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 “Creak, Crickets”

The front door was calling me, I wasn’t sure why

But it seemed to laugh every time I cried

The steps were steep, like vertical lines

So I reached for the top and started to climb

I got to the top when I grabbed hold of a stud

And, upon reaching the door, it was covered in blood

I pounded a few times, then pounded some more

I screamed and I hollered, and collapsed on the porch

When I laid there in fear, I could see through the glass

A bright red eye in a monocle of brass

I shouted some more, I yelled “help” very clearly

But I got the sensation that no one could hear me

I wasn’t sure if I was screaming or not

So I kept straining my vocal cords until they were shot.

When I couldn’t keep screaming, I curled up in a ball

And prepared for him to open it, and then end it all

Creak. Crickets.

The door was open, and there was no one in it

The carpet was clean and the walls full of dust

An old light above which was starting to rust

I crawled half a foot, then remembered to walk

I stood up, and, to myself, I talked

“Where is the monocle with the bright red eye?”

A gold lava lamp, with a violet light

“What about the laughs the door echoed at me?”

Now that I realize, I haven’t gotten much sleep

“How long has this lasted? Has it happened before?

The neighbors were watching from the stoops of their doors

“Well, I guess this is my moment of fame”

I sat laughing and crying ‘til the ambulance came.

“Commitment Issues”

I’ve never been good at relationships.

Don’t get me wrong, men can be decent entertainment, at least at first. They are exceedingly predictable, occasionally funny, and usually convinced they are a whole lot more interesting than they actually are.

Then they become attached.

Suddenly, what I eat and what I do are under constant supervision.

Exhausting.

My friends like to brand me with commitment issues.

I prefer to think of myself as a woman who has standards.

And who cares. Every relationship ends eventually. Inevitably. I’ve simply gotten very good at making sure mine don’t drag on.

Until one day when I met a guy named Jax.

He approached me abruptly on the sidewalk, with the confidence of a man who had no reason to be confident.

“You look like you’re having a terrible day.”

I stopped walking to look at him. “I was having an amazing day until about five seconds ago.”

He slyly grinned. “So there’s still time to make a good impression?”

“Don’t hold your breath.”

“Too late.”

Before I knew it, we started meeting for coffee occasionally. Then it led to dinners. Then entire afternoons dedicated to simply sitting in silence.

He collected CDs, he sang off-key to the Smashing Pumpkins, he had an air freshener with his grandma’s face on it. He was intriguing. Ridiculous. A deeply flawed individual.

But I liked him.

I liked knowing his orders at various restaurants. I liked his stupid jokes. I even liked seeing his shoes left next to mine at my door.

Trust me, I find all of this deeply concerning.

One evening, we sat in my dimly lit living room, watching a movie neither of us was paying attention to.

“You know,” he said, “I could get used to this.”

“Watching terribly boring movies?”

“Being here. With you.”

His face showed no hint of play.

My stomach tightened and twisted.

There it was.

The beginning of expectations. The start of promises. Of someone wanting a corner of my room where they can leave their things.

Except this time, I wanted to offer that.

That terrified me.

For weeks I’ve been looking for reasons to dislike Jax. For him to get too dependable and boring. Something that would give me a reason to leave.

But it never came.

Instead, I found myself being able to envision tomorrow. Next week. Next year.

A future shared with another individual.

Disgusting.

After subtly ending that conversation Jax desperately longed for aside, he fell asleep on my couch.

His jacket hung over the chair. His shoes were by my door.

Little bits of him scattered everywhere.

I watched him for a while, wondering how someone could be this important without my permission.

I’d felt this way once before.

Mosiah. 

He talked about our future, too.

I think about him a lot more than I care to admit. Sometimes something happens that makes me want to call. Every time I instinctively reach for my phone, I never finish dialing his number before I remember.

Dead men don’t answer the phone.

Neither did Elijamus. Or Solin. Or the others.

I’ve told myself constantly that they are just disappointments—temporary inconveniences to take care of.

But Jax wasn’t a temporary inconvenience.

He was everything I’d ever known I wanted.

And that’s what frightened me most.

By morning, his shoes still sat by my door.

For the first time, I wished someone hadn’t stayed.

I didn’t kill him because he disappointed me.

I’d killed him because he didn’t.

“A Little Black Bat Named Barry McFly”

A little black bat named Barry McFly,
 Decided one night he would learn how to fly
 Without hitting a tree or bumping a wall,
 Or landing headfirst in somebody’s hall.

