Strays
Strays is a hodgepodge creative writing (and sometimes photography) collection, featuring fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.
- On Henry Rollins… or: “Why I Don’t Believe in Horoscopes” ()
It was a nice day, I’d say, and I’d parked in the below-ground Music City Center lot. Heading north, I walked up the street several blocks to meet my friend for lunch. I had hot chicken to celebrate what might be the last time I might eat it in Nashville… or ever, if I’m being […]
- Hillside. ()
A decade agoOverlooking it allThe city is what it wasAs it isAs it never was. It has changedEverything doesAs time takes hold itSo tooChanges the view.Hillside.
- Moscow I ()
“Would you take $35?” The piece itself wasn’t what he really wanted, but it would fill space on the blank slate of a wall in his office that overlooked his desk. It was empty, the wall, and the canvas print would help solve that problem. He enjoyed the artist’s work, but less so of this […]
- The Tattooed Bride ()
They were both fans of body modification, Steve and Rae. Though each of a certain brand which the other couldn’t identify with. They had crafted their lives, and their selves, to meet their own goals, their own ideals. But once they met, they both began to wonder what might happen if they let the other […]
- The Spirit of South Haven ()
Our shopper in focus approaches the first of three sets of sliding glass doors. Each opens on cue for him, each acting as a layer of protection between he and the so-called natural elements. It should be noted that the word “elements” is a particularly curious term here. The barriers have been implemented in such […]
- A Sound Is A Sound ()
To quote John Cage, “Accept that a sound is a sound and a man is a man. Give up illusions about ideas of order, expressions of sentiment, and all the rest of our inherited aesthetic clap trap.” I don’t believe I ever understood what this meant, but from the time I first read those words […]
- Extinction Rebellion ()
“You know, the fact we’re even sitting here, talking about this, says a lot about us, right?” “About us?” “Right, two white guys at a coffee shop at two in the afternoon, skipping school to solve the world’s problems.” “I can only speak for myself here, but I like drinking coffee more than I like […]
- Hope for Ghosts ()
In love with a ghost Ideas mostly Like, what could have been If only everything was different Including us. To feel that close to you To touch skin To feel you pull away To sense hesitation To see careful restraint in your eyes To hear the distance in your voice Reminding myself it’s only just […]
- Rejected ()
“I don’t quite understand where you’re going with all this, but I can tell you I don’t exactly have the patience for it right now,” she said, pushing the cocktail napkin back to him. “Maybe I’m getting the word wrong? I-idiom? It’s an idiom. W-what I’m trying to say is I think people like us […]
- Who Are You? Point To It! ()
Walking bundles of habit, I think I read somewhere. That’s what we are. I get up, hit my knees, give thanks, meditate, and stretch… all figuratively speaking, of course. Many of my habits are aspirational. Some of them, at least. The others have an anaconda lock on me, constricting me slowly before I’m too light […]
- Something Wrong ()
The feeling is so strange, the organic and artisanal refuge communicating a message that there’s goodness to be had here. I’m good because I’m here. So are you. But why? We’re here, doing good for ourselves, at this place that tells us it’s the kind of place for people who care about enhancing their well being. […]
- Always Elsewhere ()
Tired. Dissatisfied. Lacking. Needing. Sleep. But what would all this look like if—upon waking up—the problem was fixed? What if that thing that was out of reach was now in hand? What then? What would life look like in the presence of occupied achievement? What happens in that space, feeling what’s real… What then? What […]
- Seasons Change, Two ()
You’re back. Sugar, you — well, we might just talk for a minute before I get you that menu. I get it, hun, you’re hungry. We’re all hungry. OK. You know? Let me do you a solid though. This one here, this one’s not on any menu in this place. What’s this? Well, hun, that […]
- Seasons Change ()
Winter cracks and soon the growth begins again. Weeks pass, roots develop, stems thicken, vines intertwine, flowers blossom, trees bloom. It’s all growth of some kind. But as spring turns into summer and summer into fall, what was once ripe now dries and fades. Limbs crack, some breaking only slightly, some completely, but with a […]
- Why Won’t You Listen ()
