I had this small yellow notebook, one of the ones where the cover flips back on a thin metal spiral, one of a few an ex-lover gave me—she, one of a few who loved my words. It fit perfectly in my back pocket and I’d carry it with me to jot down thoughts, ideas, jokes—poetry when I had the time.

            Ah—there’s nothing worse than a lost thought! Yes, there is—a lost poem! No—a lost notebook full of thoughts and poems! Eh—really a lost love, but who’s keeping track?

            One drunken night of boneheaded shenanigans in New Orleans—barhopping; mixing rum, tequila, whiskey, beer, mushrooms; conversing with women; breathing in the blasting brass of the horns of young street performers; talking shit to ‘street poets’; hustling a curb; riding some kid’s skateboard in the middle of a busy intersection; breaking into an above-ground cemetery and an in-ground pool; some fine lad in a suit chaffeuring us around, chaperoning the whole thing—I blacked out and woke up on a couch to find my back pocket ripped out and the little yellow notebook with the thin spiral-bound cover lost somewhere along the way.

            I once found my trusty ol’ flip phone, bewilderingly, after I blacked out in the streets of New York City—but there, then, I knew I stood no chance.

            I wracked my brain as to what was in the notebook, but that’s exactly why I had it in the first place: so I wouldn’t have to remember the stuff I put in it! It held seven or eight poems, as well as a bunch of fragments and tips. Out of the poems, maybe two were wastedly-crafted and worthless, four or five I managed to recreate! And one which I was semi-fond of was unrepeatable—gone, lost forever.

            Now, guys and gals, this bothered me much, much more than it should have. Much more than most things. More than I care to admit. But what can I say? This is my life and it means a lot to me.

            The poem was lengthy, the longest of the bunch (which is why it was the hardest to recapture), but it was more or less an anecdote of closing down the bar I worked at with a kid named Justin from Panama, a girl named Maranda from Texas, and a guy named Adam from good ol’ Buffalo.

            It described how I was driving my absolute pile of shit vehicle (I’m sorry, condolences due, RIP Black Betty) through a thunderstorm, drunk, and how the windshield wipers went on strike (the one million ’n first thing to quit on ’er), splayed out like dead spider legs or the legs of some inviting call girl, and how I was forced to pull over to call the girl waiting in my bed and figure the whole thing out.

            It was at that time the wipers started working again and the rain subsided, so I pulled out the later-lost notebook to throw down the words I’d later lose in Louisiana. The whole thing was a metaphor for how ridiculously laughable my life had become at the time: shitty car, shitty girl, shitty job, drunk driving, blindly, through a heavy downpour—but at the end things were looking up, because at least I had a shitty car, a shitty girl, a shitty job, the storm had died down, and the wipers had come back to life.

            So, this, this, guys and gals, this is the closest I’ll ever get to reciting that poem. This, this one is for me. This one is for you, too. But this one is mostly for me: to remind myself to let it go, to forget… and to get pants with stronger pockets.

            Working the midnight shift can really fuck you up. You stop eating right, stop shitting right, stop spending time with friends and family. You stop spending time with anyone. You go to sleep when it’s light out and wake up when it’s dark. You start to lose yourself from society—even worse, you start to lose yourself. No one knew this better than Martin Moore. That’s why when funny things started happening, he chalked it up to his mind playing tricks on him.

            Marty spent his 35 years being thankful for what he was given. Whether it was jobs or women, he was satisfied with what he had. At least he had a job and a woman, he rationalized—while many men had only one, the other, or neither.

            Marty met his wife in high school, the same high school that was now a five-minute drive from their home. Two years after asking Laura Trundell to the homecoming dance in the tenth grade, he asked for her hand in marriage and they never looked back. Kids were never part of the equation—though they tried, Marty was sterile. Laura wanted children more than anything, and not being able to provide them for her made Marty feel less of a man. They weighed outside options, but they were too religious to follow through. Still, they made it work: they loved each other and they were always honest and loyal to one another—which is more romantic than most can claim, they believed.

