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it’s just another season, right? drix was sitting across from the boy of his dreams but he didnt know it yet. sometimes it takes a catastrophe to learn how to get things right. hello cruel world.

Posted By becca Loo On 12.23.2012 @ 2:31 pm

jean was good about these things. first he would knead the clay for at least five minutes it builds arm strength plus the pug mill at the community center didn’t actually do anything aside from shaping the clay into one large cylindrical lump. he’d take his molded clay into the other room, sit down, center himself, exhale and plop. right in the middle of the wheel. then wet his hands, reinforce his elbow against his hip and press on the pedal. the clay so smooth, the excess water splashing outward all of it made him feel in control again. the world seemed easier then it usually did. not like the windy night that broke the screen door not the like the windy morning that stung his eyes and froze his fingertips. now there’s only warm water and slick possibilities. he didn’t even know what he was going to make. he’d been wanting to make a sake set but he hated sake so it seemed kind of useless. he could always sell it in some school sale. he was always told to price his “art” at a much higher rate but he really didn’t care; he wanted it to sell he didn’t want it anymore. plus lugging it around on his bike was asking for trouble he always broke pieces. he’d been getting better at gluing them back together. he used to fill in the cracks with white toothpaste until a frequent customer said their dog kept licking the vases and so now if he did glue stuff together he would tell his customers to fill it in for themselves when they got home and warn them to keep the stuff out of animal reach. somehow while he was thinking of all this the clay had turned into a small sake container. oh well i guess that’s what he wanted. his favorite part or what he imagined would be his favorite part would be pressing the indentations into the side. he liked messing with soft clay. it was a pivotal moment everything could be ruined in one motion. he scraped the excess clay off the wheel and used his wire to do a light spin, added more water to the wheel and gentle as he didn’t know he could be until he started doing ceramics he slid the bottle onto a board. he wet his hands a bit more, positioned where he thought the divots should go and first lightly touched the two spots to make a mark. then with his thumb pushed in the first. the whole bottle gave slightly and a quick thin rush of fear moved up from his belly to his chest and rested in his cheeks. he pushed the other indentation because at that point all you can do is go forward. the warp corrected itself. the tightness of fear released, he felt a small slightly shameful swell of pride. not bad for a brute. not bad for a man who used to be in prison.

Posted By becca Loo On 12.10.2012 @ 10:15 am

this one time out at marcel’s place we were planning a get together and were wondering what all else we should have beside food and alcohol and people and so since his place is real messy and it’s got lots of rubbish everywhere like old couches and picture frames and pallets and stuffed animals and wine barrels we decided to build a fire. by the time we stacked everything as high as we could and as sturdy as we could we realized it might get a little out of hand. but then again it was a get together and if something happened we would all get together and fix it or watch it play itself out. so we found some newspaper that wasn’t wet and divided it amongst 4 of us and we stuffed a few ground bloomers in the middle of them on each corner of the pyre and all at once lit them except jimmy didn’t get his time. it was alright though he ditched and the other three fires did his work for him. the fire was something to see because even if you closed your eyes you couldnt help seeing it it was like sex scenes in movies you watch with your parents or war scenes in movies you watch with old vets it kind of made you sick all above your head and still not able to touch the sky still not lighting anything up but down. it kept on like that for a while the up not changing only the down swirling its shadows like a stew of people smoke it didnt help that there were stuffed animals melting on the couches and glowing wine barrels that shifted like they were full of old winos too drunk to stand up and save themselves old yellow winos and old forgotten stuffed animals.

Posted By becca Loo On 12.05.2012 @ 11:10 pm

loaded word

Posted By becca Loo On 08.13.2012 @ 4:41 pm

my feet smell like clean dogs they walk like nimble cats they stamp like wet sand

my hands smell like fresh milk they sweat like newborn babies they wring like worried old women

your mouth a dark cavern an unsung aftershave a wet comma hanging on the fall sky of eugene, oregon

Posted By becca Loo On 05.21.2012 @ 12:04 am

my feet smell like clean dogs they walk like cats they stamp like wet sand

my hands smell like fresh milk they sweat like newborn babies they wring like worried old women

