Post-Modern by Kyle Hemmings

When love breaks her jazz walk. When her boyfriend says "Can't deal with the mood swings. Later." When love becomes the internal beast eating through the cage of her lithe body. When there are no more secrets from which to construct a tortuous dance, belly up, bare feet. When her fan kicks & axle turns are no longer impressive, she continues to bake buttermilk biscuits using White Lily flour. She continues to mix everything in her mom's old Pyrex bowl. She will not abandon the only way she knows how to make a wicked potato knish. Twice a week in her East Village apartment, she marries red split lentils with cabbage. She broods over cucumbers and scallions which should never be left alone. 

She falls in love with a gay dancer named Bernard. She meets him during a rehearsal of Limon's The Moor’s Pavane. He believes in atoms, chance, broken lines, the dance as pure movement. She believes in black Capezio dance shoes, ruffled leg warmers, sequin fingerless gloves, painting cityscapes in watercolor with gauche, and her toy poodle named Kandy. 

Outside of dressing rooms, they talk about everything. They sleep two inches apart. In the morning, they form heavy clouds from each other's bad breath. They agree that sex between them is not only impossible—it would kill them. But otherwise, they could tango forever. They would bend back, twist torso, break tables & chairs, just to prove that as broken as they are, they were meant to be together. 

He tells her that love is a random collision of atoms. It's inevitable. A crazy zigzag dance. Us bouncing off each other. Or the short time we stick. Are stuck. 

She tells him that she never wants him to leave. That's not very post-modern, is it? she says, tilting her head like a little girl trying to guess what's hidden in a closed hand. 

One day, he tells her that he has a new lover. He can give him what she can't. 

I gave you so much more, she says. 

She knows it was inevitable. 

Facing each other in her small apartment, they dance a ferocious dance until they become nothing but a swirl, a blind cyclone in each other's eyes, a pure movement. They dance until one of them disappears. A soul with no body. A body no longer with a soul. 

She will continue to bake buttermilk biscuits. Her toy poodle barks when it's time to go out.



Kyle has been published in Wigleaf, Storyglossia, Elimae, Match Book, This Zine Will Save Your Life, and elsewhere. He lives and writes in New Jersey. He loves cats and dogs.

This Zine Will Change Your Life previously published {BLIND} by Kyle Hemmings. Check it out.

Street art by Dain.
Photograph by Adam Lawrence. 

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