writing – Kelly Riker

apartment for rent

Indian curry
Microwave fish, pets, and weed
Blvd: writing love letters on school notebooks,
Dressed up in romance as picket fence and Larkspur
Not house centipedes and rigged coin slotted laundry
Even the ones on the baby’s pillow?

Music only when you don’t want it
Averted eyes becomes a high stakes game
The victim: Small talk at the post box
I don’t care about your day or the weather please just leave me be

Remember art school?
We lived in an old funeral home, milk bottling factory, warehouse, and loft?
we did not see it for what it was.
Remember the lady who bought a gas station and turned it into a cool loft?
She was a millionaire who created pipe dreams for the artistic but realities for the well-off.

I could live BY a gas pump if I begged for tips from squeegeeing windows

Which is worse: Pinterest nurseries or looking at house listings with less than a fistful in the savings?

heart and head

A man fears and worries of the world, for what world will be safe for his children
A woman fears and worries about her children and sees everything an extension of
their nature fair or foul

A man sees his family as his solace
And may try and change that world.
He wrestles with the chaos
and may ultimately feel defeated
To choose war against Gods, afterall

A woman can teeter on tempestuous winds
Zeus may have thrown—Athena had made
She can let her mind’s tornado pick up bits
Here and there, create a monster and let
That monster destroy Him

Eve was not afraid of the creature whom—
She by nature consumes

Poor man. For he seeks shelter for the storm from
The storm
Poor woman. For wind takes shape from whatever shape it takes

kryptonite

Sometimes when I can’t sleep I open google maps. My left
pointer finger becomes Superman and I fly all over the world.
At first, it’s just past the Toyota dealership and Walgreen’s. The
joylessness of the ordinary speeds travel immensely

There’s a pleasure in night flying by fingertip like filling a
shopping cart and leaving empty-handed.
In less than fifteen seconds I soar over my childhood
cul-de-sac and on to Belize. My super powers can take me
anywhere I want to go yet I end up flying over your street. At
least I think it is, the one with two ‘t’s in a row and two ‘f’s.
I wonder if your right hand is over your head with your chest
facing the moon. Or do you lie postulant in the same way the
day unfolds? Maybe you’re flying too, the pace steady like the
cadence of your sleeping youths.

I never fly home. The phone is my phone booth in that way. I
set it down and close my eyes and then I’m back in my human
disguise. The crime hasn’t been fought, the streets not clean,
and still I’m back to crickets and percale sheets. And the
rhythm of her breaths.

gather wood

I wish phone contacts were strips of wood I could throw into the eternal fire pit of my own mind’s
backyard. The cracking and popping furnace is ravenous for more information. And my mind is
happy to release anything it can once and for all. Around the pit is complete blackness a void of
nothingness. The flame consumes entire area codes in seconds. Lanes and avenues slurped like
spaghetti. They say “closure”. Acta non verba. I may not even remember who you were but the fire
doesn’t care. It’s happy to keep growing.

Apple Support was the driest driftwood. My ex-mother-in-law the crunchiest leaves. That one ex,
the soggiest wet hickory, somehow burning yet never seeming to touch the flame. A once best buddy was black walnut. A wood full of deception. Of course, I was forced to choke on their fumes until an abysmal dusty escape.

But mostly they’re pine. Like perfectly sharpened colored pencils in a happy endless line. They burn quietly without problem as if they never wrote a useful stroke. I might’ve collected one at the playground a well-intentioned playdate. Or taken the information carefully as a coward, feigning intent to call, I couldn’t objectify their absurdity. A few contacts were at one time so useful they became my strength. The fortitude of their purpose created walls in my Lincoln log dwelling. They call them friends for a season. When it came time to do chinking the termites of my mind were already chewing.

Some numbers I had depended on as sturdy vessels once destined for new land. I thought these were friends for a lifetime. They had since landed in the new world and were upside down on shores collecting spider nests. Some in a pile in a half-life that was meant to be burnt a thousand times before. Becoming wet and dry with each of life’s storms and happy rebirths. Repeatedly causing splinters until I had to learn they weren’t right for me over and over again. Finally being ready to cast them into the pit.

There’s a small pile of wood that will never be burnt. Ostrya virginiana- ironwood as dry as rain is
right. It’s the yolk of life’s ox which even when whipped by a thousand lashes still continues to carry me through. In turn I grow green pastures and let Him drink from clean pools.

Even Smokey the bear is ok with me turning my back on this eternal flame. It’s self-contained and
useful and in another season of life, I’ll return.