IRRATIONAL BEHAVIOR
by Jessica DePue

It is neither remarkable nor neurotic that people experience internal conflict. The world of possibilities and the nature of anyone's interest in those possibilities are not, after all, simple matters.
from Psychotherapy of Neurotic Character by David Shapiro

Words rattled off brain tops
Rolled off tongue tips
Better left silent
Wound up, reared back, thrown
In my head the sound of glass
Would have made a musical break
Against the cement barrier
Against the frustration of
Having my voice discounted
By control disguised as indifference
Why is this funny in back recesses
Behind heady scenes I hide a smile
Squelch it like mad, mad, mad
One wayward smile- this is not funny
Misunderstanding, misrepresentation
Mispoke, mispeak, miss silence is golden
I suck it up, hot heavy toxins
Grow faint, hold steady
Draw a bath, steamy epsom cleanse
Open windows to smog-smothered air
Imagine the cause of displaced anger
The force of internal explosions
Crackle, blaze, simmer, blaze
Night is quiet in spite of these sirens
Bath water forgotten
By now having cooled, salty clear
I release the drain, empty it all
By now sound reason failed existence
That pre-exposed box should not have been pried
Its slack jawed rust hinge
Clearly stating
Do Not Open
Open Me Now

GROGGY
by Jesscia DePue

I am so tired
My desk looks comfortable
I want to climb on it, already asleep
Behind an alert projection
I am jacked, have been since I woke up
Two hours ago which was
Three hours after hitting the hay
Teaches me a thing or two
About Monday morning's
Nonexistent mercy
For those content
To extend our weekend well past 11:59pm
Sunday evening, my god
Straight men in lavender button ups
Beneath flourescent lighting
Do not settle well with me right now
Nor does the smile on my boss's face
Conveying his genuine enthusiam
That a new week is here, please
Spare me such thrill as I smile back
Conveying my fake enthusiasm
That I am here at all
Instead of curled up in a warm spot
Between cool sheets I am
Sorting through files at 8:00am
Drinking bad coffee to distract
My lethargic desire for any variety
Of comotose options excluding
The one of priming myself for another forty
Hours in this productively boring
Confinement which pays me barely
Enough to party too late and
Never enough to relax
Without counting black sheep
Not six hours ago I was dancing
It was sufficiently distracting
Kept me going longer than I should
Sleep or no sleep, I really must
Pace myself, pause and question
How the fuck I do it

HORSE and HAT
by Jessica DePue

When Papaw went to meet his maker
It was an easy stretch from bed
Into Heaven he had been going there
His entire life, speeding in youth
Then creeping with Alzheimer's
You can't ignore the Lord
In these small Texas towns
He saturates our tongues
Thickens digestion,
Reminding of our every move
Papaw and Mamaw were proud Southern Baptists
I found a book called "Having Sex the Lord's Way"
Buried in Mamaw's lingerie drawer
I almost felt guilty
I was too young to know
People did it at all, that the Lord
Had his own way of doing it
That birds and bees did not monopolize
The domain of secret moves, primal necessities
I brought it out and Mamaw got nervous
Papaw laughed and got up
To live another ten years
Misplacing his dentures, forgetting himself
Breaking character at every turn and
Selectively avoiding church
Preferring his sleep to everything
Especially to weekly sermons
Telling him how to get to there from here
He had been practicing
He knew by now, had chosen his horse and hat
Prepared them neatly in the closet
Ready at arm's length, moment's notice
I couldn't blame him any excuse to escape
Sunday mornings' hour of eternal joy
I stayed in the car
Reading while he slept
While Mamaw attended service
Became adept at going alone
Socializing faithfully, methodically
The same way she scanned the daily obituaries
To see who had passed,
Who remained

ALONE IN a NOVEL
by Jessica DePue

I dreamt that I was the character
In a novel by Milan Kundera
The sky yet unspoiled by war's haze
Bore an elegant gold
The gilded sheen of Barcelona
Painting my soul an ornate cathedral

My shoulder blades with weightless ease
Lifted, expelling gravity's depleting grip
Otherwise unremarkable, the day of my dream
Passed as any day ever does
Parting air, absorbing earth
Noting all nuance before I startle

From my pace in fiction
Get written into reality
Back to tireless aspirations and labors
Love in the literal, viciously imperfect
Always knawing with strong sharp teeth
Prodding, bruising my sensitive skin

I break out in rashes,
Unleash inner turmoil
Resist the inevitable erasure of memory
All the while laughing that I should cry,
Shed the uncertain relief of finding
Myself alone in a beautiful novel

