I need something to hurt me. Something sharp and carnal: a copper-tinged taste on my tongue to tell me I am I and I am still here. I need it the way that someone may need food or water or shelter. It’s the base of my hierarchy, without which all other aspects of me will collapse unsupported. Already I see this happening. My hands fade in ribbons before me; the world constricts. I can see through the walls into the heart of the universe and seeing into the heart of the universe I can see that it’ll take a miracle to bring me back.
read more ->It's so hot here that rather than brown leaves in the autumn we contend with brown grass in the summer. All through August, there was a burn ban in my zip code. Shriveled and desperate my plants clung to the notion of living with what little life was left in them. I silently cheered them on, gave them food and water and shade and told them we’d get through this, even as heat curled the last leaves of all I cultivated into dust.
read more ->We've been without air conditioning for a couple of weeks now. Maybe for longer, but if so it was something we only became aware of a couple of weeks ago. This is Texas, and as such the late spring is more of an early summer. Sticky heat of humid May days that make the outdoors feel like a sauna, but without the relief of cleanliness. Compact this with seasonal allergies, and I find myself this time of year feeling like I'm breathing through a straw.
read more ->Like most people who moved cities for school, for work, or just to get away, I distinguish home and Home—the former being wherever I’m living at that time, while the latter, proper-noun Home, refers to where I’m from. I’m going Home to visit family. I’m moving back Home. Home for the holidays. And so on. I’m young and broke, and move around a lot. This has led to a bad habit of putting Home down as my mailing address for things such as taxes and medical records. A couple of times a year I get that annoyed call from my parents, where they tell me about this thing that just arrived in the mail with my name on it.[fn:1] If it’s something important, I’ll usually ask them to scan it and email it to me. I’ll promise to update my address, but I never do.
read more ->When I was young I fished with my family. Packing up our gear and heading out before sunrise, we’d drive to some point on that strange strip of gulf shore that lay between Home and Galveston and set up shop on an empty pier, spending the day reeling in catches.
read more ->Branches squealed against the window in the wind, waking Cassandra from the muddled confusion of sleep. Though the dead of night, light seeped in from moonshine reflected across the snow and illuminated a square patch on the bed between her and him. If he stirred ever-so-slightly to the left, it would hit his face, and maybe he’d be up too. The thought of such tinged her heart with fear and hope, existing together in contradiction. She understood why it was that terrific and terrible shared as much blood as Cain and Abel. Against the skull of one descended a stone from the other.
read more ->The day is my enemy. The day lies in wait and assails with knives of light of yellow and red and white and night, night is the infirmary. Night is a rose-petal trail of blood from the stairwell to the bed.
read more ->originally delivered at the grand opening of the bugzone literary institute
read more ->The decaying skin of some familiar fruit lays on the countertop. Its flesh spent like the shell of a bullet once its head has passed through someone or something.
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