Jeremy took a deep breath as he stared at the apartment door infront of him. His life was about to change. It was hard to believe that he had gone from being the dorky kid in school — who had been repeatedly trapped in his locker by bullies — to standing on the threshold of becoming one of the masters of the universe. This was the determining moment of his existence. The most profound thing that would ever happen to him. This opportunity to learn from the most powerful magicians still residing on this plane of reality…

The door opened. An old black woman stood in the doorway. Her face was so wrinkled it sort of reminded him of a prune. She was supporting most of her weight, which couldn’t have been more than ninety pounds, with the aid of a walker. It was a gaudy looking metal frame with its front prongs fitted into neon yellow-green tennis balls. She was so frail looking that Jeremy was almost afraid to breathe too hard, in fear that a sharp exhale could snap her in half. She was almost half way there on her own accord. Judging by her crooked posture, her spine was collapsing in on itself. 

“Well hello, young man.” The old lady smiled politely, but her eyes seemed to narrow in a critical fashion. Jeremy got the feeling that she was sizing him up.

He checked the crumpled piece of paper. 93, he read the number again before glancing back up at the door. 93, in big, black numbers. 

“You must be Jeremy. I’m Betsy. Everyone is waiting to meet you.” She didn’t bother to escort him inside. He followed the woman as she moved slowly down the hall and into the living room area. There was a circle of two sofas and a recliner chair around a large table. There was also an assortment of fabric and sewing tools. A group of seniors were gathered around the table, each one working on a project.

Jeremy recognized the squares as quilt patches. His grandmother, before she passed away, had been an accomplished quilter. She had offered to teach him, but at thirteen he had been more interested in nu metal than old school comforters. Thankfully he was seventeen now and had since discovered Punk and Thrash…

“Let me introduce everyone.” Betsy said without looking back at him.

She motioned to a plump Asian woman, probably in her seventies wearing a small pair of reading glasses. “Agnes.” Then, she worked her way counter-clockwise around the circle.

A lady — despite the Adam’s apple — of mixed race. Her gray hair was set in rollers. “Mimi.”

An older latino genteman, by far the youngest of the group, around sixty years old. He was still quite muscular, though he had a bit of a beer gut, with a visible tattoo of a gay pride flag on his neck. “Sebastian.”

Jeremy, who looked bewildered with a semi slack-jawed expression on his face, nodded. Without thinking he blurted out, “I think I’m in the wrong place. I don’t think this is where I’m supposed to be…”

“You should adjust your perspective on where you’re supposed to be. Problem solved… and what on earth are you wearing, young man?” Mimi cut in.

Agnes, who was sharing a sofa with her, nudged her with an elbow. “Oh hush, Mimi.” Though she did laugh when she took a moment to look Jeremy over. He was wearing a leather trench coat, ripped black jeans, and a pair of combat boots.

“What? You don’t have that same outfit in your closet, Mimi? Sebastian teased.

“Oh you beast…” Mimi threw one of the sofa pillows at him.

“IT’S JUST…” Jeremy hadn’t meant to say it so loudly, interrupting their banter, “I expected to see a room full of heterosexual white men doing, you know… magickal stuff.”

The room went silent. 

“He’s not very perceptive, is he?” Sebastian said shaking his head.

“Honest though.” Agnes responded quickly.

“Funny.” Mimi smirked. 

“Now, leave the boy alone.” Betsy made a tsk-tsk motion with her fingers. “Don’t pay any attention to their teasing. They’re just poking at the tiger’s cage. I swear, it’s enough to make a person explode.” She pursed her lips looking awfully serious, but only for a moment as she mumbled to the others, “Remember what happened to the last one.”

The room fell silent again. 

“Honey, why don’t you sit down next to Sebastian and I’ll get you a cup of tea. Are you hungry? We’ve got sandwiches in the kitchen.” Betsy gave Jeremy a nudge towards the sofas. It was surprisingly forceful for someone with a body so slight. 

Jeremy, still looking a bit dazed, made his way over to Sebastian. The boy noticed that there was a faint indentation in the cushion next to the older man. Jeremy didn’t know why, but his eyes teared up instantly. 

