The neon buzzed and flickered against the wet asphalt, and Martin watched it pulse with the steady determination of a fading heartbeat. The sign was old now. Everything was old here. He stood in the rain and listened to the sound of water hitting his shoulders and thought about how time moves in only one direction.

Inside the Main Street Diner, chrome surfaces reflected fractured light that danced and spiraled across the walls like lost memories seeking their owners, while the linoleum floor bore the patient scars of ten thousand footsteps, each one carrying its own story of arrival or departure or both. The bell rang when he entered. It was a clean sound. A true sound.

Tommy sat at the counter. His shoulders were broad and heavy with years of manual labor, and his hands were scarred from wrenches and engines and the countless small betrayals of mechanical things. He did not turn around.

"Figured you'd show up." Tommy spoke to his coffee cup. The coffee was black and still steaming. "Read about your mother in the paper."

Martin sat. The stool creaked. It was the same sound it had made twenty years ago, when they were young and the future was a bright coin they thought they could spend forever.

"Hello, Tommy."

The waitress came. She wore a nametag that said Dorothy, but she was not the Dorothy they had known. That Dorothy was dead now. Everything dies eventually. Martin ordered coffee because it was the only thing to do.

"Still drinking it black?" Tommy asked, and his voice carried the weight of decades spent watching others leave while he remained, anchored to this town like a ship that had forgotten how to sail. "Some things don't change."

"Some things do."

Tommy's laugh cut through the diner's measured silence like a blade through old rope. "Yeah. Like you becoming the big Boston lawyer while I stayed here fixing engines that keep getting older while the parts get harder to find."

The coffee came. It was hot and bitter and true. Martin wrapped his hands around the mug and felt the heat seep into his fingers. The diner's air conditioning hummed with mechanical persistence. It had always been too cold here.

"You chose to stay," Martin said.

"Did I?" Tommy turned then, and his face was a map of years spent wondering about roads not taken. "Or did you choose to leave?"

Outside, the neon sign kept its vigil against the darkness. Pink light, then darkness. Pink light, then darkness. A rhythm as steady as regret.

"Remember that summer we were going to drive across the country?" Tommy's voice was soft now, dangerous with memory. "You had that AAA atlas. All those red marks showing where we'd stop. Like droplets of blood on a paper dream."

"We were eighteen."

"And then Harvard called, and suddenly the whole world got bigger for you and smaller for me at the same time." Tommy's fingers traced patterns in the condensation on his coffee mug. They were a mechanic's fingers, thick and strong and honest. "Funny how that works."

The silence between them grew like shadows at sunset, long and deep and full of things that could not be said. The coffee grew cold. The neon kept its rhythm. Pink light. Darkness. Pink light. Darkness.

"I never meant to leave you behind," Martin said. The words fell between them like autumn leaves, beautiful and dead.

"Doesn't matter what you meant." Tommy's voice was flat and hard as the surface of the counter. "You left. I stayed. The rest is just details."

Martin remembered summer afternoons in Tommy's garage, the air thick with motor oil and possibility, their hands black with grease as they rebuilt engines and futures with equal determination. Now the air smelled only of coffee and time.

"I miss you sometimes," Martin said.

"Miss what? The kid I was or the man I became?"

"Both. Neither. I don't know."

Tommy nodded slowly, understanding everything and nothing. "That's the thing about ghosts. They're always what we need them to be, not what they are."

The bell rang again. New customers entered, their voices carrying the light certainty of people who had never lost anything that mattered. Martin reached for his wallet.

"Don't," Tommy said. His voice was gravel and rust. "This one's on the house. For old times."

Martin stood. The vinyl seat exhaled beneath him like a final breath. "Take care, Tommy."

"You too, Marty. Try not to wait for the next funeral."

Outside, the rain had stopped, but the sidewalk held its wetness like a memory. Martin walked to his rental car, each step a small betrayal. Through the window, Tommy sat motionless at the counter, frozen in time like a photograph of permanence, his hands still cupped around a coffee mug that had grown cold with waiting.

Pink light. Darkness. Pink light. Darkness.

The neon kept its rhythm, and the night held its secrets, and some things changed while others remained as constant as gravity, as relentless as time, as eternal as regret.

"Sir?" asked the head elf, Pippy Punkrocking.

"Yes, Pippy?" answered Santa.

"Sir, it’s about our NICE list. Last month someone from the NAUGHTY list was transferred over to it. I don’t remember authorizing that." Pippy held a tightly rolled-up scroll. Santa waved his fingers, indicating Pippy should let it roll open, spilling out onto the floor, which it did.

