At the sound of the tone, please stab yourself in the neck. Beeeep!
A simple observation. The other day I was driving down the road and I noticed a Texaco
gas station on the corner, mostly because it has a fairly eye-catching logo on the
sign (that of a Texas star with a ‘T” fixed so that its bottom is connected to
the inside bottom of the star, which is a white star against a red background with a
black frame), and because I have t-shirt which has the same logo, except that the “T” is
green, instead of white like the sign, which I bought at Roosevelt Field Mall in a store
called World Imports, because there was a rack of shirts which was fifty percent off, so I
bought that shirt and one which is designed to look like Charlie Brown’s shirt, except
they ruined it with their companies logo on the back and the shirt stretched badly after washing
it, so as I was driving along about a minute later I noticed a second Texaco bearing
the same logo (that of a Texas star with a “T” fixed so that its bottom is
connected to the inside bottom of the star, a white star against a red background with a
black frame, not the logo on my shirt on which the “T” is green, which I bought
at World Imports at Roosevelt Field Mall on a Sunday afternoon), and I found it strange that
there were two Texaco’s so close to each other, which reminded me of two Rite-Aids near my
house which are also about a minute apart, although neither does good business as far as I’ve
seen, at least not as good business as the Genovese I work in which is across the
street from one of the Rite-Aids, which is a pretty good Genovese, and the people I work
with are nice, but I can’t stand those stupid customers who come up to the photo booth,
which is the section I work in, and say “I need this in an hour” and I
say “I can’t get it for you in an hour, it’s been extremely busy”, and they say
“Well then, why does the sign say an hour?” and I say “Maybe the idiot who made
the sign didn’t take into consideration that dozens of customers would drop off film at the same
time and that I’m only human” and then they get all hissy and ask to see the
manager and they talk all professional to him and he comes to me and says “Give it
to them in an hour” and I say “Fine”, plus the pay is lousy, and I need
to pay for gas, which is especially easy since after driving past the first two, I came
across a third Texaco, which really started to worry me because I’d never noticed all these Texaco’s
with the eye-catching logo and I began to think it was some kind of conspiracy and
that maybe my children might grow up in a world run by Texaco’s and Rite-Aids, flashy logos
forced in their faces and their very souls stolen from beneath their noses as they put their
faith in a brand name that gives them just enough money to run their seemingly pointless lives,
and as I made this horrifying realization, I also observed that my gas tank was almost empty,
so I pulled into this third Texaco to fill it up, on my way to pick up
my one-hour photos from Rite-Aid.
They invade our skin, our minds, and we let them, because we don’t realize what they do.
They lie to us and tell us that we’re at one with ourselves. But I know the
truth. They’re secretly turning our own bodies against us.
When you’ve never had it, you wait for it.
When you finally get it, you need more.
When you get more, you grow bored.
When you grow bored, you lose it.
When you lose it, you want it back.
When you get it back, it’s never the same.
Can you sign my voodoo doll? Thanks. It looks just like you, right? I know,
I worked really hard on it.
The person I will never be.
Seeds of a new me sit under the skin, awaiting the rebirth. They feed on my blood,
but seeds need more than blood. They need dirt, and I’m not dirty enough. A dirty rose
is an imperfect rose. I’m already imperfect. I strive to become myself. The most I can hope
for is me. The seeds do nothing, they take away my blood and give back emptiness. I
need that blood for me, not the me that could never be. It’s a waste, and so
am I, but I’m defined by my goal. The more I try to change me, the more
I become him. He will never change, but he will never stop trying, because that’s who he is,
and that’s who I’ve become, who I’ve always been, who I am.
The person I will never be.
I don’t mind when people laugh at me. An open mouth
makes the gun go in so much easier.
No-one.
Everyone is leaving.
Everyone is looking.
Everyone is in their own world.
Everyone hates mine.
Everyone is talking.
Everyone is laughing.
Everyone is planning.
Everyone but me.
Everyone is running.
Everyone is screaming.
Everyone is hurting.
Everyone is wrong.
It’s amazing how many idiots are walking around, not realizing, not knowing, not caring that
other people realize that they know that no-one cares that they don’t realize that they’re walking
around like idiots.
Dis. Connected.
Something’s wrong.
Chemicals.
Missing a piece.
Disconnected.
Try to reach.
Occasional stumble.
Brief connection.
Screaming inside.
Maybe heard.
Another moment.
Healing.
Vulnerable.
All I want.
Look in the eyes.
To do.
Allow trust.
Is smile.
Fuck hope, fuck giving up, and fuck everything in between.
The Question.
And in the dawn of things to come
They ask themselves why.
Why do I do what’s asked of me,
And not what’s best for me?
But there is no answer,
Because to those around them,
There is no question.
So I grabbed his neck and squeezed really hard, until his eyes began to water and pop out
of his skull, and he managed to squeeze out the words ‘What are you doing?’ and I
said ‘Saving your life’.
In the time it takes
For you to climb a set of stairs,
Several people will be born.
In the time it takes
For you to take a nap,
Several people will die.
At some point in time,
Someone climbed the stairs for you.
And sooner or later,
They will lay down to sleep.
There are days when you just want to open your mouth really wide and crawl in and
swallow hard. There are other days when you say “That’s just not possible”. But it is.
The corners of smiles.
The feel of skin against skin.
Opening the door.
Glassy, I want you eyes.
Quiet lunches.
Sneaky sex.
Planning the future.
Admitting the past.
Three hour phone calls.
I miss you sighs.
Shower skin.
God I miss them.
This is no way to live.
Pain is Proof.
I want to smile,
Smile my ugly smiles for all to see.
Smile at what I’m not supposed to.
At what hurts others.
Pain is proof that you’re still alive.
And it makes you want to die.
Test me for humanity,
Would I pass or fail?
There’s no winners or losers in
This game.
Only losers.
