Twinkle-toes, not because of sparkly nail polish but because I like to twirl everywhere I walk. I would wear a heavy barmaid's skirt with that weird strap that goes under a busty woman and cups her shoulders. I would always wear boots covering a scar on my ankle where I got a bad tattoo from the first guy I had to shoot. I never tell the story but my partner knows since she was there. It was her husband of all people, eager to try out a new needle and ink on some poor sap. I had been bitten by a rattler but not killed thanks to a neighbour's quick thinking as a child and was always anxious about my ankles since so I decided to let this guy, let's call him Brent, tattoo me. We'll call my friend Nyx, and she was close by with a gun at her side and her hands full of lemonade.

"So when can we expect you to be findin a husband?" she'll ask me in front of Brent because she doesn't want him suspecting anything going on between us.

"Maybe tomorrow," I mutter through clenched teeth as Brent hacks away at flesh and sends lines of inky blood down my heel. "Maybe Wednesday. Depends on how my tattoo heals."

She is barely eighteen and shouldn't even be married herself. I am grazing sixteen since that's the age that all old barmaids look back on tenderly. I wince and move my knee to watch Brent make a blob with the needle. He wipes away the blood then his sweat with the same towel. Brent was never the brightest bulb in the box, but I can tell by Nyx's face he has made a mistake that can only be erased with a time machine.

"What did you do to me?" I demand. I inspect my leg. "It was just supposed to be a rose, you simpleton!"

Not only is the blob now a nasty black booger on my ankle, but it also is a little lower than it should have been so the rattler bites are still visible. Pissed, I wrench my ankle away and grab Nyx's gun. Before Brent can even turn to face me, I've blown a hole in his skull. I limp inside, clutching my glass. Nyx just obediently fixes a hat on his head and gets a bucket for the blood. We've been on the run ever since.

She stands in the doorway, grey hair framing her wrinkled, soft face. "You okay, love?"

I grab the large tray with beers and walk past her, pressing a kiss on her forehead. "Just the ghost of your husband trying to fuck with me."

"Whatever you say, Twinkle-Toes," she says, slapping my ass as I walk past.

Pull me close and let me taste you,

Swallow me in your arms,

Shield me from the world around us.

Let it just be us again,

Dancing in the dark slowly

As the world burns around us.

I'm in a fucking rut and I hate it. I have so much that I feel like I could be doing. I could be finding a job or writing my screenplay or something but instead I just take depression naps. Even my dreams are starting to get stressful. Every other dream is about a test that I have to take that is daunting. I hate taking them. The latest was on King Kong Island and my friend, Fae, and I had to take on caring for children after taking Ernest and Son's Green Busses out into the ocean to try to get them to the next island before King Kong Island burned down. It was an amusement park island and the kids were all children of the staff. Before that, my partner had bestowed upon me a shadow necklace so I could have him there whenever I missed him. It was a really nice gift.

Let's see what other dreams did I have? I had the one with my cousin coming into a job agency I worked at. She's my older cousin and I haven't seen her since I was sixteen. She called me high once and I prefer to not remember it. I know she needed me but I was so upset she had th audacity to call me when high. I mean, I'm sure she wouldn;t have done so if she didn't need help. She didn't even ask me for money. I think she was just in a bad ordeal and needed help. I haven't talked to her since but she comes in my dreams every once in awhile.

What else happens up there? There's a school that's like a huge mall. I don't think I can keep going for another nine minutes honestly. I am getting tired as we speak. O did an interview today and except for having no idea what software they use, I think it went pretty well. I didn't do much dazzling though. You always know when someone is intrigued by you when you talk to them and they never shut up. At least that's what happens to me. People pick a few little things I say then I can pick up on what htey say and then we've got a conversation going. But, this time it was awkward. There were paises. I don't know what to make of it honestly. I;m about to go to the grocery store so I guess I'll fill out one of their applications. Kroger is always hiring.

I used to dream about getting a big break when this whole joblessness thing started. I would work from home. I would make more than I've ever seen before. A salary. Benefits. Pet insurance. I would get a pet turtle named Biff to celebrate. He would fart and shit out of his tail and stink up my room. It was the dream. I still have eggs in baskets. There's a speechwriting job that I had my hopes up for. I don't know why I don't tether those little bastards. Hopes and dreams are for losers, I'm starting to think. It makes me feel bad to be such a cynic but honestly, I really do feel that way. So long as I don't forget my pen, I'll make sure I sign up to work at Kroger. I could work in the deli. I could be the guy who keeps Rob from losing his finger when he slices it off after we're talking about my dreams and he gets so enamored with my brain that he loses his head... well, pinky, to the meat cutter.

