My son is singing the Storybots song

and screaming the TADA part at the top of his lungs. 

His screaming is also making him sneeze.

It's like his body is allergic

to the silly ❤️

I slept in my car

before the rain started.

Listened to the tail end of the Stars game

then opened the shades to the duel

Moon

Roofs.

Watched the sky switch from decaf

to triple shot black,

Lightning like paparazzi

flashing through swaying trees.

Wanting to escape is only half as crazy

as fighting as hard as I do to

Stay.

He has asked me to cut out my

damning tongue,

says he doesn't like his feelings

hurt.

Says he doesn't need to be reminded

of how difficult

Loving him

Is.

And so I agree to his lunch offer

and I say

Nothing.

I sit on my feelings

and pinch their nostrils closed.

Wait for the panic in them to subside

wait for the wide eyes of hope to close

and I present this corpse

as peace.

But he says this doesn't please him either

and I leave with zero insight

into what it is men

Want.

You there.

Woman.

With your giant ass floppy hat.

You wear that hat, girl.

You brave that breeze.

You hold that brim

below your knees.

That big ass hat is 

knit sunshine

on this rainy, normal, boring

day.

New male strip club idea.

We only hire English fellows with flat butts.

Club name:

Assless Chaps

Today has been a bad one.

I have been angry and depressed

and tired and frustrated

and squirmy and more frustrated.

And angry. And jealous.

And stupid.

And stupid.

And stupid.

The female condition is a sorry one.

10 Things I'd Do With A Publishing Deal:

1) Buy my hotdog suit, obviously

2) Pay off all the debt while wearing my hotdog suit

3) Buy Herb a burger suit - Herburger

4) Move us all to Canada

5) Walk the streets of Banff with Herb and I dressed as concessions

6) Remember that I'm supposed to be writing books

7) Procrastinate

8) Procrastinate 

9) Procrastinate

10) Procrastinate

Tinder is about the worst idea anyone ever had.

Men are suspiciously attractive.

Get-go intense. About as deep as the holes

they so desperately want to fill. 

My feet need to be told a few jokes first, mister.

And oh! The offense they feign over the need to post height.

"I'm 5'6 since apparently THAT matters 🙄

Let me see ur tits"

And I know, I know,

I won't find love there.

It's more a shallow reminder that I am still a girl.

Not just a worker.

Not just a mom.

But a girl, you know?

A girl with 

nice feet 😂

In all possible meanings of the phrase,

I just want to be rocked.

I am a resource.

A body for now

useful

to the job the job the job

and I run away from home

and I give them all I've got

and they say Resource Good

For Now, For Now 

Useful.

.

.

.

.

Son sleeps

stirs

smiles

slurs,

"ooooohhhhuhhweeuhmama"

And I melt into the ocean of his

still so sleepy eyes,

I sew myself into the lining

of his still new heart.

And I hope he knows I love him and

I hope that when I leave, stay gone 

for 14, 15 hour days,

he knows to trace the stitches

around the sewn seed of my being.

Does anyone know all the words?

A thought process by Brittany Ortega.

Mom abbreviates popsicles as "p-o-p"s 

so Herb won't know what she's talking about. 

Except that he does. And eventually, 

he'll begin sounding those phonetics out. 

Puh. Oh. Puh. Pop. Pop. Popsicles. 

I imagine my learning journey was similar to his.

His vocabulary is growing. Mine is still growing. 

Now I know lots of words! 

There's a ton of words I don't know though...

...How many words are there? 

Is there anyone who knows all the words?

I'll ask mom.

"Mom, do you think there's anyone who knows all the words?"

____________________________and scene. 

Thank you.

Oh, rigid shadow

geometries 

casting hard

rosewood, cherry,

silk sheet,

napalm

you are a thing that my hands want

to frequent.