            Marty was not a man of opportunity. Better, more demanding jobs had been offered to him, only to be turned down by his weak work ethic. He didn’t strive to be the best he could be; he strove to be average—the less expected of him the better—and he was fine with that. The most excited he got was watching the Buffalo Bills blow another Sunday afternoon while guzzling a case of Genesee on the couch by himself. He didn’t mind watching them lose week after week, year after year, because he knew having a horrible team was better than having no team. He was a simple man.

            Marty worked at a smoke shop and gas station on the Tuscarora Indian Reservation, roughly two miles from his and Laura’s home in the township of Wheatfield, NY. Wheatfield was just as bland as it sounds; it didn’t have much more to offer than the name implies—other than an elementary school, a middle school, and the Moore’s alma mater across the road from where he worked, on the other side of Route 31.

            His job was easy, just the way he liked it: stock cigarettes, sell cigarettes, and disregard IDs—in that order. So when he was offered a 25¢ raise to take the midnight shift, he said no before he even heard what the job entailed, before he ran it by Laura the next morning over eggs and bacon, before she wacked him with a greasy spatula and said, “What in the world is wrong with you, Martin? You take that job like yesterday!”

            So he did. He listened to his old country music and read the newspaper and ate whatever he wanted from the shop at cost. There was only one catch: he had to make rounds on the other buildings owned by Smokin Joe, his boss, a few times a night as a security measure. For this he used a golf cart, and it was only a hassle in the pouring rain and thunder, which only happens in the height of the hot, humid summers of Western New York.

            It was one of these balmy mornings it began. The clock finally made its way around to 9 a.m. and Ruthann burst through the door, bringing the heat in with her, relieving Marty from his post.

            “Lordy, Lordy!” she erupted, “Is it ever a mess out there today? Woo, my!”

            “Bad, huh?” Marty didn’t care what she had to say. He wasn’t much of a talker, though he always made small talk with Ruthann to avoid awkwardness, and, more so, because she was Smokin Joe’s sister-in-law.

            “Ya would’n believe it, Marty! Ya juss would’n! Rain’s a’fallin like the sky itself! Like the good Lord’s takin a rinse! I saw two cars off the road, Marty—two! And you know I only live ’bout a fi’teen minute walk ’round the way!”

            “Ya don’t say?” Marty punched out. “Wasn’t bad when I was makin my rounds, ’cept for the heat. The weatherman has been callin for this though.”

            “But not this bad! You be careful out there now, Marty, ya hear! I got the feelin that this only beginnin!”

            As Marty approached the door, he assured her, “I will, Ruthann, don’chu go worryin ’bout me now. And don’chu go workin too hard today.”

            “Heh-heh, you got it, Marty! See ya now!”

            He stepped from the cool air inside into a torrential downpour outside and realized Ruthann wasn’t kidding. The temperature must have climbed 10°F since his last round, accompanied by a pounding rain. The wind blew water every which way as he jogged blindly to his pick-up truck. He hopped in his rusted, reliable ’93 Chevy 1500 and started the engine.

            Not a quarter mile down Route 31 he saw one of the cars Ruthann mentioned in a ditch on the side of the road. Marty had good morals and a good truck. He stopped to help.

            “Rough mornin, huh?” Marty said as he hooked his chains to the back of a Ford Corsica. The rain let up slightly.

            “Certainly is, I’m already late for class,” the kid replied. “Thanks an awful lot for helpin, sir. A cop stopped about 20 minutes ago and said he’d send someone, and here I’ve sat, no one in sight. They don’t give a shit—to serve and protect, my ass!”

            “We’ll getcha outta here in no time.” Marty hooked the chains to the front of his truck and got in.

            The kid stood to the side as Marty pulled his car out of the ditch. Marty saw the kid’s reflection in the back-glass of the car, as well as his own. He saw his reflection vanish for a moment, then reappear next to the kid. His reflection reached down, grabbed one of the chains, and started strangling the kid with it. As his reflection choked the kid it held him against the trunk, and Marty watched in disbelief as the kid’s eyes bulged out of his head, his legs flailing in fear. The entire engagement was dead silent. At last, the kid stopped struggling. Marty’s reflection dropped him to the ground.

