He poured all the years into the river of his youth. It curves like black tears under the midnight moon, and the atmosphere is bent in sapphires. Estrangement—a circuit board with one ***** loose. What is the hour without an atomic clock? Or GPS coordinates when all the satellites are ******? Life in the periphery is to be a precious gem in a forgotten alley market after the fall of capitalism.

The edges of the carol singer’s face soften and fade as I nurse another glass of whiskey like a medic on call to save my tired soul. “I’m going home for Christmas,” escapes my lips with a gentle slur. I board the train. Or was it a plane? No, wait…it was my own **** car. Memory is strange. I glide through my hometown, but I feel like a foreigner now. And when I park in front of my parent’s house, I stare at the pine grove we planted. The tops mingling amongst the cumulonimbus. The frozen garden. Where have all the sweet winds gone? I stay for a few days, but I’m trapped in a deep haze. It’s only been three months since my best friend’s death. I return to my second home. A city of cranes. I belong here, I guess. You see, home is a prism. Light that falls into new spaces and places—warming the cheek for a measure of time. And just like that, a dove hovering amidst the skyscrapers lands upon the scaffolding. A temporary structure. A rest for the wings.

The lord’s voice snuck in quiet that summer like a locker room **** peeking out from the hem of a t-shirt. A whispered taunt. An alter call. Lift the fabric and taste the skin. Feel the blood engulfing. The secret hunt for mushrooms. Hallucinations of arched spines in the deep end of the pool. Communion wine on my chin and the wafer of your body on my tongue—dissolving. My position…kneeled. The peacock’s wail. Riding ******* in an open field.

He was brushing his teeth when the eyes begin to glaze over (again). He feels a torrent in his chest. Clawing up his neck. Thrown against the travertine. A little death. & the dead lay upon the living. & the dark corners swallow the light. It’s only eight o’clock in the ******* morning & he’s his own EMT resuscitating himself back to breath. He spits the Listerine & tries to forget. The Uber is arriving. & besides, who’d pay the fee for dying? He can’t stomach any more debt.

Something went awry with the experiment because his skin became translucent for a few seconds when time bent. Now in some ancient city and the people in the street are coughing. Stumbling into a building, he slumps to the floor next to three dead bodies. He knows he can’t go back. He knows the sickness is coming. The sun sets an amber glow across his cheek as a small bird sings. “It’s the future I miss the most”, he thinks. A flash of his daughter's smile…as he falls asleep.

Once I started dancing the secrets fell from my eyes like a transaction. So I belly up to the bar to refract it. Something close to death for a little bit.

“You see, timing is of the essence.” He mutters while biting his cigarette. So I called off work and left it all on the line. But now I’m curbside and ghosted wondering what to do about today.

Some nips of whiskey at the cinema to quiet all the stimulus. Time slips.

Then I’m shaken awake with strobe lights and his hands on my hips. Two more sips. Lost in the music. The whole thing felt like subtraction. I mean, a distraction. Tonguing the neck of death for a little bit.

I don’t want to age gracefully, I want to touch the sun and feel engulfing flames. I want my bones exposed upon the plains. Every soul from my past will come to survey. Monocle and stethoscope—does a spark remain?

Only echoes now.

They reflect upon the times I laughed. Grew a garden so high the neighbors cried. Scent of cider and autumn on parade. Painted a house in sage and a deck in grey. The grass cut neatly like a landing strip. Where my skeleton is softly laid.