SCRUPLES

by Judith Krantz

SYNPOSIS

A young woman escapes a painful past and reinvents herself in Los Angeles, building a high-end fashion boutique that becomes a world of beauty, ambition, and temptation. As her business grows, so do the emotional and romantic entanglements around her.

WHY I READ/CONNECTED

I have a deep appreciation for the pop(ular) in any medium. I believe we are in an era (post Thriller onwards), where the external success, the business—is as much the art as the actual piece itself. One of my friend’s mom’s recommended this book, said it was a guilty pleasure of her 20s. Wow. I ate up these 600 pages in two days. Spider is one of my favorite characters in all of fiction, his love for women made me feel so seen.

HIGHLIGHTED PASSAGE

RATING

THE WASTELAND & OTHER POEMS

by T.S. Eliot

SYNPOSIS

T.S. Eliot has an unmistakably fragmented & beautiful voice that wanders through a spiritually barren world, searching for meaning amid decay. The poems shift across time & desires, weaving myth, religion, and everyday life into a collage of disconnection. Beneath the ruin, there are faint hints that renewal is still possible—but only through transformation.

WHY I READ/CONNECTED

I came across someone reading T.S. Eliot out in public and we had a short chat about his work. It also reminded me that I had this collection gathering dust in my library, and as soon as I went home—I cracked it open. Poetry is such a distinct reading experience to fiction. I try to read each poem aloud, and also not to read the book straight through. Instead I read a novel alongside it, and only grabbed for the poetry when I felt called. Most of this collection was good, but there are certain segments that are transcendent. That’s the beauty of poetry. You never know what will sing to you. It’s like sifting for gold.

HIGHLIGHTED PASSAGE

RATING

MACBETH

by William Shakespeare

SYNPOSIS

A decorated warrior is told he will be king—makes it come true. Spurred by a ruthless partner, he murders his way to the throne, only to find that power breeds paranoia faster than it secures control. What begins as ambition curdles into madness, as fear unravels both his rule and his mind.

WHY I READ/CONNECTED

At the tail end of my Shakespeare March I discovered this play hiding in my library. In all honesty, it was my least favorite of the four I read. The pacing felt off and I didn’t really connect with any of the characters strongly.

HIGHLIGHTED PASSAGE

RATING

WiTHiN A BUDDiNG GROVE

by Marcel Proust

SYNPOSIS

Proust drifts through seaside summers, salons, and first love, discovering that time doesn’t pass—it accumulates. Through fleeting encounters and obsessive reflection, he begins to understand that memory reshapes reality more powerfully than reality itself. What seems like idle youth becomes the quiet formation of a compulsive personality obsessed with capturing life before it disappears.

WHY I READ/CONNECTED

Almost a year ago to the day I read the first volume of In Search Of Lost Time. I left the six book box set in Portugal, so when I made it back to visit my parents—of course I had to pick up where I left off. I enjoyed this much better than Swann’s Way. Like most classic literature, the first 100 pages or so are a slog…but then you find your brain adjusting to the groove of his style. And somehow by the end, 700 pages ends up not being enough. I love how much of a sensitive little boy Proust is, and how he’s unafraid of showing it.

HIGHLIGHTED PASSAGE

RATING

THE BLUEST EYE

by Toni Morrison

SYNPOSIS

In a world that worships whiteness, a young Black girl prays for blue eyes—believing they will make her lovable. As her family and her community fractures under the weight of internalized hatred, poverty, and violence, her desire becomes a tragic mirror of a society that has taught her to disappear.

WHY iIREAD/CONNECTED

If you know me, you know Toni Morrison is on my Mount Rushmore off of Beloved alone. But I’ve committed to reading all her books, and even though Sula & Jazz are in my possession—I found this copy of her debut in a Lisbon bookstore and got hooked thumbing through it on the spot. Wow. Fucking wow. This book made me cry my eyes out for two reasons: the story itself is so visceral…and her level of craft had me praying to God to give me all the faculties and time and focus to reach even a tenth of her power.

HIGHLIGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

LOST LAMBS

by Madeline Cash

SYNPOSIS

This book follows the dysfunctional Flynn family as their open marriage unravels, leading their three daughters into their own chaotic lives, including a criminal conspiracy involving a local billionaire.

WHY I READ/CONNECTED

It’s the hottest book out right now and I love to learn from what dominates the conversation. This book felt a little too satisfied with itself at times, which I think held it back. There were sentences, passages, even a few chapters that were breathtaking…but overall the story fell short.

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATING

ALBUMS

MAN iN BLACK

by Floyymenor

Another example of suffering from high expectations. Floyy’s 2024 run of singles was untouchable—it reminded of that early Midas Touch from Fetty Wap.

Man in Black was good, but I haven’t found myself replaying any of the songs. I know he intentionally wanted to flex his sound and there are solid tracks, but none of them landed as addictive ear candy. Maybe I gotta hear one outside or in the club.

KiND OF BLUE

by Miles Davis

I stumbled upon a Miles Davis video that led me down a Youtube rabbit hole. Undeniable man. Then it occurred to me that I had never actively listened to him. I can’t say I know anything about jazz but I love this album and I’m still seeking out everything of his.

PiCTURES AT AN EXHiBiTiON

by Modest Mussorgsky

While looking for classical music that is conducive for creative flow states, I came across this recommendation. Mussogorksy composed a piano suite meant to be auditory representations of his friend Viktor Hartmann’s exhibition. It’s like you’re walking through the gallery looking at different paintings and sculptures.

MOViES

BASiC iNSTiNCT

Is there a better movie starring a writer?

THE FAST & THE FURiOUS

Lmao. I’ve seen a couple of the most recent movies in the series, but I had to remind myself why this was such a hit in the first place.

MiCHAEL

I’m going for my third time (in theaters) tomorrow.

i’ve been going through some ****, but it’s alright

There’s a quiet tearing in my back. My bones rearranging themselves for flight. Wings arrive gradually, then all at once.

A couple months ago I told my mom I was mid-air—couldn’t see where I jumped from, couldn’t see where I’d land.

Now?

Following His flight path. Savoring it.

came out swinging doors, posted in the kitchen, ***** on counters

It started at the airport. Flights to New York—cancelled, delayed.

Not mine.

As soon as we were airborne, I dropped my seat back and pulled out the manila envelopes. I loved the crinkle. Fiddling with the brass clasps.

There were three envelopes:

1. Manuscript — Campus Fiction (title + prologue)

2. Experimental — the codex in progress

3. Study — currently Palahniuk’s craft essays

I spent all three hours of the flight underlining, highlighting, taking notes.

As we descended, the beanie clad guy next to me—green hoodie (IT’S FUCKING SAINT PATRICK’S DAY)—tapped my shoulder.

“What do you do?”

“I’m a writer.”

“A writer? Like… you write? I mean what? Do you write?”

“I’m working on my book.”

“Damn. That’s fire. I didn’t know writers were still a thing.”

blowing all these *****, arguing with my accountant

On the way to the law office, I opened my illustrator’s email.

He sent over a proof for the second novella cover. Tangier Blues. I tapped my foot as I scanned and zoomed in on the pixels.

Close—but not there yet. It needed a little more restraint between the Young Man and Levi Lopez. The cat couldn’t look too sickly. Covers are Hollywood. They sell. Get you in your seat and then the truth plays.

My lawyer isn’t just mine—he’s ours. The family lawyer. Honorary fourth brother. Gregarious, ravenous Italian. Consigliere powered on equal parts uppers and downers. Texts like everything could be subpoenaed.

We started with a Chocolate croissant, split three ways. Big S (the lawyer), L (our rave loving long haired friend). I brushed the crumbs off his desk as the two talked their fantasy basketball lineups.

A Kramer-like office neighbor walked in, told us to watch Bulgonia. Then he pointed at L, told him he looked just like Jesse Plemmons. Big S pulled Jesse Plemmons up on his second monitor, turned it towards us. We all burst out laughing. Except L. He glared at Kramer Esq. as he bobbled out of the office, closing the door behind him.

L made some vague excuse, sniffed and slapped his knee before he stood. He was on the clock. On the city’s dime, and his three hour lunch break was coming to a close.

Now it was just Big S and I. A quick stop at the gyro truck across the street. Astoria’s finest.

Then back to business, me melting into the chair. Big S snatching a Post It from his computer monitor, furrowing his eyebrows as he read it. He mumbled to himself then crumpled it, tossed it over his shoulder. A quick clearing of the throat and he switched into counsel mode.

He had the answer to my question from the week before. In Campus Fiction I was going to incorporate three real life events that were controversial at minimum, ******* at most. The book was mostly fiction, but I knew braiding in these visceral moments would give it real voltage.

“So I looked up some cases. In 2007, Random House…”

“But it really happened that way.”

“Sure. But would you classify him as a public figure?”

“What defines that?”

“New York Times settled this way back. Basically…”

“Fuck.”

“I’d recommend—”

“Allude. I like that. That’s sexier.”

He fired off an email to a client, as I readied the manila with the manuscript.

“There. Now I can bill them for our convo.”

The only lawyer I like is mine. And I suppose whatever future lawyers my publisher sics on me.

I enjoy having an authority figure try to wrangle me in. And deep down, I know they love it too.

I started off March reading The Autobiography of Alice B. Tolkas. I was entranced by the collaborative atmosphere of the Parisian scene. These painters, writers, musicians, clowns—they were constantly on. In and out of their studios, salons, dinners, exhibitions. Sharing their work in progress, testing out new theories, talking techniques, breaking traditions. Inspiring one another through equal parts affirmation and disagreement.

I wanted that.

So the night before I left, I prepared the manuscript.

Ivory 120gsm paper. Baby blue electric Smith Corona. Schneider markers. Label maker.

I went to bed at 3am, and woke 4 hours later for my flight.

It was time to start the roadshow.

The book is not just the words on the paper. It’s the whole experience—starting with the presentation.

I let Big S read it silently. Then I had him read it out loud to me. I snatched the papers from him and let him talk as I began to make corrections to the opening.

I printed out a new first paragraph, then taped it over. Whiteout to edit the rest throughout. Then we we were on our way to dinner with the rest of the brothers.

they say I been talking too much about how I been ******

We hopped out the blacked out. To that new Mexico City spot, the one on the corner of Delancey.

My brother M knows the chef—he knows everyone. For obvious reasons.

Table flooded: beef tartare, crickets, lamb burgers, squash, squid, tostadas, mushrooms, horchata soft serve, chocolate cake, etc.

No manners. Just elbows and heavy exhales.

You know it’s a real feat of culinary abundance when our quintet taps out. Despite repeatedly asking him to slow down, the chef would not relent.

I just remember wanting to be horizontal, but M made me fight through the food coma and talk to the chef.

He told me about his years couch surfing. Dropping out of culinary school because he didn’t respect his teachers. Working anywhere that would take him.

Another plate came out of the kitchen and he swiped it from the server to point out to us how he was experimenting. Thin slices of carne asada, almost translucent at the edges, fanned over a citrus-dressed summer salad—jícama, shaved fennel, a little mango. He pointed out the cut first, how fine it had to be to take the marinade without getting lost in it. Then the glaze—a light tamarind and lime reduction, brushed just enough to catch the heat. Even as he explained it I could see his gears turning, how he was going to head back and try again.

My manuscript moved around the table, my brother’s snatching it from one another (J the oldest, M the second, me the third, C the youngest). Big S was explaining to them what I had already infused him with.

I explained the process to the chef:

Handwritten → typed on computer → typewritten → handwritten again → performed as spoken word for my house DJ/producer best friend→ transcribed → typewritten.

Oh and typed again in Big S’s office just a couple hours before.

The chef’s eyes widened as I wiped some powder off the page he had in his hand. By this point I was out of my seat, standing next to him.

Yup yup, there was my reverence for the evangelical preacher register. The repetition, the incantation. After all I wrote it primarily by candlelight.

I alluded to the allusion that Big S said I should allude to. Now everyone’s eyes widened (except for Big S who held a wry smile).

The chef was being summoned back.

He turned to me and wished me good luck with the book. You got this.

I wished him good luck with the restaurant. You got this.

and I’m sorry, I ain’t got no time to call you

I wish I could paint you more of the week.

But there were 3 Os (not all by ourselves). There were 30 hours of sleep total.

So here’s a collage—straight from my notebook and camera roll. No edits, just redactions and labels.

ROMANCE/FRiENDSHiP

• are you going to call my bluff, or will I call yours?

• promise me one day we’ll give up all this wordplay, because the real miracle is that the love was always here 2 stay

• “me motiva y me dice que no pare, que tengo que darle, en la música enfocarme”

  • that’s all I want, a woman to say to focus on your writing and mean it. forever. Is that too much?

• I think we could paint good moving scenes, tableau vivants, me and her

• You can leave with love

• She would love to know that I ended the night reading her letter

• Looking at notes from *****’s morning routine in the bathroom—intimacy and insecurity (one and the same no?)

• My mind isn’t made up so I’ll let her do it

• ***** went to Ementa in Lisbon too!

• **** would adore Elizabeth Street Garden, maybe she can come to the city this summer

• Give them time and space and pain to convince themselves because once they do—together you will fill the vacuum of fear and longing with _______?

• “All Life’s grandeur begins with a girl in the summer”

• buy *** a postcard, send ******* a playing card, and what kind of gift for ****?

• *** raw notes: “she has a fat mirror and she doesnt know it (lol), threw up in my favorite purse, **** is a tattletale (lmao), this place is like a tequila dungeon, he’s so hot but his IG is such an ick, can you believe these guys run their texts through ChatGPT and dont expect me to realize?”

• text **** the picture of *** and I

• ****’s reply lmaooo—some women are so naturally flirtatious that it circles back around to meaning nothing although I suppose I’m projecting because I know I can exude that energy as well

• Why can I rarely fully reveal myself to one woman?

• I suppose I’m a player in the purest sense of that word. I do not do it for validation but for enjoyment and risk. I like to play with feelings, including my own—until something breaks open and I say ok, this is where I’m meant to stay.

• I want to light my Palo Santo and I want her to lick it

• The way ****** moved next to me while filming that TikTok in the mirror, write about that

  • no no, write about how it made you feel, not just what she was doing

  • and next time I wanna pick the song

ART/SPiRiTUALiTY

• draw a mandala

• To see it all is power and pain

• work on your handwriting

• ARTISTIC STATEMENT FOR THE BOOK (where to put?): We must liberate ourselves. I know you feel it too. Full of desire & drive but lost. What do we search for? I do not know, but I know we are missing something. I promise to stay by your side as we search for it.

• mini moleskin size, paperback, pulp illustration, cigarette packaging, novella of first 10k words of Campus Fiction, luxurious pilot sold auction style, odds and evens different covers and some words, people buy their favorite number, only 100 copies ($100+ per copy), ticket to our parties/salons

• “shadows and dust—I dwell in possibility” (*****’s diary entry)

• Keep rewriting the intro until it feels like someone slowly lowering you down into warm water

• Fitzgerald just tells the same story over and over and over again—how he won over his wife by fulfilling a grand ambition....yet his stories are always tragic, so does he regret it all? Or he cannot move on, is there no higher high for him?

• What is my story I tell over and over? What question am I asking over and over and answering with more and more questions?

• Miley did say promote before it’s official so they have no choice but to make it happen

• Denzel did say “I’m leaving with something!”

• Front row, court side, ring side, on set, first class

• The seven figure advance is simple arithmetic—if you want me (the future incarnate) today, it is the price to pay

• Tyler Hays just does whatever he wants his whole life, down to constructing his own tools and look at fulfilled and successful he is—PEOPLE LOVE TYRANTS IN ART

• The star knows the ecstasy is in living as the dream, eternal fantasy just out of fingertip reach but real and grounded to him and his

• Pacific Gunplay should be the title of the **** story

• Also good reminder that 90% of plots are stolen

• Just keep asking questions that have questions as answers, that’s all a timeless story is

• The longer you can be with the incomplete, the better it will become

• I wish to enter into an intimate confidence with the world but also to hold myself closely with Time at arm’s length so that I disappear and leave them all with a holy smoke and mirror…and the echoes of an eternal embrace

• “My wish would be that painting were not fiction, but life itself, in order to transform it”

• Wrestling with and riding the raw material of life

• What is my story I tell over and over? It aligns with the age we are in, the trans humanist future…when you can become anything, what will you choose to be?

• It’s the only honest story I can tell because my life is not one of struggling with formation or ascension, but rather stewarding power...and wondering if I am writing myself or discovering myself?

• What is the audience trusting you to unveil? What are they trusting you to satisfy?

• The beauty of believing in God is there is never any budget, never any limit

• God as posture and protection

• Light does not need to be searched for

• There is no high better than the flow state

• QUAVO SINATRA

• Cruel Intentions, such a good bad movie and I can see why she said it was like my book

  • Honest virgin versus deceitful slut, eternal battle (inside and out across all of us)

BEST FRiENDS/FAMiLY

• The beauty of kicking it with a ****** is there is never any budget, never any limit

• Sherpa jacket in the office, ** asking me how I’m so tan

• ***** looks so stressed, talk to dad about it

• **** is going to get hurt real soon, but he doesn’t want to see what’s coming so like a good friend I can only wait to comfort him when it happens

• Could I ship that ceramic to mom? Or just wait till next time she’s home.

• I love that * loves to work out as much as me

• Take *** to Silence Please, Pageant Portrait and BDDW gallery

• **** hitting on his customers this morning (“I forgot, I was supposed to give you guys a little Christmas special”) lmaooo

• **** is like Gatsby, a patron of mine—he keeps me in his apartment, writing away, a living performance art piece for all to observe and collaborate with

  • The guy side of ideal traits is done, get more girls to answer honestly

  • And try to get guys to answer beyond the obvious

• *****’s convo on getting an ED from calorie tracking with grandmother, fascinating

• 826 NYC, Straight Street Orlando, Panthera, my big 3 to shoutout

• Buy book to leave at *’s to start oral tradition of reading to people like Friday night with **** and her friends

• I choose to love my family without managing them. I do not absorb what is not mine. I can hear but I do not need to fix.

• Do we need an intervention for dad?

• Family gossip isn’t so bad I guess, so long as it’s well intentioned

• I miss Sophie so much, I love how little and evil and self absorbed she is. I’ll never feel fully at peace anywhere unless I know I come home to her

CiTY LiFE

• so little sleep, yet more energy than ever

• Thursdays at Soho Grand lmao

• ****** the plug at Waiting On A Friend, he said let’s go play Twister Mister

• People really love drunk driving don’t they? I haven’t in so long and I never will again...but I get it. The thrill. It’s fun and the thought of ending it all at that speed. I feel the goosebumps right now.

• The drugs don’t do anything...your own brain always shines through (or brings you down if that’s where you are at naturally)

• Sopranos episode as a lullaby every night

• Read Carrie

• Seeing cats up for adoption make me so sad

• Beautiful weather this first day of spring

• Wet hair, body butter, honks and tourists milling about outside the window, one foot resting on top the other

• Last night during Flashing Lights when Kanye said “straight from the page of your favorite author” and * pointed to me

• Gym, smoothie, sauna, massage combo is elite

• Overheard a girl in line at the coffee shop: “I really want that but I need a reason to get it”

• Ask **** tonite about party promoter specifics, have him show you his Apple note to work into tomorrow’s scene experiment

• Biking the money tree home, I love New York

• Guy who hopped over garbage bags on sidewalk but kept playing harmonica

• I understand what **** said about the sex appeal of tall buildings

• Spend tomorrow walking down Mercer recording videos and taking notes since that is the main street Campus Fiction takes place on

THE AUTOBiOGRAPHY OF ALiCE B. TOLKAS

by Gertrude Stein

SYNPOSiS

Paris in the early 20th century was the center of the art world. Gertrude and Alice recounts their time as the eminent salon of the moment—where Picasso, Matisse, Hemingway and many others came to reinvent and gossip. It is vivid portraiture of the fathers and mothers of modernism.

