They do not speak of the lingering memories of trauma in happiness.

That thick, greasy film that clings to you out of nowhere,

on a sunny day where you lose your breath laughing.

Because then you are alone— and you feel it.

Like the grit of ash beneath your fingertips, cloying your prints,

or the stick of cough medicine in your throat it takes hours to clear.

I am in love. My love is pure, and unabashed, and innocent.

But in it I am forced to remember grabbing, tugging, taking.

One sticks to me like cling tonight, as I sip on a drink after a long work week.

The memory of someone, so harmful in their brief stint, bragging about a stranger carrying them around at a bar. Hands on their waist, lips ghosting— sickeningly, that saccharine poison of a laugh that I once thought true given to another while I sit at home.

And my love now is out with friends, doing something as harmless as mini golf. And I am bloated with the bitter memory of my tears, my pain, my suffering.

And it was all caused by someone so brief. Not even four months, and yet ever present for the rest of my life. How is that fair? That I mix up the kindest person's name with one so demented? That I remember a touch scraping me raw where my lover's is soft, never straying.

The cut that always bleeds.

I am vulnerable sitting in that tiny boat, suspended above fathoms of an inky void as the menacing, colossus lurks below, beyond the sun's rays, out of range from my squinting eyes. With no interest in a drowned worm concealing a barbed hook, it opts for easier prey. Circling underneath my boat, the assault begins. Using effortless flicks from a broad tail, the prehistoric-in-stature fish ascends with increasing velocity all the while remaining focused on its selected target. The jaws splay open right before impact against the hull.

With little resistance from the surrounding medium, the momentum propels its body and my craft well above the lake. The vessel’s keel snaps, separating the bow and stern as I am hurled through the air. In disbelief over what just happened, I find myself treading water, converted into flotsam among the scattered, buoyant debris. The hunter has become the hunted as the surface roils. After the gnashing of teeth and a definitive gulp, I’m expunged from existence. My demise is Nature’s retaliation for all the previous fillets I’ve consumed.

Such is the thought process of an overimaginative eight-year-old fishing with his grandfather.

Hunching my shoulders, I bury my face in the orange, Kapok-filled life preserver wrapped around my neck to seek refuge. Gramps notices my posture and sudden quietness. Recognizing the power of an adolescent’s self-generated fear, he knows if my unsubstantiated anxiety isn't dispelled, I'll want to go back to camp. Without embarrassing me, he mentions he’s going to “reposition the anchor.” And in three arm-length pulls, the anchor is by the gunnel. He then lowers it back down, using the thick line to prove that we are in a mere fifteen feet of water. This reassuring display mitigates my angst, banishing the nightmare-fuel from my mind. With newfound courage, I return to the task at hand, cast out my lure and slowly crank the reel, hoping for manageable resistance on the line that trails off into the depths.

Such is the obligation of a grandfather fishing with an overimaginative eight-year-old.

My grandparents owned a camp on a reservoir nestled between two mountains in upstate New York. Our extended family convened there each summer, spending most of the time either in or on the water. Days revolved around wading, swimming, water skiing, boating and fishing. Fishing superseded everything. Fishing was king.

Having always been around it, I don't remember a time when I didn’t know how to fish. My grandfather was passionate about this hobby. So, I learned from his example to love it as well. He was there to lend a supportive hand, helping me reel in a struggling sunfish or pugnacious perch caught off the dock. He taught me correct casting techniques, how to properly set a hook and respect for nature.

After a few years, he was also the one who decided I was ready to accompany him on his fishing trips in the boat. Fishing from the boat was my rite of passage. It meant I had proven to Gramps that I was ready to venture out where the big fish are. He may have been impressed with my diligence while waiting for a nibble in the waters surrounding the dock. Or, he may simply have grown tired of fishing with me twelve paces from his kitchen window. Nonetheless, he deemed me trustworthy to be away from camp for hours on end without the risk of being bored, whiny or in need of accessible, indoor plumbing. My internship was complete. Now it’s time to continue honing my craft far away from shore.

Taking the boat shows I am a real fisherman. With enough fuel, it grants access to the entire lake - open water or protected bay, deep basin or shallow flats. No part of the expansive reservoir is unreachable. I am liberating myself from the narrow confines of our waterfront property.

