“Months passed. Otis worked at his diet and exercise regimen, but he never felt satisfied. He’d never run far enough and he’d never eat healthy enough foods. Some nights, Fay locked herself in the bathroom, and Otis would sit outside the door and talk to her about a time where they’d diet together. He chatted about days they’d take beach vacations to Cancun. “I disgust you,” she’d yell and when Fay spat vile drivel like that, Otis became restless. So he’d leave.”

“He is improvising as he composes,/ jotting down each chord, crossing out,/ jotting down again, seeking the one key/ that will transform it.”

“I miss this moment right here—that instant when you walk into a scene or see it develop in front of your eyes. You start to determine what’s going in that frame, composing. You instantly go into cyborg mode, analyzing the scene, your foreground, midground, background, are there distractions, overlaps, measuring the edges of your frame, etc. That moment doesn’t last but an instant, and most times, just because you clicked the shutter button doesn’t mean it’s going to work. But sometimes it does – Oaxaca, Mexico”

“In this illustration, the poetry and archaicness of “the heart of me” is preceded by a careless “something something,” as if the speaker is too distracted or tired to clarify their meaning. This comic, like many of Murphy’s comics, is a one-off, produced in a moment of absent-mindedness in which text and image are put on the page stream-of-consciously.”