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

Someone recommended this to me as they knew I have my own aspirations to build and nurture artistic movements. It is awe inspiring to see the genesis of so many greats and how much their temperament decides their craft and their fate. It made me long for a salon of my own.

FOR FANS OF

A Moveable Feast, Just Kids, Picasso

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHiNG

by William Shakespeare

SYNPOSiS

A group of soldiers spends the month in Messina, as guests of the governor Leonato. Claudio falls for his innocent daughter Hero, and their naive romance has a devastating reversal. Meanwhile the cynical Benedick meets his match with the sharp tongued niece Beatrice and the two do all they can to hide their emotions. It takes some scheming from their friends to give them their happy endings.

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

I’ve been toying with my novel in the dramatic form. So of course, I had to study the GOAT. This play is the genesis of the modern romantic comedy. It is the most accessible Shakespeare since most of it is in prose. It’s simple, it’s fun…it’s deceptively well executed.

FOR FANS OF

Anyone But You, Clueless, Pride & Prejudice

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

THE GREAT GATSBY

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

SYNPOSiS

In glittering 1920s Long Island, enigmatic millionaire Jay Gatsby throws lavish parties in the hopes of rekindling a romance with Daisy Buchanan (now married). Daisy’s cousin Nick moves next door to Gatsby for the summer, and through the course of their friendship—sees Gatsby’s life unravel in the pursuit of this fantasy.

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

I actually “read” this in senior year of high school, as in I skimmed through and made use of Sparknotes to do the homework (sorry for the finesse Mrs. Pierce). My recent obsession with Fitzgerald meant I had to circle back around to this masterpiece. Funny how Fitzgerald just tells the same story over and over and over again huh? I suppose that’s what all the masters do—spend their entire lives creating art to answer a singular haunting question.

FOR FANS OF

The House of Mirth, Garden of the Sea, Babylon

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

HOMELAND

by R.A. Salvatore

SYNPOSiS

The brutal dark elf society of Menzoberranzan is a matriarchal one—where the high priestesses worship a spider queen that only values carnage and cunning. Drizzt is born a noble and expected to be one of the fiercest warriors for his family. In his training, he begins to doubt the violent principles of his world—and must decide whether to risk it all to break free.

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

I am not a fan of fantasy—but this is my older brother’s favorite trilogy of all time. After a decade of trying to persuade me, I decided to give it a go. I am glad I did. Once I immersed myself into the world, I connected so deeply with Drizzt’s alienation—feeling a sense of integrity that contrasts sharply with those around him.

FOR FANS OF

Dungeons & Dragons, Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

AS YOU LiKE iT

by William Shakespeare

SYNPOSiS

Rosalind and her cousin Celia are banished to the Forest of Arden. While in the forest they disguise themselves—and while Rosalind is posing as a man named Ganymede, she runs into her crush, Orlando. She playfully teases and coaches him on how to love her. Around them, exiled nobles, fools, lovers and melancholy thinkers shed their old identities and experiment with who they may become and who they may love.

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

I decided to make March a Shakespeare month, reading the three plays I have in my library. It is centered around a core idea from my novel: that identity is fluid— it depends on where you are, who you are allowed to be, and most importantly…who you will yourself to be. Above all, I love Shakespeare’s commitment to maximalism. We know he is capable of expressing in the simplest, straightest line, but he chooses to capture human consciousness in all its grandeur and contradiction.

FOR FANS OF

The Arcadia, Don Quixote, Orlando

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

ROMEO AND JULiET

by William Shakespeare

SYNPOSiS

Two young lovers from rival families in Verona fall into an intense love. The secretly get married and this sparks a series of impulsive decisions—duels, murders, exile, and suicide. Their pure, idealistic union collapses into an irreversible loss that devastates both their families.

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

I mean…it’s Romeo and Juliet. This is another one that I “read” in high school. We actually had to perform a scene—I played Mercutio when he is killed by Tybalt. Coming back around to it almost 15 years later, I can see why the names of these two lovers is shorthand for naive love. It’s a reminder that all you need to experience the transcendence of love is one other person who believes in it as much as you do. I’m also surprised at how I forgot that Romeo actually begins the play infatuated with another woman.

FOR FANS OF

West Side Story, La Duchesse de Langeais, Camille

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

MOViES

WUTHERiNG HEiGHTS

I finished the book the day before watching the film. I was the only man in a movie theater of 20+, and I could feel the collective longing every second Jacob was on screen. It was enjoyable—but Elordi is a victim of his good looks and presence, and Heathcliff is rewritten to be likable. This goes against the whole premise of the book, in that we find ourselves sometimes attracted to that which is dark and irredeemable. As soon as I understood that the director was trying to capture the feeling she had when she read this as a teenage girl—it all clicked.

PiLLiON

My cousin came to visit me and started talking about Pillion as soon he got in the car. We watched it that very night and it left me speechless. At no point did I know where it was going. The ending was especially tragic. It really hits a nerve for anyone who’s been in a relationship they know isn’t good for them—but stays anyway because it feels like what they deserve.

ANORA

My cousin then found out I had never seen Anora, and the marathon continued. It was undoubtedly my favorite of everything I watched this month. The best movies feel like documentaries—everything aligns, and a superstar actor inhabits the character so completely you feel as if you’re witnessing a real life unfold…not a performance. About midway through, you know exactly where this movie is headed and you can’t tear yourself away. I can see why this killed it at the Oscars.

CRUEL iNTENTiONS

While explaining the premise of my novel to someone, they told me it reminded them of Cruel Intentions. So I corralled a big group of people to watch it with me…and ironically, they all loved it more than I did. I did enjoy it, but the campiness wore on me at times. Ryan Phillippe in particular was just not locked in. He came across a little too self aware, and contrasted with Reese Witherspoon’s earnestness and Sarah Michelle Gellar’s unapolagetic cruelty…his irony dulled his performance. The stakes of the movie make it work though.

THE BAD GUARDiAN

Lmao.

ALBUMS

CA$iNO

by Baby Keem

Mannnn. I loved The Melodic Blue. I associate that album with such a vivid, triumphant point of my life. This album wasn’t bad, but for a five year wait…I expected Baby Keem to reach higher heights.

JEREMiAS

by Jere Klein

Oh oh oh okay. Fuck I’m addicted to this album. My library of vocal stims is entirely based on his adlibs. Jere Klein is such a shallow demonic jester, I can’t get enough.

MUSIC FOR 18 MUSICIANS

I was asking people around me what sort of music they listen to when they’re doing creative work. The unlikeliest of sources gave me this recommendation. It blew my mind. You just have to listen to it. I first heard it late at night, candles on, at my typewriter and the flow state it helped me enter was a drug in and of itself.

Lately I’ve been obsessed with the novel as an experience.

The art is not only the final work. The art also includes: the making of, the sharing, the feedback, the oral tradition, the marketing, the artist’s persona. The art is living.

I’ve been handwriting first, then revising on the computer, then reading aloud and transcribing, then finishing at the typewriter.

Before I spent a week in the city, I was thinking about Gertrude Stein’s Parisian salons and their collaborative energy.

So I made a manuscript of the prologue—and began the roadshow.

THE TOOLS

THE MANUSCRiPT

A scanned PDF of all the pages follows:

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INTRODUCiNG

It's reality TV baby

With the stars and the stripes

‍
Easy money and fast cars

Life that's twin turbo charged
‍

All it takes is a murder charge

The old you isn't welcome here
‍

We need raw, uncut, unfiltered

No fear, crystal clear


This is the real world

The new boy, the new girl


Champagne and pearls and dancing things

Diamond rings for the ones that sing


The spotlight, center stage

That's what it's all about


You dance to your own rhythm

Go on now, show out
‍

That's how it all works out

No doubt

MiLAGRO MíA

Me gusta lamar las chispas de nuestro amor—quiero volverme siego con tu luz.

This was the summer I realized I had Time. So much of Time—that it was still spring. You cried when I had told you I wanted to die young. And through your grace, you held a mirror to me and I saw that a long life of mine would be worth living.

This was the summer the apartment got bigger and the money got taller. The air conditioning didn’t work that first month and all we did was fuck and eat and laugh and cry. We were addicted to the heat. You taught me how to splash water on my face. I taught you how to drive it like you stole it. We had to shock ourselves into relaxing. Ice on the neck, breathe deep and reset the circuitbreaker.

I remember the time you came at the crescendo of the M train. We had the door open with the wind coming in—but it wasn’t enough. I’d sip wine on the balcony and see you through the looking glass. I couldn’t help but think of the future. My naps were on the roof and I was golden brown by Memorial Day. With the watermelon and the tequila and the Cherry On Top. The mango salsa on the white couch and your tan lines that kept me awake.

We were sweating and sweating and sweating and loving every minute of it. I felt like I was sucking the poetry right out of you. I got on my knees and asked God to keep me here on Earth with a life like this.

But you know how shooting stars work. I could see it in your eyes, the fear that the wave we were surfing would one day crash right over us. The most I could promise was to to search for your hand in the water.

The whole time I’ve known that you are my last chance to not live amongst the clouds. The only woman to make me feel mortal. My heart beats for you, my blood is red for you. I am here.

It’s good baby, what we got. It’s great. Let’s just keep the love coming. Masks off—two naked players.

I want this summer eternal.

SEiS

“I am a terraformer,” said the boy. He sat in the sand building new worlds.

“Look at how pretty the sky is,” said the girl. She let the waves crash at her feet.

“Look at my castle. I built it for you.”

“Look at the blue, look at the pink.”

The boy was little and scared. The girl was little and scared. They both liked to escape—each in their own ways.

“I don’t need the sky. I could make a better one.”

“I don’t need you to make me a sky when there is a perfectly beautiful one right there.”

“I’ll show you.”

“Just let me show you. Look up.”

The boy pouted and rested his elbows on his knees. The girl sighed and walked over.

“It’s a very nice castle. I feel safe in it.”

The boy remained silent before looking up at her.

“Do you really?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I even made a little balcony for the cat.”

“She’ll like it very much.”

“I made the floor checkered, like you like.”

“I noticed, I love it. Only you could build this castle.”

The girl added a shell she had in her pocket to the entryway of the castle.

“Okay now let’s go look at that sky. Together.”

The boy and the girl held hands as they walked along the beach. The boy followed the girl’s finger to the sky. He wanted to make something bigger than the sky, something she would notice without him asking. Just for her.

What did the girl want?

BONNiE AND

Si muero mañana, tu fuiste la unica.

Bullet through the window, this story is about two kids in love.

She complains he turns colors in his sleep. She can’t sleep and he can’t sleep enough. So they never have enough time together.

So he commits a crime, and now they’re on the run. Awake and against the world.

Ah, now they’re really in love. Under the trees in each other’s arms, they feel safe. That’s cause trees have earned their size.

But the moon, Miss Sonya, urges them to confess.

The sound of the wind chimes sets the bluebirds free.

They share their last breath. Now, they are together forever. You see: they made a light.

Love lives in the echoes but it starts with a bang. Only the lucky ones have it end with one too.

by Konstantin Stanislavski

SYNPOSiS

The father of modern acting chronicles his lifelong pursuit of artistic truth. It is memoir meets spiritual training manual. You see him rub shoulders with Russian greats, war, famine, failure and yet still remain unapologetically surrendered to his craft.

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

I’ve been studying acting as spiritual practice for some time. The art form is literally about how to be any kind of human on command. And Stanislavski was the first to approach it from an embodied, spiritual foundation. Acting is ontology. As Marlon Brando once said, life is a perpetual performance.

FOR FANS OF

Letters To A Young Poet, Zen In The Art of Archery, The Artist’s Way

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

THE COPYWRiTER

by Daniel Poppick

SYNPOSiS

A dissatisfied poet keeps a journal as his life falls apart—he loses his copywriting job, his girlfriend of seven years, and his apartment in short order. Through the many little fragments, he tries to piece together a tightrope of sanity. Is keeping a diary perhaps the most narcissistic practice of all?

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

The good people at Scribner (shoutout Emilyy) sent me this book, Daniel’s first novel (he’s a poet by trade). I love anything that plays with form, and this did a good job at capturing the voyeuristic thrill of peeking through someone’s notebooks. As someone whose default state is self mythology, it was fascinating to experience the mind of someone who faithfully records his lack of transcendence with an exhausted grace.

FOR FANS OF

My Struggle, Substack writing, Her

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

THE MARRiAGE PLOT

by Jeffrey Eugenides

SYNPOSiS

Set in Brown in the early 80s, the novel follows Madeleine as she is torn between Leonard—a charismatic but unstable scientist, and Mitchell—a spiritually hungry romantic. After graduation their lives splinter across faith, mental health and careers. What if the love only works because it is a triangle?

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

I’ve been steadily chugging along the campus novel canon, drawing inspiration for my own work. Jeffrey is electric when it comes to writing young women characters and capturing the desires of neurotic overachievers. I was captivated by how is able to use the smallest of brush strokes to capture the details that define a sinking relationship.

FOR FANS OF

Normal People, The Secret History, Before Sunrise

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

WUTHERiNG HEiGHTS

by Emily Brönte

SYNPOSiS

A Gothic classic that stuns in its ferality. It is a generational love saga set on the Yorkshire moors, with an unredeemable demonic hero who is persistent in exacting revenge on those who took his only love away. There are no morals to be found here, only intensity.

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

All the talk around the recent adaptation got me curious—so I dusted off the copy I bypassed for the Sparknotes back in high school. Fuck this book is insane. I didn’t care for the plot much, but I did A. adore Heathcliff, and B. adore the layered narrative. What I would give to have a conversation with Emily.

FOR FANS OF

Anna Karenina, Phantom Thread, Frankenstein

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

INTERPRETER of MALADiES

by Jhumpa Lahiri

SYNPOSiS

A collection of short stories centered around Indian & Indian-American characters navigating love amidst distance—from their marriages, their countries, and themselves. Most of the stories deal with misreading desire, projecting meaning, failing to communicate. Does it hurt more to be alone or misunderstood?

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

Restraint has been the primary focus of my writing education this year. Lahiri is a masterful teacher. I can’t get over how effective she is at making you feel a character’s pain viscerally in such a short span.

FOR FANS OF

Sally Rooney, Pachinko, The Lunchbox

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

BRiGHT LiGHTS, BiG CiTY

by Jay McInerney

SYNPOSiS

A week in the life of a young fact checker in 1980s Manhattan, after his model wife has left him. His hedonist best friend leads him through a glitzy spiral that results in him losing his job and his sanity. Will he realize that meaning cannot be inhaled through the nose?

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

Big ups to one of the debut novel legends, one of the last (for now) rockstar writers. He captures that hinge of post grad life perfectly—your party lifestyle is growing tired, but you don’t know what your soul needs to be nourished. Incredibly conversational style (second person) that made me finish this book in one go.

FOR FANS OF

Less Than Zero, Play It As It Lays, This Is How You Lose Her

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

SEASON OF MiGRATiON TO THE NORTH

by Tayeb Salih

SYNPOSiS

A Sudanese man returns to his village after studying in Europe, only to become entangled with a mysterious, brilliant, and haunted outsider. This stranger left behind a life in the West filled with seduction, destruction and post colonial reckoning. The two engage in a hypnotic duel that is part confession, part ghost story and leaves you deeply disoriented.

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

After reading Martyr and My Friends, I was interested in delving deeper into the Arab canon. Tayeb is one of the most influential figures in this space, and his style was intoxicating. I love the erotic turned into dark power and then doubling back on itself—this book manages to do that while still transmitting a political awakening.

FOR FANS OF

The Stranger, 100 Years of Solitude, Purple Noon

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

THE HOUR OF THE STAR

by Clarice Lispector

SYNPOSiS

A poor, forgettable woman moves from Brazil’s rural northeast to the slums of Rio and dates a cruel boyfriend. She lives a life of quiet deprivation yet is spiritually fulfilled in her ignorance. Her story is told by a self-conscious narrator that takes us along for his meditation on the fragility of being alive.

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

The Passion According to GH was my final read of 2025 and immediately made me a fan of Clarice. This book rocked me to my core. I love the meta, and I love an artist tormented by their own gift. This book is the perfect example of how restraint creates tension that the audience ends up releasing masterfully.

FOR FANS OF

Season Of Migration To The North, My Brilliant Friend, Wings of Desire

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

PROLOGUE

The greatest artists lower the stage so the depth can be felt by all.

They use simple language. Innovate popular form—take it further than the old guard permits.

Back in my day…

They tap into the vulgar nerve of the moment. This grants them universal access.

Then they infiltrate.

Their work arrives as entertainment—but inside the Trojan horse lives existential terror, eternal questions, ancient archetypes. The struggles. The triumphs.

Red blood. Broken fathers. Longing sons. Mothers who haunt. Disastrous affairs.

ACT I

Elitism is the fastest way to make art irrelevant.

Pop is the bridge to eternity.

If the intellectuals like it first, you can be sure it will die a swift death.

If the hood loves it, then it may outlive you.

I was rewatching one of my favorite Sopranos episodes, the one where Bobby Bacala Sr. makes his singular, unforgettable appearance. I got swept up in the tension, in the pyrrhic violence.

Afterwards I wandered over to Sopranos Autopsy. This fan site breaks down why the show qualifies as high art—on par with museum pieces and ancient oral tradition.

I pored over the episode breakdown and hummed along at the observations, the tangled web of references. The layers were indulgent.

Within that very episode was foreshadowing. Seasons ago, another episode offered a premonition. In the season to follow a throwaway line borrowed the impact of the hubris. A decade before, in the first show David Chase directed, he had alluded to this as a core theme of his. A century before, a novel that David Chase read inspired it all. I love the madness of the auteur.

I sent the article to my friend, a lifelong Sopranos fan. He thumbed it down immediately. He does this every time.

You must have been at the top of your fuckin class!

Instead he sent me a low-res edit of AJ Soprano. I gave it a ha-ha.

@dominic7131Had to milk out another AJ edit || SCP by @bensons4bedstv #ajsopranos #anthonysoprano #thesopranos #tonysoprano #iranoutofhashtagstouse

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He is part of the HiTS & TiTS crowd. So am I.

My first watch through I thought nothing of the Russian novel complexity. I loved and hated characters on impulse. I binged and binged.

Mobsters. Sex. Violence. Humor. Family drama. Gabagool.

The surface was irresistible.

On my second go around, I graduated to the philosophizing crowd.

Fear knocked on the door, faith answered, there was no one there.

This time I empathized with Tony’s primary arc—the panic attack stricken leader who hides his collapse from his loved ones and his troops. I spent a whole year ducking and dodging my own therapist, fainting on subways, and having that ginger ale feeling in my forehead. That flavor of depressive toxic masculinity was all too familiar.

I spoke my girlfriend about her childhood, how she connected with the narcissistic mother that loomed large over the whole series. I debated America as spiritual void on nights out. They embraced capitalism. I argued for God.

Then you head over the the Sopranos subreddit. Try to speak seriously there.

You are met by a phalanx of inside jokes. Academic takes are upvoted and then lovingly dismantled with artful references that both debase and elevate the thesis. This obsessive fandom is borne out of deep self recognition. Absurdism in the face of accelerating spiral.

Crude dialogue revealing universal ache. Jersey accents masking Greek tragedy. The Badabing hosting Dostoevskyian breakdowns.

Infinite interpretation. Endless entertainment.

And David Chase pulled off the most masterful of strokes.

At a time when TV was written off as disposable—laugh tracks, thirty-minute slots, career purgatory.

The fundamental question is, will TV be as effective as a medium as cinema was? And it will be, even more so. But until it is, it’s going to be hard to verify that I think it will be.

He didn’t compete with Hollywood. He absorbed it.

Now prestige TV is the primary myth engine.

Sound familiar?

