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Ljubljana “I knew he was in love with me,” she said, “but my new, wealthy husband, then one by one the children, those who lived and those who died, claimed my attention. Also he’d started drinking, and I wasn’t happy with those sonnets tying his fate to that of our unhappy homeland, though I didn’t feel it was a stretch.” She gestures at her bas-relief two stories up. “It flatters me somewhat. Also, I was nearsighted; can I really see his statue two blocks away?” She leads us to his other surviving haunts. Of the four clueless tourists, three drift off; the literature student savors and files some visual referent; and then there are – if the phrase isn’t too quaint – the lovers. The place where he drank with decayed intellectual nobles is a bank; by the stream he loved, she kneels embarrassingly at the spot where he imagined making love to her. Small Window She couldn’t get out. Said she needed, but really only had, to work. There were pressures beyond that of traumatizing the kids, perhaps darkening their entire future; but then, kids’ futures are bad anyway. Not her thought. She stole a moment to watch the yellow appearing among green leaves, lending weight to the royal, no, imperial blue backdrop. It was the sort of day when those who like cool regain the IQ points they lost in May. Vast parks she knew to the north of one city, in the heart of another, infused images of a picnic, philosophical discussion, constrained but vigorous foreplay. Hard to judge if this vision was classical or romantic. Benchmark Some feared thing happens, not the way you’d imagined: more simply, vulgarly, offhandedly. And you have a glimpse of how small you are (heart and gut even smaller) in the scheme of things – portentous phrase! – that vision reputed to bring peace, which doesn’t. The eyes of passersby (in this era, one imagines Fifth Avenue, valley of decision) say Deal with it; then each retreats into the fortress where each is safe and all-competent. In a bar, one of those where nothing untoward ever happens, you notice how the glass at the end of your arm is lifting your arm; how the drink is drinking you, although you’re paying. Slow Movement Music was coming from somewhere outside – my music, a minority taste; and I wondered who among the faces I know by sight but seldom address (nor they each other) was playing it. And pushed aside knowing that the bemused, healthy response, if sought, would involve an accident, a passing mood, “I like all music” … Constructed instead a tenuous widening circle, a community like that of leaves on successive trees and streets touched by one breeze, a thought beneath melancholy, a pause inflecting action … the silence of all other things expanding till it reached my nonexistent hill. Author of two book-length narrative poems, THE ADVENTURE and HAPPINESS (Story Line Press; the former reissued 2022 by Red Hen Press), and two collections, A POVERTY OF WORDS (Prolific Press, 2015) and LANDSCAPE WITH MUTANT (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018). Many other poems in print and online journals.Lives in Washington, DC

POEM ON THE PAGE catch me, save me from the page. STANDARD OBIT fun size of this side MY EASTER ISLAND The hay bales will return. The Andromedins made sure by teaching us to sow the dreaming earth with tiny stars in disguise. FALSE SPRING Just kidding. Only April snow on a shocked spruce. Could have happened to me. Could have happened to you. Mark Jackley is a poet who lives in northwestern Virginia.

