More

No More

No more please

Thanks for the dish

But no more, thank you

We had our fun

But you and me are over

We’re done

No more

That bad bad bad

Bad man sitting just behind me

Haha, you make me laugh

Just like my neighbor laughing at the connecting wall

And the siblings down the hall that turtle into one another

You make me want to spit it all up and tie it in a bow

Thanks for all that

No more of your pushing me around, bullying me

It’s only you

And if others can’t touch me, 

How the hell have you?

Oh yeah, you’re the worst parts all burnt on the plate

Freeze dried, ready made, and you still can’t get it right

And you’re caffeine without a cup to drink you from

The nurses put the IV of you in without my consent

My head hits the pillow with a smack

The iron pangs of heat sizzle on under cloudy moons

No more please

Hiccuping then coughing then spasming

The little annoyances of tomorrows

The little annoyances of today

And both of those are the football jocks who pick on the puny nerds

I can’t do anything about them because they’re archetypes

Quietude is nothing but that Zen caution tape

Though it’s simply caution tape, it ripples, extends beyond its limits

It’s an expansive bubble gum, and God chews it out into ocean layers

Waves of horrible words like:

No

More

Evening

Innocuous

Stricken

Deer

Eyes

And if these are thousands of words, the pictures are all contorted - the frame is over here, the paints and grease and sweat are on the palms of the artist who isn’t even watching where he’s splattering. The drops have exited their canvasses and are squirming out onto the frame, onto his skin, they’re enveloping. The God of Visual Art is panicking now, pulling out his hair, rubbing clean the splotches of imperfections, like some OCD man who’s high and drunk and born without a conscience. Someone should have told him of this emotional stunting that would come before his 21st birthday - that’s when it all ends, you know.

You can vote and go to war. You can go to hell, for all we care - just do something with the muddy water you’ve been steeping in. Add some soap suds, shut up the neighbor next door, yell at the siblings down the hall, pierce the ocean of bubble gum with a rocket or a ram, and to all of it scream: “NO MORE!”

You can drink your life away. You don’t have to speak to anyone anymore. You don’t have to sit through Dad’s monologues. Mom’s pesking. Ashley’s sobs, Tyler’s sighs. The monotony, the familiarity, the sheer predictability of all of these characters.

And then the clock tells me it’s one! Give me a f*****g break! I’m doing the best I can with the small keys and the broken mousepad and who knows how long the hyped up brain in front will slow down. “Ringing out in lead circles,” like in Mrs. Dalloway, we’re all affected, yet none of us pay attention.

No more please

No More