DINNER AMONGST STRANGERS
AT CASITA DEL CAMPO
by Jessica DePue

There were strong margaritas
The kind that don't disguise the fact
You will be tanked after two and
This tall blonde not beautiful
For being tall or blonde possibly
For having returned from Costa Rica
For donating time to help poor families
An excursion she experienced as humbling
Unclear as to what it humbled,
I engaged her on the pretense of how
I want to rescue baby sea turtles
Many hatch in Costa Rica, set about surviving
An unnatural world which counters all instinct
They propel towards the moon's somber echo
Primitive, innocent, wishing only to swim
I volunteered my approval of her selflessness
In addition to my amusement of her blonde tallness
Her boyfriend basked in yellow light from her hair
Increasing his tan as we consumed blue corn tamales
I entertained company to my right
With conversation of downward dog and a lewd joke
About occupying the position independent of yoga
I feigned opposition to all things tantric
While taking my time on chips and guacamole
I entertained company to my left
With little more than a nod towards the moon
Full of itself and looming overhead our patio terrace
Someone began weeping from the corner palm
Displaced by the hanged man tarot, clutching herself
I wrapped my arm about her shoulder, assuring
The hanged man was my card, it's creepy vibe
Nothing to cry over
Merely the absurd disposition of man suspended
Like a bat in repose
Had bats any sight they may share such enlightenment
(His placid surrender to perception
Askew of rigid ordinance)
Had we sonar senses we may possess the supernatural
Powers of night's generous splendor
The woman continued weeping, disappearing
Into a pool of koi
The smokers vacated their posts
Leaving a chemical trail as proof of existence
I lost interest in the ongoing festivities
Searching for the woman no longer there
An apparition of liquid and bone,
Radiant and haunting as the day is long
As bedtime gave way to our bill's late arrival

UTTER SELF INDULGENCE of AN UNHEALTHY VARIETY
by Jessica DePue

I'm upset because I have not been to Japan
I'm upset because this is no one's fault
But my own-
I'm upset because I consider it a "personal fault"
I've had enough therapy to know better-
This sort of thinking negates my self
It honors her in a negative light
Turning her into a shape identifiable only
By surrounding darkness
I dressed as a Geisha for someone's Birthday
Someone not feeling as sexy as I
In retrospect he was lame and that night
Was particularly upsetting,
All dressed up and no Japan to go to
In Memoirs of a Geisha the main character
Becomes an official Geisha on my Birthday
This is a symbol, of what I'm unsure
Perhaps I was a Geisha in a former life
This explains my obsession with Japanese culture,
My love of sake, sushi, and most things miniature
I'm upset because it is almost my Birthday
I will share cupcakes and celebrate with friends
It will remind me that time is a funny guy
Who enjoys mockery
I'm upset that I allow his jest to rile me,
To become an unruly ribbing at my Master Plan
Because I've had enough therapy to know better-
This sort of thinking serves one purpose only
Which is to upset me, I've had enough
Therapy to realize I should know better
I am upset because I know better
Than to operate an agenda of should's and should not's
Because they usually wind up upsetting me
I am so upset now that I have to laugh
Japan will be there
Monarchs will survive their fragile migration,
Accumulate in a euphoric vision in Mexico
Sea turtle hatchlings will recieve assistance
In seeking the moon and finding survival
I do not need therapy to rationalize
My reasoning nor to explain my upset
That someone was let down
So I may do things I have not done,
As I please, in my own time
If ever- things that justify my ability
To break a mutual promise
With apparent ease
I'm upset because I almost got out of it
With out being upset at all

THE SHOTS
by Jessica DePue

There is nothing left to say
After these years you pave a trail
Past quartz mines, the cornfields
From some other town, this time
With exquisite stones in your pocket
Loose, unpolished, jangling with copper
Like a song full of promise if only
I could decipher it's words against the beat
Return to where your hook catches
Look up from a picture replaced by
My affected view born into
A nonexistent world
You passed through dream scapes
Drifter who spooled me along by a thread
Red and fluid, blood bound my distance
To your absence, looped me to your side
As you went missing and missing again
Turning dust between my eyes and your wheels
Creating a vacancy
Where I've arranged to call the shots
This one may hurt, this one may numb
They all carry wounds
Until you get close enough to see
My Mother's likeness, my own voice
Filling you in, flooding an abyss
Call me J Bird, wind our thread
Close enough to make yourself familiar
To smile on me, effect my affections
This is the moment I choose to leave
Take that shot, miss you entirely

DISASTER
by Jessica DePue

Your morning coffee with sidekick croissant
Disappears along with the paper mug,
Plastic fork, your attire, and appetite
Flooded, washed against bodies
Whose coffee, keepsakes, passions, bearings
No longer hold weight against the undertow
So you find yourself on your roof
Waving for help, hoping to be noticed
As infants, elders, and all this shit
Dogs, pasts, futures, existences
Are scrambled and spit out like god
Flicking a knat, picking his tooth
Or something more immediate,
Less empowered and just as baffling as deity
Reclining in the Lazy Boy, popping a beer
Before this frenzied media coverage
Proclaiming "Laura, I think it's the big one,"
Commenting on the poor state of such folk
The neglect and embarressment of a nation
Ruined before any storm ever hit
Luxury of speculation affords disbelief
That is not your brother, your child
Not your mother whose belly inflates
While the rest of her deteriorates
Among the rest of them, is not your land
Nor mine. Can not be, impossible
Must be third world, something lesser
Someone else's spoil, other people's problem
Belonging to some heathen culture
Devoid of identity, nonexistent aside of
Every television channel, newspaper cover,
Person giving blood, money, food, time
Can not begin to pick up the pieces
Of this sordid reality, nightmare
Vomiting the stench of life
Faces forgotten, a semblance of spirit
Perishing and thriving at once
As you dream of floods and strangers
Stranded and trapped in excrement, gunshot,
Rape, disease, animal instinct and discord
Of inexhaustible magnitude while you sleep
Inside a bed far from an astrodome
Wake up sunk beneath an exploding weight
Riveted by a voice asking
What can be done, where on earth
To begin

