“Get in line, you Stupid Fuck.” I hated this teacher. “You a homo.”

“I’m in advanced math.”

I like to throw stuff back into their patriarchal faces. I had enough patriarchal abuse to deal with. I don’t have to take being slapped around. By anyone. I stole a hunting knife. I would have used it, too. I was dangerous, and the abused/abuser boys stayed away. Word gets around as you evaluate the risk of attacking me. I was not predictable. I am not afraid of anyone. People do what they have to do. I have to spit in the wind at the New York Times. You can only see a thing if an expert tells you if it is there.

 I am a communist. It is a sin not to want to be here. I am forced to deal with editors, and I am here to tell you, they want pretty. Hopefulness, or go home. I am home. There is nothing hopeful about it. Why would I even bother to make a list of what went wrong. Other Writers are doing that.

It should have an arch. Be sure to end it on sunshine. I am sitting here on the sidewalk waiting for a medical lab to open. I have this strange urge to throw all pills into the river. I’ve had it. With labs. With machines. With being objectified. With hospital gowns worn awkwardly, and there is always the humiliation that you are going to vomit and die. You never talk about the people who can tell you what living with unrelenting pain is about. At the NYT, it can only be articulated by experts. We are the dead. Do not speak.

My own bones are dying inside my body. 23 medications a day targeting a cascade of strokes and bankruptcy. The pacemaker hurts. These people in the witching dark are immune compromised, filled with cancers, what is this, Lourdes. Yes. And for the thing to work, we turn to that old boogeyman, Faith. I have none. When you get to this place that requires an enormous effort to get from A+ to A. This is not going forward. What are you, four, Tim. Yes. It is forbidden, I know. But everyone out here leaning up against this Stone Wall, is bigger than I am. We smell like dry hot rooms of dust and pills. I want fentanyl. It’s not looking hopeful. Nothing is. Why are you here.