It doesn’t need to be easy to love you I want to come into your grief house and sit beside you. We don’t need to open the windows, we can lean against opposite sides of the couch while it rains outside. The windows are navy, the Christmas lights make it worse make it better, make it tolerable, make me love you. The first few lines are always easiest as they’re the time before the space full of my fullest hearts, the beginning makes sense but this is second beside third, resting beneath first, what do I gesture to make you know I care, how do I angle my hands, when can I be myself around you. But we’re in the grief house, rains are oh-my-god status, I’m dreaming of tracing my pains into the fabric of the couch with a knife, I’m easiest to love when I know what kind of love you’d like. Might you hold me in my own grief house, no, I cannot be beside anyone when my heart is unflaking, numb, quiet, can you look at me sobbing or would you prefer other salt, maybe make me sandwiches on week-old bread, give me water, take my socks off when I’m sore. Grief house is full, the rain could stop but I like humidity and winter coats, standing with a hand over my eyes as our lashes grow, heavy, easiest to want you and I know we’re deep in life now, I hide my language, I’m underwater, but will you see me, swipe a beetle off my arm so it doesn’t bite, carry me despite the house, despite, despite. Used to hold your words, made a new star to carry the blues and violets, I tried to sit beside you despite the distance and here I am still. When gentle rain coats the roof, when sleep is a fight, persist in easy ways. I thought I could tell you now, but it’s not time, can we remain friends even in this thicket of grief? Maybe I can break my promises to myself, admit to you how night warms, sometimes warps, my history, how I cry easiest at the thought of you disappearing, been up late to make sure I don’t miss your teal sounds, we’re nearing rain’s end but if you don’t know how much I care at this point then I don’t know how else to tell you. Except besides all the haze-gray dreams I clipped for your ears, lost light and almost risked losing you, I’ve been given access to the house but I don’t have a key. I enter under rain roads and silliest jokes, I’m beside you as you sob, one hand on the fridge handle, one hand on your chest, I’m not peeking, I’m counting tiles on your kitchen floor. maxilla lost, time twists into days, then come three in the morning you’re near, teeth at my throat, hands pressed to sides, hands to me, warm from the Tuesday sun. I thought I’d said goodbye to our energy yet here you are, begging me back again, brilliant beneath the kitchen lights, lovely as ever as you reach into the fridge for a handful of dough. We pick at the fruit with our bare hands, which is never a good idea because everything good bleeds and also I am in love with the way that you eat strawberries from your palm. Cross-legged in soft work pants our backs are pressed to the cabinets, I only care about catching your gaze, I am swallowing every honest thing I’ve ever wanted to say, I am untrue, I am unchanged, I am still here. You gazing at the moonlights, bulbous and full, wondering why we’ve run out of words to say yellow. Outside, the deli is still open, all pink then lilac reflected in wet streets. Do you miss tasting me? I’m starting to think I can’t write unless I’m enamored with you. Perhaps that would explain why I took a break for over a month, took a whole month trying to rid myself of your presence yet you linger in every stanza and line break I can see you leering between bursts of language. I guess I missed you I wonder if you can see it in my jaw. Sam Moe (she/her) is a writer of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. She is pursuing a PhD in creative writing at Illinois State University. Her work has appeared in The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls, The Shore, and others. She received an Author Fellowship from Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing in June, 2021.

The screen door burst open. Erlene, a black pony-tailed girl, ran through the house until she reached the kitchen. "Nana, come see! Smokey is at it again,” and ran out just as fast. The screen door shut louder than before. Nana didn't stop washing dishes. Not until she towel-dried them and put them into their respective cabinets. That took a minute. After that, she hung up the dish rag and then went outside. Before her was a bunch of badass children in her front yard, in a circle, jeering and cheering at two boys fighting. Nana descended the porch as deliberate as her body could, went around her sitting granddaughter enjoying an icy cup, crossed the lawn, and swam through a frenzy of colored children. With maternal cruelty, she separated her grandson and some bright-skinned boy. Despite being torn apart, they kept at it. One blow glanced her face. So she warned her grandson to stop, but he ignored her, so it took a swift whack upside his head to get him to quit. Seeing this, Cornbread feared the