Kurt Vonnegut Said 

"There are two types of people in this world. Good guessers and bad guessers." 

I was a bad one. 

I thought maybe, 

You were the calm before the storm

You were the storm

             &

I was a sail boat 

Weathered and Weathered 

Crashing into the rocky bay 

my body is not a fucking billboard for you to stare

at my hips were not made for your enjoyment the feeling

of your eyes drilling holes into the back of my

head do not make me feel beautiful your catcalls

are not a compliment no I am not starved for attention

let's get one thing straight: I wear dresses because I want to

fucking wear dresses not for you but for me

I'm not a bitch if I say no and I'm not a slut if I say yes

you are not the king stop putting yourself on a pedestal

I am not required to bow down to you and I never will

I know who I am I am confident enough to not care what you

think of me; my standard in beauty is not how many guys

want to fuck me it is not measured by how many boys

whisper about me to their friends you do not

have any influence on my self-worth I do not wear makeup

to prove to you that I am pretty do not assume anything

about me I am not your history textbook you know nothing

about me and if you did it wouldn't matter because all you

care about is how pretty I look and not who I actually

am and that makes all the difference

(h.l.)

Its never too late to mend

As you can always try to change

Change for the better

As you will find yourself to be fitter

To tackle all situations and hurdles in life.

This was an advice,

by my teacher,

who wished me success in all my strive.

Its never too late to mend

But why mend when you can bend

The rules, regulations and trends

Said my good friend.

In today's times all things rhyme

If you know the right tunes

You can play along the dunes.

All you need are mighty strings

And deep pockets to make things swing.

Its never too late to mend

I think of this line often

But to practice this sometimes I soften,

with the need of time I let myself knead

Also plead,to gain desired lead.

But its never too late to mend

Is a simple advice to lend.

Weeping blood

traces limbs

outlining juice

claret mourning

baby crimson drops

blanketing

bloodbath of my soul

misjudged the depth

sharpness of dagger

plunged in your heart

pulled it out

sanguine bursts

bathe us both

shadow of you

can’t be erased

I’m encased

trail of blood

oblivion of essence

hasty conclusion.

Growing up, my parent's friends used to joke we were like little fish, us girls who spent most of our free time in the pool or ocean, swimming and playing. I wasn't a fish though, none of us were.

It was a stereotypical sunny day at a Florida waterpark, I was about ten years old and unafraid of water in any quantity, depth or turmoil. There were three height options to choose from, in which cliff you wanted to jump off of.

I wanted the highest cliff they offered-- 50 feet, so I waited in line with my Twin.

Along the slatted path of ramps and periodic stairs up to the top, there where signs everywhere advising guests how to jump. NO DIVING emphasized big and bold with little pictures to make sure there was no confusion.

Oh, there was no confusion. I understood perfectly. You could easily break your neck if you hit the water wrong-- but I also felt like those signs where akin to the ones next to a pool advising you the water is too shallow to dive, when really you  could dive in the shallows, you just had to arch your back and shoulders up as soon as you hit the water.

I was an experienced swimmer. I had half a decade under my belt in a wide variety of aquatic situations. I'd passed every mermaid test my older sister and her friends came up with. I could hold my breath almost three-minutes if I was still and calm enough. I could swim a mile out into the big-bad ocean and back without drowning. I had this.

The whole way to the top I considered my dive.

"They can't stop me, once I jump .. that's it, I'm off, no turning back." I rationalized. "Treat it like a shallow dive so you don't go too deep," I told myself, "worst case, you swim to the bottom and push off to surface faster." A repeated mantra thought whenever the conversation with my Twin tapered.

At the top, there's a Park Attendant vocally reminding jumpers of all ages, to cross their arms over their chest and jump feet first. Most of them did, only a few flailed their arms out in a reactive impulse. When it was my turn, I nodded doe-eyed and innocent as I was given the same speech, pausing on the line in compliance, waiting for the previous jumper to clear the water.

It was in those moments, as I took a few breathes to prepare myself, that my heart began to race like a Thoroughbred out of the Kentucky Derby gate. Even now I'm not sure if I was more excited about diving off a 50 foot cliff, or diving off a 50 foot cliff because it was against the rules.

When I was given the go-ahead, my smirky-side-glance was the only warning the Park Attendant got before I sprang off the edge of the cliff with my arms out like the Olympic divers I'd seen on TV.

The fall didn't even seem to take a full second.

My hands pierced the water first, as intended, it was a good dive but with such momentum on impact I couldn't hold the formation, or arch my back like I'd meant to. I let myself coast to a stop in the water, glancing up past my feet I could tell I was deeper down than I thought I'd be. My child mind thought about it for a moment before I took a few breast-strokes further into the blue, thinking I could spring up and save myself some effort; only, in doing so, I realized it was arguably a further swim to the bottom than the light above...

I misjudged everything.

"ShitShitShit!" I thought, a tick of panic which burned up more oxygen than I had to spare, making my swim to the surface that much more of a challenge.

