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Showing posts from February, 2017

White Whale

I’m so gay. For years I’ve navigated minefields of anxiety, carrying backbreaking loads of guilt like millstones. I’ve grappled with monsters: my mother’s rejection, my father’s silent disdain, and my religion’s promise of an eternity of torment. Those claws and fangs no longer instill my heart with dread. I am at peace. Ironically, it started with violence, a fight in front of the Pleasure Box, my busy South Beach club. It was quick business: two untrained testosterone geysers tossing fisticuffs beneath the marquis amongst the gawkers and paparazzi I never let inside. Beneath the glow of neon chasers, I recognized one fighter. I hadn’t seen him since leaving high school fifteen years ago, but nobody else possesses his pouty-lipped sneer and perpetual self-amusement.  “Luis?” His swimming pupils scanned my face. “We went to Central together. Don’t you recognize me?” “I am a little looped.” He straightened his ruffled jacket. I lit a Lucky Strike, drew it deep, and lower

Hacking the Genome of Flow Ted Talk

Haggling Aboard My Charon

If there is a world, let me be in it: I repeat that oath in the leaky grotto, sworn seven days ago to the one whose ashes I carry now in a box aboard the ferryboat. Turmoil extends across our passage like my seasick stomach churning. I clutch the frigid rail, afraid to tip into the sea foam’s moon’s reflection. Pitching and yawing we arrive mid-channel, so I fit my brass key into the purposeless lock, for what do you steal from a grieving man with a box of ashes and a ghoulish promise? A spray of gelid brine paralyzes me, reminding me of when I last kissed your lips, when I wished my blood could resurrect you: one useless memory just postponing your delivery. My hand thrusts into the cedar box to toss fistfuls of your dust into the rolling tide, wondering if a leap into icy water would forever render us apart or bring us back together.

Nice Guy™ Meets Supergirl

Upon a bridge she stood, skin kissed by sweat, a white romper, naked shoulders, lace spaghetti straps. Her tiara necklace jingles, and I like, Pavlov’s dog, starving, my mouth a lake, swallow in response. She I can assemble, from my vast pornographic collage: Amazons; mannequins; and chopstick-prodded nyotaimori models, nipples hidden by scallop shells as businessmen snatch fish from refrigerated flesh, so her daughter’s voice startled my gaze to her sunbathed cheeks. Inked upon her T-shirt, bold words fading: “I am a girl. So, what’s your superpower?” “One day,” she informed, “I will be President. Like Hillary, Not a robot. I am human. My too-happy laughter is fine.” Her mother’s smile testifies a recipe of certainty and pride, and ashamed I realize the hands holding Supergirl down are mine.