When Two People Come Together And Bash Their Brains and Genitals

Full title (oddly enough it didn't fit, which is quite epic since I usually favour one-word titles :P): When Two People Come Together And Bash Their Brains and Genitals Until They Think They Know What Poetry Is, You Know There’s Nothing Left To Find In This World And You Should Start Looking For The Next One



She lies there, reclined, and says she doesn’t feel like moving, only fucking.

I sit in a chair across from her and feel the need to point out that fucking involves moving.

She says not if you don’t mean it. I ask if she didn’t mean it, and state that it felt very much like she did.

She shifts and looks at me with her razorblade eyes that make my wrists and throat feel wet with thickening life-fluid. The still-sticky silk shifts across her thighs. She smiles and tells me she didn’t know I felt that way. I feel the words racing up my veins.

I clear my throat and tell her she’s fucked up. She raises one eyebrow, the one she’s forgotten to pluck again in her daily-haste of creating simulations of her face. She tells me that no one would fuck someone like her unless they’re fucked up themselves.

We look at each other, her with the playful heat of self-hatred, me with a constricting throat trying to tell her that it’s not what she thinks, it’s never what she thinks, that I think I love her – or could love her if she wasn’t such a whore.

She laughs and tells me not to speak, that I’m like a goddamn church for fuck’s sake. She says she can’t stand what comes out of my mouth and if she wanted a preacher she’d’ve fucked her way to salvation by now.

She doesn’t know what the fuck she wants, and I tell her.

She says neither of us do, and calls me honeycakes. She winks and slinks to the side of the mattress. Her breasts heave over her lingerie and she closes her eyelids in boredom.

She sighs and says that now she’s moved anyway, we may as well screw before the sun goes out.

I look out the window into the unending blackness of a forfeited sky.

I tell her it’s dark.

So's her vagina, she tells me.

I crawl into the bed and we don’t move. We fuck.

[Excerpt from] The Glade, part V.

[...]
It was approximately a week ago when he decided it was time for a change in career path, and he signed up for night lessons at the local Adult Ed. He would be receiving, after all these years, his credits in the tumor-inducing subjects of calculus, physics and chemistry. A part of him decided that he would receive these credits in order to find a well-paying job and provide a better life for his children, but despite the greater motives, the other part of his shallow ambitions were always due to feelings of inferiority in comparison to his peers, as he felt like he was looked upon as the unintelligent, illogical one. It was rather unfortunate that he felt this way, as his grasp on intelligence besides these very few subjects were far beyond the intelligence of his peers. Ernest was too much of an introvert to prove this.
He walked into the classroom – decorated plainly by a Québec and Canadian flag, a brown aging podium and identical metallic desks set against the backdrop of a plain white painted room, overly lit by bright fluorescent lights – the class seemed lifeless and empty-faced. He thought it rather ironic to be in such a bright room when surrounded by the dullest of delinquents, by the utmost of uneducated and uninteresting people. This assumption decided based solely on their appearances. The drowned out faces of the has-beens, this was until Ernest realized that he could not fit in more appropriately with such a group.
After taking a seat in an appropriate grey seat in the back of the class, Ernest decided this would be the final class of Adult-Ed he would ever attend. He slowly tapped his fingers against the desk, staring around at his uncouth classmates. As he criticized, and convinced himself to be of superior intelligence, he was instantly attracted to a brunette woman sitting in the front-center of the class, wearing a tasteful yet revealing grey T-shirt and converse shoes. Ernest stood up and made his way toward her, taking a seat next to her in the front row. He leaned in toward her desk.
“Hi.”
“Hey,” she replied hesitantly.
“I’m Ernest, you can call me Ernie if you’d like.”
The brunette looked severely uninterested in making friends, as Ernest persisted, despite the age flaws of graying patches gloating from his beard.
“Is it just me or are we the only ones here with a little colour, you know, like a little life,” he asked under his breath.
The brunette stared at him blankly.
“Do you have any more pot on you?” she asked.
“Oh, uh, no. Sorry.”
Ernest turned back, sitting straight and staring at the blank chalkboard as he heard a slight giggling coming from behind him.
“But fuck, I wouldn’t mind having some right now.”
A burst of snorted laughter came from behind him and he turned around to see a small, mousy Asian woman with bright red glasses. Ernest felt instantly aroused by her innocence, her small seductive eyes hidden behind the glasses and her short plaid skirt, lifting above her thigh as she sat. Ernest smiled awkwardly at her. The teacher, a chubby man in his late twenties, entered the class and nervously began teaching as Ernest, sitting in the front row, respectably attempted to retain an air of interest.
During break, Ernest went out for a cigarette, unknowingly tailgated by the mousy woman. The day had been rainy, and as night came in, dampness filled under the cloudy sky of night, blocking out the stars and the moon. It had only been drizzling.
Eileen leaned against the rail of the stairway of the Adult Ed community building, quietly looking through her cell phone as a group of students in the class lit a joint at the bottom of the steps. Ernest approached her.
“Cigarette?”
“No, that’s fine. I don’t smoke.”
Ernest placed his box of Peter Jackson’s back into his jacket pocket.
“But if you wanted to get high, now would be the ideal time,” the woman added, motioning toward to group of men at the bottom of the steps, smoking a joint casually.
“Oh I was joking about that.”
“Okay.”
There was a silence.
“I’m Eileen by the way. I think you’re funny.”
She jerked her right hand in between the space between them. Ernest shook it.
“Ernest, nice to meet you,” he replied.
“What brings you out to Adult Ed, Ernest?”
“I just thought I’d finally receive my credits in math and stuff. You know, re-think my career. Go back to university and get a productive degree. I haven’t been productive lately.”
“What do you do now?”
“I write. Well. I used to be a writer. One book published. Thought I would continue with them, but it wasn’t as easy as I thought.”
“Oh. That’s sad.”
Ernest finished his cigarette and put it out under his shoe.
“I guess. And you?”
“Oh… well,” Eileen began to squirm and looked uncomfortable as her cheeks reddened. “I’m an accountant.”
“An accountant? Why the fuck are you here then! No offence, I mean, are you just visiting the low-lives of this glamorous institution or something?” Ernest asked as he laughed, Eileen following but rather uncomfortably.
“I don’t know. I’ve been bored lately.”
After his first session of basic calculus, Ernest joined Eileen on her bed as they shoved their tongues into each others mouths, breathing heavily and slowly caressing each other’s bodies. The songs of chirping grasshoppers resonated through Eileen’s open window as her air purifier slowly hummed and distracted Ernest from the task at hand. Despite the warmth, Ernest could not help but feel lonely, a feeling which had been far from rare in his life lately, especially when in the company of others.
“I want you so bad, baby,” Eileen barely whispered as he continued to rub her clitoris.
Ernest suddenly stopped and turned on the lamp next to her bed.
“Sorry.”
“What’s wrong?”
“No, nothing. Sorry.”
“Did I do anything?”
“No no, not at all honey. You’re perfect. I… I just forgot to tell you that I’m fucked up, I haven’t, you know, in a while.”
“It’s okay. Can I do anything to help?” she persisted.
“No, nothing. Incurable. I’m, I’m sorry. I’m just going through so much shit right now,” he said, followed by a deep breath. “I just feel that right now, the last thing I need is sex. I need, I don’t know, some inspiration.”
At this point, Eileen roughly began re-adjusting her bra and pants, and put her hair back into place.
“So, sex doesn’t inspire you?” she asked with sharpness in her voice.
“Not anymore.”
“Okay. Well I mean it’s getting late anyway.”
“Yeah I should probably be getting home, the kids are in bed.”
“Wow. Kids.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Mhm, you should probably leave.That sounds best. Responsible.”
“I hope you know it’s nothing personal, I’m just really alone… And the kids, and, you know.”
“Of course.”
They sat up, sitting side to side on the edge of Eileen’s bed, as the crickets continued to sing at their same hypnotic tone. They avoided looking at each other’s faces.
“You know, I’m writing a book now,” Ernest said.
“Oh yeah? What’s it about.”
He hesitated, embarrassed.
“It’s… well. I don’t know yet.”
“Okay.”
“Hey Eileen.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m a mess.”

