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published on metazen

it's called crazy horse, this leather, and i show you my clogs. they are brand new, but appear old and worn in; the more you beat them up, the better they look. more things should be made of crazy horse.

how to waste your lunch hour

published on metazen

the latest in a how-to series

i never feel guilty until i get caught

i am spending the night at kim's house whose family are jehovah's witnesses like mine. we are a clique of weird outsiders in high school: no birthday celebrations, no holidays, no unchaperoned dating and no "worldliness" (my dad even gets mad at my mom for reading cosmopolitan magazine because "it literally means 'worldly'"). we are somehow in this world but not of it and i am kind of afraid of dying in armageddon.

how to fill a hole

a hole is a hole, empty, nothing.

my skin was brûlée

this is where we loved

the solar system is in jeopardy

published on metazen



we shook her ashes toward the ocean

stompin' on bricks

shoes don't fit feet made of bricks. i trudge store to store, tracking clay dust across the carpet and the most eager salesmen usher me straight out the door. what about commission? is it just an hourly wage these days? i feel discrimination in my bones. they express emotion: sad when it's going to rain; angry informs me of arthritis. they've been feeling like rain for months and i expect it any moment and should probably get my bricks inside before they become soaked and trail rust everywhere. i'm going to write a complaint about this mistreatment.

the missive forms in the weeks it takes to get home and bang up the steps to my apartment, which i discover half empty. i sink a few inches, stumble flailing in a cloud of dust and gaze down upon fleshy toes. testing them, i tiptoe to the icebox, remove a frozen pizza, fire up the oven and wait for the rain.