Dina & Dan Feel Remarkable

Why don't you just go home you freaks says our neighbor when we arrived very early to go to the yard sale in the neighborhood because yard sales were a big thing around here, everyone poor buying everyone else's stuff, no one is rich around here, the houses are old and have been in families for generations so people simply own them outright and that is why they are here and so everyone from the community scurries to the grand opening of the yard sale and this particular yard sale there were boxes of hair care products, bows and gels of all kinds and this lady wanted it and the mother of the house gave her a deal but her math was off and the lady got sore about it and another lady piped up as is happens at yard sales in the community and the mother says well I don't care and before she finishes the other lady says well she cares, its her money and the lady who wants the boxes says o don't worry about it and the mother says, what I was going to say was, I don't care what you give me for them and the ladies say nothing and the woman pays what the mother wants and says I am going to give these to my little niece, tell her we're going to play dress up and when she leaves we hear the mother say who would want their child to put those dirty things in their hair, what she is going to do is resell everything in that box for a higher cost, make some money, all of these dirt people, this dirt city.

We are at this yard sale and we have been here on and off all day since it is just a block away and we are getting into things, trying clothes that obviously don't fit on and running around and playing with toys and breaking them and finally the mother says leave please you freaks, leave.

One of her daughters is on the porch watching us. She is the black sheep of the family. She and her sister will always be treated differently. The daughter on the porch was a replacement child for the one they lost before her. She will be ignored when the other children come, especially her blond haired sister and her two little brothers. She will be left out and not included in anything. In adulthood, she will be goth and misunderstood. Her sister will get her Master's Degree in English and have two children named after literary heroes and writers.

We begin to run, kicking a ball we steal that no one notices.

Dina & Dan's Family Rules

My sister and I know when we have been too long when the lights are out in the house and we have to wait until morning to get in so we sleep in the garage because our parents said if we are not back by a certain time the house would be locked and we have no keys now and so we sleep in the garage like raccoons and in the morning our father lets us in but we are in trouble and we may not go to sleep, we have chores and a huge breakfast to eat and I want to die I tell him, I want to die and he says well if you'd follow the rules than what the fuck you know and your grandparents are coming over, look presentable.

I have been outside in the shed slamming beers I stole from down the street. Last week they asked me for ID to buy a lighter (get real) but then I figured out how to steal the beer and who cares about the lighter? Not me. I go up to the counter with a nice smile and buy gum and a candy bar and the attendant side-eyes me with suspicion but I have to stay real cool about things, real solid. The shed reeks of something dead and I figure out a raccoon has passed away, a mother's skeleton surrounded by two baby skeletons. What happened here that they could not get out? Snow? At least they died together.

I don't want to die with anyone. I am dying, I tell our family at dinner. My father knifes a potato and puts it on my plate, I did not have anything otherwise. Eat, he says, goddamn it. I don't want to, I'm not hungry, I'm drunk and red faced. I begin to laugh uncontrollably, jeez, look who's stoned our mother says.

At night Dina and I spoon because we have to,  but sometimes because we want to, our limbs intertwining, our contortion making it even easier to sleep.

Dina & Dan Develop

Dina has grown in her clitoris size wise, what does that mean to her health? Our parents take her to the doctor, fret over her, watch her closely. Dina is oversexed. Dina understands bravery in all the permutations. We want to make you into a genius, her mother says, so that you don't have to worry about getting a husband. The doctor looks and says, she's fine, she just has an overgrown clitoris, she'll have to deal with this the rest of her life, it can get erect like the base of the penis would if stunted, wait there is no bone? Dina asks, what do you mean our mother says, I mean when boys get boners, if I can get erect like a boy, I don't have a bone, boys get boners, they don't have a bone down there? Dina asks and our mother covers her mouth laughing and leaves the room. Eventually, Dan will go through puberty attached to Dina and she will understand what wet dreams are, the way he whimpers in his sleep, tugs on her chest with his jerking around.

Dina and Dan Know Equality

We are building a fence with the pretty side toward our house and the ugly side toward the neighbor, our father tells us that we shouldn't fraternize with those people, emphasis on every single syllable of every word, what does it mean to emphasize anything. But we got it, we understand, the fence is glistening in the snow the next day, this crazy spring, 90 degrees one day, snow the next our father says, I'm glad we weatherproofed that cocksucker.

