John Prine sing

“We made love

Every way love

Can be made”

I have to change

The song

“How much were the tickets?”

Sally Mae let out a sly chuckle, knowing what Billy was getting at.

“90 bucks,” she replied.  “Why?  You don’t wanna go now?”

“We got 8 hours to kill and at the rate we’re going it doesn’t look like there’s a point”

“I don’t care.  Fuck it.  Let’s go home.”  It was true.  Sally Mae didn’t care.  They were three hours from home, in the wilderness, the middle of nowhere, and he made a sound argument: at the rate things were going, with them fighting like two rabid dogs, what was the point?  How much fun would a John Prine concert really be after a day like this?   Not to mention, her head still smarted from where he accidentally elbowed her.  They were just chasing their tails now.  She felt it was a good time to throw in the towel but was still hurt he felt that way.

She sat in silence.  She fought tears and tried to focus her blank stare out the window.  Every few seconds she’d give Cinnamon, Billy’s old cattle dog, a scratch behind her ears.  Cinnamon, like a type of ballast, lay stretched out across Sally Mae’s lap.  Practically holding her down.

Billy drove on, also in silence.  He was working hard at something in the corner of his mouth.  Every few seconds he’d look lovingly over at Cinnamon and give her a little smirk.  After about a half-hour of driving, he pulled into a parking lot.

“What are we doing?” Sally Mae asked.

He parked the old, white pick-up truck.  The truck surrendered and slumped into a dead stupor, sighing as Billy hopped out.

“I’m letting Cinnamon swim in the lake,” he said as he spit on the concrete.  “That okay with you?”

“I just wanted to know.  Jesus. I can’t read your mind.  So what now?  Should I just stay here?”  She meant to think those questions, not ask them.

“I don’t care.  Do whatever the fuck you want.”

She got out of the truck to let the dog out.  Sally Mae decided then that she wasn’t about to sit in the hot truck while he took his good old time.  She followed behind Billy and Cinnamon as they walked down the path to the lake.  Cinnamon knew water was near.  She would have normally run ahead, but she stayed between Sally and Billy, looking back at Sally here and there as if to say, “Come on, let it go, already.  You know how he can get.”  Sally wanted so badly to just let it go.  But she did know how he could get, and the spot on the back of her head that was still pulsing made her wonder if she’d only seen the beginning.  It was just an accident she told herself, but after the night she spent tossing and turning, silently crying, she knew this could be the one time she might not just “let it go.”

The three of them walked down a crunchy path lined with tall trees, some of which were starting to shed their summery warmth, surrendering to their autumnal glow.  Sally tried not to look down as she walked, remembering what he said months ago about her being “this shrinking mouse.”  She tried to stand tall.  She looked to the trees, looked to the dog, looked to the man.  She shrunk again.

I walk to the river
In a feeble attempt
To quiet that constant loop
Replaying those early days
When you looked at me
And you said I had
“kind eyes”
When I sat on your bed
And you read from a book
The poems you wrote
And I just had to dream
About what our kids
Might look like
Someday.

I look to the river
And I smile and think
You’d've never allowed
Our kids to come here.

“Looks like they’re taking the kids to the water park,” Sally Mae said waving to the family they met the day before.  Sally and Billy sat watching the family of five from across the street.  The parents were buying donuts for their three kids while Sally and Billy ate pancakes outside a rustic log cabin restaurant.  Cinnamon paced between the two of them looking up at them, longing for scraps.

“Ugh.  I don’t think I’d even take my kids there,” which is what Sally thought he might say.

“Awe, I would,” Sally shrugged.  “Kids love water parks.”  Sally tried to sound light-hearted, but not because she was feeling particularly light-hearted.  She wanted him to be light-hearted—for just once.  Like how he used to be.

“Yeah, but I’d take them—I dunno—to the lakes and forests.  There’s so much better things to do here.  You’d really come all the way to the Appalachian Mountains and spend your time at some shitty water park?”

“Yeah,” she was being very pleasant now, “I mean, if they were good all week, I think I’d take them to the water park or some place they wanted to go.”

Sally and Billy were talking about kids they didn’t even have yet.

“Yeah, but you can’t just give kids whatever they want.”

