“I think I just met the happiest person in the world!” I tell myself as I ponder my movie-esque meet-cute on my walk back to the office.

Or maybe not the happiest person in the world. Is happy an oxymoron?

Did not plan on taking a two-hour lunch. Did not plan on meeting a guy with a similar name to mine reach for the caramel macchiato and pesto sandwich identical to mine and which was actually ...

I was born into life alone. I will leave it alone, too. I walk this life alone, now, just as an adolescent. Dripped in the color of rage, dying in the shade of blood, my steps leaving a maroon pool in their wake. Crimson sazuki azaleas don’t float, not even in this climate. But their thin spider web like stems make them see like they do. The world is sepia. Gray and washed out. But I walk alone. N...

Hug goodbye.

A casual see you later.

Thirty seconds down the driveway, his number is blocked and his memory slipped back into the oblivion. As if I’d let a man fuck up my plans right now. That man, at that. Bumbling ‘round, finding footing between letting it completely go and sweet revenge. The contusion left is deep, making my mind rot and rot. This time I feel stupid though. What did I get out...

Short on cash and short in stature

Running water running on fumes running away

Caught red handed and caught in traffic

Fly away, Time flies

Bombs away, bombs ashore

Gay people, gay people...

June 8, 2022 8 PM

My father used to say, God rest his soul, when he was alive, to me, a hard head gon’ tote a soft ass. He also used to say help is at the end of your arms and to be two percent better than him. I’ve pretty much heeded the latter two but God why do you test me so much on the former! Why’d you make me like this? I wanna leave him alone. Why is he in my home! Was I born with missing ...

The world is different now. It’s quiet. We fend for ourselves

Few of us left, most of us on our own,

So

When someone came to my trailer you can see why I would be wary

Full stop...

He brings out the souvenirs.

First a letter, an earring, then a belt buckle turns into a lock of hair which gives way to a single tooth.

You tell your friend to “Stop!”

Panting, trying not to give into the fear that has crept inside. Amidst a maniac?

With an outstretched right arm, the incredulously offended ….

“These are all from first dates?” Someone had to break the silence. That someone wa...

My vision is distorted. My integrity, compromised. How was I to be any different from what I always knew and seen to be true?

Every night, my anxiety tells me I don’t deserve to sleep. Why would tonight be any different?

Worthless, expendable, a long, sad ride.

i can’t seem to turn my televison off.

i dream in black and white.

colors are out of my grasp.

i want to give myself a new perspectiv...

I knew who she was before she straddled up and spoke to me. Sitting there, in the front row, tears abound. the grieved woman. I had the feeling the same she knew.

I sat myself in the back of the church, shaded and hiding. I didn’t want anyone to see me. Not his friends. Not his family. I was crying, too. But she was drawn to me. She knew. Just like I did.

“I was with him for ten years.”

She fault...