The aquarium. our first date called me sweetheart like she invented the word she wrote me love letters kissed me like I was the last man on earth on her knees she smiled and swallowed like I was a secret meant to be forgotten she made it feel sacred and for longer than I care … Read More “Love Letters, Lies & Other Performances” »
they say the job issoul-crushing. but the soulwas already softbefore they even clocked in. it’s not the job,not the ringing phones,not the spreadsheets,not the plastic chairsor the emailsthat pile like snow in july. it’s the people yousmile at and don’t trust,it’s the supervisor witha laminated smileand a clipboard of nothing.it’s the half hour lunches that … Read More “The Thing About “Work”” »
the priest got up there with his“everyone dies”like he was reading from a menu. he didn’t know my brother.didn’t know the fire in him.the way he made you laughwhen life kicked your teeth in.didn’t know the sound of his voice,the jokes,the wreckage,the truth. just another bodyon the schedule. people showed upreciting things they’d heardbut never … Read More “God’s Waiting Room” »
I jog every morning through a business park here those metal boxes with windows like blank eyes — I think about my father not because he worked in one. he didn’t. but they sound like him quiet on the inside. they’re empty, no voices, no motion. just dust and a loading dock — life gets … Read More “A Janitor’s Son Jogs” »
I use to work in a hospital. Emergency room registration—name, insurance, next of kin. People bleeding, moaning, cursing the world while I sat at a desk, punching keys. There were regulars in the department, the lifers who knew the drill, but sometimes they’d pull in someone from another pavilion, vacation relief/sick relief, whatever. That’s how … Read More “The Slow Rot Syndrome” »
The older you get, the more you figure out age is a scam. A joke. Some of my old classmates are already crushed, folded in half by debt, rent, divorces, bad jobs, and worse women. A few of them are dead, and not in any poetic sense — just dropped like old dogs nobody wanted … Read More “A Study of Life After 50 : Pablo Picasso” »