Posted By becca Loo On 05.21.2012 @ 12:01 am

tonight is even toned, a soft melody against a rather boring background. tonight someone is changing their life and wanting to share the experience but not here. here there is day old wine in glasses as big and deep as chowder bowls as to make the night seem endless. i keep dreaming of driving. driving too quickly i can’t get the speed right. i can’t slow down. what it means i only half know. somewhere someone has made a life choice they’re sticking to, but not here not yet. my mouth has made the choice but my insides know better. my insides are the car, my outside is the motion. i’m setting too many things in motion, my mouth too big for my britches. britches so big in my mouth, so good, so alluring. half toned, even toned, tell a lie the truth. my life’s become a turbine blowing a bitter sooth. it’s 26 minutes to midnight in the 26th year a familiar rebellion scratches my inner ribs, my false ribs. it tickles almost, the idea of reverting. tickles safe like an old small pink blanket not at all like the seizing tightness of the unknown grown up self. unknown grown up old future me. potential grows inside me exponentially. yuck! crap! crap shoot old new me, silly simple grown newbie. yuck! crap! crap shoot out the gun of my mouth into the middle of America, to Texas. Austin, Texas. who’d've thought? not me, the silly simple grown up newbie. little girl, little girl forever. until now.

Posted By becca Loo On 05.20.2012 @ 11:59 pm

too late today. or maybe too early. it’s been the same time everyday for the past decade. tomorrow we go to the coast. tomorrow will be different. sort of. today i make brownies. today is last night. sleepovers sleeping. over. ugh coffee and creme fraiche and soy milk and cinnamon. ugh sunlight and homework. ugh oneword.com. we don’t usually do this haphazard commentary. this truth about our dietary habits. today is still asleep. today coffee can’t cure.

Posted By becca Loo On 05.07.2012 @ 4:52 pm

it’s too late for the grapes to be saved this year i guess people’ll be drinking bourbon year round.

Posted By becca Loo On 04.19.2012 @ 4:07 pm

a room of one’s own. now i’ve got two or two and half to be exact. virginia woolf was ready for the river that received her i wonder why and and what makes one that way? what type of room did she own?

Posted By becca Loo On 04.19.2012 @ 3:57 pm

there’s power in a piece of writing, he thought late in the morning. he had just finished reading elie wiesel’s night. about the holocaust. about the burning of whole peoples. the day has started long ago and he wanted to know what else was in store now that he felt he had just died. or rather just survived death through the prose of eliezer. it was a sick and a sad feeling but also made him not want to waste the day. but maybe he should. maybe it didn’t matter because the world was so filled with evil what could it matter. what was this world worth. he was glad he did not believe in god. he was glad he did not believe in men. ego can be useful sometimes. belief in the self stronger, controllable.

Posted By becca Loo On 03.12.2012 @ 10:45 am

it’s not the light from the window or the heater on full blast it’s him. it’s him on her. if she could move she’d tell him how good it was to sweat after holding it in for so long. an afternoon tryst after an eternity of mornings. lately life was all mornings. lunch was always late breakfast, dinner late lunch. night was a mess of blurry dreams and there was no time to decipher them in the dawn darkness. but now she could feel the restorative tickle of a trickle of sweat…

Posted By becca Loo On 03.03.2012 @ 12:44 pm

“what it comes down to is a difference of opinion. now we could move to texas or utah or somewhere out of the states entirely but the more i look into it the more it looks like oregon is THE best state to live in. amazing state parks, mild weather, progressive politics, interesting people, and good beer and wine. but we already live here and we’ve seen quite a bit of it over the last six years so i’m not sure how worth it it really is to stay. i mean it’s best to travel while we’re young and we can always come back later,” george explained to daniel. it was still bright out and they were sitting over their afternoon chai tea discussing the future. daniel had heard this talk before and wasn’t sure why george kept repeating it. some people plan life because they know how bad it can be and some people plan life because they know how good it can be. george knew the good side, daniel didn’t care either way.

Posted By becca Loo On 02.28.2012 @ 1:49 pm

slick, silly jim was writing his memoir thinking someone would want to read it, but he was wrong. it was getting to be much too long but i guess that’s not really why he was writing it. he had to keep himself busy somehow and anything was better than actually having to do manual labor for a living wage. he had a lot saved up after he left the army and was just glad he got out without having to go to a war. he was actually pretty surprised that his country could go so long with out starting some shit somewhere. he was used to being pushed into other people’s business. he had grown up the only boy in a family of six. he had five sisters that needed pipes unclogged, gutters cleared, boyfriends beat up. maybe that’s why he moved so far away. he told them it was because he wanted to write and he needed space for that.

