Writing
Blog Posts / Random / Writing

Last Call

- by Typewriter Fox

I have danced delicately in the grip of attractively damaged devils. And I have kissed the naked secrets of more freckled angels. I have played endlessly with big words. And even bigger guns. But eventually, I discovered that the words were far more damaging. Because a gun means unequivocally what it says. It rifles true in the world of pure absolutes. Whereas the whispered language of part-time lovers is often too unpredictable. And can’t ever be properly targeted in more responsible fashion. I am guilty of that obfuscation myself; I have never once said it plain before. It has always been easier to hide behind the clever wordplay. Lurking on the literary periphery of acceptable behaviors. Because I have learned through the errors of my trials …

Share
Read More
Blog Posts / Random / Writing

Black Box

- by Typewriter Fox

Boozy slides down icy Clinton County back roads. Airplanes that spin down on routine maintenance flights. Or inexplicably drop out of the sky. On fucking fire. Carrying the names of faces once familiar to our little backwater Mittened gateway. Danger seems to lurk everywhere these days.  And all I can think is…. fuck it.  Bring on your worst, Michigan.  I am not afraid. Because at this point, I think it’s honestly kind of funny. Maybe it’s the unreasonable number of fresh Old Fashioneds helping pump the cloying sludge through aging veins fueling that bravado. Maybe it’s just the sheer repetitiveness of it all. Because when you dance with the devil every damn night, danger quickly melts into the mundane. Especially after so many close calls. Admittedly, …

Share
Read More
Blog Posts / Random / Writing

Bar Blessed

- by Typewriter Fox

She ended up blessing me. And all I did was buy her a pizza. With an accompanying pint. At the time, it seemed like a fair deal. So I was happy to make the investment. She dropped into the bar when I was already several rounds in. It was just another typical Saturday Old Town night. One spent feeling sorry for myself. Because after a week of having been benched after punching that fucking airplane, the threat of other winged monsters arriving on the morrow loomed large. And I wasn’t sure if I was prepared for that challenge. So I occupied myself by punishing my brain with doses of liquid poison. Downing rounds like it was my new job. Because at least that was a hurt …

Share
Read More
Blog Posts / Random / Writing

Two Five Nine

- by Typewriter Fox

It began like every other Michigan Tuesday. Wake up. And immediately struggle to shake off the hangover.   Down some coffee. Rub bloodshot eyes into hesitant focus. Get human again behind the twin hits of caffeine and tobacco. Shuffle across the constriction of a boulevard apartment seeking more nourishing stimulation. Because something had to get the sludge moving again. Force a cold body into a hot shower. Just to feel a different sensation. And to steam an uncooperative body back into adult movement. That aging, fragile meat bag still yelping internally from the abuses absorbed the night before.   Even a brain left pickled from the unanticipated liquid poisoning could still comprehend that it was probably the closest to a baptismal that the attached Mittened maniac will ever …

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

🦊+1 = WTF

- by Typewriter Fox

It shouldn’t really be a surprise that I have never written about her. Because foxes sometimes need to keep their secrets, too. She is the one story I want to keep pure; she is the one secret I could never bring myself to fully reveal. Because reveling in those memories still makes me happy. And it seems somehow cruel to heartlessly release them out into the wild for others to consume.  I would never want to be accused of exploiting past glories for the potential of gaining future shenanigans. Some considerations are meant for more gentle captivity. And I have been trying my best to respect those boundaries. Even though I would embarrassingly crawl on my hands and knees across 127 miles of broken glass just …

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