Summer Romance.

I was burning down baselines
Fueling the fire of my car bomb highs
I was kissing the older girl again
Tapping the tune between trembling thighs
She said, she said, "In or Out?"
And I swore, I swore, "Out, Out, Out."

I was stumbling through her hallway,
Drunk on some dim downtown avenue.
I was crashing into her kitchen
Bloody eyes seeking bloody lips
For a bookend kiss at noon

With a turn of the face and a bump of the breast
I saw, I saw the heart of oak in you,
With a turn of the face and a bump of your breast,
I felt, I felt the heart of oak in you.

She made me toast and
She sent me singing back home
She said, she said, "We still owe."
I said, I said, "I know, I know."
She said, she screamed, "Get your money and go!"
And I wouldn't and I didn't and I won't won't won't.

With a turn of the face and a bump of the breast
I saw, I saw the heart of oak in you,
With a turn of the face and a bump of your breast,
I felt, I felt the heart of oak in you.
I felt, I felt the heart of oak in you.
With a turn of the face and bump of your cold, bold breast,
I found, I found the heart of oak in you.

Things have been changing in step with the passage of time. Weeks pass like hours and I have been a butterfly in the utero of the cocoon. There have been transformations across my skin, mistakes made by my fickle heart, and temples to ideals raised and burned inside my head.
Monstrous things have been happening just below the surface of this sandbar world. Summer won't leave this place and I can't appreciate this eternal sun. My bones are icicles and my skin snow. My heart of evergreens has been burned to charcoal. Evergreens. That miracle, that magic, is nothing in this place.
I participated in the mysterious production of life. She gave me the news and handed me her time-bomb heart in the parking lot on our last day as almost us.
A week later we were both writhing in pain in our respectively alien nests, bound in sheets soaked with sweat and tears. But when it was over, it was over. The brutally obvious removal of an accident had nothing to do with me.
So I took up the haze in my lungs, my eyes, my pores, and I hid from those who knew me then. I spent another precious Northern summer surrounded by budding friends and blooming family. I read and I wrote and I missed her, I loved her, in my own terrified fashion. I learned simple ways to keep my mind on a short leash. I played music, I drank, I drank, good lord I drank, and I sang and I kissed ashtray tongues and charcoal lips.
I ran.

Eventually, I climbed aboard a plane and found myself back here, Eckerd. A place named aptly after a drug mogul. Life here is surreal, consequences are far from forthcoming and the air is as thick as LA smog with unrelenting freedom.
I found little pills and pieces of paper, green plants and black balls and powders that made everything a slow gray daze. I could hold my life in a plastic bag and it was easy, it was finally easy.
Sobriety fell upon me like the first powder of November. It shocked me and made my heat jump, it burned with its chill, but it let me push the shit out of my lungs and take in the cool crisp air that cleared my head.

I'm here. I don't know where I'll be going, I don't know if I'll be staying here. All I know is that my whole life has been a picture of a sunny day, and there is a creeping horror in the shadows cast by the burning sun. I'm ready for changing seasons and the rosy cheeks you can only get from bitter cold.
I'm heading along the crooked path to "Okay."
And it's getting better. All the time.

Burma.
Helping children, learning a different language, seeing what the rest of this world of ours looks like.
I want this.

I am no dollar value
My hands hold no fingers
whimpering for rings
My tongue is no silver
my words, no gold
My eyes scan no barcodes
inked across hungry souls

I am no merchant
with blood thinner than oil
My heart no ebony box
for diamond smiles sold
I burn for no ruby lips' kiss
am lost in no sapphire pools
of stagnant water, dead and cold

I and you are we
We, no us and them
No decimals between we
No debt carved in our stones
We are saints and friars
hair and skin our finest robes
glens our earthy lord's throne

We, meat, bone and blood
sunburnt skin, spit and sweat
father's laughter, mother's tears
love's burning toil
Scions of clay and river
Students of circumference
Sapling souls burst from soil

