Wound

Up all night again, the people out front all just smoke and make calls on their cell phones. There are quiet fights about divorces and drug prices being had in the open for all to ignore. One gets louder and the man on the phone slams his face into the glass of the automatic door. […]

Why I’m Up So Early

I saw you in my dreams last night, and if the omens are right I must have crossed your mind. We sat together both looking as old as we are now. Your hair long and worn down no longer pulled back like a little girl. I couldn’t tell how I looked to you, and most […]

Role

Shakespeare is still alive, and he’s pimping a harem of girls to the well off patrons of the theater district. He collects the lady’s money on the roadside by the library, and if they bring him enough they get a folded piece of paper containing empty words and a couple of dollars. They almost never […]

Decompress

The cloud above my eyelids, when I sleep, convulses and shifts like a wad of gum being chewed by invisible space. It takes the shape of faces that I recognize. They present me with who I am to them. I find my value in their made up words; cut out like articles from my own […]

Background Noise

A crowd is arguing about a standard political miscommunication, and the t-shirts on both sides reflect the history of the war they are currently fighting. Some contain platitudes about life written in plain white text on black fabric, and others minimalist portraits of leaders who were killed by someone that didn’t care much either way. […]

Cardinal

Buildings fold like paper in the wind she couldn’t take her hands out of her pockets. The stone tiles under her feet made a bigger picture out of the pavilion. It was a symbol for directional awareness, a star that pointed every which way possible. She saw a nervous cardinal hopping in the snow, piled […]

Surfacing

Old men, up to their waists in water, got scorched by the sun, and tried to catch some catfish with their hands. The rocks under their bare feet were smooth and sank into the sand beneath their steps. They tried to find the bottom feeders through the way the water felt, and all the subtle […]