            A knock on his window. “Sir, I don’t mean to be a pain, but are you gonna pull me out or not?” It was the kid Marty just watched his reflection strangle.

            “Uhh, yeah. Yes.” Marty revved the engine, got the car back on the road, and unhooked the chains.

            “Thank you so much, sir. Here, take this,” the kid held out $10.

            “Don’t worry about it.” Marty couldn’t even look at him.

            “Sir, I insi-”

            Before the kid finished his sentence, Marty was pulling away.

            He cruised home at 25 mph, thinking about what he had just seen. The morning cleared of all precipitation, the sky paled light blue. It wasn’t hard to convince himself he saw nothing, that he imagined the whole thing. The midnight shift was starting to get to him was all.

            Breathing a sigh of relief, he looked in the rear view mirror, and winked at himself.

            His skin slithered.

            Martin Moore was not the type to wink at anyone, especially himself. He was exhausted; he had to sleep this one off.

*                      *                      *

            The next night Marty was awoken around 8 p.m. by the aroma of freshly cooked eggs and bacon, and hot coffee.

            “Whad’a lady, whad’a lady!” Marty almost sang as he entered the kitchen.

            “I can’t have ya goin off to work without a hot breakfast now, no matter if it’s nighttime or not!” Laura cooed back.

            “And I can’t go off to work without yer love, Laur, no matter what time it is!” He kissed her on the back of the neck and watched her cheeks puff out in a grin, then poured himself a cup of coffee in the mug she had laid out for him.

            “Well, you’ll have a lot of that! I just hope it keeps ya alert,” she said. “The rain’s started again, and it’s hotter than you wanna believe!”

            She kept him company while he ate, and they made love afterward. Marty thought he saw something strange in the reflection of the TV screen during the act, but ejaculation quickly ejected that thought from his mind. He held her for a while, as he always did after sex, because he knew she liked it, and knowing she liked it made him like it too. This was the time they had together; they continued a healthy marriage by using it well.

*                      *                      *

            By 9:45 p.m. it was time for a shave and a shower. He was rinsing the shaving cream off his face when his reflection smiled at him.

            Marty wasn’t smiling.

            The peculiar events from that morning crashed back on his mind as he watched his reflection take the razor blade and remove its eyebrows with two swift swipes. Reaching up quickly, he felt his eyebrows were still there. A moment of calm came and passed, unsettling him deep down in his gut.

            Tension rose.

            Silence.

            Marty’s reflection went berserk. It shaved into its face, deep and hard, peeling the skin back like a potato, revealing blood and muscle. It cut its lips off and flung them at the mirror, where they would have passed as spattered bugs on a windshield—if they were insect green instead of insidious red. His reflection winked, fell face first into the sink—if it could still be called a face—and remained motionless.

            Marty backed into the tub slowly, running his fingers over his face in horror, and started the shower. There was nothing else to do, except be sure he was losing his mind.

*                      *                      *

            That night at work the rain continued, more ferocious than the night before. As the storm pounded outside, Marty pounded his head inside.

            What’s happenin to me? Why? How??

            He was a coherent man, always on the side of logic and reason, yet neither of these laws he lived by were anywhere to be found. Tell his wife? No way! See a doctor? Absolutely not! He had not seen the inside of a hospital in years, and he was not going to now. Especially not to meet with one of those psycho-sicko-head-shrinking-something-or-others who hid behind big words and diagnoses, attempting to define and understand things which cannot be defined or understood. Next thing you know you’re scheduling an appointment with the prick once a week and you’re taking medication that changes who you are, all while your episodes are still occurring. Well, not him. Not Marty. Nope.

            Time ticked slowly and rain blurred everything as Marty made his rounds, trying to rationalize what he’d been experiencing over the past 24 hours or so. He concluded that he had food poisoning.

