HE TAKES LONG DRAGS off his cigarette while driving his pickup truck down the rain-wet road, slick and dark as a whale’s back. The yellow, sodium-vapor glow of streetlights filter through the late-night drizzle and glint off the scar on his forearm—old, yet babyflesh smooth, sharing canvas space with the tattoo of a stained glass … Continue reading Mirrors
A THICK LAYER of unnaturally gray dust coated the studio, a reminder of the decay and horror that now coated the world. Instead of silken pointe shoes, she strode across the wooden floor in black boots scuffed raw from use. Glass crunched underfoot; it might have come from the broken window, the window she had … Continue reading The Barren Barre
DULLEN SKIES BEGAN to turn from overcast to burdened by clouds that amassed beyond cobbled streets and slanting homes as I approached a memory only to be revisited once more. But it is in glasses of sparkling libation that true vulnerability arises. Suffering guised by confidence and consumption. We spoke in parables of reflection as … Continue reading Prinsengracht
IT IS BENDING into the wind as it passes from left to right across the darkening skyline. Angles overlay flatness. A black spider on a gray blanket. White darts spike the firmament. Then land and arrange themselves on the lamp posts, beaks jabbing, heads wrenched backwards, framing screams. It, the thing describing the arc of … Continue reading The Portal
Every angel is terrifying. -Rainer Maria Rilke part one, the rabbit county and the angel that never was I ENTER THE LONG winding roads of Prince Edward County. the destination is a house built on the water, industrial chic, and with Art Deco paintings and ornaments. I know I will pen belles lettres at some … Continue reading The City Beautiful
WHAT MOST PEOPLE don’t realize is of the forty-nine of us on average to be struck by lightning each year, nine out of ten victims survive. It’s not many, but enough to be a majority statistic. Enough that support groups exist for survivors. You know the ones I’m talking about: A loose circle of fold … Continue reading Struck
MAGPIES PERCH ON the branch of a golden Linden. I sit at the edge of my bed and watch the magpies dive and soar. I stay in this space of autumnal beauty. I slide across to the window. Tree roots bulge out of concrete like varicose veins. It is the end of the world. I … Continue reading Neurotransmit
ON PEARLIZED INVITATIONS, the words, “newborn babies required,” swirl above debossed emblems of storks. If potential guests are paying attention, they’ll see droplets falling from the satchel the stork is carrying, and they’ll probably think it has something to do with freshness and new life — and maybe it does. Mom insists on these hand-crafted … Continue reading The Pleasure of Your Company, and Babies, Requested for a Celebration of the Union of our Marriage
IF HE POSITIONS his head perfectly, it’ll align with the drops of water streaming down his head and ears so he can’t hear. He becomes born again, without hearing. Instead: vibrations that soothe and shut things out. Long showers have always been his “thing.” Letting them whisk him away. Fleeing stupidity-riddled reality tidbits that munch … Continue reading Painkillers
THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION raged. Alejandro fled to Texas. He drank tequila. He bemoaned the fact that tequila, once cheap, now cost dearly. He became a citizen in a land in which he was a stranger, but what else can a stranger do?