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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Clip Show

“Have a good weekend!” they said, shuffling out.  But like always, that sentiment wasn’t really meant for me.  Because it was a superfluous holiday. An unappreciated recess tacked on to the tail end of a shortened week. A week spent soaking more blue into thrifted collars, while all around bigger engines whined and spooled white smoke. An echo of a day left to wander unsupervised. And, unappreciated. Watching the people all scurry and shuffle. Packing their bags for better places. The ones I am never destined to see.   The summer race was on.   The race to escape the stink of The City. And to chase down the refreshment promised by the U.P. That sprawl of a Mittened peninsula, jutting out into colder water. But I was …

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Letters

I thought about writing a letter tonight.  But I am admittedly a little afraid to actually know her. It has honestly been a minute since I have tortured someone with my rambling correspondence; I feel out of practice. Out of touch with more gentle thoughts; out of time to the rhythm of all these 517 hearts. I find myself terrified of letters. Probably because it’s only been a little over a month now. And I haven’t yet found the courage to read the last one I received. The one that came at me hard on that awful, and beautiful, Wayne’s City night. But it’s still right there.  That letter is still tucked away, unopened, inside a locked typewriter case. The vintage companion that has traveled with …

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The Ring

There was once a ring. She never knew about it; it was the only secret I ever kept from her. Because after that first Wayne’s City kiss, I pledged absolute transparency—I knew that was the only way that we would ever work. And I wanted to be understood as a fox of his word. The gamble was enormous. The one involving state lines crossed. And expensive pettifoggers. Endless boxes and bruises. The ones ending in too many damn sleepless nights; the ones bleeding into hot, hard days scrambling up those congested 120 miles. Pushing to build a comfortable life from a tender start of want. Those early days holding the promise of only two tea mugs, a simple kettle we both kind of hated, and a …

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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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The Gekkering

The Gekkering i will make joyful the bright noise of my reimagination. i will stand determined on the side of more patient angels. i will walk unfettered by the stain of savage predator hearts. i will run free across the less travelled pathways. i will adapt quickly to the unpredictability of rhythm. i will hunt joys of better days lurking on tomorrow’s horizon. i will write honest the story of my vagabond experience. i will achieve what is hard; i will demand what is great. i am feral. i am free. i am FOX. ##)S.D.(## 21 JAN 25

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