How Much Out-Of-Pocket Can You Pay When They're Already Turned Inside Out?

Chinese riddle for you: what gives good rant and memorizes plan details for fun? (airquote)Benefits(end airquote)?? Don't be cute. Ohhs and ahhs, like fireworks, but with more cringing. Have trouble sleeping because of a 3 hour siesta and 2 cups of coffee? Its 1 AM - do you know where your deductible is? And could you come up with it in a pinch? And how much would you be willing to pay to have a baby with me, Baby? Because there is a price tag and it is steep and I'm not even being meta, just self-employed and middle class. Land of the free to be fucked over and out; the greatest illusion ever pulled. I have misshapen corneas, but I read the fine print. Yeah, I'm one of those people; a pragmatist, and only insurable up to $5mil (both fo' life.) So, uh ... you have a maternity rider with a reasonable maximum benefit and no waiting period? Stop it, you're making me wet.

Lip Service and Dynamic Stall

Here's me pretending not to care that you don't; a blushing baroness in a bright biplane doing aeronautical acrobatics, full of nail-biting, mid-air, semantic collisions. Do you remember when we met? I wanted to tell you how much I loved you immediately but I wasn't sure if I'd ever see you again. I thought you were divine, and maybe I even still think that, in secret, a little, but don't tell anyone. I look at the taut skin on my small, abused hands and I think to myself, "You don't have very much fight left in you, Old Girl. Not enough to go another twelve." And maybe I even believe that, in secret, a little, but don't tell anyone. If free will is an illusion, it is a convincing one.

Fucking To The Rhythm Of A High Hat

And we don't need a good reason, just like everybody else don't, for their things. Things things. Their whatever things. Hooray for naughty naughty and sore backs, for packed up attics and hamburgers ate, for the marrying kind and their wayward musicians. For men who do laundry and for women who write. Right. Ahh, remember the good ole days when the only work was Man's Work and an American ten could buy a Mexican dime? Yeah, me either.

So, she says to me, she says, "Women always do most of the work." I wish I could agree, Sister, but I know better, so I'll just nod, smile all bright-eyed, and lie by ommission, because I don't want to risk my membership, or status therein, but then I had to say something stupid and put your running list to shame, Criminal, my original Shit-Pop-Off-er and Jack-Off-In-'Er.

"But do you respect that?"

"I respect people who value independent, ethical thought and who aren't so tractable that they automatically believe the first inanity that pops into their head... or that's been planted there..."

"Come again? 'Cause I couldn't hear you over the crickets."

No, no, what she really said was, "I need a dictionary to talk to you! LOL LOL."

No, what you need is a Thiopental beer with a Halothane chaser and to remember that your husband's will is not yours to break, just like your spirit isn't his to. There is a difference between regret and a death wish and I've gone through some shit, too, and I'm not better for it, but I know my limits; and the difference between being feeling under-appreciated and perilously clinging to the waxy threads of sanity. But you're right. No one should be unhappy ever. But enough about you. What I need is to quit being so me and just be the pretty, eternal twenty-something, urbanite party girl I was born and bred to be because I was never a bad baby nor a bad kid, just a bad girl always throwing shit off the cliff just to hear the howls and see the shards. Lucky for me, the queso came and I ran out of cigarettes.

Perspective and perspicacity; easy come, easy go, like the radio signal to a dirty aerial.

The Shit Is Bananas.

Um, yeah. I'll have a number five, plain, super-sized, with an unsweet ass tea. Do I care for a McRib? No, thanks, I choose life.

What do you want for America's favorite generic consumer holiday? Some real get-down shit? Sorry, all I gots to give is second-hand chain smoke and mirrors coughed in a dead noble fir's general direction. Definitely, this is the wrong place to be because its dark getting darker, and we ain't doin' nothin' but droppin' every g we see, cookin' shit up and airin' it out, knowin' only enough to wing it by the skins of bloody noses not our own, dancin' in the long shadows cast by our glow-in-the-dark slime, and makin' money off of broken brains basting in cyanide syrup, like easter eggs; today's a good day to dye. Universal emptiness, sectarian vehemence. Zeal, zest, zing. More grams than Teddy make this rock roll. Spin. Spun. Quash. Wince. Repeat.

Wish (taken for) granted.

