Cherelyn

"Can I look yet?"

Cherelyn says this to me.  I ignore her.

"Come on.  Quit it."

She pushes my hands from her eyes.  I lock them in place.

"How much longer?"

"Just shhh," I say, as I adjust her high heel.  It got snagged on a step.

"All this walking is kind of exhuasting, especially in these heels, you know?"

She's getting impatient.  You need to hurry this up.

"Okay, I'm going to take my hands from your eyes."

"Okay."

"Grab my hand and follow me up the rest of the steps.  Don't look."

"Okay."

My tiny hand folds into her's when she takes it.  Gingerly.  We step.

These steps are made of granite or cobblestone (how would you have any idea?)  and you know they're really, really old and you can't believe--

"What was that?"

"Nothing.  Let's go."

You hear the brusqueness in your tone.  You mentally apologize.

"Nothing.  Are you okay?"

Night moving in, consuming everything, just the way you wanted it.  This will be great.

"I'm alright," she sighs, fixing her heels.  "For now."

You wonder how slippery it will be up there and then if she'll find it beautiful.

***

"Open your eyes."

Where we are is the top of the oldest belltower in a hundred miles.  We learned that in first grade.  No one is allowed up here, of course, but kids sneak to the top to drink and smoke and fuck all the time.  We're kids, so I figured we could get up here too.  For once, I was right.

And what a view.  The full moon casts gray light over the tiny town and I feel like doing a massive belly flop, smooshing all the people who make me mad and sad and

She's kissing me.  I let her.

When she stops and asks "now what?" I say "I'll show you now what."  This is the part I've been waiting for, the part that will make it all worthwhile.

I grab hold of the bell's giant swinging pendulum, I pull it back, and I let that thing go flying.

GONG

Echoes through the town.

GONG

Echoes through the town.

GONG

Echoes through the night.

A million bats come flying.  They're all whirling, swooping, diving around us.  She screams.  You hug her.

And you both stand there.  Bats from all sides battering your bodies.  Bats in your hair.  You keep your eyes closed.  You feel her warmth.  It's cold in mid November.  The bats keep coming.

Can I Gag You With A Fork?

It starts in a basement. Mold green paint chips off the walls all over the fucking place. A pair of feet enter the frame, which is to say a doorway, and a cat enters from off-screen to rub against the feet and then meow and walk away.

“Can I gag you with a fork?” He grins like the Joker. Just lying there, squinting up at him through cat litter and tears, you can feel your cock stiffening. You try not to let this distract you by shutting your eyes tight, stuffing your hands over your ears, and shouting for someone to help. He walks over and slaps you.

“Are you fucking nuts? This has always been about both of us! And what if someone actually did hear your insane cries for help, what then? To find you here, drugged and covered in my dried shit and cum, cat turds smeared all over you, litter sprinkled on top like a peanut covered Sundae...yes it's beautiful, we both know that, but they would never understand. Aren't I right, Kevy?”

Kevy doesn't, maybe can't, respond, just nods his head and smears cat litter across his lips.

“That's a good boy.”

Kneeling like a frog, he pats Kevy on the head.

Standing, “Right. So. Let's get the fun underway, shall we?”

A cat meows and brushes against a leg.

***

It's shot in a medium reversal of him dragging Kevy's body across the work bench.

“Murphmydjj...I...mmlove you,” Kevy mumbles through the fresh cat shit that's been stuffed in his mouth.

Brushing tools to the sides of the table in a clamorous swoop, he cackles and says, “I know you do, Kevy. That's why we trust each other for this.”

He hoists Kevy's naked body, which is covered with multiple species' shit, ejaculate, piss, and vomit, onto the table, then pulls Kevy back down, so half of Kevy's body is hanging off, limp but feet kicking in merriment or desperation, he couldn't say if he cared.

Then he gets really close to Kevy's face. Kevy sees his angelic blue eyes and shoulder-length blond hair and thinks he looks as close to God, aka Kurt Cobain, as anyone ever could. Staring into the face of an angel, Kevy feels cold hands around his face that register as warm, and he lifts Kevy's head into position on the edge of the table.