We grew up in a house on a hill with a rolling driveway and when we'd get on our huge tricycle made for the two of us we'd rush down the driveway without stopping at the bottom to see if anyone was coming either direction, look both ways our mother would always say, look both ways. We would not look both ways. We refused to look both ways. One day in our speed down the hill, our grandpa neighbor nearly hit us with his car. We were sure we had plenty of time/space, he would not have hit us but he was convinced he almost damn near did and backed his Cadillac up, drove into our driveway and told our parents.

Our parents have lived in the same house for over 30 years. Today is the day of decay. Snow and then sun. Heat, cold, heat. I don't have anyone's numbers anymore. I forgot how to ride a bike.

Our father has convinced us we need to help him do fun jobs, he calls them, help me do a fun job and when our father says that you know that his fun job is going to be so unbelievably lame or horrible, it's going to fucking suck no matter what. Sometimes, though, we entertained him. Today is not one of them, hammering shelves into the bathroom closet for our mom.

We squat, my legs underneath me, your legs to the side, we are queens and kings of this domain
where we live forever. It is snowing, look at the snow.

Dina and Dan Work in the Private Sector

Once when I was out and came back to, I realized a stupid man couldn't tell you what a smart man said.

I was with my sister. She was telling me to do something to the radio because it wasn't working and then I felt like we were driving in the wrong direction for a very long time, though the road turned quite a bit, and on some of these turns, the side opened up and I could see down to where the town was. But the road turned some more, or it felt like we were following a long intricate coil inward, until I was quite sure the side would never open up again. For it felt like the center of this thing we had entered had no sides. It was an absolute center. Night crowded around us. She said we're here and pulled the car over.

We got out of the car. I couldn't see anything.

I asked her what are we doing here.

She said, we're not doing anything.

Or she said something else. Perhaps I was the one driving and she wanted to know why I had taken her on this mission. Had she called it a mission? It felt like a mission, two people, a brother and sister, after something, not home per se, but maybe that feeling. Or neither of us spoke. Since then, I have thought of it. OR. Of something else. Which we heard then in the bushes.

Is someone there? we asked. The side of the road was thick with bushes, trees wet with shadows, shadows doubling themselves, the sounds flat, but coming distinctly from within there.

I could not see her but I knew she was looking at me and was afraid.

I said to her I hope someone is there because if someone is there, I'll kill him. I punched the air a couple of times and pretended to squeeze the head of someone. We got back in the car and drove home in quiet. There seemed like there were less turns on the way back too. It was, in fact, a straight line home.  

Dina Absconds With Dan's Money

Up fools who dance in the muck of two bodies excited by scalpels

I need now the fire and the rain and the day long trek into the hovel

Room where the toilet and the fridge is empty and where

I see the bellow up a laugh old bellow white hair

There is always a little life here beside you in bed

And no amount of description will avail us of this world

Which is false

And the men with men faces and books

Which are false

And the women with educations to match boots to

Which are false

And the upright bridges on which the cars move

Which are false

And the horses

Which are false

And rivers

Which are false

And one form

 I take the unseen

And it is my soul

Oh long alone on islands

Shook from the unseen lines of trees

Alone I stand

To  best

a little axe to grind

Up the house wood and for the fire

up and knowing this work to burn

I spend all

Day jerking roots out and up and this is my fitness

This act

I am able to come fix myself five or six fixes

And never bathe and hate myself

Alone on mah island.

The arse the lungs

I know two more and eyes

Clean plucked out

And not hair out of twenty heads pig vile heads

And no one will come back excepting the vile.

Dina Has Ambition Dan Has Tantrums

 I am ready to celebrate

And one hundred more to come

And they will keep coming

As i write

These women I know from bad dreams these men

Who come clean from bad homes and reek of cock on they breasts

They will write too and we will keep it coming

It is us and you and it keeps coming regardless of where it goes

And here now the load of shit I signed I to

 Stop running little girl that snatch is mine

Now my heart is big for all the verses punish us

Are you going to celebrate US?!

Ia am going to celebrate too.

What verses you scrawl up over your your worst mouth

The verse I wrote once out of the dimnesss

Of my bedroom came a bright light

A flame a goodddddddddddesss that was not my soul

And I sold myself to her feet I am a beast I said

And I am perfect she said

And I was coming

All the place

Seeeeee me I shouted I danced to be seen

A

Dnd the bells ring and the bells ring

Tra lalalalalalalalalalalalaa

And now more than ever I am myself

One cock and bored

Their face to mine

I know I am faced tongue out and teeth like  a mask

Through the lion and it roars and sleeps

At my side into which your thorns grow

And I ma and pa are beasts I said. And good

I will celebrate your cock and breasts too

One elected, more elected

Than the rest.