b!tch boy

M.J. Szalay

[the-renegad-e]

soccer in the park

The last time I micro dosed acid I didn’t mean to micro dose acid, I just left the Sour Patch Kids in the car overnight in an Iowa winter and they lost a lot of potency. I took one anyways because I wanted to see what soccer felt like. The main thing that happened is that I could feel the ache in my joints that I think I ignore most of the time. I went to a park to play soccer but when I was done and sitting criss cross in the sun, looking at the yellow and purple flowers a field away, a woman called out to tell me that the field was recently treated with pesticides and that it wasn’t safe for me to be out there. I was crying, but I had to pretend I wasn’t to the woman, because it doesn’t make sense to go to a park to play soccer and end up beside the goal looking faraway and crying. She said she worked in landscaping and that these chemicals I was sitting in were serious news and there were signs up everywhere. I sounded so normal, talking to that lady, like some other person was doing it for me. I ended up sitting on a park bench beside the basketball court where no one was playing basketball, tears still streaming down my face. I had a new girlfriend, and I was spending all my time with her. She wanted to and I have trouble knowing what I want, but when I accidentally micro dosed acid and I was sitting on that park bench I knew I wanted to be alone. I could only do this alone, I thought. I’m crying, I thought. I’m not happy alone. But I want to be alone so much of the time. The lady came by as I was leaving and told me I should probably shower and throw my clothes in a separate load. I am a machine operator for a seed company that coats all their corn in bright green or red or purple to indicate pesticides, and I never wear gloves because my mother has an allergy to latex and I sometimes get bumps that I don’t want developing into a rash. I think the normal person in me says something affirming back and the lady seems satisfied. I would have played on the field regardless but just because she said something I do go home, and I do shower, and I throw my clothes with all the others because that is the line I draw, I guess. What I’m trying to say is, how can I be in love and want to always be alone?

[the-renegad-e]

tilt

there is a way to feel the tilt of the earth. there’s a blizzard raging outside, but i am sitting at an ikea table feeling sideways. i’m consciously trying to stay this way, stay tilted slightly to the left of center. we are all just pins pointing straight up into space; we hang on the surface of the globe like hair on a tennis ball. i have a tremor i call motion sickness, but it isn’t sickness, only motion, only the tremor of fuzz on a tennis ball when it’s served, because all the time the earth is hurtling cross court and only sometimes, times like these, you can feel it. 

[the-renegad-e]

the headshot

it’s okay if you go to the gun range with your dad

because he looks so excited when he’s telling you,

“remember, straight and off the trigger

and don’t point it at anything you don’t want to destroy.”

 it’s okay if you go to the gun range with your dad

if you watch the laser sight bounce in your shaking hands,

“you’re letting the barrel dip,

anticipating the shot instead of letting it come.”

 it’s okay if you go to the gun range with your dad

he brought ear plugs to wear under the headphones,

“double ear protection is never a bad idea,

your hearing is one thing you’ll never get back.”

 dad, i’m sorry it had to be a gun range

i’m sorry it had to be loading rounds into mags together

he put on his best flannel before, sent me to the bathroom to 

wash my hands after, “it leaves a residue you have to scrub off.”

 we shot every last round in the ammo box

until we couldn’t justify staying any longer.

and when we got home, i went downstairs

while he sat at the kitchen table, cleaning his gun.

[the-renegad-e]

an excerpt from a poem too long to effectively post

“...you know what, i’m glad you turned up the volume on the radio because the only thing in between my ears is static and i don’t have to try to convey that to you now, we can just listen to the man on the radio sing about being in love, neither of us knowing what the hell that means, he could be lying to us, he could be lying through his teeth, and we wouldn’t know the difference, how could we say if it is a good love song, a realistic love song, how could we say anything at all, how could i know anything except the music video i would make out of this song, and let me tell you it’s a good one, the opening shot is of us, getting in the car completely silent, then it’s tomorrow and it’s a shot of us nodding along to the man on the radio and every time the drum hits it’s a different day of us in the car listening to the same song and by the time the chorus hits a hundred days or more have passed and our hair is longer and we’ve fallen in love and the song we didn’t know at all in the beginning, is the one we’re singing at the top of our lungs, and i was so sure that was the music video that i had the audacity to be disappointed when it was something else, something artsy and white walled and sterile, but every time i hear this song i see the video i made up in my mind, and i think “this is what love is,” even though i don’t know anything about it at all; i think this is my favorite song but i’m not sure, i’m the only one who could be sure this is my favorite song and i’m not, now when someone asks i’ll have to decide on the spot, and i’ll be floundering, and they’ll think i’m lying through my teeth, but i won’t be able to help it...”

[the-renegad-e]

Midwestern Blue Sky Gothic

I know that it rains, just can’t remember the last time it did

Can’t remember a time that wasn’t blue skies and pulled cotton clouds

It’s a never-ending blue and a never-ending road,

And the semis we pass are never marked

But always trustworthy, in the way that big things tend to look trustworthy

We’re fighting against their slipstream, fighting against the urge to drift into

The side of those unmarked corrugated steel trailers, full of unmarked things.

There’s another slipstream, an omnipresent slipstream, pulling cars off the road

And onto the shoulder, off the shoulder, and into the ditch, out of the ditch, and

Into the blue, the blue that is the blue sky and pulled cotton clouds.

I’m glad they’re gone.

