I'm American. I was born in a different country. The word foreigner is mad offensive. It's telling someone they are strange. Separate from your own roots. It's licking the juice of sausage and staring into the eyes, preferring the familiar, sticking to the familial. Letting go of the taste, the fork, the turning down of heads dancing, bowing before, after, not sharing the celebration. Hanging drapes shuttering off sunlight, light from a new life, a colder water. This is the croquette. This is the croqueta. This is Laura, and that's Dunkin' Donuts.
"OMG, they have a Dunkin' Donuts here?" This surprises me. Yes, they have Dunkin' Donuts in Manhattan. Then again. Laura lives in Long Island. She commutes an hour and something by train. She parks her car at the station. She's an assistant to the client relationship management team. "I need to remember this. I love Dunkin' Donuts." Do you want to go now?
We want to go right now. Do they have a Krispy Kreme in your town? They will make you any shaped donut like pastry if you ask them. That's not true. There was once a Krispy Kreme in Miami. Schlotzsky's Deli closed. The parking lot was a mess. Very hard to get around. A tight spot on USone. I asked for a swastika glaze. I think that lot is just cursed.
- Renata Adler
It's called a Spring Fling.
It's what happens in between. Summer short-shorts in the summer-set vein. Upper Rings. Laura on the concrete telling me about her mother, how she would slice the crust off sandwiches before school packed comic book tin can, a chef's note of love spoil. Jessi once asked me on the mountains how I could be so cruel. If the kid doesn't like it you smack him and tell him to deal with it. Good kids don't cry.
But she throws out the bottom half, like bottom of a cupcake, two swigs of warm can, a twig, a swing on a branch, a twix.
A dog barks somewhere in the distance. I never got into Rugby.
This was supposed to be a column.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I had a dream last night I was on a plane
(10:55:37 AM) Daniel: the stewardess came on the PA to announce our new destination
(10:55:43 AM) Daniel: the plane was dangerously close to the water
(10:55:46 AM) Daniel: a red alarm went off
(10:55:53 AM) Daniel: the plane was about to plunge into the ocean
(10:56:11 AM) Daniel: we hit the water and the pressure in my ears became unbearable as we sank
(10:56:23 AM) Daniel: I kept thinking to myself “This isn’t a dream, I’m dead this time.”
(10:56:32 AM) Daniel: I decided it was a dream and woke up
(10:56:49 AM) Daniel: I checked my phone to see the time but it was dead
(10:57:07 AM) Daniel: you were curled up close to my side like a cat
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
He started to get the feel. I was being obtusive in the way I entertained his interests with my own.
“He collects gf revenge. The defendant doesn’t need another drink.”
I go for a walk after dark. A blocked off street we cross. We run from the cops.
Back in a misty haze, I chat with her as he reads the whole convo
I am in a drunk twist down past the court block. Behind a fenced building my eyes lose focus. I fall on the sideway and observe a police officer run with a flashlight. An Escalade pulls into the grass by my side. I attempt a vertical sprint. I must reach the police officer
Coconut dress in a hail, between the flies and the root pit
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I place it smack down on the table. Then I pick up the ax. You know the kind. Birch
handle ‘bout yay long. Red head single bit for fine chopping. I’m gonna do this the
hard way. Grip the handle lengthwise. Remember what your father taught you. Don’t
choke the axe. One thumb rests on the other. Eight fingers pull the lever. My arms lift
over my head. I look into its eye one last time.
I pour a shot glass. Tilt back. Sockets grip tight. Bind by the pressure of intensity, the
same intensity it will feel right before. I place it smack down on the table. I pick up
the ax. One thumb rests on the other. Eight fingers pull the lever. My arms lift over
my head. I look into its eye one last time.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I wish he would stop texting me. Dan can’t stand him, and I really don’t care to talk to him anymore. Not after all the shit he’s put me through.Dan told me he doesn’t believe in time. He told me that time is an illusion. The illusion is reinforced by memory, the change of day to night and back to day. He says we all live around one moment.Time is also used to measure the amount of life in you, because it’s easier to do than estimate how many more times you will breathe. This morning on my way to the subway I passed by an elderly woman holding a dog on a leash. It had snowed the night before. As soon as I saw the dog I knew something was wrong. It’s legs were sprawled out towards the back. It was wearing a blue sweater. She was tugging at the dog’s leash. The dog’s neck offered no resistance. Its head bobbed up and down as she pulled. An elderly gentleman approached her and asked her que le paso con la perra? She replied. Yo no se.Creo que esta muerta.No, no esta muerta.I looked back a few times and witnessed a couple of tugs of the leash. Eventually I heard the elderly woman cry and sob in the distance.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me you breathe whisky instead of oxygen.I imagine you as a fish swimming in an ocean of whisky.If you were a bear, you’d prepare for hibernation by taking twenty-seven million shots of whisky.