ACT II

Shakespeare did the same to theater.

Before him, plays were mostly morality lessons, courtly pageants or cheap display. He fused it all. Street comedy, royal drama, folklore, philosophy and collapsed them into one living form. Full human mirror.

He proved the stage could carry the entire interior life of humanity. He didn’t exalt theater by making it refined. He did so by making it complete. Not lecturing the audience, but reflecting them.

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

He wrote for the drunk peasants in the pit first and foremost. The royal scholars in the balcony were an afterthought.

Immature jokes, sword fights, tragic romances, ghosts, jealousy, revenge. But beneath it all? Identity, fate, God, power, madness, time, love.

He didn’t care about sounding smart or proving anything.

He simply wanted to reach everyone. You can recount the plots quickly. You can analyze the psychology for centuries. Enjoy it raw or unpack it in graduate school. The crowd would laugh at the spectacle. Some choose to drown in the cosmic despair.

ACT III

The pattern is clear.

Low language. High truth. Showstopping exterior. Sacred interior.

The masters understood:

You don’t raise the public by going higher. You raise them by meeting them where they are and intoxicating them with psychedelic reverie.

We are such stuff as dreams are made on.

Some may only remember the euphoria of the trip, but all will carry the residue of enlightenment forever.

Different doors. Access to the same cathedral. The grandest one where all human projection lies.

Some enter through laughter, some through the erotic, some through the brutal.

Once inside—you breathe in the symbolism, the metaphysics, the unnameable truths.

The only way to awaken, to reprogram culture is to entertain it first.

Sensation. Somatic over semiotics.

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Shakespeare worried about the lady more than the poem. That is why the poem outlived the lady.

Nowadays? Dilettantes, sexless intellectuals, and hollow agents.

Lately I’m getting the feeling that I came in at the end, that the best is over.

Life’s but a walking shadow.

NOTE FROM THE WRiTER

Music has been my creative playground these past six months. Working with Chilean producers has helped me experiment, define my sound, and become a better writer. To let the hedonistic and egotistical free.

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by Jack Kerouac

SYNPOSiS

A restless young writer crisscrosses America chasing after his most vibrant friend—in the hopes of finding it. The two engage in the beautiful, the self-destructive. It’s a fever dream of hunger, jazz and the highway. Does freedom cost peace?

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

Jack was the master of rhythm based writing. I am trending towards this somatic first approach and it was fascinating to witness the origin. And of course, what is youth if not the ouroboroutic ecstasy of spirituality battling the carnal?

FOR FANS OF

Autofiction, Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, Bob Dylan

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

iNTERMEZZO

by Sally Rooney

SYNPOSiS

Two brothers navigate grief and emotional paralysis after their father’s death. One brother is stuck in a tragic love triangle, the other experiences love for the first time. How do hurt people transcend miscommunication to connect?

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

Sally is one of the queens of the literary world. Studying her reveals answers to how to braid the artistic with the commercial. Compared to her other works, I really felt her relax into her auteurness.

FOR FANS OF

Phoebe Bridgers, The Fault In Our Stars, Outline

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

JUNKY

by William Burroughs

SYNPOSiS

A writer surrenders to a heroin addiction in the 40s in order to capture the underground in its most honest form. He travels from NYC to New Orleans to Mexico, sketching the unforgettable characters that worship the junk. Have you ever wanted something so badly, you would give your life for it?

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

Burroughs has an unsentimental style which is well suited to capturing a topic as charged as this. I absorbed much in the way of documenting without moralizing. He knows how to tie together people with a common thread, yet still let their uniqueness shine through.

FOR FANS OF

Autofiction, Less Than Zero, Requiem For A Dream

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

WOO WOO

by Ella Baxter

SYNPOSiS

A performance artist unravels in the lead up to her latest exhibition. The book serves as a critique to the pretentiousness of the art world. Have you ever felt like your art owns you?

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

Writing a character as obnoxious and un-self aware as this requires talent.

FOR FANS OF

Girls, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, FKA Twigs

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

THE ROAD

by Cormac McCarthy

SYNPOSiS

A father and his young son walk through an apocalyptic United States. Despite the despair, the father teaches his son how to carry the fire. Are they ideals if you don’t believe when you have no reason to?

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

I was told that I would enjoy McCarthy’s sparse, cinematic prose. He writes a page turner with only two characters, and a virtually empty setting. And best of all, he is unapologetic about steeping his art in virtue.

FOR FANS OF

Johnny Cash, Children of Men, 28 Days Later

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

REMiNDERS OF HiM

by Colleen Hoover

SYNPOSiS

A grieving mother tries to connect with her daughter after she makes it out of prison for accidentally killing her boyfriend while pregnant. She ends up falling for her daughter’s caretaker…her boyfriend’s best friend. What does it take to get a second chance?

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

Colleen is another rainmaker like Sally. Even if she may get criticized for the quality of her writing—I found true depth in this book. It does not surprise me that tens of millions of people connect with her work.

FOR FANS OF

Manchester by the Sea, Adele, Wattpad

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

THiS SiDE OF PARADiSE

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

SYNPOSiS

A privileged, narcissistic young man strives to make it to the top through self mythology. His arrogance gives way to disillusionment, mirroring the arc of the Jazz Age itself. When the Ego drives, who pulls it out of the wreckage of Life?

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

F. Scott is currently my favorite writer. We share the same romantic, sensitive soul, with a taste for the finer things. This was his first book, and is primarily a campus novel, much like my own. I was entranced by how he experimented with form so heavily.

FOR FANS OF

Cris MJ, Sinister Street, The Social Network

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

WRiTER’S NOTE

I was unable to finish this story for many months. Capturing Medusa is no easy feat. Recently, I met Diotima and she unfroze me. The words could not stop flowing out.

PROLOGUE WARNiNG

This is a ghost story.

A love story.

A thriller.

It is an exorcism.

A cleansing.

A confession.

It is a man drawing the line for himself, so that all future ███████████████████████████████████████████████████. Which we all know really means—to make sense of the versions of myself I have been outrunning.

This summer was the end of the beginning. I came alive as a fugitive. It was the only way to murder what I had to. I was ████████████████████. I was spending money like I couldn’t stand it, ███████████████that cost me my sanity.

It is not that I have not loved, ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████...but I have been the rawest. The kind that makes all other times feel like the cover band. The type that ████████████████████.

The issue is that that I have often hurt ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████. I arrive, I awaken ████████ , I give a taste of ████████ but I ████████████████████.

████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

██████████████████████████████.

██████████████████████████████.

████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████?

It is only words that have saved me. Reading—my escape hatch, ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ No one can touch me. I cannot see myself. I cannot find myself. It is a sweet, sweet relief.

And of course—writing. Releasing all my electricity into ████████████████████████████. When you picture me writing, picture a man carving ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████. I am violently etching ██████████████████████████████ with the hopes that it will stop me from bursting open.

Most of the people in my life have been drawn to me for my words and my worlds. ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████. I yearn, they yearn.

But being a writer means people bring you their words the way they bring a doctor their pain. Asking you to interpret. To dance. To spar. To soothe. To help them find the answers. To say what they cannot say.

I exhaust.

I long for connections that do not demand meaning or introspection. That do not ask me to carry the weight of someone’s reflection.

It is like they have gone their whole lives blind, and they want to rip the eyes out of my head and into their own. So they may finally witness.

They also try to define you. Perhaps the spotlight I put on them is too much at times. They grab for it and shine it right in my face. How does that feel? ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████I honor you without control. Without possession. An Orphic love. Can you please do the same for me?

My writing does not describe, it █████. ██████████████████████████████████████████████████.

Or so I thought. Until lately, my words began attracting ██████████████████████████████.That █████ me. That shattered the house of illusions I had constructed.

And I followed their guidance…deeper and deeper into my heart. To the truth.

There he was. The little boy. Waiting to be picked up and held. To be told that there was nothing wrong with how much he felt. But to also be taught that just because he loved the world so deeply did not mean he had to grasp for every bit of beauty and hold on to it with such ferocity. Affection without grounding scorches. He desires so badly to be one with the flame, with the source.

There, there.

██████████████████████████████ ████ ██████████████████████████████ ████ ██████████████████████████████ ████

██████████████████████████████ That a tender heart needs an iron frame. That only he can make sense of himself, and bloodletting through his connections is no way to █████████

The problem with being good with words, with getting everything you decree—is you never stop to ask yourself what you actually want. You become addicted to the forward motion, the spell making, the manifestation.

The first 27 years of my life, my words led to me ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

They’ve led me far, far away from myself. No more. ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

Enough about me.

The stage is set. The writer has cleared his altar. I have come to you on my knees, with my chin held high, asking ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

Now we speak of an enchanting woman. I know not what I mean to her. But in reading this, you will know what she means to me. A mythic mirror.

How in the theater of a weekend in Belgium, it was she that had the courage to claw the mask off my face. ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

THE STORY

She liked the way I wrote about her home. Told me exactly which piece it was that hooked her.

It was the final piece I wrote for my ex.

I invited her to be my Bonnie. But I was already gone.

This was the piece:

That was how she found me. On this site you are now reading this on.

We started texting, sending voice notes. Each one longer than the last, as if our voices were learning to linger with each other.

She was making videos too. With that curly hair of hers. Shoulder length, volume that framed her DOLL FACE. Looking like a rockstar’s girlfriend, straight out of a magazine from the 70s. Especially when she wore her headbands.

Everything about her felt lived in. Authentic, untreated. Her aesthetic had patina. It was earned.

A sort of style that drew me in because it was oh so different to the American girls I was familiar with.

She was intellectual FELiNiTY meets European casual. European effortless, which is really American effort. Never trendy. Intentionality without flash. Having a relationship with the pieces in her closet was sacred to her.

Lots of rich jewel tones and earthy hues. Her palette complemented her light complexion. Vintage designer in abundance. Ribbed knit tops, simple skirts, tailored trousers. Classic, functional, but still sensual. Hands that traced over seams, caressing them like one would a lover’s hair.

She was prouder of the hunt than the pieces themselves. Would show me her Vinted for you page and talk away about why she wanted this or that. She knew her history. A design student, a stylist, a fashion writer.

She would also lecture me on why she didn’t buy most things she wanted. If she couldn’t picture her daughter wearing it decades from now...then what was the point? She didn’t want fads. She wanted eternal. And she thought the only way to find eternal, was to slow down and honor your essence. Match the fabrics and cuts and colors to your iNNER WORLD.

Her jewelry? Minimal but meaningful. Could tell you exactly how old she was when her mothers passed it on to her. How she felt when she thrifted this or that. What she was going through in life when it was gifted to her.

An OLD SOUL GRAViTY. All her choices were for truth—her truth—to shine. Not for spectacle. Her face seemed like it was perpetually in dialogue with a thought she hadn’t yet shared. I wanted her to share.

We were both Catholics, headed in opposite directions. Her a natural born one, trying to shake the shame and guilt that came with being a CATHOLiC GiRL. Me? Jesus came into my life in my early 20s, and I surrendered fully to him only a couple years before. God was still like a new stuffed animal to me. I wanted him all to myself, to love me, to listen to me. She told me what she prayed for, and it was a long list of people other than herself.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Like I always did. I felt it though. I knew she did too.

There was the DUALiTY I loved. Like me—a listener, shy, romantic. But also confident, ambitious, daring. Couldn’t stop talking once we felt understood.

We started talking on the Fourth of July. This of course meant nothing to her. Spanish by birth but homesick by way of Belgium.

I was American by birth and homesick by way of my life crumbling around me. I built the cathedral of my 20s, and detonated it myself. I felt naked. Free.

As our voice notes got longer and longer, as our tans got darker and darker, as our thoughts intertwined, I found myself falling for the first time since the breakup. It was nice that there was distance. It forced me to slow down. And so the summer deepened.

She admired the ivy that covered the stone walls guiding her walk to work. Told me that we could learn from the tempo of nature.

I loved volcanos and hurricanes. They had much to teach us too.

She adored sea turtles. Elegant, ancient, deliberate. They travel oceans but return home to their birthplace. An existence of ache, of softness encased in strength. Dignified in their slowness, carrying history in their bones. Pilgrims in their own skin—vulnerable but unbothered.

I loved jaguars. Velvet menace. Sleek and shadowed, all silence until eruption. Jungle born, moon fed power. An unsettling beauty—the type that ambushes you, unsettles you, awakens you. An existence of rhythm, of blood, of risk. And hard earned rest.

I thought I could teach her how to leap, how to change the air with your very presence. She thought that for a man obsessed with velocity, she could be my DEVOTiONAL pause.

I studied a selfie she sent—full brows, full lips, with an expression that made her look thoughtful, slightly melancholic. There was already a current inside me flowing for her—I didn’t need to feed it. I needed to learn more about what that observant face was feeling inside. How she earned that radiant beauty. The kind that flows from within.

I couldn’t get enough of her intellect, her interests, her passion. I replayed her voice notes over and over: listening to her discourse on the state of fashion journalism, on the newest brands she had discovered, on the marketing campaigns she thought were revolutionary. An obsession for the overlooked brands, the upstarts, the fearless auteurs that were taking on the BiG HOUSES.

Then she switched over to telling me about her day, but not in the rote play by play sense. She would chart the emotional climate, the texture of the events, the places, the people that orbited her. Her updates read like moodboards. She didn’t just recount her day, she curated it like a DiARiST WiTH TASTE. Her narration had an invigorating architecture—poetic, instinctive, softly surreal. I got drunk on her check-ins.

Then she waxed on about how she was infatuated by the Carolina Herrera dress worn in How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days. Or sent me articles from her collection of old L’Officiel copies and trace today’s celebrity fashion choices to their origin. Like me, she loved to find depth in pop culture.

And of course, the books. That was another thing that felt fated. I had just finished reading Just Kids by Patti Smith. She had too.

This is where I felt most open. On and on, I told her about my favorite books, my own novel I was working on. I invited her into these fictional worlds, the ones that have been my escape since childhood. When my mother would take me to all the bookstores around the city, and I would sit leaning against her, the hours flying as she’d stroke my hair and I’d be far far away.

I invited her in, like a PLAYMATE.

Come. Look at what I find stimulating, what I find enchanting, what I love, what I’m scared of, what I crave. Never directly. Only through the SYMBOLS and MiRRORS of LiTERATURE.

Do you like?

I knew things were really headed somewhere when the resistance began.

She asked me about my breakup. There was a video I had posted. About this song I loved. How I would sing the chorus at the top of my lungs whenever it came on. Cris MJ, the trickster king, the champagne playboy, over a dark synthy reggaeton beat.

TE LO HAGO RICO PA QUE SIEMPRE ME RECUERDE

POR SI MAÑANA ME PIERDE

And my ex would always wonder what it meant. So one day I translated it to her.

I GIVE IT TO YOU GOOD SO YOU CAN ALWAYS REMEMBER ME

IN CASE YOU LOSE ME TOMORROW

Naturally, this upset my ex. I swore to her there was no conscious choice in this, I simply liked his delivery. The content was secondary.

This only made things worse. The SUBCONSCiOUS is where the TRUTH LiVES.

So I told her I would tell her more over a video call. We had been trying to pin down a date, but I was deep in birth month (half of my family is a July baby) celebrating with the kin, and she had a schedule that was all over the place.

Finally though, she made the time. It was the APEX of SUMMER.

9:30pm and the sun was only then setting. I took the call at the viewpoint up the hill from my parent’s new home. Sat with my feet hanging over the edge of the crumbling wall. Looking out at the peninsula across the way, the many sailing boats moored to the dock.

I felt my breathing get sharper as I waited for her to ring me. All around, the village hummed with townspeople meeting friends outside for dinner, clanking Cruzcampo bottles, the smell of fried eggplant and sardines wafting.

I don’t remember much about the first call. It was intoxicating. I do remember her showing me her new slouch suede Fendi boots. And a vintage edition of Crime and Punishment. My favorite.

It was that book that made me put the bullet in the chamber. I told her I needed to see her. She giggled but demurred. Made me jump through some more conversational hoops, and when I passed—she said okay, I’ll believe it when I see you.

I skipped my way down the hill and back to my parent’s place. Rushed to my bedroom because my grin was GiViNG iT ALL AWAY. And the crush was too real now to talk about.

The next day neither one of us wanted to send the first message. Too much to say. Cupid had loaded a big arrow on the bow, and whoever blinked first was going to get it straight to the heart. Oh well.

It was such a relief that she loved her family as much as I did. Her an ELDEST DAUGHTER, me the BABY BOY. I had been in a pattern of dating women with...complex childhoods, and I found myself shrinking so as not to activate their trauma. But the truth was, I wanted to talk about my family all day. And with her, I could. She had just as tight knit of a cocoon. The way she talked about her own mother made me view mine with even larger HEART EYES. The appreciation for their age, how they grew more beautiful with every passing year. Like an oak tree.

Then there was the AMBiTiON. Her, knowing she was destined to run her own fashion magazine, the next generation Vogue. Me, having just cut off the chase to be the next Steve Jobs, realizing I was meant to be the highest me. A †$UPER$TAR WRiTER†. The vocation I dreamt of as a child, before we even thought about careers or jobs. But I had been scared of the electricity of living like an artist, and had abstracted it away to treating my company like a canvas.

We spoke endlessly in AFFiRMiNG language. Pushed one another by editing each other’s writing, learned from one another’s video making.

Now my mood was dictated by her messages. I was insatiable. I wanted her to send pictures of her every trinket. To cut me a piece of every slice of her life. She started a pattern of sending me videos of her walking home from work. GLiDiNG, unhurried, head high, gaze soft.

There had been a pair of houndstooth Bottega flats she impulse bought. Rare for her but the deal was too good to pass up and she could see the infinite outfit permutations that they could unlock. Plus she could picture her daughter slipping them on. When they came she sent me a video of her fingers gently running over the houndstooth. She explained that the shoes felt like the place she was in in her life. I didn’t understand, but I wanted to.

I studied the pictures she would send me of her room like a Rorschach, trying to interpret how she was feeling. Were there fresh tulips in her vase by the window? Why was her DKNY bag sitting on top of the bookcase, instead of the little trunk filled with family photos like it normally was? Was that a new candle in the little nook by her bed? How was she liking that new journal she got, the one that she tucked under the covers and I could spot as a lump?

She loved to talk about herself. I soaked it all up, like a man parched for the GLAMOUR MAGiC that is women’s self love. Her curly hair was an infinite topic. Her lips. She sent pics cropped from the lips down. I traced her figure, drank it in. Especially when she was in that navy skirt with the side slit. The Dolce one that her mom had blessed her with.

That woke me up again. I knew it was time to step towards the dream. See how real it was.

I accompanied my sister to a tattoo appointment on her birthday, near the end of July. I got my first piece done, a small GOTHiC CROSS on the neck. Right where the big vein pulses. As my sister laid down for her collarbone moon and stars, I planned my voyage.

I would take my time. Madrid, Barcelona, Paris. Then Belgium. And Belgium only for a few days before boomeranging back. A dread rippled through me. A fear of getting stuck. Like she did.

I called her out of the blue that night, to let her know. She quickly declined the call. A couple hours later she called me, out late at night on the streets. She had been out at dinner with her friends. And she lived with her aunt, a LiGHT SLEEPER.

I didn’t get the reaction I expected when I told her my plans.

Well, I did. For an instant. Her eyes lit up—I swear I saw her long eyelashes dance. But then a lowering of the volume. She asked me if I was just coming for her. I told her the Belgium leg was for her, but the rest of the trip was for me. My E,P,L. I received an eye roll.

She wanted exact dates. I didn’t have them. I wanted to treat my trip like an improvisation. Let my heart tell me when it was time to leave. She insisted I give her exact dates. My jaw tightened as I rubbed the back of my neck. I told her I would once I knew them. She said she had work and if I didn’t tell her dates, I wouldn’t be able to see her much because she wouldn’t be able to take off last minute.

