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the undramatic truth: the mess must be cleaned up somehow, and it isn’t the men who wind up doing it.
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1)
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There is a mess. There is a mess and it’s messy and [stop]. There is a mess and it’s messy and [stop] and we hold our sponges. There is a mess and it’s messy and [stop] and we hold our sponges while others hold broomsticks.
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[stop].
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There is a mess and it’s messy and [stop] and we hold our sponges [stop] while others hold broomsticks [stop] clutching [stop] at straws [stop] at anything at all even [stop] even if it’s a mess.
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It’s a [stop].
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Stop.
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2)
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Why are women always left to clean up the messes left behind? Why are there even such things as “garbage men”, those who we’ll sometimes leave a small, full bottle of whiskey for at Christmas and only our trash every other day? What do we leave those that tend to our emotional, uglier, scattered wherewithal? A smile? a wave goodbye?
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3)
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Books burn, files trash, nothing stays sturdy, so let’s get over it already. The mess only comes from not destroying things. The mess falls out of everything. Knee deep in the mud, asleep on the side or face down drowning. A way around the word you come back empty while you dreamt of treasure:
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oriented again human within an inch of the reduced ticking jam where I swim opener than the right drive lesson second would be any different why right the improve spot all is killing sing like babs the proportion of invention lying still across did he believe couldn’t hadn’t heard come back as aspects of the mess as aspects of your mess on the sheets all aspects of the stain alone at last a new position and every third face lowered a spat of pitch here or there as everything got out of hand in a satisfactory way but but no sound in the mud first have done having not done before what needs to be done is make a mess of it all to make it yours as it won’t be for long compared to when no longer needed there’s always a need to clean to freshen to feel fresh and find love like it wasn’t mud all across your face you’ll feel really bad about it it’s a superb encountered thing that hardly matters it’s too messy to talk about we haven’t the words no the words no not the words no light blue of slight day almost the life invented as a remembered thing not realizing that towards the other mess the mess standing that you might have taken for mine abandoned only after personally known a target trash left wet in the street barely transmissible or repeated like vowels in choked bird beaks who repute them be known from left to left to left to right repeat what is left behind as if it never happened two weeks ago no no never not the mess you left before vacation hurricane’d you to your other mess of a girl who demands a clean house a number of times abandoned in your sleepy mud face tinkering with the gears of your known confides herself in the other clean where two stops to noon keep mounting the decisions that are always better left undecided
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4)
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When the mess of your youth is left to shudder – it’s usually some girl that cleans it up for you, since you aren’t too interested in all that anymore. You’re older and there are more important things now to deal with.
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There’s brisket to burn and beer to belch out in the back. She’ll thank you for it later, in bed, once the dishes are done.
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5)
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I think there’s a loom that glosses over the mess and calls it tight, a tighter meaning that we then call home.
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A stitching of the mess that keeps us warm, for a little while at least.
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