Sebastian, who noticed this reflexive reaction, called into the kitchen. “I was wrong. He’s got good eyes.” Then, he turned his attention to Jeremy. “It’s alright kid, have a seat.” 

The old guy handed over the square of fabric he had been embellishing. “Here. Finish sewing this for me.”

“I don’t know how to sew.” Jeremy said, sounding a bit more shy than he wanted. 

“Now, you’re learning.” Sebastian answered. He showed the younger man a few basics.

By the time Betsy came back from the kitchen, Jeremy had finished what was left of the quilt patch. It looked almost like an abstract pattern at first, but the oranges, reds, and yellows hinted that what he had been sewing were flames.

“Dear, would you be kind enough to push that table to the side of the room? We’re going to put all of the pieces together now.” Agnes asked in a sweet voice…

A half an hour later, the quilt was finished. It was placed in the middle of the room, where the table had been. 

Jeremy made a face. “This is a bit… morbid? What is this supposed to be?”

“You really should stop using that word…” Mimi scrunched her nose. 

“Do you need some more tea, hon?” Betsy was already filling his cup before he could answer…

A couple of hours later and Jeremy was bored out of his skull. His elders had spent the entire afternoon selecting the color scheme for the new quilt they were planning to start tomorrow. 

Jeremy stood up. “It’s getting sort of late… guess I should go.”

“Oh? Well, if you must dear. But hold on one moment, alright? Could you do this old lady a favor and turn on the television for me?” Betsy smiled.

“Yeah, Sure.” Jeremy had never seen a set so old. There was no remote control. You actually had to flip it on manually. 

“Channel 9.” Betsy requested.

“Thanks, Jim. I’m standing outside of what used to be Global Bank’s corporate headquarters. There’s no official word on what caused the fire…”

Jeremy’s mouth fell open. His eyes took a moment to go from the television screen, to the quilt in the middle of the room, and back to the television.

“Did you… You guys did this? Didn’t you?” He pointed to the screen. “With this?!” He pointed at the quilt. 

“You mean We, dear.” Betsy took a sip of tea. “Oh. Did you have someplace else you wanted to be?”

“Fuck no!” Jeremy blushed. “I mean, no ma’am… I mean, fuck! I’m not going anywhere!” He rushed to sit back down.

Sebastian patted him on the shoulder. “Hey, I like this kid! Let’s not get this one blown up, okay?

Jeremy’s face turned white. “Huh?”

“It’s a long story. I better put another kettle on.” Betsy, once again, disappeared into the kitchen. 

One day I saw a gloomy boy stretched out, belly down, on a set of rusty train tracks. 
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
“Do you need help?”
“Please go away. I’m trying to die alone.”
“This could take a while.” I said, as I sat down on the ground next to him.
“Huh?”
“The train stopped coming through here years ago.”
“Arrrggghhh.” He half moaned. “It figures.”
“I suppose you could still die of dehydration or exposure. Can I stay until you feel like your soul is ready to depart?”
He lifted his head staring at me incredulously. 
“You’re sort of a freak, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. Totally.” I smiled. 
Then, I giggled because his stomach growled. It sounded like a wild beast.
“Can I treat you to a last meal before you settle in for the long dirt nap?”
“Yeah.” He signed, “I guess. I’m getting kind of bored anyway.”
He got up with a slight huff. I could tell this guy had been born with a storm cloud over his head. I could almost feel its shadow sucking up the sunlight around me. It sort of made me feel weak in the knees. Yeah. I’ve always had a thing for sulky boys. 

“Oh my god! You stabbed me. Why did you stab me?”

“I think I’m in love with you. Or at the very least intensely infatuated.”

“So you stabbed me?!”

“I just don’t have time to sit around fantasizing about you, agonizing over the fact that we’re never going to be a thing.”

“So you stabbed me?!”

“Oh yeah. You’ve definitely got to die”

“Girls, we do, whatever it will take. Cause girls don’t want, we don’t want our hearts to break…”

He said that he became infatuated with me when he saw me drinking at a club. I had spent most of the night ignoring him as I made eyes with another guy from across the room. He thought I was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, as I punched random strangers. My eyes bright like mason jars in the sunlight. The way he could tell that my fingers were aching to shatter collarbones. 

