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The Devil clapped his hands together, the sound louder than a gunshot in the still night as a grin sprung up on his mouth, bathed in red light. His teeth weren’t sharp, but long and narrow. “Shall we make a deal?” he asked. The wind became a gale and slammed into me from all sides, both holding me in place and tossing about at the same time as the corn stalks shrieked and bent down, kneeling towards the Devil. It felt ecstatic. All around the world had gone mad, the wind kept picking up till it felt like my guitar would be ripped off my back. I couldn’t breathe, I could barely see, and I loved it. The wind curved under my arms, lifting me to my toes. My spine stretched like dough until every kink snapped out of existence, the pinch in my side vanishing as warmth flooded my nerves. I felt like a corpse come back to life, like all I had lived through had been a lie, dulled and muted and bleached, and only now I felt what living truly could be. My fingers moved, free and loose, and I contorted them into impossible chords on imaginary frets. The blood on my tongue disappeared. The bile hovering in my chest had become a full breath of air, my throat ready to burst out in song. Something felt wrong, but I couldn’t remember what. My jaw seized, but the pain was distant. I had little fight to give as my mouth was coaxed open, my tongue pulled out inch by inch to hover on the edge of my lips. And Old Scratch just laughed, his long fingers reaching up and turning the moon like a dial, increasing the shine until a spotlight circled around me. “There we are,” he said with a grin, sunglasses flashing like extra moons rising on the horizon. “You feel it already, don’t you? What so many of your trudging, strumming, cover-song humming counterparts will never feel. I should be charging you for a taste this strong, but hey, no one can say I’m not generous.” He pulled a hand through the wind and a curtain of brilliant colors split from his skin, following in a jetstream trail of beauty that shriveled to gray as the gale whipped it away. “Life, my friend,” said the Devil, tossing his hands in the air and letting the colors fall like streamers, the bands twisting around as they caught on the corn stalks and flew off into the night. “I give you the gift of a life worth living, and all it takes is tuning a few strings on my part, and the sale of your soul from your hand.” He dropped close, raising a single finger that swung from side to side as my eyes followed it. “Can you feel your soul right now? Is it in your fingers, your eyes, your skin that feels the touch of this wind? Can you honestly tell me you’d even know it was gone? It’s a steal, don’t you see? I don’t just make men masters of their instrument. I set them on the path to eternal earthly glory, and I don’t charge so much as an extra dime for it! How is that cruel? How is that cheating a man?” He began to pace around in a circle, and the wind pulled at my shoulder and spun me around, following his stride. “How far do you think you can make it now? Hmm? You’ve got a nice little tour going on, hopping between bar and pub and playing for whatever slot another gig abandoned that night, all for some great gathering in Memphis where you’ll be a face in the crowd, another brick in the wall, a mere drop in a boundless sea!” He grew taller as he walked, and I felt myself rising with him. I glanced down and watched the ground, ten feet below my shoes. The Devil didn’t float like me though. His legs had stretched twice as high as the corn, and my throat went dry as I saw he didn’t have any feet. His shins went straight into the muck, moving and rising like a deadhead log in rough water as he continued to pace. “Don’t you do this because you want to be above the rest?” he said with a laugh, and a gloved hand landed on my shoulder. “Shock and awe them? This is the land of the masters, masters of the instrument on your back, and your already-aching back will never stand beneath the weight of their knowledge, no matter how tall you grow.” He let go of me and pulled his hand to his chest, fingers curling into an imaginary grip on a six-string’s neck, playing invisible chords in the air. “Give me that guitar. I’ll tune it, and when you play, it’ll be like playing with an extra set of hands and all the time in the world to get to the right chord. You’ll never be out of tune, never miss a beat.” Those glasses flashed again, now reflecting stadium spotlights and a million lighters lifting into the air. “Can’t you imagine it? Perfection. The kind of thing money can only buy a view of, yours to hold.” The string on my tongue started to pull again, and I realized that it wasn’t a guitar neck the Devil was holding: it was a long puppeteer thread that led all the way into my mouth. He curled his fingers, and I felt words rise up from my lungs. With all my strength I clamped my mouth shut a second time and shook my head. His grin faltered for a moment, a flickering red light growing behind his sunglasses before fading. We sank to the ground. I landed hard and dropped down to my knees. “I can see you’re scared,” Old Scratch said, smile returning. “Of course, that’s perfectly natural. You’ve heard the stories of my past deals, been scared so bad you couldn’t sleep, thinking of me dragging poor souls down to damnation, leaving their corpses to sit mid-way through counting their gold.” He stopped. The wind went still, and everything hung in the air as he reached up and fully grabbed the moon, pulling the glowing orb down and holding it out in his hand, a tiny marble in his palm. “But history’s a liar, don’t you know?” he said, rolling the marble around the grooves of his glove. “The past loves a good lie, and nobody’s past lies better than that of a musician’s. Plenty of people I’ve sponsored have lived long, long lives. Punk bands who made the deal signed lucrative deals, joining producers and getting set for life. I brought bands together that never would have met otherwise and gave them all a life worth remembering!” He closed his hand, crushing the moon and plunging us both into complete darkness. A glow appeared, two red eclipses in the dark. His eyes were flickering again, shining out from behind the edges of his sunglasses. The string tugged much harder this time, making me retch. I couldn’t help myself anymore. My back and fingers full of music believed every word he had said to me, and a single word of my own spilled up into my mouth as the red glow spilled down the Devil’s cheeks, washing across the ground and over me in another harsh spotlight. My head rolled, and as my eyes unfocused, a glint of silver made me blink. The faint thrum of a hand running down guitar strings pushed into my ears, and the world went silent save for the low notes. The cacophony of the Devil had been deafeningly loud, but I hadn’t even noticed the noise until it stopped. My sight refocused, and I saw everything around me moving at a quarter pace. The towers of corn bent and snapped their stalks, bowing down in circular waves as their threaded tips of silk clawed the air, trying desperately to reach the neon glow that shone out from Old Scratch’s eyes. Still bathed in red, I watched his finger curl again and again, winding the string on my tongue tighter and tighter. He almost had my answer, and I almost had his promise. The promise of the Devil. My lip curled. Shifting upright, I swayed on my knees for a moment until my hand caught the edge of my guitar case. I pulled it in front of me. My eyes still locked on the Devil and his slow, reeling finger, I unlatched the lock and lifted the cover. His smile went so wide it looked like a full piano of white teeth were stuck in his jaw. I reached for the neck and took as deep of a breath as I could through my nose, holding my mouth still. My hand slid under the smooth wood of my guitar, and my fingers found the leather latch of the accessory box, where I kept my tuner, fret clamp, spare picks… and spare guitar wires. I opened the small, plush-lined door. Grabbing the thickest wire I had, I pulled out the length of the metal thread and wrapped it taut around both of my hands. And before the Devil’s grin could falter into confusion, I made a loop in the cord, twisted it, lifted it onto my scalp and under my jaw, and pulled both ends tight. The wire screeched, rubbing against itself as it clamped my mouth shut hard. A line of blood appeared on the underside of my chin as I forced the wire tighter around me. Still I smiled through the pain when I saw the Devil’s finger jump as the thread on my tongue was severed.

