Poetry Friday: Copping Out

I had some stuff all ready to go, some poems about men that I wanted to flesh out.

I rilly did.

And then I realized I had to get to work this morning at an ungodly hour. By 6 a.m. The need for sleep kicked the ass of the need to email myself at work the poetry I wanted to post, because I was of course too tired to log on last night from home and post early for today.

It’s 7 a.m., and I’m one of only two people here. In this massive building of brick and high ceilings.

It’s freaky.

It’s pretty cool.

Okay, so, instead of lovely poetry about men screwing me over (and just screwing me), I default to last week’s device, the ‘Free-Write’. I pick a word in the dictionary, write for five straight minutes about it, then comment.

Let me get the dictionary. (It belonged to the girl who was fired two years ago. She’s married to ‘Suicidal-Guy-In-Loveless-Marriage’ in the cube next to mine. It feels weird to touch it.)

The word is:

“Charm”

Go.

When I was about six my aunt Julie gave me a charm bracelet, it was really old and had dark metal charms on it of a trolley car and a skyscraper and a dog and a shoe, sort of like monopoly pieces but with less style. The bracelet was just too tarnished and yet I wore it all the time and even put it in my mouth, and it wouldn’t surprise me if I had lead poisoning from that thing, and they’re still making dangerous jewelry with internet recalls.

I was in high school this girl in one grade above me wrote out her class photo to me and she wrote, ‘your mother should have named you Grace because you have so much charm’, and I thought, well, no, you’ve never seen me hit my brother or poop, or and really I fall down everytime I walk somewhere and I even swear when my mom’s not looking.

My boss loves lucky charms. We buy them as birthday gifts for him., with a carton of milk. He acts like he’s six years old and wraps his arms around the box and heads ot his office to rip the top open and devour it, he’s forty and will crawl under his desk with breakfast cereal.
Charm is th esame as spell, isn’t it? If I were to put a charm on you, would it be a good witch sort of thing, a magical spell to ward off colds and the icky nightoperator computer guy who doesn’t bathe and doesn’t shave and who I fortunately missed this morning. He looks like the bumble from Rudolph, the big hairy guy with manic eyes and a stupid grin who follows you to the bathroom when he’s in conversation and all you wantt o do is run, far far away, bumbles bounce, maybe deodorant would be a better fit.

Stop.

True: I have a collection of Abominable Snowmen from Rudolph, they’ve started selling them at Christmastime. One day at a department meeting, I mentioned that our overnight computer operator, who had grown out his gray hair (to below his shoulders) and who hadn’t shaved in jeebus-knows-how-long, and smelled like cattle, reminded me of the Bumble. Everyone laughed, but they knew it was true.

I promise, next week, poems about wicked men and wicked me.

Have a good weekend, y’all!