Time

Time is such a weird thing. And 18 months is the current manifestation of that peculiarity. It simultaneously seems like both a lifetime, and the blink of brown eyes crying in an Indiana kitchen. 547 some days. A whisper over 13,000 hours.   But even that isn’t a guarantee. Because I learned a long time ago to never trust the white-coated math. In a way, I guess it makes sense. Because even our arrival times are imprecise. So why should our departure dates be any different? Born into broken water, we leave amongst the tears of others. Adhering to some imprecise system. One based on patterns I’m not sure my pickled monkey brain will ever comprehend. Because I can barely be trusted unsupervised with a tube of …

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Songs for Indiana

I just couldn’t face the idea of Indiana. Not after what she asked me, when last I was in that nugget shaped state—I am still caught processing that request. So it was safer for me to remain temporarily behind inside an angry Mitten; my heart was in desperate need of a “lost weekend” to help get my head bent back right again. As often happens inside gaps of untethered time, I continued my feral run. Seeking shelter inside of bottles. And unsolicited bar room conversations. Ducking and covering inside of increasing ABVs. Eventually wandering the empty capitol streets with a leather collar turned up against the wind blowing in off the big lake again, when numb enough to finally ignore everything. Inside the fleeting gaps of …

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Soldier Mode

Through a hundred-proof crack of fatigue, I slipped. Revealed a rare glimpse of my bruised humanity. Briefly opened the split curtains of emotional camouflage. Raged openly in a measured overnight temper tantrum.  I threw up honest words. All the way across an ocean. The words not often accessible to those of my gender. Or station. But I wrote them all the same. Then I collapsed, exhausted and exposed, into another night of 517 nothingness.  Alone. But weakness isn’t allowed. Not for those whose destiny it is to provide, anyway. The ones responsible for protecting the weak. The silent guardians of righteous intentions. The stoic peacekeepers of emotional equilibrium. The ones tasked with the difficulty of building a new world from nothing. Only to be rewarded with …

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Fireball

Pushing hard east on Michigan Avenue. Fireballing through traffic lights. The burn in the gut helping to burn down everything else. Because it is the kind of night to not really give a fuck. Just like every other night in these godforsaken flyover fields. The compulsion is always to put things with things. Even when there isn’t a handle to hold. Or a viable exit strategy. If I’ve learned anything over the years, it is that there is always something else left to lose. So it’s always a scramble to maintain some semblance of a grip. But everything eventually slips away anyway. Behind spinning tires lingers the stink of tin monsters. Those temperamental, dual-engined beasts. The ones nightly vomiting out “need it right the fuck now” …

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Deer Prints

It has been nearly impossible developing original language. Finding fresh explanations. Breaking new words to better fit old desires. Capturing the code of communication between us.  Words can just be tricky that way. But I still had to try. Language remains the only bridge between where we were and where she is destined to go. Because we were in very different places. Even though we were walking there together.  We started at the park. The one where we used to meet. Years ago. In the before times. Back when life wasn’t this fucking complicated. She confessed to wanting to find her spot. And expressed her gratitude that her favorite fox, the one sporting an alarming amount of grey in his fur, was there to help her. …

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Where the Sidewalk Ended

Somebody lit the house on fire. It burns to this day. Even though I have temporarily retreated safely back across state lines. It is a tangible buffer; it keeps us separated. And responsibly distant. Which, considering the severity of the situation, is probably the best possible outcome. Because I felt that familiar compulsion to jump in. Head first. Consequences be damned. Just like I always do when tangled up in a situation where wounded hearts are on the line. But at the same time, I don’t want her to jump with me. Only one of us deserves to tumble down these dirty alleyways. Better that it be me—I am expendable. And she is already destined for a different kind of fall. So I will take the …

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Where Did You Go?

Where did you go?  I screamed your name atop the graceful arch of the 421 bridge straddling two states. I called out for you beside a carved marker of polished stone. I whimpered soft your many nicknames under the shadows of the places where we should have kissed. But when I screamed, the mighty Ohio took no notice. Only continued to barge west on its journey over to the Mississippi. When I called out, only crumbling angels answered in their tears of a broken November. And when I whimpered, the streets could only laugh and heckle. Poking fun at the wounded pedestrian crossing against all the wrong lights. Where did you go? The time here is all empty now. Time usually filled fighting temperamental tin beasts. …

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Songs from the Fish Ladder

November rain shimmered bleak on broken “Five One Seven” asphalt. An agitated capital howled back in the dampness of oil slick reflections. Clammy concrete amplified the winds, funneling nocturnal vagabonds. And the creep of city street creatures. Aggravated skies leaked unseasonably warm, lake-fed temper tantrums. The river, bathed in polluted runaways, flowed heavy. But not heavy enough to live up to its named expectation.  Decayed leaves stuck to everything. An inconvenient reminder. A crumbling signature of another vindictive season of falling things. The one currently caught decomposing, down where the fish are all laddered back up.  Into that storm I walked, a vagrant heart absorbing the similarity of surroundings. Begging the connection of repetitive reminiscences. Twisting memory into disrobed branches. Matching the ones clawing up, clashing …

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typer

Birthday Funeral Part Three: The Typewriter

With a belly full of church food, and a head full of heavy static, this road weary fox slinked back to his room in the woods seeking temporary sanctuary.   The silence and stillness felt good after the emotions churned up over at St. Patrick’s.  A recharge in the pool, floating weightless in transparent nothingness; a quick sweat in the sauna, purging the poisons. Then a sprawl in dark, air-conditioned solitude, my skin bumping up gooses at the drastic shift in environment. I closed my eyes until the phone bleeped annoyingly beside my head in the bed. Hot coffee. A hotter shower. Because I had to wake myself up for the wake. And make myself back human again, before Skelly and I rolled over to the house. …

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Birthday Funeral Part Two: The Mass

*blink* “Where the fuck am I? Oh yeah. Indiana.” *sigh* “Again.” It took senses a minute to congeal into coherence inside the darkness of that rented Porter County hotel room. After having fought the 69/94 gauntlet, reconvening with extended family shortly after wheels down, and just the whole stress of the situation, sleep did not come easy when the world finally stopped moving. Even after being nudged with the better part of a bottle of blackberry infused literary lubricant. At least that part of the plan worked. Although the resulting words of a first part were more idiosyncratic than intended. But that’s probably the fault of the idiot sitting behind the typewriter. I am not sure I will ever understand the reasons behind why she stuck …

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