Exposing your penis to lots of men.

Is how it should be described. Instead, it’s euphemistically described as a Korean spa.

After the long week, we’ll go at night. Sit, chill, relax

My friend says. The week is over. Tonight is that night.

We’re shuffled into a locker room. I place my shoes into a cubby. We then enter a second locker room with there’s wall-to-wall oak paneled doors. Rows of identical lockers. The Minotaur’s layer.

Flashes of flesh run beside and across and away from me. I dart my eyes to avoid their skin and focus on the first task: get naked.

The shirt. The pants. The socks. The boxer briefs. And the watch. Everything. Must. Go. I peek around the corner–my friends are all in the spa.

I walk through the coverage of lockers and approach the thoroughfare of glistening naked bodies. Some are pitter-pattering their wet feet standing in line. I recall last-minute...

Honey, check it out, you got me mesmerized

With your black hair and your fat-ass thighs

Let me tell you about a girl I met at the bar,
I was strolling for drinks–didn’t get too far.
Before I could think, she had me trapped.
Her tractor beam on, I’m already en route.

Hi, I squeeked.
She didn’t mind.
She likes my coyness? Or probably her wine.

Let me clarify, this story ain’t about me,
instead about what makes my hormones say oui-oui.
The convo was so-so, not the best of the night,
but her heavenly body could turn tap-water into Sprite.

A lovely goddess from the divine,
her curves moved in and out like the waves of sine.
So tempting even a saint would sin.
What I would do for the lamp of Aladdin.

Her lips blood orange with a vamp’s smile,
yet unassuming with simple style.
Sitting cross-legged in a brown pencil skirt,
a slice of cleavage hiding behind her v-neck shirt.

Stretch...

Lions don’t apologize for being lions.

I’m a lion. I don’t apologize to anybody.

winners focus on winning and losers focus on winners.

I sat atop the new longboard, drifting. The abysmal water swelled beneath. Ogreish waves stood in the distance– first jogging, then racing towards me. Contemptuous clouds brooded while marbles of rain cracked the water’s uneven surface. And the sea popped like cooking oil on an iron skillet.

It was Sunday morning. My first time.

Paddling again, I turned to look at the shoreline– a girl playing fetch with her dog. How oblivous she looked, laughing. I wish I was there. I wish I was that dog. I wish I was anywhere but here– sitting on this piece of plastic and foam. In the ocean. In the center of nothing. Just me and water and sky.

Bodhi would have been at ease. The 50 year storm makes an unwelcome return.

I took nature’s beating–waterboarding with a different meaning. Rolled and tumbeled in the Pacific’s Maytag dryer.

And when I returned to the car, I took pause. My heart was on...

Kla-chenk, kla-chenk.

A Technicolor light show parades on my face.

Digitized quarter tones run amok out of the side-stereo.

Gloop-gloop-gloop!

I pick my character. “It’s on, chump,” I say with murderous intent. An instinctual neurotransmitter rushes past the dam of my frontal lobe. It commands: destroy.

The computerized monolith towers above. A shadow is cast in the dusk of the arcade.

I throttle the joystick then pull back to create a reverberation upon release.

I taunt the machine.

The machine chortles, “bz-rrink, kump!”

I’m new to this game, but not new to games. The machine knows my weakness–quarters. I’m all out. So I’ll have to make this count.

The method is simple. Do what my automated adversary can’t. Take chances. Risk death.

My pixelated avatar manifests on the screen and I’m off sprinting. Dodging and bouncing. Killing and thrilling.

Attendance just spiked...

Shortly after waking, I found my button-up shirt and canvas shoes stained with dried pink blood.

Goddamit.

I’ll spend the next 30 minutes researching Google for home remedies then the hour afterwards scrubbing the spots with white vinegar and canned baking soda.

Before I start, I recall how I spent my night.

Fluffy cherry-flavored cotton candy.

You know, you’re looking at it wrong, that sky thing

Once there was only dark

If you ask me, the light’s winning.

Eskenderia is

Smoldering. Broiling. The weather report says it’s 87 degrees Fahrenheit. The cab driver says it’s 90% humidity. I don’t speak. It’s too hot to move. Unthinkably hot to think. My armpits are Bunsen burners. And my underwear is bayou boggy.

It’s Stinking. Whiffy. One breath and my senses are overcome by the aroma of drying saltwater fish, virile body odor, and simmering trash. 87 degrees simmering.

There’s no gloss in this town. Everything sweats. Panting and grinding and hustling.

It’s life. Not the life in that greeting card. Nor the life in that film poster. But the one that sustains and nourishes. The one that’s grimy, grungy, and gurgling.

The life with no excuses and lots of regret.

It’s the wrinkles on my knuckles.

The sweat on my brow.

Eskendria is.

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