One story in two hundred pages,
or one in two stanzas of four lines each.

I'm a sheltered nineteen-year-old
from Northeastern Nowhere,
Pennsylvania. I spent my preteens
worrying about girls and digging
holes in the backyard. I had my friends.
Two or three middle-low class kids
down the street. We rode bikes, played
video games, and occasionally watched **** together.
It seems a lot weirder now than it did in the moment.
We made memories daily and spoke our
underdeveloped minds. At thirteen, politics
were simply, "**** Capitol Hill" or "the prez's
a crook." Things change, though.
I still know little about politics, but I'm sure
there's at least one good policy in effect.
Everyone eventually goes their separate ways
and the phone lines between us get damp
or get cut. I haven't dug holes since a landslide
filled in my work. I traded in my bike
for four wheels and a piece of wood. My Nikes
are now Toms, and I don't worry about girls.
Just the one I've been with for almost four years.
Instead of ****, I look up synonyms, so I can
sound a bit smarter at 7:30 AM typing my thoughts.

Three days until I leave home for Lycoming.
Three years until I leave Lycoming forever,
but it will never leave me.

I've packed away clothes, textbooks, my laptop,
chargers, and two skateboard decks.
But I still can't find my television cable.

Microwave, ballpoint pens, notebooks,
soap, shampoo, posters, contacts,
a rug, and a love seat for two or three.

Everything I need is clustered in the corner
of the living room, weighing on the 20th
century hardwood floorboards.

I only left my journal out.
I still have a few things to remember
before all the evergreens turn to brick buildings.

She dug two tiny trenches in the loose dirt
near the porch steps and enclosed
them with pebble barricades.
Like discharged rounds, a rusted
grill rack seared the grass between them.
The Confederate flag that hung
from the gutter caught the wind and flicked
water onto the stairs and the Northern trench,
turning it thick like Union blood.

The phone crazed against its plastic receiver.
Tossing her clippers on the counter
with an exasperated sigh, she picked up.

"Mary's."

She began to pace around her paisley-floored
salon when she read the Caller ID.
Crosby General Hospital

The cord stretched further across the room
with each diagnosis like a tightrope that was
threadbare from decades of grim news and heartbreak.

A single thread kept her composure.

When word came across that her daughter
had died, the wire snapped and her faced turned
scarlet like she was crying barbicide.

I just hope my brain doesn't
slow too much before I die
and I hope I never stop dreaming.
When everyone else is on
their stomachs in their graves,
I hope I'm looking at the stars.

I really do judge
what I write as I write it.
Childish, boastful, self-
absorbed, morbid, pathetic,
simple-minded. You
know, the works. We all have to
be critical in
life or nothing is sacred.
N o t h i n g
m a t t e r s .
Everything will exist and
it won't mean a ****
thing.