Things Only a Really Fat Guy Would Understand, Part 22

When you've maintained for three years, but your pant size still keeps getting bigger. 

End. 

Things Only a Really Fat Guy Would Understand, Part 21

When you're the big spoon but you feel so far away. 

End. 

Monday, No.

I haven't written anything this weekend.

I didn't edit the video of my family's interviews.

I didn't go swimming or even for a walk.

I did cook a meatloaf and a pork roast. 

I did watch many episodes of the Clone Wars. 

I have many long naps after sleeping in. 

I am dreading going back to work tomorrow. 

I am worried that there still a week until pay day.

I am looking for an excuse to schedule a holiday. 

Sometimes I just need a weekend after my weekend. 

How am I more tired now than I was on Friday?

It seems being unproductive has produced very little.

I should have made something. 

I should have written something. 

I should have gone for a swim. 

End. 

Summer X, At the Lake

Under hydrated

Sweaty

Heavy jeans stick to my legs

Mayflies black 

Whip thin tails

A dozen hang in a spider's web

Under shade tree 

Reading

Moving to stay out of the sun

Cicadas sing

Buzzing

I think I may go for a swim

The lake is still

Refreshing

The sun beats down in waves

Floating peaceful

Resting

On a Saturday afternoon

End.

Summer IX, Playing With Matches

The house went up like kindling

Years of growing, learning, loving

Gone

I knew every floorboard's creak

The hidden places in the basement

Dark

Now fire truck bright flashing lights 

A flood of city water rains down

Heavy

The fire, along with our belongings

The pictures, clothes, and books

Crushed

Years of memories now reduced

To wet, bruised, ash-covered

Kindling

End.

Summer VIII, Polar Vortex / Pizza Feast

This polar vortex thing again

We order two large pizzas

It's summer in Kansas

But the wind is cool and strong

My daughter eats three slices

One for each of her years

The hops in my beer taste like pine

I lean back in my chair and smile

We all over eat

A pizza feast for three

Then carry the rest home in boxes

To eat cold on Saturday morning

End.

Playing House, Part 1

This needs qualifying. 

I only want to say three things, and I promise they are not excuses. They have, however, been an important part of me being able to forgive myself, heal, and live a normal life. 

One. I was only a child when these things happened.

Two. I had no understanding of what I was doing. 

Three. We never had sex. 

Due to years of repression, and the shock of the moment, I cannot remember things exactly as they happened. I remember it like a film nior scene. Words will not serve to fully describe the night my father found us. 

He stood filling my doorway, silhouetted against the light outside my bedroom. Only one time since have I ever felt a fear so crippling. 

I remember he told her to go get dressed. 

I only remember one thing he said to me that night. 

"I want to kill you."

I spent the rest of the day thinking he would. After all, isn't that what I deserved? I knew what I was doing was wrong; but I also knew it was the only way to make me feel normal after my penis got hard. 

The weeks that followed were filled with shame, sleeplessness, and agony. Mostly, at my own hand. 

This shit was way to heavy. I remember one other thing my dad said to me later that day. 

"Do you know why you are in so much trouble? Because what you did was an adult thing, so you are in an adult amount of trouble." These words were spoken with a heartbroken tone, and I remember feeling how hurt he really was. I don't think he was able to fully comprehend the situation much better than I was. 

I'm a dad now, and I can say with certainty that I have no idea how I would respond. 

I plan on sharing this story in parts as I can. I need to talk to the people involved before I share more details. 

The reason I am writing at all is this. If we are ever going to stop hypocrisy, we need to be willing to step up first. Before I can tell others to share their stories, I must first be honest about mine. 

They say the truth will set you free. I have just begun a quest to find out if that is true. 

End.

Enemy

Nothing fills me with fear

Like blank paper staring back

At my blank fearful mind

End.

Another

I know it is wrong to fall in love with a boy. 

I know it is wrong, but my heart aches nonetheless. 

When I think about his curly hair or his bright green eyes, I feel a familiar lump form in my chest. 

When we're together, I try to play it cool. I push it down, I change the subject and try to think about anything else. The growing murmur becomes a rushing train in my ears. Despite every effort to the contrary, I always act like a schoolboy when we hang out; trying to constantly impress but acting like a fool. Later, I chastise myself for being so awkward.

When we are apart, which is most of the time, I replay our exploits in my mind: 

Late night galavanting

Dinner parties

Shouting and nonsense and music

Blurry bars and subway rides

Most fondly, I remember the car ride through the suburbs when I rested my head on his shoulder. I still remember the smell of his body, and the sound of his voice resonating through his chest. 

I can't control my bitter jealousy either. I am intensely resentful of his closer friends. I flush at the thought of all of the people who get to spend more time with him than me. 

Sometimes, I think about the time we kissed at a party. It was only a dare, but I can still feel his stubble on my cheek. 

More than anything, I long for a single sign. A few words or a touch that shows he loves me just as much... even if it's not in the same way. 

End. 

Affirmations

You are more powerful than the sum of you fears. 

