The Schuylkill Ocean

I'm on the porch of my apartment, it's about 7 in the morning and the street looks like Front Street under the El in Kensington. Dark from being under traintracks, busy with cars and people and shops. A middle aged black man comes up and asks me for a dollar. I tell him no. Another black man comes up to the porch with a piece of 8x10 paper decorated similarly to money and asks me to confirm whether it's a real $50 bill or not. I tell him no. A neighbor who lives in my building comes up to the porch from a party from the night before with a half a dozen people. There's too many people on the porch. I back up and scream, "If anyone doesn't live here, get off the porch." The black men leave. My neighbor and his friends stare at me.

I go back into my apartment where I begin to eat oatmeal out of my glasses and blue glass bowls. My neighbor and his friends come into the living room, talking loudly and crowding around. I ask them to leave. When they do, all my bowls and glasses are out on the floor, filled with oatmeal and water, all chipped and leaking. Upset, I go into my room where there's a big TV and I listen to the noise of the television. There's nothing on it, no static or programs, but the noise it makes when it's just On. I'm on break at work and I'm home, I only have a half an hour and I'm trying to figure out how many minutes have actually passed. My mom calls me and tells me to meet up with her because she just got out of a doctors appointment in a building close to mine on Powelton Ave. I tell her I'd like to, but that I have to get back to work.

When I do get back to work, I'm trying to figure out how late I am, because I ended up taking a nap too. I see Chris Pasquerello at work and I ask him to help, but he seems very busy. I see my mom sitting down at a table with Allie Manning and another man asking me to sit down and eat. I tell her I can't and I have to go back to work.

I find Kat, my Assistant Team Leader and ask how much work I missed on my break. We're outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in the back, and there's some construction going on. It's related to Whole Foods, either that or some other big company. The Schuylkill River is actually the Schuylkill Ocean and this company that I'm related with is dumping 60 million tons of water into it. When they do, the ocean overflows and flows into the fountains of the art museum and then down the steps. I want to go into the water, but when I do I see it's murky and brown with soil and I don't want to be in it anymore.

"it's a good thing I woke up before they poured the cement in my coffin."

Christopher Montgomery had died of a heart attack. His arteries had clogged from too much scrapple, beer, cheese-its, and goldfish.

I was walking through a forest, half Wissahickon, half the grange near the 125 Farwood house, mourning the death of Christopher. I see his mother, Laurie, she's upset but not crying, her face twisted and wrinkled with sadness.

I go to work, still upset, talking to my co-worker, Jo, about Christopher. My work is half Whole Foods and half Maggie Moo's.

I see Christopher through a doorway. He's missing his glasses and on his face is a look of surprise and confusion.

"I thought you died!"
"I did, but it's a good thing I woke up before they poured the cement in my coffin."
"Do you remember being dead? How was it?"
"I don't remember."
"Do you remember slipping into death while you were still alive?"
"I don't remember."

Take the Dog out of it's Dog Suit.

I'm on a roof of a city house, there's a dog taken out of it's dog suit and put into a wet cardboard box suit. Flimsy unsupportable soggy legs. A tin man robot with the words "Daddy" across his chest. A man with a carrot for a head wearing a suit and a top hat. We're putting the dog in different suits. We finally put him in a Frankenstein suit which fits him well.

I'm in France and The Philadelphia Museum of Art. The sun is coming up and the world is bathed in an orange yellow light. I'm sitting in the lawn near the museum with my co-worker, Erin Riley and another girl. I get up and walk to the end of the street where hundreds of people on rollerblades come up to Eakin's Oval from West River Drive.

curled up like a cat on a chair. I don't sleep.

I'm in a small house, waiting for Tom and Alex Shaffer to show up. There was a murder in the house and the police have blocked off a room. I can't go in there, but I left my backpack in the room. I couple had been killed and mutilated in bathtubs, wrapped in gauze, their flesh and guts seeping through, wet with water and lifeless expressions.

When Tom and Alex got there, I was in pajamas, soaked with the water that was in the bathtubs of the dead couple. I didn't want him to see me.

Rena brought home a baby.

The apartment was redone. The kitchen expanded and we good green railings and marble floors, new cabinets, and a red stone decoration on the railings.

I'm in my bed and it's become an elevated version of our porch at the 125 house. It's early in the morning and there's a thick grey air surrounding me, cold with the beginning of winter. I'm laying on my mattress looking up at the sky and the trees, I can feel the wind picking up and I watch leaves and acorns fall onto me and my bed.

"How am I going to make it through the winter?"

Rena is safe and warm with her new baby below me in her indoor bed. She's on Skype with someone from West Chester who we went to high school with who is now permatripping from too much acid. I then transport to West Chester where I meet up with Tom and walk around a graveyard with.

I can feel it

I'm swimming in the pool we used to have in Cape May. It's late in the day, so the pool is shaded by the house. I feel so vivid and blue and I can feel the water seep into me and I'm swimming swiftly with precision.

Later, I'm in a little four roomed house that is Frank's around the corner from my Nonna's home. He's having a party there and it must be really late now, it's so late, the sun is coming up and it's almost morning and there's a cool white light illuminating everything. There are people sitting on the floor of this little house laughing and drunk and all over are glasses and vessels filled with liquids of different colors and consistencies. His friend Joey is there.

