I'm writing my love
On clouds in the sky,
Hopeless as cheat notes,
Chords of love songs
Written on the palm of my hand.
Blue ink is getting all over my guitar,
But I don't need to cheat.
I know this song
Like the back of my hand,
And the front of your face,
Your sweet mouth.
And I don't need to tell you
That I love you,
And the clouds don't need to rain,
Because this is West Texas,
And smoke doesn't always mean fire,
And cumulonimbus clouds don't always mean business here.
But you and I,
Always mean Love.

-Jenn

I didn't meet the Buddha on the way to the market.
I met a beetle dying on the sidewalk at McDonald's.
It was lying on its back,
Kicking its feet helplessly
And wallowing in the suds
Of the very detergent
That had been used to try and wash the grimy walkway.
I saw a little bird hop up and look at the bug,
But the bird could smell the surfactant that covered the beetle
And knew better than to eat it.
The bird hopped back away from the temptation and looked at it long and hard
With his beady eye
Before he flew.
I sat on the other side of the glass,
Drinking my tea like a shard of excommunicated Mongolian glass,
And decided that maybe I had met the Buddha, after all.
And so I stepped on the bug on my way back to my car
And put him out of his misery.
I'm on a roll.
Who wants to be next?

-jenn

It disappeared in the water.
Whatever it was,
The universal solvent solved it,
And the riddle was no more.
And it had been ugly,
And had caused me terror,
Even if just for a millisecond,
But now, even my suspicions were gone
As I looked deeply into the cup of life and saw
That even death had been swallowed up by it.

-jenn

Automatic doors don't open for me.
And the people in the store
Stare through me as if I don't exist.
I wait and wait at the deli counter,
But no one asks if they may assist me.
But then I feel the need to pee.
I make my way to the restroom.
I glance at the mirrors on my way to one of the stalls,
And sure enough, there's no reflection.

I stop and stand in front of them.
I will myself to be seen.
Slowly an image vaguely appears,
But it's hard to hold.
It fades quickly if I don't concentrate,
And it's just as well,
For I don't recognize the creature looking back at me
With its wings and flowing mane.

But I've gotten a good enough glimpse to wonder
If I might be able to fly.
I'm going to try,
But I'm sure,
That I'll have to work that, too.

-Jenn

Well I guess I have arrived
At the ripe old age
Where cashiers and waitresses
And other people that I don't know
And who don't know me
Think it's cute and flattering
To call me 'young lady.'
But I'm tellin ya right now,
Y'all better cut that shit out
Cause that is pissin me plum off.

Love always,
jenn

I share my dinner with a fly.
I wish I didn't know
That it regurgitates on everything it lights upon.
I wish I didn't know about a lot of things,
Like eyebrow worms
And itch mites
And insults
And that disregarded feeling one gets
From sharing her dinner with a fly.

-jenn

I remember one day that my grandmother braided my hair
In an old world style,
A Dutch braid, as she fashioned it.
She used a million bobby pins,
Because my hair was what she called 'flyaway hair.'
I felt her hands scrabble across my scalp
Picking up strands of my hair like a peanut combine
And laying them back down in harvested rows
Poof! I was transformed into a goddess,
A junior one, at least, for I certainly didn't know how to make this braid
And couldn't have done it by myself.

Now please don't get the picture that this was an every day occurrence.
It was not.
This was something very rare and very special,
And I wished the braid would last forever,
But in just one hour,
My flyaway hair proved
Too much for the old world braid,
And just how useless bobby pins are
In the hair of a post-postmodern six-year-old at play.

And I think my grandma saw that too,
And maybe that's why she never bothered
To braid my hair again,
But only brushed it for me now and then
And let me and it fly.

-jenn