I kept the blackout shades drawn tight, dim room. Dim city sounds through the walls, barely audible. Drowsy yellow light from my bedside lamp — it was a small room, filled with yellow uterine warmth. I had a bed, and a desk, I was very fortunate, I had a mini-fridge and a carpet and a…
Originally published at SuddenDenouement.com You told me to buy presentable clothes and I did, a whole new outfit from Target. Neat slacks and spiffy shirt, even found shoes to match. And now here I am dressed like a fish trying to understand what it means to breathe air. We’re toddlers on a see-saw, you and…
We came here looking for your mother’s seeing-eye dog. The park is bright and green and not too crowded, and the open spaces seem to swallow sound. There are stores across the street, apartments and the lazy midday city traffic. We thought the dog had perhaps come here. I let you walk ahead to lead…
There were rats in our ceiling though I know you couldn’t hear them. The house was crowded, it was loud, little house reverberating with the sound of New Year’s tidings. You were speaking to your friend’s parents, the ones who work at a hospital, and my sister was planning her wedding. Everyone was talking, everyone…
The boxes beneath the tree tremor with soft scraping sounds etching into the cardboard from the inside-out. The tree is dry and I haven’t watered it since you dragged it into the house, put it up yourself and strangled it with lights. The strands flicker electrical shortages. I am in the armchair across the room,…
It began with a long day in bed when I slipped too deeply into my head… Short walk to class, an hour long now trying to avoid the eyes of each person I pass by. I am the person walking up and down the same flight of stairs, convinced, utterly convinced this is the quickest…
The foyer is empty before anyone is out, early-morning campus. The floor tiles smell dusty, in a custodial, public school way underscoring the surreality of this normally bustling foyer that is right now empty and hollow. Empty and hollow and echoes reverberate from maybe down the hall or from the second floor, but the foyer…
Mick's Neon Fog 