Fiction

two for an overcast Saturday

Soft pink blooms rise from tender green stalks as J tells me he’s been thinking of killing himself again.

our thick skins wearing thin + life snippet

The bright red drooping buds of flowers speckle the brush on the side of the road, blooming tight against a fence, knocked down by March’s heavy winds and rains.

Life updates and fiction

Pink, magenta blooming in the early spring; your mother asks me how I’ve been and I tell her about my new promotion as we wait for your arrival.

3 for practice.

I am writing a short story nobody will ever read about harsh winter blizzards, lacquered Matryoshka dolls, and a man who weaves trauma out of men’s bodies.

4 seasons

I am convinced it is the only thing we truly own. It is the thing we make for ourselves with each new hour and, when I gaze upon that, when I travel my fingers across its ragged edges, it is always begging or pleading. It demands attention. Someone to need it. To love it. To own it.

Thoughts on a failed short story: part two

Sam+

Cause I was lonely here and it's lonely still In the rugged country where the weeds grow fierce Quicker than the crop I keep running from In this rugged country.

Kameron+

At night Kameron would pull up outside my house, leave his truck running, text me, and wait for me to crawl out the second-story window.

Issac+

You thought about rain and swaying trees; the way the world looks right after a storm: gray and slightly shaken, but still whole.

Louis+

At night we’d hang out at the park behind his house, drinking IPAs and tossing rocks at the tennis court fencing until he got bored and went home to have sex.

Jordan or a musing on friendship and relationships

In the summer we drive around, listening to Remember Sports, and searching for a reasonably priced second-hand keyboard so you can pick up a new hobby. Here, the summers stretch on for far too long: the bare blue sky hanging over our heads with quiet contempt.

plants and songs

At 32, I’ve been spending more time buying and caring for plants. I’ve got 30+ or so scattered around my house now, and I’ll probably grab more as these start to die or wilt or move on to the next cycle of their lives.

Thoughts on a failed story: Big Bend

Part one, because this story is pretty long.

Over drinks - V2

Over hazy IPAs that tasted like too much experimentation, I told him about the first and second men I ever loved.

Over drinks - V1

Over drinks, I told you about the first and second men I ever loved. How the first broke my world open and the second pieced it back together.

Four weeks of a writing course

I started a 10-week writing course a few weeks ago. Joining a writing class is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. I had high hopes of finding something in Austin that met in person, but honestly, there weren’t many good options.

4 for 4

I spend the early summer watching reruns of King of the Hill and swimming in other people’s pools. In the afternoon, the sun hangs around forever, baking everything in an endless wave of heat and dust and shame. I try and keep cool by hanging out inside or drinking bad beers at bars with funky aesthetics and custom-crafted illustrations for their beer cans.

hi again

In therapy we talk about endings and beginnings, read short stories that I’ve written, and ponder over when I’ll eventually stop coming. We are working towards a final project: a bit of writing in which I envision four variations of my self, split across the timelines, all meeting together for one conversation.

Tuesday

In the morning, wrapped in blankets and the warm safety of each other you ask me to marry you and, sheepishly I agree. This is not a proposal, at least in the traditional sense, but instead a conviction or admission of feeling.

4 short stories about loving people

You write music about your ex who left for San Francisco, hoping that with the right amalgamation of metaphor and meaning you can get him to apologize for things he never knew he did wrong.

Ten sentences

I was listening to Maggie Rogers, folding clothes, and thinking about how close Z and I had been lately. It was the end of winter and already the harsh Texas sun was replacing the gray skies.

3 blah tidbits

I’ve got three small snippets of writing, just to keep things flowing. But, before that two sincere requests for folks I’m closer with that read this.

Snippets

I felt the heat. My skin damp with sweat, my throat hoarse and dry, uncomfortably tightening and turning in and over on itself; attempting, in futility, to clear the ash from me.

five for the new year

My therapist tells me to be more delusional. “I have all sorts of people come in here,” he says. “Gold-medal Olympians, a woman writing a book, someone who just ran a marathon.

1 last one for 2024

Our first fight was about the meaning behind a book. I was desperate for someone to find me intelligent and took every disagreement as a slight against myself.