For Alex

This slick young queer, this beautiful boy...
I give this picture to you, a picture i'm sure you've seen. Because he stopped writing before 21. You are 21 and just starting. I ashed in my beer a minute ago, and just had to swish it around and keep going. Sometimes you must swallow the ash, it's clean at least.

I want to ask you for something, and it's a big request, it's something intense and serious...it might even be impossible. But I will ask, you can give any answer, I will accept whatever it may be. Continue diligently, keep going even when you feel empty, continue to write.


A boy came into a room where he found something very surprising. In the center of the room on it's familiar circle rug, he saw a small grey pouch. He approached it slowly, not knowing how it got there. He looked up at the clouded covering over the bulb and knew it hadn't fallen. He wondered if his father had put it there, but was confused at why his father would leave it on the rug and not on the bedside table. He approached it. He lowered onto the balls of his feet, then onto his knees, and put his hands on them. He felt a sense of anxiety, though he knew not the words to describe it. Was this a test? Was someone watching him? He decided with tense muscles to pick up the pouch. It was soft to the touch, a drawstring pulled tight at it's mouth. He lifted it, it wasn't heavy, but felt valuable, it's contents clicking as he lifted it. He opened it slowly with two fingers inside it's mouth. He put one hand on it's back end and gently poured the contents onto the rug. From it fell the most beautiful glass balls. His eyes grew wide as he looked at their myriad colors, how they shone in the light. Eight small and one large ball. He wanted to shout with joy, but could only smile. For his birthday he had recieved those coveted things, his father's marbles.

A Work in Retrogress

He stumbled across an instant, while hiding behind a dumpster with the smell of hot trash engulfing him, where he wondered if Bone were presently running with AK-47s. He stood up keeping his head out of sight, below the brick wall surrounding the dumpster. He lifted his backpack onto his shoulder, crept to the edge of the wall and scanned the parking lot: pretty quiet. He sprinted from his hiding place across the parking lot towards a closed Starbucks. He picked up a river-rock sitting in a planter and threw it through the window. He knocked out a few standing pieces of glass from the huge window and stepped inside. An Alarm buzzed at him. He walked over to a small open-faced cooler and started grabbing muffins and water bottles. He took a bag from near the register and filled it. He removed the packaging from a poppy seed muffin and began eating it, relaxing in a small, thickly padded armchair. His legs and arms were sore and getting weak, he needed this food. The muffin was delicious, the water cool in his body, he sat in the chair his head leaning back eating and drinking, his eyes closed.
A vibration in his pocket, pulled him from the rest, he answered it.
"Yea?"
"Where are you?"
"In a starbucks in Glendale, you?"
"Beverly Hills."
"Hey, Alex?
"Yea?"
"I shot a guy."
"Who?"
"Some thug, he pulled his piece on me, what could I do? Self-defense right?"
"Yea, self-defense, don't worry. Do you need to get picked up?"
"Yea, what's downtown like?"
"Crazy apparently, should we go?"
"Definitely."
"I'll call you when I get to Glendale."
"Roger." He hung up and replaced the phone in his pocket. He pulled the bandana off his head and wiped his damp hairline with his forearm. He felt exhausted, but he wanted to shout with excitement. He stood up and put the bandana back on his head, he paced around for a second and then stepped back out through the broken window. It was warm that night, he had sweat and begun to dry and begun to sweat again, he couldn't find the right temperature. He looked out and saw the hills and watched the light from them flicker and move, it was beautiful. He sighed and smiled. He began walking towards the dumpster again, to wait in the peace of the shadows at night.

He crouched down and lit a cigarette. He heard the sound of an engine, and saw lights passing against the walls and windows of the shopping center.

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"It's not that I'm depressed, that's really not it. I'm upset. I'm more than upset, I'm furious...What is left to believe in? There's no God. Man is the devil. I want to do good, but they leave evil as my, our, only option."
"There's more to it than that. It's more complicated, more simple than that. Everyone gave it all away without knowing what it meant. A 14 year old giving her virginity to some aloof 18 year old. Like that. Now we're crazy, you and I and everyone...all insane. I want to fight, my father wants me to teach, I want to fight..."
"The sign of a young man."
"While he bears the sign of the old...seems to me that it's better to explode than to fizzle out."
"I'd agree. I want to explode, it's simple, the brave do not fear the grave."
"They don't seek it either."

The Tokyo moon is out of reach. Equality is out of reach. Exploitation, what a word, so overused, so underappreciated. What is your slave wage buying you? What would anything else be? It's not about the money, it's about sending a message. You still can't say she won't start up a fight. Without the fight we are part of it all...without it, there is no fight. There is nowhere to go, no place to be, where we are not just what we are now. What do you believe in? It's already been taken from you. What do you own? Nothing. Where is your family? Destroyed.

We have nothing left and refuse to believe it's something to fight and die for. The brave do not fear the grave. They do not seek it either. But we all find ourselves there anyway. And it's the best we can do.