Glimpsed in a reflection, he saw himself as he must look to the world: bewildered, as if expecting a final blow to the head.

Every night you pray for their protection. You pray for their protection from you.

In the harmonious spaces and bright clear sunlight of this elegant house, you feel an acute awareness of how coarse and awkward you’ve become. If only the light could pass right through you.

Sorry, can’t stop; I have to push this rock up this mountain.

The ninth month of the pandemic brought daily, unannounced weeping, an involuntary physical impulse that felt part of some collective global balancing, almost like—
A rice cooker letting off steam?
No, that’s fucking stupid. *Coughs. But maybe.
A volcano? A cat purring?
Plunging your eczematic hands into a bubbling vat of lye?
Yes, yes, that too.

Still, I prefer the present—your present face. The past holds nothing for me.

The collection exclusively featured images of mayhem and disaster.

At the time I was working for a local catering company. Two in the morning, five nights a week, sweating out last night’s alcohol in my polyester black and whites bussing dishes to back alley vans. I was on hold. To the world at large I was nobody. Soon enough I’d be nobody to myself.

Passing the funeral parade, he noticed a woman in dark glasses stopped at a red light, weeping without consolation or restraint. How he envied that dead man.

Surrounded by chaos and devastation, he felt at ease. His inner and outer worlds had reached equilibrium

He grew up with few expectations. He accepted tolerance in place of love, and survival as success.

A contagion of insanity is loose in the land.