Zerb

I sit here, back uncomfortably arched in this standard issue chair, arms squashed onto a table that is not made from real wood, tapping out lines on a glorified internet browser.

Outside the grimy, sealed shut window, sunshine and shadow dapple the side of a dull brown shed, purpose unknown.

On aforesaid shed, there is a message, spelled in green, blue and purple, saying… Saying what, exactly?

It could be “Zaps” or “Zape” “Zippee” or “Zapge” or any number of things, really.

Graffiti artists are so inconsiderate, not allowing us to read the words they so wantonly splash in public places.

Something Blue

Green fields race past my window, made golden with hot April sun.

Listening to the garbled, near hysterical talk of my older brother,

How his life is now composed of bad jokes and purple sweaters.

Road sloping downward now, seniors all yelling, the only sane one;

His girlfriend, and how beautiful she looks.

I have just been proven not to exist.

We’re going faster now, curves coming more frequently,

And I lean my shoulder into the wall to stop from falling

As death threats rain down around my ears.

This poem, as with all the others, a mangled mix

Of what actually happened,

And what I wish had come to pass.

Pepperwood

As we passed, we on our own dangerously fast expedition,

And as I cast an uninterested look out of the glass walls,

I saw that little road.

An offramp from the freeway, a turnoff, a rest stop.

Nothing.

A little road I had not passed on before, and had no intention of doing so now.

Why then did I feel this inexplicable longing

Why experience such sorrow

That I should be traveling along this straight and fast road

Instead of turning off into the forest?