To this day
I'm swifted back to those lean,
hard-drinking years by the scent
of cigarettes overlaying the spicy musk
of still-crisp, newfallen leaves,
I wanted to learn about colors so I could develop a language for your hair, and how it falls into your eyes in the same way that boys in books that I liked were described. I don’t think you “swoop” it back, but you do something with your colorless hair to get it out of your lashes that deserves to be described.
The breeze passes heavy, carrying
the guttural voices of the daily dwellers.
Their ingrained presence never redeemable,
fossilised within the billboards and bus stops,
which cradle them each evening. They never
seem lost as long as they remain within these
stretched parameters.
Apartment C104 in Wyncote, PA, was born out of the blackness of chaos. An unknowable place with a flat roof and red bricks that shared a parking lot with Michael’s Diner. The apartment was created in the absence of light in the under-dark of Tartarus, the darkness from the bottom of the underworld’s world. Rainwater leaked into the complex during storms. The kitchen sink never drained. When the sink was full of fetid water, the apartment cat, George, would drink from it to gain his powers of disapproval.
I begin to write. Jude, 2 years old, in need of diapers, baby food, formula, teething products, clothing if possible. Signed, Richard M. Gonzales. Great, now I’m lying about who I am to the Lord? No way he’s not looking down shaking his head.
his mother thought
he would be as tall
& violent as his father,
but instead his hazel
eyes softened into the muddy
brown of a warm
house inside a cold
window.
I call the urgent Nespresso line,
whose appointed representative
reassures, as I wish our leader could—
they understand the crisis
Sarah, who was the nicest of the group, turned her body to permit Jolie’s entrance into the circle. The women made her feel impossibly short, but she didn’t mind since the top of her head being level with their shoulders also made her feel like their kid sister despite the fact that she was at least ten years older than most of them.
Select two vials – only two, one per arm, to make the samples last. Carefully uncap, so as not to flick or spill any scent inside. Stroke the plastic wand to my skin, one perfume per wrist.
We grew especially tired, though, of the 15 minutes of sunscreen application my mother insisted on before we jumped in the pool, which in Los Angeles was nearly every day. During these precautionary sessions, my father would stroll past the kitchen table, only to see the two of us standing upright, our arms extended outwards, creating a rigid t-shape with our bodies.
Gabriel Ricard looks at Marvel, The Rock, and low-rent shlock horror in his latest Captain Canada’s Movie Rodeo column.
(How I policed me. How I cuffed my own hands and bound my own feet,
shuffling about in my orange shame, sitting myself down in my cage.
Scratching prayers into the cell wall, which my own nature answered)
I have fingerprint black and blues on the soft meat on the inside of my thighs from the whorls of your fingers. During the day, I vacation to the front of a mirror and press them, the tiny shocks of hurt reminding me of your dotted hands. I think about the loops and patterns and meanings of your fingertips.
On day 3 of the binge, I dragged
her favorite bookcase to the lawn, shook
a can of gasoline over the wood and gazed
as the flame stole across the shelves.
What may have begun as an interesting concept has devolved into repetitive ilk. I don’t think anyone who wanted another Purge movie, and yet people flocked out to see it this week. I don’t know which was weaker: the characters, the social commentary, or the thrills. The film explores how the Purge evolved from a social experiment on Staten Island, where participants would receive a monetary stipend for their participation. I feel the cast and crew did the same when Hollywood asked them to make this film. The film’s one redeeming quality is that it emphasizes the importance of community.
Sean woodard on the cult classic The Phantom of the Paradise: “The film features plenty of trademarks that would later define De Palma’s cinematic style—split-screen, intricately choreographed sequences, optical effects—but the standout is its inspired soundtrack, composed by Paul Williams.”
COMICSMr. ButterchipsAlex Schumacher
The surly simian returns in Alex Schumacher’s latest Mr. Butterchips!
The dog’s head lifted from where he lay in a bed of dirt. He looked up with dulled eyes, panting in the blunt rays of an indifferent scorching summer sun. A heavy chain held him to a weathered post, its radius too small to reach the shade of a nearby battered and slumping back porch. Sweat trickled down the center of my back as I walked towards him.
Things … aren’t great, but we’re here for you.
I love Vicente Fernandez &
Brittany Beyoncé & Gaga
Ketchup with my torta
Wine with my tacos