“If they’re good, I don’t see why they can’t have a little fun,” she said feigning a smile, shrinking into her seat.

Cinnamon surrendered from her begging to lie across Sally’s feet as she pushed her pancakes around on the plate.  She couldn’t help but picture three little kids in the backseat of a mini-van begging to go to the water park as Mom and Dad drove past it.  One of them would start crying.  What would happen then?

It was then Sally recalled the story about the little boy.  Billy told her his last girlfriend had a son.  He said he got along great with that little boy.  He’d take him to the park and play fetch with the old dog he had back then.  Billy said one day this boy, probably only 5 or 6, intentionally threw the ball at Billy’s face.  He claimed the boy did it maliciously and for no reason at all.  When Sally asked what Billy did then, before he could even answer, she wished she hadn’t asked.

“So what are we going to do today?” Sally dropped it.

I drive past Villa Barone

Where we sat outside

And you teased

Because I ordered spaghetti

On our first date

I was too nervous

Light-headed

Dizzy

Enamored

To even order real food.

On the way to the movie

You pointed out the couple

In the car next to us

Having oral sex.

I still look in cars

To catch a glimpse

Of what goes on

When no one’s looking

But I already know.

“Want to go for a walk before heading home?”

“Sure,” Sally said trying not to sound too eager.  She already knew what she’d tell her roommate.  She met the man she was sure to spend the rest of her life with.  Billy Kincaid.  He had to be it.

Billy pulled out of the movie theater parking lot and drove downtown as they listened to Bob Dylan.  His favorite song was “Tangled Up in Blue;” hers, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright.”  He said he was shocked she listened to the same music.  Most girls listen to crap he said.

“Ever heard of John Prine?” he asked as he searched the pile of CDs, road maps, and paperwork that covered the dashboard.

“No, what’s he sing?”

“Well, he’s only my number one favorite of all time.  You’d love him.”  He paused, “I mean I think you would.  Because you like Dylan and Johnny Cash, so I think you’d really like him.”

“What’s his name again?”

“John Prine.”

“No, never heard of him.”

I tried hiking

Writing

Photography

School

Everything has you in it

You’re everywhere.

Your good

And your bad

Are everywhere.

I got laid off

I got hired

My dad’s doing better

But it’s complicated.

I

Just

Want

To

Share

It

All

With

You

“You have one new voicemail,” the familiar woman’s voice says into Sally’s ear followed by what may as well have been a ghost.

“Hey, it’s me, Billy.”  It had been three weeks since she heard that voice.  “I just wanted to tell you I was thinking about you.  I hope you’re alright.  I haven’t seen you around, and I’m just worried about you.  I do care about you, Sally.  I care about you a lot.  Well, I don’t really have the words to say.  I just wanted to tell you I think about you.  Okay… bye.”

She couldn’t believe he called.  She thought he was too full of pride.  She thought he was halfway to Colorado by now.  She thought her leaving would have been the perfect excuse for him to go back to life as a cowboy.  After all, he said, “I’m fucking done with women forever.  You’re all the same.”  He didn’t mean it.  She knew how he could get.  He also said, “If you don’t like it, get the fuck out you motherfucking bitch.”

So, she did.  Almost.

She surrenders to the advice of friends.  Don’t call back.  Move on with your life.  She tries.  She tries so hard.  She thought she’d found the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with.  She wondered how does a person move on with life when life turns out to be so different from what was expected?

So here we are.

A date is set for Friday

Villa Barone

Give it another try.

You say we can do things

Right this time.

You say you

-Never felt this way before

-Know where we went wrong

-Would do anything for me

You say you Love me.

I feel the same.

Promise I do.

But

Unlike you

I’m not a fighter.

I can’t win.

~ Amanda Hinski

~ Katherin Fitzpatrick

I mean,
ever since like 99′ I’ve been through.
And I’m not waiting for you, or for proof,
but I’ll be here when you do.

Come back down to this earth,
and to me, when you’re through.
We’d be something else,
you and me, in the blue.
Cool as a breeze like leaves let from the trees.
‘ ,
Can’t you see?
We’ll be undeniably new
when you come back to me.