Okay.

I tossed all night. Hot and wired, haunted by her voice going cold.

The next day she swung back. Apologized for her reaction the night before, said it had been a long day at the end of a long week. But she was overjoyed. I heard it in her voice. And to really make up, she let me further in. Showed me an Art Deco vanity she had bought in Paris for her mother’s birthday. Something she had yet to show anyone. I purred with approval.

48 hours later I was on the train to the capital. The churning in my stomach growing with every stop. Every tree that flew past the window, every village that we skated by, every teary eyed wave from the platform. I was pulsing. Throbbing.

She wasn’t the FiRST after the LAST.

There had been the curvy flight attendant from Porto (much older than me). I met her on a night out. Stunning, flirty, flighty. No intention of settling down. She swore I was gay even as we made out, until well... she swore I was a man who made no sense. I would see her again months later in New York.

Then there was the ethereal model, half Cape Verdean (much younger than me). I met on the beach in Cascais. Bubbly, shy, idealistic. The type of beauty that isolates. Made her ruminate as to why no one had pursued her. We didn’t last because I knew I was in no position to be her first love. Not during my outlaw summer. She called a month later asking for a second chance.

But they offered little iNTELLECTUAL iNTiMACY. Which is the real key to my being. I am man, and my blood is red—but it truly ignites when the neurons are stroked the right way. And I was hot, hot, hot. Not just cause Barcelona was sweltering.

It was my first night in Paris when I started to feel like I was drowning. I felt like I was being pulled to her with a DEVASTATiNG MAGNETiSM. Each mile closer made me buzz. I found myself constantly tapping my foot and startling at every sight of curly hair.

I kept her updated with photos of all my travels. The Sagrada and its crowds, my tapas and wine in Madrid, the Rodin sculptures in Paris. Everywhere I saw a postcard I bought one as a form of survival. Immediately, I tried to let out some of my electricity with some writing to her. It would work. Temporarily.

Vessel vs. voltage. The EXiSTENTiAL BATTLE of my life.

In each postcard I signed my name with more and more. First name, then first and middle, the first, middle and last. Becoming realer as I got closer. All the while making sure I wasn’t handing border guards my real passport.

Finally, I stopped dragging my feet. Told her I would leave Paris in 72. Belgium next. Her next.

Her, her, her.

The day before I was due to leave I sat eating in a corner bistro, scrawling away in my notebook. A pro-Palestine rally had shut down the streets around me, and the thunder of HOLY DiSOBEDiENCE swelled the avenue. I caught the eyes of many of the lion-hearted youth and felt a pull. Maybe my eros was never romantic at all, but a restless force meant to be consecrated to díkē.

I was one step away from filling my arms with my compulsion, my letters. Tattooing the restlessness. I tried to ground myself but it fell short.

I thought maybe the Australian girl I kept running into at the same bar was the answer. She knew all about the girl I was heading to see. Said it caught her by surprise that I had kissed her. Told me this when we were back in her room, under her sheets. But I couldn’t, so I didn’t. My flame was already CHAiNED.

As the bus pulled into town, something came over me. The calm washed over.

I had arrived. With myself.

She was facing away when I first saw her. Sitting below a lion statue, staring out at the river. It was the final weekend of the town’s raucous yearly festival, the streets overrun with drunk tourists from all over Europe. She had picked a side street to meet up at.

Her curly hair was blowing in the wind. Before I called out to her I drank it all in. I felt the danger. She didn’t try to be seen. She was already STYLED for MEMORY, not the MOMENT. I felt the danger.

When our eyes finally met, a heavy silence passed between us. Smiles suppressed but breaking through. I hugged her. Melted into her violet & cedar scent. She was wearing the white and black polka dot skirt I told her I liked, and a backless black top I had never seen before. A white headband she kept adjusting.

She planned for us visit a museum exhibit to break the live ice. She teased me for being nervous, quiet. I was quiet, but I was not nervous. I was possessed. Entranced. Soaking it in. I wanted her to simply be and exist near me so I could enjoy. Writers are witnesses first and foremost. And if we observe closely enough, if God shines down on us—we reach the holy grail, and we are blinded by the impossible: seeing someone as they are when NO ONE is WATCHiNG.

We walked to the museum, her teasing me for how fast I walked. She thought it very New York of me. I was captivated by the town itself. For some reason I felt invisible here. Like I had a cloak on. Untouchable.

My neck was on a swivel, taking in the canals that snaked through, the water reflecting the gabled houses. The ivy she had previewed, climbing medieval walls. Warm stone. Uneven cobblestone. The earthy beer smell mixing in with the damp river air. We crossed a crumbling brick bridge and I took a mental picture of her against the faint golden haze of the sky.

The exhibit was called ARTiFACTS WiTH MEANiNG. I don’t remember the items, only her leaning over each glass box and reminding me how she saw the world. Moods, impressions, atmospheres, sensations. Not like me. Characters, motives, consequences, reversals.

In that moment, I had a feeling one of us was going to feel pain.

We spent the rest of the day losing ourselves to the collective DiONYSiAN energy. Wandering between stages, enduring strained covers, and stumbling in and out of bars, shouting conversations with red-faced strangers.

The first real touch was when I led her through the crowd, reaching back for her to hold my hand. We finally made it to a patio by the river, and drank cherry beers as we stared at each other with smiling eyes.

I rubbed the stickers on the back of her phone—a boutique hotel crest, a pressed flower sealed under clear vinyl, a care label graphic. She reached for my phone and swiped to the camera, to take a selfie of us.

Neither one of us wanted the night to end. It was almost 1AM and we sat on a bench under the cantilevered roof of the new library. The town was entirely Gothic, except for this one modern building. On the river.

We looked out at the water and talked about everything other than what was burning our insides. Our voices lowered. Eyes darting, lip to lip. The party was still going strong, just far enough to be glitter instead of blare.

She asked me how my tattoo was healing. This obliged us to turn toward one another. Her eyes lingered on the ink. My heartbeat stopped as I answered.

She looked up at me and I trailed off.

The kisses came dense, deliberate.

They began slowly, almost CEREMONiALLY, with a velvet warmth. Our breathing forgot its discipline and they deepened. She introduced her tongue and everything followed. The breath softened again, the mouths slowed, and the river went still. We were swimming together, right on that bench.

We pulled away and our eyes were bowed.

Our laughing started and rang out. A group of teenagers riding by on bicycles snickered along with us.

I looked at the sculpture behind her. A circle of people, maybe twenty foot tall, all leaning into to each other, forming a teepee like structure so their faces were obscured. It was the best sculpture I had ever seen.

We took the side streets to my hotel. I had something to give her.

My copy of Giovanni’s Room. I knew she liked Paris, and I knew she liked love—the thorny kind, the self-revealing kind, the kind you surrender to—so I gave it to her.

She waited outside. When I handed it to her, we kissed and kissed and kissed, me pushing her up against the frame of the door. Around us, SHADOWS MiLLED about, hooting and hollering, but we didn’t hear them. She told me to stop, or else she was going to go upstairs with me. I kissed her at the hollow of her neck. She exhaled, softly. I then gave her a kiss on the forehead and said I would take her home.

We took the side streets. What should have been a ten minute walk to her aunt’s house stretched into half an hour, interrupted by our need to stop and return to one another. We kept punctuating with pauses we never explained. A few blocks from her door, she made me say goodnight.

I floated home, like a cartoon cat following the scent of a freshly baked pie.

The next day, I rose late and stumbled to look in the mirror. I had to confirm that there were not two men staring back at me.

One half wanted to get the next train out of town. The other wanted to march over to her house and become one.

I gripped the sides of the sink and closed my eyes.

Why? Why did I feel like this? Why was I like this?

The last time I felt like that was with my ex, on the third date. We kissed that night, and then spent the entire weekend together—and after a couple weeks, almost everyday thereafter.

I loved my passion, but my FULL THROTTLE nature was too much for me at times. I had to learn how to discern. How to sit with the emotions, instead of rushing to consummate them. Like a child I grasped tightly at what I loved, and threw it to the side just as quickly once it hurt me or bored me.

I laid on my bed and did some breathing exercises. I turned myself to God, like a SUNFLOWER. I was not feeling any sort of shame, I was just trying to actively contain my desire. Not to suppress it, but to sit with it, let it know I saw it, I felt it, I loved it, but it didn’t control me. I fell back asleep.

Then I awoke as one.

We met up in a park, where a children’s carnival was being inflated. I stared at the giant alligator bounce house coming to life, as she nuzzled into me.

I kept directing her attention to the alligator, to the little kids that climbed all over it. She placated me, but wanted to continue the energy from the night before. I was not ready to play that again. After a couple of stiff kisses, she asked me what was wrong.

I told her I was so far away from home, from myself. That being here with her, and connecting so fast, only reminded me how adrift I was. It was not that she was making me feel bad, it was that her presence made me feel so good I already dreaded the DiSCONNECTiON. I knew it was all fleeting, and I wanted nothing more than stable ground.

She hugged me and I began to cry.

Then I let loose. Turned the dialogue to monologue.

I talked about the alligator and how badly I wanted to capture it. She asked what I meant by that. I told her to look, to really look at the children. Look at how happy the alligator made them. But how does the alligator feel? And where does he go when his day is done? And where does he sleep? And does he have a family? Or does he just do his job and deflate?

She smiled and wiped away my tears.

I told her it was so much. Everything inside of me, everything I felt and wanted to witness, preserve and honor. Reflect back to the world.

Look around, I said. Look at all the beauty around. Look at how big even the smallest things are. Look at how much it means. Just stop and look and feel and I promise you, you’ll realize how divine it all is. How beautiful we all are. There was an iMMENSiTY around me, and an iMMENSiTY inside of me, and I was collapsing with the ENORMiTY of my duty, my responsibility, my calling.

She had me take deep breaths, and finally, I wiped my own tears and faced her. I thanked her for letting me pour myself out. She said it was her that was grateful that I felt safe enough to split open in her company.

Then with a laugh and sidelong glance 1-2, she told me that I had just confirmed something she had always suspected.

She believed every woman was born with a myth inside. You just had to live long enough to name it, and to block out the noise so you could worship it without dilution or distortion. But men? She thought that we were empty. That was why it was us in history who tried to craft gods, name them, make them look like us and use them to control. And then tear them down when they no longer served us. Because we knew none of it was real—least of all, us.

She asked me why I came. My strength, my peace was now restored, as it always did after a good cry. I looked her in the eye and told her I was there for her. That I been DRiVEN WiLD by her over the last month and I was following my heart. She blushed and tucked her hair behind her ear.

But then I spoke from somewhere else, somewhere I had not ever reached into. A voice I’d heard but ignored.

Like the time I ruined a twelve year friendship. A woman I loved platonically. I was not attracted to her despite her being stormy and pretty. I knew she had a crush on me for some time, but chose to deflect it, to treat her like a younger sister. Then one night she admitted it all to me, when her husband was out of town.

I was deeply lonely at that point in my life. I had all the dreams of my early 20s coming true—the money, the attention, the power. With them, there was a sudden recognition of how hollow it all felt. AGAiNST my own iNTUiTiON, I crossed the line.

I pressed our bodies up against the living room window of my apartment, both of us looking out at Manhattan skyline lit and fractured by a thunderstorm. For an hour, something animal took over—urgent, consoling. In that shared heat, there was relief. Comfort. But after the flash spent itself, the friendship burned down. Forever.

So I sat in the park and told her that I was overwhelmingly attracted to her. But I was okay with doing nothing more. That our budding friendship meant more to me than any physical release. I just wanted her company and our conversations, and I would be content.

She said she doubted this—after all why would I travel all this way.

This was the first time her words cut me.

I didn’t know how to explain to her that I had been told that being with me was like dancing with a LiVE WiRE. That as hard as I tried to love openly and gently, I seemed to burn many of the women I was with. They would find it difficult to remain friends with me after it was all said and done. That the afterglow of my ballads was eternal. That my unions unspooled the way all great romances do—a lifelong he said, she said, but no more dialogue.

I wanted to avoid that fate. To save my electricity for a time when I was more stable, with someone who was fully aligned. Some who I could give this big heart to without any fear of them not being able to handle my TURBULENCE. I knew it was I who had to become comfortable with my intensity. To not flinch at my gravity, to stand securely with my hunger. To own my appetite without fearing a loss of my creative vitality.

I wanted, but in wanting, I feared hurting. And I knew I was capable of great hurt. I could tell this girl and I could be something big. A whole novel. But where we were in life, we were at most a short, sad story. Instead, I wanted to guarantee a HAPPY ENDiNG.

I lassoed these thoughts inside and simply told her that I meant what I said. I was here. Present. I just wanted us together, in the moment. Loose. Free. She raised an eyebrow but stroked my beard and said okay. I said merci, echoing back to her her favorite word.

We left the park to brunch. I looked back one last time at the alligator with his open mouth.

At brunch, she asked if she could see my notebook, the one I had been scrawling into alongside her. I hesitated, but then handed it over. My black pen had run out of ink, and she dug around in her bag for a blue replacement. Flipping to the back, she jotted something down, then passed it back to me for a reply. A RiFF.

There is no wind. There is no sun, yet. People keep walking in the chill. You are here but you are almost gone. I think of you as a dream. One I want to keep still but know I cannot.

In the stillness will come the light, when the dream evaporates. In the dark, in the rain, we are our own heat. We can sit in the glow of what we have created, through our honesty. It is ours and no one can take that from us. The rest can witness, but I care only that you see me and I see you.

I was dying for a nap.

We went back to my place. In the hallway she looked at me. Asked again if I was serious about not wanting to do anything more. I nodded silently.

She kissed me, tried to swirl my emotions. She asked me if that didn’t change my mind. I said I wanted it all, but only if that was what she truly wanted—and if she knew there was nothing more after this weekend. She looked up at me, and for the first time I saw a crack in HER ARMOR.

I opened the door.

Inside, she said okay. That we would do nothing more. I kissed her and said that was fine by me. She pouted and pushed my lips away with her finger.

I smiled and told her I was going to nap. That she was free to go. We could meet later. She said she’d wait on the couch, if I wouldn’t be too long. I told her it wouldn’t—just a quick shower, a half hour of sleep and I’d be fresh and ready for the evening. At my mention of a shower, she shook her head.

I know exactly what you’re doing.

I wasn’t doing anything. Truly. My mind was entirely on quelling the exhaustion that was enveloping me. My spirit had been through a ROLLERCOASTER the last week. My vitality was fighting against me and I was winning but at a great cost.

I shrugged, grabbed a pair of shorts, then slipped into the shower. I let the warm water pour over me and closed my eyes. The water loosened my back, opened my lungs. I pictured her by the balcony, waiting.

I stepped out and toweled off, still shirtless. She shook her head again.

Uh-uh. You can’t keep doing this.

Doing what?

You know.

My patience thinned. I laughed and climbed into bed.

Yea I do know. I’m going to sleep.

The low bass from outside carried me under.

When I woke, she was beside me, looking up at the ceiling. Still fully clothed, a fitted green sleeveless top, a long flowy white skirt. She asked if it was all right if she lay next to me while I slept. I looked at her chunky gold necklace, the sun smiling at me. I said yes, so long as she let me sleep.

She turned to me and nodded, lied straight to my face. I knew it then. I was going to lose.

In my haze I remember her hand on my chest. My face buried in her hair, and the smell of coconut. Her mouth at my neck. Her leg wrapping around my waist.

Are we really not going to do anything?

There was no more talking after that. I made sure of it.

I turned into her, then let my weight settle. Deliberate, controlled, delicate. Enough so that she was pinned, but could still breathe.

There were no more voices inside me anymore. Only impulse. Only breath, only nerves. Only the pursuit of our pleasure. It was time to show her the UNSAiD.

The rest of the evening was a mutual devouring. True compatibility reveals itself not in conversation, but in rhythm. Do your two bodies have the same grammar? Sometimes the best of emotional and intellectual connections can fall short, like a puzzle piece that’s got the tiniest little misshape.

This was not one of those times.

I owned her and she owned me.

There was no wrong move. She could not contain her sounds, and I could not contain my own. I could not stop. I did not stop. She was drunk off my iNSATiABiLiTY for her.

I told her what to do. I told her how much I liked it when she did what I told her what to do. She told me how much she liked me telling her what to do. She told how much she liked me liking her doing what she was told.

I told her how much I liked her face. Her hair. Her scent. Her skin. Her body. Her tone. Her everything. I fawned and fawned as I showed her over and over what I had been trying to restrain.

When time loosened and returned again, she asked how I was still there. I told her my limits were psychological, not physical. She did not believe me. That was a mistake.

I took breaks to to feel her squirm and arch and run her fingers through my hair.

There are three moments I remember most vividly.

In the first, she’s on all fours. I behind. Her voice breaking, reaching back for my hand. I ask her what’s wrong, but do not stop. I hold her hand as she turns back and tells me más. Her wish, my command.

In the second, her prone beneath me, my mouth at her ear. This is my favorite position and always has been. It is control, it is domination. But it is also protection, it is caring. I am taking my time, slow and not all the way, despite her plea for more. She asks me in her clearest voice yet, as if breaking the spell, why I resisted earlier. I move her hair to the side, so I can nuzzle into her neck, lick her ear. I tell her I wanted it to be right. That this was special to me. That I knew my value, and wanted her to work for it. So I knew she understood. She craned to kiss me, deliberately. I then picked up the pace and she let out a hiss—that she could see why. That I was addicting.

In the third, we are quiet. Our desire spent. Struggling to keep our eyes open, we lay in a puddle of sweat. She is curled into me and I am for the first time since I started talking to her, truly at peace. We kiss and it is better than every other time.

Then, as always in the wake of every aftermath, I WORSHiP. I showered her entire body with quick, grateful kisses. Each one a thank you. Offerings.

We showered together, laughing all the while. Later, outside in the dark cacophony, we shared a slice of pizza and some soda, then headed back to the room to watch some TV. She showed me all her favorite American media, the cultural fragments that shaped her growing up. I am surprised by how similar are childhoods are despite the ocean between us.

At midnight, she pouted again and told me she had to leave. I called her a car, kissed her as she stepped into it. I closed the door and waved, then headed upstairs to pass out.

I don’t remember much else of the town the next two days. We hardly saw the city. A few brief trips for food, for water, a little wandering for fresh air. Somewhere outside, around us, the city kept celebrating itself—music, movement, lights—but it never reached us. We spent the majority of the time consuming ourselves, like a snake eating its own tail. She always left late, but didn’t spend the night.

I felt ViCTORiOUS. She was a woman who embodied sophistication through restraint. But I flipped her intentional consumption, her careful rationing. I overturned her austerity.

We grew closer and closer. The more the desire was spent, the more walls came down. The past revealed. Hopes of the future as well.

She kept telling me how much she liked my duality. That I was assertive, but was also more tender than any man she had ever met. So sweet and so bad. So forceful and so soft.

I had a flashback to my mother telling me I was the gentlest child ever—but also the cruelest. It made my chest tense.

On my final full day there we resolved to do a little bit of exploring. The giant library where our fingers fluttered across spines and our book explanations uncovered more of our inner worlds.

Her favorite burger spot. Here we discovered a deeper POLARiTY.

Across the street we spotted a homeless man, agitated as he set up an art installation. He had on faded green headphones. Scratched up. Navy sunglasses, an orange glove on one hand, and short sleeve shirt with flames on it. He was barefoot, wearing flare jeans covered with paint. He leaned his canvases against a wall, and placed a large Belgian flag umbrella over them. He was tall and tan with jerky movements. His art was incredibly disturbing. I was mesmerized. She was deeply unsettled and asked us to change seats so we did not face him. I did not want to do this, but she pleaded until I finally gave in. After our meal I was dying to talk to the man, to learn more about him and his art. She had terror in her eyes and pulled me away. I sulked, lamenting that I was not able to learn from this DAMAGED SOUL.