There's a place I know.
I cannot go there anymore.
There was a time I knew,
How to tie my shoes off the floor.

Please come to me now.
Please come teach me how
to grow old. Older anyways.

There's a boy I knew.
He simply he grew over time.
I once owned dog.
Quiet as log, but mine, all mine.


Please come to me now.
Please come teach me how
to grow old. Older anyways.

Sexy Numbers

Unable to create without some conceptual framework, I centered my counts around sex. The numbers were picked appropriately. 2: you need at least two people, 5: number of books Ovid wrote on Love, 6: Sounds like sex, 14: Valentine's Day, 69: Obvious, 157: Number of sonnets in Shakespeare's sequence.

2. Almost hurts.

5. First do this. Now, harder. or First, like this. Now, switch.

6. Fuck "stir", I want it shaken.

14. Sweat smears and slips, wet thighs dip and quiver. The flesh grinds, then simmers.

69. Love. That hot, hateful bitch. It grabbed me by the balls, then pulled. Hard. Cupid shoots thorny arrows, not harmless roses. And he's blind, the fucker. (But he pays good money -- or so I thought.) I sucked and fucked. I opened up, I swallowed. I dropped, and gagged, and got stuck. It's just not love anymore if all you do is pant and grunt like an animal.

157. Pleasure is a slow descent, punctuated by awkward removals and unsure insertions: his fingers fumble as they unhook her bra, their stomachs tap tap -- warm and sticky -- to the quickening rhythm of their breathing, tangy fluid smells emanate from the sheets when they are both naked and ready. It is just sex but it means so much more to them, just then.

Desire is a physical force that wrenches at your gut, blinds you with want, and inflames you nerves like the fuses of a firework: the curve of a firm, well formed ass; black lace over shaded skin, taunt with temptation; the brush of a finely haired arm, haloed in gold in the morning light. Simple instinct, pure need.

Longing is a memory in flesh, a boiling in the blood, a numbing erection that holds you awake in pain: a pounding, tightening necessity to have and feel, to rise and fall -- then expiate onto the sheets.

Count v.1.5

I did a Count on my blog and I'm adding my favorites from Count v.1 to Count v. 1.5

42: "Stay," she said "at least until the fire burns out." I, a man who can't help himself, who can't stay firm and strong in her presence agreed and sat back in the dirt next to her with my knees to my chest.

14: I rescued a toothpick and flicked it into the forest and said "You're home."
- Mitch Hedberg

12: Sometimes, I rest my head in my hands to pretend I'm invisible.

24: "We've made you who you are today" is what everyone else could say, but all I've done is embrace you for who you are.

3: This is Sparta.
- 300

10: I can tell she's thinking about me because she's breathing.

19: He bravely raised his hand timidly, boldly putting himself out there and finally letting the spotlight shine on him.

1: Push (props to you for remembering)

37: This was never what I wanted, to be taken for granted, even though it does not take a mind reader to understand that I clearly am granted. I am for you all to toss aside and ignore.

21: Deserve. The word rattles my spine and makes me cringe. It digusts me as much as the concept of "deserving" itself.

5: I don't hate you, yet...

4: ... But give it time.

(5 and 4 can be combined to make 9)

9: I don't hate you, yet, but give it time.

Yes! Yes! More! (another count)

6 Lipstick on his collar; isn't hers...

6(alternate) Not her lipstick on his collar.

7 No. Not you. Not now. Not ever.

7 Still a child, yet not so innocent.

15 The look in his eyes is lust and all she wants is to satisfy it.

16 I am so lucky; to have found you, to have loved you, to have lost you.

17 You walked away and never looked back but your footsteps echo through the hallways of my mind.

19 The music washes over me like an ocean wave, crashing into me, leaving me shaken and gasping for air.

45 She sparkles like snow in the sun, glittering like ice, she is my personal star but she does not light my way, rather she highlights my mistakes and her very brightness rubs it in my face: how I will never live up to her perfection.

OH YES PLEASE MORE MORE

6: Not if it kills me first.

8: It's better if you mix it with vodka.

14: Don’t know. Maybe it was the way the sky was falling: So slowly, like a deflating balloon. You, the child, pulling it down faster.

25: I realize I have never heard actually heard Yes, only No, and assumed in a drunken stupor that Stop and No meant Yes and Faster.

30: I know I’m red. Turning my head away, I mumble unintelligible things; wishing and praying and hoping. And hating, most of all, hating that I get weird around pretty people.

40: She realizes her life isn’t what she wanted. This house not the one she loved. These children not the ones she loved. This job not one she loved. This husband, actually, not quite the one she wanted to dance with.

50: ...that when she finally does get around to batting, she is only a rookie, pulled out of the batting cages two weeks too early to be playing with the big boys that until that moment, she had only watched from afar, staring with starry eyes as they hurled heartbreak forward.

60: If you ever fortuitously exhale the tiniest gust of carbon dioxide in the general direction of my body, I will make you eat your thumbs. Rip them off and shove them down your throat. One by one. So that you can hear your bones cracking. Can tell me, in a five hundred word essay, exactly what your blood tastes like.

Win

“The sweetest revenge for heartbreak like that,”
She said with a guileful grin,
“Is to be flat-out stunning and flirt...
But certainly NOT with him.”

I thought for a moment and swallowed a smile;
We started to plot your demise.
The first step? She said, “This part you can do –
You be easy on his eyes.”

We plotted and planned a fanciful do
Of just-perfect wardrobe and hair;
Imagined a label to slap on my face:
“Of this let the buyer beware!”

And I flirted and laughed and tossed back my hair,
And days they stretched out into weeks.
I don’t know what effect it’s having on you
But it’s not the one that I seek.

