Liam Strong

Economy Psalm One day the Leaders decided, No more homes. An attic would be good enough, with plank floors engineered to creak at random, and windows that make use of source-light, the sun-streaks streaming in to brighten floating dust and add a little ambience. Over there—an armchair or rocker.

Notes on a School Shooting I am not an open wound. I am four hundred miles and two thousand days removed, the evidence of a path crossed gathering dust in my parents’ office drawer. I am pacing the stalls at a Christmas market; I am drifting in the dairy aisle; I am buying wrapping paper; I am walking the dog. I am, I am, I am, I am—the tense a gross privilege, an intact adulthood unearned—I mutter it until it sounds wrong, until it’s all I’ve ever heard.

it’s a recurring dream. a weekend warrior tour or a debut show, hard to tell. regardless, it’s recurring wishful dreaming, i.e., in which all my friends are there, in which we packed the venue out, elbow-to-tattooed-elbow. sometimes there’s no one in the crowd when i’m the vocalist. i shriek into the mic tangled around my forearm like a gauntlet of snakes. we’re playing a floor show in this one—a basement or a warehouse or some punk’s parent’s toolshed.