The Safety Word is Green Beans

The Safety Word is Green Beans

“The safety word is green beans.” she told me after recently taking her bra off and lighting a candle that smelled like vanilla wax.

“Does it have to be green beans?”

I think I’d rather bleed to death buried beneath an ocean of sharp leather than have to scream out green beans in a crunch.
It had to be green beans she said.
The game was always a mystery
but the rules were most definitely hers.

Oh well.

Space is a busted vacuum cleaner.
Her carpet littered with stars.
Drums beat.

Parked cars are unnecessarily ticketed.
My daydreams no longer play acoustic guitar.
I’ve been watching too much news lately.

Maybe that’s my problem. It’s only when you start re-paying just a little bit of attention that you realize you’re not paying enough. That’s how they get you. ‘They’ll come at you sideways’ and look you straight in the eyes all at the same time. Like a well oiled machine made out of shark fins

and barracuda intestines
and raw meat.

I wondered if she had a vcr when I heard the click
and suddenly felt the handcuffs slip into place.
The tv’s still on.
I can hear it,
engorging the silence with something sicker
popping intermittently like an improperly wired vibrator.

“Tell us about the bread pudding.” Padma instructs one of the poor dudes on Top Chef.

It’s a set up.
I know it.
I’ve seen this one already.
Three times.

An advertisement for the CBS evening news in which someone who sounds nothing like Katie Couric says something about
‘blowing lava’ followed by the promise of some sort of meant to be uplifting story about a young couple that’s managed to have fourteen kids at one time and live in a seven bedroom’d house shaped like a dipshit’s vest.

I’m not drunk enough yet!
I suddenly realize in a wet panic.
“Honey, can you hand me the bourbon?”

No time.
It is upon us.

With the ghost of Jane Pauly
sweating french toast all over Nixon’s tombstone
and the bats screaming from my bookshelf and everything plunged inside the dismal box office performance of a really great Hostel 2,

she twists herself slowly into the shape of something resembling my least favorite episode of Flavor of Love’s Charm School.

Still somehow I managed to get it up

(from my book Avenge me. Baobob Tree Press)