From the pocket of agent dickinson [78-79]

“DYING IN A POCKET”

How does one die when already a Sponsino in the Elfstream?
How does one silence? How does one minus one inside pockets?
Lobotomized? How does one out once inside? How does one
massage sitting upright in an office chair? I’ll tell you how. It starts
at the YMCA. Florida, Japan. Laws are laws are leakages, I’ll
say. Someone leaked into me. Someone leaked into Elfraum. The
leaker was arrested, but that’s all we wrote. The damage was done.

The leaker’s name was Violet Long. There was cardboard in
the closet for dampening her phone calls. She had all kinds of
tapestries, crystals, bongs and sweatshirts from her friends. She
had no privacy, but secrets. Her dad read from her journal when she
was 10. She kept a list of all things: her friends, her enemies,
animals, drugs, types of sex, negatives, explosives, dimensions of
different buildings and their fire escapes.

On nights she’d sneak out to the water tower and sit under the
grass drinking liq. She’d smoke cloves and flip her phone around.
She had a boyfriend named Nick or Erik. Nick or Erik showed her
how to suck on rags soaked in LSD.

The first time she sucked, she just ran. She ran to the apartment
where she used to smoke bongs and cheat on Nick or Erik.

Then she ran into his bedroom, a town where she liked to sit.

Then she ran into his furniture, where he had ounces shaped like knives.

Then she ran into the shadows, which were tinsel spiked and
overgrown.

The man she cheated on him with was named Rick. Rick wore
sweatshirts even when it was hot. She found this hot. The LSD was
hot. But the rags were warm, toasted on a space heater before they
were submerged.

The second time she sucked, she saw Agent D. She was sitting in a
tupperware, a lock like peas coming out of her smile, a loose ruffle
drowning to her snot. All the papers in her arms looking perc-
perfect, amplified into mirrors and draping into ascot displays.
Whose not, the rued song weighs, to course of land chins turn
a pleat from islands, and all surprise to that. More animals in
the eaves this wink, convalescing, regurgitation eyes, orderlily
scintillating, the caboose in tuck. MORE ANIMALS IN THE
EAVES THIS WINK she heard again, the drum tap raced to terms
restarted. . .

She wanted to stop seeing the goldfish jumping through the hoop
into the water.

She took out her pencils, wingbats, textbooks, diddles, extracurricular
notes, and began again:

—

Excerpt of From the Pocket of Agent Dickinson–published by Inside the
Castle.

Buy the book here.

—

Elise Houcek is the author of a few books, including From the Pocket of
Agent Dickinson (with Zack Darsee), TRACTATUS, So Neon was the Rope, and
The Leafs. Her writing has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Fence,
Diva Corp, R&R, Vestiges, Cleveland Review of Books and new_sinews. She
teaches writing to kids and occasionally codirects and stars as a hand
actor in the short films of Flanagan’s Feast, some of which have been
screened at places such as Art Farm, Nebraska and Weatherproof, Chicago.

Zack Darsee (they/he) is the author of the chapbook BELL LOGIC (Spiral
Editions), and pamphlets Efflorescence in Stucco (Earthbound Press) and
Anzündkind (Creative Writing Department). Their collaborative book with
Elise Houcek, From the Pocket of Agent Dickinson, a lysergic neo-noir
poet’s novel, is forthcoming from Inside the Castle in 2025. Recent
poetic work has appeared online and in print in Blush Lit, Tagvverk,
Annulet, Community Mausoleum, Works & Days, and Grotto Journal, among
other journals. Together with Nadia Marcus, they are the co-founder of
TABLOID Press, a publishing initiative grounded in the poetics of the
local. They teach poetry workshops in various arrangements of community
in Berlin, Germany, and at the Berlin Writers’ Workshop. More at
zoedarsee.com.