He had an odd hobby. He ne’er left his email account & ne’er left his phone ‘hind. He’d sit there staring @ his email list, refreshing every 5 seconds. The second he received an email, he’d write from scratch an artificial form email telling them ‘long the lines, “Sorry, but your email could not reach [email protected].”

He practiced typing so much that he now could pump out o’er 200 words per minute—a necessity to post that error email in time to not make people suspicious. He knew people could oft be suspicious.

This sour green soup I roll down the tiles, this elixir I pour down the grid o’ squares ‘mong the handy hazards & the slammin’ steel in the foggy fumes, is for my occult spell, & with it I shall finally be granted a clean rusty inbound (there’s also mo’ troll’s gold, too, I guess) in return for my rusty sinuses. However, my witch’s broom will be lost fore’er in the snowy mounts o’ Canada, & I shall have to walk home listening to radio signals. However, the fog & crescent moon made good guides.

¿Got it? Good.

I’m sorry I let the pipe clog. You’re perfectly correct: I drowsed on the task. So many comets flew by, why, ¿how could I catch them all & not lose centuries in the process? I know you gave me my skin in return for keeping the pipe unclogged; but there’s mo’ to life than flesh. Please let me have mo’ than just my flesh.

That’s no ‘scuse. I dropped the dishes, & I should apologize aggressively. Sorry—for real.

But there are always mo’ pipes…

Sleepy, sleepy,
canopy tree.
But still they must
climb to the sun.

The needles injected themselves into the blood walls & sucked all o’ our potential. They wanted it all, & they got it. ¿What could the whiteguards do? There’s no time to lay in your sweat pond; she has file cabinets to feed.

I gazed into the cabinet’s mouth a month ago & ’twas looking kinda cobwebby.

But all these audits, ¿don’t they steal more o’ our staplers than just easing the lungs & letting a li’l larceny linger?

Get back to me as soon as you can. Thanks.

We rowed through the misty ink river on our lunar orange slice, swiftly paddling ‘tween the spiky star mines.

But part o’ us wondered, These starbursts are so shiny; ¿How could they be dangerous?

But we ne’er touched them. Sure, we reached an arm toward them a few times; but every time we’d yank it back, for as we neared it its points seemed to sharpen.

So we keep rowing round the stars & the stars keep floating round us.

Through the scraps I saw atop the 100-story tower o’ lightning the band playing their final song, horns blasting, piano keys dancing, & throats rapping. Since the generators collapsed, we were all in the dark; the only light was the peripatetic lightning flashes. I thought I’d ne’er see the emerald-colored curtains or the intricate carvings all ‘long the ceiling. I thought I’d ne’er see the companions I’d lost in the crowd in the lobby.

Yet, as I watched from my seat near the back, I thought, Doom ne’er looked mo’ beautiful.

Waking & sleeping in space with groggy stars reheated in the microwave & static transmissions singing lazy late-afternoon pop songs was where I lost the hours, & there’s not ‘nough thrusters to turn round & retrieve them. Keep your eyes on the Milky Ways, its tails gushing in a thousand directions like Brinstar mazes.

But my headphones slow, too; drifting.

Quit fiddling with the controls, private. Steer.

& I feel that, others get to ride ‘long Jupiter’s rings; but I’m wandering the poisonously inky haze round Pluto.

Still, the sun burns me & feeds me helium.

Soggy clouds. Drowns o’ rain. Black & white thunder.

The night I felt like collapsing on the steeple o’ the Temple o’ the Pink & Green Rose, though it brambled my skin. But its petals were my only grasp past the swamps.

But I didn’t. I tightened my robe from the rain, shivering in this cold pantry, hearing the violently warm rain try knocking.

& then it left to feed other crops. I hope they feel quenched.

She told herself she’d have just 1 mo’ chip a thousand times, & then told himself just 1 mo’ chip would cause her to explode, & then he did explode with flavor, & that was where her heart had been the whole era.

But he dropped too many crumbs from her maw. She wasn’t paying attention to the chews o’ his food, & now he’d pay.

With caved-in eyes she stared @ the shelves o’ a million o’ flavors o’ kettle jalapeño chips, her knees on checkered linoleum.

Chicken Medium was right ‘gain.

Chicken Medium was always right, since the very definition o’ what was right was what Chicken Medium thought.

Thus, she was right when she warned that Chicken Raw would cause the der Kapitalismus to fall on everyone & crush them. She was right ’cause she knew that if she threatened to make der Kapitalismus fall on her, she would make it fall on them—& she did, ’cause, ‘course, any rational prophet would want to be right.

¿But does anyone thank her for her rightness? ‘Course those silly savages don’t. They never do.