by Zero Laforga
when i die, i don’t want to be anyone else’s problem, not like the just dead horse in a forklift i saw today, on my run out in colma, halfway to the serbian cemetery, where no one there has made it past fifty and it feels suspicious that no one has ever reflected on the apparently short lives of serbians in san francisco, but anyways, the horse’s legs stuck straight out, the body so newly stiff it made me wonder if they just ran out of gas carrying the damn thing over or thought it belonged better in the pet cemetery but they didn’t have the space, and maybe they’re waiting on that one guy they know to pull a deal on its cremation since i think it’s technically illegal to do that to a horse but god i don’t know how you’d get rid of a thing so big, i’ve never had to personally get rid of a human body, but i feel like it’s easier than some horse, but can you imagine my body, like that, i can hardly look at my face in the mirror as it is, i don’t need anyone to look at my lifeless face, so i guess they have to burn my body to a crisp and leave it at that and really, no offense to you claudia, but when i die, i don’t need my ashes to be turned into a tree or become a coral reef or a preserved skin suit or a star you can’t even see from the roof of the house because really don’t we all end up in the same place as the worms or the gophers or like shakespeare says i think, that the fish who feeds the pheasant who feeds the king ends up feeding the — doesn’t matter, i just can’t become my father, a mess on the beach spilling out of a yellow sand pail that surely wasn’t full of human remains, but i think everyone else on the beach knew because my wife kept yelling at me to have more decorum, but god, can’t you just let a man not deal with the death of his father, but, oh lorna, i’m sorry that your cat’s gotta get e-u-t-h-a-n— you know what i’m saying, but i guess death just won’t stop staring us in the face, that greedy rat bastard.
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01/13 • Edward Thomas-Herrera
01/20 • Zero Laforga
01/27 • Jack Bedell
02/03 • TBD
02/10 • Gaurav Bhalla
02/17 • Callie Dean
02/24 • TBD