Cutters

You need to get out

Take a walk to the grind

Grind is closed

Go to that other shop that is in the square

But is not the grind

The essay is fine

It's you

Stop obsessing

Start attaching and filing

Funny how love comes out of love

Interesting how far a text message can go

Poetry may have a renaissance now that everything is under fifty characters

Lets freak out and cut our bangs too short with ghetto grade school scissors

That's my idea of a good time

Also a bowl of hot salted nuts

And twenty four hours of Oprah

Seven days a week

Silk on flannel

On beautiful gay interior decorations

Pip publishing company now accepting submissions

Kitty is in good spirits

Except every time we look at him we feel like crying

Cause we're scared or something

He's different

His body is growing in crooked around the pieces they took out

What a trooper

The people around me at square tables all their own

All of them They

Speak of movies

The ones that are playing across the street for a good price and a bottle of white cheddar Seasoning

Hope that's not their only source of stimuli

Hope they wandered into the cellar

And bought something other then a Cosmopolitan Fair

Hope they had a Merry

And a Bright

I need more butter for my bagel

I need a dumpster to catch my breath for a second

I need a plan to carry me through the next five minutes

I need some putty for my midget bangs

I need a tip jar screwed to the side of my back like a thermos

I need a tall glass of wont you please see it my way

My nails are also too short

Everything else is a desert

Obama is coming home to get some checks

Isn't that what the holidays are all about?

Yours in Skin and Toast and keep the change close

That Went Well and Dry

It's safe to say,

That the holidays,

Don't suck anymore.

That's what the kids call progress,

It's also something you might find underneath a Snapple cap.

Taped a tree to the wall.

Took a drive to Grandma's.

Not the Canadian grandma.

She's dead. Like a cat, she died.

Ate meat with our hands.

Drooled over Natalie Portman's back muscles.

Dragged a pink rocking chair through the snow.

Got loud with family over trivia and dark glass.

Went to late night service with the family.

Only cried once. On the futon.

Decided not to call the East.

Swept the floor and checked the grades.

Kissed the dog and locked the bag.

And,

Into,

Love with the sleep sound, six pound, dripping, dribbling, baby, girl.

~Skin/Toast/Spent/Gold

Highly Recommended Me

Three

A's

And

One

B

Plus

Still

Waiting

On

Dr.

Un

Rooley

He

Is

Notoriously

Fifteen

Minutes

Behind

And he came to the show on Sunday and gave me a hug.

He's a supporter.

He goes the last leg.

Takes it one more valve to the street.

Even at this level.

Must have found him under an inner city pre school rock.

Must have just found him.

And tenured him right.

But,

Must he be surely

Doing a service.

"I was impressed."

Got the letters confirmed/working on the essay/compiling the best ten poems in a folder marked/ready/to/submit/life goal/to blur the lines between prose and poetry/to support/and nurture/one/room/at a time/to submerge the rest of the calendars in words/in practice of stringing/and arranging them/on pulp/on loose/on purge/on cat/

We, people like us, we don't know what's next. We just see steps, and buy protective gear on sale at the Carson's. And when it gets weird, when you've done too many light sources in one day and you can't stop tapping your leg, and smiling nervously at the people eating cheese and mustard on cloth napkins, then you simply take a bus home and update your to do list. They wont mind. They understand that some people can pursue doctorate degrees in fitness while working fifty hours a week as a personnel trainer all while writing plays on Tuesday morning that will be performed on Friday in a loud voice. And I am far from that person. I bruise easily. And I did not make your latte correctly, but I did make it damn good. And I have learned by now that the minute you settle for good enough, the even more excellent and frothy your next square in your next excel box turns out to connect with a smile and a thank you. And what's wrong with that? My surviving parent is a corporate lawyer and we are very close. But, so thank the strand of empathy in her that relates to the breadth of transcendence, or, at the very least, the that was fucking awesome, and so hail the nerve in me to fill out the teaching portion of the application. Because we owe it to ourselves to try to one day be members of Cosco, although we vow never to stop satirizing it to our dabbles, and post marks, and contests, and highly, highly,

Recommended mine,

Skin and Toast

Dear Plugs,

Hold tight.

Seal the cracks.

Don't let the snake bite you in the camel toe on the way out of the panty liners and ramen dinners.

Raise the pen on up to the she

And the devil.

The power is hers.

The trip is costly affecting all of us.

I wonder if that convenient store is still there.

The one in Shrewsbury.

It had a wood floor.

You could get a lot with a dollar.

The milk was in glass.

There was a pond and some trees behind the what was it called?

Lundgens? Maybe?

I found it romantic that you could walk to a pond with a dollar in you pocket and no one would bother you.

I liked the crunch bars.

I think Tony liked the butterfingers, although I could lay down and die for not being one hundred percent positive that Tony liked the butterfingers. Maybe I liked the butterfingers. It was so long ago.

I remember climbing trees.

But, having nothing to do, really, once we got to the top,

Just,

Climb down.

And then sometimes we would kill frogs.

They sat so still on the rocks.

Huge white bellied toads.

We would scout out the biggest rocks we could find,

Creep slowly towards the hundred penny marsh,

Raise our weapons,

And

POW!

He would point out the blood in the water.

I would pretend to see it.

Years later he went to war.

He was in the rear with the gear.

Now he sits in a tie and enjoys shaking deals.

I sit in my socks and--

Remember?

Skin and Toast

Food Related Play #28

Goblin’s Rainbow

Pressing into my muscles

And sucking into my teeth

I dropped my stomach to the floor

At

Age of five

On Saturday

I

Solemnly

Swore

To floor your pedaled jaundiced breaks that wake to wind

Perfection canned

And

Stored

For the God of you mother

You keeper of sky

At five you took me to our father

To soak my head in sins for

Gifts to make you better

Narrow in your looking glass

Forever on your paper’s edge

By

Myself christened in guilt

Reduced to

Mouth of blood

With

Lungs of heat

And

Nails of grout

Splashed to believe

That

This was my bed

And

You were my sheets

To

Take me

Folded in the molded forms you made for me

You said you’d be my parking lot

You said the pounds would feather down

I stayed inside all day for you

I whittled knees to bow to you

I harnessed backs to carry you

I Matted hair to goats with you

And froze the milk in cubes for you

You

Played the games on gagging pipes

On seven floors

To tip the scale

To wrong the way

To gram the crust

In countless chews of circus breaks

In waves to wake the song that’s caged

In ink to draw the strings that bind

The words to find it’s bigger now

Stronger in the giant land

Wide in the butter dish

Drained from the purge on the swing of your curse

Trail of hips good night

For

I’m the moon good bye

~Skin and Toast

There's a lot going on right now.

Yes.

That is an ice cream cone in my vagina.

Yes.

That is a bright calm in the spot of my lull pressure cook off.

Yes.

Remember to take care of yourself,

Skin and Toast

Crunch Time

Just one more of everything,

All curdled and hollowed and sliced into palms of hearts, and sticks of meats.

And then we're out.

Kitty is doing just peaches.

Now all we have to do is fatten him up.

Kitty's have one job to do,

Relax.

Presentation.

Paper.

Test.

Fun.

Really exciting.

Kind of.

Mostly just something you have to do.

Like gasoline.

But,

Oh,

The smell is so nice.

I'm not supposed to like it. But, I want it between my sheets, bad.

Like a punch in the face.

Hitler was a child you know,

A bundle of joy.

Hold on,

Skin and Toast