Check it out here.

RICHARD

The first of two conversations leading to us breaking up:

I’m at the botanical gardens killing time, it’s around two and it’s cold but I’m sitting on a bench outside anyway and watching my breath leave me, watching it go everywhere but back in me like it’s some sentient thing.  Wispy smoke plumes.  I’m sitting here with a notepad and a disposable fountain pen I purchased at this paper store in High Street called Pulp or something, I think, a pack of four pens—two black, one blue, and one purple, of all colors.  Sitting here thinking about lots of things for what’s already seemed like a long time, but it probably hasn’t been.  Been thinking about my dissertation, my family back home, where to go drinking tonight, the party, etcetera, how I’ll look in the sweater I borrowed from Toby when I finally wear it, then my cell rings, surprising me.  I stand and look at it and recognize Jen’s number which makes me smile.

“Hi, baby,” I say.

“Hi…Rich,” she says, somberly, slowly.

“God, I’m glad you called.  Had a pretty cool day today.”

“Yeah.”

“Wait, you okay?”

She sighs loud, dramatically, then silence.  I wander into one of the greenhouses at this point, one that was supposed to represent a tropical, rainforesty climate, the closest to me, and I’m met with such a gust of thick and damp humidity that it’s startling.

“Hello?” I say, finally.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“Well, say something, please,” I say, heart racing.

“I want to talk to you, but for real.”

“As opposed to the not real conversations we have?” I say laughing, waiting, getting no response.  “I tried calling you last night…twice.”

“Yeah, I…went out.”

“Uh…oh.  Okay.”

“I told you I was going to,” she says, annoyed and probably flipping through a magazine or something I realize now.  Flippant.

“No, your exact words were ‘I might go out tonight, but I don’t feel like it.’  That’s what you said to me.”

“Maybe.”

“No, that’s what you said.”

“Oh,” she says yawning.

“Well?” I say, pissed.  “What did you…do?”

“Well, I was at Trevor’s.  We were all watching a movie.”

“Goddamnit, Jen.”

“What?”

“You shouldn’t…it’s just, you shouldn’t go to his house,” I say, stammering.  “It’s…not fucking cool.”

“I’m not allowed to hang out with my friends?”

“He’s your ex-boyfriend.”

“So?”

“You really don’t see a problem with this?”

“No, I don’t.”

“He wants to fuck you, and he’s going to try.”

“Jesus…no he’s not.”

“Yes, he will.  You don’t just…are you like the only person in the world that doesn’t realize ex-boyfriends still want to fuck?”

“So you want to fuck your ex-girlfriends?” she says cornering me.

“Well…no,” I say and see my reflection in a piece of dark glass and I look confused.

“Isn’t that hypocritical, Richard?”

“Not really, no.  I have closure with all my exes.”

“Of course you do.”

“I’m serious.  You guys broke up so suddenly, and you know he’s still in love with you.  You’ve told me that.”

“I never said that.”

“In so many words you did.  Anyway, you’re young.  You don’t realize guys don’t want to be friends.”

“I’m sure some do.”

“No, they don’t.  Guys want to fuck.  We have no reason to have girls as friends.  Especially when you’ve already fucked before.”

“It’s not a big deal, I’m not going to fuck him.”

“You could be fucking talking to him about the goddamn weather or Bush or something, he’s still going to want to fuck you.  You’re leading him on.  He thinks…he thinks he can just call you up whenever.  I’m very right about this, Jen.”

“Well, I don’t think you are.”

“Doesn’t it at least bother you that I’m upset?  Isn’t that good enough?”

“I’m not going to not see my friends because you don’t want me to.”

“I’m not saying don’t see him.  I’m saying don’t go over to his house, don’t fucking talk to him all the time.  He’s not that good of a friend.  Once, maybe, but not now.  He’s just…some guy who’s seen you naked.”

“Whatever,” she said.  “I have…class I have to get ready for.”

“Class?”

“I have psychology.  You know this, Richard,” she says with just the right tone that it shakes me and makes me, for whatever reason, forget myself.

“Look, I’m sorry, baby, I just…I hate this distance stuff, you know?  It just makes you so…everything, I mean, makes it all so much worse, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“You know I’m not a jealous guy, I just don’t like your ex, I think he still…wants you.  I really do think that.”

“Well, even if he does, you should trust me.”

“I know.  I do.”

“Well, anyway.”

“I love you, baby.  You know I do, right?  I mean, wouldn’t you be upset if I was hanging out with my ex?”

“But we both know you wouldn’t ever do that.”

“I know, I’m just saying.  Just think about it, okay?  I just…miss you.  I can’t wait to come home and see you.  Only a few more months until Christmas, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I love you.  Can I call you today, later…your time?”

