Month: May 2024

This was a fun one,

Stooped 

By Tyler Lucas Mobley 

His eyes lift from the pavement, separation dissolved, he feels the whole city before him as a single life form moving as one. The dirt on his sneakers matches the dirt of the sidewalk and the dirt of his stoop where his life connects to the rest of the world. Outcast or cast out, the city’s hot breath fogs his mind. As it is, he tugs his line to find the experience he’ll assume today. To be the cat in a tree or professionally poised on ladders for retrieval? The last sip of someone’s Americano, a sign for peace held above a head full of tempered glass, or the sickness of a life to be. Instinctual fingers rub together as others scroll. The opposable one touches with the knead of tiny circles, the feeling his own. Remembering how to hover as the rope skips, fluid fingers coax a pulled drain vortex into nothing’s something. Fingers point of self connection, the world drawn in intrigued by what may happen next. The whole city swirls before him as if the windy city bean could chime. A thump opposed halts motion, but the world carries on with the knowing of Average Joe’s in sudden death. 

(‘Talk to me Patches’).

Heels in a fist knock against her thigh as she walks under the flicker of street lamps. A predawn chill runs through the street, events of the past few hours accost her shivering steps. 

Remembering back to the beginning, her reflection in the mirror, adjusting the end of her red dress, the last strokes of mascara applied. How the elevator doors opened in the lobby, the pit in her stomach as they went up and up. Rooftop bars a city’s treasure, skyline of sight dancing in the clouds. It was easy, all so easy to believe you could fly, when she did it as a little girl off the front steps in the yard in her mind she never came down. She remembers thinking about the people who clean the windows and what they might think when they come across where her breath fogged the glass. The bird that circled before her just as she was certain the world had forgotten about her. There was hope, then the feeling of air rushing over her, her dress flapping violently. She scratches her head and thinks real hard about it. What in the world happened? How did I get down? First light reflects into her eyes bringing her back to the present, still not sure where she is going, but needing to get away. Up ahead a figure sits on the third or forth step. She comes to a stop when she sees the dirt on his sneakers, and before she can look up, it all comes back to her. 

‘About last night?’ 

‘You were a bird.’