Issue Forty-Eight

There was a man from my hometown who raised a prize rabbit named Emmylou Carrots. He kept her blue ribbons displayed in a glass case out on the patio for neighbors to admire, a glamour portrait at the top enrobed in orange taffeta with green velvet paw prints down the sides.

The wheels turn in 5/8 time. Blue with rust, baby. Star stuff and diesel—going to Dallas through the dashboard, lazy, like, uh, we don’t care if we get there.

I must admit, it’s a strange sensation to see one’s mother on Youtube – odder still to see the ghost of your father.

Your door is the loudest in the hall’s echo. I hear the others open, close, quiet as velvet, but yours creaks. The glass rattles.

When your father makes a habit of sneaking into your room at night to mess around with your sleeping body, your life could go a number of ways, and lucky for you it went to music.

I once went out with this guy called Duncan Adair who swallowed magnets. I didn’t actually know he swallowed magnets straight away, and it wasn’t something he revealed during our speed-dating at Chuckle and Chew because you can’t be that vulnerable from the word go. 

I rested my hand on my belly, feeling the faint kicks inside. That small pulse of life was the only strength that let me step into the mud house. It was never meant for birth.

Kumo ila salatikom. Rise to your prayer. Istawo. Make straight lines.

The DJ was a Goddess in a sleeveless silver jump suit, spinning vinyl, casting spells, the vibe was night sky and disco-trance.

You are in love with a cigarette-smoking troll who lives in the house across from your mother. You don’t even smoke unless you’re extraordinarily drunk.

The pool’s gurgling invitation echoes throughout the empty room. Bouncing on the low diving board, she swings arms backward and shoots into the pool, her long glide breaking the still surface, soaring like a lone airborne bird. 

She showed up the week I stopped sleeping under blankets. Claimed she lived in the attic insulation. Swore she was allergic to linoleum. Promised she’d stay only if I never asked her name.

She could only see half of a face when she looked at her fiance. The half she saw was the pessimistic half, he told her. 

Her friends tip back drinks, talk about firsts. First kiss, first time having sex, falling in love, marital bliss. Like it’s all a straight line. Sasha side-eyes them, but Mara says she stumbled across an article in her alma mater’s paper.

I was dreaming of the lost Lenore when that damned bird came rat-tat-tatting at my chamber door. “Take your beak out of my heart,” I said.

It was a slip the moment their lips met. A lingering taste of wild plums and dark cherry.

No one knew what it meant when the numbers starting appearing around town: an errant 2 tacked to the bulletin board at the neighborhood pool, a random 7 spray painted in the middle school pick-up lane. 

I remember remembering with sickly, pathetic, fragile Dara, his earliest memory: the grating of the zipper on his shell torn open, the light that poured into his cavity, and how “God’s fingers” followed through the rupture to stroke his chin.

The new house in hell is coming along nicely, thanks for asking.

Somebody online called osmanthus a stupid plant. Stupid in the literal sense. Lured by false warmth, a hint of spring, it pushes out buds right before the snap.

It started with the mammoths inked on the dive bar bathroom stall.