CommonThought

Variation on ‘The Honeymooners’ 2

Bow Street 3

Marcescence 5

The Undiscovered Note 7

Para 8

Retraction 9

Listen 10

Index

Variation on ‘The Honeymooners’

“One of these days Alice, kiss! Right in the smasher!”This is what I’ll say,

right before I press these chapped lipsagainst your closed fist.

Closed and cut and bloody from a nine-to-five day of smashing.

Smashing the workload. Smashing the patriarchy,

and illiteracy too, while we’re on a roll.Smashing reckless drivers before the perfect dismount of the

well-placed middle finger.Smashing,

like Bruce Banner, as he turns green in the face when stood-up at his high school prom.

Smashing, like I want to when the vulture at the café leers at a schoolgirl’s

derrière, winks at me, and flicks his tongue between two fingers,

suggesting fantasies that make me want to smash his teeth in.Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

All of our friends are just smashing for the weekend. Smashing,

like a leather-clad elbow to the windpipe in the mosh-pits of yesteryear.

Smashing, like the sound of fender-on-fender catastrophe on

East Riverside. Smashing,

like a clay brick bursting thru stained glass,with a note attached by coarse twine,

handwritten in burnt sienna Indian ink — this is my heart; keep it well and warm.

Bow Street

Parched memories cut like eyes; sandpaper glimpses of a girl I knew, but did not know at all follow me as I walk these streets again. The bricks under my feet feel uneven in all the same places, and the same homeless man still stands on the corner of Bow holding the same cardboard sign that says Food Not Crack in bold black ink. Head down, I weave between on-coming shoes.

The café across the street – I recognize its yellow awning, now grayed with time and streaked with dirt and bird droppings. I step towards the curb and trip over a craggy brick. Blood does not arrive right away; it buds under tissue-torn skin before blooming in full-blown crimson. Mortified, I stand quickly and survey the faces of those who witnessed my dramatic fall for traces of judgment or schadenfreude. No one seems to have really noticed.

For a minute I’m almost certain I see her – cropped red hair and peachy freckled skin – seated outside the café, gracefully cupping her left hand as she lights a cigarette with her right. I want to reach out to her, to grab her in fistfuls, to savor the way she takes up space. For so long she has existed only in the emptiness of chairs, in the loneliness of Friday nights, in stories left untold. For so long she has existed only as a name too painful to say. On occasion she appears, always at night, and promises that there was nothing I could have done. She promises and promises and promises. I wake, startled, covered in a crust of frozen sweat and begin to cry.

After getting a cup of coffee, I sit alone at an iron table outside the café. Is this the table where we sat, together, all those months ago? My hand feels around in the depths of my bag, searching feverishly for a cigarette-distrac-tion. As I light my Camel I dwell on the many details that now seem to elude me. Particulars of that day have blurred and faded, leaving a greedy after-taste.

I remember admiring the words love, courage, strength tattooed in black on her pale right wrist. We talked of her love life, as mine wasn’t much to speak of, over coffee and cigarettes. I drank mine black; she took hers with buckets of decadent cream. I smoked Turkish Golds and she Number Nines, and I teased her for smoking girly cigarettes. I remember her admitting that

she was in love with Ellen, a mutual friend in a serious relationship. I told her that didn’t surprise me at all, that I already knew, that she had to get over it. Naïve and insensitive, I judged her, thought her weak and immoral for covet-ing someone else’s girlfriend. I should have treated her kindly, with respect and understanding, in her last moments of life.

I don’t remember what she wore or how many cups of coffee we con-sumed between us. I don’t remember if the crazy lady with milky blue eyes and stringy unwashed hair who often tried to bum cigarettes confronted us that day. I don’t remember feeling July’s oppressive heat – I don’t remember if the sun was even shinning at all, though I hope it was, for her sake.

As I sit smoking alone, I allow myself to miss her. I imagine her sitting

across from me – breathing, smiling – and I wonder what her story could have been. Suddenly her jaw falls slack and every muscle in her body tightens. She falls to the ground like a tree in slow motion, lands in a shallow puddle and begins to seize. White froth coats her lips as she tremors violently on the brick sidewalk, and a hint of blood oozes from her temple where her head collided with the ground. Paralyzed, helpless, I just watch her, my friend, in epileptic shock. I feel my lips move, slowly forming the word help; I whisper it, repeat it over and over, saying it louder each time until I’m screaming. Panicked min-utes pass before I realize that she isn’t actually here, dying, this time. Hyper-ventilating, tears falling quickly down my cheeks, I cannot remember if I just shrieked out loud – this upsets me even more. Mortified, I look around – no one seems to have really noticed.