It was a familiar path until instead of veering left we veered right. Had we not made one more left where I thought there should have been a right we would have never discovered the message. The doors of a restroom, padlocked shut for the season, were adorned with decoration. “Why won’t you listen,” read […]
- Ten Years of Becoming ()
Everyone has a story, and most of it isn’t interesting. Very little of what was spoken between them remains in his memory except a prediction: That ten years later she was bound to be impressed by the person he’d become. It’s been nine years since they’ve spoken, but for all the words he could have […]
- Good Friday ()
Getting to there from here has almost always felt like the point. This moment, just something to bear on the way to right now becoming something better. This experience a lesser version of what I’m really preparing for. And suddenly the future disappears. With countless conversations touting the value of mindfulness behind me, a feeling […]
- Artifacts ()
“Imaginary flirtations with the second amazing waitress of the day float through my mind as we drive home for the night, a bleak country-sized horizon lit up by the high-beams. I feel lucky.” Memory of writing down those words has left me, but the vision of those high-beams has stuck, us driving away from the […]
- The Paper ()
I got that corner early and didn’t earn much — only made about seven bucks by then — when he showed up with his girl. You could see he was an addict. It was all about the attitude. It was all about me-me-me, take-take-take, but I got it all on my camera. All of it. […]
- The Internet ()
Where my mind forgets, The Internet remembers. That sticky residue of the past like sap, a historical cache of connections, moments, and memories sticking to a person with the frightening permanence of an industrial adhesive. Everything stored in the cloud, held in a weightless currency of bits and bytes while its heaviness is immeasurable. The […]
- Living Well ()
“What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.” —Seneca How does the saying go, “The best revenge is living well”? Isn’t that the truth? Looking out over the balcony, there’s a calm to the traffic — no horns, no revving of engines, no screeching tires or […]
- Walk of Shame ()
“Let me stop you right there – this isn’t going down like I think you think you want it to go down.” Those weren’t the words she used, but they’re close enough. The impression of what she said is what lingers. She’s met him before. This has happened before. Maybe he hurt her before, or […]
- Given to Fly ()
It seemed out of place, like a leftover relic from when he had fewer reasons to be careful. That was a different time, and now when he spoke he did so with caution. He was guarded with his delivery and his eyes weren’t always there — it sounds stupid, but it was his ink that […]
- Another Queen ()
Royalty in passing, a red carpet is laid out for you in my mind. Who you really are never seems to cross my thoughts though, because in that moment you are grand — a leader of nations, powerful enough to sway the will of men with a wave of the hand yet wise enough to […]
- Work Everyday ()
When you feel threatened, what do you do? Do you “step up”? Do you protect what you have? Is what you have something to be protected? What does it really do for you? Does it help you? Does it provide shelter from them? Or does it shelter you from yourself? From something more? Inside you? […]
- Scars ()
A sign of pain and trauma? Yes, of course. But scars indicate something else, too. The dream, now a few days dissolved in my mind, felt like a sign of closure. Laying there at three in the morning, running a quick inventory of what’s real or imagined, it didn’t feel like a burden had been […]
- Rocko ()
There’s a family two floors down from me, who exist in my world primarily through the noise that funnels upward through the cement and steel staircase that also serves as a chamber of echoes. This family has been visited by child protective services. I have seen the visitations. They seem tense. Sometime in the past […]
- Withdrawn ()
“Withdrawn” is a photo project created in July of 2014 in Nashville, TN.
- Doorways ()
A restless mind of late has called for sleeping aids, but despite the deep slumber a knock at the door woke me at three. It couldn’t have been my door, I thought. What if it had been? Who could have been knocking at my door? Is it really three? Maybe it was the old lady […]
- I Hate This Job ()
I’m sitting at a desk with my headset on and the caller is asking me if this is what we do. I’m sorry, what we do? Yeah, he says, work like this. He asks why I shipped him something in a bucket, suggesting that the lack of packaging damaged the product, and I tell him […]