Word Traveler

Wave

Be safe.

I love you

more than life itself.

Travel

A pleasure cruise for hours, days,

or sometimes a full week

is always worth the trip to feel waves lapping at my feet.

It’s not uncommon that I ride the rails

until the final stop

in the name of unfamiliar flavors and popping into local shops.

I’ll board a flight around the world

with seconds left to spare,

a departure from routine that might mean I get somewhere.

All that to say, the perfect phrase

is like any form of travel

except you can go anywhere and still be in a towel.

Emoji

Eighteen bytes and you

can say most things you want to

with no words at all.

A set of graphic

gifts from the gods of Big Tech:

Praise be, Emoji.

Charcuterie

The bitter and the salty bits make

the fruit sweeter.

Don’t you love it when your tastebuds shout,

“Umami!”

I relish all my favorite treats,

live in concert,

together for one night only.

Their flavors sing.

Freudenfreude

I’ll raise your success

UP as if it were mine. I

love it when you win.

Practice

Laces pinched in thumb and pointer,

tongue poked out for focus,

pause to blow a tuft of bang.

Loop. Swoop. A little hocus pocus…

Pick the laces up again,

tongue in start position,

set free a long-held sigh.

Wrap. Unwrap. Rewrap a bit more…

aaaand…

Your bow’s a bowl of noodles spilling out onto the floor.

Repair

I’m okay.

Are you okay?

You’re not.

Okay.

I̶̶̶ ̶d̶̶̶i̶̶̶d̶̶̶n̶̶̶’̶t̶̶̶ ̶m̶̶̶e̶̶̶a̶̶̶n̶̶̶

I̶ ̶t̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶t̶

I̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶

I hurt you.

You’re hurting.

I’m sorry.

Okay.

Silly

Maybe your GPS signal got lost

and you’ve gotten turned around.

Perhaps you regret tossing your map

before your trip out of town.

Lines of cars are slowing

to take a proper gander

at the large bird on the median

whose motive makes them wonder.

Maybe the wind has taken your hat,

maybe you’re headed to tea.

Perhaps you’re pissed you missed your bus

while staring back at me.

If I were the odd duck sitting there,

I s’pose I’d be ruffled as well—

Jeez! That semi’s horn was loud!—

in my personal version of Hell.

Quilt

Over the back of the couch,

tossed across the bed,

a folded square in your cedar chest—

there’s comfort to be spread.

Cut and stitched together

piece by careful piece,

then it waits, quite patiently,

to warm you head to feet.

Home

Shoes off.

Guards down.

Chills out.

Do you

want to

hang around

where you

can be

just you

and I

can be

just me?

‘Cause that

is the

best way

I can

think to

spend today.

Wild

adjective (NOT CONTROLLED)

Attention all you tree-acoustic testers

that whoop in the dark

around the roaring pillars of your inner sparks,

roasting soft cubes of sugar down to crispy embers,

raising a toast to the most feral members of societal fringe,

with untidy hair full of grass and twigs,

who dare to build their houses on chicken legs,

mixing medicinal metaphors to hurl like eggs,

making the fussiest fuss, not for one, but all of us,

and about-facing away from imposed traditional roles:

Stay fucking weird.

♡

Thank you for joining me. I am so glad you’re here!