M C Hyland

If you’ve run out of things to say you may need better ideas. Having left the city in a wheeled conveyance. It was one of several periods in a life largely ruled by hand-me-down leopard print. Lacking the whirl and …

I believed I had reasons aside from nostalgia. Kept it cunningly concealed. Changing the water in which the beans are soaking. Just add salt. Waking to the sound of the police chopper. How did you learn to believe you would …

We thought we could crystallize caring. Watching the umbrellas going by in the street. Sarah calls this studio time although all we’re really doing is thinking and making notes. I was worried about what I could no longer notice. All …

Record sleeves warped and covered in mold. Train train ferry to the small hotel. How to step away from your life and seamlessly reenter. Stay up all night before the flight. What your body does and what you will. I …

The past’s rage as the break approaches. Because of my gender I was playing the role of material life. I guess I wanted a way into myself. New shoes and new eyes. Ladies and gentlemen please be patient. IT’S NOT …

Some morning glories still hanging on past Thanksgiving. I couldn’t tell if the book was a fascist fantasy or a paranoid fantasy. Omnidirectional violence. You can’t just Urban Dictionary it. All the Christmas bulbs swaying on their fishing lines. Always …

Pushed with both hands against the promised land. Who approached the cathedral. I read the essay on my phone. Wiping tears away with less & less subtlety. Waiting for the moment the heat shuts off at 6. The speculative nature …

The year when all I read about was what it would take for the Gulf Stream to shut down. You know how the day will end if the computer isn’t off by eleven. Becoming an ambassador of efficiency techniques. Holding …

Googled the difference between description and naming. Performing speech acts alone and in pajamas. What kinds of plurals live in this weather. Slightly slimy feeling of the skin while moving through the city summer. I cleared a space for rhetoric. …

Let me call you when I’m off work. The shirtless man sleeping on the church steps. The scar running laterally up his belly. Wanting the little spaces of freedom inside an absolute structure that flows between time and space. Your …

We practiced wiping sweat from our necks. Every song reminds you of a person you once knew. Then the heat kicked on with much hissing and clangor. I had crafted a parasitic practice that transformed my paid labor into post-market …

Picnicked near the Don’t Insult The Witch sign. Broke the stove again. You learn a thing in one place and write it down in another. Wanting to get out into the world. Tight shoe or pregnancy. Here you are humming …