A Gallery of Capitulation

I’ve encountered so many beardless geldings who were exactly alike in nearly every conceivable way,
who measure their entire numeric existence in quantities of PTO-hours and sick days, the bereft black
       numbers tattooed on their stale arms—
instructed to hoist their own fusty carcasses through callous doorways to their respective dwellings,
       reeking of anxiety and death, and trailing paper documents with each plodding crawl,
following which they clog their guts sore with humid whatever from the crusty ovens throwing heat all
       through their cramped accommodations,
dump sideways, and falter into clammy bathtubs, and then attempt to sleep in their lumpy lopsided beds,
       too warm beneath the sheets yet too cool without their strangling embrace—
day in and day out, dreary sunrise to weary sunset,
always taking orders and signing their lives away, allowing themselves to become bitter over the
       monotonous economic sharia to which they willingly submit,
until the moment they die, imparting their tedious burden to their compliant offspring.

Kristopher “Catfish” David Cooley is always hungry, always ravenous, always ready to go. North Carolina is the state that stole his heart, and he feels at home in the country and the city alike. A grad-school dropout who then taught English to Macao-kids in exchange for chinchilla hay, he’s now a full-time Bigfoot hunter (no luck yet) and budding writer.

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