Revenge is a dish that is best served cold
And I let it simmer and boil.
Although in this silly scheme, I’ll admit,
I got something out of my toil:

When I set my sights on vengeance for you
I tried to your jealousies sway,
That didn’t work, but you lost me for good -
So I win, at the end of the day.

This is absolutely fictional. And I absolutely had fun writing it.
I promise, I'm working on actual narrative stuff with an actual plot.
AND! I'm totally down for Mike's plan. Oh yes, don't stop believing, etc.

Ah! Ah! Ah! That's TWO! TWO Count Posts!

Following the rules, because I don't know how else to do it.

27: I watch those stalking children of the night fish through latent ashes of the dawn for old , broken suns, wondering why they cannot bear to sing.

8: Is it still heartbreak if she likes it?

7: I thought of you—and thought again.

30: Beware the wind, the whispers that it breaks; beware the sea, the sentences it drowns; beware the soil, the darkness that entombs the hopeful words you sent to empty rooms.

34: The god-beads come undone in our hands—wood and cord and the roughness of the skin that wears them down like the sea on the rocks, like letters from forgotten lovers that we throw away.

Count 2.0

In following with Jess' post and Mike's suggestion, here are some short pre-determined-word-count pieces!



24: We feel the stars and suns leaking out of our eyes as soon as the moment punctures itself on the sharp edges of acknowledgement.

42: The sea sways as lovers would, dancing, tripping, twirling, to the song they promise-whispered to each other in their tenderest moments that they’d never forget, and as I look across it I wish I’d taken the time to learn how to dance.

10: When you smile, it makes me never want to again.

19: “Love is all you need,” pronounces the song, and I want to believe because it sounds better that way.

37: Simple settled insects click across the flowers you brought for me, chewing, spitting, fornicating all over them, and I fight the urge to throw the bouquet away, because it isn’t its fault it attracts such repugnant violators.

Void

He sat on the cold decaying bench waiting for the bus, already late by fifteen minutes.

The day had been repetitive, as always, as he began to think that he may have lost touch with the passion he had once known in his life. The frigid day seemed to act as an impediment to his thought process, the wind clogging his ears and blocking any sensations – things just simply not going through. It was a sad thing too, that his bus was late, because if it were to come on time for once, he would’ve been able to take a nice nap before work; An hour and a half of sleep before waking up and feeling completely meaningless again, this time for money.

This was the problem, and the problem was this, and he came to this conclusion all alone again: it was that meaning was no longer presented to him in life, and though some may have told him that meaning itself was the sole purpose of his own creation in life, he simply no longer found the will. Without meaning, the wind simply flew through the blades of grass and made them dance for the sake of watching them dance – all aesthetic and zero carpe diem. The intent – the implications have been lost. And thus, the meaning has been lost, he would think.

His logic was flawed, he was sure, but he did not mind what others thought of him. He did not mind failing his humanities and science courses. None of it mattered anymore.

Because whether he turned on the TV or not, the end result would be the same, and he could not find beauty in these aesthetics, could not find meaning in the canvas. Rather, he could only see meaning in the process of creating, until now. But if the only reason he did something was in order to not be doing nothing, then was anything he created really worth it? His poetry, painting and music? His art? They no longer supported him with content. And was content ever the point of it to begin with?

So he sat, rather than walk, because the cold air was nothing other than his own perception of cold, which he was slowly numbing himself to, anyway. He learned to live as not a human, but a vessel. And he waited and waited, and the bus still never came, so he sat on the cold decaying bench until the sun would set into its void bed sheets.

Bibliomania, part I

{Since I'm still stuck in essay writing mode I haven't been able to write anything creative this week, so I just posted the beginning of something I wrote last year. I like Mike's idea for next week, thus: OH YES! YES! OH MY GOD YES! YES! MORE! YES! DON'T STOP BELIEVING!}

The Old Man had sat quite motionless, reading, for nearly three hours. The only thing that had broken the silence during those three hours was the crisp sound of a page being turned every few minutes. Seated comfortably, as always, in his worn leather chair, book in hand, he had barely noticed as the sunlight entering from the windows dimmed so much he was forced to squint in order to decipher the words he was reading. Finally closing the book and laying it on the armrest of his chair, he took off his glasses with one hand and rubbed between his forefinger and thumb the pressured area between both eyes were all his mental force seemed to be concentrated. His eyes tingled back into focus and scanned the room slowly. As usual, what caught his gaze were the books, and as usual he felt a surge of warm comfort as he studied them. Books were everywhere in the room: most stood on rows of wooden shelves that covered all four walls of the room from floor to ceiling, but they were also piled on the floor, strewn on wooden chairs and tables, falling over one another everywhere he looked in a haphazard equilibrium of paper, leather, and wood. Any other person would have found the room chaotic, filthy, stuffed. But not the Old Man. this was his universe, and within the confusion of the thousands of books that seemed to cover every available inch of space in the room, there was a certain order which only he could understand. The Old Man knew at all times where every single book was in the room.

Having gazed long enough at the books, the Old Man concentrated on his other senses. First came touch; and by touch the first thing he felt was the soft leather of his reading chair under his hands. Next he felt warmth, emanating from under him, the spot on which he had been sitting, immobile, for three hours. Finally the dusty, air around him; he could feel it, soft and warm against his worn cheeks. The Old Man then turned his attention to what he smelt, and as usual it was this sense that brought the most pleasure, as if by smelling his world he could feel its reality and understand the composition of his comfort. In a dream, he thought, I see and I touch, but what I see and touch is not real. I cannot smell my dreams, thereby by smelling I can confirm the reality of my environment. The smell that came to him in his room was strong and musky, recalling that of mould. It came from all of these books, which crammed together in such a tight place had created an atmosphere of their own and exhaled this strong odour throughout the Old Man’s home. When the Old Man had absorbed his universe and the limitless beauty and comfort it encompassed for him he finally stood up slowly from his chair. He left the books he had been reading on the chair for he had not finished it, and made his way to a shelf that stood at shoulder height by the door leading out of the room. There, amid the mass of printed works, stood a dozen thick binders, bound in black leather worn by years of use. He took out the seventh binder and opened it towards the end, leafing through the paper until he found the appropriate page, on which appeared the bibliographical information of the book he had been reading and a blank space below where some notes had already been scribbled in black ink in the Old Man’s small, messy handwriting. He took out his pen from the breast pocket of his shirt and returned to his chair to scribble down a few more lines of notes on the page. In this manner, every page of every one of the black binders corresponded to one of the books he owned. Whenever he acquired a new book, he would take out his typewriter and on a fresh sheet of paper the Old Man would type the title of the book, followed by the author and the place, company, and year of publication. He would also add the date on which he acquired the book. Leaving the rest of the page blank, he would then add the page at its appropriate place in the appropriate binder, which served in fact as a miniature version of his universe of books. Like the books in the room, the pages in the binder were not organized in a way that could be understood by anyone other than the Old Man. They were not set by alphabetical order of author, or title, subject, or even date of acquisition, but there was certainly a form of organization because invariably the Old Man would know were to place a new sheet of paper, or how to find an old one, just as he knew exactly where to place a new book, or find an old one, in his room.

