
LANGUAGE by Steve Gergley
His physique is quite distressing. It is not something I like to observe.

His physique is quite distressing. It is not something I like to observe.

Like anything, Hot Wheels has a language. Like any language you encounter, you want to make this one your own.

At sixteen I went ocean swimming. I swam so deep that the land turned into a thin grey line. The ocean turned into hills like blue elephants.

Oh, the bear came with the house, I lied. The Lord hates a lying tongue, the pastor said.

“It’s not that it disappears,” he said. “It’s just deep. It’s like a cliff. It goes all the way down. But it’s something new, Rico.”

People—and I mean even absolute strangers—they’ll just talk and talk and talk and they expect you to listen to their whole life story. Have you ever experienced this? Do you know what I mean?

nevertheless i have grown tired of it already, as anyone in my situation would. anyway, i am stuck. hand looks bad.

There’s enough clogged hair to build a new human, one who believes in the plunger, the snake, the possibility that our channels will flow free.

Her sandwich – mine now – is sloppily assembled, the melted cheddar thick with oil like a handsome man’s mucus. I eat without chewing much.

A year and three months ago a stray bullet caught Mina in the face, just grazing it. She has a scar that trails down her left eye, back to her left ear. The scar looks like one tear crying. Sometimes, lightning strikes twice.