To picture the position, picture what people sometimes call “curbstomping.” Now picture the exact opposite of that.

Kevy's face is bent back, with the top of his jaw nailed to the top of the table and the bottom of his jaw is stretched way open, showing his no tonsils all the way down the tube of his throat. It's nailed to the side of the table.

You feel this as the first day you got braces as a kid, how much that hurt. You feel this as little crucifixions all up and down your rows of teeth. You feel this as your neck about to snap.

Then he picks up the fork. He walks over to you with it slowly at first, doing a little dance like in Reservoir Dogs. You try speaking, but this just causes your tongue to freak out in all directions and, not wanting to die yet, you stop.

The first mark comes suddenly. He lunges at you unexpectedly and reaches deep, deep down inside your throat. He stabs the fork into your distended throat without restraint and you throw up blood and bile all over his hand. You taste blood and things you've never tasted before. It tastes like the blood coming from the puncture wound in your throat is flowing upwards.

And it is a puncture wound: you can feel, hear, air whistling in and out of your throat and you know he's broken through. Over the next hour he takes his time battering your throat, making holes in it, playing with your endless blood and vomit, until there just seems to be endless blood.

A cat meows and brushes against a leg.

Bill Frasier

“Hey aren't you Bill Frasier?”

It's a gray 7-11 at nobody knows what time.  Gray.  Flicking fluorescent lights give the place a slowed down strobe effect.  Gray everywhere.  Bill Frasier pictures the gray as crude and all-encompassing, like he's a victim in a poorly shot snuff film.

Outside, a naked body is sprawled on the hood of a car, split open from neck to vagina.  The ribs have been snapped into pieces and most of what was once housed inside is gone.  The flesh on the outside of the gash that used to be a woman's body has been nailed hastily to the hood of the car, the tops of nails bashed in at weird angles.

A man whistles and walks past, fumbling for a Camel Light.

Bill Frasier stands at a 7-11 counter trying to open a candy bar. When he hears the voice behind him he starts, then focuses his attention back on the candy bar.

“Yes, yes I am.”

“Hey, yeah, Billy! Remember me, Robbie Schwanker?”

Bill looks down, fumbling with his candy bar wrapper, avoiding eye contact, trapped at the convenient store counter.

“Uh, yeah, Robbie. Hi.” Pause. “How have you been?”

“Oh, you know, you know. I'm a regional manager over at Pep Boys now!”

“That's great, Robbie,” Bill says, sounding dead inside.

“Yeah...Jesus, man, I haven't seen you since Senior year! What have you been up to?"

Bill stops twisting the wrapper, looks at Robbie's gray eyes, eyes that thankfully recall to Bill no memory of who this person was, and he says, “Nothing. I haven't been up to anything.”

Bill dimly realizes that he has Robbie at a loss but he couldn't care less about this faux pas. Robbie tries a different tactic.

“So, what about Jeanie Blew? I remember you two having a real heavy thing going. Man, what happened? Everyone thought you guys were going to get married!”

“We did,” says Bill, and the look on his face prompts an “I'm sorry” from Robbie.

“Don't be,” says Bill, his voice now perking up, him starting to eat his candy bar. “It was just one of those things.”

“Didn't work out?”

“Nope.” Bill tosses a square of the chocolate into his mouth and masticates loudly.

There's a pause, and then Robbie lowers his voice to say, “So I guess you got divorced?”

“Oh no,” Bill says, appearing totally at ease now, pushing the last of the candy bar into his mouth.

“No?”

“Nope. I killed her.”

Macaulay Culkin's asshole

In my mind Macaulay Culkin's asshole is a prim pink bunny's nose, but in reality it's torn up, like my own, probably from years of hardcore drugs and sex.  Macaulay Culkin's asshole is the first thing I see on my computer every morning, and sometimes I get so hard, I don't even need Viagra.  I need the Viagra in the first place because I'm a heroin addict and I can't get erect.

Anyway, it was a typical day--me jerking off to Macaulay Culkin's asshole--when Todd Parker pulled up.  "Todd Parker is a guy you're perpetually wary off but his coolness hypnotizes you because you want to fuck him and you want to be him," I scribbled in a notebook.

