Travis Shosa

After Austin Goodbright waterboarded me with a pissy cloth for skimping out on the $4 lunch table fee, I slumped home deflated and spiritually bald, like the Charlie Brown of urine, to my tenement home. My mother held me in her gentle, impoverished embrace, and kissed me on my pissy cheek. She did not admonish me for not fighting back, nor did she praise me. She was not a turn the other cheek type of mother.

Walked for seven dreadful hours, untangling constrictor knots I tied. I’ve gotten so good at lying to strangers that I can lie to myself now. I’m mostly 31, but I’m also 20 and 11. A thing happens and you become a limb you cut off from the rest of you. Shove it in the freezer. Put it on ice. Maybe you can reattach to yourself someday. Every human is mostly water but I think I’ve got extra water.