Sometimes grief looks like a vase¹ of flowers² from your well-intentioned friend when your grandfather finally dies. Don’t take finally to mean at last but rather as a means to ending the mental torment of a man too good to sit in a hospital bed after he’d become akin³ to a potato. You think of him and every potato that’s ever sprouted roots in the dark. You think of him before all this with the potatoes and there he sits in his recliner in his house before someone else signed the lease. You think of the last time he called you by name and it prompts you to listen to old voicemails and in each one he drops the a at the end of Cieneca for a cheerful eeee. Sometimes grief gets embodied in a pocket knife branded with the star and stripes of Cuba. Although your mom says he was never actually stationed in Cuba and you have to tell her that doesn’t matter. He gave you a piece of history as he wanted to remember it and you’ll re-tell his stories as fact, no matter how warped. A man who couldn’t tell you what day it was, shifting through memories as old as him, warrants a little imagination; a little acting. Before the dementia, even in his old age and your adolescence, he would let you win at cards. He would throw away any good hand and fall over backwards when you’d drop a pair of bullets⁴; acting like the feeble-minded man he’d soon become. You feel guilty for the lack of grief you feel, so you layer in sweater and coat and earmuffs and you walk to CVS in the snow. You focus on the heat your nose and knees radiate as frostbite sets in⁵. As you scroll through pictures only one forms a lump in your throat, so you print it out and tape it above your desk⁶. Now you have a constant reminder he’s gone. You stare at the glossy square like it might turn to video, but it doesn’t and your face remains dry. You try listening to music in a language you don’t understand like you used to do with him. The faint plucking of tender chords under a voice so weighed down with emotion puts you in the headspace to grieve. You imagine swinging your pink polka-dot Sunday dress to je voudrais lasso la lune pour vous in his living room, but the memory only makes you smile. So, you listen to that same song until you can hear it in his voice; until you can understand every word through sheer will. You learn how to play it on guitar since you can’t learn the words and you softly strum it for him in your room in the dark at night until you sprout roots⁷. Maybe you haven’t been able to grieve because you hadn’t been there when he died. You have no real proof of his passing. If you had stood by your mom’s side in that hospital room, witnessing his last breath the way you had witnessed your grandmother’s, maybe then you would’ve fallen to your knees; forehead in the dirt, like your brother⁸. Or maybe it’s the places you’ve tried to grieve. Listening to your mom cry over the phone while sitting on your friend’s couch wasn’t the right time. Lying awake in bed, not even a foot from your roommate wasn’t the right time either. Or when you sat, cooking in a bath for hours⁹, shielded by the swirling patterns of the shower curtain, wondering about souls and God and how tied to destiny the time between each drop from the faucet is. Not even now, as you scratch each corner of your brain in a direct attempt to cry over the loss of your grandfather. You could watch the beginning of ‘Up’ and pretend the tears falling are finally for him. You could call your mom and say I know I didn’t cry then, but can you hear me now? I feel it now– the way you felt that night; I’m sorry we couldn’t grieve together; I think I’ll always regret that, but I was at Ria’s and I just couldn’t, not in front of my friends; I couldn’t ruin their night, I mean, Mel really loves that Pete Davidson special¹⁰; she’s made us watch it twice now and I couldn’t drown out their laughter with my tears, it would’ve been cruel; although, what I did to you was cruel, acting like you weren’t sobbing to me over the phone, just to save face– I’m sorry. If you could stomach it you would go to church and light a candle for him; grieve through prayer. Maybe you’d even go during mass. Sing and kneel and sing and kneel, all for him. If you were home you would be going to church with your mom this Sunday instead of dropping acid with Alessandra but you're here and she already bought two tabs. You wonder if mentioning acid and God in such proximity makes you a bad person. You wonder if your mom will wear her lace veil to church; the one she pins to her long, fair hair at funerals. You imagine her sitting with her perfect posture in a pew towards the back, mourning her father’s death in silence, to herself, to God, to the stained glass windows casting color¹¹ over her grave face. You imagine sitting next to her, bored and swinging your little feet in those Mary Janes like you had at your grandmother’s funeral. Those shiny black shoes always pinched your toes. ¹A repurposed liter of Pepsi. ²Stolen from Jewel Osco, a little crushed. ³Yes, related by blood. ⁴Aces. ⁵A two minute walk. ⁶2003.HEIC ⁷Akin. ⁸Allegedly. ⁹2. ¹⁰Granted, only when she’s high. ¹¹“The divine light of God.”