Knock, knock, knock.

Creeeeak.  The door aches open to reveal Todd Parker.  With a mini high top, leather jacket, tight red tshirt, and leather pants, and he looks like a porno actor from the 1970s.  Todd sloshes around the gum he's chewing and he stares at me while I stare at the ground.

"So," Todd finally says.  "Are you going to tell me the punchline or what?"

"Todd, I don't know the punchline," I whisper.  "Just go away man."  My voice barely rises above a hoarse rasp as I struggle to shut the door, but somehow Todd is overpowering me.  He's pushing his way into my house.  Somehow, he's moving the prison cell tight door over me, on top of me.  Finally I can't resist, and Todd barges in.

"What's the punchline," Todd demands, and I say I don't know.

The grin Todd aims at me is made of ash.  He walks over to me, puts me in a headlock, and rubs his knuckles into my hair.

"Get away," I squeal, and Todd actually lets go of me.  I stand up, brush myself off, and look Todd in the eye.  "What?" I say, daring him.

Todd sighs a fake sigh.  "Oh," and then he speaks my name.  "You don't want to talk to me like that.  You really do not want to talk to me like that."

From his back pocket, Todd removes a small golden handle--a switchblade, which he wavves at my face before laughing.

"I'm just fucking with you," Todd says.  Pause.  "But...you do know what you have to do, right?  That is, unless you're going to tell me the punchline."

"Todd, man, I told you, I don't know the punchline.  I don't know the punchline.  I don't know what you're talking about.  I don't know the punchline."

"Well then drop those drawers, lover boy, because daddy's come for what's his--" Todd looks over at my computer screen.  "Is that Macaulay Culkin's asshole?"

something like "Surf" but not "Surf"

Billy:

I don't want to hear about your fucking job, okay? I don't want to hear about where you went on vacation last summer or who your wife's fucking or anything like that. Don't make me sick. Just don't make me sick! That's all I'm asking you.

Tommy:

Yeah she was cute and all but I could never fuck her...like, she smelled bad. She had sores.

Frank:

I think one thing we can all agree on is that this little misadventure--

Jodie:

Cut the bullshit, Frank.

Frank:

What?

Billy:

I fucking swear to god I will destroy you if you talk to me about the Bible or religion or--

Frank:

Ignore him. Please continue.

Jodie:

We're—you're—officially rapists and murders. Doesn't the phase you in the fucking least?

Tommy:

Hey, it's getting dark out here. Don't you think we should maybe, uh, do whatever we're going to do with these girls?

Frank:

Tommy, shut up. Okay, okay, let me just think. Jodie, fuck you.

Jodie:

Yeah, fuck you too.

Jodie steps into the cavity of a female human chest.

Frank:

Fuck you.

She was straddling his chest

She was straddling his chest.  It was a wooden floor, unvarnished, splinters getting stuck in her black stockings which she kept pulling out.  They were both drunk.  She kept giggling and spilling to one side.
It was a wooden floor, unvarnished, splinters getting stuck in her black stockings which she kept pulling out.  They were both drunk.  She was straddling his chest.  A flash of lightning: a splash of blood on the ground by his lips.  Wads of semen between his legs.

It was a wooden floor, unvarnished, splinters getting stuck in her black stockings which she kept pulling out.  They were both drunk.  She was straddling his chest and spilling to one side, giggling.  He made a consistent, low moaning noise.  "Shhh," she said, and put a bloody finger over his lips.  She wiped the finger, smearing blood over his lips and face.

It was a wooden floor, unvarnished, splinters getting stuck in her black stockings which she kept pulling out.  She kept spilling to one side.  They were both drunk.  She was straddling his chest.  She started to slide his pants off.  "Please," him said, voice hoarse.  "Don't".  "Okay," she said, and then paused for a moment.  She grabbed a screwdriver that was clanking around the wooden floors and drove its point into the center of him's crotch.  It didn't fully puncture skin, at first, only a little bit, making a little indentation in his genitals which gushed blood over a soundtrack of shouts.