My brother's gecko had been dead for a week before the smell attracted his attention.
It was a captive, a curio living in a glass box. Isolated from everything its instincts knew and feared and loved and understood, left with immeasurable time in the realm of giants.
He was so excited when he brought his new pet home. He set up its habitation eagerly, filling the bottom of the fish tank he had salvaged from our long dead hermit crabs with designer pebbles and dirt. Each plastic branch and polyurethene leaf was enthusiastically positioned, just so, to create what he imagined was the most realistic habitat for a creature that had never know a twig. He placed the feeder rock, an even smaller plastic prison for even less interesting creatures, beside the shallow water dish, a simulacrum of a cool, shady rock pool. They were made from pressed plastic, the same type found in false picnic benches.
He carried it with him crouched, trembling on his shoulder until eventually the fear faded and the tiny soul explored the breadth of its new domain. Heaving hills of cotton held fast beneath its sticky feet, ending in long stretches of pink plains covered in coarse, thick black reeds that were far more trecherous than any rain spattered rock. It traveled on his shoulder and he cooed to it as its bulging eyes raced around the room looking and looking but never showing any sign of seeing. Its throat bulged proportionate to its eyes when he pulled his tumb down its spine.
His interest was already waning when the affectionate earthquake of a puppy ripped into the house. The dog was so close to dying from the first moment he met it that nothing else existed for him. The prospect of something so young and needy, something that begged such diligent and relentless care, passing from his grip so soon, was far more entrancing than a lost curio trapped in an existential hell.
He was pretty sure he stopped feeding the gecko sometime in the general vicinity of two weeks, he thought, before he noticed it had died. He had just come back from the veternarian's, purchasing pills that he hoped would help his dog-son survive for another day and another day and another day, when he remembered that other living thing in his care, and found it roasted, withered and dried in its cage, looking for all intents and purposes like any other freeze dried consumer good that just needed a little water.
He threw the gecko away in the trash. The fish tank sat on the back porch, imagined habitat intact, until it filled with rain. Fabric leaves that had slipped from their plastic branches floated on suspended shit and half-eaten crickets. My mother, sick of nagging at my brother to clean up his mess, took advantage of one of her more exasperated moods and emptied the tank onto the porch through a red-faced grimace. Water cascaded onto peeling blue planks and rushed to the limits of the platform. At the edges it poured, then trickled out of sight. The dirty water that didn't drip through the cracks pooled and soaked, would-be rotting branches clattered to the floor alongside the imitation river water dish made from overlapping faux rocks and the hard plastic feeding rock with realistic granite flecking. These she piled roughly in a cardboard box, muttering under her breath about the smell, and took down into the basement through the bulkhead doors, stepping into the dust and mildew and throwing it in some dark corner near the old bypassed septic tank. She sprayed the offending water off the blue boards through the cracks and over the edges onto the earth bellow, letting the sun dry the clean, clear, fluoride-treated water, until it had never been at all.

A slow Sunday evening
After supper but before old age
A Virginia Slim dances
Without rhythm
Between the bones of
Grandmother’s paper fingers
Resting on the wicker
Of her Richmond patio bench

Grandfather drags a dry tongue
Over concrete lips
Pausing in his parched preaching
On what it is to be a man
Trying to remember
Everything that hasn’t been said
Since I was ten

Stretched sunbeams fall on
Gaunt blackbirds
Picking at scattered
Sunflower seeds that drop
From the arthritic claws of
Graying parakeets
While the sand cranes
And I
Wish we didn't have to eat

I GOT BLISTAS ON ME FINGAS!

Don't stop.
Just keep starting.

I'll be home by the end of the month, I think. If I'm not it'll be a surprise to me. A lot of stuff has changed since I saw everyone last. It's going to be good to be home. It's going to be good to see you.
It's going to be good to not be dying in Florida from the oppressive heat.
But I am going to miss this place.

