Poetry: The Acorn

Early August the first acorn fell

“Too early” I whispered to myself

As the young soldier rolled to my feet

Retail : What Matters

After my 6 month Hiatus from work, I returned and reclaimed my rightful name as The Bookseller. I was admittedly nervous my first day back, considering that stress from school and work had caused my breakdown that forced me to leave work. My first customer stepped up to the the register and without missing a beat, I put on my pleasant smile and recited the greeting that had been apart of me for so many years, "Hi, how are you doing? Do you have a member card to save 10% today?" And with that one phrase, the 6 months I was gone literally disappeared.

I could still type the 13 digit ISBN number into the keypad with unusual speed that I was sure that I lost. I could still find everything anyone was looking for in the store without looking it up in the computer. I still remembered all the regulars names and phone numbers for their member cards. Why is it that I remember all this but always forget the model, make, and year of my car or where I left my keys last? Why is it that I remember the phone numbers of customers I only know by name and face and not the phone number of my own sister?

Why, you ask? Because I am the Bookseller, and books are all that matter. Here's to more of the same...

Poetry: Adopt A Highway

Years pass and your appeal begins to fade

Your skin sags and cracks and no band aid

Will fix the neglect shed upon you

And no one is there to help

Your pockmarked body, so fragile, easy to harm,

Like when you were first laid in the crook of my arm

Can no longer be healed with quick fixes

But they don’t see that

You are kept barely alive, slowly degrading

Weathered and worn, with colors fading

But they just paint over you to keep you

Looking healthy on the surface

But Underneath the facade is internal decay

Holes and tunnels caused by age eating away

At what was once a steady foundation beneath

Baby soft skin that everyone adored.

You have been abandoned, there are newer roads

Leading to the same direction, carrying heavier loads

Without life lessons or years of experience

On your loquacious, littered highway

But it all comes down to the money and the budget

And if you will survive another cut, they just let

You rot away for a few more years

Until you are no longer their problem

And when you are finally dead and buried under

Gravel and dirt, you’ll be replaced by another

With the same hopeless future beginning with

Baby soft skin that everyone adores.

Creative Writing: Bisquick Tears

The first installment of when my father taught me, or failed to teach me, how to make pancakes.

I grew up in a household that lived off of Bisquick. Primarily, it was used for pancakes and still is to this day. Every Saturday and Sunday, I am awakened by my father shuffling with the pots and pans because the skillet that he needs is the one in the very back of the cabinet. While we have multiple skillets and at least eight different sizes of pots and pans, we only ever use two of them: the pancake skillet and the medium sauce pan. The only function of the other pans is to make loud, useless noises to signal my mother and me to wake up.

One Sunday morning when I was 11 years old, my father decided it was time for me to learn to make pancakes. He came into my room around 9am to wake me. While most people are woken up with a gentle shake, I was flipped violently from my mattress. The motion echoed those seen in action movies when a bomb is about to go off and the hero flips over a table for cover. I tumbled off the side of the bed, tangled in my blankets, with my cheek resting right next to my father’s shoe. Had this happened to a normal person, they would think “Earthquake” but my instant thought was, “Crap, what does dad want me to do now?” If I ever find myself in the middle of an earthquake, I will surely roll over while mumbling, “Five more minutes, dad.”

I flopped down the stairs without even lifting my feet while my father lunged and kicked up his heels. Morning was his prime time. I expected to sit down to start eating pancakes and just assumed that I had missed the opening number of the skillet shuffle wake up call. But there were no pancakes, just an empty stainless steel bowl, a wooden spoon, a spatula, and that bright yellow box of Bisquick. I immediately panicked; my father was planning to teach me how to do something. My father loves to teach me things and says that I will be more prepared than other people because of his lessons. I think he does it because he likes to see me cry. My father has gaps in his lessons where he assumes that I can read his mind and know what to do next. When I do not use my unknown gift of telepathy, he yells until I cry. When I decide to act before he tells me to do so, he yells until I cry. I always make it a point to stay well hydrated in preparation for these lessons.

I looked at the yellow box. Yellow is such a happy color that gives your eyes a vibrant handshake. And there is no sorrow in pancakes. No one eats pancakes angrily; they are eaten with a secret smile that savors the half melted butter swirling with the maple syrup. Every crumb is devoured and the leftover syrup is scooped up with a fork, even though most of it runs through the tines and dribbles on your chin. As a last ditch effort, you lick the plate not caring about what social implications will follow. These are pancakes! Everything about them oozes happiness.

And my father was going to beat the joy out of that innocent, fluffy breakfast choice.

To be resumed…

Creative Writing: Weed the Weeds

Weed the Weeds

“There you are, with your thumb in your ass and your mind in neutral!”

That was my father’s favorite phrase when he saw me sitting around doing nothing. He would see watching TV as chewing gum for the mind and would urge me to sit down and read book instead. When I began devour books day after day, he would then point out the window.

“It’s a beautiful day! Get your thumb outta your ass and go outside! Grab a rake for god’s sake, the lawn is a disaster.”

Yard work had always been my most hated chore. My father would watch my every move, pointing out to lift with my legs, not my back. I held the rake incorrectly, I raked too soft so that nothing was accomplished, then I raked too hard to the point where I pulled out the grass. Nothing was ever right and he was positive I was doing it on purpose. In the back of my mind I wondered why he made me do it if I did it wrong.