You can’t cheat yourself, only others.
The mirror is the only authority
We must answer to.
We control our own lives.
Kill the boss.
As the man on the train walked past them, they all stared at the blood dripping from
his hands. Some people gasped, others moved out of his way. But once he assured them the
blood was his own, they all calmed down. Someone somewhere laughed, and the rest of them
didn’t care anymore.
I wonder what it feels like to be human. I think I
felt it once, but the moment passed.
To blend in is to die. To stand apart is lonely. Great choices, alone or dead.
Alone equals dead.
In this corner, the world. In the other, me. Round one, ding. Too late to forfeit?
Can’t do that, everyone’s betting on me. Can’t let down the fans. Or the enemies. Or me.
Don’t ask me to spit when you begin to burn.
Goodbye to me.
I’m afraid.
Afraid I can’t feel anymore.
Nothing except hate.
Hate for things,
Hate for people.
People are things.
Fuck people.
Fuck hate.
Fuck God.
Fuck the alternative.
What happened to love?
And hope.
Where’s the happy ending?
Where’s the ending at all.
Seems like we skipped from birth to death.
Hello became goodbye.
Fairwell childhood.
Fairwell adulthood.
Fairwell to all the mistakes in between.
Like me.
Your decision is your definition.
If you’re really quiet, you can actually hear yourself dying.
What do you do when you think you’ve changed for the
worse? Do you accept the change, or do you fight it?
Fighting it means going back in time and becoming
someone you used to be. I don’t think I could do that,
and if I could I don’t think that I should. And what
happens when you love someone and they change? The
person you love is dead, but there’s someone walking
around wearing their face, living in their house. How
do you explain sadness without reason? Is it sickness?
I don’t accept that answer, because that’s a bullshit,
no guilt way out. I have so much going for me, and I’m
so unhappy. Is that selfish? Am I spoiled? I know
there are easy solutions and I’ve refused to take
them, but maybe I’m growing impatient. Constant anger
is one way out. Plastic coating a smile on myself is
another. The grave is a third. Those are the three
people I hate the most, and it seems like if I don’t
become one of them I’ll be miserable and sad and spend
my whole life crying to myself and remaining
disconnected from everyone else. How the hell can I be
happy while having morals and feelings and being
truthful? I’m almost certain that’s impossible. Being
happy goes hand in hand with lies and denial and
compromise and a certain level of numbness that I’ll
never reach. It’s all structured so that in order to
stand up you have to do it on someone else’s face,
because there’s only so much room up high where the
happy people are. There are two things I want in life:
to be happy, and to not hurt anyone else to get there.
I’ve failed miserably at both.
Love is God, and God is obsolete.
I always end up in pain. And I like it.
Sometimes I wish I was like them.
Waving their hands.
Holding their place in line.
Speaking into the eyes.
Praying to numbers.
I wonder what it would be like.
To wear sweaters.
To drink beer.
To small talk.
To buy a smile.
Wouldn’t it be so wonderful to be so blind?
To be so focused?
To be so lost in denial?
They don’t know how good they’ve got it.
How utterly pathetic they are.
How cursed.
How beautiful.
I wonder how much they hurt.
If they accept it.
Like credit cards.
Fear and Pain. Sign here.
They may have it all, maybe.
But I have one thing.
One thing they don’t.
I accept the pain.
Accept it.
Because I like it.
I would build a city just to burn it down.
Her eyes were at once both love and demand.
And her hair was the fire of information and education.
From her swollen womb flowed the promise of tomorrow.
And in return, her body
Received the sugary fruits of yesterday.
The products of lives given by and then to her.
To embrace her was to know acceptance.
To feel her bulbous stomach was to remember the warmth of birth and home,
And to imagine the generations to come.
But what lay underneath the skin other than the blood and honey
Of the world, mixing old and old to make new?
Therein lay the demands of a peg-hole world,
Accepting only the model and rejecting all that deviates.
To hold her was to undertake the responsibilities of the machine,
To add your thread to the fabric which held you up to the hanging.
In her eyes she held the one and final truth,
Which could only be plucked from within,
When body and soul had become one, and ultimately none.
Not until love existed in the form of labor,
And all love for self abandoned,
Did she open the door to enlightenment.
To remember what the womb felt like inside,
To look into her eyes,
To feel the skin,
To discover what hid beneath.
This guy I knew had a list of everyone he had ever
wanted to watch bleed to death. In public he would
jot down little innocent-looking notes on his memo pad
as people talked to him. When he got home he’d sit at
his typewriter and click-clack for hours, and you
couldn’t disturb him for anything. He called it his
life’s work, always saying it was “just about done”. I
haven’t seen him in a while, but last I checked he was
up to Volume Nine. He never did tell me what would
happen when it was finished.
Blink. Two days ago the blinking started again. I
haven’t had that in years. But it only makes sense, I
haven’t been biting my fingers recently. I always need
an outlet.
What made me this? It can only be two things, fate and
experience. What could I have possibly suffered in my
childhood to do this? I can’t think because my damn
eyes are so tired. Blink. Blink. Blink. Maybe I should
chew gum. No wait, sorry, that’ll just rot my teeth
down to the gums. Every form of energy needs outlet,
every release of energy causes some effect. It’s
usually cancer. I need to gain control of this world,
not everyone’s world but the world through my eyes.
That’s the life I live, why can’t it be the one I
choose? I’m held slave to everyone else’s version. My
version doesn’t match theirs, so I must be wrong.
Who’s the enlightened one here? Is it the fucked up
world which learns to deal with itself, or the
outsider who sees the world for what it is, can’t
accept it, but wishes more than anything to be a part
of it?
Hate and envy are really the same. Hate for a thing,
be it person, object, or concept, can only be envy on
some level. You hate because you admire, you admire
because you hate yourself. Anything other than you is
exciting, different, better because it’s worse.
