Crack Jacker July 9, 2010

You, my Drug Store Cowboy, work in dismal retail hawking all kinds of shit. From ‘Hair Mayonnaise’ to infant incontinence meds.

The first time, a slouchy Hello sent my eyes to catch yours. In the same moment, there was a voice from o’erhead shrieking Assistance to beauty please!
An angry lady in a wheelchair, feverishly avoiding her morph into a Velociraptor in the fluorescent light, interrupted your seismic stare. My heart melted when you came from behind the counter to adjust her oxygen tank so a wreath of plastic-filled plastic bags could balance like a sunflare around her chair.

I played a little hide and seek with the voice from above until I spied her behind the counter, arranging cheap perfume. She was a bonita babe with large hooped earrings and a Bump-it even-keeled with a baby bump. Like a vitamin deficient rare bird, I quietly observed her biting her empty nail pits. Then, you waltzed over to her and said in a faux-French accent, “Assistánce?”

“You ever heard of Olive Foil?
“You mean, Olive Oil?”
“Yeeuh, for stretch marks.”
“Sure, it’s used for all sorts of stuff..greasing a gun, home labor, cooking mostly.”
“So, like, you can eat it?”

I could see you squirm, so I came over for a price check on Hair Mayo.
$9.99, she said, then turned to you and asked if she could “eat this too?”

Narrowly escaping that vom-filled conversation, I prayed a self-checkout would be available for my “5 days sooner!” pregnancy test. God answered at least one of my prayers when you said “I can help you over here!”

“Would you care for CrackerJacks? 2 for 1..”

“No, but I wouldn’t mind the prize. Crack and a Jack & Coke, amiright?”

“Robitussin is on sale, the orange flavor..”

“Oh really? A true treat! Do you know if Hair Mayo can be used as an expectorant? Or is it for external use only?”

Medical assistance to the front register, please.

HIGH by DEFINITION

You always said Lovers should be lovers. I knew this was true, because I heard you say it in your sleep. Your sounds were high definition, like you were closer to God with a pipe in your praying hands. Your wheezing set flame to my foot. By the light of your computer screen, I rummaged your desk drawers like a vagabond to find your red inhaler. I was immediately concerned and desperately in love.  My sleeping, wheezing angel had half empty canisters of dizzying depression stashed away in dusty corners. Your wheezing made sense. No use in hiding mine, now.  I wrapped my lips around the nozzle and opened my heart to you. Our sins now in sync, I laid my head on the yellowy pillow next to your sleeping, talking head and listened. I listened to your somniloquy loud and clear like crystal meth.

[Pretending to be Transparent] April 21, 2008

The dream was in my pocket
scribbled with red ink
never to be erased.

Now fireflies in your blue eyes are like kaleidoscopes-
and even in the shadows of this giant oak tree
serendipitous light clings to you like static,
except closer and excessively copasetic.

I am holding my breath.
You are reaching in my pocket.
We have become opaque.