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I Feel Fine by Ivy

3/31/2020

I feel fine, I need a hug
I feel fine, I want a touch
I feel fine, looks like a spiky blob
the end of a torture club
I keep seeing it everywhere
a colored spiky blob
fuck, I don't want that thing in me
I’m not panicking, yet
I’m not afraid, yet
I’m not selfish, yet
but I hate feeling sick
I feel fine
Corona means crown like on a queen
or a birthday hat
Corona means wreath like a door decoration
or on a grave
Corona means garland, sounds so festive
like a party in my lungs, like beer, like Christmas Eve
I feel fine
it’s a fringe of large, bulbous surface projections
that’s the sticking out part
like a penis or shush kabobs or thorns on a rose
I feel fine
it creates an image of a crown
I feel fine
viral spikes attacking my lungs
like a barbaric Roman weapon
spiky proteins attaching to the host
like a drunk friend at a party
I feel fine
ring a round the rosie fine
plague fine, scarlet fever fine, rheumatic fever fine
brain tumor fine, MS fine, fine and tired fine
there’s a part of my body that I don’t like to be touched
I can’t remember who gave me that virus
my immune system compromised by Ted
the virus I know where it came from
the Italian from New Jersey
then there’s the virus that killed so many of my friends
the, oh my god, sex was fun in the 70’s but not in the 80’s
we all fall down
there are politicians going down
there are actors going down
there are shows and attractions going down
there are events and countries going down
it’s a game
we all fall down
it’s the end of the world as we know it
a children’s game
we all fall down
a holding hands game
the end of the world as we know it
schools shut down, restaurants shut down
fuck, bars shut down, cities shut down
fuck, we all fall down
hell, don’t hug, fuck don’t touch animals
goddamn it
buy a gun and shoot that fucking spike right off the lawn

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Bat Soup by Carl

3/25/2020

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A friend just sent me a video of empty streets in Soho.
It features the occasional flyby of a bicycle delivery trailing a cloud of virus.
In the end, it wasn’t the bomb, it wasn’t zombies, everyone just went home and watched TV.
It’s the first television pandemic. Something medieval is reaching out at us through the cell towers.
An infectious agent replicating in the system. An organism at the edge of life, trying to get in.
Searching for animation, overheating its host in the process.
It has taken control of the media, filling my ears.
Stay home.
Watch TV.
Place the bats in a large kettle and add water to cover.
Add ginger, onion, garlic, and salt.
Bring to boil and cook for sixty minutes.
Why am I so easily manipulated. Unable to think clearly as the switches are thrown. Alternating my feeds triggering hope, anger, fear, denial.
The antivaxxers are either calling it a hoax, or drinking heavy metals to protect themselves.
When the vaccine arrives, I hope they have the decency to get in the back of the line.
I keep checking the news, nothing yet.
Stay home.
Watch TV
Don’t eat the bats. Swarms of bats keep flying in every day, littering the beaches, packing the nightclubs. That video is playing over and over on all my screens. Beady eyed drunk bat boy doesn’t care, he just wants to party.
Remove the bats, skin them and return the meat to the broth.
A Delivery bat waiting by the curb, two more land and greet, then off to spread the news to everyones doorbell.
Steven Spielberg isn’t returning calls. Deep in his bunker he’s worried about the shadow in his doorway wearing a red mask.
It’s too late.
The TV was already on.
Stay home.
Canned beans of every kind are stacked to the ceiling. It’s an illusion, closer inspection reveals them all to be kidney beans, with different colored labels. This isn’t bean heaven, it’s hell.
Stay home.
Watch TV.
The bats will be holding a press conference live at 3 Pacific Time. The bats are creeping out of my laptop, pouring infection in my ears while I daydream.
Bat soup is served with scallions, and seasoned with soy sauce, and/or coconut cream.
Senior hour at Costco, the line serpentines in the shade of solar panels. I can almost hear the click click of the roller coaster climbing to the drop.
Bats make lazy circles overhead. I remember to keep my hands and feet clean inside the car, don’t touch the handle.
For some, this will be the last ride.

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Inconvenient Truth by Becca

3/21/2020

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It’s an inconvenient truth!
The virus is real.
It doesn’t matter if it came from a butchered bat at a wet market in Wuhan.
It doesn’t matter if you think it’s a government conspiracy to roll out 5G.
It doesn’t matter if you think we are just one hop, skip and a jump away from being controlled by the government, with authoritarian rule, mandatory vaccinations and police on the streets.
To be honest, none of that shit has any relevance.
It’s a distraction from the inconvenient truth that you are not in control.
That you have never been in control.
It’s easy to be a keyboard warrior.
Or a troll under a bridge.
You can hide behind your screen name and online persona.
You can divorce yourself from the facts, but it doesn’t change that
These are inconvenient truths!
Post your sentiments without any regard for grammar or spell checks
Infect us with your personal beliefs
Create more fear for the anxious
Or better yet
Create confusion for the masses.
Because that is something you can control, and that, my friend, is a truth you’re willing to buy into.
But
It’s an inconvenient truth
To acknowledge that people are suffering
And to acknowledge that you are no more immune to that suffering than they are
It’s much easier to believe you’re invincible
That bad things happen to other people
And as long as you live in your bubble of denial you don’t have to deal with the fact
That you’re just human
And the most human attribute we all share is the belief that we’re special
And different
And starring in the greatest movie of all time.
As if we matter
As if this Planck instant we’re gifted on this planet will affect our Mother Earth in a few millennia.
She will shake us off of her and rebuild
Like she’s done time and time again
Better and stronger
More adaptable.
We are just background extras in her movie.
The illusion that we have any control is the heartiest cosmic joke of them all
And that is the most inconvenient truth imaginable.

