KB's Basic Blog

I awoke to a barrage of text message alerts.   Opening one bleary eye I flopped my arm over my head reaching for my phone and slowly drug it back toward my face.   The sinking feeling in my stomach wasn’t from the drinks I had last night.   I shot straight out of bed and bounded toward the window, hoping against all hope that the photos that now graced my phone were a mass conspiracy. They were not. My morning encrusted eyes were treated to the sight of my sweet, loving husband dressed in nothing but a yellowed tank top, his knickers, and a beer helmet.   He was pushing an ancient mower and waving to the neighbors with a carelessness reserved only for the very young and the very old.   Since he was neither, I wrapped myself in my bathrobe and threw myself out the door in attempts to save him…well me, from further gossip and photos. “Honey,” I yelled over the metal-on-metal sound of the mower, “what the fuck are you doing?” He just grinned and gestured to his ears and then the

                                               The leather straps of Jason’s backpack dug deep red fissures into his shoulders as sweat stung his eyes and mosquitos buzzed around his head.   The heavy humidity of the forest made him feel like he was swimming instead of walking, but without the benefit of weightlessness. His arms stung every time a plant brushed against them from the sunburn he got two days ago when he still thought this vacation was a good idea.   In the middle of a rainforest, they brushed against him often.                 Further up the trail he watched his wife, Katie, laugh cheerfully with the insufferable couple from Australia.   She caught him looking and waved her fingers at him, grinning at some inside joke with her and her new best friends.   Not wanting to entertain thoughts of murder, Jason turned his attention back to the mud and bug-infested trail in front of him just in time to trip over a root and faceplant into black boot churned earth.

“God dammit,” I heard Jay’s voice erupt. A human tornado had tossed our clothes about the room. “What’s the matter, babe,” I asked collecting our belongings. “I can’t find my damned cell phone.” “We are on vacation,” I said holding the lingerie I bought for the occasion.

I think a lot about the fact that I am never going to know the secret of my grandma’s mashed potatoes.   They shouldn’t be a mystery.   I asked my mom once what grandma did to make her potatoes so delicious and she looked at me like I had grown a third eye.                 “They are out of a box, just follow the directions.”                 Grandma always had the same box of mashed potatoes: Betty Crocker Potato Buds.   They sat in the cupboard next to the refrigerator on the second shelf, right beside the Stove Top brand stuffing.   The box was pulled out for family dinners and was featured prominently next to the turkey, or ham, or whatever traditional holiday meal was being served.   And always they were my favorite.   Melt in your mouth potatoes, with the sweet taste of butter and covered in perfectly cooked gravy.   Uniquely grandmas, regardless of who may have cooked them.                 “They are out of a box, just follow the directions.”                         

It was strange to see you lying there spine broke and insides split asunder. Your pallor spilled upon my bedsheets and I, unable to fix you, gathered you to my chest and wept for the long hours we spent curled in resplendent rapture, wrapped warmly in delirium dreams. You were so good to me in your sweet silence holding my mind in your hands while it tried to escape its own darkness never protesting the damp spots my tears left on your surface as my sorrow mingled with your words and created whole new worlds. You have left a hole in my home, in my heart, in my head that can never be filled without first stopping by the bookstore to fill the void you have left on my overfull shelves. Author's Note: Sorry, not sorry :D

* Trying my hand at prose poems* Consider me, at twelve years old: all elbows and knees and good intentions, knocking about in dirt and on swing-sets with one eye on the boys who will start to call me ugly in a few years.   Circled precisely around my neck on a silver chain hangs a heart whose hollow center holds love from people I’ve never met; great-grandparents long gone encapsulated in tiny oil paintings and left in the trust of a young girl.   These beautiful responsibilities are still too much for me and filigree love lays lost in sandcastles beyond adolescent fingertips.

I am full. A multi-color carousel of wonder. Octopus arm blessings are more than my heart can hold. I am empty. A midnight circus of bone grips me And I drown alone in a ball pit of lies and shadow. I am out of medication.

A grey form lost in fog lays on a grey beach reflected against a grey ocean. Red spill from its body As I cut out its tongue Bruised flesh ravaged by scientist scavengers. For you, unnamed humpback, I mourn.

The floor tasted like salt and whiskey as I lay next to you, one last time and cried for what we had been.   I only hope you are now free from what haunted you.

Delilah slipped into the small spaces between the rocks of the abandoned coal mine at the back of her families hundred acres.   She wasn’t supposed to be here, or even know about it, but much to her mother’s chagrin Delilah had a deep love for dark spaces.   The girl wiggled her way through a tight space between rocks before dropping into an open chamber that was littered with thick spider webs and the bones of birds who lost their way. The girl flicked on the flashlight that she had stolen from under the sink of the old farmhouse. The old metal Maglite illuminated the mine, showing a bend just a few hundred yards away.   Delilah didn’t actually need the flashlight for this portion of her adventure, her feet new the twists of the passages by heart: twenty steps to the bend, one-hundred and three to the Y and another 500 on the left-hand path to find the collapse point that took the lives of one hundred men.   Today she wasn’t interested in the well-worn paths.   Today she wou

Poison, drips down. Tastes like honey.

