RipStick – Cesar Felipe

April 11, 2026

(Under the ramp, a small child, looking up at the sun.)

Fold up the nutsack and hope she won’t tap on his shoulder and ask why his pants pass the ankle that raps on the Razor while kids scream “The Old Fuck is Back!”. Off the bone, side-wall, in Vans they did not make back then because he bought them last Friday. Not that he hopes some body is watching (unless she’s eighteen), but he is breathing too hard through the Styx on the hoodie, sweat dripping too on the dusty grey concrete which is hot from the sun. Not shining hard enough to lick up the droplets trailing behind the wheels that are begging to tighten because he will not weigh himself on some electric scale bought by his wife who is two months postpartum and really taking pilates seriously this time. Still burning the eyes but not so hot as to dry them, so the tear ducts just clog by a bluebonnet’s birth. Side of the board scraping the ground without turning enough to pay for the scraping. There is no unpainted grey in the hair.

(Two suns out of focus.)
(Two sets of shadows.)

One comes before, while he is blinking, and the father blinks too. After-images burned of thatch in his eye. A bruise on the cheekbone of the boy in the pew sat beside him and he thought well at least mine is under the thigh. Where she touched him that time down in Purcellville and then they sat there together thinking: This Must Be The End. Of their souls at least but also the concept of fucking or some thing a step further that they never were taught. He saw her post on a story last Sunday, at church with a husband, a child there too.

(The sun is hot on the cheek now and will not cool down.)

There is sperm in the toilet, through thin pantyhose that he stole from his neighbor that time she stayed with them on account of the Problem he now knew had been coke. There is a plastic lego head sewn up in more plastic, buried in the garden of his grandfather’s house. There is a scar on the tree where he pictured his face. There is a swale in the meadow, poured over with concrete, but still the swale and two faces, shaded from glare. There is a switch made of willow, the branch he picked out, and a dimple carved out his back. There is happiness too.

(He is hungry and crying while eating his hand)

The second comes later, or now while he looks. At the black underside while there’s malt on the breath of the man who is flying, face so familiar. Or: what else can grandmother’s God-will provide? When he stumbles home to you and thinks that he’s sober enough you can’t tell. For reasons you’ll learn but will not really matter because a path will be there and you likely will take it. Wiggle hips back and forth. Forth and back. To the back alleyway where a rock will upset you and I will abstain. From correction or other forms of a chide. Please let the shadows and sun become one in your eyes.
(He is more beautiful than I can even describe)