I am in the heart of the earth, a delicate canyon holding dried grapevines, petroglyphs, cigarette butts, bottle caps and a trickle of water no wider than my hand. I won’t tell you how to find this place. Know that it is within range of the vampire havens of Vegas and Laughlin. Know that from the opening of the canyon, you can watch a three-quarter moon fall slowly to a lilac horizon and count the countless red stars and black holes of Casino Row.

I set my bundle on a dark boulder. My night-sky bandana holds sage from Butler Wash, a crystal egg, a chunk of garnet, a chert scraper, bottle of snow melt from Red Mountain and four obsidian pebbles from the same place. Some of this will go home with me; some will not. I prepare to light the sage, turn to the West, to the home of She Who Eats That Which is No Longer Necessary, and see a woman walking toward me. She is pale, dark-haired and slender. She wears stone-washed jeans, expensive leather boots, a faded jacket, and she carries a bundle of silver sage. (more…)

The pink slip of paper with the worn creases neatly folded/refolded in my wallet serves as a reminder.

Deep down, I wanted to get caught. I wanted to see the flash of lights in my rear view mirror. I deserved to be punished. Deep down, I truly believed it despite all of my words to the contrary. It was all my fault. I needed to pay.

I saw the police car waiting in the dirt road to my left. I knew why he was there. I saw the stop sign before me at the intersection. My right foot had a will of its own. My mind blocked my brain from registering the red before my eyes. (more…)

Tom

You and I are lying on the bed.

I stare at the ceiling, at the shadows created from the motel curtains and the hot autumn sun beating against the window. The television has been off for some time, now. It’s quiet and dim and in the distance, I can hear the highway. Our things are packed, and we are an hour or so away from leaving.

I know a few things, like you love me, and I no longer love you. I know that when we leave here, I won’t see you again, but when we kiss goodbye near our cars, when you hold me, it will feel like it always felt, like it felt before you slept with that woman who shares my name, and when your voice gets choked as you talk into my hair, I will promise to write . . . I will promise to call. I will promise to keep things going as long as we can, and I will mean those things.

I will mean them, because when your arms are around me, I will, for a moment, forget that they were around her. And the love that we shared will be enough for me. I will close my eyes, and I will inhale that soapy-clean smell that hangs on the collar of your shirt and the warm skin of your neck, and I will feel the softness of your hair that curls there, and I will feel how much I will miss you. Until you let me go, and you pull back to kiss me again, and I look at your eyes. And then, I will remember. And when you kiss me, it will feel the same, but different, and it will taste bitter, and I will realize I have lied, and I won’t care. (more…)

I left my 9-year-old at Bloomingdale’s (the original one) a couple weeks ago. Last seen, he was in first floor handbags as I sashayed out the door. Was I worried? Yes, a tinge. But it didn’t strike me as that daring, either. Isn’t New York as safe now as it was in 1963? It’s not like we’re living in downtown Baghdad.

Anyway, for weeks my boy had been begging for me to please leave him somewhere, anywhere, and let him try to figure out how to get home on his own. So on that sunny Sunday I gave him a subway map, a MetroCard, a $20 bill, and several quarters, just in case he had to make a call. (read more @ Free Range Kids)

He’s alone in the lobby of the Chinese joint on the corner. He kicks a plastic ball — the big, colorful kind you buy at the dollar store for fifty cents — against the wall, and he focuses intently as it travels back to him. He pauses as I walk in, and resumes as soon as I’m safely at the counter. The woman who took my order when I used to come here every weekend finishes shoving sodas in the big refrigerator, and turns to a face she doesn’t remember. She’s aged more than a year in the past year. She looks tired and worried. Her small breasts jut frantically beneath the stained white t-shirt that shields her slender frame. She looks as if she hasn’t known happiness for a very long time. (more…)