            “Yeah, that’s it,” he told himself, “it’s just food poisonin! It’s that takeout from two nights ago playin tricks on me, causin me to hallucinate—yup!”

            Even when Ruthann arrived, frenzied and panicked, he didn’t realize how wrong he was.

            “Marty—come quick!! A bus tipped over out front here!! A school bus!! Lord, oh, Lord! Why would’n they close the schools today?! There’s gotta be—”

            Ruthann’s voice trailed off as Marty lost himself in the reflection off the glass door behind her. He couldn’t see her face, but he saw her arms fluttering, and his reflection maliciously approaching.

            It was serene.

            Silent.

            His reflection grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head back, then began to beat her face like a baboon. Blood was flying in the air with every brutal bash, like some sort of bizarre brouhaha, when his reflection took her ear in its teeth and bit it off, spit it in her face, and did the same to the other. It was pulling her head back so far now he saw her face in the reflection, full of blood and already swelling, screaming for someone—anyone—to save her. Silent screams for someone who wasn’t there.

            Drawing a large switchblade, his reflection jammed it through the bottom of her chin so it stuck out of her mouth. Marty’s intestines twisted as his reflection looked him dead in his eyes, giving him a sharp, sinister smile, and shoved her through the glass door.

            “Marty—they’re trapped!! They need yer help!!”

            There was no time to ponder this violent vision as he ran outside. The heat engulfed his skin and the rain swallowed him whole, thunder roaring, quick flashes of lightning lighting the otherwise pitch black and bruised purple sky.

            The bus had tipped over on its right side in a ditch, making the usual exit useless. Kids swarmed the emergency escape in the rear by the time Marty trudged through the flooded ditch and yelled, “Get back!” He covered his fist with the sleeve of his rain jacket, smashed the glass, and pulled the lever, opening the door.

            Marty helped kids climb out while Ruthann stood by asking them if they were okay. Once the last little girl hopped out, Marty hopped in to evacuate the rest of the passengers. Picking up a small boy who was knocked unconscious, that big glass windshield caught his eye—and what was inside it.

            Marty’s reflection slammed the kid down on its knee—hard—breaking his back. It found another kid and lifted her up by her throat, churning it, snapping her neck. Making it to the front of the bus, his reflection spotted the driver hanging from where he sat by a seatbelt, which it undid, allowing him to drop to the ground in what should have been a loud thud, but was silent instead. He saw his reflection stomping the driver’s head in when he ripped himself away from the grisly depiction and retreated from the bus as fast as he could.

            Dashing to his truck, he didn’t even hear Ruthann’s, “What the hell’er ya doin, Marty??” as he sped into the storm.

*                      *                      *

            Laura was sipping tea and doing a crossword puzzle when Marty roared in the driveway and burst through the door. For such a calm and collected man, he was disturbingly disheveled. Laura had never seen her husband so distraught.

            “Honey, what on God’s green earth is wrong?!”

            All she got was, “Talk about it later!” as Marty ran into the bathroom and slammed the door, locking it behind him. Little did he know later would never come.

*                      *                      *

            The soap and shampoo of Marty’s shower were replaced with tears and terror as he contemplated his next move. His entire life was based on rationality and now that was gone—out the window and on the loose. He didn’t know what to do; his mind reeled. He couldn’t even think; he was a broken man.

            Stepping out of the shower, his heart plummeted when a finger started writing a message in the steamy mirror from the other side.

            Sluggish.

            Silent.

            “No!!” he shouted, “Not again!! Stop it!!” He squeezed his eyes shut for an indistinguishable amount of time, his head in his hands. When he looked up, the mirror read:

DO YOU WANT IT TO END?

            Laura was banging on the door and jostling the handle madly, begging Marty to open up. He paid her no mind. Instead, underneath the question on the mirror, he wrote:

YES

            A small area of the mirror was slowly wiped clean and a hand appeared, with a single finger beckoning him toward it. Marty leaned forward and extended his arm, reaching for the hand. For a moment his fingertips passed through the surface of the mirror… then his palm… then his forearm.

            It was numb.

