Tag: Married Life

Life, Writing (Published)

Published — “Boar Song”

Posted on by Desmond White

My poem, “Boar Song” published in Ink & Voices, an online publication devoted to “unapologetic expression, unedited art.” The magazine seeks to provide a space for “humanness” and has a predilection for the “honest, raw, and original.” Meanwhile, my poem, about my wife who turns goblinesque when I tickle her, was an attempt to express my adoration without praise-filled language.

I couldn’t have found a better venue.

EDIT: Or could I? As of 2019, the website seems to have disappeared. Ah, the fickleness of internet-based publications. The editors sent me a screenshot, however, as some form of compensation. Here it is. Proof that this piece was published once.

Writing

Nonfiction — “The Elemental Darkness”

Posted on by Desmond White

My philosophy is a lone night, with the wife far-flung on the couch watching videos about tape worms. I’ve gone to bed early, and the rain is caught by the tree canopy, except for a black fall from the roof that taps the cement. In the dark it could be the crackle of fire. My philosophy is my beating heart compared to her’s. I can only imagine she still lives, eyes fixed on the doctor’s spool, trapped by elemental darkness.

Writing

Nonfiction — “Snakes and Spiders”

Posted on by Desmond White

When I wake, the cats are at the door—they want to slip into bed and lie in my warm vacancy. One is black with a teacup on her chest, the other gray as elephant’s breath with muted stripes. In the darkness, I fumble against their fur, locating rump, scruff, finally head, and I pet what I can find until they roll over and expose their tummies—a trap.

Under the bluing shade of early morning they are furry dead spiders.

Cats aren’t the only parasite squirming in the bedwaters. My wife, snorting like the Union Pacific, snakes her cold fingers and toes toward me, seeking flickers of heat like sausages over a campfire.

Shower. Toothpaste. Size 40 pants instead of last year’s 38. An XLT button-down that’s starting to hug. The cats follow me to the living room as I pick up a satchel and keys. Jenny lets me pet her back. She has a funny habit of bursting forward when my hand reaches her tail, to circle around for another run.

Remy sits on the couch, feet tucked under his chest like a chicken in a coop. I think of saying goodbye to the snoring pile of hair in the other room, but my wife doesn’t work until 9.

Still, what if I never see her again?

I open the door and step into a world devoid of Julie and Jenny and Remy and the little routines of morning before the light.

Writing

Fiction — “Seven Days”

Posted on by Desmond White

Day One
Not having anything to do, or to stave off the heart attack forming in my chest (it turned out to be gas), or to hold off a walk to the gas station for cigarettes, or to creep away from the wife awhile, ornery ever since she noticed a carpet growing on her chin (it happens at this age), I turned on the light in the garage. “That’s better,” I said, maybe to the dust, before I set up my canvas and paints. But I couldn’t think of anything to put to paper, so I went back inside and watched TV.

Day Two
The light was still on when I went in and sat on my stool and tried to think of what I was going to paint. Wasn’t there some guy who looked at a blank canvas for ten thousand hours and sold it for ten thousand dollars? Some postmodern garbage about painting with the eyes, or the meaning behind the effort. But you need to be an associate professor to pull that crap. I thought to myself: simple. Dab the brush in blue. A sky, maybe. No gradation. No atmospheric perspective. No clouds, either. Just blue. Like a Rothko.

It was a relief to be painting again, but I couldn’t think of anything particularly interesting beyond its base color. My wife was on the couch, reading a book about magicians. I kissed her head, and she made a waving motion like she was fanning away a fart. Take-out again.

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Life

Unfortunately due to time constraints we had to cut this from my wedding

Posted on by Desmond White

OFFICIANT

[Version A] I asked Desmond and Julie when they first knew that they were in love. Des said the first time she farted in front of him, or in other words, at first-smell. Julie said that “the first time I told him that I loved him, I knew right then that it was a lie, but I needed the money.”

[Version B] I asked Desmond and Julie when they first knew that they were in love. Des said, “when I first laid eyes on her Dad.” Julie just stared enigmatically into the distance and said, “Soon.”

 

Life

Unfortunately due to time constraints we had to cut this from my wedding

Posted on by Desmond White

OFFICIANT

“Before we begin the ceremony, I would like to begin with a passage from the Bible because I think it elucidates the relationship between Desmond and Julie accurately. This is from 2 Kings 2:23-24: ‘From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy.” Elisha turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.’ Des, Julie, you two are like those bears in the woods. Whatever the Lord calls on you to do, you do it, and you do it together.”