Water Run

I have friends in California who needed to ration their showers. I know people in Flint who have friends in the hospital, children in the hospital. So when you shave your face, and you let the water run, and I have to buy Drano to unclog your hairs from my drain, I think about pouring it in your oatmeal.

Smoking Credence

"I don't know if I could use the word belief," he said. "That's a tricky thing. Too much certainty, too much that's said."

"I prefer," he said, "idea. I have an idea about that. Here's one way it could go." He paused. "These are mighty obstacles we have before us."

"But belief isn't the same thing as know," he said. "I could say, I believe I'm handsome. I could say, I know I'm handsome. I could say anything to make you like me."

He paused again. "It's more exciting if you don't know. If you don't know what to believe. There's more there. You're walking around with your hands out, hoping you find something to hold onto."

Bright Places

Outside there is a moon and next to that there are stars, I know that. And next to those stars are other stars, shining spots that I can't even see. We're standing there with our hands in our hands, my arms wrapped around her, when she says do you think we'll ever be on the moon. I tell her some old men walked around up there a long time ago. No, she says, will we. Us. You and I. But I don't answer her after that. There are so many stars I can't see, so many things I don't know. And they're there, I know they're there, everyone does, it's a fact. Am I going to entire out there to see those bright places? Am I going to leave what I know to get to a place I'm only told exists? How much can I float before the weightlessness makes me feel like I'm not here at all? Light takes so long to get here. I could arrive at that place and have it already be gone. A trillion little particles too small to see. An empty void, with nothing but myself to fill it.

Kind of Lie

And I was looking at him and I knew that he was living a lie. That he didn't want to be there next to her, that he wanted to be next to some guy. Next to some guy. And that only made me matter. I could deal with it not being me (even though I couldn't), at that, that was just a kick in the teeth. Even though, had it been me, if I had been there, I guess it would've only been a different kind of lie. And I don't know which one is worse. The lie to myself, the lie to him, the lies to her. I'm pretty sure she's the only one who comes out clean in any scenario. Well, she doesn't come out clean. But she isn't an aggressor. What am I saying? She's the victim, Option A or Option B. And victims are never clean.

Grand Plans

I had grand plans for today. I had even written them down, over there, on that notepad I bought expressly for the writing down of grand plans. Checklists and shopping lists and lists of all sorts. I went to bed early, I didn't have my nightcap, I washed my face, a good cleansing of the skin is what I did. I looked up what time the sun was to rise and I set my alarm for five minutes before, that I might rise with it, that I could for once watch a new day dawn. The places I was going to go, the things I was going to accomplish, the people I would call, the food I'd make. I bought a bottle of champagne, I was to hold a small celebration, which seems silly, because people do things every day, the world is filled with thing-doers. But I didn't rise with the sun. I slept until my normal, awful time and felt awful for it. I made toast and crossed things off my list, the ones I had to spare. And perhaps I could have still made a dent, still done enough, still made things better if I'd only stuck with it. But there is a sensation that comes over me at three o'clock, where if I haven't done much, I shut down. My body, brain, my being starts to coast. And then I'm counting the minutes until five. Then I'm kicking off my shoes. And people do this every day as well. But sometimes I am sick of being one person. I'd like to be another. And, I hope, that in realizing that I am some small step in that direction. And so I will pop my bubbly and toast to me, even though they say not to. But they aren't here.

The Bills

The bills were piling up but when Nate texted me to say hey let's go out I said well yeah of course. That's what I'm trying to do, more of this living in the moment bullshit. Money comes and money goes, you will make money, never let money stand in your way of doing anything, even if that anything is getting pissed drunk with an old friend on a Sunday night. Don't you have work, I asked him, and he said yeah of course he does and before I knew it we were two shots deep and onto our first beers. I told him I'd just read something, an article, maybe not the whole article, maybe it was just a headline, that beers with a lot of hops tend to give men man-breasts and what did he think about that. He said that men already have breasts, they're right there, he slapped me in mine, and said what did we have to be ashamed of. So we played pool, we played songs on the jukebox, we looked at pretty girls from across the room, and maybe we even talked to a few of them. We sat at the bar for hours and made small talk with the bartender and she bought us a round of whiskey because we were good guys and she liked talking to us. People came and people went. People went home to their roommates and friends and spouses and dogs and cats and electric and water and heat. I was happy to take myself away to a place where none of that matters. A place where, as violent and chaotic as it actually is, it's actually pretty damn peaceful. And sometimes it takes a Sunday of choices and a Monday of regret to realize that that place and this one, they're the same.

