I did not know that when I became open about being a lesbian
That I had become a pornstar.
I knew that I was already something that men could sink their teeth in
But things got worse.
I can still pinpoint the exact moment I wanted to retreat back to the closet
And it’s ninth grade biology.
I was sitting at a table talking to a friend
“Yes, I am officially dating Mickie.”
And all of a sudden a painful dart pierces the air.
“Who is he?”
I hated the way it felt when it broke into me so I corrected him.
“He’s a she.”
I can already see his ******* growing
With images of me and my lover intertwined
Something I hadn’t even thought of yet because the last thing on my mind was ***
I was thinking about this week’s bio test.
The darts kept coming as he asked about how lesbians have ***
My love life became a corkboard
I sat there accepting every dart that passed
No matter how many times I asked him to stop
He seemed to have an unlimited amount of darts
His friend joined in on asking ****** questions
Asking if he could see a photo of my girlfriend
Asking how many times a day did she make my legs open
Asking if I would still be down to **** him
I learned that day that sometimes it’s better to lie.
Sometimes saying “Yes I have a boyfriend,”
Is easier than admitting that you’re a lesbian
I still hesitate to tell straight men
Because I am already just a piece of flesh from the sink their teeth in
It seems that when they find out I am gay
I just become a challenge
I am a piece of prey that they see as stubborn
I am nothing more than prey.
I do not deserve any respect in their eyes
If anything I should be respecting them by letting them inside
I am their favorite **** category.
Because thanks to various ****** they think that their **** can turn me
Because my lover and I are just what they ******* to
They think that my lover and I just **** all day
That we are always willing to be men’s prey
That because I am not a ‘butch’
I’m not really gay just wanting attention
I am sick of being a **** category!
I’m sick of being asked ****** questions whenever I say that I have a girlfriend
There’s a problem when I’m hesitating on mentioning my girlfriend
There’s a problem when I,
A teenage girl who decides hold her girlfriend’s hand is public,
Thinks that that’s the bravest thing she’s ever done.
I hate having to message random men online
Lying through my teeth saying
“I have a boyfriend.”
But it seems that they respect other men more than they respect my decisions.
So to the boy in class who prefers to imagine me ******* my girlfriend than paying attention in biology,
All I have to say to you is this
That day I went home and I cried.
I went home and considered being open all over again
I considered my life.
I wanted to be a writer and make her my favorite inspiration
But it seems like my career has already been chosen
I am the stubborn prey for you to sink your teeth in
I am the girl you see as a challenge.
No, I am not down to **** you off.
No, I am not a ******* pornstar.
No, you cannot watch.
Now please, do me a favor.
*******.

Movie stubs and old house keys
some of my old memories.
Cut out words and broken jewelry
and things that are dear to me.

Hung up high for all to see
pieces that are part of me.
All the things I used to be
are now just my memories.

(today)he talked a whole
lot and i only listened
till i realized that stupid
satillo blanket was over
my knees and you tacked
that little 3x5 dia de los
muertos card beneath
my corkboard and
wrapped me up
(14 months ago.)

Shelter me like I'm "homeless".......
Not be a use I don't have an address.....
Merely because if home houses your heart....
There is a missing poster on the back of your ***** bottle....
Like the mistake on the bark where I once carved " true love"....
Happiness became of parking lot no occupied by strangers
Like titles reflect the hierarchy of spots closest to your heart
Methamphetamine now occupies the spot reserved for mom, dad and best friend
But time is a magician pulling white rabbits from memories ......
Where your the only audience members and you can only ask "how?".....
But like tricks fade into logic i always see the illusion
And memories become anger against the fraudulent belief in "time"
Grief is not a one night event where disbelief could refund your happiness....
And forgive ushers who now seem more like drug dealers....
Because the best seat they could offer only got you closer to regret
Life is the greatest notice pinned on a corkboard in shady establishments
Where the small print cannot be read at a passing glance
So later on in the alley where you self medicate.....
The dumpster contains the poster you so blindly believed.....
Now you see the possible outcome to the " greatest show on earth".....
Professionals on a closed course...... trained professionals should not be attempted at home.....
And I guess like I already said if my heart is "home".....
Then as an amateur on life's stage I'll leave actors like happiness, success and bliss to wow people at a great expense.....
But like a fool I invested every hope I saved into them.....
Now I'm bankrupt and homeless staring from the alley between life and death...
But the best part about next door is its free....
And must be worth the cost... no one ever seems to come out.....