"Who?" Santa asked.

"Here, sir," the elf pointed out.

"Donald...J...Trump," Santa read slowly and deliberately. "Oh, that was me. I made the transfer.”

Pippy frowned, which if it were to continue for too long, could be life-threatening to him, as an elf.

“So what?” Santa argued. “What's the problem? I made the switch. I put him on. Don’t I get to vote?"

"Sir, you rigged it. He's naughty, not nice."

"That’s a matter of opinion, don’t you think? The people thought otherwise. And consider, Pippy, what it takes to be a leader. Some see naughtiness as leadership. You can't lead nations without being stern—even mean sometimes. You've gotta make tough choices. It’s hard. The free world is too important to leave it to someone nice."

"Well, sir, then, leave him on the NAUGHTY list, where belongs.”

“Oh, Pippy, you tricked me with our sharp-tongued little elven doubletalk. No, he’s naughty but, by our standards, he’s nice and stays on the NICE list.”

“But it's his choices that put him on the NAUGHTY list. Where do I even start?"

"You don't, you little Democrat runt!" Pippy's mouth dropped open in disbelief. The frown had only been the beginning; he felt pressure in his chest and began to feel faint. He had never seen Santa like that. He began to cry.

"There, there," Santa cooed, attempting to assuage him. "You have to be a little naughty to send out Seal Team 6, right? Or change regimes, right? Everyone thought Obama was nice, but he did some very naughty things, it turned out. Y'know, Pippy, I've never been elected anything. I'm Santa, because...well...just because."

"Because you're St. Nick! And Jolly. Jolly St. Nick. You're a saint, for goodness’ sake! You don't need to be elected.” Pippy clutched his chest and rubbed his left arm. “But Santa, what you just did wasn’t jolly or saintly. Not at all. It was naughty!"

Santa's assuaging countenance stiffened, becoming severe, even angry. He had a very dark moment.

"What did you just say?" he seethed.

"Oh! Oh! I didn't say you were naughty. Just what you did."

"You want I should put myself on that NAUGHTY list, do you?" Pippy was beside himself. He coughed on his sleeve and saw specks of blood. The animus in the room began to melt the snow outside the door, and some water began slipping over the threshold.

"Of course not, Santa. You? On the NAUGHTY list? Hahahahahahahaha! Never! But him? It's a mistake putting him on the NICE list. A big mistake."

"Not really. I’ve gotten a lot of letters from children asking for their very own Chia®Donald Trumps. And they’re asking me to bring their Dads Trump coins and watches and their Moms a Crystal Trump 2024 Memorabilia Lapel Brooch. I can’t break the hearts of over half the parents’ children out there."

"But," the elf said, "I think it is a mistake. I mean, there's a whole list of things that he's—"

"Pippy, Pippy," Santa cajoled him. "Do you think anyone's above forgiveness? Republicans? Democrats? Pyromaniacs? Remember little Jimmy Nubbins? Set his sister on fire but was really sorry after. Remember?"

“Yes…I remember.”

"Remember the uproar at the list-assignment conclave when half you little guys thought he should stay on the NAUGHTY list? And what did you say? Remember?"

"Yes, Santa..." Pippy answered, swinging a loose foot back and forth.

"You said, 'Don't judge someone by their past…but by the promise of their future.' Your eyes even teared up when you said that."

"I guess so..."

“And you said, ‘Give the little misunderstood tyke another chance. Was it really his fault? Is anything really anyone’s fault anymore?’”

“I suppose…”

“So moving, Pippy. And remember you said, ‘Aren’t we better than this? The NAUGHTY list is written in pencil for a reason. Have we forgotten what erasers are for? Things change. People change. And even if they don’t, who are we to judge? We’re not walking in their official Donald Trump footwear! We don’t know what can make someone choose anything on the spur of the moment. Inclusion means everybody.’ And, ‘Who are we to judge? Give ‘im another chance’—well said! You were such a persuasive and woke little elf—so persuasive that little Jimmy ended up on the NICE list again. He got that PlayStation 5 Pro last Christmas morning, along with his sister getting those finger extension splints. So, waddaya say now about Mr. Trump?"

"Pardon him?"

"Oh, no-no-no-Ho-Ho-Ho! He doesn't need me for that.”

“A nice fruit cake, then? Or better yet—the annual subscription—a new fruit cake arriving every month!"