DEAREST HEART RAPISTS!

Next week (the week of November 30th until December 6th)

I motion that we each write a "Count"

Choosing random numbers for our pieces, keep them reletively short and post about 5 (less or more, whatever).

All those who support this idea, please comment a big "OH YES! YES! OH MY GOD YES! YES! MORE! YES! DON'T STOP BELIEVING!"

All those opposed, voice your opinion and go about your heartraping as you wish.

Thanks,

Mike

I Am a Man Who Hunts at Night

The same thing
Over and over:
I keep seeing things
And shoot at them
Hoping that I've stopped it dead in its tracks
Or at the very least wounded the beast
So I can continue to follow it
And know where it's going,
But I keep seeing things.

Hope

Don't bother dear,
It's sure to smear.

The child paints,
The dog pants.
The mother sighs,
The father rants.

The world turns.
The world burns.
In his room the child creates.
He won't listen as critic berates.

Yes yes. But...WHY?

You said You’re giving up Oxford. And I thought, ‘What a waste.’

What a waste of a love for education.
What a waste of a love for academia.
What a waste of a love for philosophy.
What a waste of a love for historical fiction.
What an isolation of such a passion for teaching into one
specific.
field.

And then I took a step back
(something you managed to teach me)
and thought
If you’re going to teach people how to have faith
and how to place trust in others
and how to believe in something bigger
and how to be that much less alone
and how to love
Well that isn’t a waste at all.
And good. Good for you.
You’re good.

So if and when people come up to me
and ask me what kind of fanatical hedonistic preacher you are
I will say The Good Kind.

Count

I...have a love-hate relationship with Liberal Arts. There's no other explanation for whinging out last week. Have some numbered bits in partial compensation: the concept behind these is to see if I can come up with something interesting with a certain amount of words.

21: Heartbeat after heartbeat stretching time as if we were approaching the speed of light, and I see nothing but your eyes.

36: Sometimes the things that break us are the things that make us whole; he discovered this quite by accident in the cold air of an abandoned parking lot, watching her tail-lights die into the fog.

49: The drowning feeling is one with which he's all too familiar, and it's with a flick of his wrist and a grip of steel on his heart that he tosses the respirator down, watching it sink through a stream of bubbles into those depths that only he can fathom.

27: It forces the breath from you, forces the tears from you, until you can only see and feel and hear and smell and taste the music.

17: Starlight on the frosted grass of early winter or late autumn cannot shine more brightly than you.

You May Write to Me

Holy crap, 101 posts.

I don't like this one as much, but it's all that's new apart from the poetry challenge.

I have ceased looking for myself
in your body

I have ceased because
I do not see your hands anymore,
only roots pinned at the metacarpal
by broken nails;

and because
I do not taste you anymore,
only spit out
the mist of rot that comes
from the porcelain
of your side.

you may write to me
that you are here
in the crossing of the lattimus,
nestled in the curl of my feet,
that I may cease
to find mourning
in the eloquence of blood--

I will never find myself
pinned to your breast,
striking sparks from your hair
falling like dew
onto your skin

unless it is to
find your ear
and whisper
that I am leaving.

I Give Up (or The Day I Gave Up and Bought into the System) [Part II]

Nobody knows how a life can properly be determined. Can we live or die without love? Are we better off living free when all we ask for is more and more support? Do we strive to be individuals or do we strive to be more alike to each other? I guess it’s all that nature / nurture type thing like they explain to you in college psych classes.
Anyway, so I wasn’t myself when I wrote that last little excerpt from my life, wasn't in my right mind, and I would apologize, but I don’t really feel bad about it. To be honest, if you were one of those offended people with your hate mail, you can go fuck yourself. Everyone is so fucking touchy and politically correct these days, it churns my stomach. But anyway, I’m too stoned to care anymore. I’m too stoned to do anything these days except work and waste my pay check within the same week. I can’t even read anymore without passing out on my La-Z-Boy.
So I finally came to the conclusion that it’s time to give up on adolescent dreams, to wash away these glorious ideas and fogged up mirrors. I finally felt something that felt like truth, like it was time to get my life on track and realize that I don’t have talent and there’s nothing special about being known. Being regular is just as good, as long as you’re happy, and since only money can bring me happiness, it’s time to give in. Where do I sign up?
I just finally felt it today at work, mindlessly staring at lists and collecting useless books off the shelves about fairies and horoscopes and Christianity and all the other fucking bullshit. My job at the bookstore was ironic, as I shuffled through hundreds of pages of lists of books to be removed from the shelf, and then box it up, to be sent back to the publisher and receive a full refund. If bookstores were in charge of providing knowledge, it was my job to make sure the knowledge can be taken away. And I thought, and I finally felt the need to grasp it, that I was living in an idealistic world, avoiding reality at all costs. A distorted perception of reality, and like I said before, a foggy fucking mirror I’ve been looking at.
And I came to a second realization. I act much differently with others compared to how I act with myself. And it fucking depresses me and it has to end, but that’s a whole other story.
I’m on the metro again this morning on the way to work, sitting among passengers with footprints of crows stamped onto the edges of their eyes. The train stops at Jolicoeur and a cute one wearing a black and yellow dress walks in. A small black and yellow dress. The kind of small black and yellow dress that attracts attention from pubescent boys and married old men. Then another one walks in at the Verdun stop with green eye shadow, strawberry earrings and pink toenails. She had on a green T shirt and cigarette black jeans. And I fell in love with both of them and wanted to marry them, but then my stop came, and so it was goodbye again.
I walked up the cracked steps of Mcgill metro and the turnstile swiftly knocks against my ass as I walk out of the God forsaken place, as this will be the epitome of my excitement today. I continue standing on escalators as I get up to the store, slowly dragging myself towards monotony, one word, not Mono Tony, the Tony we used to make fun of in high school for contracting mono after making out with a French girl nobody knew.
At the bookstore, Sebastian, the other fucker who’s stuck picking up books nobody wants to read, which eventually end up with stripped off covers, started talking to me. He’s twenty-five and apparently wanted to shed some wisdom.
“You got a girlfriend, Jordan?”
“Nah man.”
“Why not?”
“You know how it is, I, uh, well, I like to keep my options open… if you know what I mean.”
He laughed and looked down at me as I was kneeled in the fucking New Age section.
“Trust me man,” he said, “you’re what? Eighteen? I was eighteen too and I thought the exact same shit as you. You think you can get with any girl you want at any time, and maybe now you could. But take my word man, start looking for a good girl. It’s not always as easy as it is at eighteen.”
“I know, I’m already starting to realize that.”
“Well you’ll realize it more and more. Just keep your eyes open is all I’m saying, it’s not as easy at twenty five years old as it is when you’re eighteen.”
He repeated this twice.
So this guy who I thought was dumb suddenly becomes my best friend, and he got me thinking about Julie, the beautiful one, all day too. Then I became friends with the Greek security guard at the bookstore named Costa, and both he and Sebastian made me question myself. Things like, why the fuck am I wasting time with this? Things like, why can’t I take anything seriously and why am I wasting my parents’ money when I won’t even be able to do anything worthy with it. Why do I even question myself as often as I do, and why don’t I just accept life as it is and like everybody else does. I finally learned that importance is in simplicity rather than complexity, and I know, like my teachers say, I should be SHOWING you this, not TELLING you this, since this is my story after all. Well, I’m telling it, and you can listen if you fucking want to.
So that is why I am the way I am now, and this is why I gave up on the nonsense.
Besides, I feel like falling in love now, anyways.

