They Took Everything Except One Odd Thing

Singly focused on one thought filling the mind
an instinctual rage that the camp was attacked
the outsider crossed from them into us.
I'm driven by a need to attack only barely aware of what I don't know.

They had said you have been robbed.
No, they said, sorry to hear about it
and I knew not about what
pointed in a direction, I spit nails
     pounded them into the ground
           with each step.

Only after the police left
did my mind empty.
After being so full of just one thought
my mind was blank
I wandered aimlessly around the crime scene, my apartment.

If it was worth taking it was gone.
I wasn't even staring at the empty spots
or filling the incomplete list of what was gone, what was missing,
just wandering like the way you enter a room with purpose and then forget what it was
searching for what was missing from me
what had been but was now an emptiness.
Truth be told in this modern age
they took everything except one odd thing:
my desire for things material -- objects that do not fill the loneliness of emptiness inside
would that I could leave the chain off
leave the door unlatched on the place
where my desire to consume is housed.

interpretation perspective

As I turn the corner, I find a woman is blocking my path. "Bad dog," she berates her sweet eyed black lab. His disheveled fur seems in conflict with his seeing eye dog sign that is strapped to the handle bar that is strapped to him. But despite his appearance, this is not a day off for him. I hear her say "that's a bad seeing eye dog that eats lettuce off the floor."

I flash back to my dad repeating the command "drop it" to our family dog as he ate something accidentally dropped on the kitchen floor. The repetition continued until the unintended snack was finished.

The hallway is narrow in the restaurant, so I wait for her to move and then I follow her as she heads to the restrooms. The woman and the dog push by a man who tries to give her distance though she is unaware of him. In so doing he gives up his place in line. She is speaking to another woman who's explaining that there are only two bathrooms, one men, one women. The men's room door opens and a man exits. The man who was waiting in line squeezes by and goes in. The blind woman asks what happened and when she hears she opines that both rooms are the same, why didn't they use the available rest room. Her companion explains that the man had been waiting there before them but otherwise she agrees the rooms are the same.

The woman's room door opens and a toddler toddles forward before raising his arms in alarm his body rigid. He lets out a little yelp as he locks his eyes on the dog who is panting, surveying the room, and uninterested in the boy. The stalemate ends as the companion pulls the dogs snout towards her. Happy, expectant eyes from the dog look upward to the companion who's holding him still. The mother pushes her son forward and he keeps his distance from the dog as he passes, the dog still unaware. The mother's voice faintly reaches me from the other end of the hall. She is complaining that pets are not allowed in the restaurant. The companion enters the women's room and announces there is only room for one.

The men's room door opens. Out walks the man and I wonder: Will the blind woman go in? Is it insulting if I suggest to her that the men's room is available?

A man behind me in line taps my shoulder, "Hey, uh, you going in?"

There's too much to explain I think. I answer yes. As the door clicks behind me I hear the blind woman say, "what a rude boy" which given my approaching fortieth birthday I decide to take the compliment in the age of my voice. There are so many perspectives I think as I relieve myself.

Story: Writers Retreat

When I went as an unknown to the writer’s retreat it was not long before word traveled and I was approached. My status as one without status held a certain intrigue, so after breakfast and while on my way to the garden, two women stopped me. As round themselves as their old fashioned glasses and with words of excitement, ready for spring, much like their sun dresses, they asked what I was working on.

I’m not sure if I was bluntly honest because I was making an effort to be son in my writing or maybe I wanted to erect antisocial walls in which to set up my papers and desk in peace. But whatever the true reason, I did say to them, “I’m working on crap.”

Their eyes widened just a bit, but it takes only a few trips round the art circles to bring you to an artist who is shocking for the sake of being shocking. So maybe they wrote me off as that (though it would have meant more writing for them than they were used to).

I decided to fill the pause hovering between us with an explanation. “I always start with nothing, but I give it a chance. If I help it along and nurture it a bit maybe it gets some life. On rare occasions it is more than worthless and I share it with others. But in those cases I’m not sure if I’ve written it or if its written itself. I have trouble even remembering putting those words to paper. So maybe its true when I say that all I ever write is crap.”

And those two, they looked blankly at me. Wondering if the words had just been in my head but not spoken, I decided to leave. Maybe they knew I came here to be alone with my work. Like a couple that had hard times, we needed some quiet time together to find ourselves, our us.

But not today. I wished my fellow writers well and the offered me some “good inspirations.” I excused myself as I turned to leave.

I walked past the garden and looked at the little town below. Today I would take some time on my own. My relationship had some issues and I’d just realized another. As too often happens with too much time, I wasn’t appreciating it for what it was and what it was to me. I was trying to mold it to my idea of what it was. Tomorrow we’d become reacquainted. Today I needed just a little more time to myself.