Should I die tonight, does this legacy of rambling so easily capture as the dry moans of midnight thunder, the shaken masses; flashing my love letters down deep thrombosis of their breaths. Licking clean their contented smiles, byte by byte.
Tag Archives: amwriting
Disappointed and Appalled: An Open Letter to the New York Times
Good day,
This won’t make it to anyone except an unmonitored email generating standard responses or the journalism student interning for less than minimum wage, but hey, what the hell?
I wanted to provide feedback to the New York Times, as a relatively long time reader of several years. I abhor NYT’s coining of the recent political cooperation between Russia, China, and Iran as “the new axis.” I know you did that because scaring people into reading makes you money. Its shock value surpasses the daily basic click-bait bombarding your readers, thus winning today’s battle in viewership.
While I maintain you have the right to make money, you do not have the right to assist in building the scaffolding of a new war – worldwide or other. Americans do not want another war, and do not need another war. Likely, you took some money on the side from an interested lobbying group to print that out. Or perhaps an NYT executive rubbed shoulders with LD, L3 Harris, or other profiteers of death and destruction this weekend at the golf course and they caught you at a time where NYT needed to pad the bottom line.
Either way, your rhetoric in this instance is immoral. What our people want and need are basic human rights and a redistribution of wealth. After decades at war, our middle class has been demolished, our relationship with the world community dissolves, and our planet smolders both literally and figuratively. Until your competitors go back to printing Roe v. Wade, you won’t go back to covering the loss of human rights because you feed on fresh dissent, not on moral principle. You won’t talk about wealth disparity until you need to save face either.
Still, I plead, at least do not so flippantly toss around the concept of world war 3 as if hundreds of thousands of civilians as collateral and thousands of America’s poor as soldiers don’t stand to lose their lives because of it.
Their deaths are on your hands now.
Sincerely,
Josh
IDKWNTHT, but,
Do you ever wonder, in a million voices screaming at you; hey, why am I such a loser piece of garbage? And you know, you know, it’s coming from somewhere - past, present, whatever. Then you realize, it’s just one voice: it’s just yours. Even as you write you know you know you can never share this because relatable trauma only, please.
turtle dove
keep me
on your
side
because my
love
will not
flip over
down
I catch myself wanting
to break this bottle
over the teeth
of the fence directly left -
to sit and cry
a little,
but I’d just go back in
and buy another.
Also, I gave up crying
for lent,
permanently.
Hit one on the first floor,
because my muscle memory
says, “down.”
Have I really become so afraid
of intimacy that I’d sabotage
anything resembling
just so I could go get let
down.
How that bell rings
around my head:
You have it in you to die,
coward,
but not to live.
You’re lucky my guilt
outweighs my disgust.
The Butterfly
Another stop, a diversion, another roadside *, the last great, big, ball of barbed wire. *attraction. On the way to your comfort zone: *deep sigh* and streeeetch - going; what grew inside you, found you missing.
No Shows
Nah that’s cool, shrugging lazily and only half joking. Several seconds pass, many long-winded metaphors, and eight god damn whiskey sours later.... Like eating grapes off the vine. It tastes less enjoyable, but overwhelmingly natural. Like a coke dealer on a netflix binge: three days with no sale, in love with the 80’s, pass the ice. I spent that time listening for someone to yell, “Stop!” Dispassionately poised for an assault on my character to my back and everything else to my face. Nothing happened, but dammit beg, for the question you already know: the fleeing happiness, asking instead for accomplishment and society’s benefit.
Fevers and Chills
With black tendrils she sways, down her forehead and brushed back with toned, olive polish. Her clothes fall freely with her legs, her breasts, her feet bare when she can help it. Subtly, into back she fades - no, like the backdrop walks with her.
Cheap talk
What does that even mean? You cannot have your cake and have it eaten too. It takes two to tango, honey, and talk is cheap. So, I speak by the hour, and pass collection when the hook penetrates your soft, upper palate.