“I have class all day and Lisa and I are doing some stuff tonight.”

“Oh.”

“Errands.”

“That’s fine.  Will you please use the calling card I got you…please?”

“Yeah, I’ll try.”

“I love you, baby.”

“Talk later, okay?”

“Just a few more months, baby.  Oh, and I did really good on that paper I wrote last week.”

“Good.”

“I really do hope you’re happy to see me.  Oh, and I know what I’m getting you for Christmas now.”

“Call me later.  I have to go.”

“It’s really good.  Okay.  I’m home all night tonight, so try to call me, okay?”

“Bye, Richard.”

“Love you.”

“You too,” she says, then silence.

I’m breathing hard and annoyed and paranoid and I think of stepping of the plane meeting her by the baggage claim and fucking her in the shower and kisses and holding hands and going up to the spa together up north, just being together, then suddenly I can’t stop thinking of her going down on some guy while some other guy watches and I just stand there, breathing in the humid air, just staring at the wall of green in front of me, the shapes of the different plants and choking vines then look at my hands which are still red and chapped from the cold outside and I feel nothing right now, not even the warmth from the heaters and misting machines working overtime in this glass box.  I’m standing next to a banana tree and I touch one of its long leaves and it feels waxy.  I feel nothing now except…waxy…and I feel just…waxy, coated, like the banana tree leaf.  I go over to a small iron bench in front of a flowerless bluegreen bush.  In front of me across the narrow brick path is a large, huge green closed flower pod atop a short, thick stalk base with leaves shooting from the bottom.  The pod, the unopened flower, is mostly green but has streaks of red and purple in it and I lean forward to look at the little brass placard shoved in the dark soil, the layman name of the plant rubbed off by age and the grease of fingerprints, no one bothering to redo it, and I see it’s in the genus Amorphophallus and per the description the flower, once bloomed, will emit an odor like rotting meat to attract flies and other insects in order to ensure pollination

Take a piece of paper and write “Why I Write” at the top. For at least ten minutes, write without stopping. Doesn’t matter what you write, just write whatever comes to mind, even if it seems irrelevant.

My entry is below, and if you’re so inclined, you can follow Storycraft on Twitter here.

—

WHY I WRITE

To put it simply, I write because I must. But, you know what? I feel like anyone who puts pen to paper or fingers to keys probably has the exact same response, and I would reckon that with a challenge like this, almost everyone will have very similar diatribes.  So, is my answer an acceptable one? The question really is, I suppose, assuming this is the absolute truth, that we writers have to write, is not just why do we write, but why do we have to write?

I have always operated under the assumption that, when it comes to writers, there are two kinds in this world: those who write for fun (Tourists), and those who can’t possibly imagine not writing—like, to the point where they go crazy if they can’t create something, anything, on a daily basis (Writers). I would put myself in the latter category (why else would I be taking part in this challenge, right?), but I think this deconstruction gets to the heart of the question posed: Writers tend to have the same answers for this question because there is no middle ground.  Fine, maybe you like to write for therapeutic reasons, which are all well and good, a little here and there as the ideas pop up in your gray matter, but that doesn’t necessarily make you a writer. And hell, even getting published doesn’t necessarily make you a writer (and vise versa, many Writers may never get published). For instance, I’ve met many an author who can just turn it on and dole out anything to make a buck, stuff that lacks substance (which I’ll define in a moment).  Now, I’m not nagging or judging, but just saying that I think the true Writers out there, even if they can write easily with very few cases of the dreaded Block, well…the words come from somewhere deep, some sort of well buried so far in them that even if they’re writing sci-fi or erotica or historical fiction, elements of their own persona are buried in there (or, perhaps, floating on the surface).  This is the Substance. The stuff that separates the men from the boys, so to speak. The one thing that takes writing to a whole new level and makes it that much more intense and real (even if the story is far from believable, genre-wise).

The point is that we Writers feel this way because this is what needs to happen for great things to be produced, and we know it.  Writers write not out of a whim or because they feel there is a lucrative draw in it (there may never be for most of us), but because we have these little blobs of emotion and memories bursting to come from deep within us, and if we don’t get them out, somehow, they take us over (and not in a good way).  These are the stories that need to be told, the poems that need to be written, the prose that needs to be spoken aloud.  Because if we don’t, then we go crazy, plain and simple.

I find myself writing for this very same reason. And I don’t write for just anyone, either. I write for myself. Sure, fame and glory and stacks of cash would be fantastic, and anyone who says otherwise…well, I’m calling you out as a liar right here and now, but honestly, we in the latter category, we do this because we know no other way.  Praise is nice, but we are storytellers first and foremost. We are the ones that keep the myths alive.  Maybe it’s something ingrained in us so microscopically that we won’t ever truly understand, or maybe it’s nice and simple: that some of us were born to do this (not in the fate sense of the word, but rather, there are natural born leaders, killers, workers, etc.).

