seriously: let defendants choose their coin, / execute their own calls, make their own coin flips― / attentive referee, no need for a court.

First the room is blank white and then she is placed there and one by one everything is penciled in. Her, in a loose and flowery dress that conceals her feet; a black and white cat, who wraps her tail around her legs and looks up, head moving trying to interpret;…

So I missed the May Day parade again.

He looked at a man in a straw hat on YouTube and thought “that could've been me, if I'd learned to play the guitar.” He savored the wistfulness of the moment. The pluperfect always made him sad. But the conditional was almost too much to bear. Octopi were a…

Do you know if you were actually speaking to me there?

Dread and drudgery sour each day

There’s a sudden Burst of color Like the dispersal of a ghost In a light wind And now candy wrappers are Scattered all over the heavens It looks like God got lit up By the sky As we flew too c

It's 50/50 that you'll ever pad your knee enough to ever kneel on it. Your back hurts, the Orthapedist labels it arthritis. I think that means we're getting old, so I crawl up the tower of your body as I'm a little younger, more sprightly. You're a

a girl in a red cap flashes by

As a boy Edward had stayed in the confessional several times in a row. The priest was drunk and couldn't tell it was the same kid over and over. The tiny door slid open…”Scobbity bobbity…tell me your sins…” Edward confessed what he thought were sins, then said…

"As soon as you're born, they make you feel small."--John LennonI cannot do anything about how beautiful you are, my sour flower, but I can tell you this much: Joni Mitchell is better than all the cowards in the world. They all chose to somehow…

The squirrels love the sun

TW: Self-harm. I wanted to write a mental health essay that wasn't all rah! rah! and with as little sentimentality as possible. Out of everything I've published, I've gotten the most feedback from this--people telling me it helped them understand a loved one better, etc.…

In my 14 to 15 year old life in the late 50s I worked as a clean-up boy in the neighborhood butcher shop up on 5th. Ave.,

The Muse//has used/ me up