I’ve again picked the wrong major, ten minutes into the second class I can already tell that – this isn’t the scene for me. Black cashmere, Eddie Bauer plaids; retro Doc Martens, soft spoken emotions: your poetry better enunciate pulpy vulnerabilities. The Professor has asked me to share my thoughts and my diaphragm spasms a…

Are there pastorals in a pixel?I’ve heard it said so.That a perfect moment holds life’s memories…yet the playback waits for death. No better than the worldin a meek man’s hands:show me the roses growing naturally in the graveyard,or a romance with a wick for the years. We can get high enoughif we run the old…

For three years I’ve sat up in my tree, in the shade of dreams, and the roots have slowly been drying up. For three years catching wafts of the vinegar and rotted fruits, of our American Dream, recessive trait of responsibility. Who knew at the age of 22, hot-blooded crotches and itchy skin for sunshine,…

There weren’t any horizons past those hillsides when we met — close-quarters of narrow suburban roads, barking dogs and neighbors and the claustrophobic push of childhood homes. Get back indoors: our engines had failed us. College dropouts returning, strangers, watching old friends warily lost in TV dinners and home decor trends. Tell your mother to…

What are these ghosts that hide in our dreams? The smiling beasts that stick in the shadows while we sleep? A bed sopping sweat in August heat, fuse blown, waking up to hangovers in the middle of the night. Reach for the bedside reservoirs of Excedrin. Reach for the bottles of water beneath the mattress,…

You were sitting outside the bar on the patio, picking petals from the daisies in the planter on the railing. I was seated at a separate table nearby, because you had asked me to find another seat. We weren’t speaking for the moment: the conversation had been high-tide with an undercurrent I was too stupid…

There’s a whole city downtown we’ve been meaning to check out. It sounds cool. Bars, clubs, art galleries, several eras of architecture set in stone and glass. It seems exciting, to think of the lives bustling up and down elevators, and in and out of boutiques. Eating $100 plates of steak and whatever that dessert…

The library has been converted into classrooms for fifth-year students. Shelves emptied and rearranged to fit rows of desks, projector screens, faculty offices and the Office of Student Retention. My exam is running late to complete. I am tapping fingers on the desktop nervously rapping away. My feet twitch uncomfortably. I scribble out essays and…

Our heroes here are dirt. Defenestrated from monumental buildings for being obscene. Badly in need of showers and clean clothes. New clothes, but only second-hand. Body odor is the cologne of pride: a dog that marks its territory in alleyway cardboard clutter. Piss puddles on the steps of the legislature, Example #1 having remembered where…