3 Things

3 Things I Try Not to Notice:

-the perpetually dismal state of my financial affairs

-the size of my shadow as I descend stairs

-the way some people pronounce 'advertisement', 'antenna', and 'pokemon'

3 Things I Can't Help But Notice:

-the background scream in "Rollercoaster of Love"

-the fact that whatever detergent I'm using now using smells JUST like a guy I used to fool around with

-especially high grass pollen counts

3 Things I Love About Women:

-their endless and beautiful aesthetic combinations 

-their emotional pack mule equivalence to men carrying 40 groceries on their arms in one trip

-their quickness for revenge when they feel one of their own has been slighted

3 Things I Love About Men:

-

-

-wieners

I sit here at a grand piano,

borrowed and blue,

shapely like sunglasses

I listen to a melody

once,

twice, 

got it now

I see the shape and apply it to

a guitar that I'm not even holding

and I know it

now

I know it

and

I finish there to tell you here

that I have it now;

I'm a quick study

and now I'm here

shapely and quick

and all I can really think about 

is the fact that he left us

anyway.

I apply myself topically, I said

in thin, creamy layers/ an Elmer-fine paste

and people apply me to their hands, I find

they wring their wrists

with globby drops of

me

and I smell like unfinished wood, I think

I think I might sound like

sandpaper hooves

the shape of my voice is like apartment carpet,

or the texture, rather

the shape is more like

broken down cardboard

(flat and ready

to be built or discarded)

I say this, I said

so that you might understand better

why I never go with y'all to

karaoke.

Now then, let me say this.

For all the current despair, I will never say that I hate him.

I will never refer to him as "whatshisface".

I can be angry and sad for as long as I like.

That's my right.

But I will not discard the fact that we had lots of good times, too.

Lover,

liberate your hands.

Throw your book into the fire.

Rip the New York Times in two.

Push away your morning coffee

free your hands, love

free your hands!

fashion them like twigs and sunlight,

mud and feathers,

leaves and springtime

intertwine your fingers, love

and in this new home I will nest.

I will recite words of wanting;

I will give you the good news;

I will stir your sleeping senses.

And yes, if you will do me this small favor,

I will make your goddamned eggs.

I think I'm going to start writing love poetry again. 

Love proper, I mean. The kind of stuff 

that makes me gag

as I'm writing

it.

And since we're doing it for fun,

just assume when I say you,

that I'm talking about

You.

___________________________________

oh, joy of loving your buzzing heart!

coveted as newborn nearness,

complex as relative

terms

(tomorrow, 

for instance)

oh silent gaze of reaching eyes,

distant as a thing that only knows to maintain

distance

I have loved you for so long...

and I lack the heterosexuality

to tell you any 

different.

It's us, kid.

It's us ❤️

Music makes me feel good.

Vibrant.

Buzzing at

432.

Awful Single Mom Pickup Lines:

- Say, baby. Are you Daniel Tiger?

Cause I've got a peach that won't make you itch.

I don't think...

-Say, baby. Are your pants Sesame Street? 

Shhh shhhh, just tell me how to get there.

-Say, baby. Are you a Baby Shark?

Cause you're all I wanna

doo-doo-do-doo-do-doo.

I can't imagine

how silly I'll feel

when this all works out

like they keep saying it

will.

Moving on begins with music.

Making new associations.

Going out and meeting people

fond of the same sad tunes.

Little boy,

Brown sugar

Ham

Your existence here

The chemicals you inspire

Make me certain that I lived

The last decade

Correctly.

I figure I must be doing alright,

I mean,

every time Herb looks at me

with his half-moon eyes

cheeks bunched into a smile

I feel my heart explode into

a thousand

heart-shaped pieces.

And I don't want to die,

in fact, I feel like dying

a lot less

and I figure that means

I must be doing

alright.

When it rains, it pours.

Maybe this is true for blessings

too.

Today is St. Patrick's Day.

It seems very appropriate to have chosen today

to finally let the angry part

go.

The sad will linger like a fart.

The lonely will hover like

hummingbirds.

