How to be a Sexual Outlaw
-Transfer Magazine, Fall 2007
Today you will imagine you are an outlaw. Paint your eyes black and burn all underwear in your kitchen sink. This will be your offering to the Patron Saint of your choice. Stay away from Patrons of Justice—they will be searching for you. Whomever you choose, make sure when exhumed their tongue was uncorrupted—lies from the divine make for a bad taste in your mouth.
Don't look in the mirror more than once--reflections distort the soul. X out the date on all of your calendars. This will be a stolen day. The phone will ring a procession of ex-lovers. Don't answer. You owe no one peace of mind. Leave now.
Advice for today and later: Always back your car into a driveway. It will allow a quick getaway.
Drive in the direction that you fear the most, but never go directly west. There is a secreted reason the sun drops off there. Stop only after the needle hits the "E" and even then push farther. Risk everything for freedom. When it all starts to become a darker shade of itself, accept your fate in the nearest town.
Pick a bar or diner with good fortune in the name: Dini's Lucky Club or Shamrock Pub. Let yourself be drawn to someone with a familiar face. The universe has pushed him toward you—let the orbit begin.
Back at his place, be sure to stay awake. Thirty minutes of shut eye will suffice. Take advantage of his early stages of sleep. Mutter obscure confessions, like how you only drink water from garden hoses, and how you can only cry when you are sitting on a toilet with your pants down.
Tattoo card number XII, the Hanged Man, onto his forehead—that way he can never say that you didn't warn him.
Warn him: Suspension sneaks up on those who sleep.
Leave before the sun finds you. If you must, write him a note, but only on toilet paper to suggest his delicate existence. Leave behind a horoscope in hieroglyphics for him to decipher, but never leave a number.
As you drive back the way you came, make sure your mother's bone-beaded rosary is hanging from the rear-view mirror.
At this point you must accept that it all comes back to your mother.
