I flipped the lever on the side. It started like an engine.

I typed my first sentence ever, in capitals:

HERE WE GO.

I liked the feel of it. The bricks around me gave the words heavy acoustics. I didn’t want to start out by copying the journals. I had never written them for others to read. I wasn’t some fucking hungry young writer on the road. Instead I just wrote things that came into my head right there. I made many mistakes. For awhile I practiced the keys, finding the quickest ways to correctly write a sentence. Then I began my first short story. It was about a loser waking up in a stripper’s hotel room, his tongue in the ashtray. It went on for about four pages. It was magic. It wasn’t like handwriting. I was actually there in that hotel room. I saw the whole scene through the black keys. I had escaped my life and lived in a better world of better tragedy without the senselessness. I created the sky and the clocks, the curves of her body and the universe, molecule by molecule. I realized I could live forever through doing this. It was purely beautiful. I finished the story. She dropped him off at a bus stop and drove to the night club. He had nine hours to sit there.

I sat and typed poems, poems for the years long since wasted. I remember those poems, the life they gave. Some of them were dark ones about Helena, about the nature of women. Mostly they dealt with the people and the jobs and the nights without escape, the days which promised nothing. The words made me see things differently, more clearly. I wrote poems about places and people and jobs and parks and dogs and sunlight and children and handguns and everything.

I needed nothing else from that point onward. I needed a room, some caffeine and a typewriter. I typed furiously, sweating. I couldn’t roll the next sheet through fast enough. I’d never felt so useful. It was happening, thundering away, bending the walls downward. I sat there all night and typed to my music. Angels circled above and around my room, protecting me, allowing me to move and move. I was in love. It was all action. It was all mine.

I sat back and rested. I had a thick pile of pages piled next to the machine. I stretched out and looked at the clock: 6:23 p.m. I jumped out of the chair and ran to the phone. I’d missed nearly two and a half hours of work. I was hoping that I didn’t get Rob. I hated Rob. A different manager answered. I played it dumb, asked him if I was supposed to work today. He didn’t really know for sure. He’d just go check the schedule.

​“Yesiree. Supposed to be here at four.”

​“Shit. I’m on my way.”

​“Take your time. Not like you haven’t already.”

I had to be graceful. He could have been an asshole about it.

I walked to work every day because it was only eight blocks. Only this time I was armed. I had the pages I had written in my backpack and they were heavy with substance. I read my things on my break. I had typed out all of it. I was proud. I watched the people outside walking with each other, with their spouses to see a movie, with their kids and their tucked in shirts and pressed pants and perfect hair. I finally felt like I had one over on them. I had finally discovered an edge.

By the time I closed I was dead tired. I wanted to write but I was tired. I felt young again. I hadn’t pulled an all-nighter since Manhattan. I fell back across the mattress and read from the pages until my eyes blurred and I fell asleep, long and blue and without dream.

Shed your skin

And I'll shed mine

Stand naked before you

Vulnerable

To your every word

So tread lightly my love

Armor is too restricting

I shed

The skin

That bind

My hands

Are bleeding

Are reaching

Muscle

Tendon

Attached to bone

A web of movement

That need protecting

If you ever

See

Me without

My skin

You'll know

It's me

I'll be

the One

Still waiting

With

Thumb extended

Hitching a ride

to your poison

Even exposed and fleshy

I yearn

For the caress

Of your lips

Upon the expo

Of carnage

Even if

flesh

Lay upon

my mass

You yearn

For the space

Between us

To remain

Infinite

Peel away the layer

Raw, pink, slick flesh underneath

Screaming in the open air

Thousands of needle pricks

Rippling over the aching that just

Won't

Heal

Shaking apart

Strip down to your last defense

Hot, flowing agony escapes you

How can anything hurt like this

Breaking apart

You might think you just

Can't

Deal

But you do.

The ache subsides

Soothed by the motion

A crashing sea to help

Calm your tempestuous ocean

It comes and goes in waves

Once you stop crying out

You feel the thump of your heart

The wet tracks racing from corners

The shuddering expansion of your chest

Reality check

You are alive

Your capacity to endure agony

Is also your ability to revel in bliss

If you can feel one deeply

You can feel the other just as much

Dry your eyes and breathe deep

The air is cool on your new skin

In time it will harden

Become encrusted with all your worries

And you'll have to split apart again

But for now enjoy the open air

Nestle against your cornerstones

And thank your lucky stars

That you can still feel