This is No Joke. Some Things Are Too True to Make Up. I Never Asked to Believe, But Always Knew This Day Was Coming. The Abduction.

In high school, I sat down and read Whitley Strieber's Communion because I was assigned to do a research paper. I wanted to learn more about aliens and I wished to convince my teacher that they really do exist. I know...I know...parents are all about banning books these days and keeping knowledge and insight from young people, which is a terrible shame, but back then if a kid had a question they were allowed to learn. There are things in life that are inevitable: taxes, nose hair, and eventually colonoscopies.

As a young researcher, I was horrified by reading Communion, questioning if it could be true. Do people really experience abductions? What is it about alien creatures and their probing? Why would they do that? Why do they insert their instruments like they do? 

I was horrified, and it wasn't until my 30s when I learned that probing is a way of life for proctologists. This, of course, I'm able to write after 17 bottles of water that accompanied the last 17 hours of contemplating Niagara Falls, the chocolate waterfall in Willy Wonka's factor, and the dangers of soft-serve ice cream. I will never be ever to hear the rumblings of an approaching or departing thunderstorm again. Those sounds were within me, and I had no idea these parts of my body could make such a rumble.

So, if you happened to look towards Mt. Pleasant in the last 24 hours, it was likely you saw the spaceship hovering around my house. Cassandra has been telling me that an abduction was coming, and I guess it will occur around 11:30 a.m. this morning. E.T. phone home. And I don't know a Cassandra. I just know people tend not to believe her.

This is the foolish part. 

It's the first day of Ramadan (yes, Abu & Lossine, I know I'm supposed to keep it clean)(I actually am...very clean....very, very, very clean)(you have no idea how clean I've become since 5 pm last night)(let this be your warning....some day...some day). 

But it's also National Poetry month and I was invited to be the opening act for EthicaELA's #VerseLove. For the next 31 days, writers and teachers from across the nation are offered morning prompts to create a poem or two, or three, or 31. I got to debut this year's kick-off and now my job is to be available to writers who share their work from the prompt I gae, which I will be able to do until Marvin the Martian comes with his Uber (Leo). 

I'm also starving, but that's another story. I can't wait for lunch after the pick up (Pam)

I am also recalling tales my mother and Aunt Jackie used to tell us about UFOs that hovered over Hamilton, New York. I am thinking of my friend Rachel, as well, who I met in London, and always knew she, like me, would experience an alien abduction one day (if we only knew....if we only knew). Finally, I am thinking of Charlie...who at age 50 is the one who advised me, "One day, they'll come for you, too." I was horrified, just as much as when my father went for his (which didn't go well...I'm still confused about the story...he passed out in a bathroom or something).

No, I promise not to write a poem about today (although I could) (with selfies I shot of my facial expressions that I made from the loo last night) (all in preparation of the abduction). Instead, I'll ingest more clear liquid, watch the minute hand of the clock until I have to stop, check out poets as they come at April as they do on #VerseLove, and accept any and all prayers that this too shall pass. 

All kidding aside.