Glenny

                                    -For Aunt Glenny
it sloshed and buckled
   but only one scoop splashed to
      the floor and
the frizzed blonde hair, frazzled
with humidity and still smelling
    of seaweed stink
from the cool dip in the ocean,
picked up the gooey blotch
    of ice cream and threw it in the trashcan.
vanilla squished between her fingers
and played
    hide    and    seek
in pink cuticles;
but all were washed away in the sink.
Tree Knotted Cushion Hands lift lightly
   the oreo pie crust
      layered in too much cream and whipped milk
and cool whip and
     a whole oil rig of eight kinds of chocolate,
all into the freezer to set.
when we passed around the ice cream pie,
everyone smiled and cookie bits blackened their teeth.
it was beautiful.
 especially You.

now I'm the only one left to know
how to chef an ice cream pie.

©2014 Lex Vex

Where Hearts Dwell

Lost hearts lie forgotten

         in spirals of molten paper

                 drawn on the minds of middle school

When the first cooties molted to butterflies. 

Paper hearts lie in storage

        at the bottom of recycling bins

                 and classsroom closets

and that notsosecret safe mothers keep of childrens childhood 

to remind them that they too once played in the mud. 

Ink hearts lie under scribbles

        where the twenty something horomones

                  hid them. They were just a lapse

and the flavor of nastalgia we pretend not to savor. 

Honest hearts lie 

        in sleeves where they know they are safe. 

                  It takes its protective shell off only

when the heartbeat swells and suffocates the seams. 

Then the kaleidescope wings

         and the funneling antennae

                take to the sky

And the multi-machina hearts viverate each other

in more natural nector  untill they burst in starwater

The ink we use to draw on more pages

and wallpaper our domesticity 

with unbeating Hearts.

©2014 Lex Vex

Scenes of an Italian Lecture

And the buckling bells did sing
                          the dirge of dinner.
Feed them grilled eels and oranges from
                           Da Vinci's cookbook.
Seat the victem as neighbor to his murder so that
                           When a closing door wails the hollow
scream of spectors
                           at least the dinner party can chatter through the inturruption.
The flickering lights make thunder
                           that can only be heard by mice
that scurry dodging the fat woman's high heel.
                           Overies of grapes dotted the pannatone
but before the groom cut the Montebore
                           Moaning Lisa,
The perfected golden fig,
                         Died having an orgasm
Wrinkling like a sunkist apricot.

©2014 Lex Vex

Last Man on Earth (Monologue, 1F, Theatrical)

For a change of pace I'll put up a post-apocalyptic monologue. Feel free to use it if you want, just remember to say my name- Just know that it isn't from a play or anything.

The Last Man On Earth

Characters:

DAWN WALKER – A young woman in her 20s. She just lived through the apocalypse and thinks she is the last woman on earth. She is intent on breaking up with her boyfriend, SKYLAR.

(The Scene is set in a nice park overlooking post-apocalyptic New Haven. Everything around for miles is destroyed, and DAWN ENTERS alone on stage, preparing to talk to her boyfriend SKY. Though she is trying to sound and act like everything is normal, she is freaking out inside. She clings desperately to her former life. There is a skeleton reclining on a bench nearby to where she is standing.)