“Kathleen, this is character building, stop whining,” he said.

Whenever he turned his back I would drop the rake and run in the house. I would disappear until I heard his loud voice screaming “Kathleen Anne Casey,” from the backyard. Something about the way he stretched the syllables in my name made my stomach churn. My mother once told me that they picked out my name by screaming it down the stairs and out into the backyard to see what combination of names would sound the most severe. The harsher the pronunciation and tone, the more likely a child will learn its place and become obedient. I was born to be yelled at, cursed by a name that sounded foreboding when bellowed.

I would return to my small pathetic pile, rake in hand, hoping for a helpful gust of wind to blow the leaves into the wheelbarrow. I would lean against a tree, watching the lawn people cleaning up all the neighborhood yards. Our house was the only house in the neighborhood that took care of our own lawn.

On hot summer days, I would push the old rusted lawnmower up and down the steep slopes of grass. The sun burned through my skin and heated my bones until my body boiled over and sweat poured from my skin. Every few minutes I would have to empty the bag of the heavy grass clippings and clean off the blade. Next door, the hired lawn guys would be on lawnmower tractors, riding around with cold bottles of water and sandwiches. I would drool and pray that when I tried to start the lawn mower again, it would stutter then cough its way into death just for the chance to hide inside. But it always roared to life, held together with spit, duct tape, and fear of my father.

I learned to enjoy yard work and gardening. Suddenly, without being told, I would head out back to mow the lawn or weed the garden. I would rake in the fall then rake in the early spring to clean up the area before planting. I carved out a piece of my own and planted my own vegetable and flower garden. Still, my father would walk by and inspect what I did, pointing out that my rock wall wasn’t straight or that I didn’t plant the tomatoes deep enough. Neighbors would smile and wave while saying, “I wish my son would help out like you do.”

“See dad, the neighbors appreciate me and what I do,” I said while digging a deeper hole for the tomato plant.

“Well maybe if you got that thumb outta your ass and got your mind outta neutral, I would too,” he scoffed. “That plant aint gonna grow if you don’t pay attention, Kathleen. It needs space, it needs to have room for its roots to spread. When are you gonna pull out all these weeds, it can’t grow with all this shit in the way!”

I roll my eyes, my sunburned face squinting in pain.

“Go put on some sunscreen. Your face is as red as cherry tomato!”

Creative Writing: Orange Oranges

A submission for my non-fiction creative writing class

Orange Oranges

My mother, my sister, and I often made fun of my father before any family celebration as he probed the kitchen. He packed bags of shrimp, homemade sauces, and various picky dishes in large boxes. He always worried that there would not be enough food for everyone even though all of the family drives home with a trunk full of leftovers every Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter. Year after year, we are stuck with two weeks’ worth of kugeli, a Lithuanian potato dish, because my Uncle Joe bakes six pans worth for every gathering. As a kid, I was force fed kugeli with promises that, over the years, I would acquire a taste for it. Only when the fridge is bare with food do I venture to eat the potato mess. It hits my stomach like a ton of soft bricks, soft and fluffy but strangely weighty.

His over packing is a result of his over buying. Once he discovered Costco, we were faced with four pounds of american cheese, vats of mayonnaise, and trash bags full of oranges. Every other day, he would peruse the aisles for saving on things we never needed. When he came home and unpacked everything he would yell at me for not eating the oranges while holding a newly bought bag.

“Have an orange,” he would say.

“I don’t want an orange,” I always answered.

“They’re like candy,” he says as he bites into a slice.

Over time the oranges would disappear one by one but they were quickly restocked as if our fridge was a grocery store. There were oranges everywhere; in the fruit tray, the vegetable tray, and stacked neatly on the bottom shelf. Every time I opened the fridge, I imagined the hard round fruit flooding the kitchen and drowning me like a child in a ball pit. My refusal to eat the oranges were no longer from lack of hunger but out of habit and spite.

Late in the spring, my friends called me to play Ultimate Frisbee at our old high school. Should I bring anything, I wondered. I jogged down to the basement to grab a few waters out of the spare fridge. Cases upon cases of Poland Springs water bottles were stacked next to fridge almost four feet high, damn those Costco sales. My eyes wandered to the cooler, maybe other people will need some water. I poured ice into the cooler and dumped about two dozen bottles of water in it.

I dragged the cooler upstairs and then thought; maybe I should bring some food too. I opened the fridge and the oranges color hit me first. I emptied the bottom shelf of its twenty or so oranges and sliced them then stuck them in a few plastic bags. What could be more perfect than oranges on a warm sunny day, do I have enough? I grabbed one of the slices and bit into it. The taste was sharp at first and triggered my mouth to water. The juice was cool and the pulp nestled between my teeth.

I was suddenly eight years old again, sitting on a bench during the half time of my youth soccer game. The juice was so sweet compared to the sweat pouring from my brow, over my lips. My knees were skinned and stained green but my cheeks were sunburn red. The air was humid with the scent of steamed grass and salty earth. My flashback was suddenly interrupted by my mother. Her eyes darted to the cooler overflowing with waters and bags of orange slices and then sighed heavily.

“Jesus, what is your father packing for now?”