Embrace your flaws, my love,

And become the man you always knew you were meant to be. 

~~~

Don't be afraid of the awkward child still living in your heart, fearful of not fitting in. 

Always be yourself. 

All of yourself. 

Those who love you will surely stay. 

~~~

You are not your mistakes. 

~~~

Feed the wolf you want to live. 

Crown him, like Max, the king; and let the wild rumpus start. 

~~~

Of all the people who might see you as fat, you are by far the most critical and the most hurtful. 

You wouldn't let anyone else put you down like that. 

So why would you do it to yourself?

~~~

You have the most beautiful blue eyes. 

~~~

You are unique. 

Don't try to be anyone else, and no one else will ever be like you. 

~~~

Stop worrying about fucking up. 

You have done some shit in the past and yet you are still here, healthy, loved, and whole. 

~~~

The only person telling you what you can and cannot do is yourself. 

End.

Summer VII, Power Outage

Rain, rain, thunder

Illumination

Power's out

Sirens in the distance

Child and wife tucked in

Sleeping, dreaming

I'm awake

The storm reminds me of ocean sounds

Takes me back to when I was a child

The swell and crash, the rumble

Nature's patterns rise and fall

A distant memory is like time travel

And the Kansas waves crest and tumble

Carrying me back to the coast

End. 

Old Material: Bison Moon

We sat on the peeling, white-washed porch. Creaking rocking chairs and singing cicadas. The cool, damp breeze smelled of ozone and the coming storm. We were due for it, and the corn shuddered in anticipation. 

I sipped my sweating iced tea and watched the evening air turn yellow-green. It was soon that eerie color which bespeaks cyclones, or at the very least hail. The cats ran under the porch, and the sheep began bleating in the barn. Whipping and tearing about, the wind slammed against the house - it seemed to have dropped ten degrees in as many minutes. 

Growing up in the flint hills, I could call a bad thunderstorm three days in advance. It was in the way the colors brightened and the air smelled like freshly tilled dirt. Now, lightning danced in the distance, towing billowing black clouds the size of mountains. The thunderbirds tore about in the cosmos, and heavy hammers landed deafeningly on the anvils in the sky. 

I turned and smiled at my wife of forty-some-odd years. This was going to be a good one. 

She brushed silver bangs from her face. We held hands and waited. The tin roof over us offered some protection from the arms of stinging rain and bludgeoning hail. When the storm finally rolled in over us, we would duck inside, soaked and cold, but laughing and grinning. We loved the storms. The thrill was like a time machine, bringing us back through the years of turmoil and famine. Back through the days of children becoming adults and having children of their own. Down past the times they grew up and moved on. 

That particular storm landed like the very wrath of God on our little farm. I remember the demolished shed and the trees torn limb from limb. 

Briefly, late in the night, the moon broke through the shadows and revealed the damage. I stood at my window, a wrinkled skeletal frame in striped boxers. It seemed impossibly large that night, the moon, it seemed to fill up the whole sky. I saw the split rail fence uprooted and the river of mud running through our front yard. 

I couldn’t sleep. The adrenalin which had come with the storm was still running strong, and my hands shook. My wife lay in our feather bed, tucked deeply in a tangle of hand-woven quilts. I lit a hurricane lamp and smelled the sulfur and the burning oil. A small black puff of smoke. 

Carefully, I crept to the top of our creaking stairs and climbed down. She could sleep through a thunderstorm but a flushing toilet would wake her like an air raid siren. I went to the linen closet and wrapped my shoulders in a shawl. The rain was starting up again. A whip of lightning cracked on the horizon. 

What I needed was a glass of warm milk. The gas stove lit and the sauce pan on, I got down the vanilla and the sugar, like I had so many times before. It was a remedy my mother had taught me when I was a little boy. When prayers for sleep had failed, and tossing and turning grew weary, that sweet, warm, frothy cup of vanilla milk would knock me right out. It never failed. As I was whipping up a cup, my mostly golden retriever mix padded in from her bed in the living room. Before it got too hot, I poured some milk in her bowl and ran my fingers through her thick, curly fur. 

The storm was really picking back up now. Crashings and thunderings ebbed and flowed with the rushing rain. In my corduroy chair, in the darkest hours of the night, I sipped warm milk and watched the shadows dance on my walls. My mutt curled up at my feet, and I welcomed the company. 

A few hours before sunrise, I crept back upstairs and snuck into our bed. My wife had kept the mattress warm; and my pillow was deep. Sleep soon overcame me, and with it with dreams of buffalos and ancient spirits dancing under the heavy sky. A giant silver orb of disproportionate grandeur hung in the heavens. 

There hasn’t been a storm quite like that sense. No less than seven tornadoes had torn about the grasslands that night. It was a wonder both our barn and house had made it through unscathed. 

The very next day, we got five phone calls from our children making sure we were still alive. I even got to talk to my first great grandchild. I say talk, but she mostly just cooed. It hardly matters because your heart breaks just the same. 

End.

Post Script: This is an old, mostly unedited story I wrote last minute for a contest of some sort. I'm glad it didn't win, because it's objectively not very good and the stories that came out on top were marvelous. Posted today because I was surprised it hadn't been yet.