Acid

"I'm not asking for perfect," she said, "but it'd be nice if he paid for my cab home, that's all."

"You went over there," I said.

"Yeah."

"And you've done it before?" She didn't say anything. "So he asked and you responded, right? You did what he wanted."

She had been slicing a lime but stopped and didn't look all too thrilled with me. "Point being?" Things got short when she was pissed, pronouns went out the window.

"It's not the first time it happened. You had all the information you needed to make a different decision and you still made the same decision."

"I am holding a knife, Mitchell."

"Fair enough, but..." Yeah, her grip was tight. There was definitely the hint of grinding skin. "You can't expect people to change. And not without asking. People don't have epiphanies, not really. And not people like him."

"And I'm just supposed to know that?" I shrugged, as in, Yes, of course, you should. And when the knife came down and the citric acid shot into my eye, I was willing to give her that little victory.

Butter-My-Biscuit

Thick, crispy biscuit halves. Soft sausage. Hard cheese oozing out the sides. It's breakfast like you've never known and always wanted to know and love.

Introducing the all-almost-new Butter-My-Biscuit Buttered Biscuit Breakfast Sandwich. Just one bite and you'll be saying, "You better bring my Butter-My-Biscuit Buttered Biscuit Breakfast biscuit, Dad, you 'butter' believe me." Sold where foods are sold.

Call and Response

People ask me, am I sorry? And I always say, "For what?"

That usually shuts them up.

Strike

We all look like clowns. The waft of spray-on cleanliness, sticky carpet, the smell of fried. There's something so constructed about the sound of crashing pins, like it was made on a computer. "Another strike," someone says. The air isn't coming out the vent, the balls aren't anything other than black. Most of the people here are wearing name tags and drinking wine, not playing at all. They don't all seem to be the same age, although maybe they are, their clothes are all over the place. They aren't not having a good time. "I like the way you swing you foot behind," someone says, and another one says "twinkle toes." There is something about the crashing of pins. The sound bite. I wish I knew how to keep score.

Drug

So I sit her down and tell her that this lifestyle isn't sustainable. You can't take a tab of this and two black of that and have that be your Saturday. And of course she doesn't listen, she has a reason for everything. She's young, we're young, I've never really known how to have a good time, things about planes and consciousness and energy and a really green way of talking about something so chemically constructed. And it starts to dawn on me that maybe she's on something even now. That she can't even get to five, four, three, without dipping into those little plastic bags. That even I'm something that has to be altered. And it makes me feel bad, and even though this is all supposed to be about her it's hard to focus on that now.

She draws a line down my leg with her red fingernail, circles my knee, draws it back up. She says what do I really want to do and why am I here and won't I go with her. And I say I won't. But that doesn't stop us from doing what we usually do, and it doesn't stop me from feeling like a piece of shit, and from being one.

We'll Call That the One

It boils down to not knowing what's good for me. Even as a kid, I would beg my mother for the Kid Cuisine, and she would tell me I never finished them, and I said that this time would be different. But it never was. The chicken was always too rubbery and the brownie always too small. Half would get chucked in the bin and I'd still be hungry. Next week, repeat.

But my mother, she isn't here now to help me see the error of my ways. Even if I could usually win her over. I don't have that voice of reason. I have plenty of voices and they all tell me completely silly things. It takes most of my energy just to get up on time.

So I see you and I start to think thoughts. I get taken back to a time when I first had those thoughts, the time they were cemented, these thoughts I've only ever revisited to relive and never to review. You, with your backpack and your ponytail, your oversized sweater hiding your high-waisted shorts. Your dirty Converse just like mine were and your dark, dark sunglasses. You are the girl I always wanted, the one I could never get. But if I'd spent half the time I spent building you up and put it on myself then I'd realize how much a fool I was. But I didn't. Repeat.

There is a time and place where you could have made me happy. Where the jokes and the perceived problems and the endless list of your friends' names would, if not have purpose, make some sort of relatable sense. But as I sit across this table I am overcome with the urge to pull it off its bolted down legs and heave it through the glass, if only for a different kind of sound.

