You Call This a Storm?

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

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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Bottom Shelf

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 …

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Ramp Rats

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 …

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517 Skeletons

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 …

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Crossroads

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 …

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Temper Tantrum

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 …

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Shot Glass 🦊

It admittedly didn’t take long to slip back into the familiarity of old habits. A pocketful of hours into the 517 and I was back on a familiar rise. Where the lights from a mean city twinkle down on dirty water. Not the welcoming baptismal I anticipated. But it is the one I guess we deserved. Because we both lied. I realize that. It was just in different ways. And to very different people. Some lies were so big, the charm of their gravity pulled me from the dirty alleyways of Wayne’s City. All the way up to nowhere fucking Michigan. And when that attraction broke, I spun out inside the barreled sprawl of a strange Capital City.  Running feral, I could only capitalize on the …

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Graduation

If they only knew the truth.  Because it’s always the same fucking thing.  “I love the writing!” “You definitely have talent.” “Is any of your work about me?” Fleeting praise I once admittedly loved. But that now makes my stomach churn. Because it’s just superficial flattery pushing a jet-blasted brain into recoil mode. More hollow compliments masterfully baiting all the caged demons to collapse into their liquid howls of disgust. It makes me want to rage and lash out. Scream the indignity of my discursive curse. And ultimately embrace the anonymity of my more vulpes nature. Because no one ever fucking acknowledges the cost. Or the exhausting burden of investment required to put something meaningful on paper—I am terrified of a blank page.  Because it’s too …

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Tuesday

I didn’t intend to get accidentally whiskey-ginger drunk. On that claustrophobic Tuesday night. In the strip mall heart of fucking Dewitt, Michigan. But, it happened.   I tripped into those triples shortly after kicking a virginal 767 off the ramp. The one loaded with critical healthcare medicines and ridiculous consumer madness. Ten tons of overflow Amazons and random online acquisitions—not my best flight. But we still made it work. It was a weird drunk, too. Not the actual inebriation aspect. Because let’s be honest, that’s a familiar fading, here amongst the shuffling Q.D. Zombies. But I still learned some important lessons, teetering precariously on the edges of a barstool disaster. I discovered it is better to avoid anything passed the upside of West State Road. Because the …

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