“Good Game,” I tell the cashier.

Her bewildered expression is enough to last lifetimes. Name tags says “Ahoy’! I'm -” with the scribbled KAT in the white filling.

What was once felt in a private room is now seen, by every eye that winks.

Sirens ring over the United States.

I place my wallet on the counter, the burden linked to need evaporating off my back.

The phone that tracks my mind, heart,...

Father Horn pressed a fat thumb into my chest, “How many days did it take the good Lord to make the world?” The larger man bellowed.

I answered dryly “Seven.” He sniffed, recoiling the digit back over the oak desk. He glanced at the large tome taking up most of his attention. “Good, so what was your mistake brother?” He chirped.

He couldn't be serious. Flung into this role without notice, only...

Meat with hair. Puss with mass.

Head, stomach, knees and toes.

My funny bone hasn’t told a joke in years.

Here’s me, packaged chemically to be pained by my greatest needs.

Longing for intimacy while despising my fat.

Kicking myself to get my kicks.

One mirror away from saying “ew.”

Entombed in flesh while being told by elders to grow a thick skin.

In late fog, I sinfully wish a old prayer.

It...

A moment is the potent measure for time.

In less seconds to wake, in fewer breathes to gasp, a new course can be forged.

Remember always the shaking sands underneath we build our lives.

Yesterday, I sat a happy half. Today, I wish to be whole.

A flash of chance forced on a new mask.

You felt you witnessed my true colors.

I felt you saw what you desired.

As if the late nights, expensive dinners, ...

“…First, drive up Pinewood Ave until you hit the grasslands. Floor it from then on. You might be thinking of turning tail after forty or fifty minutes, but don’t hit the brake. Just don’t.

It’s a straight line down. Straight line back. Otherwise, you’ll be bad news, kid.

Near the end of the road, past the abandoned construction job and empty trailers, you’ll find Molly’s place — the diner parked i...

“I spy with my little eye something gray and blobish!”

“Rocks again?” replied the comms, hissing out the question.

“Correctomundo! But you don’t answer in the form of a question,” I teased, bouncing along in trillion-dollar equipment. As fancy as the suit was, the color was a bright dentist white. It was disgusting to glance at in the hallway before the mission. In the black sands of SIDO-SOVIET...

This is my favorite part. My arrival.

Sunup persevered like hot breath fogging glass. Faultless wild flowers spun out from dead brown grass. My every step disfigures her. Behind me are boot marks reversing course, like fingerprints escaping a crime scene. Our Heavenly Father braided a masterpiece using distance mixed with light.

If it weren't for my job, I wouldn't trespass.

I'd hardly dare t...

“The Mundane is not Miraculous.” This was said by a man who wishes to live as a shoe. He wants to boast with his tongue and act like a heel. Better to him we wait for rotting foot fungus then pray the ground stops kicking us. It's a stomped or be stomped world for us with soles. But I’d prefer to own a pair rather than be tied down by my laces.

_Being objectified is freeing for the deaf, the...

Rules don't get easier the older you get. Before you choose to follow good examples, forces choose for you. Doomed might feel strong to those “young at heart.” I speak of grandmothers and pop-ops shooting spitballs from hospice beds. They don’t pick their skills, do they? No. As if immigrants from Neverland, particularly adults may foster an inner child more than a job. Few of them “never grow up”...

Fleeing off world wasn't discussed. Neither was trivial matters like strategy. My partner whimpered then hushed his weakness. Air sirens blared to remove the rotten moon’s silence. We sat waiting. I remember wondering if the bugs consume or just fry.

Orderly, the robotic inhabitants we swore to avoid emerged over the dim Horizon. Earth was blunt prior to our mission what discovery meant. Their e...