Fred Aiken Writing

if my life was a Word document, then I’m pretty sure it would be pretty short,

have a whole bunch of run on sentences, with fragmented thoughts yet to be completed,

and a crap-load of spelling errors,

         so there would all those red and blue squiggly lines all throughout the document

as it went on and on about how my life did this, or maybe didn’t do this, or perhaps should

have done this, but I got too distracted and ended up doing something entirely different

for decades when I should have been focusing on something more important,

and it would feel incomplete and disjointed,

and by the end of the document I could imagine myself going through it once again, and trying to edit 

the parts I didn’t like about my life, but the document was programmed as Read Only

so I had no ability to change any of it,

          yet somehow it keeps going for a prolonged period of time, almost to the extent

that I begin to wonder, when the hell is my story going to end, though I guess I shouldn’t complain,

it’s just hard not to read something that you have no control over its content before

wondering where the point is and how can I just skip ahead to the good parts,

instead of reading all the times I thought about killing myself,

or was rejected from universities and publishers and a variety of different jobs,

because I wasn’t qualified, or smart enough, or talented,

but I keep reading all the parts where I get hopeful and start imagining

that maybe everything will be okay for the main character in my Word document,

it might be a bumpy road, but inevitably I guess I need to think that it will all lead somewhere good,

until it doesn’t,

it ends…finally

I wonder what sort of whore I would be,

          you know,

if I could get into that sort of thing.

 

perhaps I would get into fights

         with other prostitutes,

         and wake up in a strange bed almost every night.

 

or maybe it’s like every other 9-to-5,

         and I’d clock in,

         then clock out,

                    you know,

whenever I finished whoring.

 

though I’m certain I wouldn’t have many

         repeat customers,

         though I’m told that’s not a huge deal.

fancy cellulite flopping in syncopated rhythms,

as we try to find an orgasm in a void,

despite no maps,

trails leading the way,

or clues as to what I’m doing,

what either of us are doing is a mystery

that not even Scooby and the gang could decipher,

yet we muscle through it,

touching,

sweating,

bodies counting each other’s molecules for lice

sitting far below the surface,

under a needle prick,

we find a way to become transcendently naked,

as life postpones itself in a circular motion,

and we heave,

and we hoe,

down through a mystic grove,

until we reach it,

until we grab for it,

until we make it up and call it a day,

wait,

is that your cat?

why is she looking at me like that?