DAWN

I can almost hear the birds whistling in the trees—and if you ignore that mushroom cloud out over the bay, you can even pretend that there are actual people heading home on the highway from downtown! And over there—West Haven, looks just like it always has! (Pause) We should’ve come here sooner… before this got out of hand… I was so shocked when Mrs. Handelmen up and crumbled into salt! I always told her sodium level would be the death of her… especially the way she would shower table salt onto her pork rinds in the dining hall…Anyway, the thing is, Skylar, baby… (Takes notice of the skeleton on the bench) Ok, that’s it, I’m sorry… This really cannot be ignored any longer: How long has that been there? I know it’s the apocalypse, and all kinds of brimstone and hellfire have been just spewing from the depths of hell—but how in God’s name is there a skeleton just sitting here on the bench?! Creepy crispy burned out husk of a corpse—ok, fine, I’d buy it, but that is a freaking bleached skeleton! (DAWN notices a ring on the skeleton’s finger. Ignoring her former distain for the skeleton, DAWN grabs its hand and examines the ring more closely.) Ooh! This ring it’s got—is that a silver inlay between the amber or… oh. It’s chipped in the middle. (DAWN drops the skeleton’s hand in disgust) keep it… Sky, you’re wondering why I asked you here to the park… in sight of a deranged skeleton and a few crispy squirrels… in the middle of the freaking apocalypse…Well, (DAWN starts to try to break up with SKYLAR, but deflects to a different topic.) I needed to show you what I found in the Wal-Mart near the freeway. I was down there this morning sifting through cartons of cereal scattered on the floor between the condiments and hair products when I found this! (DAWN takes out a copy of a newspaper, Weekly World News to be exact) This isn’t just any copy of Weekly World News—Oh no. This is a copy of Weekly world news from this morning! The whole world is exploding, we can’t find another living soul, and yet they still manage to print this shit! I mean, look at the headline! ‘Experts say Apocalypse a fake’ – seriously?! – “Caroline Ludwig, renown bibliophysicist, 26, stated on Tuesday ‘the levels of sulfur on the surface, and the amount of volcanic ash blowing in over Europe are nowhere near the toxicity expected by the release of Lucifer.”—None of this makes any sense! The one time they could’ve been right— The one freaking time! ‘not the apocalypse’—Yes it fucking is! It is the fucking apocalypse! It is! (Notices SKY is still standing with her and folds up the paper again.) But—what I’m saying is: there are other people out there! Psychotic World News writing people, but people nonetheless! We aren’t alone, Skylar! We don’t have to do it! We don’t have to repopulate the whole fucking world! Skylar? What are you on your knees… oh god… Oh no… please tell me that isn’t… that isn’t a ring… Skylar, where did you get that? (pause) You spent your entire college fund?! Pause) Hold your horses, you spent anything at all?! Everyone is dead, Skylar! You could’ve just taken it! I don’t think the radioactive skeleton at the register would’ve minded! He’s fucking dead! (Pause) The ring… oh… about the ring… See here’s the thing: I like my name—Dawn Walker—its got a-a nice feel to it. Dawn Shittager? It’s just not me. I say it out loud and I feel like I should clean my mouth out with soap. And you can’t take my name, cause then you’d be Sky Walker, and then I’d be the only one around to make bad ‘Padawan’ jokes. The DVD store got blasted into the next continent when the oil basin underneath exploded—it was like the first thing to go—so not even our kids wouldn’t get the joke. I actually asked you here today because… I’m trying to break up with you. I just can’t do it—none of it—not you, not me—I just cant do this whole “last man and woman on earth” shtick. Sky, stop crying… the skeleton is watching. Look, its not you: I mean, the cuddling was nice—especially since now everything smells like sulfur, if you have any B.O., I can’t tell! And the other night, when we sat outside on the damp grass and watched the hurricane rip apart Long Island, and you were stroking my hair, I was about as content as I ever thought I could be in this germ infested, tetanus-trap. I didn’t even mind that the mud from the water treatment plant soaked through our blanket and ruined my last clean dress. As we watched the boats in the harbor ripped apart by electric flame, I could see that burning passion in your eyes. But then you kissed me… Kissing you is like… It’s like kissing a dead fish—there’s no movement. And your breath… it smells like fish! All the time—I kissed you once, just after you finished brushing your teeth and BAM- fish and mint… And to top it off it was very, very wet. You kind of missed my mouth… So it was very very wet all over my chin. If that’s how you kiss, I really don’t want to imagine the rest. No offense. What I’m really saying is… no… I would never, ever, ever be with you. Not even if you were the last man on earth. Which you could very well be. Don’t be like that Skylar—we can still be really good platonic non-tongue-kissing friends! Don’t walk away! Damnit! Yep… yep, he’s gone. (DAWN catches sight of a second male making his way up the hill) Thank sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph, he wasn’t the all that was left! There’s hope for the human race after all! … (gives the guy the once over) A lot of hope! (trying to catch the guy’s attention) You—You there! I’ve got some jerky with me if you want some. What’s your name? Tex?  That’s a nice name. You know, I think we might just be the last two people on earth… 

