“Does it look okay?” I asked my girlfriend as I examined a large billboard advertisement across the street from our car that prominently displayed a new beard balm. She wasn’t paying attention really, as she flipped through Reddit and Facebook in an amorphous blur, like she was simultaneously fact-checking statements made by politicos on either media platform. She wasn’t. She was verifying whether the latest celebrity belly photo indicated a baby bump or too much ice cream. Meanwhile, I was looking at the advertisement and then back at my own face in the sun visor mirror. She knew I wasn’t asking about the beaming gentleman on the advertisement.

“We journeyed through the forest of the frenzied fists,” Armella said. She had her hands on her hips, frowning. “I got punched in the eye by a maple.”

Gabe’s been super annoying ever since he got back from studying in 1952. Just the worst.

dragging down the dead
hallways of morning
I wonder what it all means
how sex and sustenance
had evolved
into the 8-hour job

for I just so prefer to discuss
myself. sometimes,
when patient Twelve gets whiney,
I jab her with
my pen – once –
twice –
“why are you doing this?”