The Heavy-O-Sity Cream Dream

I want you to root the violence out of the system, but you delay and acquiesce — this is the heavy-o-sity of our case. There are no life preservers to pass out—only anvils and 50 lb. kettlebells—on this sinking ship. No one about to make the problem commensurate with the premise. I predicate all action on entropy and numbness. Dire warnings and sirens go unheeded . . . while a singular burnt, chainsaw segmented, sequoia lies on the blackened forest floor.

Your charge is lobbed. Disorderly conduct on the Junior Prom floor: enervated dates stare at other, at others dancing; others are blind sullen-staring into cellphone flashlights; some couples herd listless at the punch. A punch or two meted out — uncertain if they are in liquid form or at the knuckle end of a fist.

We’re in a fugue — too many discordant notes — a fug of fanciful boredom. Did you drop that dollar bill? Did you drop the tiny purple microdots? The yellow sunshine? 

Have you ever felt like a fatherless waif in the presence of your father?

I’m in need of a case of blues, you say, because a mere carton won’t do.

I’m in need of a reset, I say, in need of a pass, in need of a decade’s worth of do-overs, in need of a full-out pardon!

You say: why proselytize for your lost cause?

I got nothing, I say . . . Sonic Youth is broken up, Morrissey’s a fascist now, and Mark E. Smith is dead. I have no desire to be effusive anymore. I’m changing my middle name to Ennui . . .

Furthermore, aren’t we too old to be at a prom?

What I’m Reading:

For years I will dream lucid dreams of flowers growing from my heels, Borage and Helleborus, peeling off and scattering behind me as I walk, sometimes struggle, through the thick underbrush of a forest. I watch silently as the plants grow up my legs, twist and twine round my body, feel them begin to creep up from inside my throat, pour out of my mouth … 

— Emily LaBarge / Dog Days