Ralph Pullins

I write things without knowing what I am supposed to do when they are done.  when I finished the first draft of Antiartists, I literally Googled "I finished my novel. What do I do now?" If I feel compelled to write for whatever reason, I always write first and figure out what to do with it after.  Sometimes these strange orphans find a home, sometimes they just wait until they come of age and then go out into the world alone.  This is one of the latter.  I don't remember when or why I wrote it, but I think it is beautiful and thought I would share it since it never got adopted.  It looks like a poem, and it is, but it is also a story. The Impossible Distance Off the late shift, walking and staring up at the stars, the impossible distance Between me and them, them and each other The impossible distance… I worked, and I didn't speak to another person It is the nature of the job, a simple thing soon to be automated Soon I will be redundant. At home

In all likelihood, I don't remember you. I can't remember your name or your face.  Your name tag, your prompting, your cues, all of it will mean nothing to me, and I'm sorry. I'm not really sorry; I only have so much room in here and frankly you didn't make the cut.  I need the space, you see, for the original two hundred fifty Pokemon, the Indigo League Pokemon, and the only real Pokemon if you ask me, and holy shit I can't believe I remember the Indigo League and I can't remember my own phone number or who I walked into prom with.  I was nominated for Prom King, I know that, and I know I didn't win.  I was runner up, second place, silver medal, the first loser.  I walked in with some girl, not my prom date , but my counterpart on the prom court that was nominated as well, and I swear I can't remember her name or her face. Whoever she was, she didn't win, either. I was obviously not Prom King material.  Our class may have had a pretty progre

Sometimes when you look in the mirror you see some things you don't like.  You see wrinkles, yes, and grey hair, sure, but that's okay, that's just what happens if you don't die young, you get older, and that just fine, but there is other stuff there, stuff that hides behind the eyes, things you hate, that meek child part of you, that broken fool part of you , that sad pathetic needy part of you, it is all there if you look close enough, there hiding behind your eyes. So what you do is, you take all the parts of yourself that you hate, all the weaknesses and failures, you take those things and you lock them away, somewhere deep, somewhere dark.  All the times you failed, when you should have spoken up but didn't, when someone needed you and you didn't show up, when you could have easily given but chose not to, you reach inside and pull it out of you and you toss it down the stairs.   What you do is, you look at all the worst parts of the people you