The nurse asked me if I've had suicidal thoughts in the past two weeks. I said no, but that's not quite true. I smoke to hurry things along. I've hid the embarrassments, the rejections. Pushed down the unfortunate situations I've caused with miscalculations and misinterpretations. Buried the illogical decisions and the failures. With girls. In social situations. At an office. In adolescence and adulthood. All the stupid, stupid things where I just don't quite fit in. Where I say the wrong thing or choose incorrectly. I ball them up into a tiny ball, inject my childhood, and shove the whole thing deep down in the darkest recesses of my mind. There are times, when I am close to sleep, where they try and break through—but I medicate them away.
Yet, they are there. These memories of being an outsider, of being lost, of being in the hands of a bully. They are always there, and they are vicious fighters. Clawing and latching their fangs to climb to the top of consciousness. They are unstoppable, the tardigrades of my mind. They will outlive me, and I cannot defeat them.
So, I channel them into my writing. That is where they can live and thrive. That is where you will find them, and I hope you can find some connection with my thoughts that will be forgotten when I die or in a thousand years.
The Outsiders in my Books
Into the Fracking Fields: Michael
“No one likes you,” Alice responded curtly, which broke Michael’s anticipation, yet not in the way he had considered. She glared at his greasy black hair and salty skin. The black dirt collected under his jagged fingernails. His dirty tank top frayed at his waist that was pulled down over his left shoulder where the black duffel bag hung. The openings that ran the length of his sneakers between the canvas and the rubber soles. “No one likes you, Michael. You’re gross and dumb, and you need to stop following us.”
He looked at Carmen for something, anything, but simply stared under the kiss’ spell. He looked back at her and regretted immediately. “I said no one likes you!” she screamed, and dust puffed as she rose from the wooden bench. “Get out of here!” She grabbed his arms and pushed on his thin frame while he had no reaction readied. “You stupid weirdo! You creep!” She released her grip and shoved him. Once, twice, and then beyond the dugout. “Get goin’!” And she pointed to his bicycle next to theirs.
Ava in Lost Pines: The Man in the Cabin
He worked in silence, folded a frayed towel and used it to protect his hand from the heat of the iron stove as he fed wood into its belly. He set a timer in his mind as the heat crackled the new tinder, and in the interim he turned and watched Charlie snore.
He was aware that his decision to live in solitary seclusion had created a patchwork existence, both in his mind and in his surroundings. He had given up on determining which memories were true and which were the result of years lacking socialization. Of years left to his mind without the security of second opinions. This life chosen had manifested into the physical, be it his random attire or the cot layered in furs sewn together from whatever animals he had hunted successfully. He studied the boy, pulled into a fetal position, snoring on his cot. His young features, his fragility, the bruise on his temple from where he had struck him. The man, had he no beard, would have exposed his embarrassment with reddened cheeks for the lapse in judgment, and he set the meat on the stove to feed the boy in an act of attrition.
I Think I'm Jewish: Sanford
4° Fahrenheit outside. I figure now that I’m back in my motel room, it’s a good time to update my situation. My name is Sanford, I’ve come from Cleveland, and I intend to arrive in Los Angeles. I’ve made it to Nebraska. I’m stuck here.
I can’t get this motel room warm. My clothes smell like the diner’s kitchen. I put a towel against the bottom of the door to stop the snow that drifts through the gap. The heater makes this rattling noise so it should work. I guess it kind of works. The comforters have this weird smell, like old and sex. The faucets run brown with rust for several minutes. Everything I own is in boxes between the far wall and the one bed. Except my car. Piece of shit car.
Red as Apple: Ansel
Ansel guided the right latch open, muted, unlike the click of the former. He grasped the corners of the lid and pushed it open. He breathed slowly, methodically through his nose as he processed the sight. He had believed he was cursed. That, despite all efforts, all trials would end in stagnation at best. He was cursed, and his indifference to superstition or religion meant that there was no plausible way to lift it spiritually. That maybe, just maybe, if he persevered long enough, a tangible fork in the road would break it, and remove the echoing sorrow. Hardship. In front of his eyes was the egress. Here was hope, palpable and perceptible. Here was hope, and he didn’t know how to process it. All he knew was that action was needed. Now.
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