©2012-2014 Lex Vex

Alphabet City

Alphabet City

            Along every boulevard, every lane, ally and street – from the relatively tourist free thrifty neighborhoods of Soho to the flooded hub of Time Square—are hundreds upon hundreds of drainage ditches covered by a thin sturdy layer of steel grating. Big grates of cross hatched metal, bearing the weight of hundreds of bodies trotting across them; grates all over the city—grates that you, no matter your age, walk across with trepidation, always fully expecting to fall into the pit below.

            Carefully, I treaded across these grease covered masses of twisted steel for my first two years living in the Loisaida, most often preferring to walk around them despite the fact that these holes can sometimes blow warm air up like a city wide radiator during the chilly winter months. Dozens of times – ok, maybe only the half dozen times—when I would embolden myself and force my feet to cross the girded pit-like domains I never really believed that I could actually fall through into the cage below street level—it was, I told myself, a childlike irrational fear—but ice is a funny thing: Apparently, there is an angle at which, if you hit the grate with just the right amount of force and in just the right spot, the grate will flip on itself, leaving you landing in a sludgy rat infested hole, brimming with dog refuse and all kinds of animal piss. Even as I tumbled backwards through the steel bars, I could feel the peculiar absence of eyes on the street: I had managed to fall through the only deserted street in all of Manhattan. Fortune did not smile on me that day; it chose to take a crap on me instead.

 Gradually I awoke from my landing feeling the lightest sprinkling of rain on my face. How long I had been down here, in the bowls of 26^th street, only the ambient sounds of cars honking along the FDR drive pervading the stale air, I had no idea; all I knew was that I was lying on my back, smothered in a sticky foul smelling slime, and that the only street light I could see sat burning directly above my prison in the ever increasing darkness.

I tested my legs and back gingerly for any breaks or sprains before hoisting myself up; I was lucky in that at least—nothing seemed to be out of place: I had only given myself a goose-egg that throbbed to a painful and steady beat. Just when I had found my bearings, the drizzling rain morphed into a veritable downpour and water began to trickle down the edges of my enclosure and pool on the dirt caked ground.

“Kill me now,” was all I could think to say when I saw the growing river at my feet wash a nearby rat carcass out from behind the remains of a cardboard pizza box. Luckily for me, I had not yet noticed that this was the only New York City grate in existence without a spillway for the water to flow down. Moments later, I realized all to quickly. No drain, nowhere for the water to go. Only up. Perhaps that was when I started to panic— to panic from trying to avoid the scruffy rat—which turned out to not be dead, only asleep, as it swam ferociously around my knees in the ever increasing water—ever increasing because, as it turned out, though the pit did not have a drain, it apparently was the drain for every other grate found in the Tristate Area; water not only flowed from a two inch pipe near the top of the wall, but also oozed, with the smell of faintly green, toxic sludge from a rather large crack in the concrete. Quickly the water rose past my thighs as the roar of the waterfall made even the sounds of the city impossible to hear.

Reasonably, with the water already reaching belly button height and with a rat clinging to the leg of my new jeans squeaking for dear life, I lost it. Sure that I was going to die in this hell hole, next to a rodent and every washed out takeout menu this side of China town, I shrieked curses and prayers to that stupid lamp blazing stoically above my head until the lamp went out all together, leaving me in half lit city darkness. To some, the newly acquired darkness would have been the end all of the situation, but for me, it was a blessing. Unlike a lot of people, if I can’t see what it is I’m touching, it becomes much easier for me to touch. Very carefully avoiding the rat that I knew was thrashing nearby, I swam over to the nearest wall and clawed carefully over its rough surface until I found the crack from which water was still pouring.

