6

they doesn’t enjoy any mood to be in for awhile but loves the shifts. appreciates a moodiness. xe wants to be a pirate but doesn’t understand water. they would do well to be a fairy but without the wishes. xe has issues with images. they has an idea. neither can barter well enough to make the trade happen. xe is now also in a mood. not also if not also then ever also. they found a new mood to be found.

*

how’d the haunting get out of the house? xe was just joking about being a ghost. they knows that xe was joking but might also think xe is a joke too. but perhaps not with a punchline that kills. xe bombs. they tolerate xe more than xe deserves. tolerating takes time. is a process. may become more than purely tolerance. xe is aware of the inherent7

*

what’s all this learning worth if not for some day such as this? let’s talk about redistribution. let’s talk about reparations. reconstruction. let’s get even if not even then at least leveled, brought to flatness, nothing in the way. but also with nothing to catch a voice and send it back. only here can the sands whistle and call out to travelers passing through in hopes of an oasis. let’s discuss the mirage. let’s speak of how we got this far apart and also of how we got this close together.

Kenning (FKA Kenyatta) Jean-Paul García is the author of the notvel OF (What Place Meant), They Say (West Vine Press) and several lyrical speculative ebooks such as ROBOT: the Waste Land Reimaged. Xe is a diarist and performer living in Albany, NY. Xe has degrees in English and linguistics but has spent xyr adult life doing blue collar work. For a dozen years xe worked in restaurants doing everything from dishes to managing. These days, xe is a maintenance worker in a massive two-story box store. Xe has been doing the graveyard shift for 11 years now so writing is the day job but not the job that's called xyr "real job." In addition, xe posts way too much foolishness on social media and tries to go to lots of conferences around the country preferably by train. Xe is also an editor at Rigorous.