Time slipped away in the spring, in the muddy puddles and the rain, in the sweet-smelling flowers and the rain.
It rubbed circles into the small of my back,
whispered bittersweet apologies and tacked a sticky note to my corkboard.
“Remember to call.”
I forgot.

And I sit under the blooming tree
my bare feet soft against the grass

Time left me in the summer, in the sunny skies and the rain, in the sweltering heat and the rain.
It ran somewhere unknown, far, far, far away,
while I treaded chlorinated water and prayed that the fall would come sooner.
“You can call whenever.”
I didn’t.

And I sit beside the verdant tree
my bare feet ******* the pavement

Time was gone in the fall, in the whispered breeze and the rain, in the crinkling leaves and the rain.
But I had company in a glowing screen,
And as days turned to weeks turned to months I forgot about time altogether.
“Someone is calling.”
I hung up.

And I sit far from the dying tree
my bare feet resting on the couch

Time slept in the winter, in the miserable cold and the rain, in the blustery wind and the rain.
Numbers and names disavowed,
As “today” and “tomorrow” become “now” and “later”
“What is the word called?”
I don’t know.

And I cannot see the empty tree
my bare feet asleep on the carpet

Time has returned in the spring.
It looks me in the eyes,
profuse apologies pouring out from its lips.
“But you didn’t call.”
I blink. Didn’t I?

Don't try to pin me down. Instead,
let me flutter gently around the twinkling lights
that look intriguing to me at the moment.
Don't try to catch me. Instead,
watch me keep my distance and try to understand
that I can still exist happily in the freedom of solitude.
Don't try to predict my changes. Instead,
know that even I cannot usually do so, and try,
if you so wish, to weather with me my changing seasons and summer storms.
Don't try to immitate me. Instead,
realize how beautiful you are as yourself and furthermore,
I am not something you should immitate, want to be.
Don't try to change me. Instead,
accept me as I am. Though your forced changes may indeed be better
for me, your acceptance will make me want to better myself.
Don't try to explain me. Instead,
internalize that some things are inexplicable
and that my reasons for being this are so much uglier than you see.
Don't try to justify me. Instead,
remember that even those who are hard to grasp
make mistakes, even horrible ones, and sometimes need someone not to forgive.
Don't try to destroy me. Instead,
listen to me when I warn that many have tried, purposefully
or otherwise, and I am not so fragile as I look. You will end up burnt.
Don't try to push me away forcefully. Instead,
ask me to go. I will understand, I promise
I only want distance to be a respectfully created space, not a hidden minefield.
Don't try to reel me in. Instead,
if I come to land near you, bear in mind that this is rare
but, too, bear in mind you have no obligation to want me here.
Please, don't try to pin me down.
If you ever do., I will be a dead thing of former splendor
pinned to your corkboard, and you will finally understand me
when all of my entrails come spilling out, displayed to you
and I lay, helpless.

I do not think it’s important to do
I think I would rather just think
I’ll think about all of the books and the arts
And even my own kitchen sink

I’ll think about how the world's gone wrong
And all the injustice I see
I’ll contemplate everything and then think some more
When I eat, when I sleep, when I ***

There’s so much to do, so little time
But there’s also just so much to read
How can I know if my actions are good
If I don’t know where my motives lead

I stare at the corkboard in university square
Ten thousand calls to action thereon
I think and I think about which is best
I’m sitting there thinking till dawn

Perhaps Marx was right, and all of these causes
Save one, economic, is right
Perhaps all the rest are just there as distractions
Keeping us home from the fight

But then again, perhaps that’s not true
Perhaps they all DO need some help
Perhaps each struggle for justice is just
Lets save all the whales and the kelp

But I think, I think, I don’t know what I think
But I’ll know when the thinking is through
And when I’m done thinking I’ll have an Idea
That will dump all my thinking on you.