What is that thing called. Will I be like the black lady in that meme where the woman hops over the counter and she's like unless your name is Salami, you shouldn't be back here and the woman's like I'm hiding from my ex, and the Black lady decides the woman can stay? I like that gif but I never was destined to be that woman. I mean, if people want to sit up straight and look both ways and cross their T's and dot their I's, that's fine by me but I'm a slouching writer who sleeps too much and dreams even more. I like to have my head in the clouds which is probably why I'm feeling the brunt of this hiring freeze. I think I'm doing okay but honestly I couldn't be sure either way. I have money, just a bit. Enough to enjoy the casino tomorrow with my mom and my grandmother and anyone else that comes. I just wish I was in a better position in life, you know?

A Rorschach of pen ink spilled

Delicately on white clothes,

Illustrating the unknown for eyes

Otherwise closed to the world.

Years ago, Rorschach's images,

Deemed nonger viable windows

Into the brain, became torn pieces

Dali used to melt into clocks.

Open the window once again,

Begged the spilled ink, pining

To be used rather than sopped up,

Discarded as pseudoscienfic,

Unethical, unrealistic, and dumb.

I feel its pain so I peer inside,

Letting the void slither into my irises

And probe my brain as it pleases.

He balled the letter up tightly and squeezed it, letting the angry pained tears run down his cheeks. All his life, his sister had never told him why she was such an angry person. Now, he knew after reading the Dear John letter why his sister left when he was a baby. He tossed the paper to his side and stood, letting the realization hit him like a tidal wave. From afar, the key clicked and the door opened. His dad's voice reverbed down the hallway but he heard nothing. Just the click of his dad's Glock and his angry footsteps.

Obscurity always knows how to steal joy,

Sucking it in like a vacuum of despair,

Planting kisses of death on any plan made.

Starting with the littlest aspects of life,

Dampening them with drenching acid rain,

Depression reigns supreme over my head.

Torrential tsunamis of push and pull,

Insanity versus sanity, if you deign believe

Either is on a separate, cleaner coin.

Whether there's a cleaner coin, mentally arises,

As I flip the shiny token of "joy" on knuckles

Bruised from beating the shit out of life.

Yet, every night, as I undo Mayweather's laces,

I look up to the sky and beg God to give me

A sign and let a star shine through for luck.

After years of slipping through fingers

That clutched so tight, half-moons

Outlined desperate and sweaty palms,

I saw him again, in the wild, not long ago,

And my heart stopped.

The heat in my body radiated like lava,

Melting every resolved feeling, thawing

All those tears I had frozen long ago,

Which threatened to burst right there.

My fingertips sucked the blood back

To my crazed heart that leaks cracks

Like the spiderwebs that held trash

For so long after he left me in the dirt.

And there he was again.

A new body, a new smile, a new life,

Yet still no ring on his left finger.

No surprise Mr. No Commitment could

Change everything about himself

After walking into a sea of death,

Cleansing his soul in the navy blue water

Outside his broken hometown and rising

To the challenge to help girls like me.

His first, or maybe his last, I'd like to think

I stayed on his mind until his dying breath,

Until God showed me that beautiful smile

As he waved and walked back into the sea.

But, he's back and will never be mine again.

Poetry is best created

After the moment passes

And you breathe.

In.

Out.

Air flows through you,

Brushing your hair softly,

Reminding you gently,

Though the trees fall

And the oxygen gets low,

Manna still falls at night.

My traditions lie like a forest after a fire,

Cracking and black and unfruitful.

The life that once chattered and sang

Whether the sun shone bright above

Or stars twinkled to their tunes

Scurried off to protect themselves,

Leaving the house vicitm to the elements.

Despite seeing the world around me,

The Mayans may have struck bigger

Than any Gregorian or Julian calendar

Ever dreams since it still stands, evidence

Of the union of arithmetic and faith

Raising nature to work for society

Yet never bend to break under pressures.

How I wish nature raised me like Tarzan

(Maybe with thirty-percemt less racism),

So the smoldering trees and blackened soil

Would not ignite such fear and pain and pining

For better days that feel uncertain

Despite the gleam on the horizon.

As the story goes, the ancestors came in boats,

Severed the cord and spilled the blood

Of the children of the earth centuries ago

And used the red earth to make brick for houses,

Roads, infrastructure, indoor plumbing,

Washing machines and ovens, things we thank

The Heavens and kiss God's feet for, and laugh

That we could not live without these blessed items

Built by pioneering pillagers' slaves and children

Of the land stolen and violated and trampled.

Winter lie on the horizon, and the chill wraps us.

Lying on the warm ground, savoring the embers,

I dream of a day again when the vibrant forest

Lives and sings and dances once again.