Posted By becca Loo On 02.14.2012 @ 11:32 am

a carson mccullers type carnival all hunchbacks and nipple-less women and deaf sad sulking towns people, a stalker, a cheating wife, a homosexual husband. so quiet, so southern, so simple. it’s late and the accordion player is waiting for the crowd to thin. an open air house party, an open faced calamity. it’s late and tonight is not the night for the heart attack. alison langdon can hold on for one more day. anacleto can make one more cup of hot ovaltine. one more lovers’ tryst, one more stalkers’ sleepless night, one more round of cards and drinks. today is a carnival day. today is the last happy day before the town empties.

Posted By becca Loo On 02.14.2012 @ 10:24 am

papillon busted free though it took him ’til he was 53 and no one cared about the god damn inquiry… it was a sort of foggy morning when the news came. tonight they were gonna go find out if it was true. no use worrying about it now. worry is for women or maybe i’ve been reading too much hemingway. coffee’s too hot to drink now but there wasn’t any other time for coffee so i guess i’ll burn my mouth. too many meetings. too many objectives. why did people have to DO things? always in pursuit that’s me. or has been for too long. i feel like a bad jim thompson novel all crime noir, dime store doestoevsky, beat junkie hypocrite.

Posted By becca Loo On 02.09.2012 @ 11:05 am

melancholia was right. as she sits and spins she wonders what it’s all for. sex. men. this is an afternoon tryst. a dirty floor. her shirt pulled up, her pants pulled down, her skin the cream between the oreo of her clothes. too many other things to do. it’s hard to concentrate. a paper due thursday. a test friday. 5 hours of work today. 9 hours of work tomorrow. what was the name of that song? the one with the girl who runs away. ahh she hasn’t written yet. she’s got forty-five more minutes left unless he cums earlier. spin. spin. spin. exhale. she’s hungry. she wonders if the banana is still good, if she can cut around the bruises to make one last nutella-peanut butter-banana sandwich. sometimes she thinks she’s not busy enough, sometimes too busy. she wants to move. away. from everything. a degree then nothing. no masters. no grad school. a quiet room. an internet connection. a view. a friend like a modern virginia woolf. an orbit she can follow.

Posted By becca Loo On 02.07.2012 @ 10:15 am

the holiday season brings out the grinch in him. it’s the winter solstice: the longest, darkest day of the year. a new year brings nothing new. sometimes he wonders if anything ever changes. it’s been seven years since adolescence. strange to think. strange to wonder what’s next without trying to make it happen. already life feels stagnant. his sister died when he was twenty, didn’t even get a chance to take him out for his twenty-first. he knows that’s a selfish thought. humans are selfish though and what difference does it make if he follows the status quo or more importantly what difference does it make if he doesn’t. festivus for the rest us, right? a chance to complain, to gripe, to bitch. but who is there to listen when the only family he had and cared about died five years ago. every christmas when all the shops are closed he drives out to the sisters (mountains in oregon) finds a new place to camp, a fresh place with no human footprints he hauls all his gear and feels the weight of the world. he contemplates til sundown then gets drunk and forgets it all. he used to write, he used to draw. he was never any good so he stopped. life is an experience, best to keep it that way. documentation goes to the dogs anyway, eventually, in some way or other.

Posted By becca Loo On 12.22.2011 @ 10:08 pm

the sun was setting as the kids waited for the men to come home. as usual they were late. it always seemed to take forever for dinner. they passed around a jug of water to stave the hunger. inside, the women were weaving more nets and imagining them full. on an island life moved slower. the ocean made things less important, less urgent.

Posted By becca Loo On 12.21.2011 @ 11:08 pm

there was grass in his hair and on his clothes. his palms were as dirty as his feet but i guess that’s what nature does when you grasp it with both hands.

Posted By becca Loo On 12.20.2011 @ 8:15 pm

a little to the left

Posted By becca Loo On 12.11.2011 @ 11:08 pm

As close as the stars are to the sky he was to her. Looking up that’s all there was. Just a mess of connect the dots. Children can seem so simple at times until they surprise you. It was December again, nighttime again and they were still out. As a mother she always wondered what they did so late at night with only their bikes to keep them warm. Other people had said it was unnatural for a boy and a girl their age to be together so much but what could she do? Separate them, ruin them? They’d be home soon and then she wouldn’t think about the stars and the sky anymore.

Posted By becca Loo On 12.11.2011 @ 2:57 am

fashion is as fashion wears. tonight cinderella finds her own way to the ball like a cowgirl getting the blues she hitchhikes her skirt up the highway to the palace.

