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I will write my obituary on Myspace
so that
my death will become
a viral trend
that benefits society's social standing

But before I go
I will watch
all my friends go
before me
and I will pray to them
by writing on their walls
and hope for a response
because
heaven's as real as the internet.

Shut-Ins

because she's just not normal
because I don't want you
hanging out
with her
because I said so
because it's just not normal.

don't worry, I'm catching on
Mom

I think my ears look funny

but they’re still my favorite.
At night
I pace my living room floor
kept up by my sleeping roommates
and running fridge.

I’m especially insecure
eating cereal in the morning
but I don’t mind
being naked.

I distrust anyone
who uses the word
Exquisite
and prefer
crickets to songbirds.
But I get distracted by
the chirping.

I've been contemplating the color yellow...

...and I'm considering taking it on as my favorite color.

It's the color of the sky right before and right after a hard rain.

Just like a dandelion can bloom in celebration of being a weed, yellow is a state of mind where you can laugh at and in spite of your sadness. It's the color of melancholy.

It has to be a very specific timbre of yellow, though--not brash and offensive like a highlighter but slightly scalded like my grandmother's couch from the seventies that I figure she kept because she wanted to keep hold of those who once sat in it.

Yellow is the color of old photographs and their loaded old memories, the color of dead faces before the undertaker paints them over.

Yellow isn't just a color but a verb. Such pure things as a white gown yellow with taintedness--the color of life's harmless, good-natured sins.

Hackneyed Emjambments

I feel drunk.
No wait.
I think I feel sober.
They're both so fucked up
in their own
respective ways.

The importance of studying literary theory

I think
I need to break
my bad habit of
mixing Bukowski
with Plath
before I go to bed.

I think this postmodern
bullshit is starting
to make sense.

I even thought of myself
sitting at a red light
as I sat at a red light today
and I thought
this is so Post Modern.

I even thought of myself
as I sat at a red light today
sitting at a red light
and I thought
this is so Postmodern.

Which one was it again?

Doing my part for consuming society

Dear Mr. Gates,

You, above all people--you tech-savvy pop-icon, you--should know that "Googled" is in fact a real word in the English language. So I would kindly appreciate it if in Microsoft Word the word "Googled" would please stop triggering Spell Check to suggest the word "goggled" instead. Honestly, who ever used the word "goggled" anyway! Is that even a real word?

We've made it up to Microsoft Office 2008 for crying out loud. Get with the times!

Sincerely,
Melissa Queen
(a Mac user)


P.S. I must also admit that no one can really spell the word "sincerly" without Spell Check alerting us to whether or not its wrong, so I suggest it be thrown out of our language. "Googled" can take its place in the program.

Taste Aversion: A Pantoum

I told him I didn’t like fish.
Our first date he asked me to sushi,
probably saw it in a movie
thought it sounded worldly

Our first date he asked me to sushi.
I didn’t bother persisting no,
thought it sounded worldly.
He told me I should try it.

I didn’t bother persisting no
when he told me not all sushi had fish.
He told me I should try it
so we went to a fast-food sushi chain.

When he told me not all sushi had fish
my stomach tied a knot and my pulse beat skeptically.
So we went to a fast-food sushi chain
and I felt so sick my hands shook in my lap.

My stomach tied a knot and my pulse beat skeptically,
but I smiled and laughed at his stories.
And I felt so sick my hands shook in my lap
until he dropped me off at my house.

But I smiled and laughed at his stories,
made up a few of my own
until he dropped me off at my house.
I could tell he wanted to lean in for a kiss.

I made up an excuse of my own,
sick of his fast-food sushi breath.
I could tell he wanted to lean in for a kiss—
I told him I didn’t like fish.

Abandonment Pt I

the corner house by the liquor store, it’s not there anymore
mom’d yell ‘no strangers’ through the front door, it’s not there anymore



we knew to stay away from strangers, but the same ones would pass
at the bottle’s bottom I stare at what’s not there anymore



when I remember childhood I remember alcoholics
worn soldiers would pass by my front door, it’s not there anymore

pirate man and mr. ted blew their smoky breath through the cold
games we played of sibling civil war, it’s not there anymore

Abandonment Pt II

we never did call them bums or winos or vagrants back then
they were old man jack and crazy earl, who’re not there anymore



we moved when dad found a new job to new schools and older games
lonelier neighborhood than before, it’s not there anymore



I quit my childhood bitter and sought out what was familiar
hey mister, outside the liquor store, it’s not there anymore

the brown house, my family it bore, it’s not there anymore
an empty lot by the liquor store, it’s not there anymore

A sonnet, of the Petrarchan type

Maybe it's cheesy, but you try writing in form:

The Mountaineer

A man once looked across a field of flowers
to mountains still displaced above the earth
and looking back he chose to go on forth
towards heaven--home for gods and drifters,
to hills made men of any sense cowards.
in nature beauty has a greater worth
unparallel to that of any birth
in wanderlust forgetting all the hours
forget not feet nor breath nor will nor sun
in insignificance man stands in wild
and knows his place and feels his strength alone
do not stand still and wait for heaven
but go to it with eyes so like a child
and make this earth of wild a place your own

A work in progress...

Mama sang jazz at a club on second street beneath the freeway. Mr. Ed the bar keep always said that nobody walking through the North End could stay away when Mama sang. So I knew that my father had to be there at least one night, so I would peak out at the audience from backstage to look for him. Mr. Ed also said that my mother was bad for business because no one got up and came to the bar to buy drinks during her show, but then he would wink and I knew he didn't really mean it.

I looked at the men that came in to see if I could pick out my father. I knew if he did come, he'd sit way in the back out of Mama's view, and then probably slip out before her set was over. And he'd have blue eyes. He had to have because I had to get them from someone. Mama's eyes were brown like Hershey's syrup. And sad too. She always said brown eyes were meant for sadness, and that I was lucky to have blue ones because I didn't have to face a care in the world. Except for my missing father.

I only asked Mama about him once. She said, "Your father was never good for nothing except that he shot out his seed to bring you into the world. But other than that--nothing. So don't worry your pretty blue eyes over him because he's no good for that either."

Mama had good reason for feeling that way, and for raising me on her own. Grandpa Mackinley drank himself into being a terrible father for her, and then I guess my father split so she figured she was better off raising me without the inconvenience of bad fathering. But even Mama would be the first to admit she didn't go it all alone. There was Grandma June, Mr. Ed at the bar, and Ms. Louise who watched me backstage when Mama sang. When no one was on stage, Ms. Louise waited the tables. I got to help Mama with her wardrobe and makeup so long as I got my schoolwork finished early...