You said the coffee was too strongand the browns were saturated.The pull string hung overour heads and attic light fellthrough the seams onto your face.I swore I saw Portland.You called yourself deciduous,by afternoon the concretetook its toll. I’ve heard clouds dry out this timeof year. It was you who toldme. I hope there is green where you go.

Marcescence

The Undiscovered Note

“Nicholas Hughes had a passion for wildlife, particularly fish… he became an assistant professor at the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, carrying out research in Alas-

ka and New Zealand.” – Anahad O’Connor New York Times March 24, 2009

“It is with profound sorrow that I must announce the death of my brother, Nicholas Hughes, who died by his own hand [hanging] on Monday 16th 2009 at his home in

Alaska,” – Frieda Hughes London Times March 23, 2009

I can’t write, not like her. Words pervert Experience – exclaim, explain, excuse. And truth, As I see it, lies with silverfish in ocean beds. Truth, as I see it, is dead, dead, dead. Fuzzy, fragile from the start, freedom painted in Poetry-by-numbers: my inherent art.

Hand washed, whittled milky gray, a glass bowl sitsIn the kitchen sink, scratched and wet and full. The depths Of soapy water – stagnant, hunched,Imposed rude folds. For no fish could surviveSubmerged in such sterile straights, and after all I’m the expert on how to breathe like a submarine.

An eggshell weathered moment,Years of yesterdays, the time it takes to break Cold crystal, slipping through clumsy fingers, Crack – zigzag, lightening, shatter. No, no blood in those old bones – just red huesRising Lazarus-like out of hopeless propain.

Time evaporates in tragedy – and those pieces, So sharp, so splintered, so broken (as if there are degrees Of brokenness,) were once a marriage. A wedding Gift my dad used to keep in a cabinetTo be dusted off and pranced around At parties. What were we celebrating?

I’ve suckled the shadowy abyss ofPlath’s name, a pseudo life of posthumous fame,Phony as happiness, this masquerade. And yet, my laments – Mommy – never hungOn a million barbarous tongues,Never hung quite like hers.

From cobweb rafters, wrought iron pipes,Ceiling fans, cries creep out to me: do it.Try to tether memory to mind, soul to form. She wrote Me with too many iambs, or without enough Feet to stand on my own. Lacking understanding Of houses and divisions, I secede.

And what is union?Civil eyes? Modern lies? A nonsensical malignant mistake; A beautiful idea caught and mangledIn the oven, coffee filter, bathtub Drain, rain gutter of real life.

Ever since I saw the movie Signs I take a new glass to bed every night.

I never finish more than half.Leave the old ones.Grab a gleaming glass, until there are no more.

I leave them in waiton my dresser.Creating luminescent lines;tunnels throughwhich the moon burrowsinto the walls while I sleep.

It’s the paranoia that keeps mefrom fixing my dishwasher.Who knows, man?I might need that water.

Para

Retraction

I take it back, what I said. I have no problem with my bed.The full-size width is adequateroom for me, and for my cat.The firm mattress doesn’t makemy hip or neck or shoulders ache.No, I don’t need a toppermade of memory foam or rubber.No, I don’t need a queen.And no, the pillows aren’t too lean.And no, the covers aren’t too thin.And no use arguing again’cause there’s no problem with my bed.Don’t think, even for one minute,there’s a problem with my bed.I sleep just fine without you in it.

OM

MY

NO

NSE

CO

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“Listen!” I cry into the distance. “You need to listen to me!”All I hear in return is the reverberation of my own words across the blackened street. Suddenly everything is spinning and I can no longer stand up straight, I close my eyes and began to fall. Darkness. Light. My senses are attacked with a bright white and a heavy smell of disinfectant. Looking around, the room has no windows and no doors, only white washed walls and linoleum flooring. What was this? My thoughts are interrupted by a cold voice. “Good morning, did you have a pleasant rest?” Looking up, there is a video projected upon the wall in front of me, a woman with slicked back hair and shocking blue eyes staring back at me, sitting erect behind a large desk, her hands interlaced in front of her. “W-w-who are you?” “Oh darling, you know who I am, the question is, who are you?” Sitting up in bed, a response at the edge of my tongue when my mind suddenly goes blank. My eyes widen and I see a cruel smile come across the woman’s face. I search my mind for a name, an age, any remnant of myself. I have no idea where I was. Worst of all, I can’t find a single trace of who I was. “Now, now, not to worry, identity is no longer of importance. They’ll be no need for such where you’re headed.” Before I could ask a single question, the screen turns to static then disappeared. Silence comes over the room, but only for a moment. Soon its followed by what sounds like moving of stone and the room starts to shake. The wall that had once bore the face of the woman begins to move and the lights flicker go out. The wall now gone leaves me engulfed in darkness. What is now in front of me is difficult to make out. My bare feet hit the floor and chills race up my spine. The ground felt like ice. I step forward with my arms outstretched. After taking a few steps forward I find I am not alone. I am in line. Everyone stands dressed in the same hospital smock as myself and everything is silent. They all move forward one by one at a slow rate. I tryto walk away or cry out. I want to ask questions and my mind is racing, but suddenly it is silenced. I find myself stepping into line, head down, moving at that same slow rate. Time passes, though I hardly notice. I can barely notice anything, and I can find no clues of where I am or where the line is headed. I squeeze my eyes shut tightly and

