Dave had placed an add just the week before in the personals. His fetish wasn't the most obscure among those looking for lovers among the silks, the plastics, and the aluminums of the world. But when compared to those seeking human companionship, it was certainly odd.
"Seeking a lb. of cotton for intimate relationship" was how it read.
And he certainly wasn't expecting a response. After all, he'd been placing the same add for three years. Ever since he'd received 1000 thread count cotton sheets for his birthday from his grandmother he couldn't stop thinking about it.
So when the...
I rolled down my window. "Can I give you a ride somewhere?"
"Ditch the car."
"I thought you wanted a ride." I had pulled over. I'd been trying to help her out. She had green hair. Green, then, white, then medium brown at the roots, but it looked passable on her.
"You are ruining this city. This city is a tomb, because of you."
"You're a sweetheart, aren't you?"
"Fuck off."
But I was worried about her. "Hey, where's your mom?"
She didn't move. I waited. "Where's your mom?"
Frozen. I backed up, signaled, parked. It was so bright I...
Giving in wasn't an option. "2,4,6,8! We don't want to integrate!" shouted his T-Shirt. Well, the left hand side. The right blared out "We're ALL in this (body) together…"
Both the Prosecution and the Defence barristers sighed at the witness's garb, shuffled papers, breathed slowly, and were grateful he was wearing anything at all. Both were getting paid. From the same bank account, in fact. They both rose as the Right Honourable Judge Jewel took  in the room, and then her seat.
The clerk stood and announced in a notably less bored tone than usual, "Giles #3 versus Giles #1,2...
I woke up this morning fuzzier than usual.
It's easier to remember in my sleep but the memories are now tied with hopefulness--your hopefulness. Your jacket was cold on the outside as I hugged you, and I remember your body warm as I slipped my hand in and tried to squeeze. I remember you tried to kiss me goodbye and I moved from it as I sobbed. I didn't want to miss that kiss but still I moved.
The journey alone has been quiet. You text me or email me or my own brain will write your words for me...
I have seen lesser gods dancing on my street. I have asked for their names.
Come again?
The water for the tea is boiling. I hope you don't mind, but I need to leave. I hope you don't mind. I really hope you don't mind. I will stay, I will continue this conversation, but you can't hold it against me.
You don't believe me.
I have heard the wind patter the leaves at my doorstep like the footsteps of tree children playing.
I am nowhere near death. Why do you ask?
This is not about dying.
I have wanted to...
Chazz was a murderer. He stopped himself this time. The voice said, "not this time." He turned and walked toward his car, got in, turned the ignition and gently depressed the accelerator. At the first light he crossed to lanes to make a left turn and cut off a brown sedan. He was lost in thought.
Chazz got out of the car after he parked in the driveway. Went up the stairs two at a time and took of his pants and shirt, leaving him in his boxers and white T-shirt. He went back down the stairs the same way,...
trivia
just trivia, repeated over and over: those same words
same facts, same figures
traced by countless lips, countless tongues saying,
"did you know?"
and i did not know
did not know
this or that
i did not know you when it mattered most
but that it is trivia now
trivial
in the bright, burning
blinding
light of all that has happened
in the light
of you
of this trivia, this fact, this figure i will tell you now
this thing you will not hear, and not know, not now
(how i wish i could hear you say, "what?" in...
A dry, sandy summer like this one. I had met him just a mile down, by the Shell gas station, his cowboy boots kicking up a torrid storm as he leaned against an electric pole and kicked a Pepsi can out of his way -- it rolled like a tumbling weed before coming to a halt at my sandal-wrapped toes.
I picked it up, sand and dust whirling around me, forcing themselves into the slits of my eyes. "Hey cowboy."
He looked at me and said nothing. He lured me in with absolutely nothing but an intense blue stare as...
The hillsides have been finger-painted
with Larch trees turning yellow
like smears from a child's hand
that Mother Nature will bleach away within the month
I stare, thinking there must be a pattern to it.
Birds eating seeds from cones and dropping them in flight?
Early colonizers after a fire?
Unwilling to believe in beauty without structure and reason
Dusk arrives with its gift of quiet
As if hosting it here in this small moment of time required recompense.
A perfect moment of stillness
before I turn to go inside and life's motions begin again
The wizened beast crawled across the savannah, dragging the old cart with dilapidated wheels. The grassland swayed, tickling his nostrils. He made his way to the coffee table after pulling his head out of the carpet.
"Daddy, you can't stand yet! You are supposed to be pulling my wagon!"
"Daddy needs his coffee, son." The man scratched his stubble and his backside, retaining the mannerisms of his cattle form. The child scampered around the couch, catching the beast at its watering hole.
"Alright, back on the trail. Where was I heading?"
"Oregon trail. You have dysentery."
"So to the toilet...