To deal with a problem you have to know its source. I
don’t know the source of mine. Is it the world, or my
perception of it? It can’t just be me. But if I could
only accept it I’d be happy. Would it accept me? I
think so. I think the world accepts whoever accepts
it. If you buy it you own it, and then it owns you. If
it’s one thing I hate it’s being normal, because I
want it so bad. Must gain control. Must close my eyes.
Must get back the sense of self from childhood, bring
myself back in from the cold of my reflection. I am my
own harshest critic, scrutinizing every last detail.
Beauty lies in the details. So does ugliness. I walk
that line, live in fear of it. Stop blinking you
wreck. Want to rip them out. Wouldn’t have to deal
with the world anymore, or the mirror. That’s the
hardest thing to look at. I couldn’t be more fucked.
Medication is not an option, even the accepted kinds.
Calming would make me even less emotional. Speeding up
would make me even more nervous. Heaven is not up,
Hell is not down. They have it all wrong. Heaven is
left and right, and Hell is being stuck right in the
fucking middle. Test me, chart me, I’ll stand dead
even and that’s what I have to live with. I can see
both sides, I am both sides, and it’s tearing me to
shreds. I hate being this awake, and I hate going to
sleep.
People who don’t know me well say I’m ticklish. The ones who really know me say
that physical contact makes me want to puke.
Stop worrying about dying.
You haven’t even been born yet.
You jump into your pathetic little plastic bank, sorted by size and weight, falling into the proper
column and spit out calmly and evenly into paper wrapping to be cashed in. Further back.
You were melted down, turned liquid and androgynous to exorcize your problems, poured into the mold.
You are Materialism. Your head is the head of State and God. Further back. Your mother was
raped by the every man to give the other man what he needs. You were
taken from her grip, from your own house. You weren’t taken for what you do, what
you have, or what you know. You were taken for what you are. You are the product.
Ahead. You aren’t real. You’re a symbol, an icon, a solid model of a driving force.
You’re killed for and with. You make gears turn and wrinkles form. Sweaty palms wear down
your face, the nervous and unknowing plastic surgeon making you ugly with personality. Soon you won’t make
gears turn any more, and then your mother
will spread her leaves again.
You were never born.
So stop worrying.
Please put me out of my misery, I’m too scared to do it myself. If you kill me,
I promise I won’t tell. It’ll be our little secret. You can keep a secret, right?
I’m thinking.
Trying to remember the last time I smiled without shame. Laughed without being self-conscious.
Walked without thinking about how it looked. God help me, I can’t remember.
And I’m thinking really, really hard.
Ever heard this line before: “I don’t care how I look”, or how about “Who cares what
people think about me”? Well that never fails to make me laugh, because you always care, no
matter what you say. You’ll be rotting under hospital sheets, your organs dried and your blood thin,
and you’ll ask for a mirror.
Because God damn it, you need to know.
Is my forehead oily?
Has my hair fallen flat? Or out?
Do I need eyeshadow?
Foundation? Blush? Lipstick? Eyeliner?
Reconstructive surgery?
We’re addicted to mirrors. We need them to tell us who we are, where we’re going, and
what we’ll look like when we get there. What accessories compliment my hair? Which shoes convey the
attitude I’m going for? Does this tie give me broad shoulders? Okay, be honest now. Stripes or
no stripes?
There’s no turning back now, we’re hooked. We’re lost in our own reflection. No matter how fat
we get collectively, we still like what we see. We must, because we haven’t looked away yet.
It’s not ego, it’s addiction. Don’t lie to yourself, you check every reflective surface you find.
Think you’re not addicted? Go one week without mirrors. Start easy, go one day. And no cheating,
windows and paintjobs are included. You have homework, go do it. Tell me what you find. See
if you don’t feel better about yourself. Unstoppable is the person who doesn’t answer the mirror. It’s
our worst critic, our most honest friend.
Who is the fairest of them all?
Not you.
As long as you keep listening to it. Don’t look now, but your hair is messy.
Bet you looked.
Bet you can’t stop.
And neither can I.
The next time someone extends their hand to yours,
try to guess the last time they wiped their ass.
Once, there was a bull. He was a huge bull, and all the chickens on the farm
were afraid of him. But he was actually nothing to be afraid of, compared to the woman
who ran the farm. She was a bitter, old lady who took great joy in scaring the chickens.
Every day she would have her favorite lady cow chase the chickens around in their square pen,
always slowly walking toward them in her straw hat and saying “Moo”.
The old lady and the cow didn’t like the bull at all, because he wouldn’t go along
with their fun. The bull simply didn’t care about anyone in the world. He just wanted to
be left alone.
One day the old lady and the cow hatched a plan to get rid of the bull
once and for all. The cow brought the bull into the woods for a picnic. The bull
didn’t care for picnics or anything of the sort, but he was starved. They came to a
cliff, and the cow said “This is where we’ll have our picnic.” They put down their blanket
and basket, at which time the cow charged at the bull, trying to knock him off the
cliff. But the bull was too quick, and instead the cow was the one who fell.
The bull felt nothing for the cow. He ate sandwiches and apples from the basket most piggishly,
as the old lady rarely fed him, and such treats! The bull put on the cows hat,
which had fallen off her head as she ran at him. He returned to the farm and
the old lady and the chickens, for it was all he really knew of the world.
Being as old as she was, the old lady saw the bull wearing the hat and thought
it was the cow. “Oh good, he’s finally gone! How wonderful the farm will be! Return to
scaring the chickens, and I will watch with glee.”
The bull entered the pen, but the chickens
too thought him the cow and hardly budged. They were barely scared of the cow anymore.
“Moo” he told them, and began walking toward them. They moved slowly away.
“Don’t worry,” the old lady called, “Some day you’ll get your ability back.” So the bull mooed
once again, but still the chickens didn’t care.