 Without my vision, unable to see the crusty slime I was touching, I was able to pull myself up to the top of the concrete and out of the maelstrom below: my fingers, raw from the effort of pulling up my entire body ached when curling themselves around the bars of the grate above me. Xanadu it was not, but it was still a better place to be than the choppy waters below; with my current position, I could not move the grate, but by placing one foot against an opposing wall and flipping my entire body around I was able to attain the leverage necessary to force the steel up and drag myself out.

You don’t always feel how tired you are until after you’ve finished doing something really difficult, but this was not one of those times: as I clawed my way back up onto the street I could feel every sinew and tendon in my arms straining for more oxygen; when I had finally gotten out and said a small eulogy for my furry friend, claimed by the sea, I staggered, wet, bedraggled and smelling of a subway terminal, back to my apartment on Avenue A: It was all I could do not to fall asleep on the welcome mat outside my door; I only barely made it to my bed… before…

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…  

©2012-2014 Lex Vex

Love and War on a Playground

Love and War on a Playground

“No, nothing big, more like a minor… ruffling of feathers.” I felt myself smile, my pale thin lips curling up at the ends though the woman on the phone couldn’t see the gesture. The harsh breath of a stressed parent, sparked by the word ‘incident’ continued to crackle across the phone line. I readjusted the sunshine yellow phone onto my opposite shoulder and gazed out of the finger-smudged window to the empty playground. The kids were at lunch. Though the phone still buzzed with electric sound, I became momentarily distracted: Someone had stuck play dough on the right hand corner of the window, where, in the sun, it had begun to crust over and shrivel into the unfortunate shape of a man’s privates. It would take me at least a half hour to scrape the gunk off later. The phone had gone silent.

“Veronica is fine,” I said, registering the silence as an expectant one. “She hasn’t done anything wrong. She’s just… She got a bit carried away with Valentines day.”

I brought the offending piece of paper up to my face and studied it. It was the one of the worst hearts I’d ever seen. One of the worst ones after 20 years of teaching first grade: The poor lopsided mess fluttered pathetically from where it had been crumpled by the little boy who had received it. The smudgy crayon stained the page in cramped letters that shrank down the page until it was unintelligible. The backside was smothered in rainbow glitter still drying over a deranged sharpie smile and flat eyes. It was the kind of thing a mother would keep forever.

“…. What did Ronnie this time?” asked the mother, her voice wavering with impending doom.

“Well, actually, she sent a love letter, to one of the quieter little boys, Aaron. And Aaron… well, he had to be picked up by his mother because he couldn’t stop crying. The whole thing embarrassed him greatly.” I heard a nervous chuckle through the phone, and the tension I always got when speaking to anyone over the age of 15 lessened slightly.

“I am so sorry about that, Linda.” Said the woman.

“I’ve already had a talk with her about the whole thing, but really, when you come to pick her up today… I kept the letter for you. You have got to see it.” I turned over the sparkly crumpled scrap of construction paper in my hands, carefully smoothing out its rough surface. “ It’s a keeper.”

***

“What’s he got that I haven’t got?” Brandon said, nudging me in the ribs as he picked up a green tray from the towering stack at the right edge of cafeteria. Turning in the direction Brandon had indicated, I watched, out a window, a tall wiry lady escort Aaron down the sloping hill, still dotted with flecks of gray, dirty snow. His face was still red and blotchy and he was holding his mother’s hand, like the baby that he was, all the way to the parking lot. 

“He reads a lot,” I supplied in a bored voice. I’d never understood Brandon’s need to be cool to girls. Girls themselves weren’t terrible, but they weren’t really worth any interest. They weren’t usually good at soccer, judging by how easy it was to steal the ball from them with a simple fake out; they bawled the minute you teased them, landing you in timeout before you could say, “Just kidding"; they chickened out of doing anything even a little dirty: ask them to roll around in the dry dust, ask them to scoop up a sludgy mound of muddy goo to chuck at teachers when they weren’t looking, ask them to pick up a stinking nightcrawler and the answer would always be a silly scream and a giggling “Ew, no!”

“Who cares if he reads, Ben? He’s a stupid nose-picker.” Said Brandon, frowning at the crusty mashed potatoes that had landed on his plate with an audible thump. “It’s all he does: Reads under his desk when no ones looking, and picks his nose. I don’t pick my nose, and I don’t read. I bet when he picks his nose, he eats it—ow!”