            Something tugged him, strong and fast, off his feet and through the air.

            Disorientation hit him heavy as he picked himself off the floor. Looking around, he was in his bathroom, but something was terribly wrong. The toilet was on the right, the sink on the left; everything was opposite! The mirror read the question and answer backwards.

            Marty rubbed the rest of the steam off the mirror frantically. He watched his reflection open the bathroom door. Dread washed over him as Laura rushed in and embraced it. He stared on, shocked, as their mouths moved, but he heard nothing.

            Cinematic.

            Silence.

            The two beamed at one another as his reflection caressed her belly.

            What does that mean? he thought, she can’t be…

            Martin Moore’s body froze.

            He leapt out of his skin.

            His blood ran blue.

            He recalled the night before, when they were making love and he saw something strange in the reflection of the TV screen. It was his reflection. It had impregnated Laura.

            Marty screamed and pummeled the mirror, but it made not a sound. His reflection looked him dead in his eyes while it held his wife.

            It flashed that sharp, sinister smile, and winked.

about how i’ve come to be here
about how i’ve come to be;

staring face-first into a
gravel-pit—both physically
and spiritually—of my own
making—both literal and not

thinking: why is this the hour?
why is this the elixir? why is this
what it takes to come alive?

30’s knocking on the door—

a cold
     hard
          clock

and i’m not the boy i used to be
nor the man i want to

the girl i love most is gone for days
hundreds of miles away
and i love to think of her
but i’m trying not to think

my teeth are rusted, rotting,
my tongue tastes dizzy, and it’s time
to start anew

(don’t let the screen rule your being)

(make it a better tomorrow, even if only for today)

(aka sticking to your routines is all well and fine, but it has to be in preparation for something… else, something… BIG aka what are we fighting for if there’s nothing on the other side; there must be something worthwhile ahead to give us hope (even if not, at least lie to me and say there is) aka what in the world are we working toward if not a better tomorrow?)

I heard it from a friend once
(a friend who was my employer at the time,
but a friend first, though an employer
previously, chronologically)
[fake it ’til you make it fake it ’til you make it]
over post-midnight chicken wings
we cooked in his commercial kitchen
after a few puffs of pot
(something I’d long given up at that point—
and BLAH, pot; ain’t it obvious
I am old? and therefore I was
very high as well?)
after working sunup to sundown
at his pub by night/diner by day for days
and nights on end, crashing at his
apartment in the building above,
doing it all over and over again
[rinse wash repeat rinse wash repeat]
when the realization hit my stoned brain,
and the words hit my saucy lips:

“Hey, man—what the fuck
are we actually doing here?”
and he shook his head—
barefoot, sitting cross-legged
on the floor at his coffee table,
television a radiant glow in the background,
the mist of Niagara Falls visible through
his 5^th floor living room window—
bit into a wing, and replied,
“We’re working today
for a better tomorrow.”

I didn’t understand it then,
because I wasn’t working for shit but survival;
I was running in circles
[fake it ’til you make it fake it ’til you make it]
chasing my tail, spinning the cosmic
hamster wheel in place,
in the wrong direction

it was not until years later,
years of making the same mistakes
[one step forward four steps back]
doing the same things over and over again
expecting different results
[the true definition of insanity;
rinse wash repeat rinse wash repeat]
when hindsight revealed
that I had so much to hash out,
to unknot, to work through—
and the cure is cruel;
the more you want it,
the more it eludes you,
and only if you drop-in
drop-off drop-out can it come,
taking its merry old time,
dragging its dirty heels
all the lowly way…

I don’t know much—in fact,
I know next to nothing—but now
I know what he meant:

I have not yet “made it,”
but maybe I have?
maybe this is it?
and even if not
I’m working toward it,
and if nothing else:

I sure ain’t fakin it no more.

[fuck, man—I never was]

            Her teeth reminded me of her, the teeth of my mate’s girl, though I had seen them many times before. Why now? So sharp! So jagged! So sure! and I couldn’t help but think of her then.