They met at a formal occasion in fall. It was half a week ago. On their way back to the city, they introduced themselves through those “I’m from this school and I’m a something major” questions. That was the first time Betts heard of the term, electroencephalography. Later that night, they were at the bar downtown that serves the best crispy Brussels sprout salad. Betts had a strong desire to know more about this person, Rei. “You said you also like cars, especially the ones with windshield tint,” Betts yelled across the table, “That’s so interesting because I know some people from my school love cars and none of them like tints. I guess it’s not for everyone.” “Well, tints are cool. I like to observe the light and colors changing around,” Rei replied. “So, what’s oneirology? You rewind and interpret dreams?” Betts yelled again. “I study the process of dreams, try to find patterns for different possible dreams, and ultimately, predict patterns,” Rei raised her voice, “You know the difference between astronomy and astrology, right?” “Well, I like to look up into the sky from dusk ‘till dawn occasionally, when I’m doing my coding thing,” Betts replied. Rei’s partner called. She went out to talk. Betts ordered a shot of Jäger. And another one. “I thought you said you were single or something,” Betts shouted. The bar was getting crowded. Another woman bought them another shot. “You asked if I have a boyfriend and I said I don’t,” Rei yelled, “Why are you reacting like that though? I thought you said you have a boyfriend already.” “I mean, I have a boyfriend in my dreams lately. There’s this one guy I met at a live bar in August. His name’s Alex or Albert or something. He’s from another state and he studies sculpture, like, he goes to an art school, you know? He appeared in my dreams so many times I thought we were dating. It’s just,” Betts took a huge gulp, “so funny!” “That’s good for you,” Rei tilted her head a little bit, “I guess?” “It’s just, well, why don’t you tell me if it’s going to be good or not? I don’t know much about oneirologists, but I heard they avoid relationships with their dream partners,” Betts murmured through her pint glass, “How did you manage to study your dream self and dream plot though, my dear oneirologist?”

