20160215

Jennifer MacBain Stephens



Time

Does time pass differently in the basement when one is afraid to go down there?
Fear time moves faster than non-fear time. This is called

dark time. Sometimes there is no time continuum and one is out of time/ like the REM song or Huey Lewis and the News proclaims to get back in time. Is back in time

hidden time? superficial time? lost time? stolen time?
mismanaged time? loving time? time to get it on?

time to get down to business? time to squander? time to eat one’s cares away? time to rock around the clock?

time to waste? time to savor? time to bottle? Thyme time? time to count down the final countdown? Time to hold on to—

like a Precious Moments statue that was just meant to be smashed at a garage sale?
I mean their eyes are so creepy and they have adult facial structures like they’ve already seen too much of the time they were given

There is Somewhere in Time, the movie with Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeves before his paralyzing time and it was his time to shine

Now it’s time to replace with etc, time to lie, time to lay down, time to lie again,
time to give thanks, time to win, time to lose,

time to be the best and time to be the worst before one is hung in A Tale of Two Cities
There is the passage of time and even now, in this moment, some of us still do not have the

correct calendar up where all the weeks and days are mismatched but you can’t stop looking at it, trying to find the right time to be up to date



Seven ways to disappear:

1.   Invite the trees into your home and let the branches and leaves overtake you. Soon blossoms
      will grow from the stems between your nose and chin: not two lips but tulips.

2.   Throw a party and invite one hundred people. When the party is in full swing, offer to go out
       for ice even if no one asked for any, and hit the interstate. Keep driving. No one will miss
       you until maybe the day after, even if you are in a relationship. Relationships are hard.

3.   Find a dense wood by your home and go for a run. Don’t tell anyone. Keep walking and hitch a
       ride from some fishermen. Fishermen like to mind their own business.

4.   Befriend oceanographers and David Blaine and get them to make you a glass case that can
       exist underwater. Move into this glass case and wave at sea turtles.

5.   Offer to take someone to the airport. Then once you see them off, go see what tickets you can
       buy.

6.   Draw a map that has no points from A to B, only D’s, F’s, and M’s. All the semi-middle, and
       middle points.

7.   Don’t look at all of your belongings. They will remind you where you got them and you will
       think of your life’s story and the origins of that story, instead of the here and now of that
       story which is: you want to disappear.




Jennifer MacBain-Stephens went to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and now lives in the DC area. Recent chapbooks are out or forthcoming from Grey Book Press, Dancing Girl Press and Shirt Pocket Press. Her first full length collection is forthcoming from Lucky Bastard Press. Recent work can be seen or is forthcoming at Jet Fuel Review, Pith, Freezeray, So to Speak, Entropy, Right Hand Pointing, Chiron Review, and decomP. Visit: http://jennifermacbainstephens.wordpress.com/.
 
 
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1 Comments:

Blogger @perlygates said...

wonderful writing

12:37 AM  

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