It was always the idea of you, kid. It was a fairy tale I told myself as I drifted off to sleep, a carrot dangling always in front of my daydream. But now I've got it in my mouth and I don't like the crunch. What's the cutoff here, the threshold? You think about something and want it for so long, you eventually cross a line where if you got it you would never be anything other than disappointed. That's why horror movies, the most effective ones, they don't show you everything. They let your mind wander. They know that deep in there are things more horrible than they could ever put on screen.

Something to Do with Death

Ouch, oh, no, yeah, that's gotta hurt. I mean, I don't work out, but the stomach, I mean, nothing feels good if it hurts, right? If it's in pain? How much did you eat? And drink? And then what happened then? Yeah, no, pal, I fall asleep on the couch the whole time, that thing's like a bed to me. Any particular way you do it? Just sitting there in the normal sitting position, huh? Yeah, no, that doesn't sound to extra-ordinary to me. Sitting is how I usually sit, myself. I mean, I can't speak for others, but that's usually how I do it. But I'll tell you something, pal, if you've gone about your daily day doing the things you usually do in the way you usually do them and you end up with a pain like that, it's either the things that have gotten old or, and I hate to tell you this, it's you. Hear me out on this thing. It's true. It's an ugly, sick, sick thing, but it's true. We are not the spring chickens we once were, and, yes, I include myself in that characterization. We are dying every moment we are alive, you know, scientifically speaking, I guess, is what I'm saying. Now listen for a second to what I'm saying here. It's not a pleasant thing to think about, I know, hell, I've thought about it. I don't just say things without thinking about them, not anymore. But every single day is a slow march toward death. I know! I know, it's terrible! But it's the true. But it's kind of beautiful in its own way, is how I like to think about it, there is a certain beauty in the inevitability. And that, at least in this one way, we are all the same. Every story is the same. And that puts us here on common ground, that gives us at least one thing to hold on to and call ours, not just yours, not just mine, or his, or hers, but ours. And at least I don't see how that could be bad, even though it sounds awful, which it does. But it could be worse. So if you wake up in pain, like you do, and there's nothing you've done wrong, like you've done, I don't think it's cause for alarm. You're alive, and that's something, it really is. That is something.

Variations on a Theme

I'm not good with objectives. I don't play the long game. Or if I play it then I play it very, very fast. I don't wait until Wednesday the move I could make on Monday, that's not my style. My style is aggression, and it looks good on me.

There was a reverb going on, an echo. Everything one said the other seemed to say, too. Said it in a different way, said it in a different order, it was variations on a theme. Which, if I'm being honest here, which is guess is the point, is true in more ways than one.

So I won't say deceitful. I won't say that. And it seems the rules have changed without me knowing. But if I never know, if I refuse to recognize, they might just change back.

Sanctuary Lights

If you have an aging body, sell it. If you have some evil law, dispense it. If you suffer from the jitters you can remove them. Do not worry about a hasty discharging or an unplanned decision. All over there are forgotten sanctuary lights that continue to shine and shine until the sun takes over. And these things are malicious and they are not rewards. They are not frail, they can be dealt with strength. For they are strong, but you, you're strong, too.

Under Five Minutes

It was in those few moments where he was extremely efficient. Bursting from the couch, realizing he'd lost hours, he got things done. Taking the bottles to the recycling, the boxes to the trash, getting the food into several properly sized plastic containers and into the refrigerator. A quick sweep, a quick cleaning of the table, wiping down the kitchen and bathroom counters. He drew the blinds and locked the door, prepared a small bowl of oatmeal ready for the making come morning. There were clothes piled on a chair that he couldn't leave, though they were already wrinkled, no, those got folded and put away, both loads. He even finished drilling a screw into the wall so he could hang the portrait above his bed, the one that looked like him, because he didn't know where else to put it. And all of it was done in just under five minutes, he didn't have time to stop and think, he just did, before collapsing onto his bed. And it wasn't until he woke up again that he realized that he actually hadn't wasted time, and that if he tried a little harder, he could live like that.

Counteract

He's a string bean of a man, old, seen more change than I can imagine. Not exactly hunched but he's angled just so at the waist, like he's wearing a heavy backpack. But from the looks of it he could carry it. He hasn't got all his teeth but he's got muscle and definition, and when he works out he wears the cap of a team that folded ages ago.

