I apologize for the lack of posts this week. On Monday I had a king-sized headache, and on Tuesday I took photographs instead.

Back to our regularly-scheduled busting of writer’s block! This prose poem is courtesy of my spam folder.

“Too busy to go back to school?” she huffed, dangling the highball glass between thumb and ring-finger. Ice cubes clacked. “I should have seen it coming.” And with that I remembered why I hated her, that slick brow over flat eyes. She went to wakes but never funerals, something about the smell of turned earth, of coffins. I was a replica watch on her wrist, telling time while never knowing how late it was. “You can trick the nature and make a monster of your timid animal.” I fantasized about the heft of the paperweight on her desk. She’ll never be disappointed again.

[Want to help me bust through my writer's block this month? Read about this exercise!]

Here we go: end of the year spam couplets! Although these are not technically couplets, bear with me. The first lines are subject lines from my junk mail folder.

“It will be hard for you to imagine your wrist without the watch,”
she smirked, and I stalked out of the room.

A confident person is the one that has a decent look,
a good gait, a way with a comb, a pair of unwrinkled pants.

If there will be only girls around, will you be ready?
Will you tell them about what happened to the boys?

Be a man every time, everywhere, with any woman.
Open the door for her even if she refuses to walk through it.

A totally different perspective of what’s going on
is a lame way to enter this beleaguered argument.

When your relationship is getting ruined we know how to help you.
We will come into your house while you are at the grocery store,
buying whatever the hell cereal you want to buy,
now that there are no other arbitrary preferences in the house, 
and we will rearrange everything. We will confuse your weakened heart,
so there is no longer a focus on the ever-present crumbling,
the noise of a tow-truck always idling around the corner.

We know that it is not about words of wisdom. Curse words are more apt
but still not good enough. The words you want to collect and trash
are the words you think you will never say again:
“honey” or “baby” or “sorry”
“I missed you” or “I know I was wrong” or “what do you want me to say”

We know how to help you. We have machines that will help.
If you press your forehead against the cool metal
and look right into
here
we can see into your brain and therefore your heart.
We can see which baggage to zap, which intriguing trait to enhance.
We know things you do not know, can never know, without us.

All it takes is
three easy payments
of your distrust
your despair
your disbelief.

— Halsted Mencotti Bernard

(Thanks to my junk email folder for the first line.)