I think that this thinking ‘round which I center my life
is really a tool of The Man
And I think that they think that I’ll lay down my knife
To think about my empty hand

And I think that it's working because I don’t fight
Rather, I sit here and think
I think about all of the books and the arts
And even my own kitchen sink

I think about why I think what I think
I think about why I exist
I think about why they all hate them all
I think about why they enlist

But I never stop them, I just don’t have time
There’s really just too much to do
When I finish this Zizek I’ll move on to Sartre
And then, I’ll read Heidegger too

I look at a billboard and think to myself
That’s propaganda He wrote
I give it no notice and keep walking by
Give it barely a mental sticky-note

But ten thousand billboard and ten thousand signs
Now that stops me dead in my tracks
I look at them all, and analyze each
Criticizing their mindsets; false facts

Too many opinions too many books
made far too open, too free
I sit, I absorb, don’t know what to do
As people die not blocks from me

I’m lost in the maze of my ivory tower
Trying to get to the top
To get to the cheese that I know I can smell
And regardless, by now I can’t stop

I think revolution at graffiti strewn walls
What who when how I should fight
And cries of black children beaten by cops
Go unheard by my ears each cold night.

There was, in a once upon another time a man
(His name and work
Being lost to the boot sales and dustbins of time)
Who made a reputation as a portrait painter,
One transcending his small town in Schleswig-Holstein,
Spreading among the surrounding principalities.
Gifted with curious abilities (although he would demur,
Protesting that he was simply a man with a brush and a palette)
Allowing him to secure the favor
Of the area’s more substantial citizens,
Providing him leisure to commit to canvas
The faces of the ordinary
And, if some cases, somewhat iniquitous.
His portfolio a crazy-quilt of his milieu,
Subjects back-to-back in no particular order:
Princes and flower girls, priests and ******.


The sterling reputation the painter enjoyed
Was not due simply to technical skill
(He was, to be sure, expert in matters of shading and line,
And his eye for color and detail no less than remarkable)
But also an eye for those things
Revealed in the curve of the lips or the set of the eyes
And, more importantly for fame and purse,
The virtuosity to enhance the understated gifts
Or veil those unpleasant secrets they suggested.
And so, the venality in the banker’s sneer
Was softened to intimate nothing more
Than levelheaded concern for the sanctity of the mark and guilder,
Or the gentle smile of the prince’s youngest daughter
Augmented to evoke the beatitudes of the angels themselves.

The craft and subtlety of his work
Combined to engender the most curious effects;
Oftentimes his subjects, surely without consciousness or intent,
Began to assume those qualities  
Bestowed upon them by the nuances of line and pigment,
Becoming less parsimonious or more humane,
As dictated by the brush strokes,
Carrying on from that time forward as the finest embodiments
Of that visage captured inside the gilding of the frame.

At some point in time,
Whether through the onset of some trickle of madness,
Or perhaps just sheer whimsy,
The painter made a peculiar change in his methodology,
Beginning to graft qualities onto his subjects
Which they never embodied nor hoped to possess,
Perhaps in the hope that, having pinned them to the corkboard,
His butterflies might take wing,
But his command of light and pigment
Combined power and understatement in such a manner
That no one who sat for him ever noticed
They were being mocked or enriched, as the case might be;
And still the canvases acted as tails wagging the dog about;
Priests were found dead in their rectories,
In the midst of tableaus of unspeakable debauchery,
While courtesans lit candles and kneeled in pews
Until their backs and thighs screamed
In the service of such highly unusual positions,
Or the banker flipped the urchin a coin
While gently petting the boy’s undernourished cur,
And perhaps it was all due to the machinations of the painter,
But he would, with just a hint of slyness
Playing about the corners of his eyes and mouth,
Deny any measure of culpability.
He was, after all, just a man with a brush.

