had no telepathic revelation of her discovery so that when she got home with her face red and puffed from a stream of tears he found in himself a great fear.   And they comforted each other, and he tried to understand what he couldn’t, because they were a unit and tragedy did not change that.

Through This Fiction

there is a bit of a fiction
when put in the proper order
reveals the truths of the diction
that eminated from the mouths
of a hundred thousand strangers
in a collective disposition
toward the old and toward the new
delivering an essence to the street
where the view is but limited
by street signs and traffic cones
where the people trip over
cracks and broken stones
to make the journey forth
away from the cover of their cages
the safety nets they cast over one another
that trapped them and left them ill
struggling to see through the smog
and decipher the riddle of the air
those empty cold spaces before them
melted by the suns beaming light
taking for granted the air that they breathe
it is in those instances of observation
where strangers observe together
and see the numbers as different collectives
some patters, some sequences,
some see nothing but singular objects
but for a few of them they will see the same
and though the spaces before them
do not block the view of one another
and although they see into each others eyes
they will not know that they have had
the same thoughts deep inside
as their thoughts form words of fiction
that they verbalize with broken diction
and hope to spread like a warm disease
upon the masses of the people
all those other strangers
even those that are blind inside
who do not think in wild thoughts
or come up with grand ideas
at least not all on their own
and these strangers and their stories
will ignite the thoughts that are but coals
that sit unused and dead inside
the minds of the wanerers
and a small fire is ignited
so that hundred can become thousands
till those thousands transfer to millions
and the virus consumes in wonderful fevers
all the strangers of the world
and that in truth is a power of fiction
because it presses itself upon the reality
this fabric that they and I and we
have taken for granted
so that in fragile diction
the others can recall
what is was
to be
us
all.

Words of Caution from the Broken to the Mongers

I saw the way you looked into my soul
With the eyes of a thief
And the fear of a fool
Inching ever so closely to the edge of oblivion
Lest ye observe inside
That which you did not want to see
Because I know if you saw it
My soul,
Deep inside, behind the cage of my heart
You would have seen it gazing back at you
Slanted eyes and wicked cackle
Flippant and agitated
Reaching out with its razor sharp stare
Cutting through the very fabric of your blasphemy
Go ahead keep on burning through
The laser pupils melting through the flesh
Taking apart the very fabric of my skin
My muscles,
Through the fluid of blood,
And mucus,
Deep under there in some microscopic hole
I have reinforced it
And as much as you tear through the rest of me
My soul is free within the confines of itself
And my foolish heart
Well it can't be helped
I'll let you in,
Just know you'll never get all of me,
Unless you cut the shit.

Flames of a Barbecue

The lovers were tired.

They looked at each other,

One to the other

And said in mute thoughts

"What would I have given,"

They said in their heads,

"To fuck someone other than you."

They smiled and nodded

Moaned agreement,

"I love you they said,"

For the ten thousandth time

As they fell asleep to dreams

Of other atop them.

In their minds their lovers were fit

Inside their eye lids,

They whispered to the apparitions,

"Please be quiet or my lover will hear you,"

And so they kept quiet.

With each little lick, and suckle,

And tickle,

With each obscure push and light trickle

They found in their heads,

A much better place than their beds.