I carry you with me.
I carry you with me here.
Right here, in this tender spot
in this hollow space.
I carry you with me.
I carry you on the tip of my tongue
Just on the tip, so that I can
carry you with me here,
in my words, in my sounds
There. That word, that sound -
Said just as you would, just as you have
Because I carry you with me,
I carry you with me here.
Right here, in the downturn of these lips,
In that expression you wore had that carried with it a...
Rudolph ran as fast as his four legs would carry him. He had run out of fairy dust over a remote forest, and unfortunately it was deer season.
The celebrity found it hard to blend in with his shiny nose. In fact, it was damn near impossible. His snoz glowed like a blinking beacon, one the hunting party was only too glad to follow. He heard a voice, not far off, call, “I see him over here, boys!”
Damnation, but they were close!
Rudolph searched the area. Could he pull the ol' mud over the nose trick again? No, who...
There was blood on my pillow and when I woke up the right side of my mouth was swollen and swore. I rushed to the bathroom and rinsed the dried blood from my mouth. It came out in thick clumps at first, and then ran quickly as the crimson liquid. I pulled my cheeks wide and saw that three teeth were missing.
I ran back to my room, my jaw aching and throbbing with the intensity of a fire alarm. I lifted the blood stained pillow and saw three dollar bills lying there. They were crumpled and crimped but someone...
There's nothing like being in a parade to let people abandon their sense of self and do things that make them appear foolish to outsiders.
You may have seen this as a child and thought nothing of it. You may not have even noticed the people, marching lockstep, standing on top of highly embellished vehicles, or pulling desperately to prevent enormous cartoon characters from flying away. You may have just been taken in by the symmetry, music, and good cheer of it all.
Now, as an adult, there you are, dancing like a fool in full view of the entire...
Its iron heart broke in two each time it welcomed a visitor. Ironic.
Its sign was officious but it's symbolism romantic. Just like any heart, it was forged by mixed signals.
"Enter me. Break my heart in two. Leave. Break my heart again. I am only whole when I have nothing or everything."
"But once you get inside, if you have ignored my words and pulled open my heavy gates, you will still be facing a brick wall. And you may feel a moment of blank indifference that reaches inside of you and takes your hope. But before you turn...
So, give me more details, sweetie. No, not that kind of detail!
Where'd you go? What'd you eat? What'd you wear? Come on, babe, we need more, more, more!
Did he pay? Wait, I need to light up...ok, go. Credit card? Flashy. You're kidding - champagne? On a first date? Seriously flashy.
Ok, so what next? Did he leave a tip? No way, cheapskate! Bet they remember him there anyway.
And where'd he take you? His flat? What, the old "my mother's staying with me so we've got to go to a hotel" line? You're kidding - no-one really says...
Of course, Heather was twisted. Everybody knew this except Gene, so of course he was the only one who ever professed his love to her. Except Heather wanted to leave him for just this reason; who would act unabashedly and intentionally weird if she did not want to be loved for it? Heather, certainly, wanted to be loved for who she was.
The two of them were watching TV. Good-natured, his loopy grin a chipper wave at the world, Gene turned to Heather and said, "Darling, I will make you a sandwich! Stay put, don't move a finger." She looked...
The world was so close to perfect, he hated having to point out the flaws to the designer. It was his least favorite part of the job; they always took it personally. Months to design each reality, thousands of hours of effort by the design teams, but it always came down to the lead designer to take responsibility for the deliverable.
Clients were, of course, unreasonable in their expectations of what kind of world they would live out the rest of their lives. They were clients, after all. The health and happiness of a hundred thousand subsequent generations would depend...
The daring were punished.
It seemed almost contradictory, but that was how They wanted it. Ever since the capital-t-They had taken over it, a systematic reduction of risk-taking had been put into place, until the daring were trained not to dare, the mavericks removed and replaced with the mundane.
My sister Joan had wanted to be a baker. You would think that was sufficiently uninteresting for Them, but you'd be wrong - I have no idea how They found out, but after a few bottles of wine at my house, she told me her dream of opening her own bakery....
"What is it you have to do again?"
Richard pointed at the screen. "You have to get the butterflies to land on that tree."
"Which one, the one on the left?"
"No," he said, "the other one, the little one."
His son crossed his arms. "Dad, this game is so lame! I don't see how you could have played this thing. The graphics suck!"
"Hey, this is 16-bit resolution! You should have seen some of the old 8-bit side-scrolling games. The graphics on them were even worse, but they were all we had. And do you hear those sound effects?"...