It was a wooden floor, unvarnished, splinters getting stuck in her black stockings which she kept pulling out.  They were both drunk.  She was straddling his chest.  She now had the screwdriver halfway in him's face, and it was stuck.  She kept pulling at it, trying to dislodge it as if from a carved pumpkin.  Him was screaming and burbling.  She enjoyed the audio track of agony too much.

It was a wooden floor, unvarnished, splinters getting stuck in her black stockings which she kept pulling out.  They were both drunk.  She was straddling his chest.  She pulled the screwdriver out and blood spattered her own face.  Yuck.  Lots of wailing and moaning noises now.  Holding the yellow handle with both hands, she drove the screwdriver into him's drunk, fucked up face another once or fifty more times.

*********

Two.

I get out of the shower and it takes me a little while before I see I have a missed call from Georgia.  My first response is to panic, and then to quickly run a list of names through my head of everyone I know with a Georgia area code.  I can't remember anyone, and then my stomach becomes an eternally-hardening ball of ice because I remember: Alice.

That one night.  That one night will haunt me for the rest of my life.  She seemed like such a kid, well she didn't, but it's hard to explain...I never thought she would get the cops involved.

A knock at the front door.  I stand up, finish the tumblr of bourbon which was sitting on top of my copy of The New Yorker, inside of which I had yesterday slipped a printed-out copy of my own short fiction, just 'cause.  In the mirror that I do coke off regularly I look at myself: light tan, short expensive haircut, features soft and hard in all the right places.  I grin wide at myself, knowing that if this is it, if the cops are at my door, at least I look damned handsome and wealthy before being slandered a pedophile or whatever.

Fearless of the frantic knocking now, I pull open the front door and Alice is swinging a sdfj-dffk----

**********

Deer Diary,

Killed more evil men today.  I need new power tools.  Okay, let's see, let's see...Check mark, I'm up to....Well, you know how many I'm up to.

The Relationship

We were at a point where pictures on tumblr seem profound. We were pretty smashed. George took the computer from me and exited out of the picture of Kurt Cobain. “Look,” he said, the vodka on his breath barely staining my own inebriated nostrils. “Don't you think it's time to stop idolizing this guy?” 

I slide away on the bed and pull the computer back from George. “Never,” I snarl, and ogle a photo of Kurt holding a can of Pepsi and a cigarette. “Your obsession disturbs me,” George says, and when I look in his eyes I can't tell if he's being serious so I say, “Yeah, well, so does yours,” apropos of nothing. 

George gets pissed and topples my bedside table. “What the fuck,” I say. “Look, I can't take this any more,” George says. He jabs an index finger at the computer screen. “It's me or him. Pick one.” 

I looked at the picture of Kurt standing in front of a theater marquee saying “Men can't save you any more,” and then I looked at George's fat, red face. “Him,” I said, and shrugged. George whined and groaned simultaneously and then he stood and rampaged around my house, breaking my Nirvana records until my threats to call the police made him sit in a corner and cry. I watched as George sobbed, motionless. I was kind of relieved. I walked back to the computer. On screen was Kurt with Christmas lights around his neck. I saved the photo to my desktop.

That's how 2012 began.

The Toilet

Dedicated, with a special FUCK YOU, to everyone who doubted me.

He's sitting on a toilet, waiting for any of the three people he's been texting to text him back. One of those people is his girlfriend and he dreads hearing another word from her. Another one of those people is a girl he went to high school with and he is trying to bone her and, even though she says she has a boyfriend, he's guessing she's lying and as he squeezes his buttocks together a farting noise is emitted, syncopated with his eager heart. The other person is his best friend and he doesn't really care about him.

Light flickers from yellow, to what he assumes is neutral, to pink, to what he assumes is neutral. His phone vibrates twice. He checks it. Neither message is his girlfriend. Just then he groans and his ass cheeks shake, then open, and he dumps mounds of backed up feces painfully into the toilet. He groans again, hears his cell vibrate, reaches for it, but shits all over the inside of the toilet bowl before he can read the message. When he does he sees it's the girl he went to high school with. Score.