The fear will abound in groves like

cottonwood

but the angry,

that part will be gone.

It isn't you,

person who

just wants to know me

better,

It's that writing gets me out of saying

how I really feel

and to say it would destroy the curtain

place me in front

with one hot

mic

give me a stage with 

hard attention

reaching those up and in 

the back

saying is too much like 

reciting

and I Do Not 

Believe 

In That.

My son,

I love you more than I know what to do with.

I love your pudgy little hands,

how they squeeze when you lead me along. 

I love the dimple on your chin

and how I don't know where it comes from.

I love your wheat bread loaf-type feet

and even though you can kick hard,

I imagine every nighttime tomahawk

is a gentle roundhouse to my heart.

I love you, Herb.

Please stop kicking me

in your sleep ❤️

The real truth, since you all deserve it,

is that I wish he'd go back to loving us.

I wish he'd go back to treating us

as kindly and devoted as

the way he treats his

customers.

I shouldn't be so bitter, they say.

That I'm a young woman and

something better will come.

And how am I gonna attract that better thing

if I'm so damn bitter

all the time?

Which is fair, I guess,

but all due respect,

that fucker has been living free

and happy

since the day we left

he does not hurt

he does not want

and I figure he's still plenty sweet

enough for both of

us.

I know, I know

#notallmen are heartless, unfeeling

cruel instruments of

indifference.

Some feel bad afterwards.

He says he doesn't know what he's 

becoming. 

That it's safer for us to

stay

away.

And he knows he has to word it this way

because my paralyzing fear of 

werewolf transformations

is about the only warning

I'll understand.

Now then,

if only there were a way 

to suck your 

good nature

while busying the dark side of you,

that numb dumblashing tongue of yours,

with something shaped for 

the

occasion.

Rereading old poetry

of love, now comatose, 

no longer fluttering eyes

or wiggling

toes

I feel altogether certain

that I remember how to do

it.

Love, you know.

I feel pretty good about it.

But it's like a sleeper hold or somethin',

in that people are aware

and believe that I can do it,

they just don't want me to do it

to them.

I haven't been sleeping.

Some unseen and unsettled force

has stuck its phalanxiety

inside my mashed potatoes.

The stress nestles inside my ears

and I believe I hear alarms not due

for 10 more starchy

minutes.

I am awake, now, wake the bunny.

Tell him I need

his ears.

Just finished watching 

"The Light of the Moon"

and it triggered a lot of things

I don't keep buried

very deep.

Daily, I wonder

how my decisions

are colored by that fucking thing.

That thing I've never

allowed myself to

remember.

Or those other things that I can better

recall.

Daily, I question

my motives,

wants,

reasons, feelings,

and more often than not,

I find the wires

lead back to that corner,

to that poorly patched hole

in the wall.

My new phone arrived today.

I didn't need one, but here it is.

Cutting edges off my square unhipness.

I'll be round and fulla know-how.

For a few months

anyways.

I lose interest in things.

The lust of not knowing

how best to breathe

or which way the words will tilt 

their head

wears off after a couple of

sentences.

And here I'm already

64 bored thrusts 

in.

It picks up toward the end, I'm told.

Not many things do, but

this one 

does.

One of these days,

I'll get around to learning how to play guitar.

Until then, I'll just listen

real careful.

The Only times I feel alive

are when I'm playing music

and shooting

pool.

(I sort of threw these days away)

Let us focus on the sweet.

My son, grubby

little hea(r)t lamp that he is,

gravitates towards me in his sleep.

He holds tightly, as to not fall off the

tree

and at the edge, I dangle

my hands and feet.

Let us focus on the living.

A beautiful man walks past me.

He is stoneshoulders

and cobblepalms.

He is upright and casts

a cocksure shadow.

I imagine myself bathed beneath his shade;

I get to the edge of this wanton longing

and let dangle

my hands

and feet.