I know it rains, I remember rain, just can’t recall the most recent rain.

Must not have rained recently, that must be it, even though the road is wet.

The road is wet, but I can’t recall the last time it rained.

Must not be rain on the road.

There’s a dead deer on the side of the road, blinking

It chases us for a while before collapsing into bones.

All dead deer must rest.

The dead deer becomes a bloody smudge, becomes a reddish blur, becomes a dead speck, is devoured

By the blue, the blue that is the blue sky and pulled cotton clouds.

I’m glad it’s gone.

The blue that gets closer the faster we go and

Closer the slower we go, always getting closer.

I can barely see the road now, the wet road.

Does it even rain over the road? I can’t remember the last time it rained,

I can’t remember the last time it- do you ever feel caught in a loop,

Like you’ve said what you say before?

There’s a dead deer by the side of the road-

Is it hot in here to you? I feel hot.

The deer is a smudge, a blur, a speck, devoured.

I’m sorry, I’m not usually carsick, it’s just

I can’t remember the last time it rained.

I can’t remember the last time it-- Aren’t roads supposed to have a shoulder?

It’s hard to see now, the sky keeps getting in the way, 

The sky that is the blue sky and pulled cotton clouds.

It feels slick on the road, like we’re hydroplaning, and-- why won’t you stop looking at me?

Like it’s wet, like it’s rained.

What’s rain again?

I can’t see the steering wheel, we must have cracked a window, let the sky in,

The sky that is the blue sky and pulled cotton clouds,

And why are you looking at me like that?

Like I’m a dead deer, like I’m a smudge, a blur, a speck,

Like I’m…

Being devoured by the blue.

The blue that is the blue sky and pulled cotton clouds.

I can’t feel the steering wheel.

Or my feet.

Or my lips.

I’m glad they’re gone.

I only feel

Blue.

The blue that is

The blue sky.

And 

Pulled

Cotton

Clouds.

[the-renegad-e]

Majority Rule

The first rule of a majority is that majority rules.

We gather in the square, gray as cobblestone, dispassionately watching a neck snap. We do not flinch as his corpse jerks. The rotting apple requires removal from the barrel. He thought we needed a leader; we thought he needed to remember his place.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the 53 Word Story Contest

Prompt: Majority

[the-renegad-e]

Home

If you were going to kill me, kill me

honest-- with blood and bone and brain

matter. Don’t try to play the Serenoa Repens;

if you want to be sharp, be sharp all over,

not just when rubbed the wrong way.

I have a home that isn’t mine, nothing

to possess but the nail clippings in the

trash and the hair in the sink. Nothing

but what I made for myself but somehow

less than myself too. Sterling silver shining

and still, I am shrinking. Shrinking is not

killing me honest: honest snapping and cracking

and folding like a graying card table in the

basement with the chips still down as it falls.

The silver is not silver and never was and I

can tell by the way it is coloring me

hazel. Her eyes are hazel but I cannot call

her home any more than I can call her

mine. She is killing me, but she won’t kill me

honest: won’t kill me harsh and impersonal

and cold. A home should not kill me gentle,

so when my eyes close, and there’s no one

to rip the nails from my fingers, and I’m 

dreaming in absolutes, the saw palmetto

is sharp all over. And when it finally kills

me, the dark will kill me honest.

[the-renegad-e]

KU Honors Application Essay

Prompt: When did you know?

I have always known. I knew when the Nile still ran from white to blue, when the meteorite missed us narrowly and carved a new crater into the moon. I knew when the soles fell off the shoes and when the wheels fell off the wagons, and for days everyone stood stock still.

I knew when I was drowning there is no sea quite like the one that fills up lungs, no other raging quite so immediate. I knew when air was back in my lungs.

I knew when the bells rang high noon, when the dust kicked up around two sets of boots, ten paces and a shot to the heart between them. I knew when the shiny face in the mirror stopped crying she never would again, would only draw infinitely close, like a line approaching negative infinity never crosses the vertical asymptote. I knew when she woke up without tear ducts.

I knew when I had something to lose that I would surely lose it, and when I had the strength to run I did, ran to the top of the craggiest mountain and hid for months in the ugliest cave, drawing images I could not see on the walls with bloody fingertips, but loss found me anyway and took all that I had to lose away, leaving me alone with everything to gain. I knew when the shadow touched the wall.

When did you know? I always have. We are of this world and it is of us, and I have always known. When the sun set into a red sky at night, I knew. When the flowers opened and radiance erupted from their mud freckled faces, I knew. When the dream became its own reality, the simulation its own world, life’s meaning and purpose obscured by the haze of illusion, I knew. I knew when the world got complicated, when one day it was decided that the truth is the truth only in the most general sense, and fiction reigned, for the only mouth that cannot lie is the one which never claimed to tell the truth. I knew when the icebox rattled there was only ice inside.

I knew when I woke up and it was tomorrow that time travel was only a matter of whether one chooses to live in the past, present, or future. I knew when the smoke cleared and the world was white with falling ash that it was finally over, everything we ever fought for buried deeper each second under a blanket of dirty snow. I knew when the dragon left the lake that there was no lake, and when the soldier left for war he would come back war-torn. I knew when I blew air into the lungs of the CPR mannequin that it would not wake up, but I did my thirty chest compressions anyway because it deserved a chance at armless and legless life.

When did you know? I always have.