Ralph Pullins

I write my words in tiny letters on soap bubbles: free and unafraid , free and safe ,  free and content, free and brave and I watch as they lift and blow and burst into nothing  I write my words on the ceiling to stare at when I don't sleep at night: broken injured exhausted and they circle and jeer and I beg for rest, for some quiet, but they haunt me in that half place between awake and dream they say disloyal they say coward I write my words on the bathroom mirror, in the steam they run and streak:  Old . Haggard .  Fat no obese no grotesque , a melted candle, a bloated corpse.  I write blemish , I write imperfect .  I wipe them away, get on with life but they stay on my hands and stain everything I touch indelible and permanent I write words with hands that are old and dry. I am a struck match, an empty gun, a seized engine  I write them on the form at the doctor's office: benign please benign please benign I paint my words on the walls of th...

So I know what you're thinking: who died?  And okay, fair play, the last several posts have been eulogies of one kind or another what with my friends and pets dying at a pretty impressive clip, so much so that it feels kind of personal, like that last time I kicked the coffee table with my pinky toe and took the Lord's name in vain was the last straw and now its open season on my loved ones. But maybe I didn't want to write another eulogy, okay? Maybe this is my way of pushing back against the darkness, or something.   I have been feeling that the world is getting pretty grim and that things seem to be spiraling past the point of no return, and that maybe we are all doomed here for eternity in the universe's dumbest timeline.  And whether you are a godless Tylenol snorting communist homo, or a gun humping fascist police state bootlicker, you don't have to look far to have that feeling confirmed.  And you might be thinking you are neither of those, but let's face...

You thought you were okay. You thought I was gone, that I was chained up, that maybe you had starved me to death, that I was a husk, dried and dead.  You thought you were okay, that you had risen above it all. You forgot that I will always be here, waiting for your guard to drop, for you to get too confident, for you to get too comfortable. I will never die. When your son asked if you believed in ghosts you said no, but you lied.  You believe in ghosts. You believe in me.  I'm real.  Even if you forgot, even if you want to deny it, I am here now and I will stay until you are a ghost yourself.   The word is haunted . I want you to hit things, I want you to scare the people you love.  I want you to fill yourself with desolation, with bleak blind despair.  You get it. You remember.  You are alone, you are a fucking loser.  You remember, don't you? That you are inconsequential, that you are a fat stupid asshole?  You get it, even if others w...

  On Tuesday, my dog was fine. Wednesday she... wasn't. Thursday morning my wife took her to the vet. Thursday night the whole family took her to the emergency vet. And- On Thursday we had three dogs living in this house On Friday we had two. It's sad, okay. Those of us that have multiple pets know that there's one that we consider ours . She was the one I considered MY dog. Fucksake-  Whatever, this is not the point okay this isn't the thing that got me to sit down and write today. This thing is isn't about loss. It is about gratitude. So Thursday sucked.  It was full of dread and fear and uncertainty and stress. And on top of all that I had to work which takes concentration and focus, and on top of that I had just a few hours sleep.   Picture me at my desk with my headphones on, distracted and worried, and waiting for the other shoe to drop, picture me with a heart preparing to break, picture me with a head filled with questions: am I too soft for what is comi...