~ Bryan Smith

Things get bad.  Acidic tears rolled down my face; there was a mixture of mucous and mascara collecting beneath my swollen eyes.  It burned and only intensified the crying.  I was scrunched up into a sad ball against the bed’s wicker headboard, my knees tight against my shaking chest.  My thin shirt felt damp on my skin from cold sweat; the escaping salt scorched the surface flesh and reabsorbed.

Things get worse.  He sat on the very edge of the bed as if it was pricking him with hundreds of needles.  His hands and face were still and maroon, filled with thick, angry blood.  I glanced through the cracks between the fingers belonging to the hands shielding my eyes—my own—but, if you asked me whose hands they were, I’m unsure if I would have been able to tell you.  My fingers framed his face.  His eyes were steady on me.  Unblinking.  Unyielding.  I pretended not to notice, but I’m not good at pretending.

There is a sheepskin slipper lying upside-down in the doorway, where it landed after he ripped it from my little, blue foot and demanded I was stupid.   I was curious how many functioning neurons it took to launch a shoe.  It was a modest attempt for a man who generally throws more fits than footballs.  It soared several feet past the television; I’ll give it an eight.  Matching slipper has yet to be found.

He shot up like a fierce flame and headed towards the door.  A whine escaped from my lips, but it was more like a vibration he didn’t feel.

“Uhh…ugggh.”

“I’m done,” was all he said, struggling to zip-up his faded cardigan.  The door awkwardly shut, like it was resisting.  It’s one of those doors that expands in surging humidity, but the only dampness found was streaming from my bright eyes.  Sometimes, when we fight and I’m afraid, my mind drifts to things I know—how to draw a non-dimensional house with two crooked windows, the periodic table, and which months have thirty days.  Other times, my fear forces me to consider everything that eludes me—the diameter across the sun and quantum mechanics.

My explanation is simple.  Every spring, the tulips produce too many quantums which threaten the carrot turnout.  The fattest bunnies lie on their backs on cool, wispy grass just eating quantums, all day.  The carrots are saved.  Equilibrium is restored.

My eye begins to swell.  Not because he hit me.  Oh, God no. My eyes just do that when I’ve been wailing, sometimes for two days.  For two entire days faces are cloudy, depths of near corners and sharp edges are obscured and the world appears dusted with some sickening kind of sugar, at least around the grim edges.

I couldn’t shatter my frozen existence—even to trail the only man capable of bringing me back from the hell he put me in.  He’d bring me back on a single shoulder.  But, I remained in bed, rigid, unable to lift a limb.  The crying clogged my nose with a solution of foul fluids, compacting because I couldn’t reach the tissues.  The shallow intake of air through my mouth fought the exhales of agony and more air, desperately trying to make its way to my lungs.  The sound was pathetic.  If you’ve ever watched a fish die, you’ve imagined the little sounds you can’t hear he must be making.  His once graceful, translucent fins are flailing erratically through crystal, chemically-altered water, trying to strike up five more minutes of life.  You have then seen me.  My arms were at my sides and my feet were still planted on the sheets.  In fact, I’d been this way so long it hurt.  I tried to remember how I got here.

Two years before, I met him on some grimy steps outside a depressing bar while keeping my chain-smoking friends safe from strangers.  This is how one maintains friendships, you know.  The sky looked like unimpassioned pavement, the leafless trees were without hope, and the February wind sent crumpled up newspapers, discarded fast food cartons, and the last remains of Newport Lights down a certain path to a storm drain already at capacity.  Breathing in the evening air left me feeling coated with expired chicken fat, decayed egg roll, and genuinely rotten lo mein.  The dumpster that belonged to the neighboring Chinese place led a double-life as a green, scaly monster who came alive after closing time and spewed bits of noodle and garbage at all the dejected souls taking up space in the parking lot.

I was fanning myself from the cloud of smoke.  There was a circle of young men in dark coats and sideburns in need of re-thinking smoking to our left.  I felt misplaced at a longshoremen’s convention.  I had been kicking my strappy Mary Janes to free them of the ash landing on them.  Then he stumbled over in his black coat—drunk as a mother fucker—complete with coarse, black hair, black beady eyes and black, scuffed boots.

Oh, God, this is not happening to me.  Yes, it is.  And, it did.