            My mate’s girl, not unlike her, to come and take care of a wounded young man at his beck and call at all hours of the day and night, at the drop of a 10¢ cap—to wait on him for hours on end, to wait on him hand and foot, to wait on a wish and a whim… to treat him with every loving bone in her body, with every adoring cell in her satchel, maybe suspecting, but never knowing, that she’s a placeholder, a bookmark—a space in time for him to relax and have a breath—and even in her suspicion, even though it is so, enjoying it all for all it’s worth all the same; enjoying the refuge she creates for him, with him.

            She pulled me through and stood me up, she rubbed me down and gave me drugs—soft porcelain face, big ocean eyes, short lilac hair. The product of a punk rock lobotomy and a childhood abortion gone wrong, with a little too much ’hood in her for my liking—you could tell when she talked, you could tell when she showed those crazycrooked teeth in that lovelydisaster of a mouth, not unlike when her mouth hung open in an ‘O’ shape and her cheeks rose with that wildfun look in her eye, because I had just made a not-so-clever joke at her expense, I had showed her attention, and she fell for me just an itty-bitty smidge more.

            She said she believed in me, I told her I believed her. It felt good to have her there.

            I had the old talk with her, numerous times. The one where I tell her I’m not trying to get serious, that I just got out of—and am still very much incapacitated by—a troubling and traumatic relationship, to sound dramatic, to say the least. Each time, she nodded as if she understood—each time, I knew it was a lie: an act, a charade, something she felt she had to do because she thought that’s what I wanted from her. I wanted the truth. Or did I? Each time, I died inside, but I needed her.

            She believed in me, she just didn’t believe me. I couldn’t believe it. We were a great team.

            Goddess, angel—these words are too lame, too powerful, too wrong. She was a woman for me. I mean, she was very much a girl, but she was very much a woman for me—at an excruciating and confusing time in my life (aren’t they all?)—and for that, I am eternally grateful. I don’t know if I ever showed that enough. Though we spoke and met a few times after I put an end to whatever it was we had, she’s cut me out of her life ever since; I don’t know how she feels.

            Not long after, she started a serious relationship with a guy who seemed a better fit, who seemed to treat her right, who seemed to be just as heartbroken as her. I think they’re still together. This is enough for me, this makes me happy—that she found someone to provide what I could not. She always deserved it, after all. She was always right: I could only treat her wrong.

            At one point, she sent me a letter. Yeah, a letter—I know! In 2016 AD! She knew it would get me. Sadly, it did not. The words held power, passion, pain—but they were written in a hideous hand. The spelling and grammar were atrocious. I couldn’t believe for something that seemed so important to her, such a lovelorn brokenhearted power move meant to tear me down and beat me up, that she didn’t consult a dictionary or take her time making the words look nice. The bad grammar’s understandable, we all know damn well there ain’t no place easy to look that up. But, I digress… I did appreciate it, I did find it romantic and old-fashioned and thoughtful and sweet, though I don’t know if she sent it more for me, or for her. No matter.

            What did I do? In response, I wrote a short poem, two sentences obliterating her effort, and I published it in a public forum. For that, I am a piece of shit. I’m 99.96% sure she saw it. However, I don’t know if she will ever see this:

            Emily, I am sorry. Not sorry for what happened between us, as we had some great times—we learned, we loved, and it was how it had to be. No, I am not sorry for that. I am sorry it’s taken me this long to write this. I am sorry it’s taken me two years to miss you. But, most of all, I am sorry that at times like this, I miss everyone.

            I’ve been long overdue for a night like this.

            Goddamn, it’s good to be alone.

            Ain’t it strange how things change? I think so.

            It’s Memorial Day weekend—how ironic. Or coincidental, it doesn’t matter. And we all know my memories and I are no stranger to each other.

            The places are the same—the neighborhoods, the streets, the fields, the tracks, the houses—but the people have changed. The places aren’t the same either, just their locations in longitude and latitude. The graveyard, well nothing’s new there, same old show, save for some fresh dirt and granite. The ghosts ride past me as I ride forth.