In the thrift stores she played stylist with me. Told me what flatters me, what colors would look good, what style inspo to draw from. I liked mid 2000s Eurotrash/footballer, like Ronaldo, Balotelli, Beckham. Gaudy, boyish, cocky. She told me my intuition is good, but I would also do well to throw in some balance—a little old money, some linens.

She dressed me like a doll. Taught me how to express, truly express through fashion. She told me superstars are simple and distinctive in their style. REPETiTiON breeds RECOGNiTiON.

So I should stick to only ever wearing jeans. They are rugged, they are humble, but have been reworked over time into ELEGANCE and REBELLiON. That they are UNAPOLOGETiCALLY AMERiCAN, the way I am. They accept every version of you—holding form but giving way. The constraint would be good for me. Different washes, cuts but always jeans. Rituals ground people like me.

You’re a man of the people. You can wear Dior, but not without denim. Your magic is your contrast.

On the second floor of the last shop, I took off my shirt in the aisles to try on a jersey. There was no one around but she was mortified. I asked why? She said it was classless. I shrugged and looked in the mirror. I took it off to add to my bag. I turned around and guided her to the corner by the supply closet. I kissed her neck. She resisted but a hum escaped. I stopped as suddenly as I started and told her to compose herself, with a smile on my face. She slapped my arm and we went downstairs to pay.

Before we went back to our HiDEAWAY, I asked to go sit by the river. I wanted to delay the inevitable. We sat on a set of steps and watched the boats go by. The party was now over and the streets were filled with tired face and empty wallets. A dopamine shortage. I looked at the still water and began to cry. She rubbed my back. Waited for me to let out the first wave, and when I began sniffling, asked me what was wrong.

I told her that I was tired of running. That I wanted to just STAY STiLL. I felt so at home with her here, but I had to leave. I wished I could stay longer, I really wished I could. With her, with this version of me. That my entire life had felt like a relentless performance of greatness. That all the GOLDEN BOY love had come with golden boy expectations. And that each time I won, each time I reached the dream, it only piled on what people thought of me. I became dependent on all the forward motion. But I was done. I wanted to just be.

She told me it was only I who could slow myself down. That everyone else’s perception of me was their own problem. I was enough. I didn’t need to achieve anything to be adored. I explained that the paradox felt like I was so adored that it felt like I had no choice but to achieve. She shook her head and smiled. From the way I described the people in my life, she said it sounded like none of the love was conditional. People could tell I was destined for something—so they wanted to encourage my potential, but it didn’t mean I had to rush and force. I just had to unfold, to become, to respect my own internal rhythm. I hugged her and cried once more.

When we made it back to the hotel, I simply wanted to lay there with her. She understood me so well. At least enough to tell me what I needed to hear in the moment. We laid there and she told me how intoxicating my sense of ABUNDANCE was. That I moved with inevitability, that there was no doubt to my actions. An overflowing of self love and drive. Which is why it confused her that I was drowning in a state that felt so innate to me. I didn’t have it in me to expand, so I simply kissed her forehead. And sat in the sting of her reflecting back the very ANXiETY I had just professed to be plagued with.

She reached for me, with intent. I swallowed and told her I wanted to rest. That I wanted to stay exactly where we were. She smiled, certain I was playing a game. I gave her a thin smile back and told her really, I just wanted to relax with her. Watch a movie or something. She huffed and said okay. We put on some music videos but I could feel her vibrating.

I tried to reroute by addressing the energy abstractly. We were watching an old award show performance by a famous singer and I explained the reverence I have for women dancing. That there was something so inherently divine about a woman dancing that a man could never embody. It wasn’t just sexy, it was otherworldly. It was hypnotic. Like a glimpse into the ANCiENT, the pre language. She shuddered and turned, said that she could feel the heat emanating from me. She kissed me and I reciprocated, hoping we could keep it there. She kept telling me how much she wanted it, as she stroked it. She told me I had the prettiest words, but something even lovelier hidden beneath them. She liked the way I talked, but she liked the way I didn’t even more.

I don’t know why I did, but I gave in. It was still good—but it wasn’t where my heart was anymore.

That night she finally slept over. Before we went to bed, she asked me if I would consider doing long distance. I told her I had done that before and it was excruciating, even being in the same TiMEZONE. But I promised her that I wanted to be her friend, and leave the door open for us in the future, if our paths ever naturally crossed again. She turned away in the darkness and I followed suit, hugging her tight.

I knew I was not meant to attach my heart there. Simply to rest it and commune with a kindred soul.

I woke with a startle. She was shaking me. I turned and saw her big hair, her hysterical eyes. She was on the verge of tears.

You’re a demon.

What? My voice was hoarse.

I just had a dream. Here. In this room. And you turned into a demon. It was so real.

I thought she was joking. I chuckled then realized she was serious. She begged me to turn on the light. I reached across and did so. She reached out to touch my face. She said it had melted into something black, mouthless. And that my arms had been covered in BLOODSUCKiNG wounds.

I consoled her. She insisted her dream was real. That I had some dark, dark energy inhabiting me. I was at a loss for words. I had never been accused of this before.

She asked me if someone had sucked my blood before. Metaphorically. I said I supposed, that my last relationship was a bit like that. Then she calmed a bit. She explained that maybe the demon was not me, but was the dark energy attached to me. That I ought to cleanse myself.

I felt horrible that she saw me in this way. Her eyes were still panicked but her voice was at least steadier. We drifted back off to sleep. My brain treated the sleeping state as a laboratory, making myths to help me shake a darkness that was not mine. Or that was, and I did not wish to claim.

When we woke up, I still had a few hours before my train. I didn’t remember the night, not until I turned to kiss her and she shuddered. She apologized and told me she hadn’t slept at all. I stiffened at this. The overwhelming sweetness of the weekend giving way to a BiTTER AFTERTASTE.

We walked silently to our final meal, a waffle spot in a busy plaza. She looked around. After some averted gazes and throat clearing, she told me she was sorry.

She didn’t mean to scare me. Then she flipped, catching me further off guard. She said I had actually scared her all weekend. That it was part of why she found me irresistible. Her hair raising in my presence was alluring. My darkness an aphrodisiac.

My head was SPiNNiNG.

I sipped my lemon water and tried to reel it all in. She reached across and stroked my hand. We ate in silence. The food seemed to regulate us a bit.

We admired an Asian girl with bleached eyebrows, rocking a green fishnet beanie. She remarked that she loved people who dressed for themselves, especially in environments that suffocated you with their conformity.

We swatted a bee, took pictures of a ladybug.

She told me about her study abroad in Paris. Three girls in a flat that had a closet in the middle connecting to all their rooms. Sharing clothes all semester long. I told her as a child I obsessed about how all my stuffed animals needed to get equal love and attention. How I once cried to my mother that I had been neglecting a small monkey whose nose fell off and scared me. She told me how she once wrote her mom a long confession letter about all the little lies she told as a teenager.

On a napkin she drew me a wheel, broken up into eight slices. My name above it, she labeled the slices as:

Love

Passion

Artistry

Ego

Arrogance

Duality

Indifference

Emptiness

She told me I felt very empty. I said maybe I was. Maybe I was so full some people saw it as empty. Black is closer to white than all the other colors are. I talked about my book. At that point I was pitching it clumsily as:

It’s about sex and love and how young men separate the two because they’re scared or angry or both but all it takes is one good connection to make you feel whole.

She nodded along, then asked me if I felt lost. I dodged her question. Told her a lot of the photos I took on the way here were filled with birds in flight. But I craved a butterfly. Resting on a branch or a flower. Because this was the animal my grandmother told us she would come back as when she passed. She accepted my answer.

She took my notebook, this time without asking. Reached for the blue pen then put it to her lips as she thought. I watched her. Took a photo with my camera. Then she handed it to me. Told me she had WRiTER’S BLOCK. So I kicked it off and handed it back.

Orpheus and Medusa in the Gothic shadows of the Dionysian festival of a far, far away land. The rain, the cherry beer, the Formula racers. The speed is there. But so is the rest. Life is a big spiral upwards, but with some special people, it can feel like a straight line.

And in that line, tension, expectation, affection, embrace unfolds. Is it possible to keep walking this line together, blindly? Or will I have to accept it is a dream?

Just so long as you never think of it as a nightmare.

We signed it THE BEE and THE LADYBUG.

The final kiss as she saw me off was feverish. Two people moving in different directions, but only one of them happy. I looked out the window at the platform. Spouses, grandparents, toddlers, all blowing kisses at the newly departed.

She stood there with her arms crossed, her head titled. She remained that way as the train moved. It was restraint as posture, as principle. Her eyes never wavered from mine. She was making her emotions obey a line and a cut. Even her farewell had quiet taste.

In Paris, I threw away the blue pen she had given me. Too thick. I replaced it with a black fine point Japanese one.

In Bordeaux I bought her a postcard, planned on sending it when I got back.

Four days later, in San Sebastian she asked me if we could call. We had been texting, but with the tension of two people feeling like frayed strands. I called her after my surf lesson. Her tone was rehearsed, I could feel it.

She told me what we had done was a mistake. That she admired much in me, and enjoyed our time together, but I had no right to claim her. I began to speak up, as I had done no claiming. Quite the opposite.

She said my DESiRE was dangerous. That it was going to ruin me if I didn’t keep it in check. That she needed to protect herself and her path in life. I bit my tongue. I could tell this was a script for her to hear out loud, not for me. I thought about how we agreed that if I was a color, I was blue. But where I thought I was a baby blue, she saw me as midnight.

She ended her SOLiLOQUY. Asked me if I had any thoughts. I said I appreciated her honesty, and wished her the best. I was ready to hang up.

A Danish girl—someone I’d shared a drink with the night before—joined me on the patio. Her headphones were in, but I knew she was listening. I did not care.

Her tone shifted. She asked me if that was it. She asked me if I felt awakened at all.

I said sure, she felt like a nourishing connection. An important mirror. And I was going to take to heart her encouragement to slow down, to sit with myself, to cleanse. To work on the masculine CONTAiNER for all my range and relentlessness. That hopefully I had also inspired her—to chase her dreams with more conviction and momentum.

She then sounded very far away. She said what we did was a dream and I should remember it as such.

She said she shouldn’t have.

Shouldn’t have what? What? Shouldn’t have what?

Cheated.

She let out a long breath. It all clicked. Why the shadow flared with her eros. How I was responsible for her apparition.

Medusa forces truth. She is a DiViNE iNTERRUPTOR. Her erotic power is her curse.

She was now angry. She said I had no duality. That I was simply a SHAPESHiFTER. Carrying lots of heaviness.

I hung up. Rubbed my eyes until they were filled with stars.

That night I went out with the Danish girl, to a bar nearby. She probed about the conversation she overheard (just the tiniest snippet she claimed). I said it had been an EPHEMERAL weekend.

I was in the early innings of shedding my skin. Healing but struggling to fully ungrasp. I was still stumbling into the grooves of my old patterns.

She told me she had never met a man who spoke the way I did, as she leaned her knee against mine. I smiled. Thanked her. Told her I had to be up early. She said she would leave me with me. I told her it was fine—she should stay. Her friend was arriving any minute anyways.

I walked home alone. Disappeared into the crowd.

On the street, I put my headphones in. I pressed play on the song that my ex hated, the one drowning in REVERB.

It no longer sounded like a theme song.

Tengo algo rico pa’ que siempre me recuerde’
Por si mañana me pierde’
Tu cuerpo me provoca y no sé qué hacerle (eh)
Hace’ que yo vuelva a pecar
Yo conozco tu malda’, no te haga’ la inocente
Ella tiene su cuenta priva’ (ey)
Me gusta montarla encima (yeah, yeah)

Sabe que está pa’ mí aunque el tiempo pase (ah)
¿Cómo se mueve así? Me dice que le dé suave (ah)
Ella busca chingadera y le cumplo lo que quiera
Cuida’o, que nadie nos vea (ey) y los pantys me modela
Yo conozco, baby, tu maldad (tra)
También sé a lo que tú va’
Tú ere’ una diabla disfraza’
En mi cama te pongo a brincar, muah
Te pongo mis cadena’ y te rompo (jeje)
Ella cumple en agosto y me dice que estoy loco (yeah-yeah)
A eso’ gile’ yo los tosto (prr)
El party te lo exploto y en la Lambo yo te monto, ah
Tú no te da’ ni cuenta
Que yo te saco la vuelta, mami, yo soy tu Beretta (jaja)
Tu nalga el bicho me aprieta (ey)
Ven, tengamo’ una fiesta pa’ que quede’ contenta

Yo conozco, baby, tu vuelta
También sé a dónde tú va’
Tú ere’ una diabla difraza’
Te vo’a poner a brincar

Tengo algo rico pa’ que siempre me recuerde’
Por si mañana me pierde’
Tu cuerpo me provoca y no sé qué hacerle (eh)
Hace’ que yo vuelva a pecar
Yo conozco tu malda’, no te haga’ la inocente
Ella tiene su cuenta priva’
Me gusta montarla encima

En la Lamborghini prendiendo un Phillie
To’ vesti’o Amiri y la gorra es Louis V
Es rica esa mini, mami, ponte freaky
Yo te vo’a quitar esos biki
Ya sabe’ que es mío ese totito
Cuando quiera’, mami, te la aplico
A nadie en la calle yo el achico
Ando a lo maldito, siempre calla’ito
Véngase conmigo y nos vamo’ bien lejito’
Pida’ lo que quiera’, que lo vamo’ a gastar
El mundo entero explorar
En la Louis Vuitton nos ponemo’ a chingar (jeje)
Pa’ que no se te olvide má’

Ah, ah
Pa’ que no se te olvide má’
Ah-ah
Trr (tra)

Tengo algo rico pa’ que siempre me recuerde’
Por si mañana me pierde’
Tu cuerpo me provoca y no sé qué hacerle
Hace’ que yo vuelva a pecar
Yo conozco tu malda’, no te haga’ la inocente (ah)
Ella tiene su cuenta priva’ (ah)
Me gusta montarla encima (yeah, yeah)

EPiLOGUE

Burn and be burned. Cleanse and be cleansed. Accuse and be accused. The story is over. The ghosts are gone. You can love again. Or perhaps for the first time. Nothing to prove anymore. Everything to express. In your own divine rhythm.

Now you can own one of your deepest desires with no fear.

I search for a partner worthy of legend. One who feeds the fire of my making. The mother of all future myths. I am ready for her, I am worthy of her, I will care for her eternally. I am her(s).

iNSPiRATiON & PROCESS

Seven minute video & more

Read more

Soundtrack provided to you by Stef Davidse

The actor prepares

He wants what he wants

But he can barely pronounce it

Shots of tequila to keep

The imagination from running dry

‍

Let’s play pretend

As a pretty pair of stars

With a pretty pair of cars

And whatever else is ours

‍

The Good Life feels like

July Fourth, Live from New York

Two Cowboys, Twin Dimes

Smack That 3 (Three) Times

‍

Unbroken lines

Right to the heart

And back to the instruments

Dueños de nuestros fantasias

‍

The closer we get

We remember when it wasn’t always like this

I just want you to know

You’re my favorite

‍

Hands On Hands On

Hands Up Hands Up

Whatever life is

We’ll dance on it together

‍

Just don’t let me slow down

Let’s take what we want

And blow smoke at the rest

Tombstone reads WE DiD iT OUR WAY

The rating scale is completely subjective—it arguably means nothing to anyone but me. It simply shows where a book stands in the LEVi LOPEZ library. I recommend looking at the other descriptors and the passage to see which book you would enjoy.

MY STRUGGLE: BOOK ONE

by Karl Ove Knausgaard

SYNPOSiS

A raw excavation of ordinary life. Karl Ove manages to turn the everyday into something transcendent—jumping back and forth from his childhood in rural Norway to his present day domestic routine in Sweden. He shows us how the smallest moments stack together into the architecture of the self.

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

My novel is heavily laced with narratives of the self emerging from the unlikeliest of places. I learned a great deal from Karl Ove about how to make that honest but still cinematic.

FOR FANS OF

Autofiction, Marcel Proust, Boyhood

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

THE PROPHET

by Kahlil Gabran

SYNPOSiS

A poetic meditation on the pillars of a spiritually fulfilling life. It takes the form of a final dialogue between a prophet and the townspeople seeking his last wisdom. A simple book that echoes with a powerful moral pulse.

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

It’s like asking why you connect with the Bible or the Quran or the Torah. If you have an open heart, you will be moved.

FOR FANS OF

Spirituality, Rumi, The Ten Commandments

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

HOLLYWOOD

by Charles Bukowski

SYNPOSiS

A cynical and hilarious journey following late career Bukowski as he turns his autobiographical screenplay into a film. You get a behind the scenes look at the moviemaking industry with his infamous misanthropic POV, but laced with a newfound tenderness and vulnerability. Bukowski reminds us why we ought to root for the outsider, especially in their refusal to compromise their art.

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

This is my most read book of all time. The masterful dry, observational humor is something I aspire to—in my own flavor of course. You can read my deeper review of it here.

FOR FANS OF

Dirty realism, John Fante, Adaptation

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

CHERRY

by Nico Walker

SYNPOSiS

A brutal novel about an Iraq war veteran who comes home with PTSD and begins robbing banks to fund his opioid addiction. It captures the bleakness of post 9/11 Midwestern suburbia. Nico wrote this while serving his prison sentence—which gives it an electrifying undercurrent.

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

One of the recent hits in contemporary fiction, I love any kind of art that is dark and contradictory. Nico taught me how to be cruel and tender on the same page.

FOR FANS OF

War lit, Denis Johnson, Good Time

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

MARTYR

by Kaveh Akbar

SYNPOSiS

A lyrical book about a newly sober young writer raised by a single father in the Midwest, grappling with the existential calling he inherited from his Persian roots. It has a hallucinatory feel—the poeticism, humor and grief blending into an unforgettable tale. Akbar manages to craft one of the most impressive plot twists I’ve ever experienced.

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

Recommended to me on TikTok by a commenter, I’m really glad I took the suggestion. Another recent hit in the market, I admired Akbar’s hazy narrative construction.

FOR FANS OF

Poetic lit fic, Ocean Vuong, The Fountain

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

CATALiNA

by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

SYNPOSiS

A campus novel about an undocumented Ecuadorian Harvard student. Karla births a fierce main character that is at times disturbingly vulnerable. The story is both hyper-contemporary yet also mythic and cuts to the bone with its exploration of diasporic wounds.

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

My novel is also a campus novel, and also deals with class struggle. Karla helped me understand how to better develop a women character who is insecure but still autonomous.

FOR FANS OF

Coming of age, Valeria Luiselli, Dear White People

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

THE LAST TYCOON

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

SYNPOSiS

Fitzgeralds unfinished novel—a magnum opus in progress. They say some musicians only have one song, some writers only one book…Fitzgerald is the classic example of this and here was perfecting his signature creation. It is a glittery, romantic portrait of a Hollywood mogul who is adored by all but deeply estranged from himself.

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

This book came to me in a dream. Seriously. I don’t know why but I woke up one day and felt immediately compelled to look up F. Scott’s other novels, and when I stumbled upon this one and saw it was unfinished,—I knew it was for me. This book blew me away because you get to see his outlines and notes to himself. Most importantly, you see the difference in the passages that were already golden, and those that were definitely going to need more work. As always—a reminder that masterpieces take time, drafts, attention to detail…but they all carry some magic from the very beginning.

FOR FANS OF

Tragedies, Edith Wharton, Babylon

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

THE WAY OF ZEN

by Alan Watts

SYNPOSiS

One of the original gateways for Western readers to Eastern thought. Watts traces the lineage of Zen Buddhism and in the process begins to infiltrate your mind with deceptively simple sageness. The irony of this book, as he reminds us, is that words ultimately fail in helping us dissolve the self and letting our natural freedom flow.