Listen

OM

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The wall now gone leaves me engulfed in darkness. What is now in front of me is dif-ficult to make out. My bare feet hit the floor and chills race up my spine. The ground felt like ice. I step forward with my arms outstretched. After taking a few steps forward I find I am not alone. I am in line. Everyone stands dressed in the same hospital smock as myself and everything is silent. They all move forward one by one at a slow rate. I tryto walk away or cry out. I want to ask questions and my mind is racing, but suddenly it is silenced. I find myself stepping into line, head down, moving at that same slow rate. Time passes, though I hardly notice. I can barely notice anything, and I can find no clues of where I am or where the line is headed. I squeeze my eyes shut tightly and try to focus, I do my best to sift through my almost empty mind, looking for some clue, some sign of anything but I am a clean slate, completely wiped. I quickly realize it is of no use to search my mind right now. The only thing left for me to do is establish my surroundings. Alright, five senses, you can do this.” I mumble to myself. Sound: nothing but the shuffling of bare feet. Touch: I can still feel the now fa-miliar chill of linoleum; I must not be in a completely different area. Scent: body odor, these people must have been here for quite some time. Sight: a long line of people in a gloomy corridor. I squint to study them, in front of me was a man, he had to be in his early twenties. His dark hair is matted and messy and his face bares the starting stages of a beard and dark circles under his eyes. As I study him I realize that he too is begin-ning to look around, his tired eyes narrowed and wondering. He looks back and meets my gaze. A moment of realization flickers in his eyes and a look of shock comes over his face. “Kaleigh?” he whispers in awe. That name does sound vaguely familiar, though I can’t fully connect it with my-self, I know it must be me he is speaking to. “You know me? Who are you? What’s going on?” Questions pour out of me speaking in a fast whisper, as my voice rises with the overflow of questions, he hastily put a hand over my mouth. “Shh, not so loud, Kal. They’ll hear you.” Removing his hand from my mouth, my eyes dance over him, trying to take in every bit in hopes of identifying him. Finally, it hit. “Tom.” Flash back. We’re sitting on a park bench; sun soaks into my skin as I wait. I look up and he’s walking toward me with a smile on his face. He’s clean-shaven and the bags are

nowhere to be seen. I jump up to hug him and nestle my face into his clean cotton shirt. “I’ve been waiting here forever, you big lug! What is it you wanted to show me?!” “Patience, Kal, patience! Don’t get your panties in a bundle!” he said with a wink. I giggled and smacked his arm, “Come ON, you know I’m no good at waiting!” “Alright, close your eyes and follow me. No peeking!” He grabbed my hand and I closed my eyes allowing myself to be led blindly by him to where ever it was he was taking me. “You better not lead me into a tree, Tom! I swear to god!” “KALEIGH JANE, I’M ASHAMED AT YOU. Not trusting your own best friend?! Tsk, tsk.” Laughed Tom in his fake motherly tone. We stopped walking and he squeezed my hand and then let go. “Open.” I opened my eyes and let out a gasp. Flash Forward. “Tom, what happened that day?” “That’s not important right now, what is important is what’s waiting for us at the end of this line. This isn’t a safe place, Kal. We need to get out.” “But how? Tom, what’s going on??” “They never wanted us to find what I showed you, we now know one of their se-crets and they need to wipe it from our memories.” “But I don’t know their secret! I don’t know anything!” “Right now, but that’s only a temporary fix. Just the start. It’ll wear off if you don’t keep following them. Now listen to me carefully, when you get to the front, they’re go-ing to give you a pill. Put it under your tongue, whatever you do, do not swallow it. Do anything you can to remove it from your mouth without their noticing. Give them to me, we’ll need them later.” He then put a finger to his lips as his way of telling my to stay silent and turns back, head towards the ground, moving slowly. I follow his lead.Soon I reach the front of the line and a man who looks distinctly similar to the woman from the screen holds out a pill and motions for me to open my mouth. I do as instruct-ed and as soon as I pass him I mimic a cough and spit the pill into my hand and slip it into the front pocket of the gown. A nurse stands waiting for me at the end of the hall, snatching my arm as I reach her and leading me to a room. It is small and cramped resembling that of the makeshift hospital minus the medical equipment, plus the door. As soon as I step inside she shut the door behind me and I hear it lock. A familiar cold tone comes over the intercom. “Lights out my children, tomorrow is a big day.”