Washing his hands, the lights are still flickering and dimming, changing colors, and he reaches into the back pocket of his jeans for a pillbox. With his other moist hand he scratches his cock, faintly fantasizing about the girl from highschool. He opens this pill box and removes six one-milligram pills of Klonopin. He holds the pills under the running water, bends over, and shoves them up his ass with two fingers. He reaches up to the second knuckle on both fingers when something sharp catches his fingers. It feels like his ass is biting him. He tries to pull his fingers out but he can't. His ass won't let go. Doubled over in the weird lights, he charges around the bathroom until he smashes headfirst into the toilet bowl. He goes limp. His head drops into the water.

When he regains consciousness he finds himself floating underwater. The heads of Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Karl Marx, and a masked head of the Invisible Committee are all attached to strands of shit. The strands of shit are anchored to some filthy oceanic floor. Obama head throws itself at Marx head and particles of shit disperse through the water. Invisible Committee head sits back and does nothing until Marx head approaches on its shit strand, at which point Invisible Committee head barks and makes noises no one can understand. Romney head feebly goes for Obama head but Obama head bites Romney head's shit strand and Romney retreats. 

While this is all happening he is still floating in the water, thinking, “damn, I really just wanna fuck that girl from high school.”

debauchery at 3:00

tom's walking out of class when his teacher says "fuck you".  he turns around, startled, then tom does.  now facing his teacher's back, tom grabs his teacher's waist and starts fucking viciously.  exhausted, tom pulls out and cums all over his left hand.  he studies the cum, then wipes it on his teacher's face, smearing his teacher's glasses with goo.  "well?" tom asks.  "fuck you" his teacher says.  "again?" tom asks.

adjusting his pants, tom leaves his teacher's office to find me spinning a pencil in the hallway.  "oh, hello" tom says.  "i've decided the only way to transcend love and sex is to be a nihilist," i say.  "i only care about nihilism from now on."  "that's kind of cute," tom says.  "I know," i wail.

he struggles to keep his head propped up.  his eyes pulse with pain.  he smells like a literary orgasm.  he's just completed the masterpiece he's been willing into existence for three years.  it's as good as he's been saying it will be.  it's better.  i know because james tells me so on the internet.

"i hate them all" a man declares.  "if only it were that simple," a larger man rejoins.

the black kid told the white kid that the black kid's grandma had a bottle of pills.  the black kid said if he could fuck the white kid, the white kid could have the pills.  the black kid fucked the white kid.  a train came.  the white kid got on the train without the pills.  that's how it went. 

"and jesus christ in all his glory--" "i've never been to church." he spit and leered at her.

Nobody Likes Broken Vixen

Broken Vixen wakes up to his cell vibrating and answers it in a sweat.

"Hello?" Broken's heart is pumping fast, working it's way from second gear to third.

"Dude!" Broken's heart gets to third gear and keeps chugging because the voice on the other end of the phone belongs to Tommy Pickles.  Tommy is Broken's ex-best friend, only Tommy doesn't know that yet.  Broken presses the phone back into his ear.

"Dude!  I have all kinds of crazy shit for you to do today!"

Broken takes the phone from his ear, holds it in his hands.  He waits.  Nothing happens.  He presses the phone back into his ear.

"Hello?  Broken?  Broken?"

"I don't want to do crazy shit today," Broken says.  "I'm not broken anymore."

"What do you mean?  Of course you're Broken!  You're Broken Vixen!  Who else would you be?"

"No, I mean I'm not--"

"Broken, just calm down."

"Tommy listen--"

"No you listen, Broken.  I'm bored and I need you to entertain me.  Get ready.  I'm coming by."

Tommy clicks off.  Broken stares at the phone.  He sets the phone down, gets up, paces his house, goes into the bathroom.  He looks at himself in the mirror and splashes some water on his face.  He dries his face on a towel.  Then he stands in the center of his living room and waits for Tommy to arrive.

****

Tommy shows up grinning a disastrous smile packed with jagged teeth.  He aims the smile at the door knocker and knocks.  One, two, three, four.  He doesn't stop knocking until Broken answers the door.

"Broken!"  Tommy extends his arms for a hug, giving Broken a scenic view of Tommy's considerable girth packed into a lime green track suit.