same. He broke free and ran into the street, but took the time to turn around, grab his private parts, and then flash his middle finger. He loudly told Smokey where he and his granny could put their mouths before running off. “You better run you coward,” Smokey yelled. “You can't hide. I know where you live, you idiot. Don’t think you're going to get away with that. You—." Most of the children followed Cornbread, laughing the whole while. The rest tried hanging around, even though the skirmish had ended, in the hope of watching some more fireworks, but Nana shooed them off, telling them they better take their narrow behinds home. There was nothing else to see. Slowly but surely, they left. And once they were all gone, Nana spun toward her grandson. He was busy hand brushing the dirt and grass from his hair and clothes. So he hadn't notice that she knelt down and dug up a fistful of freshly cut lawn. “Come here,” she told him. Obeying, he approached. Suddenly, Nana took hold of his jaw and tried to force feed him turf. Taken aback by this, Smokey defended himself, but without fighting back. Instead, he fell to the ground to take a fetal position and used both arms to cover up his face. Right then, that shiny black Lincoln Continental Mark IV convertible drove up. It was Pearl, Smokey's Mama. The top was down, the radio loud. Somewhat confused by what she saw, Pearl twice honked the horn twice, but was ignored. She then laid into it, but got the same response. “Mama! Mama!" She hollered. "What's going on? What did he do?” Nana hadn't relented. So Pearl exited the car and raced over to them. She knew that her Mama could get downright mean and evil in her old age and do some strange and foolish things and this could be one of them. “Mama! Mama!" Pearl pulled her mama off Smokey. She tried to do it nicely without hurting her. But Nana's resistance left her little choice, so she grabbed around her chest and lifted her off of him. "Mama, stop it! Leave him be." Smokey crawled to safety, leapt up, breathing heavy, but spoke his mind. “Mama? Grandma’s gone crazy!" He said, "She tried to make me eat dirt.” “Take your hands off of me," Nana replied, shedding Pearl’s hold. "Don't you ever do that again, baby girl. I mean that. You're not my parent." "Yes, mama." Pearl replied, "But I —." "My house, my rules. Understand?" Nana interrupted. "Yes, mama." Pearl repeated. "I've had it up to here with that damn boy." Nana replied, "I bet it has something to do with that mouth of his. I’m sick of his foolishness. Every time I look up, he's into something. I sure wish he’d give it a rest. If not, I know what to do." From there, Nana threw the wad of dirt back to the ground, wiped her dirty hand across her apron, and stormed off. Pearl tried to talk to her, but got only thrown-up hands, as she watched her mama stomp up the porch and go indoors. Erlene was nearly stampeded, but she quickly scooted out of the way. As soon as the door banged shut, Pearl approached her son and snatched him, yanking him closer, so their eyes could lock. “Out with it!" Pearl scolded. "What have you done? It can't be good when my Mama is out here wrestling with you? You should be ashamed of yourself. So again, what did you do?” "I didn't do anything," he replied. "I promise you I didn't." His mother stood akimbo, then bent down and removed one shoe, brandishing it in his face. "What've I told you about lying? Say it again? I dare you. Now! What did you do?" Smokey had bad options: the shoe; or, the fear of getting two belts. So instead of repeating his innocence, he involved his little sister. Pearl played along, summoning Erlene. "Erlene, come over here." Pearl beckoned. Pearl knew Erlene could be a real nuisance. She hung out with and tattled on her brother a lot. So she would know. Plus, she had a ringside sit on the front porch. Erlene got up and skipped over, enjoying a large icy cup, displaying a big grin, with blue lips and tongue. "Tell it right," Smokey opined. "You're not my daddy," Erlene replied. "Shut it," Pearl replied, the shoe heel softly tapping his nose. "I don't want to ruin my shoe, but I will.” Erlene laughed. "Stop that." Pearl told her, "So do you or don't you know what happened?" "Yes, ma'am. I do." Erlene replied. "Okay?" Pearl asked. "Out with it." Smokey could only listen. To speak out of turn would be dumb, stupid even, because he would get it for sure. No doubt about that. All he could do was hope that his sister told it right, from start to finish. Maybe then, Mama would have pity on him and see it for what it is and convey that to Nana. "Well, I wanted an icy cup. Mama, you know, I like icy cups. So I kept nagging Smokey to take me to the corner store to go buy me one. He finally said: 'Okay, already, let’s go.’ On our way there, we meet Cornbread and some of his silly friends. Now I don't know who said what, but somebody said something smart. Smokey replied and the next thing I know, they were in each other's face going at it. Mama? Smokey used a lot of bad words. He called Cornbread a mo-fo, the b-word, the f-bomb, and used some I never heard of, but I can say them if you want.” Pearl stared at her son, still quiet. "That's not necessary," then she insisted."Go on." "Cornbread couldn't come up with any comebacks, so his friends told him to just give it up, and get back at him on another day. So instead of saying the magic word: ‘Your Mama,’ to admit that he lost. He chose to call Nana a flea-bitten old dog. Smokey punched him, like this. Hit him so hard, he fell down. Smokey then stood over him and said: 'Look at you, flat on your butt/Just like your mama looking up at—These Nuts/Now pride will tell you, you didn’t get beat/Yet I’m the only nigger standing on his two feet/Too bad I can’t stay and buttermilk your face/I promised my little sister a icy cup from the snow cone place/So I suggest you stay there and keep your big mouth shut/And obey like a good mutt,’ and then left him there on the sidewalk. “His friends began wilding out. Once we made it inside the store and I got my icy cup—vanilla blueberry—you know that’s my favorite." Erlene took a break to enjoy her melting icy cup and then she continued. "When we got back to the house, Cornbread and his friends were there waiting. Smokey told me to go sit on the porch and stay there. Next thing I saw was them fighting. So I ran inside and got Nana and she came outside and broke them up. Then I went and sat back on the porch, chewed on my icy cup, and watched. Nana told everybody to go home and got cursed at.” “By who?” Pearl asked. “Cornbread.” Erlene identified. “You know, that yellow looking boy. Mr. Williams's son. "Okay?" Pearl replied. "What else?" "Nana then jumped on Smokey," Erlene continued, "Then you drove up. That's it.” Pearl giggled. "Okay? That's good. Now go on inside, I need to talk to your brother." “Yes ma'am,” replied Erlene. “Thanks for the icy cup, Smokey.” She left just as she came, skipping across the lawn, but went up the front porch, and into the house. The screen door slammed shut. “Smokey, where did all this cursing come from?" She asked him, giving him permission to talk. "I got ears, Mama." Smokey replied. "I hear stuff." "And so does your sister," she reminded him. "She shouldn't be within earshot of such foul-mouths. So from now on, don’t do it around her, you got it. And stop all that cursing." He nodded. "Got it?" Pearl said. "Yes ma’am," Smokey corrected. "Better yet, find some better words. Try more English." Pearl warned him. "I'd hate for you to slip up and say one around Nana." “Yes ma’am,” he agreed. "I'll try." "You better do better than try," Pearl replied. “Now that I have an idea of what went down, you’re damn lucky I drove up when I did. Although a mouthful of dirt could've done you some good." This caused Smokey to grimace. "Stop playing Mama," Smokey replied. “I still don’t think I did anything wrong." “I know,” she replied. “You never do. As for getting Nana’s blood pressure up from scuffling with her, I’m putting you on punishment for two weeks. House arrest might do you some good. You could use that time making it up to Nana by doing whatever she requests." “Seriously," Smokey replied, dejected. He thought it was unfair, but what could he do — complain and to whom? Once Mama ruled, it was a done deal and she never overruled herself. "Now, what you’re going to do is go inside and apologize to Nana,” Pearl insisted, putting her shoe back on. “You're going to tell her that you were wrong and meant no harm by it, but the fight you had came from playing the dozens and things got out of hand. The other boy couldn't handle the jokes and said something nasty about her, and that made you upset. So you lashed out. Tell her that, okay?” "Okay," Smokey replied. Mother and son left the front yard for the house. Pearl placed her son in a loving headlock, assuring him everything will be fine, and all was forgiven, but he better pray Nana listens and doesn't have a belt already in hand. Her house, her rules. Wayne McCray's short stories have appeared in Afro Literary Magazine, Bandit Fiction, The Bookends Review, Chitro Magazine, The Dillydoun Review, Drunk Monkeys, Ilinix Magazine, Roi Faineant, The Ocotillo Review, Ogma Magazine, Pigeon Review, The Rush Magazine, Sangam Literary Magazine, Swim Press, and Wingless Dreamer. He holds a MA from Southern University and now lives in the Mississippi Delta.

CLEMATIS VINES for Agata I. Like entwined vines of clematis pink —with invisible beginning and no visible end— we create a green wall which protects us both. In each loop a different talk, a walk though the park, a taste of coffee after dark, its lingering smell tickling the heavy summer day, and that something BEAUTY-SEEKER for Wojciech D. Innate, child-like curiosity for beauty, quick wit and feet moving towards the opportunity —through the opening doors— of seeing colourful tiles, architectural green, and the archway above the entrance welcoming him in. Alina Hanusiak is a Polish creative writing PhD student at University College Dublin, where she researches musicality in poetry of others and her own.