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

I had this personally recommended to me by someone who seems to have some sort of otherwordly timing and understanding of my spiritual journey. And like any truly transformative piece of media, the lessons I’ve learned from this book absorb further and further into my soul with every passing day. If Christianity is my moral and directional foundation, Zen was the missing piece to unlock the rhythmic and perceptual flow I needed to fully unlock myself.

FOR FANS OF

Eastern Philosophy, D.T. Suzuki, Samsara

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

THE MAKiNG OF PRiNCE OF PERSiA

by Jordan Mechner

SYNPOSiS

A creator’s diary that captures the multi-year self doubt, grind and breakthroughs behind making an iconic video game. You get an intimate look at true artistic obsession. Mechner makes you feel like you’re staying up with him as he slowly loses his mind bringing his vision to life—and shares in the ecstasy when it succeeds beyond his wildest dreams.

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

Also a book I’ve reread a great deal of times, it never fails to inspire me. You see that bringing anything great in the world takes equal part tyrant, equal part child, and equal part monk.

FOR FANS OF

Diaries, Shigeru Miyamoto, Halt and Catch Fire

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

MY FRiENDS

by Hisham Matar

SYNPOSiS

A captivating book chronicling the lives of three Libyan exiles in London as they navigate their inner turmoil at having abandoned their home country and loved ones. Tracing their lives from the 1980s until the Arab Spring, each man plays a distinctive role in the dismantling of the government’s oppression. As the title suggests, it is heavily reflective—even mournful as to the power and fragility of friendship.

WHY i READ/CONNECTED

Another TikTok recommendation, under my glowing Martyr review, several people suggested I would therefore enjoy this one. Honestly this book was so fucking good and deep, it made me feel a little guilty that I don’t have as much to say politically as other authors lmao. But I suppose you can’t force that—I do care deeply, I am just drawn to other ways of liberating the world.

FOR FANS OF

Exile literature, Tayeb Salih, Paradise Now

HiGHLiGHTED PASSAGE

RATiNG

This is the essay form of another TikTok I made that resonated. I’ll definitely continue to share my thoughts on male characters and relationships in traditionally “girl media”, so long as you ladies will have me. This is lots of fun.

iNTRO

BiG never broke Carrie’s heart.

Carrie broke her own heart trying to find depth in the man that always lived on the surface.

So I can admit, I thought Sex and the City was such a girl’s show— until my ex finally changed my mind. She showed it to me and now it’s my second favorite show after The Sopranos.

Samantha’s my favorite character, but in close second is definitely Big. That’s my fucking guyyy.

And last night when I threw on an episode, I thought to myself... why do I love Big so much? So I took some notes, figured I’d do a little bit of a breakdown on his psychology and why he’s such a great character. From the male perspective.

AVOiDANT?

There’s a lot of discourse about BiG being AVOiDANT in terms of attachment style. I’m not denying he might be a little AVOiDANT, but the bigger thing is that he’s actually just not that emotionally complex.

I think a lot of ladies and especially Carrie analyze BiG and men like him, like they’re this sort of puzzle—but he’s just somebody who’s coasted through life and that ends up breeding emotional laziness. He’s this iSLAND of SELF-SATiSFACTiON with a partner that wants him to be more profound than he really is. To the point that he almost succeeds in making the main character look villainous.

EMOTiONAL PHYSiCS

Let’s take a look at the whiteboard and break it down.

All his privilege leads him to have pretty much no inner life.

And no inner life leads someone to have low depth, which makes you easygoing—and combine that with having power, having status…it makes you a high charm sort of person. It’s like hanging out with a little boy who’s just perpetually happy.

He prioritizes fun over his feelings because he just doesn’t have many feelings.

Him being silent, him being charismatic gives Carey that impression of having a mysterious aura. Him having all that success puts him on emotional autopilot, which is why him saying something like “I’m moving to Paris” doesn’t seem like a ridiculous thing to him.

And the equation when it comes down to it is you take Carrie’s depth—a deep layered protagonist—with Big’s blank nature, it leads to that obsession and that projection. And the beauty of it is his flatness ends up being her growth curve. It’s only when she self-stabilizes that he finally commits.

We can take a look at this graph. we got Big in green, we got Carrie in red. The The Y-axis is stability, the X-axis is time.

Over time, Big’s baseline pretty much never moves, but it’s Carrie who finally wrangles herself. And that’s when Big meets her and actually decides—hey, you’re the person that I want to be with and I can trust that we can live a life that’ll be pleasant to me and pleasant to you.

HE’S JUST A MAN

He’s never had to build an inner life because his outer world has always worked for him. He was born into generational wealth. He runs a super successful real estate empire. He dates beautiful women. He has this lavish social circle and life.

I’ve had a fraction of BiG’s privilege and have engaged in worse patterns in my early 20s. I can’t imagine a lifetime of his existence.

Carrie projects this depth onto him that he just does not have. She assigns meaning to his silences, to his half smiles, to his little actions. but there’s nothing to decode. He’s not hiding anything.

He runs his empire and to survive that and that stress—I empathize with it a little bit because I ran my own company for some time—you can deal with that in different ways. And he chooses to deal with it the way that I chose to deal with it, which is to have this charming, unbothered, laid back exterior, which is to a fault. It’s a form of armor. It’s a form of being efficient in the way that you deal with people. But it’s also emotional underdevelopment disguised as charisma. He doesn’t fear intimacy. He just doesn’t prioritize it.

Like many men, and I definitely resonate with this, he really only accesses vulnerability when something breaks him open by force. Whether it’s being humiliated with the actress he was dating or having a literal heart attack. He doesn’t grow through empathy or curiosity for others. He only goes through catastrophe that devastates himself.

It’s not that he doesn’t value Carrie. He just doesn’t really value much in general. His baseline is comfort. His default is things always work out for me. When life never forces you to feel deeply, you sort of skate by and Carrie read his skating as a sort of mystery.

He’s even so transparent about what he wants and what he has to offer. If you remember in S1 E2 he talks to Carrie about how there’s so many gorgeous women in New York City, but you end up just wanting to be with the one that makes you laugh.

His idea of a fun night is staying in watching TV. He knows who he is. And he’s happy with himself.

CARRiE’S FOiL

That’s precisely what makes Big such an incredible character. He’s the perfect foil because he’s this aspirational, vague surface area for the messy, complex Carrie to stand out against. He casts a shadow for her to light up. And because he doesn’t move—she has to.

Carrie wins not by changing him, but by changing herself. So when she walks away, he ends up stepping forward.

It is this dynamic that makes the show have its natural ups and downs, its timeless relatability. More importantly, I believe it teaches us an ultimately redemptive yet still realistic lesson.

Whether you are a man or a woman—choose yourself first. That’s what leads people to either be fully repelled or to respect us and say: okay, I see you for who you really are…and I choose you too.

NOTE FROM THE WRiTER

This is written about my most recent love—a poet with a heart of gold. It is edited by her as well. I wrote it in a single trancelike session on the plane.

I sat in the middle seat. An elderly woman tattooed and tan sat next to me. The window seat remained empty as everyone filed on, eyelids heavy.

I tore at the plastic with my teeth, revealing the red underneath. Blood red. I spit the plastic into my hands and stuffed it into the pocket in front of me. I rummaged through the back pocket of my old notebook. Past the polaroids and film strips and movie tickets and receipts. I found the little shell and placed it in the pocket of the new notebook.

Clicked my pen and opened to the cover.

IN CASE OF LOSS PLEASE RETURN TO?

I had no home. I had a home, a good one, but it was with my ex. I left my ex in our home. Or my home was with my ex. My old home. I had let my ex have that home, what was left of it.

I booked a ticket to Europe where my parents had retired, and even with them, I didn’t find the same home I was expecting. So I booked another flight, this time to somewhere I was sure I had no expectation of feeling at home.

IN CASE OF LOSS PLEASE RETURN TO?

LEVi LOPEZ

I shrugged. What was meant for me would find its way to me. This notebook was never to leave my side, so how would I lose it? You only lose that which you do not keep by your side. And there is only so much you can keep by your side.

“I think that’s everyone.”

I turned to the woman next to me.

“The door is closed. I don’t think that,” she motioned to the window seat, “is booked.”

I opened my mouth to explain, but she seemed eager to have a seat in between us. So I nodded and shuffled over.

I kept the notebook open the whole plane ride, all 45 minutes of it.

All I wrote, right before we landed:

I miss pouring you wine. I miss you handing me the grocery list. I miss you...?

The question mark was traced over and over and over.

Delay after delay meant we landed just after sunrise. The immigration line snaked on and on. I leaned on every wall I could. The passport stamp then the taxi. I dozed off in the taxi. The blue taxi with the yellow stripe and the backseat perfect for sleeping. I only remember the palm trees out the window.

I climbed the long staircase to the medina, the walled ancient part of the city. In the grass by the entrance lay a drunken man snoring away. To the left was a pair of young men in construction vests, drinking coffee and eating pastries. My stomach grumbled.

The suitcase wheels clattered on the cobblestone. I kept rearranging my backpack straps, but there was no longer any comfortable position for them. My phone had no signal and the photo of the map I had didn’t account for all the tiny side streets. Everyone looked like they knew where they were going and it pissed me off. Even the people loitering looked like enemies after half an hour of wandering.

“Hey. Hey movie star.”

I had already had a few men come up to me calling me brother, or friend, or any other charming greeting, clearly trying to sell me something. After the first time replying led to an exhausting conversation, I learned to ignore them.

“Hey. Hey big shot.”

This voice sounded young and I didn’t even see it. I stopped and looked around. He was just beyond the corner, head to toe in fake Gucci. Messy curly hair and dirty hands, his white shoes were covered in dirt as well. But his smile, boy his smile was golden. He had a cardboard box with assorted candy in it. His stance was leaning away from me, as if I had caught him on the go to make an important delivery.

“5 dirham for a chocolate. Or you, because you’re Hollywood man, I charge you only 3.”

He held out a chocolate bar. I blinked.

“Oh, not a fan of chocolate, that’s ok. I have here gummy bears for same price, and if you are on a budget, a mint for 1 dirham.”

He flashed them both to me with a smile.

“No thank you. Maybe another time.”

“Okay well how about a donation? As you say, to a good cause.”

“What’s the cause?

“To the children of Tangier. Whatever you give me I will ensure it is spent wisely.”

He had one hand on his hip and the other around his box.

“How old are you?”

He stood up straight and lifted his chin.

“I am 10. I know I look a bit young, but my mother says I will catch up soon.”

“You’re a bright kid.”

“Thank you. Everyone calls me The Young Man.” He extended his little hand out.

“Levi.”

“Where are you looking for?”

I didn’t think The Young Man could spell trouble so I answered honestly.

“Rue Bouchachem, Apartment 3.”

“Ah, you’re in luck. I was headed that way anyways. Normally I’d charge for an escort but this time I’ll do it for free.”

I had nothing to lose and the delirium was catching up to me, so I fell in step with him.

“You’re lucky I found you. Someone else would have led you the wrong way or charged you. In a plot.”

“A plot?”

“Yes, a plot...a plan to get money from you.”

“A scam.”

“Yes yes, a scam!”

The medina was a narrow labyrinth , with clotheslines crossing everywhere overhead. The acoustics were disorienting—voices echoed around corners and it felt like everyone was closing in or far away, but never where they actually were. The Young Man would greet people often, almost everyone we passed. Two women talking in a doorway, an old man smoking out of the window, a group of young men headed to school. They all smiled and greeted him warmly, and he would salute them back, say a few words in Arabic and make them all laugh.

“To understand Tangier, you need only know about the Societists and the Generalists.” He ushered me through a key shaped passage as he spoke.

“Sociestists? Do you mean Socialists?”

“No. You Americans think you know everything. Listen to a local. The Societists. And the Generalists. See Tangier used to be a free place, one of the freest in the world. That’s because it had no real government. It was run by five countries at once which means it was run by no one. Long before me and you were born. Your people and from everywhere used to come here to do whatever they pleased. But then, there was clearness. One government, the Moroccan government. And they wanted to close the freeness. Control the freeness.”

“So which one is the government? The Generalists?”

“No. Everyone is against the government. The government is for itself. The two groups here disagree on what to do. The Societists think we should do what is best for society. All for one, one for all. The Generalists think we should do what is best for the general public. To, ehm, go with the flow.”

I cocked my head. The difference seemed...minute.

“I’m not understanding. What is an example of something they disagree on?”

“Oh, everything. They’re at each other’s necks all the time. It’s the way the government wants it. The Societists believe the Generalists don’t care about society, and the Generalists believe the Societists don’t care about the general public.”

“But those are basically the same thing?”

“Yes. Exactly. You come from America no? Do your politics make sense?”

I hummed in agreement.

“You are from Los Angeles?”

“No, New York.”

“Ah New York. New Yooooooork.” He broke out a deep (for him) baritone inflection for the long ‘York’.

“So fly back to LA? For your movies?”

“What? What makes you think I’m an actor?”

He stopped and turned to me, looked me up and down and slowly furrowed his brow. I restrained my laughter. He was so serious in everything he did. Even his humor was so present, full of intention.

“You walk like one. And look like one. And talk like one. I see tourists everyday, but movie stars, you are only the second one I’ve seen.”

“Who was the first?”

He waved his hand and continued walking.

“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint but I’m no superhero.”

“Hah. Who said anything about superhero? That I knew. You are no superhero. You are not big. YThat is why you are a star. A normal hero. Someone that is like us, so we can see ourselves and cheer. You struggle and you win. You don’t have a straight line and still you win. You win big.”

“Well thank you, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Sure. That one is free. Next compliment 10 dirham.”

We walked along in silence through a courtyard.

“New York. New York. I will call you New York. What a city right? I can only dream of going.”

“Why dream? I’m sure you can go.”

“Eh. I don’t think my father wants me to leave here. He wants me to work for him.”

“Oh yeah, what does your father do?”

He waved this question off as well, “not important, all I know is I never get to see him.”

We observed an argument in the courtyard. A man was refilling a plastic container of water from his own bottle. The man next to him was shouting at him and motioning to the running fountain beside him. The cats that were waiting for the water waited patiently, licking themselves as they laid next to the debate.

“See. Classic Societist that man.” The Young Man flicked his head at the man with the water bottle and beckoned me to continue.

We passed by a table of men playing a colorful board game.

The Young Man read my mind, “Parcheesi, fun game.”

He took a look back and leaned in to me cupping his hand around his mouth, “that game isn’t going to end well, it’s half Generalists, half Societists.”

“Ah here we are. Rue Bouchachem, number 3.”

I gave The Young Man a high five. “I wish I had cash to give you, but I still have to go exchange money.”

“Please, it is an insult. We are friends now.”

I heard a deafening garbled voice ringing through the medina.

“What is that?”

The Young Man’s eyes widened.

“I must go. It is the call to prayer. My mother will be upset if I am late.”

He saluted me, “I will come see you later. Get some rest.”

I shook my head and smiled, I couldn’t believe this character. The rest was a haze, as I only remember taking my clothes off and crawling under the sheets.

I awoke twice. Once in my dream.

I was dreaming that I was with my ex girlfriend, stroking her hair as she sat in front of me, nude. It smelled so good as it always did. I remember I felt unsettled that she would not turn around, even though her shoulders were bouncing up and down and I could hear her stifling sobs. She asked me to make love to her and it made me uncomfortable but I tried. She still did not turn around but at least she stopped crying. I didn’t enjoy it. I awoke in our old apartment and turned to tell her my dream. There was no one home.

I awoke again and had the sun streaming in full force on my face. It was green and yellow and blue as it came through the stained glass window.

I splashed water on my face, changed my clothes, ran my fingers through my hair. I grabbed my book and notebook and headed out the door. I didn’t know where, but I figured I would find the town square and make do from there.

Even in the narrow streets of the Medina, delivery drivers on electric bikes hauling trailers would zip by, forcing you to press yourself against the side of the building. I made it out to a wider street and was greeted by a gorgeous mint green Mercedes 2400. An older man, blue dress shirt, white hair slicked back and aviators on smiled to no one in particular as he drove past.

I walked towards the water and came out to a huge boulevard. There were seagulls a plenty. On the corner was a man hawking birds. He would pick up the birdcage and wave it in someone’s face. The bird would flutter around and make a fuss. The man was not selling any birds.

I walked towards the little public beach. The crosswalk had no lights, despite the cars roaring through the boulevard. I followed behind a surefooted elderly lady who didn’t even turn her head, simply walked straight.

The beach was full of men, a few shirtless. The only women that were there were in hijabs and were watching over their children. I could smell the aloe vera sunscreen from the family beside me, that was lathering it onto their children who were squirming and ready to run into the sand. I sat down on a bench and tried to read my book.

My book made no sense. Literally. The characters I had remembered being in the book were no longer there. I thumbed backwards and found mention of them...but then it was as if the author had forgotten they existed. The narrative was disjointed. I looked back at the cover. A classic? I would power through.

As I tried to read, the sweat slowly forming on my forehead, I caught semblances of conversations. There were tourists walking by speaking languages that also felt distant. There were snippets of familiarity—I was almost sure that it was Spanish, or French, or something recognizable... and then it would devolve into some unintelligible.

Words were failing me at this point. I tried to stare out at the ocean instead. Mmmmm. Good to know, that was still working.

The waves, the waves, the waves. The waves. The waves. The waves. Waves. Waves. Waves. Water. Water. Water. Words. Words.

Without thinking, I pulled out my notebook and clicked my pen.

‌Why are the other things that make people happy not enough for me? They make me happy too, but they are NOT enough.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was electric, it was alive.

It’s not just that I love her…I love that I chose to open myself to loving her. Loving someone felt so far away before her.

The relationship gave me many answers but I’m still calculating if it outweighed how many questions it opened.

I am not sad we broke up, I am sad it didn’t work.

The last night in the McDonalds, drunk and giggling. Why couldn’t it all be like that?

I wiped the tears that had streamed down my cheek and sniffled.

“Is it okay if I sit here?”

I looked up and saw The Military Man. He was wearing a faded uniform, and had on a little hat with sunglasses. He was tan, very tan and wrinkled.

“Go ahead.”

The Military Man was from the mountains. He did me a favor and did not say a word about my crying.

He explained he was a Military Man, from the mountains. He had three homes, all in Morocco. A big family he came from, and a big family he had of his own. He spoke at length about his family, his love for them. His friends, his love for them. He told me how little he cared for money, only that it could help him help his family, help his friends. I commiserated with him about this. He shook my hand and told me he could tell I was a good person, not like other Americans. I was enjoying my conversation, the Military Man explained how Moroccans from the mountains were nicer than those from the cities. He said this as he shooed away a beggar that threatened to interrupt our conversation. He took off his sunglasses to polish them and I saw how receded his eyes were, almost nothing but slits. He invited me to his house in the mountains, if not now, next time I come.

He asked for my number and put it in his phone. He told me about how delicious the fish was in the mountains, even though it was far from the sea. Then he asked me if we were friends. I said sure. Then he asked me for money. I said no. He said why? I said because we just met.

“And why would you need money?”

He said he was staying with his sister but she had left and her husband had kicked him out and he did not have time to grab his things. Once more he asked why I would not give him a little money. I said no I’m sorry. He said just a little money, the type I wouldn’t even notice was gone. I said no sorry. He said if I was in need of money and I was in the mountains with him, he would give me money. I said we were not in the mountains and I was not in need of money. We sat in silence for a bit. He said it was okay, we were still friends. He said this hiccup would not ruin our friendship. I agreed. I shook his hand and walked off.

I wandered again this time to a park in the middle of a busy marketplace. It had a colorful playground, and steps that led up to a cultural center. There was slanted grass and large trees, trees that looked far older than anyone alive. I jumped up on to the stone curb that separated this slanted section from the rest of the park.

