I’m alive when I dream. Tell me when I can go home.

I can’t think my thoughts when Vista damns creativity with 11 point Calibri, day over night over double spaced monotony.

In journalism, paragraphs are key. The holy grail of journalistic success, all you need are paragraphs. One or two sentences to express a statement of fact. Kyle Leerie, 23, died when his car crashed into a tree. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Not, the tree was Oak and Kyle’s accident woke up a family of blue jays. They flew away on impact.

For some reason, I had myself convinced that blue jay was one word. Last night, when I dreamed, it was like a premiere screening of my subconscious. I see the previews every waking hour. When I am alive in the day I fear snakes and dirty shoes and food poisoning. I fear these things in the back of my mind. I think Man the Staples guy is cute. But I don’t say cute out loud, I barely let my thoughts think it. Instead I think, no he is attractive. He smiles well. Like there is happiness to gum-tooth-grin at once in a while, though maybe it’s only in the Staples on Lancaster Ave and only when he’s around.

At night I have break through bleeding of the mind. My dreams are everything I think about quietly, pushed way into the back row so no one – let alone I – notice and call on them for answers. When I dream, my brain flips around. Back of my mind is the front and the front the back. Now all those fears and quiet thoughts are here. LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME.

I wake up to the incessant beeping of a truck in reverse. I hate that noise. Reminding, reminding the world that the truck is moving backwards, backwards in space and I wish backwards in time for then it would not be outside my window beeping through my pillow and into my head.

I was 24 when my mom was born.

The first thing – past the uterine walls – they see is the bright clashing wallpaper. Ducks and llamas sashaying across a green background. The screaming follows.

The slightly dimmer scrubs and white gloves distract few from the repeated duck and llama poses. The artist undoubtedly thought This, this will properally usher the babe into humandome. Don’t tell me llamas and ducks aren’t stimulating. Oversized bills, exagerated cuddleability. The babe is lucky.

Countless mothers disagree. Semi-lucid, surrounded by the frolicking wallpaper. This, this is my child’s welcome. These hands, these walls. You were born in a manger of sorts.

The official document marking the birth hangs at the end of the bed. It’s clipped over the hospital charges. The line that asks Name extends across the page, intimidating. For ten minutes there, until you were cleaned and I held you, you had no name. I felt your lips, your toes, your kidneys. You existed among llamas and ducks.

the land before time.

Maybe there were dinosaurs. Probably sea cucumbers and Christmas tree needles. Only in the land before time there is no Christmas. There is no twenty fifth. There is just time. getCurrentTime() >> 997345463746392384684575730475730573785026346590 <time units> have elapsed since “startTime”. Why thank you, ambiguous pendulum for maybe something useful. What I really want to know is: why Not?

A journalism class that needs to stop being three hours.

west coast ringer
L.A. blinger
bring her or give me
the mother fucking finger
two cents heads up
penny wars butts up
schlep them battles to
a body that prattles less
cares more Congress only pays
the whores