And yes, I’m aware that this sounds incredibly egotistical, but it’s not – that’s just how it is.  We all have different strengths, and some of us, even though we do fall under the moniker of Writer, aren’t very good in the conventional sense, but here we are, creating. Making something out of nothing while borrowing indiscriminately from our personal experiences.  The casual writer, the Tourist, they write what they see without diving in to their more primal fears and hopes and dreams.  Writing is a thing of absolute and unabashed nakedness—whether you never let anyone see your work or you take the plunge into the Land of Publishing and Agents, you put yourself out there, bare naked, for the world to see. That is what Tourists don’t understand.  It’s a drug, this writing.  It’s embarrassing at first, maybe, to put yourself in your characters, to create worlds and stories that anyone close to you could probably dissect in a matter of minutes as having been born from your subconscious, but you get used to it. You get hooked on it. And you realize, you were born to do this, to create and to weave these little silly letters together to create bodies of text that move and inspire and madden before you go crazy.

And I guess that’s what I want to remember in in the future. That I do this because, as clichéd as it is, I have to. Because I was born to. Because if I don’t do this, I have no idea what I would do.

I am the storyteller.

Check it out here.

The online lit mag Like Birds Lit has published my poem “A Bar in Wixom, Michigan on a Tuesday Night.”

Check it out here.

Enjoy.

—

ANTHONY

Three in the afternoon and it’s sunny out and sitting at a Starbucks on High Street with my sunglasses on.  Head feels clear for once, no pain in my body, anywhere.  Finally.  Scratching on a notepad, sitting in the upper level at a table that extends across the large window that looks down onto the street.  Leering at those unlucky enough to fall into my line of sight.  Sucking on an iced coffee and picking at a piece of cake that looked good but once I bit into it I was instantly turned off by the cranberries.  Thinking about a lot of things.  There’s a pub across from the place called Will-O-The-Wisp which sounds familiar but I can’t remember if I’ve been there or not.  Next to the pub is a paper store called Pulp which makes me think of the song “Common People” which makes me think of the line “She told me that her Dad was loaded / I said ‘In that case I’ll have a rum and coca-cola’” which makes me smile.  Today, I think, will be good.  Decide my goal for the day will be to get caught up on homework.  To get so far ahead I won’t fall behind again.  Just can’t, I reason.  Look down at the notepad and see that I’ve been doodling the whole time I’ve been daydreaming and there are little screaming stickmen all over the paper but no stickwomen.  There’s a stickman tied to what looks like a cross and supposedly I’ve drawn flames around him.  Talk about a way to go.  This makes me smile again.

Look back outside and see a boy I met at a party during welcome week named Felix, Austrian or Australian, I can’t remember.  Austrian, I think.  His English was impeccable and we talked to each other a bit at the pub we were at but I don’t remember which pub it was.  He wore a rugby-type shirt that night, I remember.  Dark blue.  Studies engineering, is nineteen like me.  Long blonde hair combed back and he really could be a model.  I remember calling Deirdre about him, actually.  Tilt the sunglasses up and rest them on my forehead and watch him talk to a scraggly and witchy looking girl with wild bushy hair.  He’s wearing tight jeans and ankle boots and a button down shirt tucked in and he looks very GQ.  He’s carrying a satchel bag, leather.  Find myself beaming and just studying the way he interacts with her, the way he looks past her while she groans on about whatever it is she’s groaning on about.  The way he takes his left boot and itches the back of his right leg with it, then repeats it with the right itching the left.  Boredom.  Could recognize it anywhere.  Practically leaning over the thin table with my nose almost on the glass looking down and suddenly he looks up and sees me.  Cups a hand over his eyes like a visor and sees me but it takes a second for him to realize he knows me from somewhere and when he does he smiles real big and I remember I liked that his teeth were so white.  He waves a bit then holds up a finger to tell me he’ll be a minute and I just sort of wave back and slink back into my seat, unsure if that was the reaction I was going for.  Look around behind me and see only a few tables filled with students, the rest empty and stained with coffee spills.  Adjust my clothes.  Peer back down and they’re still talking.  Foot starts tapping of its own accord and I start doodling again and find myself drawing a stickman with an axe chopping the head off another stickman and then a family of stickmen crying nearby with lines coming out from their heads representing their anguish.  Smile.  Feel a buzz in my pocket, jolting me stiff.  Take my phone out and don’t recognize the number but know it’s from Chicago so I answer.

“Yeah?” I say.  “Hello?”

