*again, this is part of a short story… but this is just another section of it. Short story is in the process of being editted*

I see a woman whom gravity has done wrong.
Parallel ski slopes slide down her chest
and come to points somewhere in the middle.
I think she’s missed her bus.

Another moving billboard skeeters past.
Only, the grandma-woman this time
has grown a bulbous mustache
and her eyes are the size of plates
with horns growing out of her head like Satan himself
was staring at me eye-for-eye
or soul-for-soul.

Somewhere in Clifton, Cincinnati,
Catcher the Spirit-Smasher arranges teacups.
There is the one with Princess Diana and Prince Charles
on their wedding day
that his Nana bought him at a garage sale.
“Don’t touch this. I hear-ed it might be worth somethin’. Probably more than yer life,”
he said, holding out to her the blue and white treasure.
Except, on Di’s face is a mark;
it looks like someone tried to erase her.
And then there’s Charles,
unblemished and
grinning like the Cheshire fiend.

Sweat glistened my skin
like moss did my tree stump.
And there’s Catcher the Spirit-Smasher
who says I can’t because he says so.
And doesn’t give a hot damn
what I am—
if that is happy,
or depressed.
And if I were what I am,
which I don’t even know,
other than Virginia Blu,
would my words be fewer?

Something like hot cement hits my nasal cavities
and I reel backwards,
into the stop sign.
Then the little man beckons me forward
while my bare-feet argue
angrily with the baking sun beneath me.

-Chels

I heard the bus brakes cough like a sneeze,
as they farted out hot air
against the backs of my legs.
My skirt caught in the wind
like I was Alice from Wonderland,
and I was a falling cupcake. Only,
I stood on the corner of Clifton and MLK,
wondering when the next stop was
or when I would hear
a sneeze again.

Catcher the screamer yelled.
He said.
I said.
Well, I won’t tell what he said.
But, he said,
“Take it off.”
And I said,
“What?”
Then he grabbed hold of me and
speared me with his javelin to the bed.
Now I’m getting gassed.

Only, instead of coming face-to-face with the bus,
I found myself back-to-back with it.
So then I started praying,
“Lord Jesus,” I said.
And then I stopped
when my thoughts were interrupted
by a moving billboard,
advertizing God-knows-what
with some grandma-looking chick,
unblinkingly staring at me
like some punk kid
I felt like punching.

My stomach kind of threw up in itself
when Catcher the screamer yelled.
So I went for a walk down Clifton Ave.,
and I stopped at a bus stop.

-Chels

*written as part of a short story… the text is meant to be sporadic, but the format will not let me post it in such a way*