TONIGHT, TONIGHT, PLEASEby David Greenspan Jonas wants a lover who doesn’t try to eat his fingernails or steal his human skin. He’s so tired of sleeping with ghosts that he joins an online dating site. He goes out with Marissa, a doctor whose toes curl when she talks of cutting people open. He goes out with Janet, a bird-keeper who gives him countless sparrow eggs. He goes out with Courtney, a lawyer who makes him sign paperwork while he’s inside her. He goes out with so many women that he starts to wonder if he’s gay but decides he can’t be. No matter how hard Jonas tries he can’t become aroused by Mark Wahlberg’s six-pack. Jack Kerouac’s ghost tells Jonas that heartache is how sand becomes water and eventually glass. Jack Kerouac’s ghost says women are blueberries, ailing basil, I never liked them anyway. Jonas drinks so much flat beer and hatches each sparrow egg. He throws up bar peanuts for the baby sparrows and feels much better. The sparrows teach him Morse code by taking small bites from his organs. Jonas stares at his phone, hoping it will ring and someone with a heart of iceberg lettuce will say hello, meet me at the nearest hill, we’ll go sledding. He craves skin, the warm sensation of touch under blankets. He wants to sigh every T.V. purple and silent. Jonas wants to feel his heart beating like so much fog. |