you're
crying
and as you walk
down the dimly
lit glass hallway
the faces on the walls
wave
in your breeze
of sadness and
iron oxide tears.

every surface in
your mind is
covered
in a thick layer of
concrete dust
and you wonder
how long before
your nose
takes a dive
sneezing
too often
to breathe.

there is clay
everywhere
and you can't see
the cracks
between your
knuckles
under the
thick layer of
thought.

as far as art
departments go
you're not feeling
so creative
painted or
charcoal
it doesn't matter
when there is more
brown paper offered
to you every
time you believe
you've failed.

would you believe me
if i told you that a
newspaper and a pair
of old blue eyes
reminded me
and maybe you too
that there is somebody
out there
who actually
cares.

press that
thumbtack
into the wall
slowly
pin down
everything
you've tried to
forget
and avoid
stabbing your
finger into
the perforated
abused and
continually
rotated
corkboard.

you're not
wirebound
anymore
i promise
only your
entwined metalic
thoughts.

You're all the suffering I long to endure and I swear by your deep brown eyes that I'm going to try my best to make it through you because it is you I remember when I'm walking down these paved roads with streaking strange faces and I miss you really because I wanted to kiss you when you tucked my stupid note on your nostalgia corkboard and looked at me like I was all that matters but you did not come home and I hope you're not in trouble or hungry and I was supposed to see you because it's a Thursday but apparently the Universe does not feel a need to consistent today except with me still longing to kiss you and you still not being aware.

I left at the time I was to make you eternal,
I left at the wake of my own disposed external.
I felt the need to conceive an inexcusable remark,
I felt but alas the notion of which I perceived embarked.

I loved from the idea of a purposeful rhetoric -
I lived an indefinite tirade of regret and pedantic.
I lied to make secure a trade inconclusive
I light a spark which time had bookmarked intrusive.

I left a token, much unappreciated,
I left a memory for you to pin in a corkboard, unabated.
I felt no need to recall the time we had together,
I felt the gnash, the anguish but I received Love way better.

The three-legged stool
Wobbles, and I have sat
Waiting to be knocked
As one tumbles a tall
Statue and proclaims
Freedom from tyranny.
Me, a demi-god,
That fed manna
For your desert sojourn
On wind-swept dunes,
Following car tracks
And the fore-prints of
Your elders.

Lift the ****** veil,
Smile at your betrothed,
Seal it with a ring.
Masters are butterflies pinned
To corkboard,
With translucent harlequin colors.
These high towers,
And stools,
Give One
Insightful perspectives.
The Monarchs
Have left for Mexico.

I don't know how to let
go of people, unintentionally
maybe I never learned. I'm
okay for a day or two, week,
tops. I sort of sink into the
corkboard, cheat the air,
clean my room.

How can you be so sympathetic
Watching me, a simple moth
Pinned down to a corkboard
Desperately trying to escape

I’d like to believe it’s because you see yourself in me
You were once a butterfly in the same position
But I saw you torn from the painful security of that board
And, still bleeding, I saw your gorgeous wings ripped from you

I thought they’d never grow back the same

So how can you be so sympathetic
Watching me simply pinned
So securely
While you fly so free, so deservingly

You’ve worked so hard to mend your wounds
While I’ve almost stop struggling, accepting a broken fate
So hopelessly inspired by your success
So proud of something I’ll never be
Purely because I won’t break free

I say, status seems pychic– How! Za-zoo! And how!
O' that brain be electric as a buzz!

I'm all a'fixin' to be boxed.
These joints are a'sprainin–
Winter wind snakes done
constricted and strainèd.

Out of place. Almost out of time, I swear:
Never enough place, barely enough time.

Korean girl's all a'watchin' to see
how I sip hot tea... Out! Get out!
I got them delusions, deliriums–
All's done. I'm diluted, sayin':

“Medicine for my grievin'–
Aye, my confidence has been gone.
Never did speak of leavin'–
I met him at the ditch at dawn.”

