Themes
Realist
I don’t wear stuff to impress people, she said. I can’t afford it yet.
Reality Check
I’ve seen too many movies to believe this would happen to me, he said & she smiled & kissed him lightly & said, It’s good to let reality in now & then, don’t you think?
Really Good
I don’t have a whole lot of excuses for what’s gone wrong with my life, she said. But the ones I do have are really good.
Regular Hours
wondering if Day of the Dead is nine to five like all the other dead days he can remember
Regular Life
Of course I want to save the world, she said, but I was hoping to do it from the comfort of my regular life.
Relative Worries
I’m not worried about ghosts in general, she said. Just the ones that are related to me.
Real Hero (masc)
Anyone can slay a dragon, he told me, but try waking up every morning & loving the world all over again. That’s what takes a real hero.
Real Limit
How many people can you love before it’s too much? she said & I said I didn’t think there was any real limit as long as you didn’t care if they loved you back.
Real Name
I can remember walking down the street, saying my name over & over, until all of a sudden, it didn’t sound like my name anymore. It didn’t even sound like a word at all & then I stopped & the silence rushed in & whispered words that sounded more like my real name & I smiled & thought to myself how surprised my parents would be when they found out what a mistake they had made.
Real News
One morning she decided to throw away the paper & listen to the real news & by the end of the day, she knew that while people were sometimes confused, the rest of the world was not & she slept that night for the first time since she was a young girl.
Real Problem
The real problem with details is there’s so many of them
Real Reason
There are things you do because they feel right & they may make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each other’s cooking & say it was good.
Real Reflection
That’s not my real reflection, she said. I’ve changed so much since then most people barely recognize me.
Real Dream
This holds a promise to all the children of the world, which is how you can tell it’s a real dream of America & not one of those dreams of fear & death that glitter so brightly on tv.
Raspberry Patch
My great-grandmother sent us out to pick raspberries in her garden while she watched the first moon walk on TV. You’ll have plenty of time to see things like that, she said, but those raspberries were carried overland by your great-great-grandfather. She was very wise. I see pictures of the moon walk all the time, but all I have left from him is the memory of those sun-warmed raspberries.
Rat Snake
Just because you look like a rat doesn’t mean you are a rat, she said. Sometimes it means you’re a snake. She had a flair for biology.
Re-set Button (masculine)
he discovered his re-set button early on & there were not many things that bothered him all the rest of his days just because of that
Ready to Jump
getting ready to jump as high as she can just because there’s only so long you can sit politely & listen while people talk about any old stuff that comes into their heads
Quiet Spaces
We had gone far enough together to listen easily in the quiet spaces.
Quieter Today
this is a window into the stuff that goes on behind what we think about it & even if we were all to disappear tomorrow it would go on without even noticing except to comment now & then that it was quieter today than usual