“Tony?  Is that…are you there?” the voice says and even after only eight syllables I recognize the hoity tone belonging to my sister Dana.

“Oh, hey,” I say.  “Can I…call you back?”

“Are you going to the Keys this year?” she says and sighs immediately after.  “Dad said you weren’t going to go but you have to, Tony.”

“Don’t’ call me that, and I’m not sure.  Why does it even matter?  Paul’s going, right?”

“I just haven’t seen my baby brother in eons, is all.”

“Yeah, is that it?”

“Mhm, I miss my baby booboo.”

“Or you just need me to score you some pot, right?”

“Will you be bringing some?”

“Jesus.  I don’t know if I’m going.  Don’t know if I feel like it, alright?”

“Well, that’s not fair.  Anyway, do you know anyone who…anyone who could hook me up?  I’m just looking for a wittle hookup, wittle brother.  Don’t you know anyone?” she says, pleading in the way she’s made infamous, asking without asking, and as annoyed as I am I can’t help but giggle.

“Jesus you sound like…I dunno, what Mom would sound like if she was trying to do this.  I know you smoke pot, retard.  I’ve gotten you pot before.  Why are you being so weird?”

“I’m not it’s just…things have been stressful here.  Very stressful.  Paul’s been busy and we’ve been…fighting.  I hate it.”

“Stress makes you wrinkle,” I say.

“Watch it,” she says.  “Anyway, I just need to chill,” she says carefully as is trying to talk to me on my level.  Laugh.  Snort.

“Why’s Paul working so much?  Figured Dad would like give him a break or something, you know?”

“Things have been tough, lately.  Hasn’t Mom been keeping you updated?”

“No, and that’s by choice.  I don’t care, Dana.”

“You will, someday.”

“Not today.”

“Can you get me the pot or what?”

“Jeeze, whine a little bit more.”

“I just…I just need to know you can get it.”

“Does it matter?  I’m not even going to be home for like over a month, like a month and a half or something.  Can’t you…don’t you have other people you can hit up?”

“No.”

“Aw, poor baby.”

“Oh shut up, Tony.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“I don’t have anyone else, okay?”

“That’s sort of flattering,” I say putting my sunglasses back down.  Leer back down to the street and see the dynamic duo still talking.  Grit teeth.  “Tell you what, even if I don’t go, I’ll get you some, okay?”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.  Is this going to be for Paul as well?”

“Uh,” she panics for a moment, composes herself, then, “No, no.  Just for me, thanks.  Paul doesn’t exactly approve of this…habit.”

“Christ, Dana.  Smoking weed once a year doesn’t constitute a habit.  Desire for a habit, maybe.  But definitely not a habit.”

“Well, whatever.  Thank you.  It’ll be good to see you too, you know.  I don’t only think of you as my dealer.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not your dealer.”

“I mean it, Anthony.”

“Hey, got it right that time.”

“Oh, whatever,” she says laughing, genuinely laughing, which makes me think back to a specific moment in our youth when we were happy, the same moment I always go back to with her.  Parents trusted her to watch me, even though she’s only four years older.  I was ten, she was fourteen.  Instead of going to bed we stayed up all night and ate strawberry cheesecake ice cream and watched Back to the Future Part III which is my favorite in the trilogy and she talked all night about some boy at school named Brandon Lucas.  She was wearing a baggy Gap sweatshirt and I remember laughing a lot.  Not like now, when we’re together.  Rare when we talk, really.  She’s good people, though, and this memory makes me feel good and today I feel good.  Great.  No pills today.  Nothing.

“Alright,” I say finally, realizing we’ve hit the end of our conversational limits.  “Call me when it gets closer to Christmas.”

“Why don’t you call me when you figure out your plans, okay?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m serious.”

“Ugh, I know.  Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”

“Kisses,” she says and makes a loud obnoxious smooching noise on the other end, then silence.  Put the phone away and put my sunglasses on the table then run a hand through my hair.  Smile.  Look back down to the street and see that Felix is gone now.  Panic.  Turn around and see the top of his blonde hair bobbing up the stairs.  Watch him reveal himself to me, one step at a time.  Growing in front of me. Long torso, long legs.  Smiling.  Bag over his shoulder.  Runs a hand across his jaw to make sure it’s as square as he imagines it.  Sees me and comes toward me.  Smiles.  Happy.  Grab my iced coffee and take a sip and it tastes watered down but I act like it’s the best thing I’ve ever had.  Smile.  Feel good.  Great.  He approaches the small table and real suave-like I kick the chair across from me out like I saw in a movie once then the lyrics from the Pulp song come back into my head: “I want to sleep with common people / I want to sleep with common people like you” and it makes me smile real devilish as he sits.

Find them here. Enjoy.