Vegetable Dream

So this is a really fucked up dream that I had the other night. Sorry it's probably not that well edited because I wrote it when I was really tired, but it was too hilarious not to share. I literally had my alarm go off and just laughed in bed until the snooze alarm rang again. Uhm...yeah. It's screwy. And I know it doesn't make sense sometimes. But that's because I tried to keep it as true to the dream as possible.

PS. I apologize for the length.

PPS. Aleutia and Adrian are people who I work with. Shiloh and Sam, if you don't know already, are my best friends from high school.

PPS. I apologize for the length again.


The music is loud. Too loud. But the place is empty.

It's a small room for a concert, with an uncomfortably low ceiling, so much so that only the audience members are comfortable standing, and the performers, on the somewhat elevated stage, are forced to stoop as they sing. The guitar player sits on a chair with his head bent sideways.

All ten of us hover awkwardly to one side, clustered around a table. I remember back to when I saw Avril Lavigne in concert. This room had been packed then with screaming, sweating bodies, all throwing their arms up in the air, rocking their hearts out. It had been much louder then. Just thinking about it makes my ears and brain hurt – and makes the current band seem less aurally damaging.

I turn to Andrea. “Let's go,” I say.

“Yeah, we'll never get seats if we don't leave now,” she says.

We file out, all in our slutty lingerie. Except for Tabia. We could only force a lacy bra over her striped hoodie and that kissy-missy thong Andrea and I got her for her birthday over her skinny jeans. She refused to dress up, but you can't go to the Rocky Horror Halloween Fest wearing your everyday outfit, so we made sure she was wearing something somewhat sensual.

Rocky Horror is conveniently just a couple of floors down from where the concert was taking place (which was, oddly enough, on the 13th floor of the building). When we get there, we give our tickets and sit in the theater.

It's empty, except for three other groups of friends, each about the same size as ours. They didn't go all out when it comes to costumes, as we did, it seems. Most of them look normal. I frown at their rather pathetic attire – a hairband with a halo attached for one, a pink feather boa on another, and nothing more exciting for the rest.

Tabia turns to me. “This is boring. Why did I come, why did you make me come, that'swhatshesaid.”

“Yeah, Marta,” says Max. He flips his long-haired wig in frustration out of his batting gold-eyelash-fringed eyes. “It was so much better the last time.”

“That's,” says Tabia, “what she said.”

“We should still watch, guys,” I say. “We already paid and the theater may fill up. It hasn't started yet.”

But right then the show starts. The movie comes on, but it's hard to see because they don't dim the lights in the theater. The actors come onstage and I realize we can't see because we're too far back on the balcony. I see seats in the front row and wonder why we didn't just sit there in the first place.

Andrea's thinking what I'm thinking. I notice that only she seems to still be excited about seeing the show.

“If we move closer it'll probably be better,” she says to everyone.

So we all move.

By the time we get there, only seven rows down, the show is over. I sigh and shake my head and apologize.

“I'm sorry everyone. That was the worst show ever. I thought it would be better. I was so sure it would be fun.”

“It's okay,” says Andrea. “No one stayed till the end anyway.”

“Oh yeah,” I say, looking around at the empty theater. “I thought I heard them leave.”

I stare around at all the torn red velvet seats and rice grains patterning the ground. From the darkness I can see the angry eyes of my friends glaring at me.

“I'm sorry,” I tell them and start to cry. I can't help it. “I really am, I didn't mean it.”

No reply. They blink out and disappear.

“The actors want to meet you,” Andrea says before walking away. “They want to tell you something.”

I'm at the stage where the actors are. The one who plays Frankenfurter is washing her face. I know it was a woman who was playing him, but as she washes her face, an ugly tanned man's face with a handlebar moustache appears.

“Hello,” I whisper.

He/she stares at me, and the other actors freeze what they're doing to look at me. I'm being watched by a crowd of store mannequins. Their faces turn gray and their eyes follow my shiftings.

“We all wanted to know if you wanted to join us,” Frankenfurter tells me. “We were thinking of grabbing coffee and having some afternoon sex.”

“Afternoon?” I panic. “I'm sorry I need to go to work!”

Frankenfurter shrugs and begins to disassemble the mannequin-actors.


At work, I hear Dragon Queen playing. Aleutia wrinkles her nose and asks me what song this is and by who.

“It's the Yeah Yeah Yeahs,” I answer, blushing. I suddenly don't know why I brought this CD into work. They're not exactly appropriate toy-store-listening-material.

She nods absently and I go up the escalator to the upstairs of the store.

“That's like the 10th CD I've brought in here,” I say out loud.

“No!” says Adrian, who's behind me, bringing boxes to the third floor. “It CAN'T be the 10th already!”

“Well, maybe a bit of an exaggeration,” I shrug. “But at least the seventh or eighth.”

“I don't know, Marta,” says Audrey, when I get to the second floor and Adrian continues up the second set of escalators. “I don't think it can already be the 10th.”

“Well,” I say, counting on my fingers, “I have that space one...and...Regin...uhm...I have a space-themed...one...and...”

I'm having difficulty thinking and remembering. I shake my head and blink. It's foggy. I need glasses but can't find any. I walk around and blink and blink and blink and rub my eyes. When they clear, I see that I'm in the Hall building. I'm a little perturbed and hope that Hilaria won't notice I'm gone since I'm pretty sure she'll know it's not my lunch break yet. I wander around in circles, unsure of what to do when I see Shiloh. Her hair is all big and dirty and matted. She's dressed completely in baggy black clothes, with a black baseball cap and a blonde toupee perched on top of that. She looks straight forward, in a daze.

I'm beside myself with excitement and run up to her.

“Shiloh!” I almost shout, but she walks right past me and onto the down escalator. She looks like she's thinking very hard about something. I walk over to the top of the escalator and watch her going down. I know she'll look up. She has to. I don't call to her again because I somehow know that she won't hear me. She gets closer and closer to the bottom and I feel my heart being wrenched out. She has to look she has to look she has to -

At the last moment, she looks up. I smile in satisfaction and and she grins hugely.

“I thought I was dreaming!” she shouts, running up the down escalator. She takes the steps two at a time and runs at me, arms clasped around, when she gets to the top. We hug endlessly and ask questions over each other. I can't get over how terrible she looks.

“Are you alright?” I ask over and over.

