Yes, yes. My young and flowery writing exposed to the buzzards.
Laugh and enjoy. Be guilt free.
Slurp the naïveté.

Any comments? Email shandi_css@hotmail.com

*Gasp! She even posts rhyming verse. Oh! The hilarity.

My Stuff

Suzanne as a Child

     The shimmery worm oozed and crumpled on the side walk, and small, cold-reddened fingers scraped across the pavement to lift its wet noodle body. The bottom edge of her right sleeve was mucky on her bright red, too big coat. She dropped the poor writher two inches above the rich, rain wet soil of a curb-side garden. The coat she would grow into.
     Suzie sometimes sang as she walked to school. Made up words and fluctuating tune in the very second they met the morning. Sometimes Suzie fought dragons. Sometimes trekked jungle paths.
     She picked up another worm and whispered to it closed in her palm until the next patch of dirt. Suzie Drummond, age eight, would be Suzanne when she was grown up. She didn't know her husband's last name yet. Suzanne would be Prime Minister Something, and she would wear a small hat. The twenty dollar, red hat on her little head would be worn for life, she'd assured Mom the day it was bought. Yesterday.
     For now, the child Suzanne took a short step into the street, bent toward a last pitiful invertibrate, and was struck. Head to bumper by a blue car. She died there.
     You could say she wouldn't really have been prime minister. She might even have been pinned as Suzie forever. Or Suze. In the spirit of a little girl's imagination, refer to her as Suzanne.
     The worm was eaten a day later by a transcendently black crow. Suzie would have liked the crow. Or maybe it was another worm.

Great Love Of Randomness

The scores of bottles trump boot fields!
Apple trees blur, but canaries err.
Yet we brandish tie-dyed gorilla claws!
Oh Sacred mount of the blowing rutabagas,
may us toast-weavers shed our gooey blackboards of joy?

How rampageous the pillows are!
They do not sleep, because they cannot exacerbate the giant sidewalk.
The pudding pumps turn irrelevant.
How come bar frames must be so diametric anyway?
It isn't like astrolithology is purple!

Asparagus! The steel is too delicious to coax bananas with.
Lizards macarena perpendicular to the glass plunger,
but mice are crunchy to begin with.
Endeavour then after the pride of a rootbeer shake!
Above is the consecution of popping corn.

And in the thermos of the persnicketous Jason:

I walnut you,
And remember,
Life is like a pickle,
Peaceful, and full of crickets.

Can't call this one Work per se, So it is a
Labour of Love

Sometimes I used to dream at night
Or even in the day
As many girls all ages do
And many dare not say
Of happy times
Of bright sunshines
Of spring in early May
Of someone strong and handsome come
To carry me away
And never did a face he have
To give his name away
But I knew him at once
The day that I met Jason Shiach

When we were friends

 

I miss the days when friends were friends
and forever meant never ends

When laughter filled the halls for hours

and smiles like raindrops came in showers

When walking side by side

meant we never had to hide

When heart spoke straight to heart
and never thought we’d part
When I didn’t dream at night

of meeting you in raging fistfight

Before the distance came

and replaced trust with blame

When we were friends

When jokes were anything we said
about everything we both had read
When boys were just a mystery
soon passing to faint history

When people thought we both were odd
and we’d confirm it with a nod
When “I understand” was a sigh and a hug
and ladder out of the hole we’d dug

When I never had heard tell
of you sending my name right down to hell

Before silence, before resentment
before anger was a mutual sentiment

When we were friends

I miss the days when friends were friends
and forever meant never ends

The Edge

 

feel like somehow along the way

I've lost my Edge

no longer believe what people say

to this I pledge

If I've got no ambition to strive

will I keep on moving without any drive

can I stay alive

Some people think I'm still on top

but deep inside I know I'm shot

I've felt the drop

and it's a relief

I'm without a belief

I'll admit I'm not the chief.

lost sight of my goals a while ago

lost track of my roles, I'll hide it though

'til I can't sleep

I can't eat

can't feel the heat

no more Heartbeat

 

You know what?

I've been there.

 

I am anything but who you think I am

try me if you think I give a damn

and people talk of reincarnation, which better be fake

'cause this life's already just what I can take

we live for Death's sake

 

You and Me

 

I give myself a shake

I'll live for anyone but me

because I'm in reality

forget about happy

and it's a relief

I'm without a belief

I'll admit, Death is not the thief

 

That’s life

 

you lost sight of your goals a while ago

lost track of your roles, you'll hide it though

'til you can't sleep

you can't eat

can't feel the heat

no more Heartbeat

 

You know what?

We've all been there.

 

Nowadays the only people interested in me are the guys

an' let me tell you it's not 'cause I got pretty eyes

it was no use how hard I tried

sometimes I still cried

every now and then I've even lied

but I've noticed people are easier to deceive

tellin the truth with a laugh than lying for the effect I achieved

but if you know me well enough, lies are better received

If you don't believe me, it's probably true

I won't lie to you

if I said I was happy, you'd know I was blue

so I tell the truth and leave you to lie to yourself

Thinking it's a joke

it's that funny

 

And you know what?

You've been there.

 

I used to be a force to be reckoned with

you had to be close to get some of this

now I'm getting shafted left and right

and I don't even care to put up a fight

I'm yours on sight

you want me, I'll give it

you dish it, I'll  live it

I've got just enough room to pivot

and it's a relief

I'm without a belief

I'll admit, I'm shaking like a leaf.

 

End Of An Era

My first day was a very busy shift. They would usually have had an extra person on that night, as well as another person to train me. I was the extra person. I pulled it off and by the end of the night I was exhilarated. Couldn't believe I'd get paid for that much fun. Once I was trained I honed my skills to an art. Perfected the gentle science of filling the perfect popcorn bag. Spinning forty bags of cotton candy on a good night, and coming home with sugar in my hair. The chairs in each theatre seemed to me a legion of loyal soldiers, going faithfully into battle each time a movie was played. Each and every one of them meant something, and when the damage was done I would pull napkins out of the cupholders, and dig the spilled cups out from under them, peel gum off the backs and wipe them down like polishing the burnished armor of our troops. I remember Krysta and I, using every ounce of our expertise and efficiency, racing to see who could pick up theatres quickest. "Think we can get under thirty seconds this time?" to which I replied "Absolutely." Rodney was always as passionate as I was. "That bag is crooked. Is this dust? Straighten those cups," and I'd snap to attention, "Already on it." Mopping should be an Olympic sport. Why not? Sweeping is. Sam and I would take home the Gold for Canada. Kuldeep was my sensei in the discipline of how not to strangle a rude customer. Over the years I learned all the little things, tiny extra efforts that could be added to make the place run that much more smoothly. Some called it dedication, some called it obsession. I loved my job. And once in a while I would stand at the top of the aisle in theatre one, look out over rank upon rank of those cushioned chairs descending over a crimson carpet to the gracefully pleated, regal red curtains, and think proudly, "I am a Paradise Cinemas employee, I work hard and I am good at what I do." There was always an overwhelming satisfaction in knowing that. My last shift. All the names on the schedule are different. I feel like the last of my order. Now it is my time that has come. I feel a tightness in my throat and a worry in my chest for every detail that will inevitably be left untended once I am gone. But that is for the new generation. I know it is time to move on. My first job has served me as well as I have served, and there are other things to learn. I stand at the top of the aisle in theatre one and watch those red curtains drift slowly down. The last time. Those curtains may only be rough threaded canvas, but they sure looked like velvet to me.
By Shandi
A.K.A. The Popcorn Ninja