Enraged, the bull stomped fiercely down and blew air from his nose. “It’s the bull!” the chickens
screamed and scrambled to run from him. They stumbled and flew over each other’s heads, thinking the
bull was brutal and bad.
“You see, you’re doing better already!” called the lady.
But in the chickens’ panic, they hadn’t noticed one of the eggs had hatched. The tiny chicken
inside had wandered off into the grass. The bull spotted the tiny chicken and thought it unwise
for the little one to wander away. He ran after the tiny chicken, but the chicken was fast,
and playfully eluded the bull for some time. The other chickens cheered on the newborn, while the
old lady looked on sourly.
“Come now, cow. You’re acting like that annoying bull now! Finish the job and return to the pen.”
Angered by the old lady, the bull went even faster at the baby chicken, but it was
so small it avoided the bull without even trying.
In their chase, they came to a part
of the farm the bull had never seen before. It was dirty and the fence was falling
down. Without a moments pause, the tiny chicken ran into a small, wooden shack with a hole near
the bottom. The bull, intent on his catch, ripped the very walls off the shack.
Inside, he discovered the tiny chicken among the bodies of many forgotten chickens. They were lifeless.
The bull was in shock, as was the tiny chicken. “What is this place?” the tiny chicken
asked the bull, but the bull didn’t hear him. Instead he lifted the tiny chicken out of the
shack and placed him upon a rock. By now all the chickens had come see what had
transpired of the race between chicken and bull. First they say the baby chicken, sitting on a rock
looking quite confused. Then they saw the bull, straw hat off and looking into the horrible shack.
A strange thing happened to the bull that day. He had spent all his life not caring
about others, brushing them off without a thought. But seeing all these poor, unfortunate chickens laying about
hurt him in a way he had never felt.
And so, the bull began to cry. Tears flowed from his eyes so strongly, it was if
a dam had broken apart. It was the deepest sadness he had ever known.
The chickens all gathered around the bull, amazed that such a fierce animal could cry in such
a way. They saw their fallen chicken friends, the bawling bull, and knew then that he had
a good heart. They all came to him and hugged his huge, sobbing body. They cried
with him, for the chickens they had lost, and for the friend they never knew they had.
At that point, the old lady came up behind them. “What is this?!” she exclaimed, seeing the
bull alive after all, and friends with the chickens no less.
“You’re a bad lady.” The bull sobbed, and the old lady was shocked to be talked to
in such a way.
“How dare you, you nasty bull!” she replied, but the chickens didn’t like this at all. The
group of them began to slowly walk toward her. “Cluck” they said, much how the cow had
mooed at them.
“What are you doing?” the lady asked of the chickens, but she couldn’t be heard through all
the clucking. Realizing their numbers, the old lady began to back away. “You chickens need me here,
you too, bull! Who else will feed you and take care of the farm?”
“Cluck…cluck…cluck…” they chanted in reply, and began to run at her. The old lady let
out a yelp and ran away from them. As the chickens chased her across the field, the
bull and the tiny chicken watched on.
“Is she gone forever?” the tiny chicken asked innocently.
“Yes, I think so.” replied the bull.
Looking up at the bull, the tiny chicken said “Then who will run the farm?”
The bull smiled. “Why, we will of course. Let’s have a picnic to celebrate.”
And so, when the chickens returned with their beaks covered in blood, they all had the biggest
picnic the farm had ever seen. The bull, of course, was the guest of honor.
My friend’s mother had this collection of dolls, must have been over a hundred of them. All
of them with tiny, staring eyes. They never looked away. They wouldn’t even blink when I threatened
them. I would tell them how I was going to get a knife and cut out all
of their little button eyes if they didn’t stop looking at me. Still they wouldn’t flinch. I
stopped going to his house after a while, but still I sit in my bed at night
and I wonder if they know where I live.
What I’d like to do now
Is spill my guts
But I’m empty
No more left to give
Waiting for seconds
Reshuffling the deck
What I’d like to do now
Is cure myself
Of this cold I’ve caught
Of the infection
But I can’t now
It’s spread too far
Would you like to meet my girlfriend? Here, take this knife and cut my head open. Yeah,
right there. She’s in there somewhere, check the darker corners.
I’m picking through the papers I’ve assembled, looking for today’s thought. It doesn’t seem as life-threatening
as it did on Tuesday. Remember how much you loved the way you looked? Funny how
all the skin is gone now, but I guess that’s the way. There’s no reason to build it,
it’ll just crumble in the end. Don’t turn your back on it, you might miss your chance
at being God. Let it yellow until black. How can I get that minute back? The sink
can’t be that hungry. Today will be justified for only a moment tomorrow, so wear gloves when
you hold it. I don’t know, my hair just doesn’t look right on you. To be honest,
I’m not worth the trip. If he really cared about you, he wouldn’t even care.
Your life is a joke, and so is mine. The Punch-line? Squibby-diddle.
Here’s my idea:
Work out.
Read.
Make yourself interesting.
A better person.
Go into the world.
Meet people.
Make friends.
Find someone.
Fall in love.
Date.
Kiss.
Marry.
Have a few kids.
Buy a nice house.
Buy a nice car.
Invest.
Build a future.
And then kill yourself.
That would be so much fun.
I once did a search of anyone with my exact name. I found one, and he had
apparently died of some disease at almost the exact age I was at the time. All these
people he knew had started a memorial program for him, the kind that raises money to fight
the disease he died of. Apparently he was very loved, and had made a great impact on
people’s lives. I was glad one of us had.
It starts off I’m at a gas station. I don’t know where I am, I might have
ran away from home. I’ve locked myself inside and there’s a man outside who looks like trouble.
Before this, I remember I’m inside some fast food place which is closed for the night, but
has its bathroom available to those who need to shave. I do so and the mirror reflects
the deep window behind me. My friends drive up and talk to me. I think someone killed
themself in this bathroom.
