robert vaughan


 

Illusions

Mother said I was born during a tornado of light. Once I was older, I’d mumble “it’s the drugs,” under my breath. I will never be as sexy as the night we all swam naked in our quarry, playing marco polo, the gibbous moon showering us like headlights in swamps. We played badass rap from Barry’s cab, a remix, the way the beads of water slid down your thighs. That year, last of high school, I kept a stream of purple Christmas lights strung up around my room. I prayed to them, incoherently, more than once. Willing you back. Drugs are drugs you’d say, comparing heroin to moonshine. One Sunday I made out with Louis. Another night I got so drunk I argued with the TV. I fell into the hearts of women like a branded outlaw, the whiteness fluttering from my fingertips. And when you left for school, you made me promise never to tell that thing we did to anyone.

 

Robert Vaughan teaches workshops in hybrid writing, poetry, fiction at locations like UWM, Red Oak Writing, The Clearing, Synergia Ranch and Mabel Dodge Luhan House. He leads roundtables in Milwaukee, WI. He was a finalist for the Gertrude Stein Award for Fiction (2013, 2014). He was the head judge for the Bath International Flash Fiction Awards, 2016. His short fiction, ‘A Box’ was selected for Best Small Fictions 2016 (Queen’s Ferry Press). Vaughan is the author of five books: Microtones (Cervena Barva Press); Diptychs + Triptychs + Lipsticks + Dipshits (Deadly Chaps); Addicts & Basements (CCM); RIFT, co-authored with Kathy Fish (Unknown Press) and FUNHOUSE (Unknown Press). www.robert-vaughan.com. He's the EIC of Bending Genres, LLC.

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