He practiced his flying from morning till night,
 But kept getting tangled in Halloween lights.
 He crashed into pumpkins, he tripped on a broom,
 And accidentally flew through a grandma’s bedroom!

“Enough!” Barry shouted. “I’m done with this mess!
 I’ll dress up as something that causes less stress!

He put on a costume, a silly disguise,
 A giant black spider with eight googly eyes.
 He walked down the street with his legs held up high,
 And scared every kid who happened to pass by.

But halfway through trick-or-treating, he heard a strange sound,
 A tiny black spider was crawling around.
 “Hey, big fuzzy bat, can you help me tonight?
 I’m scared of the pumpkins and things that go fright!”

Barry looked down and gave a big smile.
 “Don’t worry little buddy, Halloween’s for friends!”

They shared all their candy, from chocolate to gum,
 And laughed till the morning, their bellies all numb.

Now Barry the bat and his spider friend,
Will go trick-or-treating together each Halloween!

“The Lonely Pumpkin”

On a cool Halloween night, a small pumpkin stood alone in a pumpkin patch. All of the other pumpkins had already been picked and made into jack-o-lanterns. But nobody chose the small pumpkin, because everyone thought he was too little to become a jack-o-lantern.

As the small pumpkin sat all alone in the patch, a witch went flying by on her broomstick. This made the small pumpkin jump with fright. The witch then saw the pumpkin jump and decided to go to it. Terrified, the small pumpkin urged the witch to stay away, in a shaky voice. The witch told the pumpkin not to be afraid, and waved her magic wand at the small pumpkin. The small pumpkin then began to glow. This caused all the animals in the nearby forest to come out and gather around the small pumpkin, to warm up by the pumpkin’s light.

For the first time, the small pumpkin was not lonely and made friends with all of the animals and the friendly witch. Now he knew, you can be anything you want to be, no matter how small you are.

“Camp Lots-o-Fun”

“…Oh yeah I do remember Camp Lots-o-Fun! They don’t let kids today have the freedom that we used to have” I said to my mom. She smirked at me across the kitchen table. “Oh really? freedom  to do what? How much trouble could you really have gotten up to at Black Hawk State Park?”

“You don’t know the half of it!” I laughed.

One day it was gloomy, muddy, wet, but that didn’t stop the Augie counselors from sending us into the woods for capture the flag. The park was bisected in two, and each team hid its flag, an Augie t-shirt tied to a frisbee, somewhere on its side. As long as we stayed within the park boundaries, the counselors didn’t care.

I had a good buddy that year, Sam. He came to me holding our team’s flag with a mischievous gleam in his eye, and I knew I had to follow him. We told our team we’d hide it and bolted down the hill toward the ravines. Near the bottom, my foot caught a root and I tumbled end over end, covered in mud. No injury. God, I miss being 9!

“You two should be more careful down here. You could get lost.”

We both jumped at the unexpected deep voice. A camp counselor in a black hoodie stood over us, wide rimmed glasses and a pimply complexion. I have NO idea how he caught us so fast. Sam grabbed my arm, “c’mon we gotta hide the flag, down near the ravine, no one will look there.” The man’s voice stopped me. “Hmmmm you’re covered in mud. Mommy and daddy won’t like that.” Then I noticed his digital camera. Probably for marketing photos, getting “action shots” of kids playing. He started snapping photos while waving me on after Sam.

Sam was wedging the flag beneath a thick, low-hanging bush. “Perfect!” I said.

“Get in the water,” the man said behind us. “Better hiding place.”

He wasn’t wrong.

We slopped into the ravine, the water just over a foot deep from all the rain. “Try over there,” he said, pointing to a hollowed-out log. Against the rules, but hey, a counselor told us to!

Once the flag was in place, the man stopped snapping photos to pull Sam out. “We’re gonna go this way and sneak to the other team’s side,” he said with a smirk. “You should stay here and play defense.” Sam agreed and we parted ways. The other team NEVER found our flag. Damn that was a fun camp, I miss Sam, I think his parents must have pulled him from camp after that day, can’t blame them with how disgusting both of us were.

I looked up at my mom. She had a look of horror on her face.

“What? You knew they let us play in the mud.”

She stared blankly for a few moments before finally saying, “I remember the year you did Camp Lots-o-Fun very well. There were no male camp counselors.”