“I haven't showered in days,” she says. “And I took these clothes out of the trash. But I've been in Montreal the whole time.”

“Why didn't you tell me?!”

“Because they took me. They did all kinds of shit to me, gave me all kinds of drugs. Messed me up real bad. My hair all fell out, I'm bald.”

“What?”

She nods seriously and takes off the toupee, then the hat, then her hair, and reveals a bare head with maybe a half-inch of short bristles of hair growing back. I briefly am stunned by the fact that she still is beautiful despite this.

“But I got off easy,” she tell me. “Just look what they did to Sam.”

She replaces her hair, hat and toupee and takes my hand, leading me to a room a few steps away. It's bright, and looks as if it was a remodelling of the special exhibition entranceway at the Musee des Beaux Arts. Except for in the middle, instead of benches and trees, an oval wall has been installed, and all along the outside of it are people, confined to small designated standing spaces. They remind me of horses in their stalls with blinders on before a race.

In front of everyone else is Sam. She looks bad. She's dressed up in a cabbage costume, rocking back and forth.

“They turned her into a vegetable,” says Shiloh gravely.

Sam's eyes are wide and she blinks and blinks and blinks, as if trying to see properly like I had before. “I never knew before,” she says, not looking at either of us, “but now I do, and now I'll never forget. Now I know the meaning of the term 'mentally challenged'”.

“Are they all like this?” I ask Shiloh.

“See for yourself,” she says.

I walk away and she shakes her head, standing over cabbage-Sam.

All along the installed wall are my friends. Audrey's a carrot. Bruno's an eggplant. Andrea's a pod. She giggles as the peas fall out of her costume and roll away on the floor. Her head falls off too and scoots past my feet.

“Whee!!” I hear her laugh, as her voice disappears around the corner.

I keep going all around the oval enclosure. Where there aren't people inside cubicles are costumes hung on a clothes hanger. There's a radish and a lettuce one and a leek. I shudder and walk the rest of the way to where I started.

I see Francis now where Sam used to be. He's standing though, and dressed as a cob of corn. He looks very afraid. A person, who I assume to be a member of the staff in charge of abducting people off the streets and turning them into vegetables, carries a whip beside him.

“Get into the room!” he shouts, cracking the whip on the floor. Francis jumps. “You have to pass the test. You have to know that you're going to die!”

Francis moves forward, and I follow, suddenly invisible. I see drops of what appears to be sweat on the back of his costume. As I get closer, I see that they're actually chunks of melting butter.

There's a red light next to the door Francis is supposed to go into saying stop. He stops. The man with the whip punches a button and the red light goes green. A alarm blasts, the doors open, and suddenly both Francis and I are vacuumed in to the test room.

It ends up being a hallway with a fork in two directions in the very beginning, with a sign above saying “baby digestive tract – creamed corn”.

“Is this a model of an intestine?” I shout, horrified, over the noise of us bouncing off the sides of the walls at the corners (we're being pulled forward by the same vacuum force that dragged us in). But Francis can't hear me or see me. I focus on being able to find my feet, but can't help but notice hyena laughter coming in the opposite direction, louder and louder and louder. I'm absolutely terrified.

“Are they – are they teaching you what it's like to die?” I yell.

No answer. More maniacal, evil laughter. Closer than before.

A person runs past us, with an overhead projector in her arms that looks like WALL-E.

I've Been Reading A Lot of Milton Lately

“Ugh.” Eve emitted that harsh, primeval syllable – full of contempt, exasperation, misunderstanding – and walked off into the forest.

Adam stood alone in the sunshine, quite confounded. He had never had a row with Eve before. It was a new experience, and one he did not like. He wasn’t quite sure of what to do, now. He was tempted to walk back to their hut and wait for her there. Surely she would calm down and crawl back to him in a few hours, begging for forgiveness. Of course, he knew it was all her fault. She was a temptress. For Chrissakes, he thought, she came out of my goddamn rib! At the very least she owed him some respect. Yet, he couldn’t help but feel somewhat responsible for her, especially after what they’d done.

With the taste of apple still in his mouth, he walked into the woods after her. It was cold and dark under the canopy of the trees. Adam became strangely aware of things that had never bothered him before: long, hairy ferns brushing against his legs, an itch on his arm, his penis dangling between his legs, touching one thigh, then the other, at each step. He felt awfully vulnerable.

“EVE!” No answer. Where the fuck is she? He cried out again several times, to no avail. Once the sound of his voice had died out in the moss and leaves, a doomed silence filled the forest.

Adam had expected to catch up with his woman quickly, but now he was forced to walk deeper into the woods. Soon it was almost unbearably cold. He could feel goose bumps erupt on his arms, torso, and legs. His nipples became hard and sensitive. He could feel his testicles receding into his crotch, while his penis had shrunk to a little pink bulb peeping out of his pubic hair. For the first time, Adam felt like covering himself.

He found a bush with large leaves, which he yanked out and wrapped around his middle, making a kind of verdant diaper, which he glued with some tree sap.

As he was experiencing the newfound comfort of his rustic clothes, he heard the sound of steps on the forest floor and shaken leaves, as of some animal approaching from behind. He turned around and found Eve standing before him, clothed like himself in a loincloth of leaves – except she had added an upper half to cover and support her breasts. Adam would have blushed, a few hours before, at being seen so strangely attired. Now he was grateful for the leaves that covered his lumps and bumps, and he was grateful that Eve had covered herself also. It would have seemed somehow odd for him to witness her naked body now.

“It’s cold here,” Eve said as a matter of explanation, looking down at her half-covered body.

“Yes,” replied Adam. “I know.”

Imagine Us On Thursday

Party till our heads spill out.
Guinness and Schnapps and Sangria.
Close your eyes and hold me close.
Nothing is real, not even you, not even me.
Maybe not us maybe.

Later in the night there is a single droplet of alcohol
on my left converse shoe
to remind me never forget you.

Contortionist (Bonus post)

Would you mind if I died by your side?

I've Written Something That I've Quoted Afterwards and Said It Over and Over and Believe it Now

"I am perfect
You are perfect
Perfection is subjective
Imperfection is universal."

- Mike Carrozza

It's the wrong kind of place to be cheating on you

My eyes are drawn to the walls that I remember being a different colour, the ceiling that used to have painted stars, the desk that did not used to be there, the windows which still look out on the same view, still let in the noises of the street, of the city. I’m brought back to lying here listening to the city and your calm breathing as you slept beside me, and I know I can’t go through with this, not here, not where I have so many memories, not where you are tied in to all of them, not now even though I know you slept with her, and you don’t think it matters. He walks in with a sly seductive smile, and whispers something, it goes by me because I’m caught up in the realisation that this is not going to work, and this won’t bring me release or pleasure or satisfaction, just pain, pain and a sense of self betrayal. I get up, in a single smooth movement, he moves towards me and I gently grab his arms before they can encircle me. No, is all I say, and I’m lucky, lucky because he lets me go, doesn’t push me doesn’t ask for an explanation just lets his arms drop, and loses his smile. He looks at my face intently and I think he’s going to turn away and leave me here alone with my memories and sense of loss. I’ve let his arms go and wrapped my arms tightly around myself, wishing the events that lead me here wouldn’t keep haunting me. I’m once again lost in my thoughts and don’t realise as he steps closer, don’t realise what he’s about to do till he does it.