I saw that there was a large nest of kittens, many colors, all of them toppling over one another trying to get to their exhausted mother. I wasn’t even sure if all the kittens were hers, but she nursed them all the same. A small grey one was off to the side, skinny, even by the standards of these street cats. She stretched and came over to me, The Little Cat. A young boy ran up to the curb and pointed, pointed at the cats. His mother followed in hot pursuit and slapped his hand, motioning at the cats and wagging her finger. She pantomimed fleas jumping off her skin. The boy did not understand and his mom dragged him away.

The Little Cat was frail, I could feel all her bones as I pet her. She made her home on my lap, circling and circling, bumping my hand for more pets, and finally nestling a comfortable position. She began to purr, purr with such intensity I wondered how it came from such a small creature.

I sat there for some time, and again I found myself slowly cracking my notebook open, so as not to wake The Little Cat, the Little Cat on my lap.

Oh a pen feels so good in the hand but only when there is paper for it to land.

The writing was not always profound but it did not need to be. The writing only mattered in that it came out. The only writing that was bad was the writing that did not come out. The non writing. Therefore all the writing was good, because it means it made it out.

The Little Cat stirred at points, letting out little squeaks. She sneezed and wheezed when she awoke. I could tell she was not long for this world. I could see it in her fur and her eyes. She was dirty, she was dying. But she was the most lovely thing in Tangier and I felt at home here with her.

It was the first time I felt at home in ages. Is that all it takes to make a home? Two beings taking care of one another?

I resolved to go get some food and I tried my best to get The Little Cat off. She dug her nails in my jeans. She scrambled to get onto my shoulder and left claw marks in my shirt. She opened her mouth wide and let out the loudest sound she could and asked me to not leave. She circled and circled again and pretended to sleep. Then she really fell asleep again. She was in denial. I aimed my tears away from falling on her fur, but one did make it on her. She let out a sigh. I grabbed my book and continued being held hostage.

The book was making sense again. The characters were back. There disappearances unexplained, the holes in the plot not neatly sewn up, but the story moved along again, it had a motion that made sense. I was lost in it once again. Around me, I even heard English, full blooded English sentences being spoken, clearly. I no longer felt as bad as I had felt all day. But after some time, I was really hungry.

I grabbed the Little Cat softly, and kissed her on the head. I turned to place her on the grass and she outstretched her paws to hold on to me. I dropped her gently on the grass and got up before I never left. I knew I would be back.

“They are so easily amused.”

The Young Man was leaning against a post, eating a popsicle and staring at the young children running around.

“Says the one eating ice cream.”

“And so what? Ice cream is for any age.”

“So is playing.”

“Yes, yes of course. But we do not need a ground to play on, a ground just for play. We can play anywhere.”

He finished the rest of the popsicle.

“My favorite way to play is to imagine I am a spider monkey.”

He tossed the popsicle stick over his shoulders and rubbed his dirty hands on his pants.

“Look.” He assumed a crouched stance and a smile broke out on his face. He began to scratch his armpits and make monkey noises.

I laughed, as he was quite committed.

“Look look.” He jumped up on the railing and balanced precariously, continuing the monkey noises. He jumped and spun in the air. He ran up to me and snatched my book from my hand.

I ran after him, laughing all the while. He scrambled up a tree and monkey noised me from the branches. He hung from the branch with one arm, holding the book in his other.

“Very good, very good. You may have been a monkey in another life.”

“I am a monkey in this life.”

He swung down and thumbed through my book.

“This is a big book. What is it about?”

“It’s about a family. Three brothers, well four. And they have a mean dad that doesn’t take care of them and one of them kills their dad and they all have to figure out which brother it was. And all the brothers are very different but also very much the same. Well that’s what happens in it, but it’s moreso about religion and family and guilt and sin.”

“Mmmm. Seems interesting. But why so big? He couldn’t say it all in less words?”

“I mean those are big topics. You could write 1000 books and still not say everything you needed to say about them.”

“Ah. This is why I prefer cinema.”

He motioned to the CINEMA ALCAZAR that stood in the corner of the square.

“Do you know a good place to eat around here?”

“Yes, there are many. You want to try something traditional?”

“Yea absolutely.”

“You have dirham?”

Fuck, that’s right.

The Young Man dragged me along to a very specific currency exchange desk. We passed three others on the way but he swore this one would give me the best rate.

We walked in and he greeted the old spectacled man at the desk. He pointed to me and made some sort of joke I believe and the old man laughed. The Young Man put his palm out and I gave him my Euros. The old man handed him colorful bills. I eyed the exchange rates, and sure enough, it seems that The Young Man had gotten me a fairer than fair deal.

We walked around the corner to a white building, with a blue sign hat read LE SALON DE BLEU.

The Young Man led me through a kitchen entrance, shoving an errant cigarette pack on top of a bucket in his pocket as he greeted the various workers. The benefits of being low to the ground—it was easy to be slick.

He took me upstairs up a tiny steel staircase that wound and wound, until we were at the rooftop. The view was stunning, one could see the medina sprawled before us, stone, multi level, with passageways to and fro, ending in the waterfront. If you squinted, you could even make out Spain in the distance, across the ocean. I saw a soccer field not far from us, full of young boys hooting and hollering. I turned to ask The Young Man about this field, but I studied his gaze and saw that he avoided looking there. I spared him the question.

The Young Man ordered for me, I trusted The Young Man. Plus it was nice to not be in charge for once. I noticed the menu mentioned this spot was frequented by “THE STARS OF HOLLYWOOD, THE HIGH FLYING JET SET.” They listed several names, and had a cluster of black and white pictures of 50s -esque men and women. The names I did not recognize. I did not trust the menu, but I trusted The Young Man.

I looked out at the street snaking below us and saw a group of hijab clad young women laughing and bumping into one another. One of them placed her handbag over her head, resting the strap atop her head. The laughter escalated. I smiled.

The rooftop had communal seating, and two beautiful older women sat next to The Young Man. They were sirens, these women, speaking French and giggling as they spoke at The Young Man. The Young Man placated them, played his part in making them laugh with a funny face or two, but I could tell The Young Man was like a circus animal, simply doing tricks because the audience demanded it. He was cool, he was collected, but he was really desiring to speak to me, not these sirens. He never said a word to them.

The beauty of being a Young Man was one could choose to be Young in times when it suited you, and a Man in times when it suited you better.

One of the women reached across and tapped my shoulder. She said something in French with a smile and I responded in English. She raised her eyebrow.

“Oh, American? Handsome American.”

I let out a polite chuckle.

“Is it okay if you switch with your brother? My friend and I wish to smoke and we don’t want to blow in his face.”

I nodded in the affirmative, too lazy to correct them. The Young Man stood up and I stood up and we switched, but I stayed on the bench connected to him. The Woman tapped my shoulder again and laughed.

“You can sit here, more space. You’ll be more comfortable.”

I scooched over, not wanting to offend them. The Young Man made a silly face at me and I stifled my laughter. The women looked over and the Young Man went stoic.

The Young Man sensed I was ravenous and so kept the conversation to a minimum until after the first two courses were served and I was satiated. He hummed a tune to himself, a tune I could vaguely identify.

He kept humming it, until he eventually broke out into an aching crescendo. His voice was beautiful, the Young Man had talent.

“What song is that?”

“Why? Why?” It dawned on me on the second why.

I joined in and finished the line with him, “tell them that it’s HUMAN NATURE.” The women giggled and snapped with one hand, as they had their cigarettes in the other.

“So tell me, why are you here? In Tangier? Business? Pleasantries?”

“Well. I was supposed to be here with my girlfriend. But we broke up before the trip and I decided to come anyway since the money was spent.”

The women acted once again as the chorus, overhearing and rubbing my arm with a feigned frowny face. The Young Man meanwhile was staring straight ahead eating a piece of bread smeared with baba ganoush.

“You booked the trip a long time ago?”

“Uh sort of, like two months ago.”

“So this break up was sudden then?”

“Yea sort of. I mean it was in the making. It wasn’t out of the blue. But it just kind of erupted and then it all just snapped.”

“Bah. So complicated. I don’t think I am ever going to get married. Too much time-wasting. And money and going back and forth. I want to take care of myself first and my family.”

“I don’t know if you’re old enough to make that decision—but you’re not wrong that it is a lot of work. Even when you really love someone. Sometimes even more because you love them so much.”

He waved me off with a dismissive fork.

“You should focus on your work. What is it you do for work?”

“Right now? Nothing. I mean, I’m writing a novel. So a writer, I guess.”

“Nothing? Or a writer? It seems to me you should say what you are like it is a fact because it is.”

“A writer, then.”

“You must be a very good one. I don’t think writers make a lot of money usually.”

“Well that’s the thing. Doing writing full time is a new thing. I used to run my company, but things went south.”

“Ah. Your breakup makes more sense now. Either way, you made the right choice. This is the best path for you. Why be a scion, a captain of enterprise, when the most important thing is to be an artist. An artist or a soldier. Everything else is below.”

I took out my notebook and clicked my pen.

Why be a scion when you can be an artist or a soldier? (or both…WARRiOR POET) The most important duties in the world.

“What are you writing down?”

“What you just said, that’s very good.”

“You writers are so strange. You steal from the world and then talk to yourselves like little caged birds. You take scraps of words and scenes and make them into your own collage, like a bird putting together a message with crumbs of bread. See us singers, us musicians, at least we share it out loud.”

“A singer? You want to be a singer? You can definitely be a singer.”

“I am a singer. See, you should learn from me. I have no hesitation when I say that. I am a singer.”

He was right, I could learn from him. He sucked the bone clean of all its meat and tossed it on the tray.

“It is so funny when you think of a good book. It has so much life, it is like another world, a real living world. You come to be familiar with these characters and their problems. Then you get to the end and you look at the cover again and you realize the writer was just talking to himself the whole time, playing pretend.”

“Well that’s the fun part of writing. You kind of get to be an actor as well, at least the way I write. I inhabit, I get inside of the characters I write and just let them speak as if they were real.”

“Hmmm, this is interesting. Tell me more.”

I waited to finish chewing my own chicken, and took a big swig of the Moroccan tea.

“Amazing by the way,” I tapped the glass. The Young Man’s eyes widened and he nodded passionately. There were moments when he was so Young.

“Have you ever heard of Fernando Pessoa?”

“No I have not.”

“So he was this Portuguese writer that made up all these alter egos.”

“Altar ego?”

“Uh different personalities, different versions of yourself. He wrote all these books and stories using different names, I’m talking dozens and dozens of fake names. It’s like he made up all these other writers with their own distinct backgrounds and writing styles and wrote through them. He created a fake universe of creators creating in their own way.”

“Mmmmm yes, very interesting. Very twisted in the head. But interesting.” He spun his finger around in a loop by the side of his head.

We had dessert as the sun began to set. Downstairs we approached the payment desk and The Young Man began to haggle with the mustached waiter. He motioned again with an open palm, telling me to hand him 100 dirham. I had to give it to him. We both ate like kings and here we were only paying 10 dollars.

“I must head home now, my mother will be waiting for me. I will see you tomorrow, New York. Ah. Wait, how long are you here?”

“Six days.”

That night I walked home, buying a bottle of wine on the way and drank it and laid on the bed. I opened the window and looked down into the quiet side street. I saw a little girl in her blue pajamas rollerblading around, her singing echoing. She nearly knocked over several people coming home with groceries but no one minded. That made me happy. I began to laugh to myself.

Then I turned Michael on in my headphones. I listened to Human Nature and I cried. I cried and I cried, heavy cries that could not be held back. I heard him. I heard him, childlike in his curiosity but with a deep ache. Asking the question but deep down knowing he yearns for an answer that will not come. Stuck in the beauty and pain of wondering.

I cried so much I began to laugh again. Then I opened my notebook and clicked my pen.

‌The days are long. This is both good and bad, but mostly good.

I will be, only expression, no explanation

Wine drunk and nothing to do. Do nothing!

And the six days followed a similar pattern. On my own I did not desire to explore, as much as to find a stable routine. I added cigarettes to my routine the following day.

I would rise at eight o’ clock with a terrible headache, down a massive bottle of water and go to the bathroom. Then I would go back to bed and wake up at noon feeling better. I would spend the first two hours of the day on the terrace of my vacation home, doing yoga in my sweatpants and nothing else, then reading and writing. I’d eat fruits and bread by the handful.

At 2 o’ clock I would step out and invariably run into The Young Man running his scheme for the day. I’d ask him why he wasn’t at school and he would wave this off. He was in a wheelchair the second day.

“For sympathy you see.” I was impressed that he found a child sized wheelchair, although it was in rough condition. He would grow impatient with how slow it moved and would often use his feet. This defeated the purpose of his gimmick but I didn’t tell him as such. He wandered off to set up shop in an area frequented by tourists and I went my own way.

To pay The Little Cat a visit, bringing her and her siblings a can of food. I had to pull myself away from The Little Cat, otherwise she would gladly sleep on me all day. I’d head over to the main roundabout and sit on a bench there.

There was A Man In An Orange Vest, who sold whatever he was selling to everyone but me. Eventually he came over to me and offered it to me (a calling card) halfheartedly. Then There Was A Man With A Black Briefcase who spent all his time trying to sell to me (a small packet of napkins) and then only after he failed to wear me down, went to sell to everyone else. When I explained this scene to The Young Man he noted that the Orange Vest man was a classic Generalist, and the Black Briefcase Man a classic Societist. I nodded along.

Around four o’ clock, I would head for a meal at a nice Syrian cafe I found. It was very small, only four people could fit in there at once but it was mostly empty at that time. The Young Man would normally find me here and tag along, asking me questions about New York. On the third day he relayed to me how he planned to be an actor.

“After I make it big with the singing, of course. First the singing.”

“Why don’t you sing for money? Instead of your other schemes?”

This upset The Young Man greatly.

“Singing is a gift from God. I will not soil my gift for handouts on the street. I do not care for the money that comes from singing, only that people hear it and feel something.”

He made me swear to never suggest the commerciality of his singing talent. He then suggested I sing.

“I’m not really good at that.” We were standing outside, me covering my eyes with my hand as I put my sunglasses on.

The Young Man did a quick jig and bellow. His voice was beautiful, his performance full of restraint in the right way. Natural but controlled.

“You don’t need to be good. Like your writing, do you worry about it being good first? No, you first think about making people feel something and the rest follows.”

That night when I went home I found an instrumental online and recorded a little voice memo experimenting with melodies. It was nice. It made me feel something listening back to it.

The Young Man and I would normally catch the 5pm showing at the CiNEMA ALCAZAR. There were only two movies playing, some obscure French movies titled “Who Do I Belong To?” and “Thank You For Banking With Us.”

We watched them over and over, and the Young Man was delighted, absolutely delighted, as he ate ice cream and chips and laughed at all the wrong parts and cried at the right ones. It was only ever us two in the cinema. The movies made little sense but they were well acted and they were well shot and they seemed like the people who made them cared so they were good.

There was a much bigger theater with more movies where the main roundabout was but The Young Man explained it was run by Generalists. I interpreted that this meant he was a Societist.

“No.” He refused to elaborate.

“CiNEMA ALCAZAR is also run by Generalists, but they are not so forward with it. They respect the art.” I asked if all the cinemas were run by Generalists. He stopped to think.

“There is an open air cinema and a monthly cinema night on the beach. They are much more expensive. Those are run by Societists.”

He taught me over and over what was Generalist, and what was Societist.

The blue and yellow taxi, small but cheap. Generalist. The tan and red taxi, large and actually cheaper but because you had to wait for it to fill up and the fee was shared. Societist.

The soccer team was called Tangier FC. More championships in their history but a recent run of poor form. Generalist. The soccer team called Royal Tangier. The current champions but with little history. Societist.

The fruit stands that charged more for tropical fruits than for fruits. Generalist. The fruit stands that charged more for temperate fruits. Societists.

The bathrooms that were free to enter, but toilet paper cost one dirham. Generalist. The bathrooms that were two dirham to enter, but toilet paper was free. Societist.

It was starting to make sense to me, the way that my book was now feeling like it had been written precisely for me. I finished the book on the third day and the Young Man remarked that he was exhausted to see me starting one just as large on the fourth.

“And what is this one about? What did this writer have not enough space to say?”

“This one is the classic of classics. After like the Bible and the Quran. It’s about a man trying to go through hell, then purgatory, and finally to heaven. And he can’t skip ahead, he has to see all the suffering and rationalize it and then eventually redeem himself through love.”

The Young Man listened intently.

“This one, this one sounds very good.” He grabbed the book and fanned through the pages. I offered to give him the book if I finished it in time before I left but he waved me away.

He was happiest as a spider monkey, which came out at the most random of times, often in dangerous situations. We’d be walking along a balcony that rose up alongside a building and he’d hop on the railing and begin his act. One time he stole my notebook and dangled it over the edge. I laughed but was somewhat nervous. It had left my side.

“Give it back you little son of a bitch.”

The Young Man dropped the monkey act. He hopped down and handed me my book.

“Don’t say that about my mother.” I apologized and he walked off in a huff. He rejoined me later as I was leaving the liquor store, buying my daily bottle.

“Is this liquor store Generalist?” The owner looked like one, as far as I was learning to tell.

“This kind of store? This is the government my friend. Any Moroccan that goes in there is on a list. Plus that place makes too much money. Of course the government is going to have their hand in that.”

Damn. The Young Man was good.

I would stare out the window at night, letting the cigarette ashes fall to the street and think of her. I’d fill up my notebook all throughout the day. The Young Man (if he was present) would ask me what I had written. I would show it to him and he would tell me my handwriting was terrible and to read it to him.

‌I had to sever my closest attachments to refill myself and remind myself that my fulfillment matters first and foremost.

I haven’t been kneeling when I pray but I am again. Eyes open though. Eyes on it.

The tension between, Go Get It and God Will Make It Happen.

“This writing, it seems good for you but also like it is very tiring for you.” The Young Man was observant. Observant and incisive.

I kept having the same dream over and over. It played the same every time. I could now describe how it felt more acutely. It felt like my dick was an old worn out pacifier and her pussy was quicksand. I explained this dream to The Young Man, without the sex part, only implying a cuddling or hugging.

“Mmmmm yes. This is a standard dream.”

“Standard for who?”

“Standard for Bernard.”

“Bernard who?”

“He was a famous Moroccan. I believe actually French born but then he moved to Morocco. This was before our time you understand. I believe that famous Frood or however you call him stole many of his ideas. Anyways, he wrote a long book interpreting dreams. For you to awake in your dreams over and over, it means you are simply catching up to a new reality, a new timeline you are in.”

“Bernard what?” This explanation intrigued me and I wanted to go to the source. The Young Man waved me off. I rarely saw the Young Man after sunset, when he would head to the final prayer of the day.

On the evening of the fourth day I started drinking a little early and made it to a spot on the grass I had never been before. Shades off, smoke in hand, laying in the sun, with my grandma paying a visit. She was fond of butterflies and always told us she would come back as one. So whenever I saw a butterfly, I knew she was coming to spend time with me. The Young Man appeared over me like a shadow. He had on a fake cast.

“Ah, you are drunk already.”

I smiled and nodded.

“I bet you want to talk to women, no?” I realized this was his first time seeing me drunk.

“Why do you say that?”

“Well I have never been drunk. My father would hit me if he saw me drinking. But it seems that when men are drunk this is what they want. To talk to women.”

“Maybe. I don’t know if I do. I mean sure, why not?” I really didn’t know, and the more I thought about it, I actually didn’t.

“Well, that would be difficult. Moroccan girls are not very open to talking to strangers you know. Or even their own men. Maybe you have better luck with the tourist girls, but they are so afraid of Moroccan men I think it makes them afraid of all men while they are here. So you must instead deal with me. The Young Man.” He helped me up and we walked to the roundabout to people watch. I was practicing my understanding of Generalist and Societists but still couldn’t get my identification quite right. The Young Man would laugh as my guesses would be off.