And left unsaid was better yet,
coos all a'whisperin' by waters.
Water's runnin' thin now.
Creek's gone, ran dry.
He's a man of stature,
he can't just go!
Anthills and ant
burrows 'neath
sands gone mad–
O’ bore teeth! Yea!
Where's the meter
meeting the rhyme
when your bliss'd
metronomicist
loses pace
and dies?
Slows
and slows
and slower yet
his heart does beat
and the last of his words
do run across his teak frame:

“O' bore teeth!
Bearing ‘em all;
All is a'grinding!”

It’s but a machine to keep one’s rhythm,
to help one maintain the desired beat.

She kisses me on the forehead.
I return the gesture on her cheek.
He whispers to me through darkness:
“There are many worlds we’ve yet to see.”

It is thoughts like that which grant me focus.
Where all’s good and wishes, like prayers, be lent.

My thoughts lag behind, weighted by you.
I strain them through hot water for tea.
She watches as I drink. I waited for you–
Drank it by the ditch in the morning.

I fend off these demons in the courtyard.
Winter spells done summoned my greyest thoughts.

Here all's good! Yea, all be lent–
I tacked your name to the corkboard.
Alas, none was meant for you–
I fend off thoughts in the courtyard.

O’ that mind be broken, still-painted grey!
Not much I can do but keep the winter at bay.

Another nail through the palm of my hand, another label for you to wrap your ghastly mouth around
The words ‘beautiful’, ‘****’, ‘love’ burn into my skin like I’m caught in an acidic thunderstorm.
You pin them into my fragile flesh like notes pinned to a corkboard of advertisements.
Butchering my body and sedating my soul, objectifying my existence, object of your desire.

I shake and stumble
Knock down cans of pens
Spilling all over my desk
Grab a purple pen
To fumblingly make a note
A better one
That you can tuck again to your corkboard
One day.

Feeling like
a calculator
with a decimal
key
that sticks.

Always incorrect,
missing
the point,
a fraction
of the
actual,
misplacing the
factual.

The letter-opener
laughs
at me.

Sees
my inaccuracy,
my inadequacy.

The thumbtacks
gather,
whispering into
the corkboard,
memos written,
regarding my
misaligned
mathematics.

The desktop
dings
the arrival
of an
email.

The office-supply
order
has arrived.

The scissors,
held
in an X,
slice through
packing tape.

Right there,
on top
of the steno-pads,
rests
my replacement,

new,

plastic bubble
intact,

decimal key
moves free,
better than
me,
no need
to see
to believe,
calculations conceived,
bourn correct.

The decimals
rounded to
the nearest
hundredth,

I’ll find
rest,

my long division
meeting measure
of
its remainder
at the bottom
of an
office
wastebasket.

*
-JBClaywell
© P&Z Publications 2018

I haven't been writing these days and I guess
   I could blame it on a lot of things
    like how I could've written about how your eyes
    remind me of my guilty pleasures
         chocolates. oh! so delightful, oh! so sinful
             (it even describes you perfectly)
    and how much I love the the way
    you say my name
    and how I wish you called me more
         even if all you need is a hand
            (and not because you missed me at all)
    I could've written you a prose and your name
      could've been the only thing dripping
      on the pages of my journal
    I could've written all your favorite lines
      and pin them on my corkboard
    I could've written you songs after songs
      wishing that they will soon be your favorites

   but I guess I can't write about things
        that can be mistaken as my suicidal note
        because you're just killing me
        but I can't help but love the sensation

he sits in that diner and he is
two point five decades' worth of emotion
compressed into a single, nervous point:
the relentless tapping
of keratin kissing linoleum.

he hears everything:
fingers curled round coffee cups
money whispering out of wallets
his thoughts clattering around like ice cubes
in the lemonade he asked for.

(his glass sweats, and so does he.)

one down. there's ice on his tongue, melting, and
he's feeling the weight of it
like the boxes crammed into his rattle-trap car,
like a pin pressed into a corkboard map,
like his signature at the bottom of a new lease.