The man chair is in great pain waiting for the arrival of a loved one The boundaries are set and no one can come close At night, blood soaks through the sweaty socks Hour after hour, time passes and it never feels like an appropriate moment Pebbles into the water with no echo: asking for love with no response Night alone is too big a cake to have all by oneself

It’s raining. ’. ’. ’. ’. ’. ’. ’. ’. ’. ’. ’. ’. ’. ’.

There is cooking, and washing dishes, and every afternoon the bed gets fresh sheets, crumbs from the past week swept off the surface of the mattress. The aloe vera plant on the windowsill, its leaves clipped, blunt, straight cuts on the tips, where its soft insides were drained and smothered onto splotchy red mosquito bites. There is worrying about having bed bugs, about undereating, about clogged arteries, swollen tendons And then, while sorting old papers, recognizing the handwriting on an envelope, even after all this time. It’s only my name, and the card has gone missing, but the shapes of those letters are unmistakable Being enclosed, warm and sleepy already, but staying up just to finish this letter Folding an envelope, pocket and flaps. The name on the front, your name in my handwriting.

The girl and the dog awaken in the same room. The light coming in from the small window is cold, the blue-gray tones of Midwestern winters. The space heater is on. The dog eyes the girl through her morning prayers. The girl brushes her teeth, changes her clothes, takes sips from the glass of water she left out last night. The dog watches her as she scoops wet food into its stainless steel bowl and sets it down on the hardwood. It looks her in the eye and walks away. This is the third morning the dog refuses to eat. The girl pitches the dish into the sink and chops an apple with vicious strokes of the largest kitchen knife. She sits at the table and eats, looking at the dog, which is now laying on a pillow in the corner of the room. Outside, some cats mewl at each other. Being disliked by a dog is said to be an unmistakable marker of moral failure, she remembers. The dog blinks at her and turns away, burying its face between its paws. . . . syrupy, bubbling air. Like fresh cut rose stems dunked in ice water. Week-old blood stains turned brown. She will not notice the first day the birds start to sing again. Like the back of a library. Like her favorite neighborhood street cat, the pretty gray one with green eyes, skittering up a tree to eat the newly hatched baby finches. Coconut-scented shampoo. Putting water to boil. Can’t sleep. Soppy wet. Down her throat. Bare chest. Putting water to boil. Voices. People walking past the window. Putting water to boil. She burns her wrist on the edge of the pan, a brown slash bubbling up from the skin. Putting water to boil. Wet photographs. Teeth sharpened by honeycrisp apples and chunks of chuleta. The cheese aisle at the grocery store, the shelves of bread. Washing stainless steel bowls. Putting water to boil . . . When the dog dies the next summer, it will be buried in the backyard at dusk. She will walk back into the house and immediately begin scrubbing the dirt out from under her fingernails. She will wash her hands. She will throw the dishes into the sink. She will finish off the last peach in three big bites and a sloppy crunch. She will remember the dog’s eyes that night. She will say its name, and as always, it will not come.

