Timing

It’s quiet in this open fieldwhere crows all dronetheir tales of nightly conquests,but in voices not much louderthan a discrete conversation. That is until some late nightkids in striped blue patternedshirts pick them slowlyoff the metal fencewith rocks they all withdrewfrom garden beds. They don’t watch out for headlightswhen they break out of the graveyard,and […]

Party

There is a woman resting against the bark of a sakura tree with her eyes closed. She is awake but needs a break from all the sunlight. There are tallies marked on the sheath of her sword for the people she has killed along her way. She knows there is a better day ahead of […]

Specters

The traumatic childhood is spent often as a spectator of arguments. Arguments with no point, and no direction anywhere. Aimless rage tossed on each other in wild comparisons to dogs and ragged prostitutes, fascists, and the crazed. The punched wall like a base drum in an endless symphony that plays while sleep is searched for […]

Wreath

Everything that’s going on is wrong the wind is getting strong, and I can’t tell which way, between these concrete reaches for the sky, will take me to the place I want to be. She just stands and looks out at the sea, and wonders what is down there and hopes that I am above […]

Bottles

Empty plastic bottles, covered in algae and their own melted flesh, float out in the middle of the lake. Her spirit is like a giant net pulling all of them to shore. She digs through them on her knees looking for the ones with messages. The only one she finds is for someone else so […]

The Tower

Cutting paper into snowflakes while the T.V. lights the room, gray from the static. The floor is a block of ice on their bare feet while they chase the heat of numbing pills locked behind a cage. The jackets there absorb their rage, and they roll around on the floor like rockstars on a stage. […]

Drain

A ball of black tangled plastic tubing rolled down a hill and into a lake. It was supposed to be hooked up to a pump on the back of a truck with a rusted exterior and antique plates. A giant knot in the middle of the water reminded them all of their stomachs when trying […]

Chewed Up LEGOs

Mental breakdowns happen all the time. They tell me, anyway, but I know it’s not like that really. The buzzing of a building chock full of old air conditioners seeps out onto the streets and confuses the bugs and the birds. I hold onto memories of holding her, but I know those are nothing but […]

Window Ice

Give me all the cuts you’ve got stretching out across your palms. I want our hands to line up perfectly when they hold each other. Go out to the woods across from the three rusted silos, back on the old side of town, and try to get the humming birds to notice you. We’ll play […]

Breathing In The Cold

I am drinking at a bar getting scoffed at for asking too many questions. The T.V. in the corner has grease staining its plastic rim, no doubt put there by an angry patron who threw a sandwich due to the results of a football game. The bartender is a short woman in her forties with […]