Snip. Onomatopoeia. Except, when you are an amateur attempting to cut hair for the first time, it sounds more like: Sss-nn-iii-p. No, wait. It's actually sss-nn-iii-p? With the question mark, yeah. SNI-P. Oh, that was a bold sound. You look down. Three tufts of your wavy hair lie partly on your bare feet, and partly on the white-tiled floor you curl your toes against. Weird. For a moment, you stare at the strands and try to reach into the depths of your soul for a Murakami-esque analogy— something so profound, it'll make you cry. You blink. Wavy hair. Waves lapping at your feet? Nah. You start snipping away confidently, but not too confidently. You don't want to maim yourself, after all. Fuck these scissors are heavy. The final SNIP! sounds whip-crack sharp. You place the scissors on the marble countertop and flex your fingers. The red indents on your index finger and in the groove between your index and middle fingers smart. You blow on them. It obviously doesn't help. You decide to ignore the pain by taking in the carnage at your feet— well, it'd be a carnage were your hair dyed blood-red, but they're only their natural dark brown. Oh, well. You wiggle your toes, enjoying the softness of your slain strands for a moment before taking in and letting out a breath. You look up. At yourself. At your reflection in the mirror, that is. You can't recognize yourself. The hair on your head sticks out at odd angles, not close-cropped, but baring enough: the roundness of your cheeks, the smattering of dark pimple scar marks on your temples. You take off your glasses and place them on the countertop, then gingerly touch your hair—your fingers sense their softness differently than your toes. You open the tap, wet your hands, hiss at the pain caused by the water hitting the now-pinkened indents on your fingers, and shut the tap. Save water, people. You pat your hair down, put your glasses back on, and then take in the tsunami-hit wreckage of your wavy hair. The enormity of what you have done dawns upon you and you begin to panic. How will your parents react in the morning? What if they ground you until you graduate highschool? How are you going to face everyone at school the next day? What if you become the laughing stock among students and teachers alike? How does one dispose of hair? What do the beauty parlour people do? Sweep them into the dustbin— but what if someone makes a voodoo doll using your hair? You don't believe in tona-totkas but, what if? Surely those old wives told truths before their sayings were passed down as tales? Oh God, you’re going to have a panic attack. Fuck this, you think, focusing on breathing in and out deeply, deciding: you’ll deal with it the next morning. The bathroom floods with darkness as you switch off the light, and stagger outside, leaving your dark deed behind. Mugdhaa Ranade wakes up everyday hoping to find dry leaves to crunch underfoot, and stray cats to pet. Her writing has appeared in Overheard Lit, 50-Word Stories, and is forthcoming in Bending Genres and Versification Zine. She can be found in person in Mumbai, India, and online on Twitter @swxchhxnd.

