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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Birthday Funeral Part One: The Drive

Things just haven’t been the same since you hot shot yourself.   That awful Monday night when the needle bit you a final goodbye. Alone. Curled up inside that ramshackle Indiana motel room tacked to the shoulder of US 33. Your few belongings neatly arranged as a last courtesy. Everything in its proper place. Everything except for those last words on a page—your final temper tantrum. It was a gibberish beyond the comprehension of most. But I understood perfectly. Because no matter the distance of our disconnect, we somehow remained tethered. At least when it came to the writing. We could read each other as easily as the riddle printed on the back of one of her hoarded banana Laffy-Taffys. She always had that soft spot flair …

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Unmasked Foxes

In this carnival of broken souls, I have worn many masks. Friend. Lover. Scoundrel. Writer. Soldier. Artist. Failure. And I’m still not certain which one fits the best.  I just know that I’m running out of time to choose a final variation. Through it all… through every breaking of the heart… every scarring caress… every mournful upheaval…I followed what I felt was right. Fought for the ideas in which I genuinely believed. Screamed out pages of raging tantrums in neatly typed lines. But somehow, I got it all wrong. Kissed all the wrong faces. Coloured outside the wrong lines. Pulled the wrong fucking triggers. In the wrong fucking battles. And that made things messy.  Not an unexpected outcome when a well-intentioned accidental scavenger crashes the party …

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Sticks and Stones

If only someone had told me it was the best worst of times. Maybe then I would have kept the receipts. Or demanded a refund.  But no one said a fucking word. Things that were plainly obvious to others remained stubbornly foreign to me; I was always the misshaped peg. And I kept trying to stuff myself inside all of the wrong holes.   I could never stomach the correct stillness of being bored. The mundane nature of pretend adulting goes against the nature of my chemistry; I am not hardwired for responsibility. And that disconnect causes more irritating friction than the back strap of a sandy beach thong.  So I stumble through as best I can. Playing the part of the drunken fool. Disrespecting boundaries. Because …

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The Opening Part Two: The Closer

Eerybody has been asking about the status of the second part of the story.  But honestly, I debated even writing it.  She did say that Part One was a lovely opening to an experience that had left her mind reeling.  As admittedly mine had been, too, ever since the taillights of her green Subaru faded south, leaving The City to feel that much more empty in her sudden absence. My weiner was starting to feel a little peculiar about it all, too.  Not sure about how hers was feeling.  Things not meant to cling were starting to get sticky.  Weird, but in a way not entirely unpleasant.  Like going to the gym drunk. But I still found myself hesitating. And it didn’t really help literary matters …

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Highway 51 Revisited

I awoke in the belly of a metal beast today. Didn’t plan it that way, mind you. Wasn’t looking for a new low; I wasn’t on a quest for shame. But shame, like an old friend, always seems to stick. Even when I’m actively eluding the less dignified demons of my more unpredictable intentions. It was the kind of green dumpster you find behind every supermarket. Right there on an unnamed side road off of Highway 51. Somewhere south of Paw Paw. I awoke with my head nestled between a torn trash bag and the oxidized metallic skin; my mind echoed the groan of the city waking up. That rust belt metropolis sprawling east, still drunk on dreams of better days. A few coins jingled in …

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Chicken Man

Good morning, Michigan! In the land of Q.D….okay, you know what? I’m actually going to be a good sport for once. I am going to refrain from calling you QD Donut Munchers. Again.   We were never going to be in agreement. And sometimes, it takes the bigger man to walk away. This is, after all, the land of second third fourth fifth chances. And it wouldn’t speak well of me to continue poking fun at the unenlightened bakery zombies shuffling around the greater Lansing area, clutching their bland excuses for baked goods. Because I get it. Cultural and regional differences, etc. Taste buds polluted from Rust Belt heavy metals. Tragic, misinformed upbringings. Blah blah blah.   However, having been agreeable to letting the whole donut tantrum slide, …

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