While Brandon had been ranting, the line in front of the dessert rack had cleared without his notice, so I took the opportunity to shove him along. As Brandon studied the options, unable to decide between the Chocolate pudding and what we assumed to be some kind of butterscotch custard, Ronnie strode past. She held her dirty blonde head defiantly high, keeping her gaze consciously ignorant of our existence.

“Look,” said Brandon, shoving a bunch of red, white and pink papers into my already occupied hands. “I got cards from Gina, and Cloe and Carrie and even Natasha—she must have just meant that one for me and missed my basket, right? Aaron thinks girls are stupid, so why bother giving him one, especially when I can actually do cool stuff, like play soccer—have you seen Aaron try to kick the ball? No? You know why? Cause he just sits around on the swings and reads. He doesn’t even like girls!”

Personally I thought Aaron had the right idea: but there was no stopping Brandon’s tirade now: Whenever he started in on something he actually cared about, he was hooked like a four year old eating their first pixie stick: He would indulge until everything was good and finished, or till he got sick. Sometimes both. We reached the circular table by the window that we’d been assigned to last week. Already sitting at the seats nearest the window sat Ronnie and her friend, who clung to her more like an extra head than a person, Emily. Though, I guess you could say the same about Brandon and me.

Before spotting us, they had been whispering together in a way that reminded me of the way my mother and Aunt Furgie had at my cousin’s wedding, when the bride had failed to show up at the church for five hours. When the girls saw us approaching, they hushed up and were as silent as a busted walkman.

“Hey there, Ron,” Brandon said, putting on that stupid smile he only uses when girls are around or he’s been caught taking a few dollars out of his mom’s purse. He snatched up the chair next to where Ronnie sat. “So how did little baby Aaron take the proposal? Should we be expecting a wedding any day or did you decide to put it off?”

This snapped Ronnie’s attention towards Brandon and I swear I saw her eyes crackle with lightening even as her cheeks reddened. “For your information, Brandon, it’s none of your beeswax. Aaron is very sensitive. Besides, you don’t understand anything about love. He just needs a day or two to get used to the idea.”

For some reason, this wiped the smile off of Brandon’s face. “So love, is it?” He retaliated with a fresh sneer. “So you love Aaron, huh?”

Ronnie’s glare deepened. “Yes. I’ve loved many boys but I love him the best. I would do anything for him.”

I noticed Brandon’s back stiffen at that. He sat up a little straighter in his chair. “Really? Anything?” he snickered. “I doubt it.”

“Oh yeah?” Ronnie said, defiantly. “You don’t know anything, cause you’re too stupid to know what its like to want someone. You’re just a tiny little boy who only kisses his Mommy just to say he’s kissed a girl.”

“Oh, and you think you would’a kissed Aaron?”

“Yeah, I would have. I kiss boys.” Ronnie growled, looking away from Brandon.

“Sure you do.” Brandon said. Behind Ronnie, Emily caught my eye for a second. We shared a glance at the ceiling and a shake of the head.  

“Fine,” Brandon was saying, “You. Me. Recess. In the fort and bring a witness.” He chuckled lightly, and I had the horrible feeling this meant I wouldn’t be kicking the ball around the blacktop today. “We’ll see if you’d actually kiss a boy.”

“I’ll kiss you anytime, anywhere, Brandon.” I thought Ronnie looked more ready to pummel Brandon than kiss him. I wouldn’t have put it past her.

***

I always hated going outside for recess in the winter. The air chilled my lungs to my very heart, and with today’s letdown, my heart couldn’t really handle much more chill. It was nice in the fort though. Even without the leaves, it was set back far enough in a cluster of trees that it sheltered us from the gazes of the teachers huddled  in the gazebo at the center of the playground.  The brown dead branches of the willowy tree and the dry yellow grasses of winter were enough to shield those inside from the wind, wandering eyes and interruption. It was the perfect spot for a dare.

