Writing

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Capital City Bender Blues

- by Typewriter Fox

Hot concrete alleyways. The reek of stale piss. Potholes and pitfalls. Destruction buffered by neon orange barrels. Barricades blinking caution. Fresh spilled asphalt and naked construction ringing named neighborhoods once historic in nature. The ones now desperately trying to make all the old things back new again. The Capital City.   Its face familiar to me since those early summertime drives. But strangely foreign to me now that I’ve seen it through the bendered lens of an empty bottle’s bottom.  Strange vibrations tangle unsteady feet. Green glass lies echo everywhere. Ugly graffiti, sprayed with the rattle can of memory, howls. Because no matter how many times it gets power-washed under high-proof pours, traces still linger undefined.  Another sleepless night. A fresh spring giving birth to more stillborn …

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Day Drinking

- by Typewriter Fox

I adore the anonymity of a dark bar.   There is significant comfort found in their high-proof nonconformity. No emotional quarter is asked. And none is given—leave that fucking baggage at the door, friend. Because if the place is sufficiently dive enough, conversation rarely extends beyond monosyllabic sentences grunted across the bar.  Nobody talks. Or fucks with you. Unless you’re being an obnoxious drunk. That’ll get you thrown out. Or your ass kicked. There’s just no tolerance for that kind of amateur shit. At least not at three o’clock on another under-employed Friday afternoon. No one cares if you are stumbling in to join the other professional flies on maybe the worst day of your life. They frankly don’t give a shit about you. Even better, you …

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Tequila Sunrise

- by Typewriter Fox

It was just another Michigan Sunday dirtbag night. One itching from the bite of hours left unsupervised. And one thirsty for the familiar refreshment of dirty Guinness pours. The free shots of tequila were an unexpected addition. But then, so was she. And while fermented worm juice is not particularly my favorite way to rot my gut, she is still my favorite way to break my heart. So I couldn’t refuse the offer. And then I kept drinking long after she disappeared back into the night. Maybe that’s why I woke up in the stinking confines of a concrete parking garage. That urban surrogate standing in for the depravity of more familiar Old Town bushes.  But at least it was a change of scenery. Not that …

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Aoife

- by Typewriter Fox

The room was warm; her skin was cold.  Machines beeped.  Suddenly, they didn’t.  It was a silence  i still scream forever.   My favorite angel— born before her time;  the one for whom  i waited a lifetime. The more gentle parts  of a broken man…   i held a tiny hand.  one that i just can’t  fucking let go.  The hand i feel  whenever i close  100 proof eyes..   Her absence— the gap in my soul;  her memory— the burn in my gut..   i stand, alone, facing an East Wind blowing. she sleeps, unaware, in velvet of Irish green. Far away from me, on a little hill filled with big sorrows.   in the haunting symphony  of my intimate melancholy,  hers is the sweetest …

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You Call This a Storm?

- by Typewriter Fox

I didn’t think about the kids. I ordered another round instead.  Because that’s just what dirtbag, tin kicking 🦊s do on a random 517 Tuesday. On an angry night. When the storms blow in hard from the Great Plains. Gathering their strength out over the expanse of the big lake. Building destructive momentum. And painting the pallets of handheld radars with angry colours. The stuttering bite of backlit lightning silhouetted the curved outline of barely tolerated Eurotrash when her engines finally spooled up. Tolerated because at least it wasn’t a shitty downsized 757. That clunky beaked tin monster that’s a fucking chore to feed. Because its loose load bellies are a claustrophobic nightmare of knee punishing Boeing bullshit. The unremarkable Airbus generally fills the scheduling gaps …

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The New Old Town

- by Typewriter Fox

It was a February tease of a premature Michigan spring. A dishonest one. Because like most things here in the land of misunderstood Mittened madness, it wasn’t really real anyway. Just another Clinton County night spent pretending to be human. But at least it was a night warm enough to finally melt away all the fucking snow. Erasing all the ice clinging stubbornly to this 517 speed dialed insanity. And teasing a springed hope from all the inconvenient mud. But somehow, things inside remained rigidly frozen. And that left me aching for a different kind of thaw. Instead, I was rewarded with only an unseasonably foggy West Clark Road. The one lined with all the damn deer. Those tragic creatures cursed with a stubborn stupidity compelling …

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Dirtbag Holiday

- by Typewriter Fox

Shake off the muck left from the night before. Crack open eyes matted with dirtbag gravel. Trace the line of a frayed power cord; unlock a sticky phone. What’s that fucking number again? Oh, yeah. A birthday. I should probably change that shit. Just so I don’t have to remember those digits anymore. It stopped being relevant over a year ago. It might be easier to use the print of a shaking finger. But biometrics rarely play nice with battered ramp hands. So I’m condemned to absorb yet another PIN. Without the security of any sort of receptive cushion to actually carry it. Splatter out plasticine texts. Because if I don’t respond quickly enough, people worry. And then wonder all day if I spent the night …

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Peak Insanity

- by Typewriter Fox

Smoking my way through another black pack Michigan Monday night. Just because there is fuck all else to do, here in the frozen wasteland of an empty December 517 holiday season. Downing dirty pints. Like it’s my actual job. And not the pretend one. The one I play at every night. Dressed up like a ramp running G.I. Joe; the one where I am kitted out in a uniform of cobbled-together high-viz ridiculousness. With an endless variety of electronic paraphernalia strapped to an aging, uncooperative body balking at the inhospitable weather. It’s always the same damn battle. The one fought six nights a week. Or sometimes, even seven. Especially when it’s our peak season of commercial craziness. And there are glaring staffing gaps to fill. So …

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Champagne Idiot

- by Typewriter Fox

Slipping wild down around DeWitt Road. Right where the airport roads all blink and bend together. Down past the inconvenient end of 28 Left jutting out into Clinton County. That rippling runway scar along which a familiar tin tail number used to shimmy and brake in bombastic MD-11 style. Back in those happy times. Before that catastrophic crash, that cost me more of my friends. I was left shifting gears mechanically in time with the rhythm of sifted memories. Slapping the stick just to better absorb a soundtrack that only I could hear. Because something had to push me through all the suck.  And sometimes, you just have to ride out all the fucking hurt. It was just another unsupervised dose, of yet another manic Michigan …

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Last Call

- by Typewriter Fox

I have danced delicately in the grip of attractively damaged devils. And I have kissed the naked secrets of more freckled angels. I have played endlessly with big words. And even bigger guns. But eventually, I discovered that the words were far more damaging. Because a gun means unequivocally what it says. It rifles true in the world of pure absolutes. Whereas the whispered language of part-time lovers is often too unpredictable. And can’t ever be properly targeted in more responsible fashion. I am guilty of that obfuscation myself; I have never once said it plain before. It has always been easier to hide behind the clever wordplay. Lurking on the literary periphery of acceptable behaviors. Because I have learned through the errors of my trials …

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