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Skin

I like to look at people’s skin. The way others might notice a man’s eyes, or the curve of a woman’s hip, I notice complexion and skin tone. It’s not the face I’m drawn to but the skin on forearms or around the collarbone, the wrinkles on knuckles — that’s real skin.

Columbus Avenue

Jonsared

He doesn’t seem crazy. Not at all. There’s no muttering, no matted hair, no tics, no eyes that are keyholes into rooms where the worst things happen.

Advice To William Somebody

I can’t count the number of times I have officially assembled the equipment to take my life: a knife, a handgun, a plastic bag, a bottle of codeine and a fifth of vodka.

Cementhead

I can see where my spit blood turned the ice pink. Finally, I catch him in our goal crease. We butt heads before I haul him down and fall on him with my stick over his throat. I lean on the stick and grind a little until I feel that collarbone give — ka-pop.

Driving Through Heavy Fog

A Life Without Consequences

The psychiatrist wants to know if I have allergies, if I take any medication. I tell him I have hay fever. He rubs his bald head; I rub mine. His window is covered with wire mesh. Outside, it’s starting to rain. He pages absently through his manual with a large thumb, not really looking for anything. I can feel the rain in my bones. Since I ran away a year ago, I’ve spent a lot of cold, wet nights huddled under boxes, hiding in boiler rooms. Running, running.

March 2000

I’m living inside the folds of a living planet, held by its gravity, wrapped in its atmosphere, breathing in and breathing out. How can I forget this? No, I don’t like rainy days. Still, I can praise the rain.

Free Spirits

I have been waiting for the voices, for the vague, disarming incoherence of psychosis, for evidence, substantiation, beyond my crooked teeth and lazy eye, that I am indeed my father’s son.

Spring

This is what my mother, in the end, couldn’t bear: the forward rush of possibility, the hum of new life buzzing in the air as winter opens to spring. Surrounded by such sweet promise, she felt as empty as a footprint pressed in dried mud.