Fast-forward two years; I heard the hum of a small car in the drive.  The unsatisfactory becomes extraordinary.  Somehow, by the determination of all the fibers in me working together, I made it to the screen door, but did not open it.  I just stared blankly at the fat raindrops pinging against the metal bird-feeders and the hood of the running car.  Leave without me was all I could think.  But, from inside, I saw him open the passenger-side door and I watched the empty seat.  I thought about the first time I ever hesitated to get in; I was burned badly before and he must have known it.  I didn’t know if it was painted on my face, revealed by my unwillingness to hold his hand, or if an acquaintance rambled on one night about my list of priors like an arrest sheet.  I used to imagine him sitting at a cruddy bar with an unshaven jackass I once nodded to.

Yeah, I don’t know all the details, but I heard she’s just not all there.  Like a basket-case or something.  I don’t recall how he finally lured me in.  It may have been the warmth in his plea—come on, I waited all week to see you, we have to quit this once a week on Saturday night with your friends kind of thing. Or, it could have been the way I forgot to breathe when his fingers brushed my collarbone.  Or, maybe I just put every ounce of my trust in whatever his eyes conveyed.

So, here I am, in my final fit of tears and rage screaming:

You’re worse than me because I only say what I feel and you search for what makes me bleed.  Your really search.  You search our entire history for the artifact that causes the worst wound.  You scan you’re brain for the sharpest blade in your dwindling drawer—dwindling because you’ve already used the best of the worst.  But, dwindling, not empty because there’s always one more.  Each time you pull one out, you replace it with another piece of astringent critique.  Someone please press pause on my insanity.

I said it.  I shouted it, really.  But, not to him.  For some reason, it was enough for me and only me to hear it.  The rumbling mayhem in my tired stomach quieted.  Instead of fighting to hold in the air, I could let some out.  A breath following utter exhaustion is always more appreciated.  I pushed past the screen and felt the icy droplets bounce off my forehead, wet my hair, and run inside the coils of my ears.  I stepped out into the muddy drive, wiped an eye with one hand and pulled the handle of the door he had left open for me.

His head was heavy on my frail shoulder.  Invariably, the weak support the strong.  I don’t care about what’s right, as much as I care that he is here next to me.  The thunder and lightening in my head clears, my exhaling slows, and a pocket of heat grows between us again.

~ Kristen Peraset

We passed on Fifth Avenue and her hair was the color of roses on a wet day, when the sun is dying and the sky cries. She walked past and that was all I saw, that flash of musky blood as it whipped in the wind. I notice things like that, the subtle colors and the way they play in the air. I notice them because I’m an artist. Her hair was blood and roses, the city cloud and stone, my eyes ocean and blue jay. For a tantalizing second the colors mixed and it was heaven and hell, warm apple pie at your grandmother’s funeral. It was such a brilliant display, a splash of splendor in a dull world. I was lost in the losing moment, brought to a literal standstill by the beauty of her color. My neck screamed whiplash as I turned to watch her leave, her color mixing indiscriminately with the wheat and the jade and the plum. And then she was gone.

I saw her again a week later. This time it was in a coffee shop. I was admiring how espresso clashed so nicely with orange peel that I almost missed her roses. It barreled into the corner of my eye and my world was set ablaze as the espresso flowed perfectly into her roses. The far away yells of the other customers lost their form and I was trapped again in her color. But my immunity was stronger now and her poison was weakening. I broke the spell and followed her out the door, trailing behind her as she weaved through the crowd. I had to have that color. To let that rose slip away would be a great sin on my part as an artist. An artist needs his color.

I followed, entranced by her rose, until she wandered into an alley. Her other colors swirled in fury as I stabbed her to death. Her blood didn’t hold a candle, no, not even a match, to the rose of her hair.

Back at my apartment I added her rose to the other colors. Plums, leathers, ravens, gold, and now, roses. My masterpiece was almost complete. Only a few more flowers left now.

My name is Johnny, and I’m an artist.

~ Gabriel Arnold

“Blind luck, Henly, complete blind luck.” Darmond laughed behind me. He was seated at a small writing table in the corner of this makeshift union headquarters. It had, six months earlier, been a preschool for inner city children, but without funding it was abandoned.

