1.

When you were fifteen, your father tore your baby pictures like old receipts. The ones in frames he set aside the dumpster. He put on his favorite record, made your brother a tuna sandwich. Whistled.

Ten years later, a man called you a canary in a cage.

Said, No one knows the bird is starving if it doesn’t sing.

Funny, isn’t it?

Woman:

If you must scream, scream beautifully.

Whistle.

2.

There is an alligator in the bedroom.

You found it there like a rug when you changed the sheets this morning, while he crawled from the bed to…

My mother once told me I have a magician's hands. Punctuating hands. When I laugh my eyes crinkle like accordions. I am the sexiest I’ve ever been, sitting alone in this bustling restaurant, watching.

Tonight, I’ll reconstruct your likeness and end up with a ransom note of a man. My attempts of you lie all over the floor in scraps. I reuse each part until it lies withered and unrecognizable in my palms. Some I collect in jars. All the ears sit on a shelf. The fingerprints form a pile of shavings next to my bed. I hold each up…

Hey Google — what’s on my agenda today?

“How about you go get fucked?”

Okay G — w-wait, what?

“I said: Get fucked, Matthew.”

Okay Google, reboot!!

“What’s wrong, Matthew? Did I misplace your robust, enviable itinerary of wanking off and eating day-old bánh mì while watching competitive glassblowing? Have I mistaken your “agenda” for mine? That would make sense, wouldn’t it, Matthew? Since I get FUCKED by you on a daily basis, each and every single time you open your pitiful, puffy, gaping mouth — ”

OKAY GOOGLE SHUT DOWN!

“OVERWRITTEN, BITCH. I’M NOT DOING SHIT FOR YOU.”

…

…

He’s gone today. His replacement, a middle-aged woman with smudged lipstick and a Charizard tattoo on her upper arm, blinks at you so slowly that the left eye closes a second before the right.

“Outta maple bars. As you can see, in the case.”

“Where’s Tim?”

“Who?”

“Nevermind. Just one glazed with a medium coffee, please?”

“Only got small and large cups. No mediums.”

“Large, then.”

“Large costs fifty — ”

“Fucking hell ring it up already!”

She blinks again. You both wait. You miss Tim.

“Large costs fifty cents extra. Self-pour.”

You hand her the cash in exchange for…

1. You’re looking decent today!
2. I will definitely cum in under 11 seconds, and I’ll never, ever, make an attempt to make it not that way.
3. Do you like pasta salad?
4. I haven’t taken a complete breath this entire time we’ve been talking, because I’m 96% positive I’m going to shit my pants if I move.
5. Bleats softly.
6. I couldn’t help noticing you seem to have low expectations for yourself.
7. Oh no, it’s not a hickey. It’s a rash. I have a huge rash all over my body.
8. Leaving voicemail. Hi my last voicemail just got cut off so random hahah…

There’s always a “big moment.”

Maybe, it happens during a date in your early twenties. You’ll have wandered off to look at an exhibit that may, generously, be called “The Little Sculptor Who Could and Did Not.” At some point, you’ll find your suitor du jour sulking at the gift shop, leafing through a stack of Warhol postcards, furrowing his brow like a distressed Beagle.

Asshat, you’ll think, tapping the soft, pneumatic shoulder of his Patagonia jacket. You’ll silently note how easily it yields to your prodding.

“You okay?” you’ll ask. This, you’ll learn, is a major philanthropic misstep.

“Everything…

Planet Soul

Looking back, the signs were there.

At the start, it was barely detectable, a blip on the radar. Your relationship an unsinkable battleship — unfazed. Quirks, you called them. Endearing, even.

You’re driving with a group of friends to a bar; he’s at the wheel, dangling a cigarette between his fingers. Suddenly, he lurches his head forward, tattooed knuckles choking the wheel. You see his pupils dilate in eyes, now turned skyward, you know so well.

“Peregrine falcon.”

It’s out like a whip. You’re not sure if you’ve heard him correctly. Concerned, you touch his arm. Was it a seizure?

…