I always work best under pressure. I create my own pressure by waiting until the last minute. I tend to procrastinate. No need to do something today I might not have to do tomorrow.
I enjoy the details, the curves and dips and paisley fish with Mandelbrot tails. I’m an expressionistic pointillist working with the single eyelash of a bactrian camel.
She says, “Where have you been?”
Grey eyes nested in fake eyelashes glued to a mask of crackled foundation frisk me with no real interest. The fluid in the air is filled with drifting amoeba.
I’m pinned in the doorway with a fistful of blotter acid soaking into my sweating palm. I can’t deal with her now. If I let her start talking I could be standing here for an hour. And fuck, I forgot to take off the sneakers I stole.
I should just tell her.
About the gang and the liquor store.
About standing in the park in the night screaming for the slaves on the hill to wake the fuck up.
I should just tell her.
About Kim’s brother beating his face raw last night while I watched helpless, and their dad throwing a wine bottle through the TV next to my head.
I should just tell her.
She doesn’t care about my answer because she doesn’t have a clue. She can’t wait to hide her head back in that book and eat that bowl of raw veggie snacks on the coffee table.
I should just tell her who I am.
That’s never gonna happen. I’m keeping all my cards under the table. I’m on my own, and we both know that. She set it up that way. I mean, the only two light bulbs that work in the house are the one in the plastic reading lamp over her head and the one in the wire cage over the stove. If I want a bulb in my room I have to go to the market and steal one.
She needs to wake up. I’ve been scamming meals from my friends as long as I can remember.
She needs to wake up. The cops aren’t gonna keep bringing me home.
She needs to wake up. There’s a difference between being independent and running feral in the street.
The books on the brick and board shelves are a world outside my teenage experience. All of them absorbed and transporting me to secret places under the cover of night.
I’m beyond her now.
She needs to wake up. She was supposed to show me how it all works.
She needs to wake up. To unlock the doors and open the windows.
She needs to wake up. To let the air into this dusty moldy place where we both suffer from her asthma.
She needs to wake up.
There is a giant beetle wrapped around her head like a wig. The bees living inside its body hover in still life, wings screaming in harmony with the electric bulb. A dark crack in the universe is my safe exit.
Without pausing, I say, “Nowhere”
I enjoy the details, the curves and dips and paisley fish with Mandelbrot tails. I’m an expressionistic pointillist working with the single eyelash of a bactrian camel.
She says, “Where have you been?”
Grey eyes nested in fake eyelashes glued to a mask of crackled foundation frisk me with no real interest. The fluid in the air is filled with drifting amoeba.
I’m pinned in the doorway with a fistful of blotter acid soaking into my sweating palm. I can’t deal with her now. If I let her start talking I could be standing here for an hour. And fuck, I forgot to take off the sneakers I stole.
I should just tell her.
About the gang and the liquor store.
About standing in the park in the night screaming for the slaves on the hill to wake the fuck up.
I should just tell her.
About Kim’s brother beating his face raw last night while I watched helpless, and their dad throwing a wine bottle through the TV next to my head.
I should just tell her.
She doesn’t care about my answer because she doesn’t have a clue. She can’t wait to hide her head back in that book and eat that bowl of raw veggie snacks on the coffee table.
I should just tell her who I am.
That’s never gonna happen. I’m keeping all my cards under the table. I’m on my own, and we both know that. She set it up that way. I mean, the only two light bulbs that work in the house are the one in the plastic reading lamp over her head and the one in the wire cage over the stove. If I want a bulb in my room I have to go to the market and steal one.
She needs to wake up. I’ve been scamming meals from my friends as long as I can remember.
She needs to wake up. The cops aren’t gonna keep bringing me home.
She needs to wake up. There’s a difference between being independent and running feral in the street.
The books on the brick and board shelves are a world outside my teenage experience. All of them absorbed and transporting me to secret places under the cover of night.
I’m beyond her now.
She needs to wake up. She was supposed to show me how it all works.
She needs to wake up. To unlock the doors and open the windows.
She needs to wake up. To let the air into this dusty moldy place where we both suffer from her asthma.
She needs to wake up.
There is a giant beetle wrapped around her head like a wig. The bees living inside its body hover in still life, wings screaming in harmony with the electric bulb. A dark crack in the universe is my safe exit.
Without pausing, I say, “Nowhere”
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