Selected prose

    i was lured to this place with the promise of girl-on-girl action, but then i get here and what? Nothing. Not even Bible study. People write me off as a hot mess, but in dreams i hang out poolside with Valerie Solanas. i want the thrill of voting twice without the consequences. i want to anthropomorphize large bodies of water, for i believe the lake is angry, terribly angry, over the prospect of another long war. What is this place? It looks like a circus just broke camp, ropes and pulleys, strewn costumes and ramshackle cages. i came too late. Now there’s only garbage and fog. People say we’re living in the backlash to the backlash to the backlash, but no one feels very confident on this point, and it could be that what we dismissed as “beach reading” was actually a form of protest, like if the grass suddenly grew tall as a man. my astronomy teacher believed all it takes is one generation to slack off and we’re back in the dark ages. If the dark ages come, i think, i will sit down and try to repeat as much King Lear as i can. But who will listen? A woman steps out of the fog in her flour sack gown, empties a bucket of mopwater on the rocks, and steps back into the fog. The knowns about this place include the smell of mud, the smell of gasoline, the sound of metal touching metal. Maybe there’s a river just beyond the fog, maybe the Christmas lights of a refinery waiting for me, the woman’s house, a yard, dogs. This place makes me sad, the way putting on a suit and tie to go buy drugs is sad. i’ve been here a long time, but soon, the woman will run out of the fog and shake me, then slap me, slap me hard, again and again. i will not be sad forever.