Once again I am left in complete darkness; I find my way to the bed and lay down. I stare up at the ceiling try to go over the course of events that had just unfolded when I hear a quiet tap at my door and I hear the lock slowly come undone. My heart races, what if they realized I hadn’t taken the pill? What will happen to me? The racing calms as I am able to make out the figure of Tom in the doorway, he slides the door shut and creeps to my bed. “We leave tonight. We need to get out of here before things get much worse. There’s a night guard who watches the exit to this place. Now hand me that pill.” I reach into my pocket and pull out a small white pill and pass it to Tom. “I’ve been here a bit longer than you and I’ve collected enough to knock him out. One pill if just enough to deteriorate a piece of your memory, but a whole bunch is enough to knock you unconscious, for at least a short while. The man is only human, and the night shift is tough, he needs coffee. The nurse leaves a warm pot for him on the medicine counter before she leaves for the night. He gets to the pot at exactly 12, that’s when he starts getting sleepy. We need to get to that pot before he does and drop these in it, the heat will make them dissolve. Put these into your pocket, its time to go.” Creeping out of my room we walk with our backs pressed up against the wall until we reach the counter. I look to Tom and he nods. Staying low, I quicken my pace and slid behind the counter, reaching my hand upward I feel the steam of coffee. I hold my breath and pray that my hit will be direct and drop the pills. A sigh of relief escapes from my mouth when I hear the soft splash. Tom follows and curls up beside me. Sit-ting in silence, we wait. Time is going by so slow I am certain that Tom’s beard will lengthen to his knees in the time it will take this man to drink his coffee but finally we hear the echo of footsteps. Louder, louder, and stop. He is right on the other side of the counter; we can hear him pouring the coffee into his mug. This is it. This is our chance. He walks away sipping the drink when we hear the crash. The mug hits the floor and shatters followed by the sound of his body collapsing into the ground. “Oh god, I hadn’t thought about the noise..” Tom whispers with a nervous gri-mace. I can hear voices in the distance, the sounds of feet, and opening of doors. We run for it. I run faster than I ever have in my life. I slam my body into the door in front of me alarms sound. I race up the staircase so fast I trip over the final step and feel my-self crash into the dampened gravel and the impact of Tom tripping over and falling at my side. “They can’t go farther than this” Tom calls breathlessly, “They can’t risk losing everyone else or revealing themselves. We’re safe now.” Slowly rising off the ground I become aware of the light drizzle of rain, we are in an alleyway between what looks like an office building and a restaurant.

“ Tom, that was the most messed up thing I have ever witnessed. What the hell just happened?” “You know Kal, if you still don’t remember.. maybe its best we just don’t talk about this. The important thing is we’re safe and they won’t be able to mess with us anymore. C’mon, we should start heading home. I’m totally beat.” Before I can begin to protest Tom is heading out of the alley and into the street. I moan, but follow after him becoming very aware of how exhausted my body is. Maybe he’s right. We need rest. It’s probably better I don’t know considering all the trouble it got us in. I want to be mad, to hate him for letting all this happen. But at the same time, he’s the reason I’m not still down there locked in a dark room. In all honesty, I should probably thank him for rescuing me. I pick up my head from staring at the passing gravel to call out to him when I see her. She is standing at the end of the alley, the same cruel smile plastered across her face.I can’t move, I am completely paralyzed as her eyes seem to freeze me where I stand. I only have one thought: Tom. “TOM! COME BACK!” He keeps walking, barely paying attention to me. “Seriously Kaleigh, lets talk about this later, I just want to get out of here.” She begins walking forward, getting closer and closer to Tom. His tired eyes re-main fixed upon the gravel, he is completely unaware. I have to stop her, to save him. I break into a full sprint yelling his name. “Listen!” I cry into the distance. “You need to listen to me!” All I hear in return was the reverberation of my own words across the blackened street. Suddenly everything is spinning and I can no longer stand up straight, I close my eyes and began to fall. Darkness. Light. My senses are attacked by the burning sunlight coming in through the window and the mell of air freshener. Looking around, the room has purple walls and a window looking out onto the front yard. A woman is calling me from downstairs. “KALEIGH, PICK UP THE PHONE!” I rub my eyes and look around, spotting the phone on my bedside table. I pick it up. “Hello?” “Kal, it’s Tom. Meet me at the park, I want to show you something.”