“Cool it, Darmond.”

“What? I’m just congratulating you. Haven’t you seen what’s going on out there? It’s just savage celebration! Animal jubilation! All thanks to you.” He stood up and walked over to me, dropping his sarcasm on the floor. “You.”

“Lay off. I know I screwed up bad. But it’ll all be worked out soon enough. I’m working on it.” I sat down heavily on a couch.

Darmond, my closest confidant and personal assistant, stared at me through slits in his eyes. “You’d better sleep upstairs tonight. We wouldn’t want anything happening to you, would we?” I could tell he loathed me. I deserved his hatred. I deserved everyone’s hate. I screwed up.

The whole back-story is so very convoluted and unnecessary, but I guess it’s important to know. I’ll keep it short. I was born in New Haven, Connecticut and lived here my whole life. I fought in the first Gulf War. I came home and entered into politics. I became a senator as soon as I was of age. I fought for the little guy. I was very well liked by my constituents. But reality soon hit. Special interest groups, political galas, bribes, drugs, alcohol, women; everything that was thrown at me I took gratefully. And ‘the people’ had no idea. I was elected mayor of New Haven. I was home grown royalty. The power went to my head, but I kept a solemn face in public. ‘The people’ loved me. Their support never wavered. Why would it? Outwardly I was a godsend. I was reelected four times. During my fourth term, while on vacation in the Caribbean, I discovered cocaine. That really went to my head. I came back home to New Haven with a new found urgency. Projects, projects, do this, start that, get going, move, make, do it! They started out fine and unnoticeable, public works, roads. Then we moved up to education reforms and public policy. The public was behind me all the way, unaware of my little white friend. Soon the drugs took over completely. I went out of my mind. Paranoia set in. I began diverting funds into an emergency project that I kept hidden from the public. Steadily the money poured into it, and out of the taxpayer’s pockets. But they were patient with me. I hadn’t steered them wrong yet.  After months of strained optimism, I finally unveiled my great creation: a five story bronze statue of myself. Suffice it to say, the public lost their faith in me. It all went down hill from there. Rallies were held to have me impeached, death threats came in daily, panic took hold of the city. People were out on the street, no money for food or shelter. Violence became a steady backdrop of New Haven.  After weeks of this, ‘the people’ finally had enough. They were out for my blood.

—–

I paced around the small room. In my mind I paced as well. In the mind of the little guy in my mind who was pacing, there was an even littler guy pacing. There is a common misconception about pacing. Most people think a pacing person is deep in thought. This is wrong. Pacing is used to disrupt thought. Pacing in your minds mind disrupts the soul. Disrupting the soul makes a body numb. That’s what I was looking for.

A deep roar washed in through the balcony door. I continued to pace. I had spent the night in the cramped room on the top floor. The room had once been a nursery for unwanted children, and now it held me. How fitting.

“Antichrist!”

“Hey, that isn’t fair. Listen now; quiet down! First, I want to say I am deeply saddened by the recent turn of events. Though I acknowledge my involvement, of which I am very sorry, it is you, all of you, who should be ashamed. You acted like children. No, animals! Childish animals! Have some pride in the human condition. It’s all ebbs and flows, ebbs and flows. And yes, we may be in a flow right now but…wait, which one is bad?”

“An ebb, you bastard!”

“Right, we may be in an ebb right now, but if we stay together, stand united, we will make it through these trying times.”

The crowd down below pulsated with dissatisfaction.

“Stop the bullshit!”         *          “Repent, you demon!”

“Kill yourself!”

“Burn In Hell!”                             “Antichrist!”

“Listen! Now, I have a three-step plan to set us right. Firstly…”

“Jump!” A voice called down below. His cry spread until the whole mob was yelling. “Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump…”

