Power Love

Your definitive resource. That's all, just your definitive resource.

26 July 2013

YOU'RE FUNNY. LOOKIN.

What did the carrot say to the cauliflower?
Orange you glad I'm not broccoli?


Thank you! I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

19 July 2013

HOW CLOSE AM I TO LOSING YOU

He couldn't really find a way into her heart. All the stairways led to concrete ceilings and the doors led to brick walls. As he was running when he was searching for a way into her heart, he found this unnerving. But not defeating. It was, however, painful. And, as you may know, running into concrete ceilings and brick walls is an impediment.

But he was persistent and focused and he had a fire in his heart, so onward he went, sustaining bruises and velocity. Days. Weeks. Months. All these stairways. All these doors. It was a maze. It was a labyrinth. It was that ride at Disneyland the small world ride but instead of countries it went through lungs and ovaries and veins and, once, a frontal lobe and instead of being joyfully escorted in a cart and smiled at by soprano-heavy happy faces he was instead propelled forward by his own feet by his own stubbornness and instead of being smiled at he was spit on because the organs thought this bruised stubborn creature was a cancer and so, like, get the fuck out, right?

But, still, onward--because a long time ago, he saw her bright and smiling and she glowed and held his hand and spun the world on her index finger like a basketball and held his hand and when all that shut down he promised her that he would find it and give it back to her.

And finally, one day, he tripped, fell over a cliff that looked suspiciously similar to a left ventricle, and voila! There he was. In her heart. He walked to the back, felt along the wall in the darkness, and when his fingers found it, he flipped the light switch.

And she lit up. Bright eyes. Honest smile. The warm buzz of curiosity once again pumping through her blood. He stretched out on the floor. He decided to stay. Just in case.


12 July 2013

TAKE YOUR SILVER SPOON DIG YOUR GRAVE

The Insistor is very busy today. Today she has many mirrors to paint. The Insistor is an organizer and an artist, but most importantly, The Insistor is the boss. She knows it and you know it. Or maybe you don't know it, but that's only because you're an idiot. The Insistor hates idiots. The problem with idiots isn't that they're dumb, it's that they have yet to come around to the obvious: that The Insistor is always right. To help the weasly idiots, The Insistor has pledged her precious time and her considerable intellect to showing the idiots how desperately wrong they are. The Insistor knows she's destined for greatness--in fact, she's rather perturbed with the Universe on this day because she has yet to have greatness bestowed upon her despite the fact that she expected it last Tuesday--and it is because of this greatness that she is doing the charitable thing. Today is the day she paints the mirrors.

In the amazing world we call The World, there are many mirrors and The Insistor is going to paint each one so the idiots can come into the light of enlightenment and see The Insistor for the perfection she is.

She starts first with the mirror hanging on the wall of the train station. The mirror is six feet tall, three feet wide, no frame. It makes the lobby of the train station seem larger than it is. The Insistor pulls her spray paint can out of her snakeskin bag and sprays horizontal rows from top to bottom. When she's done, the mirror is no longer reflective, it is instead a beautiful shade of Boss. Now, all the idiots who look into the mirror will not see themselves, or and extra large lobby, they will see The Insistor, on her throne, looking benevolently down at them. This, The Insistor believes, is right and correct and she is proud of herself for helping humanity.

The second mirror is on the side of an iconic building. People pass by here all day and all night. It is never not crowded in front of this mirror on the side of this iconic building. The idiots pass by her, obviously unaware of her greatness, going about their day as if they matter.

From her snakeskin bag, The Insistor pulls out another can of spray paint. This mirror is a large oval in a white frame with curlicues at the corners. The Insistor sprays horizontal rows across the mirror, from top to bottom. When she's done, the mirror is no longer reflective, it is instead a beautiful shade of Righteous. Now, all the idiots who look into the mirror will not see themselves, they will see The Insistor, surrounded by a white heavenly glow, bluebirds perched on either shoulder, looking down at them. The Insistor pats herself on the back for once again saving humanity from itself.

The third mirror The Insistor comes to is in the town square. It hangs in the center of the square as though somehow attached to invisible chains coming down from the clouds. The Insistor has been looking forward to spray painting this mirror most of all because this is the mirror everyone always looks into and it is also the mirror that is most honest. The Insistor has been fighting a raging, passive-aggressive war with this mirror since she was little and now is the time for change.

The Insistor pulls her spray paint can out of her snakeskin bag and sprays horizontal rows from top to bottom. When she's done, she expects to see it cast a beautiful shade of Talent out on to the square. She watches instead as the spray paint casually slides off the mirror and collects in a pool at her feet. She looks into the mirror--behind her she sees the faces of the idiots in the square, going about their day as if they weren't in the presence of her greatness. The Insistor is frustrated, but undeterred. Until she takes a closer look at her own reflection. What she sees in her face is a desperate need for acknowledgment, a begging desire for unending praise.

Looking back at the idiots in the square, she can see they don't see her and a sharp panic rises from her stomach to her throat. She is The Insistor, for crissakes, who do these idiots think they are?

