#charliegrey

[charliesgrey]

Locker #223

I admit to losing the combination. Several months. One day I opened a drawer and there it was,

the ripped bit of page with its six numbers.

Had been there all along, not lost. Thoughts of the spirit plane then, your astral form, last

I saw it crawling away. Slightly chewed. Crushed

just enough to die, slipping into the dark crack where the bed almost meets the wall. Still

the full longing for paranormal detachment,

my essence lifting off like a dirty bandage and the drunken weave through the night, searching

out another loose dreamkin testing the limits

of mysticism with you, my friend, my fellow swapper. Frankly, I'm tired of our heavy breathing

about ourselves and the world. From these boxes.

When I hear drums, my hands dart out from sleep. When it gets cold and buzzy with vibrations.

I get nervous we'll never make the connection.

—

*Originally published in Tulane Review. It looks like this lit mag’s website archives have been taken down; if that changes, I will link back to them!

[charliesgrey]

And reality never happens again

half through the night, I come downstairs a child, and there has been another incident. half a sculpture, one

rib a skewer up, one time only asks if the man or woman who severed it at the waist is satisfied, and when it says

this, I shiver in places I am severed without knowing it. whole fleets of blue light flashing fill the streets that

I thought belonged to the little girl, a second bed she could use when hers was too soft, until it hits me this is

not that story anymore. this story teaches us to be sad through glass: reflective glass, roomfuls of glass, and

unshattered glass with more than enough left, if we all wanted to sip. god, how I need to learn that hardly any of

this life is good enough. how little it has to do with them, or anyone else's specific violence. it's safer to nod

when asked anything, to say yes, I completely agree and don't you love me for it? But satisfaction is another

way to survive, and sometimes the only reason to, says the jagged half-lit torso. I can't argue with that

(I completely agree and don't you). don't you think she is doing the best she can? K asks. love is what it is,

not what you decided it should be. I want to be angry, but unattainable satisfaction makes a good story, too.

Golden shovel: “And one woman says it, that she // is sad, and all of them nod, and another says / that she is angry, too.” – Jacqueline Jones LaMon

—

*Originally published in COUNTERCLOCK Journal. It looks like this lit mag’s website has closed up shop; if that changes, I will link back to them!