But it wasn’t until I got on the dance floor, flailing around with the chainsaw, that he fell in love with me. There was something about the way the blood splatters on my face made delicate patterns against my skin that reminded him of stars…

On our first date, he took me out to a fancy restaurant. I spent the whole night flirting with him. You know, little thoughtful things that let him know I was interested. Obvious signs of attraction, like smashing my wine glass and slashing at his chest. I smashed the candle centerpiece, setting the tablecloth on fire. I tried to trip him as we ran from the sound of sirens.

When he finally walked me to my door, I gave him a kiss goodnight with a taser. I left him spasming in a puddle of his own bodily fluids…

And now we spend quiet nights at home, with our hands entwined tightly around eachother’s throats — but even on the rare nights he wins, the last words that I whisper before I black out are “I don’t love you.”

I’m sure he’ll be obsessed with me for the rest of his life. ‘Cause boys, they like a little danger…

You gotta make them bleed so they don’t have the sense to leave. You gotta make them sweat so they don’t have the energy to chase you down when you go. 

He’s the audible fuzz that you can hear on vinyl, filling the gaps between and under the notes. The tiny fizzles and hisses that remind you that the music was recorded by actual people, in a real space, in real time. Back in the old days, it was all or nothing. When mistakes couldn’t be trimmed away and voices couldn’t be auto-tuned out. Undeniably authentic, and presented in its rawest form.

Sometimes you’d have to make the choice between immortalizing a moment of spontaneous brilliance, blended with subtle imperfections or scraping the whole track and starting over — knowing that you’ll never get that moment back. Speculating whether or not you’ll ever experience a moment like that again in your lifetime.

He’s that warm tone that fills the room, occupying the space like a lyric that’s burning on the tip of your tongue. Like the knowledge that something is wrong with this world — something’s gotta change, something’s gotta give — but that means you’ve got to give along with it. But sometimes you get swept away in a movement, whether musically or socially, and you don’t care if it snaps, crackles, and pops… it’s a proof of life, a sign that we were here. 

He’s the sound of scratching when the record skips. No longer content to simply entertain. Live with the madding repetition or take action…

Art, music, writing, social progress. They’re all deep grooves in the plastic of this world. 



_____________

For johnnynemo

Johnny Pitt was a pragmatic surrealist. Sure, it sounded like a contradiction of terms, but not if you understood the basic philosophy behind it. He resided on a small blue planet that just happened to be the perfect distance from the sun, with the perfect blend of elements and chemicals to sustain life. Life began as single-celled organisms and eventually evolved into greedy hairless monkeys who spent most of their time obsessed with little green pieces of paper that had no intrinsic value whatsoever. Bound to an arbitrary system that forced them go to a place they hated — every day from 9-5 — that rewarded them with imaginary currency which they used to buy things they didn’t really need from fictional people who only seemed to exist as moving pictures and static billboards. In their spare time, they immersed themselves in an alternate reality that existed on the other side of the screen. Sometimes falling in love with their own projections. Sometimes arguing with invisible people. Sometimes jerking off into the wee hours of night, crying softly and wondering why they were so alone in the universe… and why no one would give them a blowjob… See, in a world like the one Johnny is from, where reality is the most ridiculous concept you could possibly wrap your head around, the most sanest thing you could do is take refuge in fantasy, in the abstract, and poke fun at how seriously people take nonsense. 

_____________

For Johnny

I’m writing this because countless pages have been written trying to capture the experience of falling in love, or describe the sensation of being in love, or to catalogue the aftermath of falling out of love — but the process of letting go of someone while they’re still around seems equally worthy of remembrance…

My affection for you is no longer a big bang. My love for you has already expanded exponentially, giving birth to all of the possibilities of the universe. Life was spawned against improbable odds and crawled out of the primordial soup onto dry land. First dragging itself on its belly, then scurrying on all fours, spreading wings to take flight, and walking upright on two legs.

Alas, like all things that are alive, that animating breath must eventually be exhaled, even in minuscule measures that aren’t audible, no matter how close you stand. Everything that is something will eventually break down to nothing. 

I find myself in the awkward position of admitting that you’re too real to scribe as a creation myth, too undefined to write about as a theory of everything, too familiar to document as a curious phenomenon, and too present to pen you as a ghost story…

At this point the best I could produce is a user’s manual, and even now I’m not proficient enough to consider myself an expert on you… so it would be a tentative and boring collection of technical jargon and nonsense at its best. 