Sonnet 2

I find myself unable to regret,
The vice manifested through my hands.
I find myself a pregnant silhouette;
A servant for my own farfetched demands.

A conscience conscious is sure to condemn.
A man condemned is sure to seek reform.
A weed may never be left as a stem.
To this alone I accept to conform.

It was through murder I relinquished grace.
His grace is not a grace I could have found.
My first crime was to my conscience erase.
To my sinister mind I am left bound.

My sinister mind does all ties reject.
To be its first kill I did not expect.

I Overheard Activists Speaking Into A Red Telephone

I... honestly don't know what this came out of. 


Oh! By the way--I'm trying out a form challenge, which you can read at my blog--one new form every day. Comments would be appreciated. I swear I am going to start commenting on your respective blogs and on this one, too.


we have stolen your cars

there is no escaping it now:
you will walk everywhere
like the rest of us
petty civilians
petty environmental bastards
who lock our front doors at dusk
against the storm
of mud and rain and money
that we channeled
and ate
and fed to our children
before we locked ourselves up
shat it all out
and came out
clean as we liked

no
never mind
we have stolen your cars
and shoes now

we will walk
you will crawl

96: The Same Concept, Reversed

I have never thought so clearly in my mind,
as I am right now,
5 am, November something-or-other, 2009.

A rattle snake buzzing
backwards in reverse
A tools hammer crushing
the red baron in the Kremlin
A lack of dentist's teeth
in the mouth of an Orthopedic surgeon.
Derived from a derivative
in a conclusive, ironic, Platonic... sock.
The warmth is immeasurable.

Wow,
such clarity.
Sparkling clean
windex to the brain
neurons to the toaster ovens.
I can't see you,
so you can't see me
hiding in my head
no warmer place than this.
I wanna' stay locked up here forever,
you panda.
My mindless jabbering
with a lack of a better term
for diseased and ill-fated woes.
I'm re-reading,
my bad.

5 Am.

Why can't I sleep?
Is there a God?
Is there a Jesus?
Besides the one in advertisements and Hollywood films
(fucking cash cow).
Repetitions are merely nothing
but the repeating of something.
Isn't it obvious?
Isn't it obvious?
Is it not obvious?
Fuck you, Severus Snape,
I'm going to bed.

Lied.

I really am soothed,
like a milkshake from Burger King
Only a Monarch can provide
with satisfaction like that,
King Cow,
ruler of the Methane.

I don't understand James Joyce,
is it just me?
Please, I want to, I swear.
I wrote a song today
And it's depressing
Like a family dinner
when the rest of your family is dead.
So lonely.

Did I mention that I can't sleep?

The skeletons around
the posh wooden kitchen table
Medieval,
chicken legs and breast
(DD32)
I should've ended this when it had a chance of being good
(Who am I kidding?)

I'm in love.
And it's driving me insane.
The most beautiful insanity I have ever felt.
I'm sorry for bragging,
I should've shown it in a metaphor,
But what happens when there are no more meanings to our metaphors?
And too many metaphors to keep count of?
Well,
I guess I'll fall asleep.

Acrid

Inspired by a man I saw on the metro, who was smoking.

And then, looking everyone square in the eyes, he took out his lighter and lit his cigarette. The light of the flame momentarily shadowed his face so that every wrinkle etched as a deep rivulet mapping out the ache of his past. And then it was gone. And he dragged his first puff. And exhaled.

The stream of cloudy smoke filled the metro car. People who hadn’t noticed what he’d been doing sniffed, confused, and looked around. When they found the culprit, they frowned, whispered to their friends if they had any, made angry eye contact with strangers if they didn’t. They shuffled or blocked their noses or turned away, closing their eyes – perhaps counting the seconds until the doors opened on their stop.

But no one told him to put it out.

The man smiled. Because he wasn’t so much doing this because his nicotine craving was clawing at his skin, but because he’d needed to prove to himself that humans were a worthless, spineless race who didn’t stand up for what they wanted or believed in. He’d needed, at this particular moment, to know that they were intrinsically weak. He’d needed to know that there was a reason he’d failed at everything, that it wasn’t his fault, that it was human nature and that was that. He’d needed to know why everything was falling to shit all around him but he wasn’t able to fix it. And now he did.

The metro jerked forward and came to a halt. The doors opened. The man dropped his cigarette on the ground, crushed it in with his heavy boot, and walked out onto the platform. He wasn’t as satisfied as he thought he’d be.

Define "Canadian Literature"

"So," says Margaret Atwood, as rich brown gravy drips down her chin. "Müller got the Nobel." She quickly grabs the pristine white serviette from the table and dabs off the sauce on her face with quick, clean strokes.

They never mention it openly, but they both know it. The nobel hangs over those two women like an enormous pendulum, casting its long, eminent shadow over all of Canadian literature. They both know (or hope) it's just a question of time before one gets the pendulum, and the other falls into the pit. But then, even worse perhaps, a possibility becomes more alarmingly probable as every fall comes and goes: perhaps they will both end up in the pit.

"Oh, Marge, dear," replies Alice Munro, casting a reproachful glance at her companion over a forkful of monkfish ceviche. "Don't. I thought you were above that!"

"Easy for you to say," thinks Atwood maliciously, but checks herself. Despite Munro's accomplishments, one simply can not be jealous of her. Besides, she is Margaret Atwood, after all. "I am above it," she says instead. "I was just stating a fact. Literary small talk, that's all."

"Yes, but dear, let's stay away from the topic of prizes. It makes you so very bitter."

Silenced by her friend's sweet honesty, Margaret goes back to sawing down cubes of juicy bison with her steak knife. ("Is your bison organic and free-range?" she had asked the waiter, almost violently, pointing to its elaborate description in the menu. "Is it Canadian?") Alice Munro stares at her with intent, chewing on another mouthful of her zesty fish dish. Margaret Atwood, poet, inventor, essayist, critic, novelist; bent over her plate like some clever bird with a grey afro. The mother of Canadian literature. Alice knows how the subject of literary prizes affects her friend. So close to the end of her career, with so many achievements behind her, it seems as if now -- despite her supposed popularity, her international renown, despite her talent and ambitiously varied projects -- well, it seems as if Margaret Atwood is simply passé.

"I envy you," Alice tells her. "Being able to eat meat like that. My dentures wouldn't take it."

Margaret looks up from her meat for a moment and meets Alice's eyes, so youthfully electric despite her seniority of ten years at this table. For a fleeting instant, she feels a pang of something like longing for her companion writer. Could it be, at her age, that some flame of lustful desire is rekindled for an older woman? Yet there is something erotically charged about Alice Munro. The soft wisps of white hair, like sea foam; the constant, good-natured smile; and that perfect form. Alice is still slim, even athletic, for her age, with nice arms, a tucked belly, and full, firm breasts. "I'll have to write something about old lesbians," Atwood thinks. "It would make a good short story."

