Records in the Concrete

Authors Note: It needs to be this long to incorporate all of the different challenges I had to write about at once, so I can't change the length.

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I couldn't see it
until my face was planted
deep within the concrete,
and I began to worry about my chances
of getting a refund on the broken eggs.

The eggs were smeared in my hair
and down my back, but the thing which bothered me
was the sticky feeling on my face
like make up caked on for photos

The make up had such thick layering
that it destroyed the natural swampland
of my pores, and built up mounds
of fresh colored dirt everywhere,
growing green with grass.

The squirrels loved grass, and soft dirt
because they could bury plots in it
like winter stories to share around their nest
before the trees crack and give way to snowy ground.

In the summer, they visit the forest across the street
of my lips, and dive among the trees of hairs
into the valley of my neck to collect tales from the deer
who've seen it all, hunters bright as peacocks
and themselves offering sacrifices to them
for destroying their protective gear.

I found them there once, chasing my dog from the house
as my black socks dangled from my mouth.
My mother called after me for running off without my shoes
and I had to scream at her in explanation that my socks were stolen
because we all know that shoes without socks is like bagels without cream cheese,
you do it when you absolutely have to, and this was not that time.

One time my sister asked me to make her a bagel
and she said she wanted it with butter.
She was officially crazy in my book after that.
"You want me to do what?"
"Butter my bagel for me."
It was so hard to cope I nearly drowned.
My mind was as dark as the sky in the city
that day, after buttering a bagel. It felt like genocide.
I had stolen the life of a perfectly good rolled and egged bread
for the soul purpose of some measly butter on bread
then the squirrels heard about it from the dog
and buried it for winter.

I played chicken with them
pretending to be as scared as them
trying to get my socks back.
My dog actually was a chicken
so when the squirrels asked, he passed them off
like he was just a tumbling stone in a river
and they were trout.

He always got the short end of the stick
sometimes literally because I'd crawl my hand up
like a spider until I could pull it free and throw it again.

But in the end, he could ask for nothing else
there was nothing Fate wouldn't give him after all
she really spoiled the world for that dog
providing him with everything he wanted
and making home perfect before he came to us.
Now he knows what he's missing.

He was so estranged to the hard life when he came home
that he almost called it horrid, but couldn't get it out
because despite everything, he is a good dog,
just a coward who doesn't know how to stand up to squirrels,
however he does lick off my make up covered face
and for that I'm appreciative.

I came to school with a dog-slobbered face,
my hair sticking at odd angles
and my Shakes teacher yelled at me
that I was a "Lumpish beetle-headed bugbear"
but I didn't know what that meant
it just sounded like an insult
so I smiled and agreed because lumpish I was

The day I smacked a penguin for crawling up my leg
it tore away my skin on my leg with it's claws in revolt
and I became lumpish forever more.

And I'm definitely beetle-headed
because I ride a train every day to and from work
when it would be less expensive to walk
but I am as stubborn as a stag beetle
and have to have it my way

but I don't know what a bugbear is.
I assumed it fit with the others
however, I think I might have met one once
on a subway station that reeked of ammonia
and violinists who sweated from their enthusiastic
body-spasms as they played.

He sat in the corner, waiting for the breeze of the trains
beneath a blanket as torn and ratty as a matted fur
and he was covered in flies. Perhaps that is a bugbear.

He caught me staring at him, and I missed my train
trying to explain that I really didn't mean to
it was just a captivating site
then he spoke in Dutch, I think, and I sat there staring
"Well, this is awkward" because I couldn't explain in Dutch
and he was getting angry by the hue of his cheeks
and slant of his eyes.

I assume he thought I was some robot
hailing him as my god as I clasped my hands
and bowed and shuffled backwards
to stand still as a statue
and I think he imagined I was hailing
the holy hands of my motherboards
for them to come and save me from this
degradation of my circuits
because I didn't ever look at that corner again

Like a person never trusting white jelly beans
because they all could be popcorn flavored.
Dreaming about the beauty of the violin
that abandoned the railway station
as soon as the incident occurred.

The halfway dream to regress
found me danced upon for years
as my lord resented me
and my shadows turned sour.

This must be what he thought of me
and my shy excuses he never understood.
As I went to board the next train
he stood and came after me,
arms raised, screaming, and running.

We were skyrocketing through the solar system
when we discovered life together
believing somehow that we could make this work
it and me, among the darkness, among the stars
and I whispered of the dreams we had together
happy to have found our salvation upon this planet
where life was nothing more than life
and war was behind us, forever.
Now, we can be happy like daffodils reaching for the sun,
side by side and always holding hands.

