When there's no hope, there's Taco Bell, Big Beef indigestion, and pairs of Cool Ranch lips spread across the kitchen table. Brown paper after-party living más all over the wood surface. The time? It's dark—that's all that matters. The movie? Drácula (1931) dips my feast and face in gray smoke. If I starve for sleep, I will not starve for food, but this is a contest of wills and wits; I don't remember turning the tv on. I don't remember ordering food on UberEats. I don't remember my name, but I know Drácula filmed at night when the cast of Dracula (1931) was done for the day, replaced by their better-than-the-original-doppelgangers. I crunch a pair of lips. Corn shell shard scrapes my throat. I swallow a heresy: Taco Bell is better than "authentic" Tex-Mex.
What if Taco Bell is the food of doppelgangers? I slip into sleep paralysis before I can answer the question. On the screen, chaos on a cargo ship:
Renfield grins through a
bull's eye, recites my secrets
the subtitles strangle:
David Arroyo stands
behind you, el quiere. Tex-Mex
meet your Taco Bell.
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David Arroyo is a nerd and ex-Catholic. His Dungeons & Dragons alignment is Neutral Good. He holds an MA in English from Florida State University and a MFA in Creative Writing from Stonecoast. He’s published poetry in Coffin Bell, Nocturne, Stirring, Silver Blade, and The Chamber.
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