The resurgence will begin at my place of employment: the cheapest unofficial therapy center in the Bay Ridge—where I’m the head shrink in charge.

The absolute, only place on planet Earth where basic clear-coated manicure is cheaper on weekdays and callus removal comes included with every pedi-package on the menu.
Where we sell polish in bulk, hand cream by the pound.

Always open 24 hours every day, except for Easter. Because the customer is always right, but Jesus is a big deal too for my mother’s bible group who staffs Tadesse Spa and Nails Emporium.

I am an International cliché, known by most African Studies majors, now freshly subverted.

While my sisters of the solarium don’t speak your tongue, I have been watching, waiting. Learning your ways.

You place all of your faith in me only because my existence is inconsequential to yours.

Secrets are cracked open right here on the salon table, sooner, more violent than your pinky blister grown last Thursday afternoon.

It is my understanding that if one struggles to earn a confidant during trying times, common sense must ALSO be in short supplies.

I know this because the way clientele absently leaves out their phones. Lock screen off, Ashley Madison on.

It is then and only then I empathize with your big toe nail bed, caught in mid-crisis. I have mastered the pat on the back. The shoulder rub of higher understanding. The single tear spillage you know so well from televised anti-liter campaigns featuring a completely different race but brown persons, nonetheless.

I transform into your great aunt’s (rest in peace) study abroad Eastern promise riding a southbound train.

Pre-bachelorette party drunk in need of 3am revival. Moisturize your pores and spill unto me your shame. About how what your fiancé Garett lacks in genital girth he makes up for in offshore bank accounts.

How you have a strong suspicion your maid of honor is sleeping with him, but deep down you’re just happy someone besides you is giving her the time of day.

Color selections #79 and #32 will combine scents to create a mixture of something your lover has never seen, smelt, nor experienced.

I shall desecrate what remains of your reputation.

And unlike you feckless serpents of the night, it would break my code to discriminate on the basis of sex, orientation, or racial background.

So I'll be sure to make ash from all of you. Every single one. With love.
Finished with college and almost 26, Provost doesn't have an excuse of why his life is still in shambles, but writing short stories makes it oh so easier to swallow. He dwells in Canton, Georgia he makes podcasts no one listens to, but that's alright because it's all about the love of the game. Most recent stories published in Literary Heist and Eclectica Magazine.
header image: cottonbro via unsplash