Love in triangles Love in pairs Love in opposites Love in equals Love retroactively Love the future Love in circles Love in waves Love in spirals Love in any strange geometry that is available to you Love in weird, weird shapes you have never seen before Love in all forms and variations you desire Don’t make sense Love full of contradictions Don’t try to understand yourself You don’t know everything yet You do not know everything yet There is so much you cannot see from where you are standing right now Love when you make sense Love even when you make no fucking sense to yourself You don’t have to make sense You don’t have to understand in this exact moment Someone will always try to force you to make sense Someone will always try to convince you to make sense because it sells better But you don’t have to You do not have to make sense right now Love where you come from and where you are going Love even when you don’t know where you are going Love even when your vocabulary has no word for where you are going Even if you have no word right now for loving where you come from It has given you something, it has given you something you can give Do not envy what you think is easier, it has given you something Don’t force yourself to find a word Don’t let others force you to find a word Explode the socket of your brain because you fill it with so much love Explode others’ brains with love Trust you are going somewhere We are all going Somewhere You cannot be held every time you weep You do not need to be held every time you weep Love Expand and love This is not new agy Bullshit It is dead serious Find your way Find your way Do the job Do the fucking job Work on your connective tissue Work on your supraspinatus muscle Work on your reptile brain And always and forever work on your motherfucking heart. The heart.

Autumn 1. The leaves are far more interesting than the house. From the front yard, the house seems grand. But from your fixed position in the backyard, you can see all ugly cracks that daylight hides. At night, the only light left on in the house is a sign of the woman inside reading before bed. Learn to not focus on the house. Learn to enjoy the leaves falling around you, and the colors they bring. 2. Worms are surprisingly polite fellows. Far more so than slugs or neighbors or moths. Make sure to set a place for the worms at your next dinner party. 3. Summer has come and gone. It is time for the woman to visit again. She will sit in the grass, pulling apart leaves and chattering lyrics you cannot parse. You wish she would shut up. You wish she would get the hell away from you. You wish she would thrust her hands into the earth and touch you once more. You wish she would stay longer. 4. The woman will never stay long, but she always leaves you with new words you cannot read. Leaves fall, worms eat, but unknown words stay put.

Dark cumulus clouds were scattered across the night sky. I could hardly see the twinkling stars, though I was sure they were peeking through here and there. After all, what else would be there? The clouds were getting thicker with each passing moment. Perhaps a storm was coming. I couldn’t tell. The cold of winter enveloped my nostrils making each breath harder than the other. The sky continued to darken as the light grew even brighter. Where am I again? Ah yes, the star. It was so close I could feel the heat radiating from it. I could hear the screams of joy as we all marveled at this spectacle of a lifetime in front of me. Was it a comet? Maybe a supernova? I foolishly stared in awe. I heard my name being called, but I was too tired to respond. I smiled at the star instead, how vibrant it was. It was a mesmerizing sight that captured my attention. I never even felt when he pulled me out of the hole I had slipped into. I hadn’t even known I fell into a hole. All I felt was the brisk air grating against me and pulling me out of my trance. He glanced at me concerned. When I continued to stare at the night sky, he sighed. “Why are you so sad? Don’t you like the star too?” I pondered. “Alice, please stay with me.” Where else would I go? My eyes felt heavy all of a sudden, but yet, I couldn’t close them. All I could do was gaze at the night sky and the star that had formed. “What’s wrong?” my voice sputtered out as a mere whisper. “The fire… I’m so sorry.” He started. I smiled at him, but he did not return my expression. “Are you not happy to see me?” He paused at this. “I’m sorry.” He stated once again. “What for? You’re finally watching the stars with me. Even on a cloudy day like today. I never thought it would be possible for this to happen.” His eyes welled with tears. “I am so sorry, Alice we-” I raised my hand to stop him. “There, there. Let’s just take in the moment. It’s like a, uh- supernova. The comet is finally blessing us since we achieved peace.” He was speechless. A few beats of silence passed. Shakingly, he inhaled. “Alice, we didn’t win.” My head tilted as a stream of tears cascaded down his face. “Alice please… please come to your senses.” Confused, I stared at him a moment longer. “It’s not a star. It’s- there was- I tried. I’m so sorry. I tried to, should’ve-” His sobs got louder upon seeing my blank stare. “What happened?” He fell to his knees. “What happened?” my voice began to shake. A wave of stillness swallowed me. My fingers suddenly felt numb and his sobs were drowned out by the crackling sound of the flames that tore through my hometown. How had I not recognized it before? The screams of joy I had previously heard suddenly morphed into screams of fear, screams of terror and anguish. The gentle mutters of “I’m sorry,” echoed in my mind. The sky became even darker and the flame continued to burn even brighter, destroying the twinkling stars of the night sky.

