J. Timothy King

I bet you thought she didn’t exist,
Laura’s nemesis.
I swear, I’ve met her.
I’ve stared her in the eye,
And she is death.

She spins a careful web.
She is never wrong.
Artful, she lures the victim.
Graceful, she quaffs his breath.

He knows not how nor why.
The more he fights, the worse his bind.
He is a weeping husk.

This is, to her, normality.
Life is a myth.
Real is conformance and pow’r.

Yet I pray Mia will take me in,
That I might live again.

I wrote this poem in the midst of a bad job, a dysfunctional employer-employee relationship. Everyone says they appreciate ingenuity, initiative, and individual personality— Who wouldn’t? But in practice, some companies are just plain intolerant toward their employees. Dress used to be the bugaboo of the corporate world. Now it’s operational conformance: You will not improve the process. You may be yourself, but you will fit in. Or else you will leave. I left, to work at a tiny, fast-paced company, the entire staff of which could fit into a large conference room. And I’m motivated and happy again. -TimK

I remember the first time I made a woman blush. I don’t remember her name. Actually, she was little more than a girl, and I was still a boy, a child, an idiot in fact. I would remain an idiot until just before I got engaged. We were in our early twenties, and we still thought of ourselves as kids, not adults. She was a temp, filling in as receptionist. And she was cute, real cute. Her dirty blonde hair revealed the soft features of her neck and jaw. I wonder how much time I blew chatting with her rather than doing work. (I didn’t get fired.)

She said she had a boyfriend, and I believed her. I’ve never liked lies, even little white lies, intended to manipulate people. So if the boyfriend story was a fib, I didn’t want to know it.

She also said the relationship wasn’t serious. I caught the hint; I wasn’t that ignorant. But I was uncomfortable getting involved with someone who would break up with her “boyfriend” for me. I was looking for a relationship, and if she’d break up with him to go with me, what would stop her from breaking up with me on account of someone else? I wasn’t stupid; just idiotic.

It was the last day of her job with us. I knew I would miss wasting time with her. This was it, she said; she wouldn’t be back.

“That’s a shame,” I said.

She looked at the carpet and smiled, and her face changed from freckled cream to some shade of pink.

Sometimes I think women don’t realize the power they hold, how good it makes a man feel to please a woman.

I should’ve gotten her phone number. I should’ve given her mine. True, maybe we would never have used them. But I didn’t even think of that. I simply wrote off the opportunity, in exchange for a little boost of ego.  Click to continue »

Do you know what’s the worst thing that can happen in the morning? That one thing that can take a great morning, like today’s was, and all but ruin it? And this morning was indeed great. Yesterday was President’s Day, and a lazy Tuesday morning is what that particular holiday is good for. It was a delightful, easy start to a short week after a long weekend. I felt relaxed and vibrant, even if my head was a still little achy.

Not from a hangover. You see, the down-side to long weekends is that I invariably miss a few doses of caffeine. Yes, I do own a coffee pot, and I even have beans with which to use it. But on weekends I’m a lazy bum, especially on Sunday, and half of the time I can’t find my favorite mug, and most of the time I need first to fill the water filter and wait interminably for the clear liquid to trickle through, and after all this the final brew tastes and looks like radioactive waste, because the pot is dusty and dirty, and the funnel needs to be washed, and the grounds are stale. And I can’t even muster the will to traipse to Dunkie’s down the street; besides which, their coffee is almost as bad as mine. Fortunately, on Sundays we visit my parents, and I can always bum a cup off them.

What irony! You’d think a coffee freak would be a master of the brew. Indeed I possess all the requisite skill and talent, frequently expounding on the art to my coworkers in the company cafeteria. I can tell dark-roast from light merely with a deep breath. With a sip, I can tell you when you ground the beans and how long the pot has been sitting there. Once, my parents picked up an extra can of coffee at the grocery store—it was on sale. They offered it to me. Coffee in a can, I wasn’t sure whether it was a gag gift. (It wasn’t.) All of this is true. I take my caffeinated beverages very seriously. But when it comes to weekends, I’d rather bear the withdrawal than get up off my butt.  Click to continue »