(like a warning, and a hand on his wrist:
"you ain't gonna like it there, anto.")

last sour, pulpy sip as he decides
to pay it no mind and to play it
by ear. even now the distant city bustles
and he'll do ninety on the highway to catch it,
metamorphic in his fragile metal chrysalis.

You don’t seem to remember a lot
That’s okay, I’ll hold onto the memories for now
Like an old picture hanging on the corkboard in my room
You’re there when I wake
Illuminated by the morning sun’s gaze
You don’t mind hanging there on my wall
An unexpected visitor lingering in my mind
Catching my eye when I least expect it
But I’ll wait, as I always do
As morning turns into night, and night into day
As the sun shines through these windows
Ultraviolet waves upon my memories
I’ll wait for your colors to fade

she said
"when you talk, none of it registers"
then, anemone and vetiver
the scent as my center stirred

so, my head spins while she sleeps
and my mouth moves, but it's not me
the last time I'd tried to leave –

all the fear I'd felt
the hand that I'd been dealt

when next summer sheds the coming snow
will I then shed mine alone?

is it too much to ask
to know how much to ask for?
sewn into red string and corkboard

I only speak what I've heard before

existence seems dissonant
simple cause and effect
what else does heart implement
than its own discontent?
only wavers at others diffidence

some small part is legitimate
separate, insignificant

lends no ear to listen

sour milk
I spill and swim in
summer aestus
as kind as they've been
smiles, sharp
glasgow
sin

don't touch me

I am terrified I am different

do you want to know the truth?
do you want to listen to my whining
constant complaining about minor trivialities
do you want to learn about my thoughts
my selfishness and my secrets
do you really want to dive deep into the
excruciatingly painful rabbit hole with me?

welcome to my home--
misery loves company
now that you're here, feel free to look around
the wretched possessions; the broken furniture
the shattered portrait on the wall
spiderweb-thin cracks in the glass
reflecting a distorted version of a once-happy family
be careful of the broken beer bottles
shards glitter against the floor
dust floats through the air, revealed by the bare amount of sunshine
slivers of warmth filtered through the smallest of cracks

it's dark here
shadows lurk in the darkness, terrifying and menacing
their anonymity and grotesque features off-putting
oh look, you found my emotion box!
there they are, the faded gray things
they are worth nothing
but yet i still hide my apathy
this is the theater corner
i practice my smiles in the vintage mirror
manufacture fake emotions from full-face rubber masks
easily interchangeable and draining to maintain

here are my problems, listed plain as day and stuck up on a corkboard
no use hiding them
some of the paper is crumbling, insignificant problems that don't mean a thing
take note when you find a worn pink paper
edges crinkled and growing yellow with time
enticing childlike handwriting speckled with tear marks and blood
im fond of it
it represents vulnerability and emotions
it represents the end of me

that concludes the tour
will you stay and help clean,
or will you flee in terror?
i wouldn't blame you for doing either
make your decision wisely.

It is literally only the cold now that bothers me:
I can hug my knees, feel warmth of the bowl of curry
That I warmed up for me and my girls. You fall in love
And I fall behind, I fall back. Move on and move
In and marry, sweet and twenty as you are, sweet and loving
As you are, who don't listen to Infinity on High shoving
The irony into the backseat, gazing at the lyrics' memories
Like a postcard collection on a corkboard. Ryan Ross could have cursed at me,
And I could have cursed like Kellin Quinn, but these are dead times now
To beat down with a combat boot in moving, as I row
With my personal indifference to the candles and the wedding bouquets,
To the political matches passing me by, the parties of croquet
That I decline to program, combat boots ever on the road,
On the road to being Her, a still concept without a goad
Towards what the fairytales say I should be - I'm a pop punk song:
I take no prisoners: Your definition's wrong.

Assembled and Edited by Ryan P. Kinney
From works by JM Romig and Lennart Lundh

The photographs
They lie
in a folder in a drawer
in a second-hand store.
They are a collage of poorly taken polaroids
All assembled before the Manor Woods formal,
Disheveled,
but for her hand on his arm
and her sister's slight separation
from man and wife.

