Lovin' It (VI.)

Roll the bag, tuck it, then fold over. Place in empty prescription bottle and seal. McDonald's sweet tea, extra ice, enough to bury the bottle and keep it from floating to the top, close lid. Let them pull me over and see if I don't just sip this shit.

Wergyld (V.)

The kid was probably 17 and he didn't have a chance. All that timing in my head, X seconds before they have the chance to react, X more to bound through the cluttered rooms, dark save for the bright cartoons strobing and beating out across the walls, and around the snake aquariums and children who should be asleep. If he planned it at all, he didn't think about those things, or it could be that I underestimated Rhiel and her people. All I heard was the hiss of air forced from a Ziploc bag by a hasty hand and the great black arm that crushed a throat against the wall so that the pictures fell and I stepped backwards onto a shrieking baby's hand.

Snake in the Grass (IV.)

I always called it "The Master Bag" in my head, because it was the big bag she took from to weigh everyone's orders out. Always it sat on the desk next to her computer where she played between deals, always in my mind the waiting for an opportunity to snatch it. If I left my car unlocked before I went in, and her husband wasn't in the room, I could picture myself grabbing it and darting out of the house and never coming back. I thought about how little I'd lose finding another dealer after it eventually ran out, but then I thought about my Vans and the stains that never quite came out.

I Have to Go (III.)

I never wanted to stay because of the little black kid in the diaper. I would get in, toss my money on the desk in a hurried way and tell Rhiel what I was after. She reliably took her time sorting my bag because she was always watching internet videos of angry poor people tearing each other up in the streets, her husband or whatever leaning over her shoulder cheering at the screen with his mouth full. Even if it was two in the morning the kid would eventually wander out of the dark and bump into my shins and crane his neck at me, rubbing his eyes, repeating, "Pick me up."

Nobody Beats Aaron's (II.)

I go back and remember. Dog shit dried into the carpet, the cockatiel's cage still leaning in the corner with the remains of the bird dangling through the bars. Scuff marks across the far wall from the enormous plasma they rented just before they moved here, hoping to dodge the payments. This is where I stood in a stranger's blood.

Burg (I.)

I knew what they meant by addiction in a moment when suddenly I became conscious and realized it's been a few years since I began and none of that time makes sense in or out of any context. This tear-down carnival ride of meta-memories conjoining and curving to swallow their tails looping on and on through the ephemera. I'm not the same person on the same planet with the same friends, anymore. I've lost everything to the cup trick.

LexiCon

English words are a load of piss. You try to stand up for yourself but then you get stood up. You have to go out on a limb to see that you're barking up the wrong tree. Someone says you dropped the ball but you could have sworn that was just your balls dropping.