I Really Need to Cut Down on my Caffeine

I've been staring at this screen for over two hours telling me it's updating all the things. 18%. This may take a while, it says. 

It's my old college laptop. 

I really got my money out of it, but it was old and slow and clunky and grumpy, so I put it out to pasture and bought a shiny new thing about three years ago. Which was four years after I graduated college, so I guess that puts us at an eight year old laptop, which amounts to about 96 in laptop years, so it was an impressively lengthy life. Good old chap.

And I got along fine with the shiny new thing right up until last Thursday when my morning coffee decided to make itself cozy with the shiny new thing, which was by this time, let's just admit it, no longer shiny and not quite new. 

The not really new laptop, of course, had strong objections to becoming cozy with the coffee, and to properly demonstrate its grief, it up and died without any other comment. 

So it's back to the old college laptop.

The clunky, grumpy, not at all shiny or new laptop.

The laptop that worked for four jolly days, but has now decided it's much too old and much too grumpy to be subjected to this kid of elderly abuse so far into retirement. 

If it were human, it'd probably hit me with its cane. 

If I were inhuman, I'd show it what I did to the shiny new laptop that now sits in pieces at the bottom of the trash bin, bleeding coffee. 

22% Don't turn off your PC. This will take a while.

Couple Times a Week

The thing about meetings is...it's considered bad manners to dig a hole and disappear into it, dig all the way to the other side of the earth, start a new life where nobody knows you, abandon all social media, live forever in obscurity. 

Especially right in the middle of your presentation. 

Pillow Snow

The snow comes across the sky

like feathers from a pillow-

one that perhaps you have smashed

with reckless joy

against your best friend's head.

The flakes, too, are reckless.

They see me through my window.

They flock against the glass

to get a better look at me.

They show me their six identical corners.

I show them my two unique eyes.

by nessa locke 2021

See Me Home

 In those moments just after twilight

A Summer’s day in the middle of Fall

Three lanky silhouettes on a basketball court

At the elementary school.

One poofy head

One smooth head

One ball cap

One headlight

Then one head light

Then more headlights in an endless growl

A guttural vibration

A motorcycle roar

I am the shark that splits them

Porch light

Snow cat

Pumpkin cat

Moon cat

You know the kind

With moons for eyes against midnight black fur

Staring at me from the shadow

Just after twilight in the middle of Fall

by nessa locke 2020

(self destruction)

I have long held the opinion that I am ruled by  six primary counter-intuitive desires.

I want to save the world.

I want to destroy the world.

I want to conquer the world.

I want to be consumed by the world.

I want to be included in the world.

I want to abandon the world.

These seem like conflicting and lonely fantasies. Though I may often be conflicted,  I am not lonely.
And I realize at any given point in time, I could remove "the world" and replace it with something a bit less lonely.
Practically anything else as unattainable as the world.

love
money
time
literature
happiness
alaska
myself
or
you

Scrap Poetry

I demolished a book today. 

Like a regular sadist.

I did it to get the boy interested in poetry. 

We spoke of mechanics and theme and tone. 

We looked for power words and mood and proper grammatical structure. 

We pieced words and phrases together from the scraps of an old paperback my friend had given to me. (She didn't like it you see, but I might, if I gave it a try. And I tried.)

The boy and I clipped and snipped and rearranged the bits.

We stuck them onto new backgrounds and committed them to their new order with Elmer's. 

We didn't unwrite the pages. We obliterated the pages.

And now the words belong to us.

Savages, we.

My scrap poem:

There was a strange note in his voice

words of wisdom

in a grating voice

in a voice so choked with fury it was scarcely 

recognizable

So I rolled my eyes up as far as they would go and

pressed the spoon to your lips

You were like   a little bird   swallowing obediently

but never opening your   ensuing discussion

long thoughtful silence

to stir the strongest sensations, and

When I awoke, I was surrounded

Everyone began shouting at once

One of the soldiers must be a traitor.

Lyric's scrap poem:

His first words of the king

he inspected the ancient rarest of gems at 6

The point where the Bowmen of Cush ghost was willing to take Emerson's word

His poor wife had reminded of this time alone while it struck

I Feel Fine

There is a single fly darting around my house landing in peculiar places: the ivy, the entryway rug, the photo wall.

As I was stalking it, swatter in hand, trying find the perfect moment to strike, I swear I heard my dead mother whisper in my ear, "If a fly can get in here undetected, COVID-19 won't have any problem slipping in."

I guess they don't have the six feet rule on the astral plane.