he told me i was monotone

A story about a naked woman with an apple in her mouth. Not Eve. The one once on my bed, turned flat on her stomach. I held it in front of her mouth and asked her take a bite. Then she craned her head back to kiss me.

He said he was submitting it to the Atlantic. I told him I'm not sure they do fiction much these days. But it happened, he cried. Yeah. Yeah.

And burlesque dancers have eight identities. One for them. Seven for us. I defeated an Australian heckler. Then wondered about my own.

Everyone is the funniest person in the world sitting on a bar stool. I told him.

On Lincoln Blvd

Fish tank. My daddy had a fish tank. And he got me one too for my room. And he'd take me to the aquarium on the weekends and we'd look at all the fish. The discus. The algae eaters. We once bought a crayfish too but it went to clawing and killing all the fish in the fish tank. So we did what men had to do, we flushed the enemy down the toilet.

orange roobois

My childhood resumed itself after the break of '11. That's when the friends showed up, the certain kind of friends, the foxes. Opportunism and sly, light footing.

We drank a bottle of Jack Daniels at a sushi restaurant on Main Street. One of the chefs got upset. We thought it was byob. Only beer and wine. Fine.

Then we got trashed at one establishment or another and we were like a brush fire. Everything wanted to be in our path. They kept stepping up to burn. It didn't amount to much but still, ashes rarely do. And they don't tell you that about fires, that the things they burn often seek the flames.

Which reminds me, we still have to do something with my father's ashes.

And he, my dad, wrote existential pieces in college.

And me, my face is transitioning into that of a man. The body knows where we must go, before we do. That was it --

Drawing all these lessons from my dad's physical deterioration and but what about my own. Gradual, slow, I know, I know. Knock on wood. I know.

I slipped out of my shoes at the beach today and thought of my dad untying shoes. He wouldn't just slip out of them, he would be disciplined and untie them. So that's what I did.

Then I thought of him tying the laces of my hockey skates. And he'd get em pretty tight. And I'd get on that ice and have the time of my life.

yes i'll book u on my show

at this point i merely want a girlfriend so i can shut the fuck up about it. and i just think it's so hot when a woman is composed of matter and space. and i don't like how i worry about every fragile person i've ever connected with. especially cuz branches of my empathy are tangled in with my ego.

cuz it was beautiful like that

there is a man next to me at this cafe. he looks like a black mark twain. and he is writing something on his old white mac laptop. and he just took out a new container of figs. and he tore off the plastic seal liner thing. and then he opened the lid to the figs. and i stopped looking after he moved his delicate fingers toward the first one. cuz it was beautiful like that.

recipe idea

3 cups of watching her go. 1 and 1/12 tablespoons of regret. 3 shots of tequila. 1 post on the internet about how you're sad about it. 4.5 tylenol with codeine. 10 days of antibiotics. 3 days of i'm going to get it together. 1 bad phone call. 1 worse phone call. 1 non sensical email. 1 apologetic voicemail. 1 hospital visit. 3 days in the rain. 2 bruises on your face. 1 night spent sleeping in your car. 1 night spent sleeping your car. 1 night spent sleeping in your car. 12 years of adulthood as defined by law. 14 lies. 100 mg of $%^&$. 50 mg of $^&*$. 1 foaming mouth. 4 convulsing limbs. 8 seconds of unconsciousness. 2 flashes where you saw the light. 2 flashes where you saw your life flash before your eyes. 18 minutes in solitary confinement. 27 years in a medieval dungeon in a former life. 1 time your friend climbed on top of a pay for parking kiosk on the beach raising his arms high and yelling like a fucking sorcerer, as the sun climbed down the ladder behind him, and nothing much happened.

are you there god it's me margaret

my friend lily was reminding me of non local intelligence. how a split atom will change itself identical as its other side without the motion in between evident. now i sit in front of my computer and think: it is non local intelligence when someone else is on the screen and we are talking and nodding and agreeing and having orgasms together. from different sides of the world. and i'm not doing that now. i'm just thinking of it as an example.

cuz i wrote about it in my book. when i wrote my book. i was preoccupied with absence. and i didn't put it that way then.

but the greatest presence in my life right now is absence. there is so much presence to absence. it's overwhelming. and rich. like my dad's friend marty says about the sad stuff, it's rich. i don't think he was talking about absence the times he said it. but that's what i mean.

brought to u in part by

her name. she will be beautiful. she will tell u how good things come undone but that she knows how to tie important things back together. she will say something about how these lives of ours fold onto themselves and yes they are brief and yes they are wondrous because of it.

she says she lost god. then recognized her own one. then created a temple inside the spirit world she'd long been inhabiting.

she says she likes biting u. she says she likes ur tongue inside her. she says the way u do that boy, mm.

i'll have her glitter in my beard.