The downside of my grandfather's excursions is the predawn wake-up calls. Five a.m. is an ungodly hour for a kid on summer vacation. "Because that's when the fish are biting," was the standard reply when questioned about the need for early departures.

After finishing our traditional breakfast of two fried eggs over easy atop a piece of Roman Meal toast surrounded by still spattering bacon and accompanied by a mug of hot chocolate, we are ready for our trip. I rush to the storage shed attached to my grandparents' cottage. Navigating the uneven floorboards, I am responsible for gathering the bait box, hook remover, gloves, air horn, stringer, net, empty Maxwell House Coffee can and seat cushions. With my arms full, I trudge to the boat. Gramps follows with a full tank of gas and our tackle boxes.

When everything is stowed, we return for the fishing poles. They go in last to prevent them from being snapped while loading the other gear. Plus, it’s a ritual. The Carrying of the Poles. The Presentation of Arms. Once they are ceremoniously placed in the boat, we depart. Daybreak's quiet air and calm water are disrupted by the steady putter of the engine and the ever-increasing, rippled "V" pattern our wake leaves as we set off towards fertile honey holes.

Measuring about ten feet long, our boat is made from what seemed like World War II surplus steel. It has a pointed bow, three bench seats and is powered by a trusty 18-horse Johnson outboard motor, which always starts on the third yank. My station is forward, fully exposed to the uninterrupted wind and water.

When I am old enough and pass a safe boating course, we reverse roles. I steer and he sits on the middle seat. He is the Admiral; I am his Captain. During moments of insubordination, I deliberately angle the bow, so it glances off an oncoming wave. This creates excessive spray, which in turn soaks my higher-ranking official.

From underneath a tilted fishing cap that is his only shield against the aqueous onslaught, I hear, "Whatta man. What a man." Grampa used this lighthearted expression every time I slipped from Serious Fisherman Mode into Rambunctious Little Boy Mode. I'd snicker while offering a feeble, "Gosh, sorry" over the din of the motor and correct my course.

Arriving at our destination, we each take and stick to one side of the boat to cast from, preventing inadvertent line entanglement. Like a true fisherman, I am diligent in keeping my pole pointed skyward, except when a dragonfly lands on the tip. Then I dunk the end in the water, attempting to submerge the unwelcomed squatter. The insect always launches before my rod breaks the surface. When this happens, Gramps reminds me, "Eddie, you can't set the hook when your pole's pointing towards the seaweed (technically, it’s lake weed)." He dutifully concludes with, "Whatta man. What a man."

Letting my lure sink too far before reeling means it will snag on the bottom. When this occurs, more often than it should have, I turn these annoyances into pretend fights with trophy-sized fish. Out of the corner of his eye, Gramps notices my rod bending grotesquely and plays along with this make-believe battle. He can tell the type of fish hooked by the way it fought. A steady pull meant vegetation.

"Don't let that one get away, Eddie."

"Better get the net because this one's a doozy," I reply, before the tangled mass of slimy weeds or waterlogged branch breaches. I was taught, “You catch it, you release it.” So, I am on my own to free the clot of plant life from my hook while Grandpa continues casting and uttering, "Whatta man. What a man."

Between my battles with the littoral flora, I concoct "What if..." scenarios.

"What if…the boat springs a leak?" I ask, trying to catch him off guard.

"We'll use the coffee can and bail out the water," he calmly replies.

"What if…while getting the anchor, I fall overboard?" I persist.

"Let go of the line, you can swim. Plus, you’re wearing a life jacket," he counters.

"What if…the motor doesn't start?"

"We'll row. That's why we have oars."

I had a better chance of catching the dragonflies on the tip of my rod off guard.

Losing a fish when a line broke was a minor setback. "Must have been a hefty one," he proclaims while swiping at the severed end limply blowing in the wind. A few quick twists and he’s secured a new leader. I couldn’t tie knots as quickly or as efficiently as he did. Despite crooked fingers, he is masterful. With a snap of the wrist, the line, leader and new lure are airborne, back into the lake. "That fish is out there somewhere with my lure. Maybe we'll catch him this time."

