happy_again raze a tennis player called a medical timeout in the middle of a match. the court was the milk-white floor of a department store. her supposed savior was the woman who cauterized the skin_tags on my neck two years ago without telling me she was going to do it. without saying a word about the itching and the temporary disfigurement that would follow. she was more interested in me than the athlete she was supposed to treat. we walked out into the cold and talked about the snare misguided longing sets for you. how you can step in that shit and lose a foot. or worse. we climbed into an suv parked at the side of the road. my dad was in the driver's seat. johnny cash was on the radio, slouching into some soft shuffle like a dire straits song that lost its way in the decade of my birth. with a choir behind him, he sang, "i'll never be happy again," the first word a stretched-out sigh that walked up half an octave to get where it wanted to be. and i thought, there's a word that's just like me. 231026 what's it to you? who go blather from