As I righted myself I desperately wished for a breath of air, yet had no idea how much more I'd crave it before I broke the water-line. Hands cupped like little paddles, I carved them in toward my chest and hooked out with as much even-power as I could manage, trying to establish a pace... five, six, and seven strokes in I felt the panic creeping back.

Eight, nine and ten, I didn't seem to be any closer to the flickering light of daylight I was swimming toward. I began to question if I had enough air in my lungs to make it, yet I kept swimming, determined not to stop until my face was out of the water. Somewhere between strokes fifteen and twenty, I lost the ability to count.

I could feel my lungs shrinking with the lack of breath, willing me to inhale and fill them again. I grit my teeth and continued to paddle, helpless to observe my pace faltering with the ache of muscles running low on oxygen. Helpless to prevent the frown trying to pull my lips apart or the lump in my throat threatening to finish the choking I'd already started.

I could tell by then, I was closer to the surface but it still looked so far away. I knew I didn't really have enough breath in my lungs to make it. I knew I was going to start feeling the vacuum of need grip my chest with the convulsion to inhale. "Don't do it." I thought, "Don't you do it.." thought with anger and desperation. Swimming like a teeter-todder because I could no longer coordinate my arms to work together.

When I ascended high enough in the water it began to look more shallow, bright and clear, there was hope. It snuck up on me the same way the fog of a blackout seemed to be rolling in, yet it was just enough hope to will me onward, "Just keep swimming," I told myself, like 'Finding Nemo' long before the movie came out. While I had the will to make it to the surface, my body was fighting for the ability to complete my journey.

My arms and legs started to shake with every hooking paddle and kicking push, like a car engine sputtering on fumes. The sucking sensation in my lungs began to extend to the rest of my body, up my neck clamping around the urge to cry, which only seemed to make my need to breathe more pressing. As I felt my head start to throb to the cadence of my war-drum of a heart and my body jolt with the compulsive need to suck in air, I couldn't keep my fingers together to cup the water anymore.

"Don't do it, don't, don't do it, just don't even open your mouth" I thought as my swimming became more frantic, more like clawing and climbing through the cool embrace of chlorinated waters. Those last few seconds were choppy with mini-black-outs and skewed perception, somewhere amid which I'd opened my mouth. Convulsing like a fish on a deck I felt a little water break the choked seal of my throat and I thought I was done for.

The violent desperation to breathe forced me to use one hand to plug my nose and to give up whatever stale air I had left in those caving windbags to clear the water from my throat and lungs. I felt like my entire body was going to implode...

But it didn't.

Somehow, I made it, I broke the surface with a gasping thrash that filled my lungs so fast I choked on it. I had to cough a few times to open my windpipe back up and when I did the sudden flow of air made my head spin.

"You okay?" The Lady Lifegaurd asked, standing up on her perch over the waters, no longer shaded by her umbrella. One of many who seemed to be on their toes waiting for me to pop up.

"I'm good!" I yelled as if I hadn't just been swimming for my life.

"No more jumping for you." She shouted back plainly, not bothering to chastise me for diving.

"Yeah, no-shit Lady" I thought, waving my hand at her instead, and then swimming across the surface toward the stairs as quickly as my shaky and tired body would let me.

|| another_proser ||

driving home this past Thursday I passed a rodent that was halfway to roadkill. his head was smeared on the asphalt and aesthetically punctuated by the protruding fragments of his fractured skull. still, though, he thrashed against the yellow lane line and swung his small fists at the air because he still believed he could survive. i went wondering home and i've been laying ever since in bed next to the bullet.

The child

knows what goes on inside the 

wooden door. 

The child hears the man yell

and the woman scream. 

The child know that there,

is a bag packed for the yelling man.

The child know that when 

the yelling man stops yelling, 

the screaming woman will stop screaming. 

The child can hear what goes on

inside the wooden door,

the child doesn't tone it out

just lingers outside

the wooden door. 

The teen

knows what goes on behind the

wooden door.

 The teen knows that

the yelling mans bags are packed.

The teen knows that when the 

yelling man stops yelling then

the screaming women will stop screaming. 

The teen knows that the screaming

woman can only push so hard.

The teen can hear what goes 

on behind the wooden door even with earbuds in.

The teen knows that if the 

yelling man doesn't stop yelling 

and the screaming woman doesn't stop screaming

she won't listen anymore.  

The young adult 

knows what goes on beyond the  

wooden door. 

The young adult knows that 

the yelling mans feet are half way out the door.

The young adult knows that the 

screaming woman is pushing to hard. 

The young adult know that she can't listen any more. 

She couldn't listen anymore. 

When the yelling man 

and screaming woman found

the child, teen, and young adult 

all was silent. 

The yelling man didn't yell anymore

and the screaming woman didn't scream anymore,

because of that one girl. 

The one girl that man the yelling man 

yelling,

and the screaming woman 

scream. 

The one girl was the child that

saw the bag packed.

The one girl was the teen that

saw the screaming woman was pushing to hard.

The one girl was the young adult that saw

that yelling mans feet half way out the door. 

The one girl is now that one angle who

sees the one family with out 

there one daughter.