            They’re all gone, gone their separate ways—grew up, moved out, passed on. I thought maybe I’d run into some friends on this adventure—I should have known better. The only people that talked to me without me initiating conversation were two black women—one asked for directions, one asked for a ride. Maybe if they crossed paths they could have helped each other. Maybe they’d’ve become lifelong friends. Who knows?

            Don’t get tossed though, I’m not losing my faith in humanity. Not as long as I’m alive. This is nothing new. I’m the only one I can depend on anyway. You’re the only one you can ever always depend on. Those that remain are only shells of what they once were.

            Well not me, goddammit! I’m just blossoming and I’m never gonna quit! I thrive from this dead soil, these depleted grounds void of nutrition, and I’m always in season, baby! I will do what I am meant to do, and until this world is properly prepared, I will do this, which is really one and the same.

            My dreams have been wild lately.

            This city is a fucking conundrum at its finest. It’s pulchritudinous, yet it’s hideous. It’s creation, yet it’s destruction. It’s life; it’s death. This river, this gorge, this waterfall—the true definition of remarkable! Not to mention the history here—geologically, ecologically, historically. And no one who lives here seems to care! I’ve been guilty of it too. I guess that’s what happens when you live near something super-saturated in greatness for too long—the Grand Canyon, the Rocky Mountains, the Mississippi River—you begin to take it for granted. And quickly. If that’s true, it gives little hope for the small things in life. Maybe the small things are actually the big things—I think I read that somewhere once.

            I am surrounded by people from foreign countries who speak foreign tongues—talk about being alone in a horde, in your own hometown nonetheless. At least they appreciate this natural wonder for what it is. Or maybe the parents are just glad they have something to do with the kids for the day, maybe they just want their cheap photos on their smart phones. “Smile, Achmed! This is the time we went to Niagara Falls!” I had a better view two miles away where the crowds failed to congregate—I wish I could tell them this, though it’s probably better I can’t. Even if I spoke their language, they probably wouldn’t listen. That’s ok—some things are better kept secret.

            But I digress. There’s something nice about being alone in a horde, too. I never fit in anyway, and here, as busy and loud and cluttered as it is, I am not distracted; I am comfortably in my zone.

            Everyone my age wants to get out. Is that something that happens when you hit your twenties, or is it just something that happens here? It feels like the end of SLC Punk, when everything falls apart in the desolate wasteland. I just want them to know that whatever it is they’re running from, you can’t run away from yourself. Ya gotta bring that with ya, if nothing else. Life is the same everywhere when you boil it all down. And I wish you the best on your journey, I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for. You may find it was right in front of you the whole time. I can at least guarantee it’s inside of you, and always has been, not outside. You can’t find what you’re looking for if you’re looking in the wrong place.

            The possibilities are countless: there are so many people, there are so many choices; it’s all infinite and endless, and time only goes forward, you don’t get that back. You get one path. These are the things that eat my organs from the inside out from time to time. Time that must be spent wisely. And this is as wise as I can spend mine, this is exactly what we both need, you and I—this is for us.

            I’m thinking about going straight-edge, folks and folkettes! How exciting! Thank you, thank you, please hold the applause. Because the mist on my face is much too crisp, the wind on my skin is much too fresh, the air in my lungs reminds me I’m alive!

            Yet at the same time, I am only an anachronism.

            Nothing is real.

            I am just another ghost.

i said:
   i just want a world
   where no one worries
   about what i’m
   doing, no one’s
   concerned with me—

something told me:
   be careful what you
   wish for, kid; you’ve
   had it all along—

and i said:
   oh, shit.

I think
you’re all so
turned around
backwards
with your
heads stuck
so! far up
your own
asses, that
they stick out
of your mouths
like some sort
of strange
alien entity
who is nowhere
near as interesting
as I’m making
you out to be…

remove it, for
just a single
second—a
moment, an
instant in time—
and you’ll find
it smells a lot
better, and it
feels a lot better
than the odd
narcissistic
pretzel shape
you were stuck in

then again—
maybe not…

and either way:
as a person,
a scientist, an
observer; as
a lover of the
desperate and
the unfortunate;
a connoisseur of
the strange and
an aficionado of
the bizarre, I
will be forced
to study you
regardless,
indefatigably;

…proceed.

