Like mothers, you bring warm food to our tables and we stare dumbly up, supposing we are more than paying customers. This is your art and vice, the racket of your charm, coy and high-assed and always reminding us of someone we miss, of some possibility alive in the moments when you want only to know what we want.
Chances are, youve got big things in mind for yourself—this small celebrity is only a weigh station, an arrangement, temporary, like the tendons that tent the moist skin inside your elbows, behind your knees, like the pleasant consent in your ponytail, the wet smile we associate with garlic bread.
You can feel that larger life coiled in each limb, and this makes the glare of the hot plates bearable, and makes you oblivious to our coarse hopes. These hopes swell within you, like the small muscles bunched along your flanks, like the kind words you print along the top of the bill, left atop the table, between the sugar and the dull blade.
Bless you all. Bless you as we coat our tongues in nourishment, our throats hung on ropes of want. Bless you for allowing us to eat from your hand, for never asking what comes next.
In September 2022 SmokeLong launched a workshop environment/community christened SmokeLong Fitness. This community workshop is happening right now on our dedicated workshop site. If you choose to join us, you will work in a small group of around 15-20 participants to give and receive feedback on flash narratives—one new writing task each week.