A small part of me,

the smallest marble in my

hoping jar,

really thought, with all its round want,

that my marriage could still be saved.

He says he doesn't like visiting Herb

because he has to endure me.

He has to endure my sad eyes

and angry teeth

gritting

as he ignores my son

and buries his nose

into his phone.

I say 'I cannot trust you alone with him.

You made sure of that the day I buried

my Wella. Don't you remember?'

'I recall', he says

And he leaves us

all over

again.

I like my men like I like

my sighted guide techniques,

good with words,

on my arm,

and relatively lost

without me.

My music is all my happy feelings.

My writing is all my sad feelings.

If I wrote songs, it'd be like swallowing

my whole sluggy self.

"Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.

I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.

How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have

lost her.

To hear the immense night,

still more immense without her.

And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.

The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing.

In the distance.

My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.

My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.

We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.

My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's.

As she was before my kisses.

Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms

my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer

and these the last verses that I write for her."

I have loved this poem

since I discovered it

in the sixth grade, 

But only now does it hit the way

Pablo meant for it to.

My refund just hit.

And you know what That means...

Little Caesar's

STUFFED CRUST, baby.

I set the bar low

and fly over that shit daily.

Herbert will look at my father

and he will know about strong men.

He will look at my mother and he will know

about strong women.

He will look at me, unkempt and exhausted,

and he will know about strong love and

strong odors.

Seeing only the silhouette

of a complex machine

my son shouts the answer

"Asphalt paver"

Except when he says it,

it sounds more like

"Asfa paber"

He continues this,

Dump truck

Concrete mixer

Scrapers

Road roller

He stumbles still on

Hydraulic Mining Shovels

All this knowledge he houses

in his beautiful little head

yet he can't seem to remember

His ONE popsicle a day limit

and the fact that he just had one.

I think I make people uncomfortable

when I joke about my life

and how it has fallen apart

so rapidly.

I say, "I haven't seen this kind of deterioration since Jeff Goldblum started peeling fingernails off!"

And it's their spot to laugh

but they never do.

The amount of soft ice and

spicy noodle eating channels I follow

on Instagram is getting out of

hand.

For this reason, I am going to get dressed,

go to work 3 hours early,

and practice my instruments

until I feel I'm talented enough to call

my growing creepiness

an "eccentricity".

Four Trump Supporters

An Overheard Conversation :

Man, late-50s: "Build that wall! We gon' wall them mofos up!"

Woman #1: "Ain't gonna be no more picking strawberries" 

Woman #2: "No more poy-yo" 

Woman #3: "No more avocados"

Man: "They've already started! Kick those motherfuckers out!"

Woman #3: "I like Mexican food though"

(raucous laughter)

Man: "Alright, keep one!"

(laughter)

Woman #1: (pulls out a white medicine bottle) "Oh, that smells strong!"

(the other three lean in)

Woman #3: "Oh my God! You're going to jail!"

Man: "There is no fucking way you go to prison. No fucking way. My brother knows the (incoherent speech)... Oooooooh, one of you is giving it up tonight!"

Later.....

Man: (sits next to Woman #3, the youngest of the group) "I'm gonna sit next to my favorite daughter..."

Bought a new comforter set for my pull-out bed.

Finally.

I can get my life back on track.

My Valentine's Day moods:

Pensive:

He's out there, newly awake from his 10 year coma, making some girl laugh about how pointless Valentine's Day is. He's having a drink to his own good fortune. He never asks about his son.

I am more deserving than this, I think.

Desperate:

God, I haven't been touched in months. What's the matter with me? I find myself speeding down the cobblestone portion of Camp Bowie. Maybe sitting on the dryer would be more effective.

Angry:

Couples make me want to puke. Newsflash Woman, your significant other sends dick pics to other girls. Maybe other guys, too. They're all so damn proud of themselves.

Hopeful:

In time, I'm sure I will find someone.

In time, I'm sure they'll raise the speed limit

on Camp Bowie from 40

to 55.