Category: 75 secrets
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we lasted through winter.
i was sideways, asleep, or thought i was, between them, worried what if i would never feel this way again. morning just starting to peak. wouldn’t make its way through those blinds for a good bit, no use for the future. just an indication seeping in through kitchen windows. catastrophic gold. in love, two times…
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final night.
Once they were certain the security guard was well into his skinny mag, the dolls came to life, met in the middle of the warehouse. Stood in a semicircle under a pool of tar-stained light. Various dresses, shapes, sizes, finger lengths, eye colors, even skin colors, because there had been changes over the past few…
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wonderland.
Manny lost his thumb while carving initials into a Sunset Park sycamore on Christmas day. He had run from his house, boots crushing through a fresh snowfall north towards the hill. Streets empty, storefronts shuttered. Occasional fire hydrant peeking out from the drift, curious snouts wondering where the world went. From within his red skully,…
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sometimes they listen.
The evening played out in timestamps. Front lawn embedded with individual flat rocks, leading up to closed eyes, her fingers tensing, slick with grease, firm grip worried that if she didn’t dig in with her thumbnail, the present might pass. She thought about the kitchen, husband rolling his eyes and telling her that thyme was…
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one more time, blood moon.
made a head count tonight, and it turns out i have 75 secrets. only one of them concerns the blood moon. a fitting number, considering what’s waiting for us all this morning. sadly, as the definition for secret goes, this story is not for sale. although, far as circumstances go, i can reveal what’s good…
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at the gates.
sat myself outside. red steps. back against a closed door. cigarette. Jack Daniel’s. music still bumping, catching a row of bikes parked against the fairground fence. and what was on my mind… 6:25, here’s how the air feels on a perfect day, taste of a willow tree. sun at a lower level, some 71 degrees.…
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maytwentyeighteen.
standing at gulf’s edge, watching emerald waves roll in with the latest news, spread themselves at my feet, sediment for sandpipers, sun with an afternoon glare that sends cat paw clouds towards the horizon, where storms ring warning bells; still too far for thunder, replaced by the hungry reminder of jet engines, twin fighters that…
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my friend.
i was sitting on a stranger’s futon, counting sheep, when one happened to wander from the fence. came on over and bummed a smoke. helped itself to some wine. bright white and so very cloudy. after an hour or so, i felt that talking to a sheep couldn’t be any more crazy than watching one…
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just like that.
Fires had been erupting all across the city. Not spreading, just then, though soon. Not being set, they said on the radio that afternoon, just happening. Not just buildings. Stretches of main streets, asphalt suddenly a logjam of burning red fabric; a circle of flames brought to life at Generation Ballpark, just left of center…
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you had your year.
it’s not enough to revise any length of days or events in rewind. you were beating your head against the cemetery wall, and that was then, then now, and when an ecstatic snowfall of fireworks triggered the first smile felt in so long, that was then, then now, and if you think you can have…
notes from a never-was. 