But what can I know about any of it?
I am just a couch, settled into your carpet floor
supporting you from my lonely square
dreaming of being more than a lumpy beetle-headed bugbear
when I grow old and you throw me away,
your old furniture
who loved you for so long
who thinks you need to go on a diet in the worst way
who lost your socks.

I was face first in the cement that day
when the eggs fell, tripping you
and they crawled all over my back
and into my hair.

What I saw there was a dream
of a mesh iguana. It was a child's art project
I guess, but the form was so real
so life like, I could almost see it moving
ready to reach out and squeeze me tight
to be my friend for life
because all it wanted was something to live with
something warm, and fresh and fragile
but it had been destroyed by being thrown into the cement
like me, and we would be the backbone of thousands of feet
if I couldn't get us free.
together, me and the Meshugenah.

All I am is loneliness, hoping for a friend.
Envy as brown as dirt, and black as night
and smelly as a rose, and bright as a moon.
All I am is dreams, wanting you to hold me.

But you won't. When I say dare,
it's nothing fun, just dares to break myself
to hurt my soul with pangs of self-loathing
and deprecation for thinking I could be more
than the loneliness I am.

The darkness closed upon her as she cried
herself to sleep at night beneath the covers
dreaming of the squirrels and dogs
that consumed her livelihood.
They heard her dreams and worried
offering bunnies and baskets
and Santa Clause, but nothing was as good
as just offering a hug, and they didn't know to do that.
They never imagined that a hug would be enough.

Material things, like eggs, like breakfast, like cereal
were all that mattered now, beneath the red sky
among the rabid dogs and giant snakes.

His wife was wrapping her hands and unwrapping them
the nervous tick of an impatient woman as they stared
up at the their daughter's sleep place above them
praying to the gods that she would not dream about this world

They heard a whining, crying, machine,
like huge mechanical a saran wrapper
and their attention detoured to the road
where a little blue box offered salvation
from the beasts of dreams.

And a man jumped free, offering his hand inside
smiling like a fool and saying "Come meet my wife
I wanted the other Twin, but when I got the address
this was the one I married."

and a young woman stepped abroad in fascination
grinning too, "How can you marry a city?"
"Oh, it's simple, you just sign the paperwork!"
and they popped down the street marry as a bird
who'd already had his share of worms.

But they knew the truth, they knew this book
and recognized the sequence as the end of days.
If today could be saved, then it had been done
and it hadn't. Today was the end of time.

And so they ran together, husband and wife,
delivering their babe to her final stork of salvation
and snuck upon the peppy man, the wife
a sword in hand, holding it to the man's neck.
"Don't move."

And the husband stole away the girl,
dragging her back the way they came
delivering her upon salvation
hungering for her brains, but resisting
his leg dragging from decay.

"I need to talk to a human," the man insisted
"I need to talk to that human!" he proclaimed,
not afraid of the sword, not fighting it's tip in his neck.

"I was human once," the wife complained,
She took a shaky breath, staring at the man
dreaming her husband was safe, and well
and not a Zombie.

"Yeah? What's your name?" He was always so kind
always written to be so polarized. Deadly and kind
like a psychotic pit bull, who didn't know when to bite
or when to pant and grin.

"I worked underground, in the steel mines."
She remembered the hard rock against her pick
the smell of sweat and chaos in her lungs
and the blackness of her body from the soot.
"It was better than working above ground."

"Oh yeah? Why's that?"

"Above ground there were monsters." She swallowed
monsters like the one she married, monsters who killed
monsters who were just figments of her imagination
they couldn't be real, but her husband had one.
"Humans."

"Honey, I got it done, I done it." Her husband dragged
himself back to her, proud. He caught the wind and breathed deep
his eyes glazing over with hysteria

The man pushed her sword away and grabbed her hand, "Run!"
and so they did. They ran from the city he married
from the world she knew to be true
from the infection and the wind
and the horrible smell of urine and flies on decomposing flesh.

And I ran too, among them, and with them
and before them and between them
I ran with their connected hands
and devoured their life as my own
my squirreled away story
beneath the thick layers of snow.

I ran in their blood and among their cushions
and when we entered the blue box, I ran across time
and before and after time as well.

I was just a dream
nothing more
but while she slept
I was among them all
saturated in reality of this world
made by their kinetic minds
electrifying me to life.
I just couldn't see it
until my face was deep
within the concrete.