Phantom Trash

Forsaken lore and Waking paralysis dreams

From the Bough of a Very Short Tree

His mouth is covered, but I can still hear him. I only know it’s covered because it sounds covered. He may have his hand over it, so I don’t see his teeth. He doesn’t know I can’t see him at all. Or maybe he does. “You know that you slice and dice, right?...

The Grip

The grip of every last computer driven by the coalescing scent of punchout silicone. I am guarded. I know it. You know it. So why belay the righteous fact of life in which we pull asunder our recognition of the world we live in? Curly hair bounces in the seam,...

Don’t have pets if you want to sleep

She cries when she shits — right after, rather — to warn me that she’ll be pawing at the litterbox for the next ten minutes in a vain attempt to make it disappear. The apartment complex must be rife with predators: a condor here, a komodo dragon slinking along just...

The Holy End

The wriggling is a natural assumption. We can feel him in the folds of a coil like a mobius strip that ends at some point — right when our lifeline gets cut by the dull scissors of fate. And at the holy end I can hear the man in leather fighting with his Zippo. I walk...