MID TRAFFIC FANTASY
To James Spader
by Jessica DePue

If the Red Sea can be parted
Why not L.A. traffic
What sort of miracle might that entail
When I get home I'm going to watch
A movie about car wrecks and sex
I'm going to imagine what it would be like
To ram my engine into a wall and
Live to celebrate the repercussions
The morose variety of complex injuries
Contusions withstanding, not excluding
Less subtle implications of impractical preference:
Scrapes, cuts, my side splitting desire
To do it again
And again if I am lucky
To escape vaguely whip lashed, bounce back
Into a fractured notion of love, entertain
A metal get-up, strategically placed
To stitch up my seams, hold me together
Suggest recovery until I am sped
Towards another excruciating halt

COUNTRY HOME ON OLD LORENA
by Jessica DePue

Acres sweltered to a halt
Beneath the fugue of blaze and ash
Earth did not rebound from this
Haphhazard slip of ill pressed luck

An heirloom fragile now as myth
Memory encombered by intractable loss
The old barn house bent and vexed
Her skeleton heaved against the flame

Her owner died a year before
Her vicious tears perplexed my youth
I could not ease my limbs the weight
Of that woman's torn complexities

An odd relief the years then warped
Drowned within their shadow walls
With them lurch and wane those days
Brewed and boiled our fated storm

On dry grass dwells family land
Sprawling as an outstretched wing
Flapping in the vacant wind
Which stirs the deadly Texas heat

PUPPY NEXT DOOR
by Jessica DePue

So we moved into this place in Hollywood
Because he is a director
Because you can see the sign from one window
If the smog is clear and you happen to catch it
The sign is never what people expect
What ever is
We searched two weeks for this place
Living from a hotel on Sunset
Which seemed fun even as it robbed us
A 3 ring circus with scantilly clad clowns
Coke and cotton candy
These apartments were brand spankin' new
A decent promise for a start
Included preferable amenities, accepted pets
The rain was pouring, had been for weeks
We were ready to move in together
And drive each other mad
So we moved in, unaware of the tranny hookers
That work their tragic all over Highland
I find myself solicited on a regular basis
Mr. Rogers and the people in my neighborhood
Poverty is colorful, dredfully flagrant
From our living room window
The immediate housing is poor
With plentiful fruit trees
Amongst the collage of rusted mechanics and odd Americana
That pepper their backyards and our immediate vision
There appeared a puppy I watched from our window
A prominent mix of Golden Retiever and god knows what
It belonged on Lake Geneva, chasing balls off a dock
It simply was not mutt enough for this desolation
Amused by it's contrast, I was shocked
To recognize said pup in my fellow tenant's arms
I pointed her towards the owners, she found it
In the alley between our world and their's
Wanted to keep it nonetheless, she felt entitled
I kept quiet yet bothered by this knowledge
Especially with $200 reward signs about
Then I noticed the puppy back in it's yard
Content enough, somewhat larger
Guess $200 seemed a fair bargain
For a puppy not hers to begin with

BUS RIDE FROM WILSHIRE to SUNSET
by Jessica DePue

The girl in the middle of the bus
Has bright orange hair with purple roots,
A heavy spray of glitter across her cheeks
She looks like fireworks with eyes and lips
Her expression denies her vibrant display,
Makes me wonder where she draws the line

The man at the front of the bus
Has the same white t-shirt he usually does
Talks on a cell phone and always smiles at me
Causing me to take the closest seat furthest from him
Next to the girl who reminds me of Rainbow Bright
On a bad day, riding an ugly unicorn with wheels

GREAT BIG CHUNK of CHOCOLATE!
by Jessica DePue

I came home to an 11 lb. chocolate bar
A peace offering from my boyfriend
Who thinks I love chocolate more than him
What am I supposed to do with 11 lbs. of chocolate
I could bake a mold of obscene proportion
Or break my teeth working towards the middle
The two bars in the freezer, 70% and 85% cocoa
Suddenly pale in comparison
To this giant hunk of Belgian
Which is notably only 57%
Although this is one such case
When size makes up where content lacks
In the cocoa department, I am ambushed
Appalled by the appeal of debaucherous excess
I have the appetite and the nerve
All I need now is a hammer