When my arm got sore from casting, I'd rummage through my tackle box to get a hook, a leader with a sinker and a plastic, red and white bobber. Then I’d switch to “still fishing.” Positioning the bobber on the line about four feet above the hook, I toss the ensemble overboard. With the bait suspended in view, the waiting begins. I wait for the fish to come to me. I wait for the bobber to execute its one and only job – bobbing to signal a bite. And I wait. And wait and wait, knowing the longer I wait, the greater the probability I’ll be rewarded.

Eventually, fish congregate around my line. But instead of chomping at the juicy worm writhing in mid-water, they are captivated by the leader and sinker. What’s the attraction to steel and lead when a free lunch was dangling just below? I hypothesize the fish were mulling over how to unclasp the leader. If they could learn to do that, they would nullify the threat of impalement and leisurely peck at the free-falling food.

Our trips were usually successful. Undersized fish were released so they'll "grow up for next year." Big ones destined for the dinner table were kept on a stringer hanging off the transom. I can sit with abundant patience during the process. But when the stringer is heavy with keepers, my attention turns to showing them off back at camp. As Gramps senses my uneasiness, he announces he'll take "one last, lucky cast" before heading home. I don't remember if he ever caught anything on this final cast, but he always upheld the tradition.

Water droplets fly off the line as I pull the anchor, hoping it latches onto a sunken treasure chest. It never does. Instead, the homemade hunk of lead has dislodged a large accumulation of weeds and bottom muck. After a few dunks in the water, the anchor is clean enough to slide under the middle seat. The stringer is retrieved. Our trip has concluded.

Approaching the dock, I ready myself for a premature disembarkation. Grandpa tells me to wait until we are tied up, but I can't. I grab the stringer and jump out of the boat before it’s completely moored, while hearing, "Eddie, wait. Secure the bow line.” I don’t. “Whatta man. What a man."

Struggling to keep the day’s catch from dragging on the ground, I run up to camp yelling, "Hey, look at these," to nobody in particular but everybody in general. I strut about, acknowledging congratulatory smiles and answering probing questions. "Where did you go?" "Can't say, it's a secret." "Who caught that big one?" "Grandpa." "And that bigger one?" "Gramps." "And the small one?" "Me." This invokes reminiscing of past trips the onlookers had taken.

Grandma would get her Instamatic camera and tell us to stand on the dock. Then, with a burst from a flashcube, we are immortalized from knees up, destined for the photo album. Grandma’s Kodak Moments rarely showed anyone's legs or feet because she focused on the fish proudly held out for display. "Get closer. Hold the fish between you two. Higher up, Ray," she directs.

I’m beaming ear-to-ear standing beside Gramps. With his shirt half unbuttoned ("This makes it look like I had to put up a fight to land the fish."), he extends his arm. "Hold the fish away from your body so it looks bigger," he whispers before the shutter clicks.

Whatta man. What a man.

Someone like a sister hates me.

We share the same blood, partly.

Someone who had seen me at my worst, seen the best and the truth despite it.

A cousin by it, but by name so much more. To me. Not to her.

She hates me for rumours spread by a friend I considered family, whom I implemented as such. He spoke words I never once said. She believed him— a boy I knew, turned to a baleful, disgusting man by time and genetic material‚— over me, a person who she had loved since babbling English.

And she loathes me. Will not even look at me at family events to the point I excuse myself to cry. To want to die, so maybe then she is forced to remember the baby she once cradled, the little girl she once spent hours upon a chair watching moves with, the couch we lost our breath laughing as we played a video game that was solely ours.

When did she take off those glasses she saw me so purely through?

Will she ever pick them up again?

A grandmothers dying wish,

a mother's quiet expectation.

She does not.

She hates me, and I love her.

I wish to be infamous.

Not famous, not known by name or face.

But my words— I want them to haunt. To cause people to uproar for more.

To yearn for my pain because it is all I have known, and all I can curate.

I want my writing to be devastating, and notorious for the absolute depravity it causes.

However, I am not. I have tried. I have failed. I keep trying. I continue failing.

Still, I try harder, and fail worse. But I do not give up, because out there is a reflection of myself at thirteen— fat, pale and mute. Traumatized but unable yet to feel the full effect of it. And my words will help. Will guide. Will promise the slightest retribution for the suffering that never will end. Will encourage. Paint the faintest glaze on something torn, bloody and bruised.

