SPACE! FUN! MARS!

The car ride was too long. I think that was the problem. She had...

Sun, 19 May 2013 11:13:19 -0400

The car ride was too long. I think that was the problem. She had too much time to think, and by the time we got home, her despair was obvious. I couldn’t leave her alone. The look on her face — I knew she would either turn us in or kill herself, and neither seemed like fantastic options. I made some coffee and watched her fall asleep, hoping she would wake up the next morning with a renewed will to survive.

I’ll cut my hair short for you, and you can call me by a...

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:58:29 -0400

I’ll cut my hair short for you, and you can call me by a boy’s name. I’ll have a doctor cut out my breasts. We will only make love in the ways you like. If we ever want children, we can adopt, and I will never mention we can have them any other way. I can be all the things you want. You just have to pretend a little. With some imagination, I can be who you want.

My faint reflection in windows. The weight of every day objects...

Thu, 16 May 2013 06:59:59 -0400

My faint reflection in windows. The weight of every day objects in my hands. The distant feeling of panic as time ceaselessly passes through the years. The ever changing difference between heat and cold and wind and stillness. I miss all these things, but losing these sensations doesn’t ache the way watching you rebuild your life in the house we shared together aches. I’m happy for you, but I wish I wasn’t stuck here, watching you do the things we never got to do. Watching the two of you grow old together.

Your blood dripped from my fingers, and I gagged your mouth in...

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:22:00 -0400

Your blood dripped from my fingers, and I gagged your mouth in case you woke up during the next cut. Your sister quietly begged me to take you to the hospital. “Holy fuck, he’s dying,” she said, but I pushed her away, leaving a bloody handprint on her shirt. If we showed up at the hospital at that point, they would have shot us on sight. My inexperienced hands were your only hope. Our only hope.

I have a rule: I won’t eat anything that has a face, which...

Mon, 13 May 2013 22:43:12 -0400

I have a rule: I won’t eat anything that has a face, which explains why my apartment is full of piles of severed faces.

Skin-snatching microscopic bird-like alien beings. They read our...

Sun, 12 May 2013 07:38:43 -0400

Skin-snatching microscopic bird-like alien beings. They read our minds. They sleep with our spouses without anyone knowing. They grow their eggs in our ears, which hatch in a swarm of those things still invisible to the naked human eye. They plant obsessive thoughts in our heads until we do things we never thought we were capable of doing. Good and bad. For better or worse. In my case worse. You would believe me if they hadn’t planted obsessive distrust in you. Those things are making us all turn on each other.

These kids were playing in my front yard — absentmindedly...

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:05:23 -0400

These kids were playing in my front yard — absentmindedly picking dandelions like they were flowers. It broke my heart when they moved from picking weeds to uprooting my wife’s flowers. Whatever they are called. Against all odds, those flowers still came back every year after all this time. The old me would have gone out to the front yard and chased them off, making a huge scene in front of the entire neighborhood. The new me watched to see what houses they entered. The new me took note.

If you hire me, you should know you are hiring a guy who is not...

Mon, 06 May 2013 08:14:35 -0400

If you hire me, you should know you are hiring a guy who is not afraid to put it all on the line. I’m a go-getter who is more than willing to take risks for both my own career advancement and the betterment of the company. I figure if I fuck up too bad, I always have one way out, and I’ll only care about that up until the moment before I do it.

Even from the outside, our new house looked slightly tilted, and...

Sun, 05 May 2013 07:50:43 -0400

Even from the outside, our new house looked slightly tilted, and I nearly panicked when I went inside and saw the house was sunken on both sides. The center of the house was the apex, and the floors and ceilings and walls all slanted down from that point like a giant tent. None of the pictures we hung on the walks looked anywhere close to straight. I could feel myself climbing slightly uphill and downhill as I moved throughout the house, and I closed my eyes tightly and tried to stand in one place and imagine everything straight or vanishing forever.

We whispered all our sins to the minister by the river where he...

Wed, 01 May 2013 07:08:15 -0400

We whispered all our sins to the minister by the river where he once baptized us, and he told us we were going to Hell - shock and dismay plastered over his face. We had to act quick. We threw him in the water, and I held him under a good ten minutes after he stopped struggling to be sure. We hoped he died before he had a chance to tell God all we had done.

We sat in our usual spots around the kitchen table....

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:10:18 -0400

We sat in our usual spots around the kitchen table. “Majority rules” my father said, “And a coin flip as the tie breaker.” My father said no. My mother said yes. My sister said no. I forced the tie. The coin flipped yes, so my father grabbed the biggest knife we had. Our guest tried to scream through the gag, and he squirmed so much, he fell off the table. It was so pathetic, I would have changed my vote if it wasn’t against our house rules.

We threw fireworks down storm drains on the Fourth of July and...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:19:41 -0400

We threw fireworks down storm drains on the Fourth of July and watched them come to life in the darkness. You called me your boyfriend all night, and I pretended you weren’t joking even as you chuckled at the words. I kissed you, calling it a joke, and you were too drunk to notice it was the happiest night of my life.

I feel like I’m capable of anything with you by my side. I...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 07:34:26 -0400

I feel like I’m capable of anything with you by my side. I mean, they’re all going to keep doing what I say if you are standing here with my gun to your head.

So many things wrong with our house. The leaky roof. The latch...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 06:37:56 -0400

So many things wrong with our house. The leaky roof. The latch on the gate I never get around to fixing. That suspicious smell in the basement. Our outdated kitchen. The way whispers drift down from the attic at night while we try to fall asleep to no avail. There is something wrong with our house, and I’m afraid we don’t have enough money to not stay here anymore.

When we ran out of room under the subfloor, we ripped the...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:25:18 -0400

When we ran out of room under the subfloor, we ripped the insulation out of the walls. We kept track of how many bodies were packed inside the walls by how cold it got in our house in the winter. By our skyrocketing heating bills. By the stench that started to ooze through the vents in the oppressive summer heat.

We were drinking in the morning, and we were late for work. It...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 08:53:48 -0400

We were drinking in the morning, and we were late for work. It didn’t matter. We knew the world was going to end soon — at least relative to the always stretching idea of infinity. We waited for the end to come. Maybe that day. Maybe the next. Maybe not within our increasingly shortening lifespans, but we’d be ready regardless. Drinks in hand.

To answer your question, no I don’t feel comfortable in my...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:46:39 -0400

To answer your question, no I don’t feel comfortable in my own skin. I feel much better when I’m wearing someone else’s. I did mention in my dating profile that I skin people alive and wear them like costumes, right? Must have slipped my mind.

I only listen to songs with your name in it now, so I...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:14:04 -0400

I only listen to songs with your name in it now, so I don’t listen to music at all anymore. And when I’m in the car with my wife, she always turns on her favorite radio station and hums along. I zone the noise out until your name sprawls across the airwaves, and I visibly panic and shut the radio off. It won’t be hard for her to figure me out someday as heartbroken and pathetic as I am.

What if this isn’t real? What if this is all a dream? You’d be...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 06:47:00 -0400

What if this isn’t real? What if this is all a dream? You’d be missing an opportunity for us to totally do it without your husband ever finding out.

I watched my house burn down, and I knew I would go to prison...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 06:31:58 -0400

I watched my house burn down, and I knew I would go to prison for this. I knew I just lost everything material and monetary I owned. I also knew I couldn’t live with myself if I merely sold this house of nightmares to some other poor sap and let the terrors inside destroy him.