The Middle Poems

by CL Bledsoe

  1. A woman honked at me while I was waiting on pedestrians, so I flipped her off.
    2. Then she followed me to Popeye’s and ordered some chicken.
    It was kind of tense in the drive through, us periodically flipping each other off while trying to decide on our sides.

  1. Looking back fondly on the days when I had a gun to shoot myself with.

  1. After camp today, my daughter and I painted suncatchers. She did really well, and when I was talking about how challenging it had been, she went through all the ones I did and tried to say nice things about them. 
    “Oh, that one…you sure used a lot of brown!”
    “Now that one, that one looks like it’s supposed to.”

  1. Thank God we still have Edgar Winter.  

  1. It’s not about making sense. It’s about making money.

  1. My daughter asked me to pick her up. I said, “You can’t walk?”
    2. She said, “No, I don’t have any feet. Look.” *hides feet*

  1. I climbed into your arms like a grave.
    2. Now, I’m a cold newborn in this world.

  1. My daughter ran into the living room from the kitchen. “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! There’s a man!”
    2. “There is?” I said, “What’s he doing?”
    “He’s sleeping.”
    “Well that’s okay. Let’s not wake him up.”

  1. It was my birthday. They should’ve let me wear flipflops.

  1. Something about how it seems to rain every night. But the days are so hot.

  1. Childhood: alone in my room as the train blows its high lonesome horn.

  1. I got so lonely, my olive oil wasn’t virgin anymore.

  1. Look, this isn’t my first time eating an entire pie by myself and then crying for an hour.

  1. I have a recurring dream that I’m taking a math class. Last night, I dreamed I was failing because I’d missed so many classes due to insomnia.

  1. I’m starting to think Allen Funt isn’t coming.

  1. The thing about the 90s is everybody’s hair looked like that.

  1. One man’s trash is another man.

  1. If you’re ever feeling down about yourself, remember that there are people who drink coffee made from cat poop. So, you’re probably doing okay.

Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, CL Bledsoe is the author of more than twenty-five books, including the poetry collections Riceland, Trashcans in Love, Grief Bacon, and his newest, The Bottle Episode, as well as his latest novels Goodbye, Mr. Lonely and The Saviors. Bledsoe co-writes the humor blog How to Even, with Michael Gushue located here: https://medium.com/@howtoeven His own blog, Not Another TV Dad, is located here: https://medium.com/@clbledsoe He’s been published in hundreds of journals, newspapers, and websites that you’ve probably never heard of. Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia with his daughter.