I’ve never been very good at small talk. I’m always too busy wondering where interesting scars come from. Too busy asking myself how many poorly aimed arrows and casual brushes of skin and drownings and split seconds of eye contact over the past ten thousand years have constructed this moment. Too busy imagining the soundtrack to my life dominated by smiling, adult contemporary alterna-rockers, and saying no; give me hip-hop dressed in leather, knuckles cracking. Give me whatever the opposite of Novocain is, let it pulse beneath my skin and make every cut and lick and bruise unbearably magnificent.

Guante , A Love Song, A Death Rattle, A Battle Cry,