"Hi Tommy," Broken says and weakly stands to one side, inviting Tommy in.  "What, no hug?" Tommy demands, but he marches into the house anyway.  Trailing behind Tommy are a baby stroller, a clown suit, and various whips and chains. 

"What, uh, is all this stuff," Broken asks nervously. 

"Oh," Tommy says, pointing his grin at Broken's face.  "It's all for you."  The grin doesn't stop devouring, it eats through flesh all the way to Broken's skull.  "Here's what we're gonna do.  You're gonna put on this clown suit and get in this stroller.  After that we're heading to Target and I'm going to film you."

"What about the whips?" Broken asks, eying the whips as Tommy begins pulling down Broken's pants. 

"Oh, you'll see," Tommy says with his hands on Broken's belt buckle.  "You'll see what about the whips."  The laugh bellowed by Tommy makes it sound like he's eating air.

Broken pushes Tommy's hands away from his belt buckle.  "Tommy, stop.  I told you.  I'm not broken anymore.  I'm making progress with my shrink and-- and-- I'm seeing this girl--"

"No you aren't," Tommy says.  "You're Broken.  Ask anybody in this town.  You think they don't know it?"  Tommy gestures towards the neighboring buildings in the gray fog of morning, and Broken knows that he's right.  "If you aren't Broken then who are you?  You're nobody!  Nobody even knows who you are."

Defeated, Broken begins to slump to the floor.  He knows Tommy's right.  He lets Tommy remove his pants.

Show Me Your Tats

“Show me your tats,” Dennis grins, and you forgot you had them for a second. You're drunk and when you stand up you feel the alcohol siphoning its way down your insides. You're definitely buzzed, but you still know this could be awkward and you want to make sure you get your physical position right, for showing Dennis your tats. You shift your weight on the barrel you're sitting on. A little bit over there, there's a campfire that some kids are dancing around. You wonder if any of them are high and realize dimly that they definitely are and this makes you sad for some reason.

“Dude,” Dennis says, and you're back with the living.

“Oh, right,” you say, your heart beginning to race, you knowing this was a bad idea. This was a really bad idea. You rock back and forth on the barrel, sort of tip it forward, then back again, feeling its weight beneath you. You're delaying the moment. Dennis is staring at you blankly with an empty beer cup in his hand. It's now or never, you think. You look over there at the kids dancing around the campfire, singing songs. “Fuck them,” you think, and you roll up the sleeve on your sweater, expecting the worst but no longer caring.

The word “murderer” has been jaggedly cut into your arm, creating vast open wounds that are now just bloody stitches, snarled fishing line, black and red. Dennis is staring at your arm. You feel yourself getting a hangover. Finally, after kneeling down to examine the wounds, Dennis stands up again.

He says, “far out,” and grins.

“Huh?” you ask, not really there.

“Far out,” Dennis says, and when you look back up the grin is still there.

“They're really rad,” Dennis continues. “Where'd you get them?”

“Hey!” Dennis yells.” “Krysta!” A thin, pretty girl is dancing around the campfire and when Dennis gets her attention she looks over and he says “Get over here” and she gets over here. You're frozen to your wooden-barrel seat, stuck now in a purgatory you wish you'd never let yourself enter.

“Check out this guy's tattoos,” Dennis says excitedly. “They're really sick.”

When Krysta bends down to examine my tattoos I notice how soft and white her skin is.

She stands up again, looks me in the eye, and then says, “Dude. Very ill,” deadpanning the words to make herself seem more hard. “Wicked tats,” Krysta continues. “Who did 'em?”

You stare at the empty beer cup in your hands.

patchouli stops making you nauseous when

patchouli stops making you nauseous and starts to feel like something safe after a while. you smelled it at college, walking down your dorm buildings hallways haunted by insane, wild cannibals, kids burning incense with the windows open to mask the smell of pot. you did that too, only you used a spray can of Lysol or sometimes Febreeze instead of incense, because you thought it seemed less suspicious. then when you had a mental collapse and finally dragged your body back home, you never smelled it again. and you were relieved.