Currying Forms See all this? I use this as an excuse to avoid cooking, learning about it, shopping for ingredients, setting down recipes, putting time aside to make meals There is no doubt in my mind I could save money and possibly lose weight cooking for myself, but it is not laziness that keeps my cookery in place Aesthetics move me to a still kitchen, not disturbing the way the pots sit shining on the stove, and how the plates in the cupboard form a rainbow On the Hacking of His Facebook Account There is no better way to hear from people you haven’t talked to in years, all you need is a hidden actor with malicious intent imitating you online, the same picture, the same name, and access to the same list of friends, then your long lost acquaintances will contact you with messages asking if you are the one who sent them repeated offers for male enhancements, or instructions on how to reach lonely singles in their area with a click, it might be something political, a scam that claims to be for a good cause, but more likely it will be a link to some spam about how to make mad money by playing games hosted on URLs that run forever and collapse on themselves and while you have their attention in the messaging app of your choice, you can ask them how they figured it out, how did they eventually realize some unseen program was imitating you? Was it more than just bad grammar? Hannah I kept trying to remember her name the other day, not for anything nefarious, just for my sanity, once I discovered a gap in my memory, I had to fill it, as if the space was about to turn into a hole and the hole would turn into a leak for everyone else Gone officially from social media, it was impossible to find her that way, all I saw were names and faces for people I’ve never met interacting with other people who are strangers except in name, or people I would never just casually forget, Going through my friends’ photos that were posted online years ago, I tried to see if she was tagged, mentioned, pointed out, or if her name was given to the title of whole albums of single images, no luck, I wondered if I was losing her face too Trawling through dating sites jolted my memory, when I saw her first name, attached to the personality of someone I matched with, allegedly, the satisfaction at filling the gap was good, and brief, now I have to try and recall what her surname was Mindshare Quest Taking a survey of my habits, There’s a little bit of money And a lottery for a gift card involved If I do enough of them I will start saying my habit Is taking surveys from strangers I may get there soon, Reaching the online ouroboros With a survey on the quality of surveys, It’s simple and easy, Since I know all of the answers Without the need of a pen or pencil Nothing I put is ever wrong, So long as I am completely honest, And I discover my self a bubble at a time Ben Nardolilli currently lives in New York City. His work has appeared in Perigee Magazine, Red Fez, Danse Macabre, The 22 Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, Elimae, The Northampton Review, Local Train Magazine, The Minetta Review, and Yes Poetry. He blogs at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com and is trying to publish his novels.

The funeral home I worked at began as an anomaly. Before Sweet Services popped up at the corner of the town’s only intersection, funeral homes pretty much looked exactly like the boring, sterile ones you saw on TV. I was told when bright, playground chic Sweet Services came around, you’d mistake it for a candy store of sorts, and the name didn’t help. If you didn’t already notice the muted yellow casket-shaped doors before entering, you’d be in for a sour surprise. This was why, a bit over four years ago, I decided to apply as their resident mortician. I never read the newspaper. And so I found it serendipitous when I picked one up on a whim and saw an article about the Sweet Services ribbon cutting, complete with an interview with one Mallory Rodriguez, their founder and funeral director. People unexpectedly hailed the novelty of Sweet Services as a symbol of celebrating the life of those who once lived, cementing the good despite the bad with its baby pink walls and mint green benches. I found out eventually that Mallory just liked the idea of pastel caskets, and so built an institution surrounding it. As soon as I sat across from Mallory’s desk for my job interview, that very same day she decided to hire me, I knew instantly that we would click. She didn’t mind that I was a mortician by day and drag queen by night, and she didn’t care that I was as much of a loudmouth as she was. Mallory loved that I only wore ginger wigs while I was my hyper-femme alter ego Cassie Ketcher, and insisted I took inspiration from her flaming mop of red hair, only that hers didn’t look quite as dehydrated. What came as a surprise, then, was how I found a mentor in her, too. As a retired mortician, Mallory showed me how embalming was as much an art as it was a science, something I failed to fully grasp in mortuary school. The way her scalpel entered a body’s neck and trailed across skin was not unlike a duck treading mirrored waters, pressing forward without much thought. I always had two makeup kits—one for the living, one for the dead, both wildly unkempt. She said I only had to employ the reverence I had for drag onto the art of embalming to be a better mortician. Her words echoed inside me each time I picked up my tinting brush and helped the dead impersonate the living, if only for a few hours of viewing. By then, my life revolved around impersonation, an art ever so temporary. She became a mainstay at my shows, an attraction in her own right—I never got used to seeing this gentle-looking old lady floating amid a sea of gyrating, barely clothed queer people, hands clasped in front of her, swaying to the rhythm of whatever Ariana Grande song I was lip-syncing to. Her monochromatic pastel wardrobe became a built-in spotlight, and she relished every head-turn and double-take people did in her vicinity. Just one more thing we had in common. Whenever Mallory told me she wanted me to put her in drag, I always joked she was way too old to be my drag daughter. We never really got around to doing it. She would’ve looked beautiful, especially with her bone structure that somehow only grew more defined as she aged. I could put her in drag now, I thought, but I knew regular makeup only worked and melted with the heat of human skin, which Mallory was now lacking. I prepared her for her big viewing. She would once more be the center of attention. An hour before doors opened, I stood glued above her lilac casket, mind adrift as I fixed the stubborn clumps of red hair she never wanted out of place. Karl Khumo Calagan (he/him) is a queer Filipino writer, reader, book blogger, horror enthusiast, and lawyer aspirant. You can find him floating around over at karlcalagan.com.

