My sister who is not my real sister is the first to understand that the spirit, who has disappeared, was a trickster. My sister is melting from scalp to toes. I tell my sister: everything will be ok. We are symbolically in tune.… Continue Reading
He sat on the curb, the gash in his cheek stinging and pulsating. Blood trickled down his face into the scruffy grey beard along his jaw. His head still spinning, unsure sure if it was from the punch that had laid him out or all the Jim Beam. He watched his breath as he exhaled, looked up and noticed the stars shining brightly. He felt small in that moment. Alone, yet not as alone as usual.… Continue Reading
Before Rhonda gave me dirty, funky love I had a cult of chia pets, I baked peanut brittle, and I sang in the falsetto register. But Rhonda took me below the stands and tweaked my nipples, poured Old Crow in my mouth, and dry-humped me senseless, while the marching band farted “Purple Rain.”… Continue Reading
She tells me I’m sweet. My ex used to call me sweet when she wanted something. There are two things I can’t stand. Shoveling snow and being called sweet. I hate the last one more, but it’s not so bad in this weather. And it’s not so bad when the right woman says it and all you did was get her a bottle of water.… Continue Reading
Baby George was six years old and always messing around in the street, riding his one-speed around, staring at people, shouting questions, offering unsolicited advice whenever you had your hood up. If there had been a hobo circle on the block, chafing their hands around a barrel at midnight, Baby George would have been there telling stories about his babysitter Esmeralda.… Continue Reading
Take it to Roy just like your father did for every car he ever owned. When still young enough to want to go everywhere with Dad, he’d take you with him. The sort of man who thinks there’s something to be learned from simply being in the general vicinity of people who work with their hands and are good at what they do.… Continue Reading
Mummy leans in during wood tick checks, hair in a loose braid around her head. She cups our scrotums. Bounces them. Tests our heft. Weights our worth in her hands. Cops a feel. Steals from us.… Continue Reading
I see myself in the twin mirrors of Gino’s knockoff Ray-Bans. My doppelgänger reflections resemble a lead singer who got fired from the band three years ago and hasn’t been seen in public since. There is the sense Gino’s eyes are smiling behind his lenses. “We’re taking a trip,” Gino says.… Continue Reading
Plant life and animals began taking hold roughly 500 million years ago. So: useful knowledge has been passed on for a reasonable amount of time, messages for communion and survival. But Anders Parly hears about as well as a small-eared weasel, and he’s just as predatory.… Continue Reading
We’d lost so much hope after Dad’s diagnosis we weren’t even Catholic anymore. No one would say it. That we were afraid. That we were freaking the fuck out. We weren’t so unkind to put a name on our suffering or even agree that we collectively felt sorrow.… Continue Reading