Not that it matters. I feel like I’ve lost the ability to seduce you with text anyway. Which is a shallow reason to feel my heartbeat slow, but my ego is the organ that produces the most adrenaline. Words are what keep the blood and sexual fluids flowing hard and strong, keeping my system flooded with a literate sort of passion — enlightened primitive sensations — that translate into base feelings of emotional adoration and physical lust. Which I agree is confusing and wacky. I’m a literary deviant. I am literally defective.

Don’t blame me, blame the cosmic manufacturers who let me pass through inspection with all these crossed wires and faulty connections…

I guess what I am saying here is that I’m falling out of love with you. Slowly though. Like a person sitting in a tub, waiting to bleed out, or to drown themselves in a vat of molasses. 

My love is a big-dumb-majestic animal that’s thrashing around in the tar pits. And in a couple of thousands of years the remnants of it will be enough to power something more practical. 

But just as I fell for you with heartbreaking speed — enough to excite the molecules in my body to cataclysmic acceleration…

Just as I have loved you to a critical mass capacity…

Just as I will fall apart over you like a paradigm that can’t support the weight of its own existence when you’re gone…

I am falling out of love with you in the most intense and masochistically delightful way I am capable of. Bleeding you out one pin prick of sentiment at a time. And when the wounds go numb or look like they’re going to scab over, I pick at them mercilessly with my fingernails, until every trace of you that has found its way inside of me has been depleted. 

That’s how it feels to be falling out of love, in real time. 

He loved you when he thought you were a rabbit hole. A mysterious cavity that made him wonder what it would feel like to be inside of you; losing himself to the experience of falling as he plummeted deeper and further, looking for your bottom. Back when he made you feel like a portal to another world. 

He crept into your wonderland, agitating the natives. He came for… well you, in a manner of speaking. Or at least the part of you that ran past him, late for an important date with anyone but him. The version of you that triggered a pavlovian response in his brain and caused him to give chase.

He statyed for the colorful conversation, free drugs, and fancy tea. He left bloody fingerprints all over the good china…

But eventually, he just let you slip through his fingers, like a forgotten childhood wish. 

There were so many dreams to dream. There were so many holes to get lost inside of. There were so many worlds in which he wasn’t really welcome.

Why would he waste his time on somewhere that started to resemble a home? 

Other paradigms to shake, other hearts to break…

“I’ve given up. I’ve given up on waiting any longer.”

I yelp like a wounded dog when I trip over a small plastic dinosaur. My ankle folds at an unnatural angle, and I’m not sure whether I want to cry or curse. 

“For Christ’s sake!” I mutter under my breath, managing to at least contain my tears. “Marta! Anthony! I told you not to leave your toys on the floor.” I try not to grumble too much, but sometimes I think these kids are actually tiny assassins who are trying to collect on a contract with my name in the header. 

“Where the fuck is my dinner?” A gruff voice bellows from the bedroom down the hall. 

“Language, Papa!” I hollar back. “I’m going to order pizza in about two seconds…”

“Always with the pizza. When the hell are you going to learn how to cook, girl? This is why both of your children are bastards…”

“PAPA.” I’m trembling with building agitation. My feet are killing me. I need to get these heels off, but part of me is afraid to have anything mildly sharp or pointy in my hands. I’m afraid I’m going to march into my father’s room and lobotomize him with my stiletto. I just stand there by the door for a moment with my hands on my hips and my head down. I fill my lungs with air, expel it slowly. 

“Eh. Your sister took those brats out somewhere. Now… I’m fucking starving! Do I have to kiss your ass to get a meal?”

The breathing isn’t helping. Ten seconds alone in an apartment with my father could send a zen guru on a mass killing spree. I dig my phone out of my purse and finally kick off my shoes. My toes remind me of political refugees who have been huddled together in foreign prison for too long. 

I’m about to dial the number for the pizza joint, but my phone comes to life, buzzing in my hand. 

“Oscar.” I say with a mixture of desperation and relief,  ”You and David have got to take dad off my hands for a while. I’m about to jump out of my skin here.”