My Own Personal, Private, Anti-Establishmentarian, Black Hole

Skip this, and take me to my dashboard. I feel more like the sticker shock of a well-placed toaster in a bathtub than I do like Sally Field's most infamous performance. Just A SwtSuthernHoney Looking 4 Whatever, those types look for; to be taken care of in the ways that matter in a way that counts; a shinning night in amour with grass in my hair. Like no one else you've ever met, so you say, as far as you know. Pleasure or displeasure is your call, but a gentleman would avert his eyes. You never? I never. Well, I never...

Did somebody just say "vasectomy"? Well, it does kind of rhyme with "tubal ligation" so you can understand my confusion, and I misheard you or you misspoke because I thought you said "career suicide" or some other thing that I, personally, think is a cop-out. And I said so, too, because that's what I do. I do? I will, in private. Because its not about the piss in a cup, its about the twist of an arm in the greatest power struggle on earth and everyone just wants to get their way; their big white dress and their big fat rock and their big fat house, and no and/or about it. Did somebody just blink?

Lucky for you, you're married to a saint with an angel for a baby. Your daughter is a narc and your wife is swooning.

Can't Never Did Nothin'

I never wanted to be one of those girls - the aboveboard boy crazy - but my, how you speak your heart with your hands. I'm so bourgeoise and you're so ... so. But so not so-so. So, were you there earlier? Because, you mighta not noticed, being blinded by the Benzos and the Beemers on the curb, but I come from noblesse oblige even if I do live on the border of Bidonville and try to play footsie during grace. And I never say "amen." But what's an earth without maps? Amen! Ahem.

I always thought that I would marry a man who would come and sit next to me on the bench while I played Bach and he would wrap his arms around me and kiss my neck and, right before an inverted contrary motion B minor arpeggio, I would say to him, "Here. This is for you."

Here. This is for you.

Look Right Through Me.

I have been with you for a fairly long time so I've been wondering, would it be okay for me to call you mine? Because some things are easier done than said and some words are heavier than their corresponding illustrations. And I do not think it a coincidence that you love the sound of lips parting and I love the sound of kisses smacking and I know it may seem like a stretch, considering I don't believe in things like determination or fate, but it is fragmented thoughts like this that buoy my heart when I am missing you to death.

C'mon evvverrryboddeee!

Don your cashmere and your velvet and your corduroy!

Au voiture!

Au chateau!

Come now, and don't be so very shy or too very nervous, just because you're the quintessential "not good enough for my boy" girl. The 'All-ugh-days are here, in all their Spode sparkley splendor, and could you be a dear and please pass the thorazine with all the crucifixins'? Because I need more helping and I hate to reach. Now say a prayer to our patron saint, St. George of Bataille: one for the nicotine and two for the lost art of mercy and three for the capricious dreams held at bay and four for the latent personality defects your mother always warned you about, like cereal homomyn abuse and such. Amen. Tell me, now, what's new with you (because I'm not sick enough to guess.) Oh, reaaaaally? Can I interest anyone in a slice of infidelity served on a bed of satellite syndication? Full already, Brother? Now, may I please be excused? My plate is clean and brain is washed and I'd like it so very much if I could just go set a spell by the warm(ed-over) fire, cautiously unwrap some very fine products, and carve holiday designs into myself.

No Exceptions.

There are two doors between us but there is nothing that can bring me down from a late night high of love's realization: sentiments broken into tiny pieces. I'm (not) sorry if that was too god of an analogy. Summer's ship sailed when the sticky night lost its breath and even though its now pale mid-November things are the same as they ever were: sleeping alone is colder than not by several orders of magnitude and I still don't have any words to describe things like the transubstantiation that occurs when you trace my lips with your fingers and I am still naive enough to believe that demonstrative love can rescuitate even the most fractured orphans.

Steal Compass/Drive South/Disappear

I trailed off when I said, "But doesn't that make you feel just a little ill? I mean, the conspicuous..." because its a mad ad lib and you can fill in that blank with any void of your choice but some suggestions are:

lies
violence
oligarchy
consumerism
disinterest in being decent
disregard for the sanctity of monogamy
fascination with naked walls of human skin

But, having no stones, I threw words. And having no sense, I was beaten within an inch of my life by the rule mob that considers exploitation a sacrament. Its hard being a semi-guileless girl in a culture based on deceit and perpetuated by fear. This is an experiment in honesty, teenaged make-play suicide threats made out of a genuine desperation for something that tells the truth. I am afraid that the time is gone for honest men and I sure smoke a lot of cigarettes and my vision is degrading daily and nearly every night I dream of being betrayed and abandoned over and over and over again. But I guess that you could say that I'm an optimist.