He moves like a cab in New York, knows exactly where he's going and the fastest way to get there. He blasts through rep after rep, machine after machine, tongue wagging. He's used to harder work, you can tell, he thinks kids today are soft. Looking in the mirror I'd have to agree with him.

He keeps growing, changing. He's doing his best to counteract what nature's done and he's catching up. I know he could beat me blindfolded, I know his life's been hard. I know this man should outlast us all.

The Murse

Smaller than a bag but bigger than a wallet!
Put two words together and what do you call it?
Murse!
Murse!
The European gentleman's tote!

The Murse®. When you need a good life at your side.

Permafrost

It's a wonderful feeling that flies below the permafrost. An all-assuming race, gathering daydreams underneath the crust. In a word, it is cold, but in another, it is lovely. Poisonous spots and a rabid sun, one single luminous star. It is like this high up and for years. For years things are sheltered and protected. For years things have time to live in sin. Some great law, swooping down on decomposing jealousy like a dying vulture, praying for a final feast. Breathing, collapsing, it is a risk some are willing to take. It is retaliation, it is eternal, and it has scientists baffled.

Two-Thirds

I was drowning in a car but at some point there was a beach. And I was driving through it, I must have been. "Who wants to go swimming" I asked and "I do I do" is what they said. "OK then, everybody in the car" and we started driving, I don't even know if we brought sandwiches or sunblock. My two darling boys, my beautiful wife, there was surf rock on the radio as if God was watching all along. And maybe he was but I hope he wasn't. Because I didn't pick that parking spot, or that one, or that one. I drove through the sandcastles, deaf to the shrieks of mothers, I ignored the watermelon as the pink flew through the sky. I could not hear my family, could not even see them, as the horizon line began to blur and the first fish hit my foot. And they say we are two-thirds water and drowning is a lovely way to die. Perhaps we think we are finally becoming whole.

Screen Saver

Through the window he saw a hundred flying toasters. Screen after screen, each faint reflection in the window glass, and he remembered them. Remember how awesome they were, as in they inspired actual awe. And they did a version of it now, so many of them, feet and inches apart and on top of each other. He hadn't seen this screen saver, he didn't knew anyone still used them. What put it in that person's mind, he wondered, to add wings to a toaster? Who wanted to see a toaster flying through space. He concocted scenarios; a play on "when pigs fly," a drunken doodle, a domestic dispute turned spark of creativity. And what put it in this person's mind, he kept on, to keep it on these computers. It must have been a rule of the office, there must be a sign. A sign to put the fling toasters on and keep them on throughout the night. Shining through the pane like stars from the past, when the littlest things were impressive. And now the world was quick, and dark, and there was snow falling on his jacket.

Karma

Honestly, I don't believe in karma. It's a nice idea, it's a nice thing to say or hear said. It would be good if there was something out there to restore the balance. But the only balance we have is left to our own devices, and too often it's revenge, and sometimes it's justice. But most of all, things just happen. People wake up covered in blood and go behind bars, they steal from the poor and elderly and never get what's coming to them. I laughed at a friend on the phone and three seconds later I blew a gasket. Or something. I don't remember what it was but I paid a man twelve hundred dollars to make it right. I find it hard to believe that energy works that quickly, that before I could take a breath to laugh again the All-Seeing Eye could inflict that much damage. And if by some small chance that is what happened, I have a great more laughing left to do.

I should state that I wish there was karma. I wish there was anything to make sense of things. But we make our own sense, we are left to our own devices. We have to make our own meaning. And, yes, karma is one of those things. But it is just another word for apathy.

Slack

With a sharp twang he felt the stab of the string in his eye. Not enough slack will leave anything to break. His eye was past bloodshot, it was a bloodbath. He was sure if he blinked too hard he would cry the actual red stuff.

He tried to keep it as closed as possible while still keeping it open. It gave him a rugged look, he thought, an air of Eastwood, of "come over here and say that." But the truth was he was in pain, and any passing breeze was the flick of a finger.

