readymade words

Like Totally is not the one, for whom the words are the result of some organic growth. For her they are the readymade. When she composes a sentence she compares herself to an artist who doesn’t draw an original image: she paste words on a page like elements of collage. When the work is done, she takes a look at it from the stretched arm distance with one eye closed. If she likes what she sees, she nods her head in approval.

She hates to revisit her writing because it never looks right again.    

the petals in her head

When morning peony of migraine pain opens petal by petal in her head, Like Totally rises from her bed and taming shivers wraps herself in the throw. She focuses attention on her pain assessing if she can drink from the mug of hot black tea, or should surrender to the surge of vomit.
If after a second sip of tea she gushes, her day turns into a violence of flesh, compulsive tremors alternating with the fits of chocking, and gripping vomit thickening intolerable headache; her thoughts subside and feelings become irrelevant.

If she can finish unsweetened tea and keep the pills inside her stomach, she focuses attention on the balance between her inability to move and an impulse to continue on routine. Her feelings subside and thoughts diminish, but she can vilely document self-observations.  

paleolithic formation

It is easy to talk when someone listens, Like Totally complains.

My audience consists of the dead people,

Whose silence is awkward like Paleolithic formation,

And I have no idea how to break it into words.

poop

The word she feels like saying is unknown to her. The longer she waits the harder it gets.
Come on, Like Totally, don’t get so anal now! There is nothing there to analyze before you get it out!
Shhh… There she hides, locked up in the bathroom. No one can see her there, so she takes her time.
Come on, Like Totally, no one is waiting to analyze your shit anyway!

an overdue labor

The word she wants to say is too big for her throat. Getting it out feels like an overdue labor.
Like Totally had three babies in her human life, three overdue labors. With the first one, she got induced in the hospital; with the second one, she used enema inadvertently starting birth activity; with the third one, the labor came after tree days of building a rock garden.
Professional help, self-medication, or obsessive activity: are there other choices in there? Like Totally rocks idly in her chair. What name will she give to what she might be pregnant with now?             

the wilderness within

Like Totally in her aloneness is as alone as a homeless on weekdays, the homeless who presses aching back against a wall and stares absently at passing feet. The passing feet have no faces and neither do unknowns populating the high-rises towering above his head.
“Aloneness,” Like Totally observes, “brings neither peace, nor self-knowledge.”
The homeless gets up on feeble feet and exits from the stoop to leave Like Totally to listen to the footfalls.
“Is there a state of silence for the one who seeks asylum?”
“Oh, yes, there is. Look in the wilderness!”
“Who sells the maps, itinerary, tickets,” Like Totally persists,
 “to the state of Wilderness,the Wilderness within?”