At noon on the fifth day (I got out earlier to enjoy the final full day), I asked the Young Man to take me to a trinket shop to buy gifts for my parents.

“They haven’t heard from me in two weeks.”

“You’ve only been here five days.”

I waved him off. He laughed and flicked my leg.

I picked out two identical chunky mugs for them. I saw a black and white mosaic box in the window and inquired as to the price. The Young Man raised his eyebrow. The Young Man was on to me. He helped me negotiate and then when we walked outside, he asked what the box was for.

“It’s a very small box you know.”

“I know, that’s why I like it. It’s for her.”

By this point he knew who her was without further explanation.

“I don’t understand you. You tell me you are better off without her. But yet you still think about her, you buy her gifts, you write about her. You still love her?”

“I mean of course I still love her, I still care about her. My love for her doesn’t end with my possession of her. She is still a beautiful soul whether we are attached or not.”

The Young Man contemplated this seriously as well, walking with his hands behind his back.

“I feel this way about God. That he does not have to be mine and only mine and I still love him intensely.”

I nodded along. This was a good way to think about love.

“The box is small. But it is hers, all hers. Anything she puts in it will be kept safe. Because it is the box I give her. And there is not much you can keep safe so the box must be small. But the box will keep whatever is inside of it safe, that is for sure.”

The Young Man looked me in the eye and nodded in approval.

We parted ways as he had his midday prayer to attend. I hit the bottle even earlier, and found myself eating an ice cream by the steps to my home.

“Mmmm this is fucking amazing.” I murmured to myself. My beard was surely covered in ice cream and this only made things better.

Suddenly I heard a commotion. I could hear The Young Man’s voice ringing out in anger, then in despair. A gruffer sounding voice taunted him.

I stood up to peer around the corner into the bigger square but the action was happening beyond my line of sight. I walked closer and came upon the Young Man running my way. He looked awfully young, crying his eyes out. I sat with him until he calmed down.

“It is Circo. He stole the money I made today. Said I owed him for protection. I was going to give that money to my parents, to help them.”

“Circo?”

“Yes, Circo. He is a bully. He thinks because he is half Italian he is better than everyone. He intimidates all the men here and steals and is evil.”

“I mean anyone that would steal from a...” I trailed off as I remembered the Young Man didn’t like to be referred to as a kid.

“Anyone that steals is evil.”

“Oh that is not the worst of it.”

The Young Man quivered.

“He kills. He kills animals, New York.”

“What?”

“Yes. He likes to put pins in food he leaves out for the cats and the dogs. I’ve seen him kick them or beat them. He is sick.”

My stomach flipped as I thought of The Little Cat. I didn’t know if Circo’s territory extended there but the possibility made me sick.

“Well, listen. Do you want me to give you cash? How much did he take?”

The Young Man stood up and punched me with his little fists on the shoulder.

“Owww, owww. What the hell are you doing?”

He ran off crying. The Young Man was gone.

I spent the rest of the day drinking heavier and heavier. Smoking and smoking. This Circo fellow, I think I knew what he looked like. He had been one of the first ones to accost me with a fake friendliness on my first day. Whenever I passed him by he was smoking hash and had dark eyes, empty eyes, and was surrounded by a crowd of lackeys. They had on tracksuits and flip flops, and sold cigarette packs.

I kept drinking but I knew I was delaying the inevitable. I had the windows open but the heat was unbearable because the heat was in my head. It felt good to be angry however. Being sad was exhausting. It was self pitying. But anger, anger was unfamiliar to me and it felt powerful.

As the sun began to set, I smoked my final cigarette and flicked the butt down to the street. I went to find Circo.

Circo was where he always was. The good for nothing animal killer. The evil bully. No one liked him, those who were with him were simply afraid of him. He knew this and it made him worse inside and he brought it all out, and made it everyone else’s problem how much he hated himself.

“Hello friend. You need hashish?” He greeted me with open arms.

I pushed him, and his posse looked on in shock.

“Hey brother, what is your problem? Did I do something to offend you?”

“Not me. My friend, the Young Man. So yes, me.”

Circo laughed once he understood. He took a puff of his cigarette and put it out underneath his flip flop. He was not tall and he was skinny, skinnier than me, but his face was nasty, with a big scar, and most importantly his eyes had nothing but darkness in them. He had many men with him. And nothing to live for.

“The Young Man? You mean the reject? His own parents don’t even love him. He’s a dirty little beggar, and a gay one that sings like a girl.”

“Go fuck yourself you pussy.” I felt amazing.

“Why do you care so much about him?”

“Oh it’s not just him. I know about how you’re a sick fuck and you like to torture the animals around here.” I was spitting and slurring my words.

Circo had no reply for this, only a smile and then a spit towards my feet.

I threw the first punch. I got him good, a couple of times. But I was no match for the flurry, the onslaught of his gang. I imagine the fact that I was an American citizen saved them from really giving it to me, and no doubt some onlookers that stepped in.

I remembered very little, only that I came to in an unfamiliar (but nice) bathroom, where my head was pounding and I was throwing up in the toilet. I felt in pain all over and so swollen. I wiped my mouth and washed my face and hands. I looked in the mirror. Holy shit. I was unrecognizable. My clothes were caked in blood, some my own, some surely others. I had gauze on part of my face. I felt incredible inside, despite my external discomfort.

I limped outside and was greeted by a young woman in a hijab sitting on a chair. She was reading a book, a French translation of the one I had just read.

“Oh you need to lie down, you cannot be moving around.” She put her book down and made me lie down on the couch. She brought me and ice pack and water.

“Who are you?” She laughed.

“I am The Young Lady.”

“Generalist or Societist?” She had a puzzled look on her face as I briefly lost consciousness.

“Your friend The Young Man brought you here. You were in very bad shape. He knows I am studying to be a doctor so he thought I could help. I’ve done my best to clean you up, but you probably should go to a hospital tomorrow.”

I felt around. Seemed like no broken bones at least.

“You are lucky they didn’t stab you.”

It hurt to talk so I stayed quiet and stared ahead.

She returned to her chair and picked up her book.

“Thank you.” I croaked out.

“Oh, it was nothing, nothing really. Believe me, you should be thanking your friend. He apparently simulated a police siren and that sent your attackers running.”

The Young Man was magic. The Young Man was genius. The Young Man was too Young to be this Man.

She fidgeted with her pages, not turning them.

“I’m sure he will be back soon. He said he had to resolve something and he would be back.”

I nodded and winced at the pain.

“Yes, it’s best if you stay as still as possible.”

I floated in and out of sleep.

“I’m sorry if I am uncomfortable. I just am not normally alone with a man who isn’t my family. If my parents were home it would be okay, but this feels all strange to me. Not that you are strange. I mean you are a stranger. But yes this is not normal for me. I am sure you are nice though. The Young Man had many good things to say about you. He sees you as a brother.”

“That’s a good book you’re reading.”

“Oh, this? Yes. It gets a little confusing in the middle but it picks up again.”

Ah. Okay. Not just me. Never just you.

“Yes.”

“The Young Man tells me you are a writer. And from New York. That is like from a movie.”

“Definitely a writer, not a fighter.” I tried to let out a chuckle but it became more of a cough. She humored me and smiled.

“What about you? You like being a doctor?”

“Me? Yes, yes I love the idea of it. I mean not just the idea, I love it. It is hard though.”

“Very.”

“But I don’t know. It seems like there’s not a lot of freedom in it. Not the way being a writer seems like.”

“Freedom?”

“As in, space to think freely. To explore. I am not even sure what it is I am looking for but it seems like there is something to find, something that medicine won’t let me.”

“Well, you have the rest of your life to do that. You don’t need to be a writer or an artist full time to do that.”

“I suppose. But you read these books, and you watch movies, and listen to music, and you listen to people like the Young Man or even the way you talk and you sense that at least the artists are closer than the rest of us. No matter how much they suffer.”

I had no notes on that.

“Say, how long have you known the Young Man?”

“Mmmm, since he was dropped off. He was always social, very social, even when he was smaller. Like 2 years I think.”

“What do you mean dropped off? For boarding school? Speaking of, how come he doesn’t go to school. He always does this when I ask him anything serious. Did the same when I asked him where he lives, what his parents do.”

I pantomimed his wave and she laughed. She pantomimed his eyebrow raise and I laughed. The Young Man was an icon.

“Boarding school? I mean, there are a few women at the mosque who have tried to get him signed up for the free school by the park, and even one family that offered to take him in, but The Young Man resists any attempt to fit into the system, to play by rules.”

“Take him in?”

“Yes. The Young Man is an orphan.”

“A what? He’s always talking about his family.”

“Oh yes, he knew his family until he was 8. He was raised by them. But apparently something happened and they could not afford to raise him anymore. So they dropped him off here with his uncle. Except his uncle’s wife was a horrible lady, and his uncle died in a car accident and the aunt moved away and so the Young Man was on his own within a couple of months.”

My head was spinning. This hurt more than the fight.

“There’s no way. He talks about them so realistically, like they’re who he hangs out with everyday.”

“Yes. It is sad. It is his way to cope. He never wants for anything. He is always crafty as I’m sure you know, in getting what he needs and if ever truly needed something, everyone is quick to provide it for him. He sleeps in a little nook by the mosque that is well insulated. Again, people have offered to take him in but he is too proud.”

The pieces started coming together.

“Tell me, is it also a lie that he reads?”

“Yes, of course. He frequents the library and he will ask the librarian to tell him summaries of stories, but no he does not read. He sings though, amazingly you know. He is smart, just not very learned.”

I felt around and realized my notebook was not in my back jean pocket.

“Wait, my notebook? Did someone find it?” The Young Woman shook her head with wide eyes.

The Young Man walked in. He had a bruise of his own on his head.

“You are very lucky my brother. Very lucky and very stupid. Come here.” He ran up to me and squeezed me hard. I did not mind that it hurt a great deal. The tears welled up in my eyes. I felt his own fall on my head.

He pulled out my notebook from his own pocket and smiled.

I held it close to my heart when he handed it to me and gave him a big kiss on the forehead.

“That’s a lovely burgundy,” said the Young Woman.

I clicked the pen and wrote.

No grand mysteries no more, no confusion over feelings. The emotions flow, no more looking for signs or reasons, for only enjoying the dreams, the ideas of things. At peace, be, be be! Chase pleasure and fulfillment (and live with the duality of that), knowing you are all the love and energy you need—but the beauty (and the pain) comes in sharing, in connecting.

The next day I woke up feeling everything. Inside and out. But I felt I had gone wrong in my own way, which was preferable than going right in someone else’s.

I could walk and do everything just fine, gingerly and with pain, but nothing felt critical. I packed my bag and headed for the door. I knew The Young Man would be out there.

He was looking sharp as ever in a little zoot suit. Riddled with holes but he made it sharp.

We sat there wordlessly for some time.

“How come you kept pretending you knew how to read?” I would not call him out on his other lie, but I had to call him out on something.

“Well you were so big into it, it would make me silly if I didn’t read.”

“I don’t care if you don’t read. You’re so freaking smart without it. I would want you to learn because you would enjoy it though. I swear. It’s better than a movie. To me at least.”

“Why is that?”

“Because it is more intimate. Writing is done by someone all by themselves. It is the closest thing we have to a human in art form. It is so private, so raw.”

“You writers. So serious about yourselves.”

“You’re damn right I’m a writer.” The Young Man gave me a high five.

“I wish you could come visit New York.”

“Bah. I will not visit. They will beg me to come and only then will I. Once I’m older of course and my father cannot stop me from going. My mother will come with me though, she always wanted to visit.”

I pulled The Young Man in close to me, resting his head on my side. He felt so Young.

“But you, New York, I will see you on the red carpet soon.”

“Red carpet? I told you I’m a writer.”

“And so? It is about time we have a writer star. Again, like we used to. This would be good for the world. Not just the singers and the actors and the models and the businessmen in the spotlight. But someone who knows how to think by themselves and for themselves. A writer. You can be that. You are that.” The Young Man poked me in the chest.

I felt the tears streaming down.

“And I will learn to read for you, only you, do not worry. Your first book will be my first read. I will be waiting here, understanding you through your books. And once you have your big breakup, you and your starlet part ways, you fly back here to Tangier and I will build you back up again. No more fights this time though.”

I wiped my tears and squeezed him again. He squeezed me back strong, like a Man. He nestled his head into my chest, like a Man. He cried too, like a Man. We were both Young Men.

“Say, you never answered me. Are you a Generalist or a Societist?”

He raised his eyebrow and put his hand under his chin in an exaggerated thinkers pose. Then he rose suddenly.

“Oh, please. I am The Young Man. I have no label. I only follow myself. And God.”

I began to tickle him. We said goodbye when I got in the taxi, right after he negotiated the price down for me.

He had asked me if I wanted to go say goodbye to The Little Cat but I couldn’t do that, no way. He pledged to take care of the Little Cat and all the Little Cats, and to stay away from Circo. To outsmart him. These promises were the only thing holding me together. I put my bag in the taxi, then turned around. He was Young again, and hardened. He simply reached his hand out to shake mine.

“Safe travels, brother.” I was Young, very Young and I could barely get a word out.

I saw him standing there, at attention as we drove off.

The tears subsided on the drive over, my head pressed against the glass.

I made it to the runway before they restarted. I opened my notebook to write something down. The pen clicked but the words didn’t come out. That didn’t devastate me, not like it had in the past. The words always came out, in their own time.

The seashell fell out of the pocket.

Someone stepped on it before I managed to grab it. Half of it was in tiny pieces, halfway to dust. It blew away. The other half was still intact. It was tinier than ever. It could fit perfectly in the little box. But I put it back in the notebook. It could fall out again, in its own time. Something else would go in the little box.

And the notebook would always be full, always by my side.

iNSPiRATiON & PROCESS

Seven minute video & more

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Only fair I start with the piece of fiction I re-read the most. Since I first picked it up in April of 2024, I’ve read HOLLYWOOD cover to cover nine times. Often in one sitting.

That doesn’t count the amount of times I’ve picked it up and thumbed through a couple of chapters. This book is the reason my screentime is so low.

WHY i CONNECT

This book turns me into a single brain cell—I cannot help but laugh all throughout. The obnoxious caveman type laugh. Reading this book in public results in a lot of dirty stares for me.

• If you’ve ever felt like an outsider, you’ll enjoy this book.

• If you’re a writer/creative trying to make it, you’ll enjoy this book.

• If you’re someone who’s tasted success only to realize how absurd the gatekeepers and stars you once idolized really are, then you’ll enjoy this book.

• If you’ve ever struggled to bring your vision to life and have had to lean on your friends & loved ones in the process, you’ll enjoy this book.

• If you’re interested in Hollywood, you’ll enjoy this book.

• If a significant other has softened you, you’ll enjoy this book.

• If you think you’re the only sane person in most rooms, you’ll enjoy this book.

• If you think everyone takes themselves way too seriously, you’ll enjoy this book.

• If you hate lawyers and people who stick their hand in the take without doing any of the work, you’ll enjoy this book.

If you’ve ever thought Bukowski to be too gross, crude, or a downright DiSGUSTiNG PiG...I’m here to tell you to give him a chance. He is all of these things, but at the twilight of his career—he is softer, he is wiser, he is vulnerable.

He is (finally) entertaining without being an asshole. He is proof that even the most reprehensible of characters can be saved. There’s always time.

BACKGROUND + SUMMARY

Bukowski has been labeled appropriately throughout his career:

1. The poet laureate of the lowlives

2. The prophet of the unemployed

3. The enfant terrible of the Meat School poets

He wrote a column in an underground newspaper titled NOTES FROM A DiRTY OLD MAN. He spent most of his life working odd jobs, then a stint at the postal office, before dedicating himself at the age of 49 to being a starving artist.

All throughout his poetry, stories, and novels—he glamorizes SELF DESTRUCTiON, ALCOHOLiSM, SELF PiTY, POVERTY and REJECTiON. In his unapologetic commitment to living the LOW LiFE, he has given us a front row glimpse of the underbelly of society. Those who live at the fringes rarely get to be witnessed and exalted. Bukowski knew no other artistic mandate.

Bukowski is PROBLEMATiC. No asterisk there to couch it. What he wrote was just as alarming in its time as it is now.

To understand why HOLLYWOOD hits so hard, you need the backdrop. No REDEMPTiON without SiN.

The main character in Bukowski’s books is called Henry Chinaski. Henry Chinaski is simply Charles Bukowski with a thin veneer of fictionalization.

Chinaski engages in:

• Sexual Coercion

• Misogyny

• Homophobia

• Racism

• Emotional Abuse

• Drug Addiction

He is DAMAGED and MORALLY COMPROMiSED. He is aware of this. Yet he indulges in his ugly behaviors and celebrates them. In a detached, humorous tone.

If you read his earlier works, which are more popular, you will find these themes abundantly. HAM ON RYE, POST OFFICE, WOMEN to name a few. Chronicling his life from his childhood in the 20s to his career taking off in the 70s.

It is in Bukowski’s most successful era that we get HOLLYWOOD. HOLLYWOOD is a book about Bukowski writing a movie.

In the early 1980s, Barbet Schroeder commissioned him to write a screenplay. That screenplay would be produced into the 1987 film BARFLY, starring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway.

BARFLY is a slice of Bukowski’s life as a wandering alcoholic poet. Stumbling in and out of bars. Picking fights just to feel something.

It spotlights his first serious relationship, with a cynical woman named Jane. The two are downtrodden MiSANTHROPHES. Together, they create flashes of tenderness amidst their drunken haze.

BARFLY is Bukowski mythologizing his early chaos and doomed love.

HOLLYWOOD is about Bukowski’s process in writing the screenplay. Bukowski is older, calmer, and less destructive in this era of his life. Largely because he is now married to a wonderful, supportive wife named Linda.

He offers a behind the curtain look at the entertainment industry. He does so with the same outsider voice he has always employed, using it to hilariously expose the vanity and insanity that is moviemaking.

In HOLLYWOOD, Bukowski is no longer contentious ANTi-HERO—he is a writer who is finally being taken seriously after decades of being mocked and ignored.

It feels like a ViCTORY LAP, and the book is laced with passages that show us Bukowski at his kindest. He muses on his age. He speaks regretfully of his youth. He openly treasures his LOViNG MARRiAGE. He sprinkles in passages that contain mystical wisdom, like little oases amidst the desert of Hollywood EGOTiSM.

You get the sense that Bukowski is (for once), stepping outside of the DEFENSiVE MECHANiSM that is the Chinaski alter ego and seeing himself for who he truly is. He is a late career protagonist finally admitting to himself that he seeks peace, dignity, and connection. There is much less bravado. More SORROW and HONESTY.

He dismantles the legend that he himself built up.

A task all of us creatives put off. To our own pain and pleasure.

The plot arc is as follows (mostly spoiler free, but it’s not the kind of book where spoilers matter):

1. Chinaski’s phone is ringing off the hook with literary plaudits, big bank rolling in, and the opportunity to be part of the big screen

2. He circles around writing the screenplay, as it daunts him to translate his style to a different medium—but finally decides to tackle it with the same directness and flair that has defined his style

3. The journey of transforming his pages to an actual release is comically difficult—this is where most of the book’s charm lies

4. Chinaski takes us along for the ride of exposing the Hollywood ecosystem—all the predatory and self serving lawyers, agents, financiers, talents and bureaucrats

5. He faces tough decisions, primarily in deciding whether or not to compromise his artistic vision for the commercial success

6. His domestic life with Linda grounds him despite all the ups and downs of his newfound fame

7. Ultimately, the movie does get made and Chinaski is satisfied with how it captures his life as a misfit

IF YOU LiKE

HOLLYWOOD reminds me of one of my favorite movies, CARLiTO’S WAY.