Strong resistance from the other side of the line.

“I don’t want to hear it. He’s been with me, in my apartment, for two years. At least you have a house…”

More resistance.

“You can’t say no. He’s your father. I don’t see why you can’t help me out here. You don’t have children yet. My kids know more curse words than I do… Why can’t you just…”

“Is that your brother on the phone?” My father yells from down the hall. “Tell him come pick me up. He may be queer, but at least he’s got a husband… and that fairy, what’s his name… Daniel? Devon? Whatever. really knows how to cook.” 

I roll my eyes in defeat. “You’re right. David has never done anything to deserve having to deal with Papa on a daily basis.” I rest my head against the wall. 

“I swear… I’m going to kill him. Could you at least come over? I’m ordering pizza… what’s wrong with pizza?” I flop down on the couch. “Fine. Bring whatever you want. Just get over here soon. Please.”

I hang up the phone and place a pillow over my face. I remember back when I found out I was pregnant with Marta. I was too far along to terminate the pregnancy… and truthfully, I don’t know if I could have gone through with an abortion. It was such a taboo in my family. That’s just how I had been raised.

I was fifteen years old and  I was crying hysterically. My father had just come back from the graveyard shift… for his second job. Mama, God rest her soul, had only been gone for two years. My father was left to shoulder the burden of supporting and raising six children on his own. He had no idea how to relate to, let alone comfort, a hormonal teenage girl.

So he slapped me. And then he hugged me. It was the first and probably only time that my father had ever shown me any real emotional support. 

“Papa. I’m afraid. I don’t know how to be a mother.” I had squeaked.

“Don’t be stupid. You just do the best you can for the people you’re responsible for. That’s all any of us can be held responsible for.”

“I’m not getting any fucking younger in here. WHERE IS THE FOOD?!” 

“IT’S COMING!” I yell back, before burying my face back into the pillow and screaming. 

It wasn’t an easy life. He wasn’t an easy man but…

You do the best you can for the people you’re responsible for.



_________________

Flip The Switch Prompt

Maybe if his name was Tom Tom he’d have a stronger sense of direction. But as it stands, he’s a man with only one first name, which in some circles counts as being exponentially more trustworthy — but most people are fucking morons and their opinions can’t be trusted, especially about concepts like credibility… No, he’s not the kind of guy who will try to sell you used cars or life insurance. But he may try to sell you on the notion that values shouldn’t be sold like so much useless clutter at an existential garage sale. Paradigms shouldn’t be up for auction. But he’ll share his world view with you liberally and freely, in direct correlation with the quality and flow of the booze you share. 

I wake up to the sound of birds squawking. The sharp noises rousing me back to consciousness, poking at me like merciless little bony fingers digging into the flesh of my awareness. I open my eyes, slowly, and even through the haze of still being half-dazed from sleep I can still make out the colors of dawn. The sky is painted in saturated reds and rich oranges, like a warrior of antiquity. Some fierce, noble savage that has come to claim my scalp.

Hell, I would gladly part with it. Maybe it would relieve some of the pressure in my head. My temples throb with an indignant sense of vengeance. I can’t remember what I did last night, but my body sure seems to. It must have been something physical and fantastically stupid, because my muscles are singing war anthems, but totally ignoring my direction.

The only part of my body that’s communicating with me directly is my stomach. It groans at me with a certain measure of misery and righteous anger that I could swear it was actually an old black man sitting on a front porch with a guitar in his lap — somewhere in the middle of the deep south — singing haunting songs of oppression, regret, and loss…

There’s a telephone wire hovering over my head, lined with tiny blobs of loud feathers that are probably debating which one wants to shit on me… and it makes me wonder if I still have my phone in my pocket. Should I call someone? Is there anyone left to call? And if I did, if there was, would it make any difference? I don’t know where the fuck I am. I could be at the bottom of the ocean. I could be nestled in the devil’s asshole. I could be floating helplessly in the vast emptiness of space with only my knowledge that I am alone in the universe — and if a god exists it probably didn’t care enough to observe, let alone help me — to keep me company. Or worse… I could be in the suburbs. 