I stepped back into the room and tried to pull myself together. How rude, how thoughtless, I thought to myself. I returned. “Now, listen please. Firstly, we must…” I had to duck to avoid the shoe. Soon, various objects came flying up at me. Rocks, fruit, bricks, rolled up death threats, more shoes. I took a seat on a chair in the corner. I closed my eyes and tried to remain calm. Deep in my meditation, I felt a hand grab me. I looked over my right shoulder. “Darmond?” A tear rolled down his cheek and landed on my jacket. “Darmond, what are you…?” He slowly walked me over to the ledge. A cheer rose from the depths. Darmond was silent. “Don’t, I can fix this,” I pleaded with him. He turned his face away from me. I glanced at the bloodthirsty crowd. Darmond gave me a violent shove. I felt myself float down the side of the building very slowly. I could see each and every face, the expressions changing from disgust and outrage to orgasmic joy. They finally had me, the bastards. The mindless mob, the violent brutes. But as I passed through the air, falling to my death, I felt a certain joy. I was giving back to the community. I was giving them the security and reassurance that a public office holder should give their people. I was giving them satisfaction. Once they had me, they would tear me to pieces, and then their minds would be at ease.

~ Justin Totora

~ Jonathan Wood

~ Professor David Hodges

“Why can’t you see out of it,” I asked my boyfriend.  He was renting the crummy, converted carriage house with a pot-smoking, horror movie addict for the summer.

“I think it adds privacy,” he said.

“Who cares if you think your room is private?  Instead of a window, you’ve got a spore machine; do you know what this is gonna do to my allergies?”

“I don’t have allergies,” was all he said.  His selfishness aside, he was a good guy and I knew I’d be spending my weekends here for the next few months.  Barrett, my boyfriend’s roommate was twenty-six and had stubby fingers, naturally silver hair, and one of the most pronounced overbites I’ve ever seen.  He picked out the larger of the two bedrooms, painted it blood red, and strung fake spider webs from the doorframe.  Barrett usually hid in his pseudo-cave with stale cookies his mom sent home with him and painted pictures of tits on stolen canvases while he listened to Judas Priest.  The wall his room shared with my boyfriend’s vibrated with the sound of three-thousand pound monsters banging on metal garbage receptacles.

The three of us went on at least fifty apartment runs to Home Depot—on one of those trips we bought a bottle of Spray Nine to try clean the window with.  The boys and I sprayed and scrubbed until our flesh was maroon and burned free of any remaining epidermis.  I scrubbed up and down, probably sideways, faster and slower, and finally in circles.  Moldy window had been a tenant long enough that he was free of paying rent.  And, he wasn’t going anywhere.  Who were we, three dim kids, to interrupt his musty existence?  Moldy window had probably been renting from Crazy Dave since I was a zygote.  There was white mold on top of black mold.  The tightly coiled black mildew held hands with the marshmallow-like puffs of white yeast.  The white mold supported streamers of wispy green mold.  The outermost layer was fenced in with blue cauliflower.  It was a mold mosaic really, and without much thought, we let it be.  We only had enough money for either Thai food or commercial-strength Spray Nine—the spicy noodles won.

One August night was especially noisy.  All of the filthy neighborhood kids poured onto the concrete pad that moldy window looked out upon.  It was probably ten by ten with a blow-up pool stuck right in the middle, leaking all over, turning the cement a gloomy gray.  They were just twelve-year old delinquents talking trash that happened to reverberate into our bedroom.  My boyfriend grabbed a war sword from his weapons wall (which is another story altogether) and slid it through the crack of street lamp-lit air between the air conditioning unit and the peeling window frame.  The carrying-on stopped and after nearly a solid thirty seconds of no sound aside from passing work trucks and the hum of crickets, they all let out a collective “OH, SHIT!”

They shrieked down South Myrtle.  We heard them whining like little girls with pigtails all the way over on Landis Avenue.  I don’t know if it was the occasional sharpened steel protruding from the gap left over by the air conditioner or the ghastly sight of it—all that living, breathing mold—that scared them off.  The remaining summer nights were serene and voiceless, unless Barrett had a party.  We had an 80’s party that started out as a 70’s party, which evolved into a 70’s porn party and was finally hijacked into a whatever fucking decade you choose porn party.