you stopped smoking weed for two months before starting again. it was rough at first but you got used to it again over time. you started burning incense just for fun, not because you had to or there was any pressure put on you. sometimes it smelled nice, but sometimes it was too much. sometimes it reminded you of the past. but the more weed you smoked and the softer the past felt, the more you liked the smell of incense, made you feel like a hippie, made you feel like you belonged to something you liked and could agree with. and that's when the smell of patchouli doesn't smell that bad anymore.

shoutout to my favorite authors, man

matthew stokoe’s prose is like a first-person shooter; matthew stokoe’s pose is like a snuff film

vladimir nabokov’s prose is like a hedgemaze where you’re given a chainsaw on the first page

aMERICAN dream machine guy’s prose is a tumblr of bourbon

donna tartt writes the best nancy drew stories for adults

burroughs is the blood in your veins

didion is a steel knife so sharp it cuts if you touch it

dennis cooper is your subconscious or maybe just the world

lonely christopher is lonely

cormac mccarthy wrote a book about ponies

arthur rimbaud is you as a homosexual anarchist (hey that’s me!)

bret easton ellis fucks with the totality cuz he’s a masochist

I Don't Always Smoke Flower But If I Do It's Fine

i don't always smoke flower but if i do it's fine
this brain and this will and these lungs are mine
and i won't let any person or force external to me
alter what i do to my own brain chemistry

i don't always smoke flower but i do it's fine
they call it "god's flower" in some philosophies
i don't consider myself a philosopher,

nor a religious person

i like to get high

i don't always smoke flower but if i do it's fine
these hands and this skin and this blood is mine
and when i have the need to cut them up
some puffs of the stuff can save a lot of pain
and i don't care that the rhyme scheme is now messed up
because....

i don't always smoke flower but if i do it's fine
pigs say it's not, but they're guilty of crimes
my ex says it's not, but she's weird in the mind
i say it is, but i can't stop the crying
because i can't handle the black lodge

i don't always smoke flower but if i do it's fine
leave me alone, it helps with my anxiety
don't call be a pothead or try to rat on me
i guess this smoking weed business can get kind of heavy

"dennis freestyle"

i interact with so many cruel people on a daily basis that it has turned my heart as black as a blackhole, rim job, asshole, smashed hole, now it bleeds, now he weeps til i feed him more e then we step back up and we fuck again and again and again until we both are spent, and then do some crystal to go even harder, i got it from your sister it only cost 10 dollar, so i lose interest midway through and put the powders up my nose through a dollar-bill tube, and a long time ago we said fuck the lube, so just spread your cheeks and let's do this, dude.

poem cont'd.

harmony, like a song, right? / oh shit i'm losing my flow / 'least it was a fun night / aight, pick back up and march to the beat / march to the beat as you march in the streets / march in the streets til you collapse from the heat / then fire at the Heat, keep marching in the streets / pick up that sheet / bite some tabs / like they're your morning pills / wait 30 minutes for the come-up and loopty chills and thrills / the only thing that rhyme with those is "kills," but i'd rather be chill / or maybe spills / when your life spins beneath you like the training wheels of the trike you fell off / and you can't right the thing because it's crushing your guts soft / i just want to tell you about myself, tell you the truth / but that's the paradox of hip hop / it's a coded language that holds the truth aloof / askance, and you can see it at a glance / maybe if you really look / but that aint no promise to a dream, no bell hooks / i'd never be a writer of a famous etiquette book / even if that book were my ticket to fame / who am i kidding, i'd sell out, i have no shame

don't.

"don't leave me," i pleaded.

"why don't you come with me," she asked.

"because..." i paused.  "it's really hard to freebase in the car."

Marble Mouth

12:26 pm

the music i’m listening to is bad but i don’t have the strength to put on something else.  a feline rests against my back.  my head feels full of fevers and vice=grips, clenching down, and in comes mr. sinister with his parade of hammers to start beating my brain into submission.
i still need to change my clothes

12:29 pm

i’m checking my cell over and over in case the man behind the mirrors contacted me today.  he hasn’t been around in over a month but i hold out hope.  i’m drumming my fingers against my desk when i notice something: drippy yellow running down my t-shirt.  i touch the substance and my fingers come away covered in slime.  frowning, i double over, examining my t-shirt.  somehow, it’s an egg.  a perfectly yellow egg yolk is crushed against, running down, my body.