I will keep trying until I succeed.

The Chernoyl plant, not to be confused with the Chernobyl nuclear plant, manufactured male enhancement supplements. Not garden variety supplements, mind you, but the best creatine, bodybuilding supplements, and mixtures to grow the size of every man's sweet spot.

It's still a mystery what caused the Chernoyl plant to explode one hot summer night when operations had ceased for the day. The impact on the surrounding ecology was immediate, and devastating. Insects, mice, and other varmint had mutated to be the size of adult humans, with corresponding increases in their male sweet spots.

Within days of the disaster, the military created a one-mile exclusion zone around the plant. Only Dr. Klarrion and his nurse, Nancy, were allowed to enter the site. Officially, they were there to research how to mitigate the disaster. The military was also interested in combat uses of the mutant wildlife. And Dr. Klarrion had his own demented vision.

Thus it was on a dark Wednesday afternoon at the end of October, some three months after Dr. Klarrion and Nancy had set up the lab, that a major breakthrough occurred.

Nancy entered the lab with a fresh pot of coffee. Setting it on a plate above the Bunsen burner, she brushed her shrinking breasts against Dr. Klarrion's arm. She also took a moment to appreciate his increasingly large, albeit flaccid, bulge.

Of course they had worn respirators since entering the site, removing them only to eat or drink. But these off times were sufficient: Dr. Klarrion's genitals had nearly doubled in size. And Nancy had become more masculine, growing both muscle and body hair.

Nancy also found herself increasingly attracted to Dr. Klarrion. The doctor was so absorbed in his research that he was oblivious to her advances.

Nancy's eyes were still fixated on Dr. Klarrion's bulge when he suddenly stepped back from the microscope, clapped his hands, and said, "Nancy! The sperm of the praying mantis has successfully penetrated your ovum! Congratulations. You're going to be a mother."

1/24/2025

They say love belongs in the light, where it’s easy and safe. But they don’t know what it feels like to love you...to lose myself in the quiet corners of the night, where shadows stretch long and our hearts speak louder than words. The faint beams of moonlight cast us into focus, our silhouettes blending like whispers shared too softly to be heard by anyone else.

You are a spark, one I didn’t know I was waiting for, and I? I’m the fire that you’ve somehow made whole. Every time your hand brushes mine, every time your breath warms my neck, it feels like the beginning of something I’ll never be ready to end. Our love is not loud; it doesn’t demand the world’s attention. It’s quiet, steady, and unshakable, like the tide gently pulling the shore closer to the sea.

Your scent lingers in the air long after you’re gone, wrapping around me like a memory too beautiful to forget. When you’re near, the world softens. The edges blur, and nothing else seems to matter but the way your touch feels against my skin. There’s an ache in loving you, a sweetness that borders on pain. It’s not the kind of love that asks for permission; it simply takes hold, unrelenting and pure.

Tonight, as the stars press close and the world fades to black, I feel your lips against mine. The moment is simple and perfect...not because it’s flawless, but because it’s ours. Your hands find me in the dark, tracing the edges of who I am, grounding me in the only truth I’ve ever known: that I belong to you.

In this quiet, we are free...free to love without fear, without judgment. The world may not understand, but here, wrapped in the stillness of the night, there’s nothing to explain. Love, I’ve learned, doesn’t always come with grand gestures or perfect timing. Sometimes, it’s found in the way your heart beats in time with mine, in the way your arms feel like home.

This is what love looks like...not perfect, but real. And as the night holds us close, I know this is where I’m meant to be. With you. Always with you.

The chernoyl, Chernobylus ridicularis, is a one-celled parasite that arose from spontaneous creation after the famous nuclear meltdown in Ukraine. It is based on radon, although it spews enantiomeric uranium isotopes. The scatter diameter for each 55-nanometer organism is about twenty feet, or about as far as you can run in a gulag before a bullet catches up with you.

Chernoyls tend to infect your glibula, which means you're fucked. It reverses the polarity of your hydrogen atoms, which is why getting an MRI scan cam make you explode. Because you depend on your glibula for about a dozen physiologic inanities, once you've developed glibulitis, you can kiss your modeling career goodbye.