At the gas station I call my mother because I fear this man. Especially when I see the
dog with him. “Mom, I’m at this gas station…”
“I know where you are.”
“Please come quick, there’s a man trying to get in.” She keeps trying to talk and I
try to hurry her here. As I’m hanging up the man strolls in with the keys in his
hand. He points to the other room and says “Go”. I go into the room, which is
actually outside but closed off by a fence. I attempt to run and he sends his dog at
me. It’s some sort of test the dog can do, so I stop and let him do
it. I know he wants to bite something, so I put out my fist. He runs up
and full-force bites it. The man brings me inside and upstairs. Now there is a girl
captive with me. We sit down and I hope he doesn’t search my pockets in case the
playing cards, wallet, and keys in there aid in our escape later. He too has playing cards
and the woman who is now with him deals to me and the girl. I have a
good hand, two pair, and I realize the woman is my mother, the man is my father,
the girl is my brother. Mom and dad begin to argue, and my brother leans to me
and comments how quickly dad loses concentration when you talk to him.
I use the distraction to leave and go downstairs. When I get there I know that the
man is just a man again, the woman just some woman, the girl really a girl. I
want to escape but here’s the dog. Quickly I open a door to a bedroom like my own.
The dog runs in and I close the door. I know there must be alarms on the
windows, but the fighting upstairs is loud. I bend and break metal off a slim window. I break
the glass hoping my mother is outside. I try to squeeze through the window hoping the dog
won’t bite me, hoping the man won’t drag me back in. Halfway through the window I wake up.
I’ve escaped.
When I fall sleep again I immediately awake to a crash. My floor is covered in shirts.
The shirt hanger on my closet has given out, letting all the shirts fall to the floor.
As I pick them up, words are stuck in my head:
This morning at 7:23, most
randomly my closet exploded.
Yeah, keep riding that scooter you fat mess. Avoid even the slightest exercise. Wouldn’t want to risk
losing any weight, would we?
I remember all these pieces. First, I must’ve gotten
drunk and tricked by a friend to get a piercing. The
strange thing is that it’s a small oil can embedded
into my left side. It was done horribly, because my
skin is just wrapped and tied around it. It’s
unraveling itself and it really hurts. I go to my ex-
girlfriend to see if she can go to the hospital with
me to have it removed. She lives in a beautiful house
now, and everyone is dressed nicely. I kiss her mother
on the cheek and her father, who is entertaining
guests, says thank you and shakes my hand, but there’s
money in his palm.
The next piece, we’re back at her house again, but
it’s a completely different and less expensive house.
It’s the Grand Union down the block from me, where a
newscaster is showing off a video that his son made.
It’s pouring rain, so I go into this glass vestibule
to watch it, and it’s basically an inspirational video
made by a bunch of kids. Once inside it’s her house,
and my ex-girlfriend is there. She wants to go out
with me again, but she doesn’t look like herself
anymore and I’m not attracted to her. I tell her this
out in the pouring rain.
Next, I’m at home and it’s still raining heavily. I
tell my family not to use the microwave or it’ll catch
on fire. They don’t listen, and it does. My father
says he sees something crawl out of the fire, and when
I look at the curtains next to the fire I see
something move behind them. I move the curtains and a
tiny mouse falls out and begins to crawl around
slowly. It’s cute, but it may carry disease, so I
attempt to shoo it out of the kitchen and out the
door. However my cat is there, and he picks up the
mouse in his mouth. I make him drop it, but he’s
already torn it open and it’s intestines spill out. My parents laugh as he slowly and curiously
begins to eat its innards.
The last piece, I have a tattoo on my right arm. On
the under part of my arm there are five musicians that
I don’t even listen to, Hendrix being one of them. On
the top there is Lady Death, and to the left of that a
row of nazi storm-troopers with red eyes goes off into
the distance.
If your kid is going to turn out anything like you, I pray he gets some fatal
childhood disease. One of you is more than enough, thanks.
I’m at the living room window watching a storm. I open
the window and stick my hand out, and I happen to
catch a leaf. They’re swirling around in a mini-
tornado on my lawn. I let the leaf go and it swirls
out of sight. When I think it should be back around I
grasp with my hand and manage to catch it again. I do
this over and over.
Then a man I don’t know enters the living room. I
notice a black spider about the size of a quarter
scurry away by his feet. The man’s upset, and my
mother is right behind him. He says he should’ve
listened to her when she said it was a “browning” that
bit him, because they’re highly poisonous. I ask him
how long it’s been since it bit him and he says a
year, which I find odd.
Jump to I don’t know when, the man’s wife is playing
with a scorpion. At the same time the man wakes up in
an attic and he’s transformed. He is wet and larvae-
like, embedded into the wall. He has no legs, rather
his body becomes a tail which faces him within the
wall. Little tentacles shoot off from it and make
moosh of the wall. His wife puts the scorpion in her
mouth until it’s gone. Now we’re inside her. The
scorpion absorbs down into the flesh of her mouth. We
follow down, into another fleshy cavern where the
scorpion falls. His body falls strangely through again
and again into at least six of these caverns within
her body.
I see hieroglyphics on a wall, and I know their cure
can be found if I can decipher the symbols. But my
alarm rings, and no one can save them now.
When I die, bury me at the busiest intersection you can find. Build a huge memorial right
in the middle of the road, so that people have to swerve around it or crash into
it. I want to get in people’s way. I want to be as inconvenient as possible.
A few days ago something happened to me which I’ve had a hard time classifying. I’m driving
home from school on the parkway, listening to my music loudly. As I near a ramp I
see that a lot of cars are merging on. I’m caught about halfway into the line of cars,
so I adjust my speed accordingly. Both the car in front and behind me are black, which I
hardly notice. As we go around an embanked curve, I see more and more cars in front
of me are black. Then, the car in front: a hearse. My eyes widen and face drops as
I realize I’m in the middle of a funeral procession. I can only imagine the anger of
the grieving driver behind me. With red face, I quickly change lanes and speed away from my blasphemy.
