3.0 + 1.0

1. Another pixelated horror

The scent of magnolia swept over me permeating the air and I hung there like strange fruit suspended in the moment.

Sensing my unraveling, my father uttered “things will get better,”
but the bullish sincerity in his voice broke the balance in me.

I wept adolescent tears — uncouth and unapologetic.

My body shook, my nose ran and I cursed the world between wails and gasp of air for deceiving me into believing that justice was the natural order.

2.

4.

What is a dying pet to a deceased woman

A broken heart shatters
And blood rushes down the spine

Shaking me into a void
Which grows as much as it can shrink

Why lay awake at night when the answer is known

A breath warms frostbitten fingers
Reminds me of your cold beach of a room

There are no more tears to cry

5. Cockpit country

My Father from the island of boys
My Father from the island where
most men had long since
gone mad in the bauxite mines
became aggressive from the lead poisoning
and unhinged from the carcinogens
which built up
into barnacles
on the organ inside their skulls

6. Silent when the pigs came

Donned head to toe in southern reich police regalia, the officer stood with one hand saddled against the butt of a holstered service weapon and the other pointed squarely at my chest.

The militancy of his stature unnerved me.

Inches away from my face he reminded me that I had no place to call home.

And soon after — Elbows out, wrist zipped by plastic and head mashed against a double paned window I reminded myself.

I have no place to call home

7. Vice in God’s House

I sat in the living room among friends.
Ash in and out of trays and cans of malt wheat popped and tipped over across the center table.

Trinity shed tears at the beauty of the divine and a chorus of accord swelled among my contemporaries and compadres. I bit my tongue till a metallic ooze coated my pallet.

I did not know the divine. The sermons I endured as a young man had all but faded. I remember the heat & the weight of the air, wet and unmoving every Floridian summer. I remember the smell of moth balls and perfume hanging off the bright suits and brimmed hats of the sisters of the apostolic order.

But the proselytizing of my pastor became radio static the moment I knew his transgressions in the house of our lord. The words he spoke were incompatible with movements of his soul.

Still a boy I sat in silent defiance whispering to myself that if god ordained him then the divine is not something I would ever know.

Thinking about doing something

No one tells you that you can leave whenever you like. It’s very progressive—If you’re sane enough to find your way—It’s an open door policy. And when you’re out no one cares what you’re wearing or how you look so long as you blend into the chaos. On the R train in a backless gown, non-slip single use tube socks it looks like I’m riding along and playing with the band.

Highly favored, I pocketed a quarter box of matches, two half-smoked cigs and chased them both between train cars soaking in the daybreak in the city’s flashing lights over the Hudson as we crossed the Williamsburg bridge.

I’m free now, fifteen minutes from home and on a day like today I’d be remiss to not delight in all the sensory pleasures of my surroundings. Most people don’t live close enough to a fish market to say they smell the ocean everyday.

I hope they don’t miss me too much at NYU mental institute. Obviously, I’ll be back soon to collect my things but it’s nearly lunchtime and I’d be lying if I didn’t feel like my departure was a little bit selfish. I’m a middle child so I’ve never been too good with goodbyes. I did leave a note. “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”—just a little something I queried searching famous farewells on google during our free time in the media room. You know—poetry has the power to turn sorrow into joy. Don’t miss me too much, although absence does make the heart grow fonder.

I wonder who’s up and would most appreciate my presence for a night? It’s been a month. I can only imagine how many unopened messages must be on my phone. I guess I do miss Alex and he is the shortest walking distance though he is the last person I saw before my vacation so I’m not sure if it would be fair to my other friends. He and I do have the propensity to become so enmeshed in the comforts of one another’s company that the outside world starts to dissolve entirely.

There’s also Jessica. However, something about her grates me. I guess if I think about it long enough it’s not “something” and more that she’s a sci-fi nerd who got hot late and reinvented herself by selling drugs at southern universities until getting arrested, having her rich daddy get her charges dropped and subsequently enrolling in the #10 school in the country to study art. She entered the scene with beauty, height, charm and stories that would excite her classmates but with trappings of wealth sufficient enough not be othered by her record. I just kind of resent how getting arrested selling drugs was a moment of catharsis for her but for Me it was the purest rage and the lowest form of public humiliation I’ve ever felt. That being said, she really is nice to me… and I’m sure she’ll have ketamine and xanax which would be the perfect way to unwind after a day like today.

I am truly blessed. Not to mention I found just enough change in my dresser to snag a few newports from the corner store and a variety box of flavored hard seltzers.

I hate that moment after you ring the doorbell waiting for someone to let you in. I suppressed my anxiety by scrolling the compendium of possible greetings.

Before I could decide on anything the door pulled from its frame. I looked up and Jessica, a solid six inches taller than me, stood in the archway head slightly crooked in confusion. Dressed in a nightgown that clung to her curves and fluttered in the breeze at its hem, she looked model-esque as usual. For a moment I wondered if the gown had been tailored to accentuate her figure but dismissed it as further evidence of how annoyingly perfect she was. Her long blonde hair was pulled in a bun and the warm overhead lighting sharply contoured the cheek bones of her bare face. For someone clearly headed to bed she looked well rested, completely lacking the dark circles and eye bags I can hardly find the hours in a night to remedy on my own face. She smiled at me and I snapped back from my dissection of her features. Meeting her eyes and smiling back I raised the box of seltzer and asked if she wanted to drink.

I’m not sure if this token was enough to justify my showing up unannounced at god knows what hour… what hour? Before I could even begin to apologize for my “rudeness” she reached out and pulled me in. Leaning into her arms, my body split. Half out in the city and half in her home I felt overcome by this urge to cry, which was odd because everything’s cool, everything’s great, everything’s perfect. But the way she held me made me feel as if it was okay if everything was in fact not cool, not great and not perfect. How fucking annoying. I pulled away from her, smiled and pushed the box of hard seltzers into her arms so they could take my place in her mischievously disarming embrace. I pushed into the house and everything was exactly the way it was last time. Immaculate. Say what you will but Jessica had great taste. Sure mid-century modern is very en vogue but most of us furnished our apartments with cheap reproductions and impulse purchases at the suggestion of Instagram’s commercial algorithm. She on the other hand had the real deal, pieces scoured from weekends upstate frequenting estate sales in the Finger Lakes or Poughkeepsie or Hudson or wherever. Loading antiques into the back of a 2021 SUV and trekking back into the city just in time to offload them into this beautiful home, get dressed to the nines and skip the line at whatever rave our friend group had guest list.

She followed me into the living room and I sat centered on a sofa backed by bay windows. I liked doing K in this chair because of how the streetlight streamed over my shoulders and became stratified beams drawn like silk thread on a loom.

There was already a plate with a few lines on the vintage coffee table. She put the rest of the beverages in the fridge to chill and we made small talk. It was mostly banter. A quickly fired witticism in place of recollections of what we’d actually been up to. I could go on like this for hours, which is an essential skill especially if you want to do your friend’s drugs without asking and have it read as a mark of your closeness and not as a moment of feigning. Making myself at home I unfurled an old receipt from my pocket, held it taught and buffed the wrinkles out against my thigh before rolling into a tight straw insufflating two lines in one swift motion and kicking my head back like they do in the movies.

I slid the plate toward her and handed over the makeshift straw as if it was mine to give and instinctively she folded over the coffee table and followed me in clearing the lines and dashes off the silver platter. This is when I fumbled because in the haze of my own hit and in the midst of hers, a silence crept over us and before I could come up with some off hand question to run conversation: She hit me with the one thing I wanted to avoid talking about,

“How are you”?