I don’t remember begging my father for a leather whip, but he bought my brother and me leather whips in upstate New York the summer we went to a tent show run by a man who more than likely cracked a whip. I don’t remember: gee, I want one like his, or an assistant, or whip tricks like an assistant holds in her hand a paper dove a lash shatters, or the man fires blanks from a pistol at a grinning paper bear target, but he wore fringed buckskin and in the tent starred in a Wild West show. He’d starred in a TV western until cancer of the larynx forced him off TV. Here he was, a tent master in the summer night. He rode a horse around a ring, an audience clapped. I mostly remember the show ended, he told his small daughter if she couldn’t keep her dog quiet he’d take it out and shoot it. Somehow I knew she was his daughter, a pup in her arms as he spoke sharply. I knew also he starred in a TV commercial: he swam to a dock in a lake, as he sat on the dock a young woman draped a towel on his shoulders, and gave him a bottle of Coke, before his voice changed so it was no good for TV. I don’t remember the show he’d starred in, only his tent show, everyone getting up to leave, him towards the back scolding her so it wouldn’t happen again.

I awake sitting upright, alarmed, disoriented, pulse pounding, ears ringing like I just got slapped in the head by an irrational father. Yes, I do know what that's like, that's not the point. Something is wrong. Horribly wrong. Catastrophically. Wrong. I strain my eyes to get my bearings in the darkness, try to listen through the ringing and pressure in my ears, to make sense of the surreal clattering, like a bucket of marbles spilling out onto a table, a scoop of driveway gravel being poured into the bed of my father’s blue pickup truck. Cold spray hits my face, stinging hard, a bullying older brother with a garden hose. I turn my face away from the spray and two bright blue-white lines swim into view, shimmering in the darkness, tilting this way and that, squirming, not quite parallel, shrouded in heat distortion and smoke, too bright to focus on. The vertical, slit pupils of a demon Cheshire cat, surreal and menacing, too tall, too close together. Cat. My cat. My cat Snowball. My parents let me name her. Or maybe when she was a kitten and I was three and I said she looked like a little snowball, they decided that would be as good a name for her as any. Snowball, with the gray smudge on the top of her head that turned out to be fur color, not a grease spot that could be scrubbed off an angry kitten’s head with some dish soap and a wet washcloth. Snowball who sleeps on my legs when it’s cold. But it’s cold now, and she’s not here. The menacing, shimmering lines dim slightly, fading toward yellow. She’s an adult cat now, but still young. I’m not yet ten, and I’m sitting up in my bed, pulse still pounding in my chest, in my throat, breath coming hard, ears ringing, eyes straining to see. The lines dim toward orange. It’s my youth bed, the one with its wagon-wheel headboard like my younger brother’s across the room. The ones handed down from our older brothers when they moved into their army bunks and we moved out of our cribs in the tiny dark room tucked in beside the stairs. This bed is under a window that’s propped open to vent out the summer heat. Except it’s cold and pouring rain and hail and the wind is blowing it in through the window and my bed is soaking wet. The lines dim toward red. The other window. That’s where the other window is, between my bed and my brother’s. The lines are outside that window. For one blinding instant, it’s full daylight. The lightning reveals the yellow brick of the church next door, two dark lines where the bright lines were in the darkness as if a flash of negative on a spooky cartoon show. And then it’s dark again and the glowing lines are dimming out into the darkness. As the thunder comes with a chest-kicking boom, I put it together. The parallel lightning rods, thick braided cables that come down from the chimney above the church’s boiler, down the back of the building into our back yard. It’s so black because the power is out, the Standard station kitty-corner across the street unusually dark, no ambient light thrown from the Jim Dandy drive-in canopy or the illuminated menu boards at the drive-in spaces where the teenagers hang out after dark, their burgers and pops a thinly-veiled excuse to hang out with their peers, to scrounge desperately for teenage love, to make out furtively in the shadows of the back seats. If they’re out tonight they’re taking shelter in their cars, ragtops pulled shut and