I don’t risk lifting my head to take a look around. It’s a small exercise of cowardice, but mostly one of necessity. If I turn my head slightly from side to side my vision blurs with vertigo. I’m pretty sure that if I lift my head up I’m only going to be punished by waves of nausea. 

The sun is rising in the sky. It looks like the angry eye of consequence. I feel sort of like a guilty piece of cosmic bacon waiting to squirm in agony against a hot skillet of karma… Maybe I’m just hungry.

Another fucking beautiful day in the the life of a useless fuck up. 

“And as the skies turn gloomy, night winds whisper to me, I’m lonesome as I can be…”


She’s the kind of girl who goes out walking after midnight, even if it’s the middle of the day, because she’s always stuck in a shadowy, liminal phase inside of her own troubled little head.

Yeah, she’s troubled alright. Troubled and troubling and just plain trouble, to boot. Or maybe it’s just the way she sticks out her thumb, while she sucks the other one, when she’s standing in the middle of the road. A sullen traffic signal flashing oncoming traffic with the neon emergency lights of an impending existential crisis. 

She’s like a highway billboard — red lettered with smeared mascara down cheeks, and a bit of drool on the chin that, for some reason, makes you murmur the phrase “trail of tears” under your breath — advertising something you could never want to want, but still pause to consider if you could afford:

Eat My Heart At Joes.

Just look at those big doe eyes. Now don’t they just remind you of something pretty and stupid frozen in the harsh headlights of reality? A precious little lump of flesh and fur that you violently collide with in the dark. 

She’s the seedy motel, off the main road, that charges by the hour and lets you park your truck in the back. She’s that glassy-eyed stare of the dead hooker in your bathtub, the one that makes you uncomfortably hard… and concerned that you don’t have enough clean towels…

She goes walking after midnight, but what is she looking for? A free ride? An ambulance? A getaway car? An accomplice? A sweet, sweetheart killer? A chronic masturbator dressed to the nines in the semen crusted pants of a dope fiend? 

Maybe, just maybe she’s looking for you, stranger…

And if that’s the case, you better hit the asphalt, hit the gas, and get the hell out of dodge before you hear the jangle of spurs from her worn in cowgirl boots.

‘Cause for her it’s always midnight, but as far as anyone else is concerned it’s high noon in her presence. There’s a gallows casting a shadow around her, drawing a line in the sand. It starts from zero paces from her person and continues down that long stretch of highway that we call infinity. 

That girl’s more lonely tumble weeds and severe car crashes than any man can handle, partner.

“Oh hell. Are you just going to sit there sulking and crying into your journal all day? Someone really must have pulled a number on you, convincing you that sadness was such a rare and profound thing. Why do you want to be a sad girl? Don’t you know they’re a dime a dozen? Do you really think that’s the best you have to offer? ”

“Why are you being so mean to me?”

“Because I love you… and I think you’re beautiful. I’m angry that you’re too stupid to understand why.”

Until now, my heart has always reminded me of a refugee camp. A temporary shelter for all sorts of vagabond drifters, escaped criminals, political radicals, social rejects, and feral strays. A caravan of lost boys and girls pitching tents and parking mobile homes in the middle of a desert that used to be a major city. A gang of malnourished punks navigating the post-apocalyptic landscape, scavenging for survival; trying to salvage useful materials from a big pile of useless garbage. 

But you blustered in like a tornado, tearing down the makeshift structures and clearing out the squatters. Leaving me nothing to stand behind and no one to pretend with.

So, I built a fortress out of scrap metal. A kingdom of twisted metal and recycled plastic. I hid inside of a complicated system of tunnels under the sand, and buried myself in a nest of junk. I kept my head down and my gun up, defending my home from violent marauders and hungry cannibals. I taught myself how to be a killer. A soldier in an army of me; no retreat, no surrender. 

But you crept in like a gas leak, filling my underground bunker silently while I slept. There was a spark, followed by a series of explosions. You smoked me out of my foxhole, threatening to consume me in a spectacle of flame and heat…

I can’t hide from you. But what really scares me sometimes is that I don’t want to. I always want you to be able to find your way back to me. 

Now, my heart is a black box, impermeable and indestructible for as long as you reside in it. It’s a sophisticated chaos engine, where you implant your devious code and desired coordinates, and it will try to take you wherever you want to go. 

As long as we’re together.