That even though you all have given me a place to write freely and openly I'm afraid to share all of me. I've been corrupted to believe that you'll still judge me.

My religion;

My age;

My likes;

My fears;

My family;

Me.

I don't know.

Maybe I'm wrong.

I want to spill everything in front of you, express more than I have, but I don't want my words to be viewed differently.

That's what I want all of you that I love dearly to know.

An old Navajo walked out of the station eating an orange. I nodded to him and smiled. He said nothing. He stood next to me under the hood.

​“What is it?” his voice was angered, aggravated and aggravating.

​ ​“I don’t know.”

​“What happened?”

I told him. He walked away slowly and came back with another. He got behind the wheel and cranked it. His buddy stayed under the hood. I walked inside the station and bought a drink.

They were standing over the engine, laughing. His buddy had one tooth in his head. I asked the first one what was wrong with it. He wiped his hands down his shirt and shook his head, smiling.

​ ​“It’s very bad.”

I stared at his friend. He nodded and smiled. I looked at his tooth.

​ ​“How bad?”

The other one answered. He was the boss.

​ ​“Head gasket’s blown. Much money.”

​“How much money?”

​“We’ll do it for nine hundred.”

I only had six hundred on me. I told him.

​ ​“Nope. Fix it here or we tow it to the junkyard.”

I had the extra key in my wallet.

​ ​“Alright. Fix it here.”

I asked him how long it would take. One solid day. I took my bike out and rode into town, into that place.

The car lots there were useless. They either had nothing I could afford or anything I would trust. I rode back. They had the van on the lift in the garage. I found the boss again.

​ ​“Listen. I really only have six hundred dollars. Can’t we do something here, I mean, we’re both people.”

He scowled.

​ ​“You’re not my people. Nine hundred dollars. That’s a good deal. Somewhere else you’d pay twice as much.”

​“Well, I don’t have it.”

He looked me up and down.

​ ​“Where do you live?”

I shook my head. He smiled.

​ ​“Maybe you can work here for the money.”

​“Where?”

He laughed.

​ ​“I’ll make the call. Job’s hard. Very hard. Maybe you’ll quit.”

I asked him what it was. He uttered one word: digging. He told me I could sleep in the van until I paid it off, but he would charge me a little extra for rent. I thought quickly about catching a bus, but there was nowhere I wanted to go. I couldn’t hitch a ride out with my bike and my things. Arizona was not an option. I told him to make the call.

I slept in the van that night in the garage. It was still dark when one of the Indians banged on the door.

​ ​“Get up! Time for work!”

I had the sheet of paper with directions and set out on my bike. It was a four mile ride through the dusty roads and paths. I saw the site. A long, long line of Indians on their knees with narrow shovels trenching into the ground, a truck going slowly in reverse with a giant spool of cable they laid carefully into the trench. They were shirtless and moving quickly, and the foremen screamed at them. They were an endless line ripping a tear in the desert, the line of dark red backs and elbows moving like a long machine. I was my soul after death and I was standing at the gates of Hell.

I found the lead foreman and told him who I was.

He yelled.

​ ​“YOU’RE LATE!”

I tried to explain. He threw a shovel in my hands.

​ ​“Three feet deep and two wide. NOW!”

I squeezed in between two big Indians. The foreman ran up and nudged me with his boot.

​ ​“NO! You bring up the FRONT!”

He walked me up to the front of the line. It was a long walk. The Navajos peered at me with my shovel, and they jeered me. At the front of the line the foreman pushed me to the lead. I’d had it with him. I turned and held my shovel to swing at him. He jumped back and pulled out a long blade. I yelled at him.

​“FUCK YOU!”

The line burst into laughter. The foreman laughed with them.

​ ​“Just dig, white boy. You’ll quit before an hour.”

He put the knife back in his boot and walked away. I dropped to one knee and saw the ditch. I would work the day then sneak out with the van before the Indians came back to the shop. I began digging. The other workers laughed. Their laughter made me angry. I dug furiously for an hour. I made sure to stay in front of them, to beat them with a widening gap. One of them yelled at me to slow down. I heard his friend.

​ ​“Don’t worry. He’ll get tired.”

I thought of all the things that sickened me. I found a reservoir of hatred inside my arms. I dug on. Three or so hours passed. It was time for everyone to drink.

​ It was a long wait for the water ladle. There was a huge steel trough and we all lined up to drink from that ladle. When my turn came I took two or three gulps then another foreman grabbed it.

​ ​“That’s too much, white boy.”

Everybody laughed. They still had ten minutes. They found corners of shade by the trailer and sat. I walked back to the ditch and kept at it. They yelled at me to take a break. The foremen told them to keep quiet, that they were disgusted that a white boy was making them look so bad. I kept digging. I was yards out from them. They had to cut their break short. They were moving as fast as they could, but I had plenty of hatred in me. At one point a foreman blew his whistle and we stopped. He ran over with his tape measure and stuck it in their part of the ditch.

​ ​“Too damn shallow!”

A big worker stood up and looked at me. He ran his finger under his throat. I asked him if he was tired, and the line howled. I kept going, faster and faster, delirious from the heat. My skin was burnt.

