Pet the cat. Thoughts coalesce when you pet the cat. It’s tactile, like a grounding method or something. You read that somewhere. Where did you read it? It’s lost. Do something. Touch the fabric of your shirt, smell the inside of a melted candle, but don’t touch the hot wax to your nose. Or maybe do. Maybe that’ll make you remember more. What are you … Continue reading Sliding
I could pinpoint the place between recognizing something was wrong in my neighborhood and taking action by the golden glint of a Winchester shell tucked safely between the cracks of sidewalk slabs, sidewalk right next to some kid’s chalk art, probably the kid I passed on my walk to work every morning, waiting for the bus, and I could see a younger me when I … Continue reading Interregnum
Waking up before my alarm in after-season cold–in a melatonin haze meant to replace the lithium days. Can’t eat much in the mornings anymore. Is that just part of getting older, or is something else at play? Cat’s got to eat, so I might as well wake up and open a can for him. I still have to chastise him for scarfing his food down … Continue reading Something New
Sitting on a reclining chair with my cat on my lap before 8 a.m., watching the city come to life through my window, hearing its faraway trains blare on horns that from this distance sound more like suggestions, watching the sky wake up by degrees as well, its oranges and blues fading to something more muted, something more mature. Being used to chaos, you end … Continue reading Even the Good Ones
You can smell violence like you would a dying flower in an empty lot, mold gathering in all the cracks, hearing the distant sound of sirens, eating a honey bun you got with your last $0.50 from a convenience store you haven’t been to in years, understanding that this is the place, this is the time, this is where you make your stand, on the … Continue reading They All Fall Down
Days like magnet letters on a dusty refrigerator, speckle stains of barbecue sauce and ketchup like culinary crime scenes as an animal collects leftovers from where they’ve fallen–from a midnight sandwich or sunrise coffee-and-bagel. You can learn a lot about someone from the stains they leave behind. It’s collecting bruises in a ten-dollar-a-class dojo, swishing trial size mouthwash in the dojo bathroom because it always … Continue reading Anagram Days
Visibility’s better than he thought it’d be, through the holes that he poked in a repurposed shirt sleeve that would become his mask. He’d thought about it for years, considered putting on a mask and doing things he’d only read about in comics, dreamed of doing in childhood days when he’d come home from school with a bloody nose and drip onto his Batman blanket, … Continue reading Time to Live
I can now say that I’ve been published in a place that’s also published work by Robert Olen Butler, Aimee Bender, and Joyce Carol Oates! Holy shit is an understatement. (You can tell how long it took them to get through their slush pile by how old my author bio pic is here. 😂) Continue reading Fiction Southeast!!!
So this is one of the coolest things that’s ever happened to me: My work is in an America’s Emerging Writers anthology! Z Publishing House mentioned that they’re now in a position to offer solo-author book deals, and they’re deciding on those deals mostly through Amazon reviews. Long story short: If you read this and leave a positive review with a name drop for me, … Continue reading America’s Emerging Writers Link!
Identifiables go first. It’ll all burn the same, but I’m paranoid, and I want my IDs to melt and liquify till there’s no chance of being found before burning the other, more important things. There’s no way of googling this without looking like a weirdo, so the first time will have to be a charm. I’m in the middle of the woods, looking like a … Continue reading fire thoughts at 3am
