originally published in Revolution John

To the Citizens of Central City,

The red glare who shoved you to the sidewalk microseconds before a taxi crushed you, the streak who caught you before you hit the ground when you jumped to end it all, the stoplight smear of motion who raced every child out of a house fire, can’t take living his life in slow motion. This is a world for human turtles. I’m not built to pace.

Imagine you’re stuck in traffic with every off-ramp closed. You’re late for a meeting, and bursting to pee. Every car in your way rolls in centimeters. You’re trapped, left to repeat Patience. Patience. Patience. This is every second of my life.

This life is designed for those who read menus one letter at a time, who amble with their eyes on their phones at the rate of sloths filled with Nyquil. There’s no hope you’ll ever hurry. Tonight I’ll rush to save another dragging soul, and as a gun flashes and bullets dart toward an innocent nameless you, I’ll brake in the line of fire. One of you will be spared when I refuse to bolt toward salvation. I will barely twitch, be more statue than flesh and bone— one of you.

The Flash

Romance for Delinquents is now available as an ebook via Amazon.

Spent most of the last year or more trying to stay steady, stay sane, and failed as much as I rallied.

Still working on the novel I thought I’d finish in months. Still fighting.

Two novels under consideration out in the ether, and I pray they find homes.

I’ve written  11 poems in the last seven days for no reason I can explain, first time writing poems and years, but I sent them out too. We’re all left to reaching the second we hit the last keystroke.

Hours spent tonight recording my reading a story for a podcast interview nine hours from now. Sure I stumbled over too many words, my mouth too dry or wet, but it’s done.

Half a slipstream story done; a half dozen others started or imagined.

I have to make sense tomorrow, but no idea how to talk my process or work. When people ask how I write, why I write, I always shrug, turn away, and answer, “I spend a lot of time alone.”

Tomorrow, the next day, grace I can’t ask for, or fresh disasters to reconcile without lessons worth learning. Only the words, and always the words.