He tried drops. He tried organic apple cider vinegar. He tried breathing and wincing through it. Eventually there was the visit with the specialist and the overpriced ointment that did the trick. I should hurt my eyes more often, he thought, now that I've got the remedy. But he thought he'd like to keep the instrument out of this. There was no reason for it to get more and more out of tune, and sound less and less like itself.

Greyscale

It's because there's only flashes of day. Look outside the window, you see lightness but you never see light. That never makes it down to us. It's caught up there on the thirtieth, fortieth, fiftieth floor. Everything's suspended in some shadow greyscale. I walk outside when the sun is out and I'm freezing. And it's unnatural. It isn't what my brain thinks it is, what it knows it to be. A man should walk out of his house and be hit by the sun if it's out. But that isn't how it works anymore. The sun only shines on buildings here.

We Regret to Inform You

Holding onto your breath, like a mother holds her newborn babe, waiting for that person to walk in. Getting there early, staking out a seat, saying you were in the neighborhood. Keeping your phone in your pocket, but your front pocket, so you can feel it vibrate. Looking around without looking around, the craft you've been perfecting. Sitting like you go there all the time, like you know these bands, these people, this music. Wearing clothes that say "cool," say "I don't care," say "I just threw it on," say "this old thing?". Watching all the other people filing in, one by one, two by two, group by group, fan by fan. Listening to the sound checks, seeing the first band take the stage, tolerating the noise. Feeling the thumping in your chest, something between a bass and a heart. Wondering what could be taking her so long. Keeping an eye on the door. Ignoring every act. Realizing she is not coming. Thinking yourself a fool. Going home. Falling asleep. Leaving it alone.

She is Moving

It's not gonna do you any good. Sitting there, waiting. Watching that pot, it'll stay just at a simmer, not even that, it'll stay lukewarm. You think she's waiting? You think she's just sitting there, biding her time until something happens? You know her better than that. No, no, sir, she's out there doing things, she's contributing. She's making things happen. There's no life to a few letters on a glowing screen, that ain't anything real. There's no point in looking at that name, the name is just a name, and it's so far removed. If she was in that room you'd still be looking at her name, I'm sure of it.

A wiser man than me'd say you had your chance. That it came and you watched as it went, as it was even maybe saying to you, hello, stop me, stop me, I'm getting away... I got no sympathy for a man who doesn't act, so tell me why I got sympathy for you? Maybe it's because you're my own flesh and blood. Something deeper that binds the two of us together, past all reason, common sense, the most basic bits of human knowledge. I shouldn't have to tell you to get away from that screen, swallow whatever it is needs swallowing and actually say a word or two. Yet, here I am, and here we are.

I love you. I do. But you're a damn fool. Anyone can see that. Hell, you can probably see it yourself. And, yeah, I guess I am asking you to change. Not a lot, not unreasonably. I'm asking you to grow. Just grow a little is all. Because you ain't gonna get to where you need to go unless you try to get there, know what I mean? And all's I see is a man, sitting, comfortable in his chair, getting' a blood clot in his ass. Well, don't say I didn't warn you.

You don't have to run either. You could walk. Hell, you could crawl if that's what it takes. But you ain't going anywhere like that. You don't have to get there today, or tomorrow, or even the day after that, whichever one that is. But—and don't you forget this—she's moving. She is moving. And while it's possible she ends up moving so fast it seems as though she's staying in place, that's a lie. Don't let it fool you. And don't let you fool yourself. You're just as good. You are. You're just as good.

Anyone Else Other Than Me

If you saw things I wrote about you once you wouldn't be so kind. You wouldn't want to see me again, that's the most likely scenario. But I hardly knew you at the time, didn't know you in fact. I was only going off of hair and skin and clothes and what few words were sent between us. They were jokes, never meant to be seen or read by anyone else other than me. And, yes, if I'm being honest (and I guess that's what we're doing here) I take them out from time to time, the things I wrote, my little notebook. And, yes, I read them back, to myself, out loud. And, yes, I still get a good chuckle. And it's not because I think them now, not even because I really thought them then. But every once in a while it's nice to unlock that part of yourself, isn't it? The guy who makes fun of decent people. The guy who says terrible things. The bad guy. And as long as you keep him small and private it's OK, who are you really hurting? Because the public me, the bigger me, that's the me you know. That's the me you know. That's me. Really, it is. That's me.