Two minutes had passed even though it felt like a full night's sleep. Your motoric functions begin to come back online. Moving your hand over to the control panel, it instinctively flails around on the controls signaling your human commands. In the distance the Orbiter shudders as several systems whir alive to full optional standards. They aren’t the only one. Your eyes drawing in the crust take in the blackness of the interior. Tiny traces of warm light are seen poking out from the vast dull green of the metal hull displaying at all times the necessary walkways and ladder-steps to move around in the Orbiter. A barely perceptible light blinks, beckoning your attention at the helm. The cold metal does nothing but drive you back into Morpheus’s garden, but you know, no matter how long it may seem only another two minutes will pass. The Pale is strange, like it wants to be experienced in excruciating detail to remind us that we’re not supposed to be here. You hop down the ladder slapping both feet onto the cold metal, like sheets of ice beneath your feet. The Orbiter continues its barrage of motion and sound. Stepping over the sealed observation glass, you sit on the old leather chair of the helm. Flicking a few switches the operation comes online displaying the cause of the alert. “Alert, twenty one out of twenty two hours remaining…Prolonged exposure imminent…” The display informs you full of glee with itself for doing such a good job. Not the best news to wake up to, a sudden realization hits you just how long you’ve been here. And how long you were above Giedi Prime before, and Insulid! Nothing makes you forget time as well as being crammed in an Orbiter; not even the best bars could compete. You pat the display and turn it off. The others should be returning soon, or at least calling in their ride off that dump. You look out the sealed observation glass, covered with double thick steel reinforced plating, still that same nasty green color. Before you could have seen the planet of Sabastus V, of the Induelin sector, its deep blue oceans and waves reflecting the light of its white sun. What a sight that must be, gentle enough to stare at and not go blind. It comes over the ramtops and glides across the sky before being swallowed by the waves. Now there’s old rusty metal, and beyond it nothing. The Antithetical, the all consuming quiet. The Pale… such a thing is hard to grasp even for an experienced Orbiter. Exposure to it for long periods is dangerous, there are stories of Orbiters being unable to sleep ever again, some swear they went to or saw the future. And others still claim they heard something. Of course you can’t hear anything, because what’s there to hear? Come to think of it, what's there to begin with? Simple: there isn’t. You move to the transmitter and bring it online. It buzzes a greeting and begins its tasks. Orbiters are the only ones who can talk to each other while in the Pale. It's easy to receive messages between fellow Orbiters; no matter the distance there’s always a clear and stable connection. After all there’s nothing between the two so why wouldn’t there be a stable connection? You move through the channels with a steady click, trying to hear if someone else is also in need of some company even if it's only through a metal box. People ramble, most people use it to ramble. About what? Just about anything really: life, grad level philosophy, love, or nonsense to fill the waves, but it's fun to listen to others. That's the thing you hate most about this job: the disconnection… the solitude… It's these moments that last the longest no matter how much you want it to be otherwise. Your ear rests against the speaker trying to pick up what the radio is failing to. When suddenly the entirety of the Orbiter stops and all you hear is yourself. Your heart thumps in your chest suddenly – and fiercely on beat. You can hear a buzzing in your ears like mosquitoes… the creak of bones as you turn, even the straining of your muscles like ropes around your spine. It's unbearable… It's unbearable… …. … Finally the ocean breaks. You awake on the familiar harsh metal of the Orbiter, so familiar… no light, no matter how miniscule, can be detected. Your hairs stand on edge; a sharp shudder runs down your spine. Your body informs you something is wrong that your brain hasn't realized. You move over to the Orbiter emergency hatch. Instinctually you turn it, open and lift it up. Instead of the nothingness, you see a gentle light being swallowed by waves.

She asks me What do you do and I tell her Pick a word from the library of everything you know and make it real and Find the greatest most meaningful theme and ruin it forever and Use every possible kind of symbolism until there's none left and Love people until it makes you miserable and then love them more and Draw the person whose face you see in your dreams and Never stop until you’ve run out of ideas and You’ll never run out of ideas because There are more words and Themes and Loves and Symbols and Dreams and She asks me How do you come up with this and How do you create this and How do you do this and I answer saying I don’t know and Everything is already there and I turn my grief into art like water into wine and I create and I create and I create and