As a preamble, I want you to know that Richie Smith and I released an honest-to-god spoken word/ambient jazz album on November 17. You can purchase it or you can stream it, whichever will go a long way in supporting us. In many ways, Bug Eyes is the sort of emotionally grounded art I wanted to consume when I was younger, and it blows my mind that I now get to make it.
Tending the Flame
We aren’t ready. When Sebastian holds the door, and the sky blinks into blackness, we aren’t ready. When everyone is left standing in the neon glare of street lamps, we aren’t ready. And when those lights inevitably wink out, too? Well, we aren’t ready for that either.
Poem #25
I've been working on some really big projects these last few months, which means less time for writing smaller pieces like short stories and poems. I've begun to rummage around the treasure trove of old poems, and I'm not horrified. There's a lot of feeling here, but at least it's true. Please, enjoy this piece and be on the look out for some really big news here soon.
Accountability Abstraction
Writing in the middle of a pandemic is hard. Everything is hard. But I assure you that I am working, or at least trying to work. This is by no means a complete piece, or even good, but it is work. And it is me.
Poem #24
I'm thinking about crawfish / and the way they boil brackish / in the high heat of June, seasoned / spicy in a galvanized washtub
Poem #23
restless road rage knots you in asphalt ribbons / tied to sunset suicides--glass shards bleed out / into the next life full of broken blue birds; / trauma begets trauma, inescapable.
Silence is Betrayal
my voice isn't what you need right now, but Silence is betrayal.
39 Things-To-Do During a Global Pandemic
1. Make a list of all of the things you want to accomplish during the COVID-19 quarantine. 2. Get immediately stressed out by the list. 3. Throw the list away.
The Bond House: Little Love in the Time of COVID-19
The Bond House had a baby. Well, Michael and Claudia had a baby, and the rest of us are proud aunts and uncles. Mara was born into a strange world on a Friday morning after 3 days of labor. Shortly after, she stopped breathing and turned blue. After she was stabilized, doctors informed the new family that their daughter would have to remain under observation for five days before coming home. We were relieved that there was a plan in place, to know that she was getting the care she needed; but while Mom, Dad, and Abuelita focused on their Little Love, the rest of us were coming to the realization that our lives would soon be upheaved by more than just this small new life.
The Bond House: Eat Your Feelings
Despite having had the benefit of human history to develop language, we are shockingly bad at descriptions. As one might imagine, there’s no nuance in generality; and, as a result, we as people do each other the disservice of denying complexity. When someone asks you how your day is, I imagine you lean towards “good” or “okay” as a response more often than not. While fine responses in themselves, they lack the same level of accuracy as someone telling you Phoenix is “hot” come summertime—it’s a shade of the truth. I think it’s safe to assume that we all agree that being a human is a hyper-complex experience. We know that emotions are not black or white, but instead a sweet symphony of gray. That being said, why do we insist on settling for anything less than specificity?