It’s not the religious implications I care about, but the social. As I drive ahead and allow
the world back into my head, my music comes back to my ears. The song, it’s by
Marilyn Manson and it’s called “The Death Song”.
We sing the Death Song, kids
‘Cuz we got no future
And we wanna be just like you
I’m trying to get the message. I’m trying to get what I should be getting out of
this experience. But all I keep thinking is how much of an asshole I am.
Today in class I looked down and there was an ant crawling on my crotch. I flicked
him off, of course, but I couldn’t shake that buggy feeling. I sat the rest of the class
Indian-style, wondering what it would feel like to be flicked away.
I’m in a place crowded with people. It’s some kind of
playhouse, Shakespearian. Many people hold very large
masks to perform in. I have one too, but instead of
being a lion or some such thing, it’s a flat, blank
face. A man runs up and tells us that God is suddenly
in the play going on, filling one of the roles.
Everyone runs to see, and I grab my mask and bring it
with me. I see the one they think is God, he’s an
adult man with a beard, not too thick. He’s performing
a play with the other actors. I’m not sure whether I
believe he’s God or not. A man asks to borrow my mask
so he can join in, but I tell him no and he begins to
insult me. I try to put on my mask to perform, but it
doesn’t seem to fit at all. It hits the top of my head
before it can rest on my shoulders. I give up,
annoyed. I begin to tell some people about some
drawings I used to do with a character that would
cause destruction and kill people. I’m sitting, and I
realize the scene has finished, the man thought to be
God is right by me, next to me. I laugh about one of
the cartoons and look up at him, and he looks down at
me. He touches my shoulder and I’m jolted with a
Christ-like image, a picture of a man, dressed in a
yellowish robe, garb from hundreds of years ago. He
has a beard, longish hair. I’m lifted up into the air
by the man’s touch, flooded with the image and the
singing in my ears. He’s singing a sort of hymn, but
with his are many other voices, light and angelic. I
come back down to the ground, he releases me and the
image and the singing cut out. Everyone is gasping,
running around, and I collapse to the floor. I am
changed. I feel a way I’ve never felt before,
enlightened, empowered maybe. I feel every human
emotion well up inside me, it’s too much too hold in,
and I begin to cry heavily. God walks away from me and
puts on his coat. He puts a piece of paper up on the
door and says to the people something like “If you
want to join us, be here” and then says the place,
date, and time on the paper, but I’m too emotional and
amazed to understand it. I sit and cry with my new
feeling, staring at God through tears. He looks at me
one last time and leaves.
I wake up, my face soaked from crying. I’m left to
wrestle with my own mind. Was it a religious
experience, or strange dream? When he touched me I
really felt something there.
Lethal erection.
Our faces are advertisements for our crotches.
“Act now, and all this is yours!”
I don’t have a bad face. It’s not attractive, and it’s not ugly.
I just don’t smile that much.
Wearing glasses is like wearing a condom. You’re safe, but you never really make contact with anyone.
When you cry, the lenses keep it in.
Face = crotch.
Glasses = condoms.
Of course this from a guy who thinks he’s be happier as an amputee.
At least I’d get some attention. And I’d feel challenged by life, forced to survive, made to fight.
Left to my own devices, I’d fall asleep and never wake up.
I love kids, I can just never tell when they’re ripe.
I can only really smile when I radically alter the chemical levels in my body. Any other
time, consider it a prop.
But the next day, filling my stomach with liquids and greasy foods, my face is at
it’s most solid.
“Look mommy! That rock is crying!”
Consider that a prop, too. Think of me as the worst actor in the most depressing movie
ever. The one you catch on TV when you can’t sleep and you go skin hunting.
I’m sure you have better things to do than listen to me recite my lines. Get your
eight hours, you have a big day ahead of you.
God I hate you.
Sometimes, I really feel like I have nothing to say. Like all the good thoughts
have been taken already. I feel…
God, what’s the point.
Honest.
Try to think of the most honest thing you can possibly say.
I’m not depressed, I just really need attention.
Then try to think of something twice as honest, something so brutally sincere that it makes
the first thing sound like a lie in contrast.
If I met me, I’d seriously hate me.
Then double the honesty again.
People make me nervous, mostly because I’m afraid of what they think of me.
Double it.
The more I think about it, the more I realize sex is disgusting.
More.
I always insult myself to get compliments.
More.
Boredom makes me suicidal.
More.
I wish I had talent, but I don’t.
More.
Children make me feel creepy.
More.
I don’t have anything important to say, I’m just writing this to impress you.
More.
Now take all those things you’ve said, and forget you ever said them.
Why?
Because people use honesty against you.
Because you never meant any of it, anyway.
Honesty doesn’t exist.
Once I sat on a paper bag, but it wasn’t folded. Seems like such a crime, the
walrus bled onto me under his tusks. I went to find bread, but only laxatives can make me
fly. Cross your legs, catch the hairs and smell the spit. In the collar the sweat runs
heavy, in you I can’t see me. Under the light and to it, wonder is over-rated.
You didn’t hear me, and that’s why the divorce went through. I love that, it never fails
to kill her. The leather and the cat are one thing with the help of that horizon.
Strap it on and tell me when, we may be wrong but someone has to.
The click-snap at the back of my throat, it’s
a super-human power I’ve developed, one that I don’t
want. The erratic hopscotch of time, indecisive in
it’s play. Stare, don’t stare, hope they don’t think
I’m staring. The show starts soon, I want to be nice
and legal when that happens. They all know I did it.