NOTE: The glibula bank is running disastrously low. Remember, only you can designate yourself glibula donor on your driver's license. Help someone with a faltering modeling career!

Currently, there is no cure for glibulitis or infection with the chernoyls, but you can still protect others by abstaining from pearly ovule insertions, now the most frequent cause of infestation. Pearly ovules have also been implicated in anachronism and falling down.

Pearly ovules have an exquisite sense of humor, so they can die laughing, but it is theorized it would take a stand-up gig of about 100 hours to effect such an eradication, and what's funny after 100 hours?

It is not politically correct to reference the sex organs of people infected by chernoyls. (It's still, as they say, too soon.) How would you like it if your own sex organs were variegated into prismatic shards? You wouldn't, so be sensitive to the problem.

Chernoyls have also been implicated in manifest destiny, e.g., Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal.

Currently, several anti-chernoyl medications are in Phase IV trials—if you can get past the taste. Chernot®, ChernBurn®, and Chernobyl-Never-Happened-Conspiracy® ("CherCon") aren't expected to hit the shelves for another three years, so don't ask your stupid doctor if it's right for you.

And while your shit still stinks, don't be concerned about it glowing in the dark. Only be concerned when it stops stinking.

I guess loathing humanity is in my nature. It just comes with the territory.

Look I'm just biding my time in this prison called "life" untill the celestials deem me fit to go home.

This world is no life, this is Hell! This isnt living its just an existence to experience to understand humillity and benevolence. I never wanted or asked for this! Im sure this lesson has been lost on me for my heart has hardened on this whole experiment. No one is worth it. I learned to loath humans very early here when I was tortured as a child. Then I was told I had to forgive. Really?

Then it kept happening. By different but yet the same kind of humans. Again, I was told to forgive. Yet where was my justice?

Where is the justice for ones like me who are biding our time, just existing until we can leave this existence?

This world is a prison and I am an inmate.

I sit in a quiet, dimly lit room in front of a blank page opened on an old laptop. My eyelids are heavy, my thoughts are slow and hollow. I take a sip of tea in hopes of refreshment, but it is cold and tasteless. I smirk as I compare it to my writing.

So many things I want to write about. So many ideas. Yet every time I try to it all just slips out of my mind and into the infinite void that our brains are too weak and primitive to grasp. I begin to hate my mind, my body, and ultimately myself, spiraling down into remembering every single mistake and bad decision that I have ever made, once again reminding myself that I am a bad person, a scum, a villain, and that maybe it would be better for everyone around me if I wasn't even born in the first place.

No. It isn't true. Not entirely, at least. I take a deep breath and recite her words. I know them to be true, because she never lied to me. I wish I did the same. Her words are like a beacon in the dark stormy ocean, a reminder that there is light inside of me, and that it was this very light that had saved her years ago, and keeps doing so to this day.

I am hanging out with you under dubious circumstances. You make a clicking sound without opening your mouth, feet off the pedal, sports mode on. I say sentences and they drift into the clean air we're breathing. I'm not sure if you hear me because you don't reply.

We're driving and driving. You choose the music, I choose the mood. Sometimes one of us says something amusing. Most of these things don't settle; on occasion we find them hysterical, riffing and laughing until it catches our lungs. Past the window, a never-ending chain of the same old strip mall. There's Target, Trader Joe's, Chilli's. You repeat the memes which were our only reference to these American chains before we moved here.

Hanging out with you is often frustrating. Sometimes I feel so completely in company, other times I feel hopelessly alone. Your psyche drifts to somewhere far away. We both jostle from the real world to the world we've run from, from things we can see to things in that third digital spaces. We both message other people, outsourcing our company in every which direction.

It is hot and it is dry, a veritable tinderbox. We're not used to hanging out with our full disaster bag and nowhere to go. I'm used to having a list, you're used to looking out in awe when we arrive at somewhere we've researched. It's unclear whether this unchartered day is something magical or something to be feared. I look up at you and you don't look back. Your mind is in the mountains, mine curled in my grandparents' lounge. We both seek comfort as our home fills with smoke.

Hanging out right now isn't easy; it hurts, it's chaos, it's cloying. That said, in these dubious circumstances, there is nobody else with whom I'd rather be.