that well-hung-over look

My prose was flaccid crass, shapeless, unclear.

My characters were about as developed as a third-world country, and my analogies as sophisticated as a bottle of Manischewitz Extra Heavy Malaga.

So I holed myself up in an old saltbox house in New Hampshire.

I gained weight. Discovered Zen Buddhism, Marxism, and punk rock.

I was searching for an identity. Anyone could see that.
But I was charming about it, so most people forgave me.

When I finally worked up the nerve to write again, this was all I had:

“I’d always been a little behind losing my baby teeth.
My last one came out in seventh grade first-period English.

We were watching a movie. I worked the molar until pop. Out it came. I wrapped it in a napkin and left it behind.”

That was it.

My facility for language gone.

No more ideas that assaulted the imagination or offended Goths and Gen Zers at open mic nights.

The garden had gone to weeds. The seeds had moved on.

I went into the kitchen and made a bowl of Cream of Wheat, Grape-Nuts folded in, sliced banana, honey on top.

I thought about the last conversation I had with my father.

He called my friends “moral degenerates, dope heads, drunks, and psychopaths.”

It was All Saints’ Day.

Fitting, really-
considering we both thought we were martyrs.

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