rolled-up windows fogging. Or maybe they’re at home safe from the storm—as safe as anyone can be in this flat country, where the tornadoes can smash a brick house just like a garden shed. But I can’t see the Jim Dandy from here, and no cars are lit up driving under the blacked-out stoplight. I turn in my sopping sheets and rise up onto my knees, for leverage to push up the bottom slider of the window, or to try, wriggling it side to side until I get it to move enough that the prop comes loose, and I can toss it to the floor in the dark behind me and slide-catch-slide the window shut without closing it on my fingers like my little brother did once. The hail clatters against the glass in defiance. Swimming in the darkness I stagger to the other window, above the wet toybox and the sopping carpet, and I do the same as with mine, wriggling it upward enough to loosen the sawed broom handle that props it open, and halt the sticky window closed against the storm. My brother, breathing in the darkness beside me, somehow never stirs. The room quieter now, except for the rain and the occasional hailstone hitting the window, I feel my way back to my bed beneath the window. The entire bed is sopping wet. I pull my pillow and the wool blanket off onto the relatively dry floor, wrap myself in the cool scratchy wool and find a relatively comfortable position as I wait for the wool to start holding my body heat. Sleep comes more quickly than I would expect, given the panic into which I just woke up. At some point, I think I have a dim memory of my mother coming into the room to check on us. Or maybe it’s a dream because it’s like I’m seeing her from my bed, not the floor. But in the morning, as the summer sunrise shouts in through my window and I wake stiff from lying curled on the floor, I realize that my still-damp wool blanket is covered under the spare blanket from the hall closet. It wasn’t a dream.

Here’s a picture of me, my parents, and my brother Chris, back in 1982. They are dressed nicely, perhaps for church or some event. I am showing my sense of decorum by wearing a hand-me-down Who tour t-shirt and jean jacket. I’m guessing that I just said something wicked clever before the picture was snapped because they’re looking at me, laughing and I seem proud of myself. More importantly, I want to point out the attitude of my head as captured. My head habitually tilts a bit forward and left, unless I consciously hold it straight. It always has. I never thought about it much, but I recently looked it up on the internet and I think I might have oblique cranial nerve palsy. I quickly devised a course of treatment in which I start smoking at least two packs of cigarettes a day, in hopes that it will stimulate the nicotinic cholinergic receptors in my central nervous system. It’s my theory that this sudden extreme influx of stimuli could trigger what amounts to a cold-reboot and reversal of the palsy. There exists no actual data to suggest that this might improve my condition, and the considerable cost of cigarettes will never be covered by health insurance. I’m on my own in this battle. Also, yesterday the food-maker at the Chipotle told me I couldn’t order a quesadilla face-to-face. You can only order a quesadilla online. I thought, “What does that even mean?”, as I staggered back to the car. “Do I still belong in this world? What is anybody talking about anymore?” Quesadillas aside (and across the political/philosophical spectrum for that matter) this really is an increasingly gutless, iniquitous, and silly society, and my whole town seems to stink like skunk weed all the time. Where does a man drop anchor and say, “This is what’s real”? Patrick McNally is a songwriter and front man for the band The Fox Sisters. He has a wonderful wife and two very cool children, who he is incredibly proud of. He is captain of his soul and is licensed to fish in the state of NY.

an approximation of sunlight on my red/gold curls the sidewalk cracks and the flowers that push through. i've always envied your self-confidence, but i want none of it. don't mistake that for self-love, darling. it's only pain. this walk home always reminds me of you, and the way you play with ghosts like they're toys or friends or lovers. i'm not sure why. maybe it's those struggling weed/flowers that aren't supposed to be there. like us, sister. like me. we aren't supposed to be here, and yet here we are, wasting our breath to scream. Freedom Strange collects pronouns, tea bags, and old records in a dusty, forgotten corner of Texas. You can find their dusty, forgotten corner of the internet too, at freedomstrange.carrd.co