Munch III by Kyle Hemmings

A war of stray bullets is raging. Toxic rats sneak into our homes, draw blood from the deepest well of our sleep. Avenue D is being overtaken by radioactive clowns. Avenue C can go either way. Ghosts are driven under the streets. In dumpsters, weeds grow out of crumpled Starbucks cups. In a loft, in a space of air on loan, I nurse a cat back to life, hoping this will get me closer to Buddha, while my sleep-deprived roommate, Munch, texts a supplier of pills that turn you virtual, a smiling zombie with no bite. And although Munch always wants more, he is getting skinnier and skinner, flesh on wire hangers, and the pills do nothing but keep his weight impossibly down. Until he evaporates in his sleep. Until I dream of green eyes and a mystical lover who can spin me. Until a distant voice in the middle of the night, perhaps across town, calls out that we have won, that ghosts, reformed as humans, are ascending subway stairs. That we no longer have anything to fear. That we need to learn to love again.

Kyle Hemmings lives and works in New Jersey. He has been published in Elimae, Smokelong Quarterly, This Zine Will Change Your Life, Blaze Vox, Matchbook, and elsewhere. His latest collection of poetry/prose is Future Wars, from Another New Calligraphy. He loves 50s Sci-Fi movies, manga comics, and pre-punk garage bands of the 60s.