Innocence In the middle of summer, when it’s too hot for cargo shorts and the air is heavy to breathe, I let my mouth slide open into a slippery smirk, as I watch Michael Ritter, the boy you loved in 5th grade, on the local news. “Dear Michael, I really, really like you…” your 5th grade love letter began. Against my warnings, you stuffed the tightly folded letter, a rainbow scrawl, colored pencil on notebook paper, into his cubby. He fell to his knees laughing. His friends snickered at you: Dear Michael, I really, really like you… They whispered when you walked by. You cried yourself to sleep at night, a salty puddle of pre-adolescent pain staining your Barbie doll pillow case. It’s not until I see him on the news, until I want to tell you how much you didn’t miss out on, how lucky you are that he [...]
Joel James Davis
Leatherbar in Louisville (owed) The city hums traffic through lights, blinking eyes right before sleep, a flatline pattern, automated efficiency designed to pull cars through midnight into dawn. I fall inside, privy to dulled movement, beer foaming to a quiet stasis, smoke veiling the bartender and patrons. Smells of gin, sweat, amyl, tool and product of lifestyle manufacture, the market for primacy, the dank and dark of cave signifying spaces where men belong to men, belie the confidence of pose, migraine smiles suggesting satisfaction. Don, the shirtless bartender, jovial and smirking at me, dangerously out of place, nudges me with jokes and beer into talking, a thaw that draws other moths to the light of the HD big screen porno flashing raw tension behind my stool. Maladroit, I can’t navigate a way between communion and commodity, a simple new guy that laughs politely, declines shots, thank you, declines dance, thank [...]