FICTION
“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”
A tortured simper uncoils itself across my mouth as I open another bottle of Penis wine.
To be encased, Clint had always thought, was foolishness. Why allow yourself to be open to such sorrow?
Sitting at the bar on Pacific Avenue. With the seashells in the walls. Same bartender from last year, still here, making the same lethal Mai Tais.
I pushed my nose to within an inch from the rug. I sniffed, and sniffed, and I smelled something…not quite right, but I couldn’t place it.
He used to hold my hand on Commonwealth. I wonder sometimes if he ever still thinks about my mouth.
A man with a fistful of showbags said, “That cow sounds like a person trying to sound like a cow.”
On the first day of our new life together, my husband realized that I was not interested in theoretical debate. He said it was okay by him and went out to get some pancake mix.
The day does not conclude with the gentle exhale of the earth, but with Mother Superior flipping the hourglass over, again.
She turns her back for me to fasten the rows of metal hooks. Why isn’t our small, tender freedom enough?
It all started with the curse of my tits. Women’s bodies are cursed. Everyone tries to look at them, everyone tries to ignore them.
I reached for my invoice, which Dr. George, holding it between thumb and forefinger as if it were a soiled diaper, dropped into my hand.
Hitting up homes peopled by those with nothing much to lose was an easy score. The less you had, the less likely you were to defend it. But this home was different. Its residents had a lot to lose and the will to fight for it.
Mama sped along the highway, unbothered by bits of gravel that flew up from the front tires and struck the windshield of the sedan.
It was spring and the hills were irradient, like they had to get out all their green in one short burst before catching fire.
None speak of how the streets collide in coarse seams like scars, the fresh cobbles unable to level with the ones shaken from their mortar by uncountable seasons.
You’re joking, I say, interrupting the steady bumping of the doctor’s bushy white mustache.
and on and on and on and on they ran, the Merry Men, running from a hundred and one arrows bought with taxes stolen twice over…
I’m dancing with my best friend’s husband, under the influence of his jaws and thighs.
Share some abandon.
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