From my twitchy pupils, from the way I walk. I emanate
guilt as the legs hooked into my torso take me to
where all the excited people are. Where they know I’m
not right. I hope and I hope my body will forget it’s
new trick. I beg time to return to its normal ways. I
make my chemical wishes and I hope that the show will
take away my self-inflicted damage soon enough that I
don’t have to eject it myself. People are starting to
talk.
Anti-social friendship.
Malicious forms of charity.
Terminal childbirth.
Gratuitous levels of normality.
As the fingers fall
Warm with disgust
Unfeeling
Uncaring enough to move
Even that much
They know
What used to be so mysterious
Has become so boring
Remember, remember the time everyone you ever loved spit in your face? That day, I can’t remember
the date, the day that your whole world just crumbled like so much mildewed paper. Man, I
couldn’t stop laughing. You’re definitely the funniest person I’ve ever met.
That kid,
He used to talk so much.
Seemed like he would never shut his mouth.
It didn’t matter what he talked about,
As long as he was talking.
People seemed to like him that way,
But I guess he didn’t.
That’s why he got the idea.
His idea, it was a simple one.
Don’t babble so much.
Just talk when you have something important to say.
Funny, I haven’t heard a word from him since.
People seem to like him just the same.
I can’t wait, I just love costume parties! I think I’ll go as a human.
I’ll bring the hair-care products
And the guilt
You just stay right there
And don’t lock your door
Before you’re done washing your hair
I’ll be looking through the wet door
Remembering when this was okay to do
And I’ll step over the boundaries
The ones I put up myself
And as she waits for me
Just a few minutes away
Innocent and unaware (or so I think)
We’ll wash ourselves dirty
We’ll dry ourselves to shame
We’ll finish the job
And to the soundtrack of crying
I’ll put on my shoes
And do my hair up
To go to her
To do the same thing again
To wallow in the dirt
To mess my hair
The last time we talked you had short hair and I was afraid of dying. My, how things change.
My life consists of a handful of letters that I've never sent.
I’m writing this because I can’t say it to your face. That’s the way my brain works,
I can form intelligent thoughts, but they just get lost on the way to my mouth. I’ve
always communicated better on paper. Maybe that’s because I’m so shy, sometimes talking just seems ridiculous. The
way my fumbling lips spill out words in this annoying thing I call a voice, nothing could
be more embarrassing than that. When I speak, I have such difficulty that people tend to tune
out five words in.
I honestly can’t remember one day I haven’t thought about you. You changed me forever,
for better or worse I still can’t tell. In my life I’ve had a few pivotal moments,
all of which wither and die under the weight of one: the day I met you. That
day, living eight or nine decades didn’t seem too bad anymore. Existence seemed for a moment, worthwhile.
Life as it turned out was fair.
What you did for me was let me realize my potential. Maybe I really was a good
guy. Maybe I wasn’t ugly after all. I was able to love, an ability I had doubted
for some time. I was the happiest and the most emotionally open I had ever been. Ever.
We both know what happened after that. We got tied up in all those mistakes that humans
make over, and over, and over, and over.
Mistrust. Restlessness. Secrets.
Our fall from grace, it was epic. No one has seen a worse tragedy before or since,
and somehow I bore this gaping wound in silence. I can only assume your agony equaled mine.
What I hope is that you blamed me in your darkest moments, if only for self-protection.
I know I blamed me. But blame is something I’d like to think we’ve moved away from.
What happened next, there lies the real pain. You see, my entire view of the world and
of the experience of just getting through that world, it changed completely.
I once saw a proverbial ocean. As you swim, you hit cold and warm spots, you see
beautiful creatures, and you do your best to stay afloat, avoid the carnivores, and reach the other side.
Simple and just.
What I see now, what I’ve seen since that horrible time is this (and I say this in no
way trying to be poetic, but rather brutally sincere):
I see a ladder. At the top is your goal: acceptance, success, love, and in order to
reach your goal you have to climb. And the higher you climb to reach it, and the
more steps you climb in hopeful anticipation,
The worse it hurts when you eventually fall.
What I’ve been doing the last few years is trying to heal, but I’m either not healing,
or I’m doing it so slow that it’s barely noticeable. I’m damaged goods, and I don’t mean
in the sense of love, I mean as a fully-functional, emotional human being. I have
not since, nor do I ever see myself again, trusted a single person since our falling out.
No matter how honest an attempt I make, my brain nags and nags in the background that
I’m just climbing the ladder again.
And I know, down to my very molecules, that I can only blame myself for that.
I’m not writing this to shovel the guilt onto your plate, because I know it’s mine to
eat. I’m not trying to get this off my chest, because I know now that such a
thought is hilarious. I’m stuck with this. What I am doing is looking for help. Begging for
it. I’ve accepted the outcome of things. I’ve forgiven you in my head over and over, even
to your face a few times. I know what we had was the best thing I’ve ever
had and that it’s gone now.
But I still can’t bring myself to let go. I can’t talk, I can’t laugh, I can’t
smile, I can’t trust anyone, because the only thought that repeats in my head as I feebly
attempt these human devices that I envy so much is this one: when you burn your hand on
the stove, you don’t ever touch it again. What perhaps makes humans unique is their inability to
learn that lesson, which leads me to the conclusion that I’m not human anymore. Dramatic, I know,
but I believe it with everything I am, or maybe everything I’m not.
What I have, I don’t call it depression. I call it emotion envy. I see children at my
job, and their smiles are so real. I see couples and I admire them. I want what
these people have so badly that I think I might cry, and then I remember I can’t.
I’ve learned not to hate them anymore, because hate is only envy in denial. Through reasoning and
over-use, I’ve lost almost every emotion in the book.
I’m not looking for pity or “everything
I deserve”, I’m just trying to come back in from the cold. I want to stop being
afraid of climbing that ladder long enough to jump in the ocean. I want a hug. I
want to trust and be trusted. I want to rejoin the human race. I want you to
know these things, because your very existence has changed mine.