Grip

I'm under a table when I wake up and she's holding my hand. I don't remember taking it before I went to sleep, but then again I don't remember going to sleep. I remember making a gin and tonic and someone opening the curtains and the sun pouring in and realizing that somewhere something got away from me. In darkness you lose track of time. The beds were taken up, I've slept on harder floors. 

I tried to get it out, my hand. But she had a grip on it, like she'd never felt a hand before, like we were on an ocean raft and it might slip away forever. And maybe that was a real concern of hers. Maybe she was hoping I'd wake up and see that and think, well, why not, time is fleeting and short and the more experiences the better. But I know better than that, and she's got a grip on me.

I thought maybe, like a tablecloth, if I pulled quickly that would leave everything else in place, her fingers in the same position. So I tried—one, two, three—and knocked her knuckles against a leg of the small dining table. She woke up, confused, seemed no one could remember this table decision. But the hand was a decision she could remember, I saw that. And she saw me, looking at her, and realized what I'd done. How desperate I'd been to get out.

The clock showed a red, ungodly hour. That sun I'd seen hadn't been up very long. Someone had closed the shades. I threw them back open, threw the light in people's faces. A lukewarm watered gin drink was my breakfast. Everybody hugged and went their separate ways. She was stiff to the touch and I understood why. I make people stiff. I'm stiff. And they wonder why I drink until the sun comes up.

Grit in Her Teeth

There's nothing in northern Indiana. It's just get-through-it-as-quickly-as-possible territory. But I had nothing to do so I thought a drive to Fort Wayne and back, some extra time with the girlfriend, it didn't seem like such a bad Sunday.

We drank Diet Mountain Dew because a professor of ours got us hooked. She put animal crackers in the wild brush of my hairy chest. We sought out songs we didn't know and made up words and the three plus hours went by like that.

As we got closer, twenty or so minutes from the house, I noticed she kept checking her phone. Gritting her teeth, frustrated with something, someone. "What's wrong?" I asked. "Huh, what? Oh. Nothing," she said.

We got there, there were three cars in the driveway. "You expecting a party?" She shook her head, smiled, eyes widening in innocence. I got her bags out of the trunk. "Let's just say goodbye here," she said. If I came in she would want me to stay and she knew I hated tearing myself away from her, that I was bad at it. "Can't I come in for a little bit? Use the bathroom?" She said OK, but then I had to go.

Her mom was there, her dad, a woman that went by "Aunt Eileen" even though they weren't related. And a guy, some guy, some... guy. Named Brian, lived nearby, came over to say hello and glad she was back. And it sure looked like she gave the eyes to him that she gave to her phone. There was grit in her teeth.

Parents didn't seem to think that anything was up. They invited me for dinner. I said no, we just ate, which we hadn't, I didn't know why I said that. And Brian kept looking at me, looked at me more than her looked at her, which I couldn't tell was good or bad. I didn't want him to be looking anywhere, didn't want him to be in these rooms. But here he was, and here he'd be still, after I'd gotten back in my car and put hundreds of miles between my girl and me.

She walked me to the door. She hugged me and kissed me and we held on a little longer like we always did. And when I let go she kept holding. Kept holding onto me, my shirt, my lips, kept trying to tell me something. Took me three hundred miles, two hours, and one cheeseburger to figure out that something was "I'm sorry."

Let the Light In

If there is a difference between living and being alive, then there must be a similar distinction between death and... what?  One may be alive, yet not necessarily living, that is, taking advantage of every moment, accomplishing things, making a difference, etc. So it stands to reason that simply because one is dead, that does not necessarily mean that person is... what? Decaying? Forgotten? Staying dead? Perhaps it is the reversal that is true. Alive is to living as dying is to death. That just because you're heading out the door doesn't mean that door is closed. It's open. It has to be. And it is, in fact, letting in light.

Just Enough

I could tell already I'd gotten further than I'd wanted to, that she liked me a little too much. And I told people and they said well what's wrong with that. But sometimes you don't want to be liked a lot. You want to be liked just enough. Just enough for things to get close and then stop before they get too close, and here I was, close as could be, feeling some kind of actual warmth when all I wanted was to feel nothing. And I guess I should be grateful. That someone should give their warmth, real warmth, so quickly and willingly to a guy like me. But I never asked for it. I never said I was cold. I am. But I've never said it until now.