GAINING AN HOUR

Pack the car with dirty laundry. Lock all the doors. Proceed forward. Continue .3 miles then take a right onto North Shafter Street. Honk twice, just like mother does. Follow the curve of Rardin Avenue until you reach the stop sign. Watch for the blind spot on both sides. Proceed up Slaughter Drive. Take a right onto 2^nd Street. Wait at the light, because you always catch the light. Continue on a slight left towards Columbus Road/ the road that has that one Dairy Queen on it. Head East. Sometime soon, push in the white cassette. Let Purple Rain play while merging onto US-33. Head West. Maybe the season is fall; because you wish it were fall. Merge onto I-70 W towards Indiana. Travel 171.2 miles. Set cruise control at 70 mph. Settle into the speeding 1995 sputtering Subaru. Stay to the left. Do not go through the city. Go around the city. The state line is invisible or rather it’s just a very large pale blue arch. There isn’t anything to discover anymore. Once you ended up in Lima. But the crossroads of America are the crossroads of America for a reason. Take I-65 N toward Chicago. Watch for cops. Take exit 104 by Post Road. Refuel at the Shell station exactly one mile down. Return to the highway. Travel another 117.3 miles. Avoid Merrillville, Indiana. Stay to the left. But you’ll miss and stay to the right which looks like the left. You’ll go through the city. But the skyview skyline toll prices are worth the view. Keep up with the traffic. You’ll start to recognize building names. You’ll remember how to re-pronounce names like Algonquin and Des Plaines. Merge onto I-294 N toward Milwaukee. Continue .3 miles then take the Willow Road exit. Willow Road becomes Palatine Road, but stay in the express lane. You can’t remember when cruise control was last in control. Watch for cops. In .07 miles take a slight right toward 83. If you reach Essex Street you’ve gone about 0.1 miles too far! What else has changed this time? That’s new. New. New. Painted. New. Turn right onto S Dennis Road. Poko Loco Child Care Center is on the left. Not new. Not even painted new. Blow through the four way intersection. Weave around the curve. Take the first right onto Cindy Lane. Catch the sign in the mirror. The checkered flag is in view. Arriving at 281 Cindy Lane on right. Honk twice, just like mother does.

-sonja lynn mata

HOP (Rough Draft)

1. Start at 8 o’clock.

2. Start at center.

3. Walk in dirt.

There is mud in my shoes. Well more so there is mud on the bottom of my shoe making it caked. I’ll slip. I’ll fracture one of ankles, again.

4. Perhaps go through a couple of bushes.

There are no thorns.

5. Hop a small stonewall.

6. Look through office windows.

There are foreheads still working. It’s almost 9 o’clock.

7. Trailblaze.

8. Get caught in roots.

9. Stair climb up.

Wait. Wait your turn.

10. Stair climb down.

11. Hop a small stonewall.

12. Rock Spot.

I was dumped here. Around here. Kind of over there, by that bench.

13. More earth, but someone put this dirt here intentionally.

14. Walk into some building with hanging portraits.

15. Walk to my death.

16. Hop a small stonewall.


-sonja lynn mata

1997 (Rough Draft)

I came awake in Kindergarten, but decided against it.
So I closed my eyes, sucked my thumb and woke up the next morning: It was 1997.
A May 1997.
And May 1997 ended with a burning suicide of my half-brother Christopher.

There was therapy,

therapy,

therapy.

After my release, I was convicted of 15 suspensions at Mark Twain Elementary School; the crowning achievement was choking American Idol 3rd place runner-upper’ Haley Reinhart with a jump rope. But this time it really was Simon’s fault.
But Simon was young. I was young.

I’m still sort of young. Simon is somewhere in Michigan.
I still can’t seem to grow out of my clothes, though.

-sonja lynn mata