“That’s the elf I know! Now, off wit’ ya, Pippy. Those Chia pets aren’t gonna grow green hair by themselves!”

One day I'll wake up, and you'll be there again, in my arms, sleeping blissfully.

One day I'll wake up, and feel the greatest relief ever known to a living being.

One day I'll wake up, and every mistake, every hurt, every regret will become nothing but a bad dream.

One day I'll wake up, and everything will be right again.

Maybe one day I'll wake up.

Corn, no one heeds me

Ears can’t hear, no one believes

Still hear the rustling

Rarely viewed as the villain

Until, of course, the victims

realize it really is

Time gives us an opportunity

try everything

once

Time gives us the chance to

succeed

as often as we want

So, how is Time the villain?

Time is insidious

Gradually eroding

Our body

Our mind

Our hopes and dreams

Time permits a young mind

To explore the infinite

Before realizing he does not have the infinite

Time displays a myriad of choices

Then slowly closes each of them

Before we know they were even possible

Time is the giver of what we do not take

Time is the choice we do not choose

Time is the laughter we hear when we fail

So we hope to warn others

About what Time did to us

But they fail to listen as we failed to listen

Time then gives up on us

As we gave up on it

Once becomes once more

Not with the old man

But with his grandson

All we can do is watch the inevitable

Since Time cannot fail

That is its sole weakness

Time can never evolve

Ironically captured in its own loop

Time repeats ad infinitum

Garnering no accolades in the process

We, on the other hand

Achieve and fail

remembering both

Time presents as an ally

Pitied by the wiser mind

Feared by the man on the cusp of life

We can beat Time at its own game

Or die trying

I like my odds in this fight

Infant Frankenstein

Was hatched to petrified quiet

Funereal stillness robing her glum half moon fleer

As she lay upon twin orchid wreath breasts

Suckling on disintegrating bonds

Of mummy’s corporeal coffin

Drowning in this silent movie sea

Jailed borders grown strange and grim

From glitter gold toothed moon

To ashen sun slaughtered grin.

How her stitched lace lips longed to speak

How her milked pale horse soul longed to be fed honied love

How her solemn passage was choked cathedral cold

This blooming Arcadian shoot cut down

By gulled Flora’s frenzied reapers.

Infant Frankenstein

God’s embryonic dream thought to life

Such a beautifully tailored offering

Most darkly unwelcome

To these leprous flesh walls pulsing with serpentine hate

And eyed with crimson pitchfork lashes

By Argus’s unblinking lust

Hungry to devour her heart’s fragmenting tombstone smile

And spit out teeth like broken seed.

Infant Frankenstein

Little child cut undone

How you are so dearly beloved

For God’s stepladder chariot is winged roses on fire

Stealing the smoke halo soul

Wrapped around your dried limbs

Shaking free the fragile last breath

Far beyond night’s charred bangle

From hell’s bouquet of dead stars

Into the tethering joys eternal

Of mum’s garden cradle arms.

I remember it like it was yesterday. Magic was flowing through the air, the sky was bright, and the village was happy. Then the darkness came and there was only a few people in all of the kingdoms who could protect us. I lived in a small village on the outskirts of our kingdom we were the last people that anyone would protect. On the day that the darkness came for us we were blessed with a hero to protect us. They were passing into our kingdom and we could see the light shining through in the Darkness pushing it away until the sky was glowing blue in the night with magic vanquishing the darkness. The people were happy and laughing. But not me. The light killed my mother, the light killed my best friend, the light stole my happiness. The so-called hero didn't care who died as long as the darkness was vanquished. We lost people in our village who were normal and had shown no signs of Darkness infecting them. If only the hero had healed them instead of vanquishing them. A hero who only cares about fame and doesn't think of consequences. It wasn't just me, I wasn't the only one who found nightmares and loss from the light. Stepping into the darkness was the only choice I had to save those who couldn't be saved by the Light.

beneath the chipped paint

& rust

the BQE was revealing

not just it's age

& neglect

but the dying days

of the city

that should have

taken the time

to sleep

A forgotten language outlawed by ruler by strap by fist.

Snatched from mother and father to boarding schools ruled by grim faced nuns.

The people of the red land the children of Terra Australis, the Great Southland, Australia.

Memories of rivers, of tucker bag, emu egg, wichitie grub, fish all forgotten like the language.

Bush memories, song line memories, ancestor memories, skin knowledge all forgotten.

In a forgotten language outlawed by ruler by strap by fist.