My cousin Daryl’s still is set up about a mile, mile and half into Tanner’s Wood, near the bend in Whippoorwill Creek where it gets real deep and the water’s nice and cool. The still’s between a crop of rocks and a big old oak. The woods hide it from any peering eyes, and it’s a rare thing for anyone but a Tanner or a friend to be in the woods. There’s a decent clearing around the still and Daryl keeps up a fire pit and a modest cabin. One of these days we hope Daryl’s going to get himself a wife and start himself a family, but we’re not holding our breath. Daryl’s got the kind of face that can curdle milk. He’s happy just fishing and making shine for now, and you can’t blame a man for that.
Daryl had just got the first batch of summer shine ready and me and the rest of the Tanner boys came up for a taste. It was me, my brother Clint, the twins Joshua and Dean, and One-Eye Will. One-Eye picked out a nice fat hog and brought it with us for a little bit of barbeque to go with the shine. We strolled up to the clearing a few hours before sunset and One-Eye got to slaughtering the hog, Clint and I got to looking for firewood, and the twins got to fighting. The thing about the twins was that they loved each other, and they’d do anything for one another, but I’ll be damned if I’ve ever seen two boys more dedicated to each other’s brutal beating. They fought over anything: women, shine, the time, whose hair was redder. This particular fight was over who was going to set up the fire pit for that evening. Each twin took a starter log and went to put it on the pit, they argued over who was going to arrange the wood, and don’t you know it, Josh wanted to make a tower and Dean wanted to make a teepee. Eventually the argument broke down and so did the stick that Josh was holding, over Dean’s head, of course. So the twins got to kicking and biting, and rolling around in the dirt, and Daryl ended up building his own fire.
When me and Clint got back with the wood Daryl had managed to get the fire going and had given each of the twins a mason-jar of shine. They had set themselves down on a log by the fire pit, and the cuts and bruises on both of them showed that they’d just pummeled all the fight right out of each other. One-Eye had butchered his hog down by the river and was slow roasting a few shanks. He was sitting on the far side of the fire pit, across from where Clint and I set down. One-Eye is a strange character. He’s a short, lanky, old man with gnarled knees and elbows on bony arms and legs. No matter when he shaves he always has a patchy three-day beard that never comes in. He’s got these beady little eyes, like black beetles set in his worn, leathery face. He has both his eyes still, and we imagine he could use them, but he’s always squinting so hard that the right one’s permanently closed. Daryl set himself down on my left and passed me a jar of shine for Clint and one for myself and handed two out to One-Eye. It’s family tradition to try and keep One-Eye pickled. Daryl cracked open his jar and we all started drinking. There’s nothing like that first batch of summer shine after the jars have aged in the cool river all spring. It tastes as sublime as anything in this world can and has made more than a few forget their differences around the camp fire.
The pig was roasting while we were drinking and talking about the weather and the hogs and the hen-houses.
“Some coyotes been eating out of my coops.” Clint said, spitting in the fire. “Hens won’t lay. I’ve lost three this week.”
“You sure it’s the coyotes?” Daryl asked.
“Don’t know what else it could be,” Clint said, leaning back and clearing his throat.
“Could be coons.” Josh said.
“Could be Josh.” Dean said.
“Shut your mouth, Dean.” Said Josh, cuffing his brother round the ears. “You know I ain’t no thief. I don’t go round stealing women like you.”
“At least I can steal a woman.” Dean jabs an elbow into his brother’s ribs.
“Yeah, with a burlap sack and a club.” Josh grabs Dean in a headlock and they topple back over the log. We all had a good laugh at that, even old One-Eye cracked open his face for a chuckle.
Before long the twins tire out and the barbeque is ready. One-Eye serves out the meat and we eat it with the corn Clint and I brought. It’s a good meal, and we’re all tired and happy after we finish. The shine was good, the conversation was loud and laughing, and the fire was warm. Before long, we all start dropping off to sleep.
I woke up to the sound of Daryl’s drunken hollering. The fire died down and moonlight was passing in shafts through the trees branches outside of the clearing. I looked around for my cousin, and found him screaming at a big brown bear that had wandered over towards his still. He was throwing jars of moonshine at the thing, and that bear did not seem to be enjoying it one bit. Once Daryl ran out of jars, he started throwing sticks and rocks and whatever he could, but that bear didn’t quite get it and was lumbering steadily towards his still. Once Daryl had thrown everything on the ground around him and some things that weren’t, he pulled out his fishing knife, screamed bloody murder, ran straight at that bear, and that bear casually tossed one of its tree trunk arms and knocked him straight back on his ass.
