Doubts shed like little skin flakes.

I could do this.
I could do this.
Why not?

Or if you should dream up some planet sized jellyfish made of lightning,
be sure to hold up a metal rod.
Let your scar tissue be burned off.
And in that cauterization
you may see new colors.

5SF: Forgotten

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5SF Prompt: Forgotten

Like the pint glasses in front of us, the conversation's just about run dry when Sophia asks me if I remember that time when we were little and we got into some cans of house paint in her parent's garage.

I chew my lip and my eyes roll away from Sophia to the stuffed brown bear in the corner of the bar that looks like it was frozen mid-mauling with it's massive claws raised and its fanged maw open in a roar, just as a cute guy with a mustache I'm hoping is part of some group dare blocks my view, sees me, and grins.

Well hello, sailor.

I tell Sophia I don't remember the paint thing because my memory sucks and it's all a Big Bird colored haze until around kindergarten.

Sophia taps her pack of smokes on the bar and her mouth is a dark pink parenthesis when she says to the bartender, “I'ma need another shot,” and to me, “Lucky.”

Felt

 Haven't written a poem in a loooong time, but this just came blurting out of me.  Still tinkering with it.

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Felt

There is a world where the adults can show a child what her future will be.

They use a felt board; the same kind used to tell Sunday School stories.

A woman with plastic-wrap hair holds shapes with her witch fingers.

She says, “Here is the boy who will break your heart.”

The little figure is tow-headed and dimpled.

“You’ll run in so many circles, it will take you years to untangle all the curves.

But you’ll be grateful for having fallen in love.”

The woman is sitting in a toddler-sized chair.  It scrapes on the linoleum as she scoots forward.

She says, “These two blurry shapes are your parents. 

Gods and demons.

They are warm.  Cold.  Massive.

Someday they will diminish, even as they come into focus.

Their pain will be as clear to you as the red triangle you see here.

They will become so small you could fit them in your pocket.

That’s when you remember to carry them at all times.”

The woman promises you a butterscotch if you remember your lessons.

She scatters flannel confetti all over the blue sky felt board of your life.

“These are the friends you will want because you like the same music.

But these bricks off to the side?  They are the ones who would lend you their bones.”

She shows you oceans and skyscrapers; all of your adventures.

"There is the whale who will fail to swallow you.

There is the Egypt you’ll be too afraid to leave."

You think it’s strange that she knows your favorite trees to look at from a window,

and the paint drip bumps on a school wall that will fascinate your fingers when you do the important thinking.

These lessons are comprehensive.