She pulls another can of spray paint out of her snakeskin bag. She sprays horizontal rows from top to bottom across the mirror hanging in the center of the town square. When she's done, she expects to see it cast a beautiful shade of Intelligence out on to the square. She watches instead as the spray paint casually slides off the mirror and collects in a pool at her feet.

The Insistor is flabbergasted. The Insistor is in full-blown panic mode. None of the idiots swirling around her in the square notice her. All the time and effort she's put into making the world a better place for the idiots and now look at them--oblivious and happy, walking around like they're important. The Insistor is sick to her stomach.

She rummages around in her snakeskin bag for another can of spray paint, but there are no more. This wasn't the plan. This is maddening. This is frightening. She turns to scold the mirror, stupid mirror, and there is nothing in that mirror except her own face. The lines carved out around her eyes and lips. The skin sagging around her jawline. The heavy-lidded eyes, crossed and confused. The worm of red where her lips should be.

Emanating from her reflection, The Insistor smells the rotting fish odor of arrogance and entitlement, the sweaty feet aroma of pompous self-righteousness. Though they are no longer reflected in the mirror, The Insistor can feel the idiots in the square walking around, talking to each other, laughing easily, breathing openly.

Then the mirror smiles, a white broad smile, and from between it's amazingly shiny teeth, a blue tongue darts out, curls around The Insistor, crushes her into a tiny bug-like square. And then she's gone.

As they pass, the humans in the square smile at the mirror with happy gratitude.

05 July 2013

SCAR TISSUE THAT I WISH YOU SAW

The mist from the shower clears. In the mirror, he can see the lines around his eyes, stretching into his cheeks; swooping out of the corners of his nose; small lines plinking up around the edges of his lips. The mirror clears just enough so he can see his whole face--the pock marks of years on his cheeks, the scars on his eyebrows he can't remember collecting, the gray hairs sprouting up along his hairline like a well-groomed hedge. The mist collects in the corners of the mirror like a frame. Every surface in this house has a frame of mist around it. His teeth are gray-yellow from years of coffee and cigarettes and crippling self-doubt.

The house is empty. There is a couch. And a kitchen table. But they don't talk to each other and they don't talk to him. That's okay. He doesn't talk to them either. The pictures are gone, along with the throw pillows and the candles and the radio. They walked out one day last year, got into a truck, drove away. They didn't say anything when they did, they had already given up. When there's nothing else to say, words are irrelevant.

The front lawn is mowed. The trim trimmed. The driveway cleared of clutter. It looks like every other front yard on this street: orderly, contained, in control. There's a white picket fence around the backyard. The lawn out there is mowed too. There's no lawn furniture, no swing set. They must've left, too, although he can't remember them getting on the truck.

What he sees today, for the first time in a year, is the framed photograph on the mantle. It must have climbed up there on its own during the night. It sits slightly askew, no doubt exhausted from the night's journey, and it breathes like it's out of breath, which embarrasses the frame because it thought it was in better shape that that.

In the photo, the woman white-teeth smiles, her green eyes shine, the sun rains light all over her auburn hair. The photo is the only surface in the room without mist on it. She has a graceful jawline, a pointed chin. He does too, but his are covered with gray stubble. He can't remember if the photo got into the truck with the other things, but it must have, they all left together, didn't they? So perhaps it's back to mock him. Or to keep him company.

He traces his finger around the edge of the frame, feels the soft hairs on her face, smells the clean shower smell of her perfume, breathes in her skin, her eyelashes, the freckles on her shoulder.

In the backyard, the sprinkler flows back and forth, a fountain of water bursting up, then gently tumbling in curtained droplets along the grass. Where the sprinkler sprinkles, the grass is green as emeralds. The neighborhood is quiet. No cars driving by, no far-off sound of a lawn mower, no bird-chirping. His breathing sounds like the endless hum of the neighbor's air conditioner unit. The sprinkler waves back and forth.

He walks over to it, lies down in the grass under it. The sprinkler prickles over his toes, his legs, his torso, his face, then flips to the other side, comes back, prickles over his face, his torso, his legs, his toes. He watches the droplets of water drip down from an invisible faucet over his face, watches the blue sky beyond the droplets, polka dotted with fluffy white clouds. He opens his mouth. Nothing comes out, of course, he hasn't spoken in years, but the water feels good on his teeth.

The blades of grass are at eye level with him now. He keeps his focus on the water and the sky, but he can see the grass clearly in his peripheral vision. Soon it's taller than him, climbing around his arms and legs. Now he's sunken far enough into the earth that he's surrounded by stalks of green grass, the sprinkler and the sky minute images he can see only through the pinprick opening high above him. The dirt feels cool. This feels like home, this blanket of grass, this disbursement into the ground. The grass winds itself around him, over him, making room for him but still growing where it wants. He sinks.

When the new people come to the house, he can hear their voices but not their words. The sprinkler is turned off. Feet run over him. He tickles them. When bodies fall on top of him, he is a soft bed. When they leave, he reaches for the sun. Tomorrow, he will flirt with the tulips.