The too Honest Resume Cover Letter

To Whom It May Concern,

Please consider me for [the listed position] as I am
[a sad realization] completely unprepared to (re)enter the civilized working world.

In my previous life I have been an academic,
and am fluent in Eros and amore.
 I was never very good at note taking
unless you trust
my memory.
A shipping chick, sewer of soldiers,
excellent at bundling cardboard, and compartmentalizer of demons,
ghost writer, slave and doppelganger,
junkie,
coat check girl and entomology assistant,
gardener
and
broke.

Now:
mother, wife, lover, cook, poet.
Collector of doilies, dishes and brick-brack,
a conscientious objector  to housework and order,
intellectual adulteress
and daydreamer.

One would assume, given my previous experience I would excel at multi-tasking;
sadly, it leaves me overwhelmed and uninspired.
The rewards of deconstructing the sounds of silence
while outrunning the past standing still,
motivate my chosen schedule.

I am certain, if hired I will one day disappoint you.
Once again I'll take my post as seeker for something so simple
as a "how" or a "why" while the last check clears
and i get lose change in return for my soul,

bedtime story, as told by Atticus (age 5)

Once upon a time there lived a woman named Grace, she wasn't just an ordinary woman she was a Momma. Her wonderful children were named Atticus and Circe.  They were wonderful, but did not always listen. Momma really wanted them to listen. She told Atticus and Circe to eat their food, but they didn't, she wanted them to pick up their toys but they didn't listen, she asked them to sleep in their own bedrooms, but they wouldn't.  She would ask over and over and over but they still didn't listen.  She never yelled or got mad, but her eyes would look sad.

One day Atticus and Circe were playing and a wonderful sound filled the room and a fairy appeared. Her name was Periwinkle. She was wearing a blue dress and had yellow and purple hair. She smiled and CAST A SPELL ON ATTICUS AND CIRCE! The spell was a special listening spell and all of the sudden they heard their Momma ask them to clean up their toys. ALL OF THE SUDDEN THEY WERE LISTENING. They ate their food, slept in their own beds and everyone was just as happy as can be.

A few days later the family was playing at a stream and doing the washing. Atticus and Circe were plinking rocks over a waterfall. Suddenly a Dragon and a Pirate appeared. Everyone was scared and thought the dragon was going to eat them, but it sneezed instead. Atticus was going to give the dragon a tissue but remembered the Pirate. Suddenly Periwinkle came back and sprinkled the Pirate with dust and it wasn't really a Pirate, but the Poppa free from the trolls spell. Everyone hugged and they all rode the dragon to the movie theatre.

The End.

*Transcribers Note- I give them a choice between an actual book or me telling the story. Tonight Atticus asked if he could be the storyteller. Circe insisted that if there was a fairy it had to be named Periwinkle and then interrupted when he spoke about the stream and said we had to be washing the clothes. 
I keep a notebook and a pen (gasp) on the table and for some reason decided to start writing down their sleepy sentences. These words are as Atticus said them, he thinks before going on so thankfully I was able to keep up.*

letter 1.

hello there, i'd like to say i missed you but that tense seems wonky, and would imply we were (possibly) sharing the same space/air/time; we are not, and things are amiss with missing.

i bought a carton of milk just to see if you were pictured on the side; (organic just like you) i gave the checker boy $4.49 in crumpled commerce and a bit of lint for good measure.

i only saw a cow with a Cheshire grin and remembered you were lactose intolerant.

garden

green

there is a purgatory in between seasons.

these are the days i tempt the breeze to billow below
and sow the sun; tilled in what was touched, and returning again.

the melody on the breeze
the touch of flesh
planted in your embrace.



pink


coy princesses of tease in their compound angle of crack.
the days devour time in a blink and a longing where we wear nature,
and we're under the spell of the moon.
its light, like speed for the Spring born
and flowers with the expectation of bees. honey,
the course without correction.
forgot in the scent of ________.


golden


kisses in the abyss, and above the vermin,
waking to find passion in silence riding the wind
through the tolling bell in your chest.

No one wants to get Scurvy

Seated at a cluttered dining room table, wine & whisky poured, sunlight streaming through the window on bi-color funerary roses in a chipped vase. Her back arched like a cat so her cheek could get kissed by the winter sun (its warmth is rare, and best to catch when you have the time…no one wants scurvy and limes are expensive at this time of year). He watched her and wondered if she would still tie her hair back in pig-tales when her hair has gone gray and if her hips were always as pronounced or if having children just highlighted her already existing curves (in the right way, the kind of highlights that make most housewives blush and long for a surgeon or join a gym…she just took up belly dancing in the living room or foggy mornings in the Spring). They talked about the past in the present, letting those days transfer with each breath. There was always something that led to the discourse of reality being good or being alive.

This time it started with a list in a chain email asking about “scandalous” activity…now what’s scandalous to some might be common practice to others. “Have you ever had sex in a church?”…she looked crooked at the computer screen and thought for a second or two, “nope, but I have been touched by the son of a preacher man while sleeping with a girl on the side”. (the next question was ‘have you ever had sex someone of the same sex’ followed by ‘have you ever cheated on anyone’?. She had the holy trinity). He never flinched, a coy grin appeared and his head cocked sideways and then came the chuckle. “I started in the middle and haven’t missed one!” They pressed lips and sipped their beverage, running those memories with the same flicker in their eye as old movie reels, getting more and more grainy but finding pockets of light in the remembered dialogue.

“Modern poetry is as lost as cats on a windowsill” he mumbled just above the glass. “Wait….what’d you answer about having sex for money?” They both stared blankly for a breath. She spoke first, “no I haven’t…or have I, you must remember. Have I? I suppose we all have in one way or another” (verbal run-off is a side effect of sulfites and sunlight). That’s the problem being a member of the touch generation, bodies are no longer off limits when your upbringing centers on freedom being equal to pleasure. Its hard to move past core principles even after a proper education (its hard to be good but so good to be hard). Together they counted change and came correct. They decree that laughter is nothing more than a public orgasm, it shows the willing what they are in for.

He sits back as she continues her work, like a monkey he picks pills from her sweater and piles them on the table. Its encouraging to have someone else care for your appearance when showers are rewards for hard work. The past is hard and can’t be washed off, like a stain on a favorite shirt that can be explained away as an abstract design, even if it clashes with the rest of the plaid.

They agree they have completed the list but can’t decide on the words…guilty…sinner…experimentalist…existentialist….nihilist…human…alive.

C R A S H

The commercial on the radio reminds her of her current obligation…”Hey kids, do you want Kid Cuisine for dinner?” A chorus of ‘yesssssss’ follows her as she walks barefoot into the kitchen with the saunter of her youth and the experience of her age. He sits and watches, caressing the pile of sweater bits, placing them in his pocket next to the pressed forget me not.

the decision tree

a reflection in a passing current,
today's hobo, yesterdays ashes, tomorrows time.
the path was a trap, it was the illuminated face that dictated the choice.
the choice was a vixen and the reward was light.

the bridge was the path less traveled by,
one, two, three steps.
hanging, splashing in troubled waters.

how clean a body must be to enter your house.

tea time

I.

table side alone
downward chord progressions
cup in hand, empty holding onto warmth.


II.

imagining
the glue, yourself to yourself.
the boat in the waves of uncertainty
the anchor abandoned at another port.