Oh Muse? I have sat for twelve hours at my favorite Coffee shop Bar Park bench People watching station staring at blank pages waiting for literally any word to pop into my mind. This morning I stared into my mirror trying to remember if I had been properly Fed Watered Exercised Medicated. still blank pages to match blank faces. I tried meditation tumbleweed through barren dreamscapes. I have seen more productivity in ocean Dead Zones. So filled with proper Fertilizer nothing can Breathe. Is.                            That.                                       Me? No art? No words? No pain? Comfortable                 Mind killer. Status: Operational                 Story: Open only in case of Emergency.

Julep Sanders awoke to the taste of stale cigarettes and sandpaper eyes.   Sunlight filtered through the blinds and across her face.   With a groan she attempted to pull a pillow over her head but was stopped by a weight on the other side of it.   Slowly moving her aching head to the right, she opened an eye. “Good morning, beautiful.” Julep closed her eye and breathed deeply out her nose. “Oh, thank god it’s you.” “Well who else would it be,” asked Erik tweaking her nose. A smile graces her face and at last she opens both her eyes and blearily stares into his blue on       e. “After last night, who knows.” “Last night was crazy,” he agreed then paused. “What happened last night,” both asked simultaneously, raising their eyebrows at each other in disbelief. Gathering the thick quilt around her shoulders, Julep struggled out of bed, joints cracking and groaning with every movement. “Where the hell are we?” She pulled up the blinds and saw the rolling hills an

There was only one set of headlights traveling down the highway toward the remains of San Francisco on the morning that marked ten years since the end of the world.   To celebrate this day of memorial all three radio stations left in California decided the appropriate course of action was to unironically play R.E.M’s “It’s the End of the World” on repeat, for 24 hours.     Sasha was into it for the first few hours, but after singing her heart out about the fall of New York City, the flooding of New Orleans, the bombing of DC and the rise of Alaska she was starting to feel a bit depressed.   As Sasha dug through the hundreds of loose CD’s in her front seat for something a little more upbeat she heard the tell-tale “thump-thump” of running over something.   Moments later the cloying smell of skunk filled her car. Half choking Sasha unrolled her window and desperately grabbed for  “The Yellow Book: Guide to Safe Travels in a New World” that resided in her visor.    Head half out th

To the Wolf Spider Living in my Bathroom: At the dawn of time humans and spiders struck an accord of which you are currently breaking.   Our ancestors swore oaths that we are expected to uphold.   I have kept my end of the bargain and do well to ignore you and your kind when I encounter you outdoors. Even when one of you grows to the size of a small plate and I find you in my canoe.   You greatly hastened our approach to land, and I appreciate that you were so gracious as to hide under the seat and scurried away so quickly the moment we hit dry land.   It was an accident on both our parts. The accords make room for mistakes. Yet here you are, in my home and clearly in my line of sight.   You flaunt yourself and your size intimidates me.   You are far too large for a paper towel even if I could reach you.   So here I sit wrapped in a bath towel trying to negotiate with an eight-legged terrorist. “Please,” I beg “if only you would move behind the dryer where I could

Deep breath of fresh air between the calms before the storms

Coat room attendant at the Blue Loon was Denise’s third and favorite job.   As a college student the late-night shifts made for rough morning classes, but she wouldn’t give up those slow nights for anything.   On Wednesday’s she could slip out of the darkened room by the entrance and play her songs to the few hard-core drunks that frequented the establishment for open mic night.   On Thursday’s she could watch the double feature with her shift meal, and it was always exciting to meet the big-name bands that came through to play when she showed them to the green room.   She would never admit it to her mother, but one of the highlights of her life was smoking weed with Snoop Dog before his summer show. One night, deep in the chill of January, Denise was inundated with fake Chanel purses that woman in tight dresses insisted were real.   Club nights were the worst nights.   She could never feel comfortable with saying “That will be twenty-five dollars for the V-Jay” which is what t

Mr. Coleman’s spring cart was stuck in the sand just outside a small town deep in the Nabian desert.  He came to strike it rich in African diamonds, but by fall the town would be gone.  The gold rush had moved to the coast. * This is my first ever attempt at Microprose, so feedback is especially appreciated*  

Jen Beasley was not impressed with her first hour in Alaska. When she had stepped off the plane in Fairbanks, the Golden Heart City, she was ready for a new adventure.  After a bad break up, spending the summer in Denali National Park as a forest ranger was exactly what she needed.   Fresh air, wildlife, thousands of miles empty wilderness; that was what her heart needed to heal.  What it didn’t need was a jammed finger when she picked up her luggage or nearly giving herself a concussion when she tripped over her own feet and landed head first into the stuffed polar bear exhibit next to baggage claim. It certainly didn’t need a pair a bright blue eye staring down at her as she struggled to stand back up. Nor, did it need those eyes to offer a hand up, which she accepted and then bit back a scream because: jammed finger. “Danny,” offered blue-eyes as he helped her to her feet, “These red-eye flights are a pain, huh?” “Red-eye?” Jen looked outside the airport's