you arrive early and alone,
sole bearer of bad news
and no one cares
the dearly departed are just that,
gone like the green from their bongs
and it’s suffocating
don’t help with the dishes
and leave your dirtied knives
that fell into the disposal
but have another look
at Mount Saint Helens
and say goodbye to your friends
***
My boyfriend and I have a friend who lives near Portland that we haven’t seen in a while, so we took a trip out to visit with her. We decided to go with a bunch of our other friends, but I got to her house first and alone. I can only assume that they took a detour to a dispensary while I headed over to break the news to Portland friend that one of our other friends had passed away. I tried to psyche myself up on her doorstep before I knocked. But the news didn’t seem to faze her in the slightest. She was just excited that we’d all come to see her.
So that emotional roller coaster kinda messed me up, so I got so very stoned (which was mostly by accident because I wasn’t used to the stronger, more regulated stuff) because, of course, she already had a large supply at her place. I ate so much peanut butter while we were waiting for everyone else and I was like getting a clean knife, getting a scoop, throwing it in the sink, then later doing it again, eventually using most of her silverware (after she ran out of knives). And I was doing this without reprieve. I offered to wash all the dishes that I dirtied up. She shrugged and said she’d throw them out anyway because she’d ordered new silverware and a part for her garbage disposal.
By now, everyone had trickled in and was having a good time. Meanwhile, I had resolved to at least rinse off the dishes— I knew if I started washing them, she would get a little frustrated with me. Almost as soon as I started the faucet, not one, not two, but three knives fell into the garbage disposal, far enough down that I couldn’t reach. I was horrified, sure that this was the exact reason why she had told me not to worry about it. To make matters worse, I did this right when we were all about to leave. Alas, both she and my boyfriend told me to just leave it as it, she would have to take it apart to fish them out.
Then we all left. My last memory of the dream is looking out her window and seeing the top of Mount Saint Helens.
mack rogers writes 