She is the stranger in the waiting room
with fingers knotted in prayer
or tedium -
held together by masking tape and pushpins
on a well-loved corkboard

The husband
He is a fragile scarecrow
filled with crumpled up first drafts
of love notes
kicked through cobwebs that linger
in the long forgotten corners
of old classrooms.

He abuses his wife in the marriage bed,
her willing sister in the woods,
needing one for the power she gives,
wanting the other for what he takes,
longing to be set on fire.

The wife
She needs her husband to feed
the sense of self he's changed in her.
Ignorant, she wants her sister
for comfort when crying's done,

She is an island of kindling -
bits and pieces
of broken bottles, crumpled-up newspaper
and other things tossed out
into the ocean
forced to swim, wet
and freezing, forever gathering,
to form a huddled mass of leftovers

The sister
She is a tightly sealed mason jar
full of captive fireflies,
pillbugs, caterpillars and moss
and not enough air holes in the lid.

Without, she thinks, need,
she only wants her lover
and sister to be gone,
the family, hers alone.

The questions

I fear these things will die inside of me

and the child,
too, is a mason jar
Full of brightly colored
off-brand jellybeans
with a thick black question mark
painted on its face.

When all are found objects
to be used for reasons we hold alone,
what are the forms of ******,
and who is killing whom?

MY WALLS AREN’T CORKBOARD BUT THEY MIGHT AS WELL BE WITH ALL THE STRINGS AND SCRAPS OF TATTERED NOTEBOOK PAPER PASTED ALL OVER THEM, A MAP OF FALSE CORRELATIONS COMPOUNDING UPON EACH OTHER TO MAKE SOMETHING THAT COULD BE A COUSIN OF PLOT, A PORTRAIT OF SOME KIND OF STORY THAT’S REALLY JUST SEVERAL HALF-FORMED PANIC ATTACKS IN A TRENCHCOAT.

I CAN’T MOVE MY ARM. IS THIS AN INTERVENTION? MY HANDS ARE SHAKING AROUND AN OLD DEAD PEN I’VE NEVER HAD THE COURAGE TO THROW OUT. I SUPPOSE SENTIMENTALITY WILL BE THE DEATH OF ME YET.

ALL THE PATCHWORK PEOPLE I’VE INVITED INTO MY HEAD ARE TRYING TO GET MY ATTENTION. THEY’RE SCREAMING SO LOUD AND ONE LITTLE BOY WITH MIDNIGHT HAIR FULL OF STARS IS HOLDING MY FINGERS SO TIGHTLY YOU’D THINK I’D DISAPPEAR IF HE LET GO. HIS EYES ARE WIDE AND PALE AND AFRAID BUT THE CROWD OF US ARE ALL ALONE IN MY HEAD SO I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS HE FEARS.

DO YOU THINK HEAVEN SMELLS LIKE INK AND OLD BOOKS AND THE DUST OF CENTURIES GATHERING IN THE CORNERS OF EMPTY ROOMS? MAYBE WHEN I GET THERE I CAN FORGET ABOUT THE STATIC ENCROACHING ON THE EDGES OF MY MIND AND FINALLY TAKE A CHANCE TO BREATHE.

I HAD A TALK WITH GOD LAST NIGHT. THEY TOLD ME I SHOULD TRY TO SLEEP AND IN THE MORNING I WOULD BE ABLE TO SEE STRAIGHT WITHOUT LIGHT FILTERING INTO A KALEIDOSCOPIC FRINGE AROUND THE EDGES OF MY VISION. I LAUGHED AND TOLD THEM SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK. THEY ONLY SIGHED AND REPLIED IN KIND WITH AN ASSURANCE THAT VULNERABILITY IS NO WEAKNESS AT ALL.

MY SEVEN-YEAR-OLD DREAM BOY IS HOLDING UP MY WEIGHTED BLANKET AND PEERING OVER IT WITH WET EYES. I SUPPOSE IT WOULD BE CRIMINAL TO MAKE AN IMAGINARY CHILD CRY.

h.f.m.