Tag: bullshit
Blog Posts / Random / Writing

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 …

Share
Read More
Blog Posts / Random / Writing

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 …

Share
Read More
Blog Posts / Random / Writing

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 …

Share
Read More
Blog Posts / Random / Writing

Bottom Shelf

- by Typewriter Fox

She said that this city is killing me. And, she is probably right. I feel the bite of that malignancy every fucking time the boulevard coughs and sputters. Or when I have to pivot myself to the floor to dodge the popping clack of turf wars erupting outside the second story of my window. I never wanted to fucking be in Michigan— shamrocked things were always much more my style. Because I was born with an insatiable hunger for something green. And the broken browns of dead Midwestern corn are at best a cruel joke. But here I am.  Suffering through the suffocation of another Ingham County overnight. Just rotting away in the inconsistent squeeze of a misunderstood Mitten’s grip. And expiring slow in the farcical …

Share
Read More
Blog Posts / Random / Writing

Ramp Rats

- by Typewriter Fox

Gold and orange autumn canopies arched over broken Michigan asphalt. Reflective ocular cautions of migratory deer lined the road curving out past the grip of those unhealthy Clinton County mirages. Glaring glances peeked accusingly from the fields of brown corn recently broken in the harvest. And they constantly threatened unexpected collisions during the entirety of that wandering Tuesday night Airport Drive. It made me want to collapse into the want of someone. But that was just another 517 impossibility. And my heart fucking knew it. So I could only keep driving.  Pushing myself down past the awkward highway interchanges. And up around the curves where the numbered signs stop making sense. Because I was always taught that 69 should mean north and south. Not east and …

Share
Read More
Blog Posts / Random / Uncategorized / Writing

517 Skeletons

- by Typewriter Fox

Somewhere amongst the curled pages of a yellowing manuscript lies my truth; somewhere beneath broken Michigan heartbeats hides my story. And in the space between the division of those divorcing concerns, somehow I survive. But, barely. My mornings are partnered with throbbing afternoon hangovers; my nights are too often invested chasing after ghosts. Lingering translucent amongst the memories in all those windows; reflecting on shadows cast across Old Town alleyways. Straining to hear the echo of old laughter before the tin monsters steal the last of my hearing for keeps. Because I can’t fucking remember the last joke she said to me. Robbed of my favorite little hill by the blight of renewed expansions, I seek another sanctuary amongst strange geography. Slinking haphazardly across inconsistently patched …

Share
Read More
Blog Posts / Random / Writing

Old Town Blues

- by Typewriter Fox

Lightning flashed bright above the skeletons in a strange city. Cold October rain ran down the back of a neck collared in high-viz blues. An inhospitable wind blew in west from the big lake, carrying with it the last kisses of those warm weather collisions. But I stood alone in the rain that hollow Saturday night. Felt the shift of the seasons on a greying face. The one turned over towards the river. And there, amidst the blustering of that storm, I felt myself hurting for her. Rows of Old Town brick houses stood guard over a spot that was special only to us. Because it was once the place where we just couldn’t bring ourselves to say goodbye. I will never forget that day. We …

Share
Read More
Blog Posts / Random / Writing

Crossroads

- by Typewriter Fox

It isn’t often that life affords you the opportunity to stand at a literal crossroads. But there I was. A high-viz collar turned up against the darkness of Turner at my back. East Cesar E. Chavez stretching out beside me. Facing the curves of the planked river trail. The one skirting the spot where the fish are supposedly laddered around.   The song of water dancing over the dam filled the symphony of another Old Town night. And for once, I wanted to be safe in the sound of something. Because everything else has proven itself a whole lot of nothing. And the claustrophobic silence of that vacuum left a nervous fox drinking fidgeting. To the west, orange barrels lined the bridge. Their rigidly spaced regularity paced …

Share
Read More
Blog Posts / Random / Writing

September Pines

- by Typewriter Fox

The tree atop what we once considered “our” little hill has started to die. The limbs are bare; the branches have all turned brittle. Broken remnants litter the ground. The trunk is suffering. But it used to be a happy place. That agreed upon spot where two lovers used to meet. Down along the river running Grand in the springtime of our romance. That little park strip, just on the Turner side of better gardens. The one filled with fragrant roses. And the brighter freshments never destined to endure. But that was in the before time. Back when summer warmth teased out natural glories. And allowed us the simple joy of actually feeling alive. I remember clearly the race towards that little hill. And just how …

Share
Read More
Blog Posts / Random / Writing

Temper Tantrum

- by Typewriter Fox

It’s a strange place to be. This in-between time.   A time when the hours creak. And the days rattle unpredictably. When the nighttime fucking hurts. Because the emptiness echoes hard against the mittened backdrop of broken Michigan asphalt. When the hazy hours before the brittle dawn get drunkenly muddled. And bleed into just another boozy haze of better forgotten stupidity. But something has to numb all the fucking hurt. So it may as well be that green glass devil. Because I’ve learned to love that affordable burn. And embarrassingly would do anything to actually feel something real again. It’s a strange place to be. This in-between time. Because I’ve never once been on the side of more agreeable angels. And I have never been one comfortable …

Share
Read More