this regret machine

  hop and skip and don’t needto look at herto know. what she’s thinking.  orange all over and front facing, front. looking but two ofus and one of him. hungry or confused but either way he is thirstyso. we take a drink. hopping and skipping around the pool we. move quick onground. she bounces and i. hop not allowed to go this far. my mother never goes. anywhere so. neither do i. drink. bathe alittle. he can’t watch both of us. she can’t see me now, but she’s with me. my partner we. find ourselves naturally. in yellow season with orange and fox and cold. the wateris cold but feels. nice. on our feathers.  he makes a move at me. i wing out. too close. she jaws and lunges and peck at hischin. he didnot like that. too close he. bites back and she. moves. swift and quick i am watching her inthe water fly up the tree. the game is. over. she’s found. something. and asks to fly away.  he makes ago again and i. wing. he jaws and i scream. why did shego that far? i thi...

    Their body chose to wake up. From billions of shattered and fleeting fragments, consciousness came back to her like liquid honey, sticking to her gums, spilling through their throat, sickening in her stomach. Their skin became aware of itself, the sweat and the quiet and the space they all filled. Breathing came next, a slow, needed exchange between the body and the bedroom. The air was heavy wet velvet on her tongue. She was awake, breathing, and real.  This year was the first year I started working. Properly working. Full time, seven days a week, zero hour contract work. I’m living the student experience, tossed between three jobs. The hours are nonsensical and shifting. From January to June, I would have a 05:00 start, 06:00 walk, to make it for a 07:30 start. On the same day, my shift could end at 16:00, and I’d start another shift at another job at 17:00, until 20:00 before walking home.     Too, fitting seminars, lectures and reading into this lab...

    How did you get in contact with me?                                                                                             We built a radio from parts of the old ship. Nobody pays it much attention, but I like playing with the frequencies. Why are you here? Bored. The mountain is melting, and the sun is setting, but this is all I like doing, really. What else do you do? I cycle from home to here, on somebody’s bike. It gets me up to the hill nicely. Where is your ship? Frankly, I'm not allowed to say. Though, I'm not clos...

(cw for animal fighting, brief mention of blood) she lies and thinks and hopes to become a puddle of sleep. hopes absolve with panic. sharp, quick panic.      she has never been more awake. the curtains let in too much light -- not moonlight, not streetlight, but some sourceless bright pain. maybe the fireflies unionized, she thinks. her head goes blank. it is tired.      the ceiling has nothing to offer, but a twin-bladed fan. it spins without permission.      of course, the dogs start fighting. it begins as it always does, the younger leaps up and begins to test the older. their shadows slowly rise on the wall she faces. the younger pokes and bites. the older huffs and shifts in his bed. so, the younger barks.      now she sits up, a world across from them. she wasn’t sleeping anyway. why should anyone? the younger rodent slides up and down the wall, hopping on hind legs. the corners of the carpet are scuffed against the sk...

So i can say something useful. So i can say something useful.       The words haven’t been here lately. I don’t know where they’ve been. All words are lost in prepositions — where does it belong? When did it come here? When are you going to write that letter? Are you alright? This isn’t self doubt. No, I have moved past the season of self doubt. I think I can write confidently, maybe even fluently. I’ve hardly written anything worthwhile in months. I’ve hardly written anything worthwhile in months. There’s nothing worth saying. Repetition is a composite trick of the hand, filling the mould of content with a word count. My brain is cooked. Steamed in dishwater, stinking like unclean dishes. The smell of burnt chemicals dries the nose through. It’s a certain kind of lingering rot that sticks to the interior of my skull. I’ve been washing dishes for three days a week for the last while. The dishwashing machine does the meaningful work. I only clean around the edges,...