Tyler Dempsey

Tyler Dempsey was a finalist in Glimmer Train and New Millennium Writings competitions. His work appears in Five:2:One Magazine, Buck Off Magazine, Wilderness House Literary Review, and The 3288 Review, among others. Find him on Twitter @tylercdempsey or here.

I DON’T GET HOW ANYTHING WORKS ANYMORE: a conversation between Tyler Dempsey and KKUURRTT

TYLER DEMPSEY: Going to a music festival ten years after you didn’t like going to them in the first place. And, just not being able to get that feeling you could back then. Understanding from now on it’s a memory unreachable. I’ve never read a book that used this location/theme combination. Did you come up with that, you bastard? KKUURRTT: Hahaha I mean I wrote like three versions of this location before I found the theme of chasing a memory unreachable and they were all just pure fucking trash. 10K word false starts that will never see the light of…

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THE FIRST TIME I WATCHED PORN by Tyler Dempsey

In sixth grade (1997), my friend Tom invited me to church because I was a heathen and poor. (We drifted when he got really into drugs later, but from ages 11 to 14, we were close.) Because my mom worked—Dad vanished in 1990, returned for three days in 2014, and then vanished again—and I lived too far from school to ride the bus, what started as walking with Tom to church together on Wednesdays after school grew into going to Tom’s house weekdays until my mom got off work.  Tom and I practiced kickflips in the driveway for an hour,…

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HUNGER by Tyler Dempsey

Robbed.  The ski-masked man squeezed my biceps.  “Easy,” I said.  He went, “Get in, fucks,” and nodded toward a black SUV, gun under Eddie’s throat. “Don’t even think about it.”  Eddie called shotgun.  That was yesterday.  Eddie’s my roommate. I’m 34. Too old for a roommate.  I fucked up.  Eddie’s on the couch. You could say “living” there. Old vomit, pink—like brain blended with Monster energy drink—arced but didn’t clear the cushions. My cat’s purring caked in matter needing chemicals to remove.  Ed’s stomach jiggles from a tank top. A hairy muffin hidden for later. Pink on his cheek, he…

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MORE by Tyler Dempsey

Servants scatter. The psychoanalyst enters the room. He regards his surroundings: Apollo’s wife, Aphrodite, scrolls Facebook. Her Admirers lounge. Various articles—bedside tables, a rocking horse, bowling pins, Fruit Roll-Ups—lay adrift across the floor. Aphrodite refurbishes goods, like Fruit Roll-Ups, from thrift stores. Apollo enters, his humor betrays immense slaying. He approaches an Admirer, slays him. Tosses a bloody scimitar to the recliner. The Admirers scoot over. He sits. —How do you feel? —Tired. He cracks a Pabst Blue Ribbon, gallantly. Loosens his golden codpiece. Apollo props his heels on the dead Admirer. —I was whipping adversaries. The sun was angling,…

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