Because we're all one naked moonlit stroll away from a vacation.

Hemlock Febrility

Baby, I can't tell for sure the reason why I am the way I am. Its kind of like being in a darkened room and seeing a closed and locked door across the way with light creeping out from under the bottom -- what's really going on in there? Touch is a dressing to my wounds, a purred lullaby that collapses the Jericho Wall of my mind and skin is like a muslin veil that catches all my curdled badness and allows the delicate to seep out. The slow-steady rise-fall gives way to a warm that melts the rime and leaves exposed the gaping holes in my ... finished.

Now write me something nice in your pre-dawn post-coital hours and remind me that I am worth something because we all need reminding sometimes.

I just needed you to notice.

Reason To Believe In More; Semi-Colon Serenade

Oh, baby, do you feel squishy and are your arms puffing? Yeah, I know what you mean and no, I don't know what its called, except for being human; and only just. What I do know is staring into space; helps. And when you feel like that, find consolation in knowing that there is less; to go wrong. If you can't trust yourself for at least one minute each day, you should trust in this, because your truths are more benign than your malignancies, but I know, baby, I know; it takes a long time just to get it all straight, to pray it all away, in the way that people who don't pray; pray.

You just have to;
wake up.

And find something;
beautiful and real to hold on to.

Now, press your lips against it;
until you find some sense of yourself.

Or, you can just lay low, in wait, at my locked door, weapon in hand; and do the humane thing. Only death, and the other dulcet lies people tell one another; when they place rings on crossed fingers. But at least its truthful hypocrisy.

"Is it spiked," she asked, clearly pleased with herself.

As for honesty, I'll tell you honestly; do the math. Like your gone ain't gone and creeping down the back stairs for dates with strangers. But that's a lie, too, no? Yes. Because telling the truth can be bad for your health, just ask half my scars; real and imagined badges of courage. In time, it became too much, too very goddamned much, and I decided that I was done with it. But you're bound to find hidden keepsakes from all of the people you've loved. The love, the hate, and the things that separate; thrown clumsily by kid gloved hands into a pyre of busted eggshells. And all I really wanted was for someone to love my silent and lonely parts, my parts too afraid to speak and parts too stealthy for eyes. We all go downtown sometimes, but don't sing songs into my lips; just breathe this burn before your bubble of interest bursts. The cadaverous mob eats smirching secrets and drinks blushing ambition, so don't feed it because we deserves more. Don't cheat me out of what I have earned; because you are so terrified.

I am not a lie.

Pull The Wires From The Wall

Excuse me, Herr Docktor? How many wombs of bivalve mollusks must you rob to try to buy back the unbuybackable years and is your joy-to-shit ratio high enough yet? Excuse me, Messrs. JP Morgan Chase Stanley Goldman Sachs Smith Barney Deuche? Do you know the price of proximity and: are you willing to pay it? Excuse me, Cheft? There's a micro-dot in my Angostura Bitters and I ordered my nacre-covered grit over an hour ago.

Slow sleeping despair is a luxury and is there anyway you could break this hour for me? Because what I really need is minutes. Even in rot movies, infidelity makes me angry and sad because there is no such thing as a love triangle and doesn't anyone honor any of their commitments anymore? Or is it all just rehearsed interactions played by bad actors laid low by bad highs? I am a snob about the weirdest things but I just don't have the urge to fuck every attractive person I see. Gender is the weakest excuse for an excuse ever, but if you're ever inclined to use it, just don't ever expect me to ever buy it because I am disinclined to attribute those behaviors which have never been conclusively linked to the organic construction of the brain to penises and vaginas. It always has to come to this, but don't worry too much -- the daylight won't remember this and it will gobble up your memories like a hungry lacunal caterpillar, but when you see the handprint on the driver's side, you'll know you've found your way home. This concludes the rude interruption of your regularly-scheduled, previously-aired, pre-recorded fake love and fake hate.

What happens when you run out of words? Do you just not speak or write? Because doing that seems, to me, like when you say you can't sleep at night, but you never even get into bed to try. But I've got no suggestions.

You're right, my darling Criminal. I should've worked instead.