​

After the next hour everybody hated me. I didn’t care. I would never see them again. We worked until dusk. At the trailer where I had my bike chained the tires were knifed, and they were watching me. I paid them no mind, picked up my bike and carried it on my shoulder up over the hill where they couldn’t see. Then I set it down and collapsed. I watched the hot and dead sky turn circles over my body, and I remembered the pier in California, meeting Greg, my genius painter buddy from Vegas, and Roll, another genius painter who had just moved to Vegas from Florida, and they were in town by the pier, and we rode our bikes all day, practicing new tricks in front of the ocean. I remembered back further, to jumping on a Greyhound bus from Phoenix to Venice Beach, with three hundred dollars in my pocket, the first time I’d left home. I liked it there, and I lied about my age to get my first construction job I had found in the paper while drinking coffee in front of the ocean with my first girlfriend. She was seven years older than I was, with plenty of neurosis. Her name was Kim and she lived by the beach there in Venice. In six months she became the enemy, and I escaped her one morning while she was asleep. On the hot dirt, I thought forward from her, to a beach house where I had been a renter, living with an after-hours alcoholic and her lazy eye and her husband, Cliff, who was a psychologist and latently homosexual, which occurred to me on the hot dirt was the reason he always had a pipe in his mouth. I remembered leaving there, and my laundry getting stolen from the dryers in San Diego, and I remembered going to jail in Tijuana and being beaten over and over. But mostly I remembered nothing, and it was supposed to be dusk but the sky wouldn’t budge. I heard the rumbling of tires coming behind me. I picked up my bike and kept going. They blew by, yelling, hooting, flipping me the bird, leaving me in a cloud of dust. I set it down and walked it. A mile before the station the two mechanics pulled up in an old car.

The boss nodded at me.

​ ​“We fixed your van.”

I stared ahead and nodded. I felt him look at his buddy and smile, then look back to me, “See you in the morning.”

I nodded ahead. They wouldn’t see me in the morning. They wouldn’t see me again.

The van wasn’t in the garage windows. I walked around back and dug the key from my wallet. I threw my bike in the side door and sat behind the wheel. I could see the last traces of sunlight crashing into the desert. Then it was dark. I turned the key. It purred. They had done a good job. I crawled in back and laid on the couch. The van had no wheels, they had it set upon jacks.

Come 6 o'clock sharp

every morning,

I would make

the finest blueberry pancakes,

Or plain

with a touch of maple

and cinnamon,

Alas,that alarm clock was left

in another dimension.

I miss the way our lips used to collide;

the way your hand carefully caressed my side.

Your breath tasted of lust but I didn't mind.

I longed to hold a hand that was only mine,

and you gave me that for a short amount of time.

I wished to have our memory forever but all I have to remember us is this rhyme.

I received a phone call from my buddy sitting in a bar out east this morning. It went something like this:

“Dude, I just got a fuckin’ text from my girl saying that we’ve grown apart.”

“No shit.”

“A text. Not a phone call, not a fucking note, a text. A little square box of transmitted text that basically put me on a bar stool at 10 a.m.”

“How long you been seeing this one?”

“Like three weeks.”

“Grown apart is code for she wants to fuck someone else, or she already has. Not to make you feel worse, but that’s all that is. Especially after three weeks.”

He went on about their time together, then got around to listening for a minute. He made a comment about how I should write about it one day, about people in this attention-deficient age, then said not to waste my time because they’d only read the first few lines and go elsewhere. His boss called. He ignored the call to wrap it up with me, “I should call him back. Thanks for talking. I can’t remember how long it’s been since I’ve had a real conversation with someone.”

We hung up and I thought about it. Last week I had a long conversation with a good friend who has a lot of shit falling down around him, but when we hung up I felt the same way, it had been awhile.

There’s a guy I see every morning when I walk my dog. He walks his dog right past me, and every single time the motherfucker gets within hearing distance, he pulls his phone from his pocket and looks into it like he’s texting someone. It’s been bothering me for awhile now, but I always forget about him after a few yards. Friday I remembered, and I watched him after he passed me. And sure enough, every time the prick passed someone, out came the phone. I understand not being in the mood to talk to anyone, but there is a true sadness and isolation he gives off, and it’s common today. But I will say this, with elements like him removed, the day was beautiful. The water of the bay was black chromoly and the birds dive-bombed the surface then shot back up eating in mid-air. A really hot Asian girl jogged past us in red shorts that let her perfect ass bounce freely up and down, up and down, -all the sun and all the life of the bay and its air moved with a warmth that transcends all the petty things that burn me out. I came home and checked my email, then plugged in the old electric and typed letters to some people who had been on my mind the last few months.

I keep looking in a mirror

I don't know why

I see the antonym of beautiful

Flaws covering my face

Insecurities hiding in my eyes

Insults written on my skin

Imperfections leaking from my lips

Sexiness nonexistent because of my flat chest and butt

I still manage to look in the mirror

Everyday upon awakening

Because deep down I pray that one day

I'll feel as pretty as the other girls I see

But all I ever see is the me I don't wanna be