            She fancied not the shine behind the pine—yet the way he spoke to her intrigued her endlessly.

            “Come on, come on—you’re going to love this, baby.”

            She found not the nerve to differ; she stumbled toward him with no regret.

            “It’s something about the light of the moon. It’s something about the angle of the earth—it’s something about you and I.”

            He led her down the corridors he never thought he could.

            If there was any willpower within her, it found not the power to show. Her past triumphs lay awake in the night. Her insecurities tucked them in without indifference. Her confidence cracked and decayed and fell into a grave.

            “You know what this is,” he told her over and over again, “You know this is right.”

            If she had an answer, she could not recall. An owl’s shout was the only sound. They both heard it, resounding from all directions, but it came from only one place. The bats were overhead then and she knew it was ok.

            “Don’t let me down now, my one and only. Don’t let me down.”

            If she hadn’t realized she was holding his hand prior, she didn’t realize it then. The limpness of her body caught a breeze beneath the trees and it carried her onward in all its good graces. It was only natural. Then it stopped, and he was there instead.

            The woods tripped them up and had its way with them. Through decrepit whispers it let them know its vines would thrive. Its fungi. Its filth. Its vines plunged into and soaked up everything. They sucked them dry from top to bottom, from the bottom up, the roots making wet slurping sounds like the last bit of water down a squalid drain. Like hungry jowls on meaty bones. Like being regurgitated by the earth only to be swallowed up and spit out again. Like her and him, as soon as he could get them there.

            It wasn’t the orange around them; it was the lack thereof; it was darkest blue. The bluest black without achieving any such sufficient solidity.

            Pitch black made their eyes roll with envy. Their souls told no tales. All they saw was orange.

            “Are you ready, baby—are you ready like you said you were?”

            If it were so she recalled no such agreement. Accountability escaped her. Recognition had been run over and lay out like roadkill, to be shoveled up and thrown away into nowhere.

            The way the trees were swaying, it reminded her of herself: this way and that. This way, and that. And when the breeze blew just right, it brought back the echoes of that old owl, as well as all of her aspirations.

            They arrived on a hilltop. She could not believe it to be true. Her hair blew wispy in the wind, just like she thought it might. Just like he knew it would.

            “I knew you’d make it, baby. I just knew you would.”

            They had made it further than he thought they would. Further than light could show. Further than light should show, he thought. The thought was something she already knew.

            It wasn’t where she was supposed to go, but he thought it would work. He’d make it work; there was no other choice.

            Gazing around at the barren landscape surrounding them—at the soft, shallow hill stopping sharp in the middle of the woods neither of them had ever known, he decided it was perfect.

            “You never heard of digging then, I take it?”

            She clasped her ears.

            “You never knew what it was like for me?”

            She cried out in silence.

            “Carrying your corpse was a task you never had.”

            She lay strewn about, lifelessly. Moonlit. Quiet.

            It wasn’t that she was lifeless—more so, that life had flown past her. Like a honeybee. A hummingbird. Like a middle-aged mother stuck in the center of irretraceable regret.

            He threw dirt on top of her. Non-stop, non-stop.

            “You would’ve been the better half. The one to make her smile. You’d’ve made her proud. If only we’d’ve known her. If only I’d’ve known you.”

            “I’M ALIVE!” he swore he heard her say.

            “I’M HERE!” he imagined shrieking from her throat while he covered her with dirt.

            She went down the corridors she never thought she could.

            She remembered nothing.

            She was reborn.

What lasts longer—

the marks, cuts,
tears and blemishes
left on the furniture
stairs, walls and floors

on the ceilings?

or the rips, stains,
scars and gouges
left on the mind,
heart and brain

the body and soul,
the skeleton?

hey,
even the sky breaks
from time to time

even the sun
is burning itself
out.