We drank too much.  For three weeks, Barrett walked around the apartment (and, I’m going to assume work) in a tight, powder-blue shirt that read:  COACH.  I wore my black two-piece, because eventually the air conditioner broke.  And, I was beginning to think my boyfriend didn’t own a shirt.  We spent weekends sitting on barely-standing, three-legged IKEA chairs wrecking bottles of Absinthe—medicinal green droplets rolling off our chins, down our sweaty necks.  Sometimes, we grew tired of melting the sugar over the shot glasses and we just passed the bottle around.  Our lips capable of lighting a match.  It made all of us delusional.  Barrett licked the silly-string mold for the last Miller Light.  I decided I was changing my name to “Blue.” And, my boyfriend wrote FISHFACMOTHERFUCKER on the living room wall in red crayon.  Our only contention was that he forgot the “e” in face.  Eventually, the wall became a marker board gone wrong.

And, then one day it ended—the drinking, the scaring kids with sharp objects, the hallucinations from staying in a single apartment too long, the bloated noodles clogging the sink—and, we got the notice that the city was claiming eminent domain over the shitty, old carriage house.  Crazy Dave said three-quarters of South Myrtle was going to serve as parking for the movie theatre that was going up down on Landis.  Nobody was angry.  Nobody cared.  Nobody protested.  We all had to go back to sucking away federal funds at college or back to the mind-numbing metal parts place (where the boys worked and smoked all day).

Barrett was the one who decided to leave pork chops inside the collapsing wall he punched out one night.  He said he wanted the guys who came to demolish the place to smell nothing but rank meat from every direction.  It was puzzling, but we all laughed when a visualization struck.  For a few days, we labored over what we could write on the wall that would really toy with a good old boy construction worker’s mind.  One night, our friend Joe stopped by to discuss painting with Barrett.  Joe said, “Why don’t we just draw a bunch of dicks in a circle with a question mark in the middle.”  After a quick glance around the room, I snatched the half-empty box of Crayolas off the end table.  Within a week, we were rolling out of the narrow, weedy drive in a rented box truck that my boyfriend was too scared to drive.  There was no rear-view, being a box truck and all; so, as we drove away, the carriage house didn’t shrink and we didn’t have any last internal words and I didn’t, in my mind, touch the moldy window for the last time.  I could have snaked my neck out of the window and turned around to see it, but I didn’t do that either.

I slept beneath that window for five months, every night breathing in its toxic life, mixed with hot, sticky city air.  As I listened to the rats pitter-patter inside the walls, I thought about their acute sense of smell.  They surely had a more sensitive olfactory tunneling and what they smelled kept them from sliding their thick, gray bodies through the rotting particle board holes and into my boyfriend’s bed, already full of intertwined limbs, flakes of skin, and beer spills.

~ Kristen Peraset

the world as i know it will continue to revolve around the sun, rotating on its axis at precisely the same speed it always has, taking twenty four hours to spin three hundred and sixty degrees and three hundred-sixty-five and one fourth days to complete one full revolution. men and women will still carry their briefcases to and from work, full to the brim like they have always been with case studies, grade books, flow charts, graph paper, legal pads, full reports, half-finished doctoral essays, pens, pencils, post-it notes, high-lighters, paper clips, white-out and the occasional granola bar. children will still throw frisbees in the park after school, where elderly men toss breadcrumbs at pigeons. washingtonville high school’s drama club will continue to perform their spring musicals and alcoholics anonymous will still meet at seven o’clock on wednesdays in the basement of the presbyterian church. we will still cry when we are sad and bleed when we are pricked, bruise when we are hit and laugh when we hear jokes, look when we see flashing police lights, moan when we are fucked and sneeze when we look directly into the sun. everything will remain exactly the way it is and nothing will change as a result of my absence.

i will have become the modern day rip van winkle, only to be stirred from my slumber on the twentieth anniversary of my grand removal. i will awaken revitalized and bearded, wrinkly, pale-skinned with yellow teeth and the indisputably worst morning breath i have ever breathed, toss the blankets from my still naked body and run, penis fully erect, to my typewriter and with a flurry of crackling fingers and chattering teeth attempt to record all the images that have flossed my ears while i slept: the collapse of entire cities after years of rot and decay, the accelerated lives of newborns who grew up to become influential artists and powerful philosophers, the most beautiful women and their unclothed bodies strewn across my floor. it will be an inglorious undertaking and i will bare no physical resemblance to a phoenix rising from her ashes, although inside, my organs have been rearranged for maximum performance, my memories alphabetized, biological clock reset and circadian rhythm elongated, mind cleared, stomach emptied, and all the toxins that have accumulated over the years from second hand smoke, fast food and automobile emissions have been purged from my body. a six million dollar man: i have seen heaven and spat on the floor, wiped my ass with guernica and used picasso’s paints to decorate my naked body as i burned the sistine chapel to the ground with a cigarette rolled from the pages of the mein kampf manuscript and walked across the ashes barefoot and chanting keruac’s poetry.