By then the rest of the boys were up and moving and we started in on that bear. The twins each picked a good long stick and started jabbing at it. Clint started throwing anything at hand at it and I ran up and pulled Daryl as far away from that mess as I could. The bear was roaring and the twins were rushing in and rushing out just as quick, not doing much more than giving the bear some shoddy acupuncture. Clint was tossing rocks and sticks and old bricks, but they were just bouncing off that bear’s thick skull. The bear was getting ornery and the Tanner boys weren’t helping none by poking and prodding it from all sides. The bear reared up and snapped both the sticks that the twins were holding in half with one swipe of those big paws. Now, fighting may come as natural to the twins as it does to two rabid wolverines in a sack, but they ain’t stupid. They hustled over to where I had laid Daryl down and started looking around for more sticks. With the twins busy dicking around in the woods, Clint was left all by himself throwing rocks at a very angry bear, and that is never a good situation to be in, especially after a night of shine drinking. Things were mightily in the bear’s favor until old One-Eye roused himself up, picked up a flaming stick from the fire pit, ambled over as casual as you please, and tossed that torch straight at the bear.
Such a sight I had never seen before in my life and I doubt I’d ever see again. All the shine that Daryl had broken over that bear’s back and head went up like grease on a grill. That bear’s fur was there one second and gone the next, replaced by flames of blue. The miserable thing started howling and tearing through camp, running hard and fast. He was pounding the ground straight towards the river, which would have been all well and fine, but unfortunately for Daryl, he had built his cabin right on the river bank where the bear was heading.
Daryl’s a fisherman and a shiner; those are his two passions in this life. Rightly so, he had his front door facing the still and the back door facing the river, and not much more than a table in between. The bear ran through the house, knocked over the table setting it on fire, and splintered the back door to matchwood on its way down to the water. It splashed into the river with a hiss and a groan, and started paddling to the far river bank.
The cabin startled crackling and we could see the fire through the front door. The twins were still off in the woods looking for long sticks, Daryl was passed out on the ground, and One-Eye shuffled his creaking self back to the fire pit, set down again and cracked open another mason jar of shine. It was up to Clint and me to try and save Daryl’s house. We ran in there and started taking whatever we could out. Clint grabbed some shirts, I grabbed the fishing pole and tackle box. We tossed those things on top of Daryl, and I looked at Clint and then back at the cabin.
“Clint, I don’t think we’re gonna save it. You wanna go in again?”
Clint just looked at me. “Hell no! That thing’s on fucking fire!”
I looked at the fire, I looked at Daryl, I looked at Clint, I bit my lip. “Aw hell, we’ll just build him a new one.”
Clint walked over and flopped down next to One-Eye, who handed him a jar of shine, and they got to drinking just as the twins rushed back into camp, more black and blue than when they left, each with a big branch. They saw the cabin on fire and they saw me trying to make sure that Daryl wasn’t dead, dropped their sticks, sat down with the boys, and started drinking. I was kicking Daryl a little bit in the leg when he started groaning. I figured that meant he was fine so I went off to get a jar of shine and poured a little of it on his face. That seemed to get him up. He sat up, tried to push himself up off the ground with his arms, and fell straight over onto his face. He rolled over onto his back and looked up at me.
“That bear broke my arm.” He said, looking a little confused, but mainly just surprised.
“Yes he did, and he burned down your house.” I said, thumbing over my shoulder.
“Oh.” He said, craning his neck and blinking. “So he did. Is the still alright?”
“Still’s just fine. And this is some damn good shine.”
“Good. That’s good. You, uh, you wanna give me a hand up?”
“Sure, be careful now, we don’t know what else he broke.”
I pulled Daryl up by his good arm and he staggered to his feet. His broken arm was lying useless against his side. He swayed on his feet for a little bit, but after a moment or two he got a handle on his legs and I helped him over to the fire pit. I set him down on the far side of the fire pit next to One-Eye so that he could watch the cabin burn and sat down on the near side of the fire pit with my back to the rest of them. We sat there on those logs around that dying fire pit drinking Daryl’s first batch of summer shine and watched that cabin burn down to the ground.
The little wooden house was nothing more than smoldering embers by the time dawn broke through the trees. The smoke was floating up and hanging in the sky, suspended in the early light. We could see where the bear had come up the other side of the bank and run off into the woods. I wondered to myself how well a big burned, furless bear was going to do in the wild, and I figured about as well as Daryl would do in civilization. Daryl let out a deep sigh and killed off the last of his jar of shine.
“Too bad bout your cabin.” One-Eye said, scratching his chin. “I built it with your pappy.”
“Yeah.” Said Josh. “I remember that, me and Dean were helping.”
“You mean I was helping, you can’t build for shit.” Said Dean, pushing his brother off the log.
“I’ll build your coffin, you son of a bitch!”
And down Dean went, rolling in the dirt with Josh. Kicking and fighting and screaming, just like always. One-Eye was drinking his two jars; Daryl was staring off into the woods, thinking about that bear. Clint and me just stared at those embers burning in that morning light, letting the shine turn the world colors and textures we’ve never seen before.
“It’s alright Daryl,” I said, sipping the last sweet drops of shine. “We’ll build you another one tomorrow.”

environmentalism is the new nihilism