12:36 pm

vincent has been called for backup.  vincent is either my worst friend or my best enemy, and it’s often hard to tell the difference between those two things.  when he speeds up in front of my house i can tell, before he even leaves his car, that he’s wired on crystal.  i wait in my basement while i hear my front door slam shut and cries of my name upstairs.

“yeah.”  i shout back.  “i’m down here.”

vincent flies down the stairs and then there he is, gleaming in front of me, grinning wide, his rotted and cracked teeth shining in the sickly fluorescent lighting of my green-walled basement.

“so buddy.” vincent says to me, although it sounds like he’s shouting.  “i hear you’re having a little problem.”

“yeah it’s this—”

i gesture to my shirt, exasperated, hoping that, even though the skin on vincent’s hands is practically worn down to the bone, he’ll be able to give me some answers anyway.

“let me just see here,” vincent says, and he does, resting one hand on my shoulder in the process.  he studies the shirt, raises his eyebrows up, down, up, down.  then he pulls away.

vincent says “so, uh, what is the problem?”

“the problem is i got all this fucking egg goo all over my shirt for some reason!” i practically snarl.

“whoa, whoa, calm down there, buddy,” vincent is saying, making “back off” motions with his hands as he does so.  “i just think you’re having one of your episodes again.  huh?  are you having one of your episodes again?”

when i don’t respond vincent reaches out and rubs my head with his knuckles and it hurts.

“come on.  trust vincent.  believe in vincent.  give yourself to vincent.”

vincent extends his hand and i take it feebly.  he lets go even though i want him to hold on longer and then he wipes tools, power tools, hammers, screwdrivers, he wipes them all off my desk in one swoop of his arm.  he takes a small baggie of powder out of his pocket and, doing a little dance, pours its contents out on his desk.

vincent turns to me and smiles that broken smile.

“buddy, this is all you need to fix you right up i’m telling you.”

i walk over to the meth and cut myself a bump.

“yeah, a little meth.  why not…”

12:56 pm

everything is zoom zoom fast but feeling good and fast colors and i’m aware of vincent behind me, pulling down my pants, and i try to shake him off but by now i know there’s no use resisting when he does this, so i let him just as i let the crank tank me to another plateau.

camera

His voice was raspy, like he’d been chainsmoking or screaming a lot. I didn’t know which. Probably both. When he turned his back to me and walked away I turned on the camera. I followed him with the camera across the parking lot, training the lens on his Vans sneakers, then the sky, then some telephone poles. I was feeling very “artsy”. We got to the curb and he put his tip-toes on its edge, getting ready to leap. I watched his baby blue eyes through golden summer hair as he mumbled to himself, not speaking the words, just mumbling them: “three…two…one.”

He leaped from the curb and tried to roll his body under a passing car. The car’s front tire steamrolled halfway onto his chest before its skid to a stop. I ran over to my friend, Kevin, dying under the tires of a SUV in our shitty fucking suburban town’s football field parking lot, and I looked into those baby blue eyes for the last time. When I heard the whistles blowing, signaling the end of football practice, and the jocks and the coaches running over to us, I started to get an erection. Kevin was gurgling now, his mouth burping up wads of blood, but through it all I heard the final thing he’d ever say to me: “I did it, dude. I really did it.” I trained my camera on his blood-filled smile. Click.

as I blow pot smoke through my tears

as I blow pot smoke through my tears

my mind trembles on my lingering fears

another bong hit, another scholarship lost

all I do is get high but do I think about the cost

and what about my ex, was it worth it?

did I make life worth it?

sometimes I look around and im fed up with this horseshit

but I cant dig another pit to bury myself in

i've been digging forever, that's what it's all about

there is no other route, no other way out

and losing someone can make you doubt your whole existence

spout some fucking bullshit as if you mean it

when you're just acting mean to get through it

those days I spent with her, and I never even knew it

would turn out like this, I feel what i've lost and

I'm sorry

Not as sorry as that time in college when i,

shy and uninitiated to the cruel realities of the city,

accidentally smoked weed laced with PCP and fucked up my mind forever

Not as sorry as that

But pretty sorry