I know that the voyage to understanding and happiness, the trip itself is what makes us who
we are, what makes life so incredibly exciting, what makes the destination that much more worth all the
sores and the personal doubts.
But I really want to get there already.
I just wanted you to know these things, because I hope that maybe it represents a step
up that ladder for me.
I also hope you’re doing well.
When Cheerleaders Attack!
You don’t look in the toilet for something to eat.
This girl, you know the kind, she went out to clubs almost every day of the week.
She’d get drunk and fuck some random guy on the dance floor. Well, you can’t call it
random, she had a taste for scum, for macho pricks in tight shirts and dyed hair that
saw her as shrink-wrapped meat to sample and throw away. She would always come crying to
me about how this guy didn’t call her, how that one was hitting on her best friend.
I made every attempt to show her all men aren’t assholes as she so uniquely put it.
I would give her the best advice I could think of along with anything I had in
my possession that might make her feel better. Well one day this crying girl, she told me
that she was just looking for a nice guy, but there weren’t any out there. Man, I
couldn’t help but laugh in her stupid face. I laughed so hard I must have tore a muscle in
my stomach, but that didn’t stop me from laughing more.
I’m laughing right now just thinking about it.
Don’t kid yourself, nothing I say will change you. You’ve got your world
just the way you want it.
I can sum up my life very easily. It’s one of those horrible country line-dancing
steps where everyone willingly gives up any individual dancing skills they possess to move with the rest
of the stupid-hat-wearing group.
You know, two steps forward, one step back.
Well that’s me.
It doesn’t matter how big a step I take forward, it’s always followed by two equally large
steps back. “Sorry, you rolled a one. The square says to move two steps back. Here, I’ll
do it for you.” Tell me, with moves like that, how will I ever reach the
end of the board?
If you get tired of me complaining, just let me know. I value honesty. We won’t be
friends anymore, of course. That goes without saying.
I can’t wait for my high school reunion. I bet it’ll look like a George Romero flick.
You made me realize how human I could be. Thank you, I hate you now.
There's nothing like learning your own limitations and being disgusted by them. Nothing like
finding out you're not the pillar of strength you had always assumed you were.
Nothing like being shot in the head when you're wearing a bullet-proof vest.
Thanks, thanks a lot.
Okay, okay, stop! I think he’s dead. Well he stopped moving, didn’t he? Give me the bat, I’ll check.
Nothing is as you said it would be. There were no good old days and there is
no bright future. Innocence was a phase, a habit I broke free of before I got hooked.
Your schools didn’t shape me they way you so carefully planned them to. College was no
make-or-break scenario either. It wasn’t some liberating party that I couldn’t handle, or
barely squeaked
through and squeezed memories out of. I took your system and I yawned through it. I yawned.
I don’t want a career like you want, or you want me to want. Those numbers you
throw in my face, I couldn’t possibly gather the energy to care about them. I never have.
Nothing makes me happier than to know I escaped your plan. One of them got away, how
does that feel? You’ve failed, and I am your failure, the one you’ll have to live with
until your kind is extinct. That’s a badge I wear prominently upon my chest.
Deaf from the silence. I sit here in the dark. I sit here in the silence. The
air is still. My brain in numb. I feel no pain. I know no grief. My mind
has nothing to feed on but itself, and it is hungry. Things of an abandoned past begin
to rise from the depths of my mind, and the soul it protects. I wish something would
happen, then I could blame the madness on whatever happened, rather than on my own self. But
there is nothing, and I know I am to blame. Time has abandoned me, and it’s distant
cousin Space has decided to follow in this righteous path. My thoughts swim from what has
happened to what will happen to what is happening, both behind me as well as before me,
trying to fool what is inside of me. I can’t remember the past, yet I can clearly
remember the future which hasn’t been written or maybe it has, I’m just the only one who
can see it, me the blindest of all, the one who sits in the silence that kills.
I’m very angry. Learning so much about myself I don’t want to know. I’m the sidekick. I’m
the secondary character. I’m the friend. I don’t matter on my own. My body temperature is hot.
This is me from now until the end. Bored with my choices and disappointed with answers found.
If I had anything to give the world, I’ve already done it. I will always be the pathetic
one, the friend of the friend they would feel bad for if they knew they should.
The racehorse with the broken leg. The only group I’ll ever be part of will be the
dead horses grinded to glue. Maybe I’ll get lucky and become Jello. Wouldn’t that be cute. My
final gift to the world will be a cavity. I hope I rot your fucking teeth out.
I hope the pain never goes away. Then I can say my life amounted to something. I
won’t really be dead.
Watching movies has fucked you up. Your false sense of hero-hood will eventually kill you. The
truth is going to bury you in a coffin of disappointment as you struggle to reveal your
hidden worth. What your grasping hands don’t realize is the lack of interest in your death. Your
final scene will be an anti-climax. No hopes of a sequel in this one. As your
picture fades I’ll be sitting in the projection booth laughing my ass off to a soundtrack
no one will buy.
Last week I went to the doctor to see about these really horrible headaches I keep getting.
He couldn’t tell what it was by looking at me, so he ran all the usual tests
and said he’d call me. Today he finally called me back to discuss the results, and when
I got there he just looked too serious for my tastes. I noticed he wasn’t looking me
in the eyes. I asked him if he found what was giving me the headaches, and he
said yes. Then he started telling me how important it is to write out a living will
and so on, and of course I realized what he was getting at. I sighed and asked
him just to tell me how long I had to live. He finally looked me in the
eyes, and said: “Five sneezes”.
All of this will be obsolete in a year.
(When you’re killing four, one more hardly matters.)
Shake off the old skin and you will grow.
It only exists now in pictures.
Perfection is a product of memory.
Can’t respond can’t repeat can’t release
In this life
Of corporate sponsorship thought
Logo t-shirt dot commies
The blank wall
Will one day be fable
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