Posted By becca Loo On 12.03.2011 @ 3:33 pm

she has no money. she has had no money for a very long time now. she works and goes to school she is by no means lazy, she just doesn’t care about money. money treats the world like it is better than them, a higher up. but money is magic and she knows magic. magic can be whatever you want it to be. magic comes and magic goes. no one should pray to magic like they pray to money. no one should prey on magic like they try to prey upon money. when the rent and the electricity bills come she usually has just enough. she usually depends on tips. one pay check does not pay it all. after awhile she has become tired. this time of year she is especially tired. i am tired for her. there is no where to go but here. she is always herself. christmas has come and now there are thirteen people in her family. thirteen people to buy for. less than a month away and thirteen people to buy for. thirteen, thirteen, thirteen…

Posted By becca Loo On 12.01.2011 @ 3:32 pm

the rain has started and the library closes at six. he read the warning labels but probably should have followed them more closely. meet tom: he’s slumped over in a library bathroom his breathing shallow. tonight he was gonna ask his girl to marry him. he was gonna fix his life. today he quit smoking. bought patches and gum and an e-cigarette and used all of them at once. after he staggered into the restroom to wash his face he fell over. he thinks he’s going to die. he thinks that he’ll never get to tell his girl how much he loves her. he’s right. it’s not an overdose, the paramedics say. it’s an allergic reaction. tom was mess. rewind to a week before…

Posted By becca Loo On 11.16.2011 @ 3:25 pm

everything that rises must converge. every scrap of hardened blood on callused cheeks must fall or be swept away because nothing can stay here long. if the universe is expanding then so are we. after this the what? after what the how? after how the why? our hearts are only the how of the what not the why, not the dream, not the voice. tomorrow i board a bus south. tomorrow i migrate like the animal i am with my animal heart i move to make my blood run thin.

Posted By becca Loo On 11.16.2011 @ 11:26 am

it feels like nighttime in portland, the wind is black and bare. this bus stop reminds me of a kid i used to know. he said he’d be an inventor when he grew up. he said he’d invent bus stops that kept you warm. we used to catch the bus together and it was always freezing in the morning so we’d huddle real close. we went to different high schools and then to different colleges. i always said i didn’t want to be anything when i grew up, that i wanted to go straight from 6 years old to 60. the in between seemed like a waste, too much effort. i guess that’s very american of me to skip the hard parts and fast forward. this twenty-something year old body feels foreign, too limber for serious thought.

Posted By becca Loo On 11.08.2011 @ 2:38 pm

there were two new kids in the family now that her sister died and no one knew who the fathers were. but what does it matter when you run a boarding school. the sheer girth of the place made it easy to forget who was your own flesh and blood. you’d think you wouldn’t be lonely in a place like this. you’d think there would at least be solidarity amongst the teachers. but it wasn’t like that at all. the only people who wanted to be here were those who knew how bad it was elsewhere. that’s why suze was here. that’s why she taught young kids instead of spending time with her own grown children. her husband hadn’t been the sweetest fella in the world but she supposes he wasn’t the worst. maybe it was nicer out there in the middle of woods where no one expected anything of you except a history lesson. history was easy, it was already over. there was no contention about what had happened and if there was then that was for the scholars who wrote the books not her, not here.

Posted By becca Loo On 11.08.2011 @ 1:11 pm

it’s two o’clock, warm, expectant. the road rises in waves but slopes so solidly. we don’t really have anywhere to go. portland was fun, the shins were fun, but how important is fun? the scales only need balance and when that balance is achieved he feels complacent. all life is flux. the road reminds them of that.

Posted By becca Loo On 08.09.2011 @ 2:30 pm

there are bands you see, bands you sing to, bands you let others sing to, and then there’s this band: the specials. they sleep with their instruments, they eat with their instruments, and you can tell. if ska is dead then music is on it’s way out too. you wait, mr. darcy. if you prey upon these groupies they’ll prey upon you. the night is heavy with anticipation as they all stand together vying for the best possible spot with the best possible view. the night is falling like a curtain and somehow the din seems louder in the black. some light pre-show joints, all drink pre-show liquor. every bone is prepping itself for the jaunt of the slow light pulse the music has bred in them and that they’ve come to know like old friends. “i first heard them from my brother in seventh grade. no body in my class knew them then.” in college they could legitimately say they knew them from before high school but it still sounded gauche.

Posted By becca Loo On 07.27.2011 @ 6:03 pm