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I Know My Own Gun by Marina

3/13/2020

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Am I the asshole? Am I just a furball of complaints,
cataracts on my eyeballs
and ghosts in the doorway?
I melt on the hot embers of forgiveness, they’re poking me and hurting me to change
It’s a train and this line I’ve never rode before
We named our daughter Grace in another language
It’s the bitter pill I choke on
Self righteous I’m right and when I’m right I can forget the gentle gray pebbles of his nature
We’re in a dream its called Alaska its July 1998
The kayaks make a muted swish through the silver gray water
I have silver rings on all my fingers and an obsession with a boy named Kevin and he says I’m too scared to dance and he’s right
But no matter he’s back on the boat and I’m here
The dream seeping into my fleece
My grandparents are on the boat too
This is their before death trip but they don’t say it that way
I’m in front
Some adult thought it would be more meaningful maybe
To feel like I’m alone or something and I’m too cool to admit they’re right
There’s a finger in front of my face and a disembodied voice its pointing to a nest of sticks and earth on an island of mud
And then I see it
Them
All of them
Their folded wings as big as winter sweaters
The secrets of white that I catch in flecks when they rearrange their feathered bodies maybe saying go away, why are you here, I don’t know
I almost can’t breath
I zoom back
The water meets the sky but there’s no handover just silver gray seeping into silver gray
And I think, I’m inside a mirror
We're in a dream it's called Alaska it's July 1998 and it’s cold.
Is Mom here? Laurie?
Who’s behind me in this near-silent plastic boat?
It could be morning noon or well not evening that would feel darker
It must be a strong daylight hour but the sun is nowhere and everywhere all at once and I flash back to the woods behind our house where I once felt what could’ve been god
And then I’m back and they’re just bald eagles you know?
Just birds of prey
And broken glass and snapping turtles
I’m sort of aware of other islands around me, rising from the silver gray and they too, are occupied by giants
warming their next generation.
How did we find this place?
Who is in charge here?
I notice the sun warming the outside of my jacket and I feel the faint tinge of its comfort
And I exhale
And cranes unfold in my heart
This train it’s relentless its a glimpse and then gone
I will keep this, I microfiber to my chest
This could soften me, so I keep it, I could need it, I know my own gun

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The Same by Carl

3/1/2020

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Leather leopard handcuffed fantasy with teeth that bite and claws that snatch
Stitched with rough twine into my heart pounding like celebratory tympani with the needle pushed deep into the red.
I am a teardrop in held space by enchanted hands
She is a tidal wave sunning her breasts in a lawn chair on my asphalt
Smiling through my walls, my armor, my apprehension
Leaving no question unasked
I never asked her to stay, I simply grabbed her ankle
and pulled her in the window
I never gave her a choice. I never had a choice.
I pressed my half of the moon into her forehead and she made me her secret weapon, curled like a charm around her wrist.
The dog got out again. It was a black and white streak through a festival of flying chickens.
Mayhem.
The theme that keeps coming around is simplicity. I am discovering that my needs are few.
On second thought, I may have that all wrong. Maybe it’s not simplicity, but complication. I already have so much I don’t need anything else, there’s nothing I want.
Not at the moment anyway, I’m sure something will come up.
And when it does, I will ask, how much do I want it, do I need it, where will I keep it, will it require maintenance?
In the end I will decide having something takes more energy than not having something.
The palms are shedding again, I wish there were less palms. They’re a full time job. Palms are for people who can hire grounds keepers. The rest of us are doomed to sink under the weight of constant palm fronds.
Ivy is cleaning the kitchen again. The dishes are her palm trees. That and the laundry, the two of us generate three loads of laundry every day.
It’s a mystery, we can’t figure out how that’s even possible.
I follow the dog around the neighbors house. Whenever I get close he laughs and spins and flies off over the trees in pursuit of chickens.
I give up. Let him run until he’s tired and hungry and hope for his sake he remembers how to get home.
And then she appears, smiling, she says, “Hey Boo”
And he stops, as simple as that, he walks to me and slips his head into his collar.
We are the same, he and I, we will do anything for her.

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I Feel Fine by Ivy

Bat Soup by Carl

Inconvenient Truth by Becca

I Know My Own Gun by Marina

The Same by Carl

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