“Don’t you think this whole thing is kind of dumb, Ron?” Emily asked in a muffled voice; her purple down jacket covered the whole lower half of her face, including her mouth. Only her pale blue eyes and strands of strawberry blonde hair were visible with her hood pulled down.

“It’s not a matter of it being dumb, it’s a matter of principal!” I said. “He thinks I’m a chicken, and I’m going to show him and his fat head that he doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t know me and he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “ Emily sighed, visibly exasperated. Ben and Brandon clambered through the brush after a few minutes.

“So you’re actually going to do this?” Brandon said.

“You better believe it.” I said, not returning the grin he flashed me.

“Fine, lay one on me then.” Brandon stooped to the ground and sat back against the trunk of the raggedy little tree that created the fort’s ceiling. I kneeled next to him on the ground. Leaning foreward, my eyes met his briefly, and I was shocked to find them wide with nervous energy ringing his grey irises. He wasn’t even smirking.

“You ready?” I asked, unable to keep contact with eyes and concentrating instead on the charred wooden log resting under his back. He nodded slowly. My chest hammering, I began to close the gap between our lips. I almost faltered but the image of Brandon’s triumphant grin if I failed flashed in front of me like the blistering beep of a 6:00 am alarm clock. Emboldened, I kept going. Our faces were hardly an inch apart.

“Wait!” Brandon cried in a hushed voice. “One more thing: No tongue.”

I blinked at him in confusion. Tongue?

“What would I do with my tongue?” I asked, completely bewildered.

Brandon looked back at me blankly. “I have no idea.” We broke into nervous giggles, and with our faces so close, I could smell the peppermint from the candy cane he’d been eating during Math on his breath.

“Can you guys hurry up? I want to go kick the ball around a little before recess is over.” Came Ben’s voice from behind them. “You know, have some real fun.”

“We’ll be done in a sec,” Brandon said, waving his friend off and sharing a significant glance with me. This time, it was him who leaned forward to close the distance. I felt a soft warmth touch my lips for barely a second; and then it was gone. Wasting no time, Ben grabbed Brandon by the wrist and dragged him towards the blacktop at the top of the sloping playground, leaving me alone with Emily in the fort.

“See you around, Ron,” Brandon said before he was tugged away, leaving me with nothing but a smirk, a wink, and a muddled warmth in my stomach. Turning towards Emily, I sat back down in the hideout and gazed out over the sloping overgrowth at the view of the sparkling city in the distance.

“You know, Valentine’s day is a stupid holiday.” I said, biting my lip. “I bet Brandon regrets he ever suggested this dare.”

“Yeah, I bet. I dont think he thought you’d actually do it. You showed him though!” Said Emily, cheerfully.

“Yeah.” Without turning my head far enough to be noticeable, I glanced across the woodchips. Ben and Brandon were running to the blacktop where a full soccer game was already in progress. Brandon never turned his head back towards the grasses of the fort. Our eyes did not meet momentarily before he turned back around to catch up with Ben. We never kissed again.

“I guess I did show him.”

Though what I’d shown him, I was never quite sure. 

© 2012-2014 Lex Vex

If Only a Movie

If Only a Movie

The Superstitions are flat

Against an almost cloudless Sky.

From where I Lie,

 half shelved against two ribs

of iron. They are also

upside-down and trembling

with the braces to which he bound  me 

that rock and shake.

Through the iron I can feel the sound

Of the rumbling, crunching, crushing,

Wheels mated to the tracks

Coming straight for me. Kidnapped

For a ransom, one they wont get

— the only reason for murder now to rid

Their whole county of yet another witness—

Like it’s my fault that the mine flooded

Since last I came. The sun streaks

 past the hazy rock tombs,

and the whimpers of my own throat

Hum an old folk song

 I could’ve sworn I never knew.

Even I can barely hear the strum

of each parched vocal

Node over the chalkboard screech of

wheels ten years past turning.

All I can see is up.

 Blazing sun. Blaring Heat. Broken

Ridges extending down

 into my sky.

Rock so muffledAnd so hazy

 I would almost take them

For a film set. 

©2012 Lex Vex