I leave and I find Shane Farrell in the empty streets. He's in Cape May with his family and wants to meet up with me. He's hitting on me but I'm not responding. He keeps asking me questions as we walk down the middle of the quiet road and sleepy houses.

car accidents

I'm sleeping on the floor of Celia Zizzi and Erica Dreher's apartment floor in Olde City. Her cats, Penelope and Dexter are sitting on my belly talking to me.

It's raining and getting colder. I'm driving or walking down City Line Avenue, I can hear cars with their bright headlights whiz past me, rain kicking up into the grey. My twin brother, Evan was in a car accident and his funeral is being held up the street in the house I grew up in. Shane Farrell is there and he's supposed to be my date. I keep thinking how weird it's going to be if someone asks if I have any siblings. All my life I was used to saying "Yeah, I'm a twin, He's the total opposite of me though." Now what?

Me and other kids who were going to Evan's funeral walked down City Line Avenue towards Alex Willis' house to go see him.

People in Russia spoke English

I just arrived in Russia. As I'm walking to find some people I know I see Sasha, Rena's new boyfriend, and I call out his name. He's walking down an old stone corridor of an old public building. He slows down for me and we walk out to a courtyard where there's an old docked ship, illuminated from the moon above. Young orphan boys from ROOF are on the ship, miserable and upset with their lives. I talk with them and about three or four end up throwing themselves off the ship ending their lives on the cobblestone ground with a crunch. I find Rena and ask why they do things like this, Rena is unresponsive, even after I ask if she can help me use the Moscow Metro. Sasha ends up helping me and I make my way back to our apartment which we are now sharing with my co-worker, Alexa, from Whole Foods. Except it was also half of the house in Cape May, so we also had our own rooms. Rena had cleaned out our living room completely empty to make way for a huge party she was going to have. I was upset about this because I didn't want to have to clean up after a party.

My mama laying naked on a bed, 28 years old and beautiful and still in love with my dad, glowing with just giving birth to me and my brother.

I was walking down West River Drive with Tom and Eric, it's late afternoon and there are cars and bike riders and joggers as there usually are. Except we're walking on the side of the road that has no sidewalk- but now it does. And it has a grate so you can catch a glimpse into the sewer system and the underground city below. I see a man lurking in the darkness, looking up at us splashing through ankle deep water following us as we walk. I mention something to Tom and Eric, but they dismiss it and keep walking. A few minutes later I see the man poking his head up through the grate and looking at us. I start panicking, but again Tom and Eric don't seem to be bothered.

(1574) Nonno

I was out when someone had informed me of my Nonno's second funeral. I was at an event, where the carpets are cheap, the walls are off-white and the florescent lights buzz and everything holds no emotion or sympathy for me. The plastic foldout tables with fake plastic wood, the useless wasted xeroxed papers on top. Colin had a room there. The room was dark, he had just awakened. It was wasn't welcoming. I followed a giant bubble out to the room with the buzzing florescent lights. I left out a door to a wooden porch leading to the Cape May Beach, the sun setting, beaming through blue and grey clouds.

(3307) The Great White Mechanical Flying Machine

There was a great white mechanical flying machine. It was huge, the size of a ship and slightly resembled one too. Except the wings were like bird bones. On the machine were people from school Beau and Francis from my dance class were at the very bottom sitting in a ski lift chair with me. It was night. As we were about to take off and started moving, I had lost my shoe. I hopped out of the seat to get my shoe, Beau laughing and Francis cheering me on. I barely made it back onto the ship. Melissa Kissler was there with her cat shoes.I told her we needed to hang out more. The ship flew higher and higher over the Delaware River and the Ben Franklin Bridge, it's lights twinkling beneath my feet. I climbed to the top of the ship and it was morning by that time. I lay on a balcony on my side, an overcast sky above, wind running down my body and through my hair. I was laying next to a preserved dead body, it was communicating to me silently. It was keeping me company on the shop of the machine. we were in a fields of dead winter grass, the sky still overcast, it was winter. I kept lying with the still body, never blinking, it's blackened body.

(3307) The discomfort of too much hand lotion.

I was in a cobblestone city square, maybe Red Square. I had put too much lotion on my hands and was staring down at them. I'm going to remember this moment at this time, the discomfort of too much hand lotion.

(1574) Old Kensington, Russian Puddles vs. American Puddles

I was at a small corner between Broad and Front. It was night and the store at the corner was the only lit up building on the block. I had a birds eye view of the area and watched myself enter the store. Inside, it was small and cramped, the florescent lights made all the items on the shelves loose their vibrancy and the floors and walls were grey and blank. the store was familiar to me. I walked up and down the dreary isles, talking to the Hispanic woman working at the counter. Evelyn came into the store. She had a Christmas gift bag with 2 wrapped gifts inside. 1 was from her and 1 was from Jackie, they were Christmas presents to me. I only opened the gift Evelyn got for me, it was a glockenspiel. I twas better then the one Eric gave me for Christmas 2 years ago and I thought about re-gifting it to him since he'd get more use out of it then I would.

I was walking down a city street. Two boys were walking ahead of me. I was talking to someone walking along with me about puddles. "American puddles are nothing compared to Russian puddles. Russian puddles are like lakes, so the people are forced into wearing high heels so they don't get their feet wet." One boy stopped and spat at my feet. The 4 of us were facing each other. I told him to spit on my shoes if he didn't like what I was talking about.