and after it all, i’ll tear the last page from my typewriter, replace the ribbon and wash the ivory keys, fold the stack of yellow papers neatly and hide it on the top shelf in my closet. i’ll toss all of my belongings from my windows onto the street until my apartment is entirely empty and i’ll get on my hands and knees to rub out the imprints that the furniture left behind on my dusty carpet, starting new as if to tell myself that who i was before is finally dead and gone: that now when i dream the colors will be bright enough and when i sing the notes carry farther, when i walk on stone i will leave footprints behind and the food that i cook will seep lasting tastes into the tongues of my guests. now i’ll watch the minutia that i once embraced scroll across the news ticker and it won’t mean a god damned thing to me.

i’ll breathe deep breaths, shake my hands and jump in place. the blood in my veins will calm and my mania will subside, i’ll close my eyes, everything around me will slow down and i’ll sit cross-legged on the floor, comfortable with the silence and the heart that beats in my chest.

the more i think about it the more i need to get outside, embrace the sun and walk slowly, aimlessly with my hands in my pockets and a song in my head, whistling the melody. there’s a stack of books sitting on my dresser and my guitar has needed new strings for months, i have a cupboard full of spices and sugars, herbs and peppers that long for a stew and a box of envelopes that really should have names on them. i have a dozen unfinished poems and i haven’t made any headway on my novel since last march or so, most of my notebooks haven’t been opened in even longer than that and the only creative manifestations i can speak of have been doodles on bar napkins. life suddenly became very scary, very real, very swift.

“you can’t expect to get anything accomplished while you’re asleep…” the words were shrill, traveled through the space under my bedroom door, reeked of bad breath and tickled the hair in my nose on the way to my ears. i kicked free from my blankets and sat on the edge of my bed, starring at the floor and waiting for the next shout to call. “…get up. we have plans,” anticlimactic. i tightened my face, threw it into my hands, took a deep breath in through my nose and spit it back out through my mouth with saliva and the groan that usually accompanies the first stretch out of bed. my ankles clicked the whole way through the door.

“what did you have in mind?” i turned the knob to the burner underneath the kettle, reached up into the cupboard and tugged at a balsa wood box of tea. i needed to stand on my toes to reach the top shelf before i dropped a spoonful of crumbling red tea leaves into my mug and sneezed, twice.

“bless you…” he wiped is forehead. “…and i want to check out the flea market this weekend. we always say we’re going and never do.” he was right. we’ve been saying that for weeks. this flea market was in berlin and epitomized what a flea market is and should be: an indoor area with year-round shops, clothing, pretzels, a barrel full of pickles, an arcade, cheap pornography, a barbershop, collectible toys still in their dusty boxes, replication samurai swords and a larger outdoor area where locals set up tables every weekend and tried to sell their old records, books, collectibles, toys and garbage. it was a diamond in the rough sort of place, dusty, dirty, and devoid of technological influence other than the single flat screen television bolted to the wall in the barbershop and the arcade still had the same pinball machines it did in nineteen seventy. it was the closest either of us would ever be to the past.

“let me get dressed.” i turned the burner off and filled my mug half way with boiling water, poured the rest down the sink drain, put the kettle back on the stove and shut the bedroom door behind me, making sure to turn the lock at the exact instant the door clicked into it’s frame so the two sounds were indistinguishable. i put my mug on the nightstand and watched a police car turn on his lights just so he could run a stop sign.

i lifted the screen, pulled my shirt over my head, threw it out the open window and got back in bed.

the more i think about it the more i convince myself to lock the doors and lay in bed, ceremoniously and with purpose, so that the world around me will recognize another one of my self-inflicted removals and become so fed up with me that my existence is forced from the memories of everyone i’ve ever met and everyone who’s ever met me. the more i think about it the more i need to get outside.

~ Andrew Chmielowiec