make\\work yeah. well, i left it, and it followed me like smoke, and then i walked straight back into the fire. i just basically had to smother this like a troublesome child and wait 'til it stopped struggling. now i just feel post-apocalyptic
jesus horse 4 sale josh w. i remember him as maybe number 12 in a long string of guys i fucked without much wanting to. it was winter in alaska, empty and sprawling and dark, and i was 19; drowning, and making art about drowning. i don’t remember much we talked about. he was 9 years older and probably an inch or two shorter than me. skinny, with wild black hair and a midwestern drawl. he wore white hanes v-necks with pit stains, some kind of a necklace, i think. maybe glasses. probably. doesn’t much matter. freckled skin and worn out shoes, middle of the end of a semester, right where midterms bleed into finals; him standing in the foyer at 3 in the morning; me leaving-dead tired, dragging my portfolio. heavy snow; the wet, quiet kind, thick and orangewhite under parking-lot lights. it’s fucking late. you need a ride? i dunno, yeah? buses aren’t running. going home? i guess. his place. it’s a long drive and my eyes are slamming, squinting at street signs. i shouldn’t have offered and i know it; he could’ve--would’ve--walked, or stayed, he’s that kind of guy. he’s also not my problem. ok, on the right...just up there. here? yeah. i stop; leave the motor running as a hint, but he invites me in and i know what it’s about now. do we have to do this? of course we do...it’ll be at least 3 years before i learn it’s possible to say ‘no.’ there’s art all over the floor. journeys, he says, of the redwing blackbird. i’m moving. oh yeah? grad school--if i can get it. you will.
he looks at me funny, like he wants me to talk him into or out of something; like he wants me to miss him. why would in hell would i miss him? i run my eyes over his prints, scattered on the floor. these guys show up a lot--these three shadows--are they saints? maybe. i was in a bad car wreck once. friends? you walked away and they didn’t? i didn’t either--i was in a coma for a while. when i woke up i couldn’t draw anymore...at least, not like i could before. the lines just moved and blurred. like this? yeah--i used to make everything photo-real--like this one. who’s the accordion player? this girl i met in czech.... so we talk. we drink svacha--mulled red wine with cloves. he asks to take my picture in a white lace dress his ex-girlfriend left behind. i put it on & my nipples poke through the lace. we fuck on his floor. it’s too rough; awkward, uninvested. i don’t care. i don’t cum. i just go, go, go; disappear like a cloud. the first part when he touches my shoulder, the rest...skin and hair, bones and clothes and car, at about 8:30 after he falls asleep. i shower all of it off like old make-up. coffee cereal class he leaves 2 weeks later for grad school in illinois, and we don’t talk again, although he does send me an envelope--first class--with one sentence written on the back. i think about you. i look at the photos he took years later, find them stuffed in an envelope full of my old imagon plates with an AP of his i vaguely remember pulling out of the trash--a deep, embossed etching of a dinosaur wearing a small gold halter, “jesus horse 4 sale” penciled underneath in his faint scrawl. i hold the pictures to the light & look at my dark eyelashes & pale hair. pale lace; pale skin. my shoulders thrown back & the hard outlines of bone. look at my stark shadow on the wall behind me, and wonder how much i bought and sold.
BIG FAT ALASKA “basically i just wanted to say fuck it-i’m gonna collect skulls for 2 months and $800, because it’s not about what have to show for yourself, right? it’s about how you feel.” --bjorn