"O, Alice, how do you do it?"

"Funny, I was just about to ask you the same thing! How do you do it, Marge?"

"Do what?"

"Stay so serious. Business-like. I know you don't take things that seriously, yet in appearance you make everything seem so intense!"

"I was going to ask you how you manage to stay so happy all the time."

"O, happiness, you know... It's genetic, I think. Diana Athill said that the other day, and I believe she's quite right. You're prone to it, or you're not," Alice pauses for a moment. "Yes, happiness is simply genetic."

quiet before a storm

Your pause pierced my heart like finely fletched arrows.The eloquent silence meant infinitely more than rushed words that came afterwards. Hush now, I know, and your dove-like cooing meant to comfort is not working as intended, a balm for my wounds. It's acting like arsenic, burning, searing, only serving to increase the pain not soothe, though I know it's good for me. I stoically sew it shut; the gaping edges of the gash are now bound together, (I wish I could have extracted you from my heart in the process) but I feel poisoned as if everything that touches me will be tainted by history. You sigh releasing your worry that I'd bleed to death at your feet as you stood there useless. The sun is piercing the dark with her rays and I'm glad for the light to stumble away as your silence still rings in my ears.


(I can't remember if I have read this at a cwc meeting...if so apologies, also I could not come up with a title that satisfied me, ideas are welcome)

In the Garden

The dove threatens murder most fowl,
Upon foreseeing the child's howl.
The snake silently,slowly slithers.
Unaware that its life span withers.

The boy stands, paralyzed with fear,
as the hiss of the snake comes near.
The snake reveals its ugly bald head,
The boy believes himself to be dead.

The child for a second time it seems,
Will fall victim to the snake's vile schemes.
The snake is ready now to eat.
However, this time it lacks feet.

The dove, rescinds murder most fowl.
The villain will no longer prowl.
The naive children will not yet be.
Burdened by responsibility.

I Am An Act and I Am Pathetic

(I've been moving away from the "Mike style" and been trying to do more stream work)

I don't know what the point of life is. Nobody does, really. I figure, if you're going to live life, live it comfortably. If something will alter your comfort positively, make it so. If anything causes you discomfort, cut it out.
I thought that's how things worked. My world was black and white until I found out that the same thing that made me comfortable, could make me as uncomfortable as I've ever been. So much discomfort in an absent look. So much discomfort in the nothingness and the hate behind words, masking the love.
That's another thing: Masks. Why? Why the fuck do people need them? People want to be themselves, yet want to be protected and in the end, neither of those things happen. Nobody discovers who they are on their own. To discover yourself, you need someone. You need people and you need to be unprotected.
In the end, the mask is a barrier, a mere distraction and basically grants the procrastination of getting to know yourself. That's what they do.
(I know I'm right, shut the fuck up.)
I use them all the time. I've given up on them and people don't know how to react. Every important person in my life has turned their backs on me. I am still expected to be happy. I am expected to be the person who brightens everybody's day.
(Fuck you. You don't know me.)
What happens when I need my day brightened? What happens when I spend my time thinking about how to make things right again, how to make things happy again? Where will you be when things go wrong?
That's what that song is about really. I wrote that song when I was feeling similar to now, only to a lesser extent. When Things Go Wrong was my first ever song and it was about being alone because someone you trusted turned on you and there is nothing you can do or say to make it better. I put myself down and apologize.
(I see no apologies necessary, to be honest.)
Why do I put myself down? Easily and simply answered: I hate myself. It's too late for me. That's right. It's too late. I play with minds. I had to. It's to defend myself. Raised in a home where everything is discouraged, I learned to control people underhandedly. I gave that up recently because I couldn't stand myself.
(Yeah, I could have whatever I want. I could... but not genuinely.)
Now that my world is crumbling (quickly, I might add), I have no real person to turn to (aside from myself. She knows who she is.)
That's why I stopped playing that song. I never really wanted to know where "you" would be when things went wrong. Maybe because I never thought things could go as wrong as they have now.
It's costing me everything and all I have left is an act.
An act that is (apparently) loved and appreciated,
But an act that rips me to shreds whenever it is applauded or encouraged.

Then comes a realization. I am not someone to "settle" for. I am amazing in the sense that every fiber of my being cares, if not permenantly, then in the moment. I invest every bit of who I am, because I give myself away.

But how can a man be happy if he has nothing left?
Does he become a creator? Does he become the exact opposite of what he believes in? Does he crumble? Does he become empowered? Does he dwell on that past? Does he escape? Does he flee?

Does he matter?
No.
He does not.
He is nothing,
Nothing until he is reunited with the ones he has given himself to.

Well There's Always The Final

My TA is gay.
He comes out in one of our conferences. Randomly mentions it in one of his rants, and proceeds to cover it up with a bunch of philosophical terminologies, grappling his way back on topic. He speaks faster than I've ever heard him, a single droplet of sweat trickles across his brow and down his pronounced jawline. He shakes in his seat, tries to disguise it by re-adjusting himself. I don't know if people notice it or not, because I sit in front, closest to him, can feel his shaking leg rumble my chair.
Everyone is silent, and his on-topic comment and discussion question has fallen on deaf ears. They stare at their fingers and even seem to inch away from him, edging towards the door. The disappointment is clear on his face, and he dismisses us early.

My TA is gay.
But my conference is homophobic.
I wonder how he'll mark us down for participation.
Just because you're gay doesn't mean you're a good person.

Online, part 1

[So, a bit of a disclaimer. I'm currently working on NANOWRIMO, so the stuff I post here is going to be...a little less polished, a little less intense than usual. I'm saving the intensity for Nano and the polish just...takes time. Which isn't really an excuse. But. This is going to be a two-or-three-part-er, since I've already been infected by the Epic Fiction Bug. AND. It has a plot, guys!]
Margot was bored – and not just bored, but bored.
There was a distinct difference, she assured herself, as she updated her Twitter feed and sat back to watch the responses pour in.

Three seconds. Refresh.
Three minutes. Refresh
Five minutes. Refresh
Seven minutes.

She pushed herself away from her desk with a huff and glared at the empty yellowish-green walls of her new apartment. Three hours after moving in, her bed set up, her dishes unpacked, her books and clothing in various states of chaos, her fridge stocked by intervention of some family member or other, her bookcases lying in pieces on the floor and her internet connection as new as a kitten who hadn’t yet opened its eyes (she’d need one of those, she suddenly decided: a kitten would definitely help with the boredom)...three hours after moving in, and there was nothing to do.

She rejected the notion of unpacking anymore – hadn’t she just finished putting all that stuff into the boxes the night before? As for bookcase building, that was going to have to wait until some well-meaning friends brought her a screwdriver or at the very least an Alan key – she wasn’t going to call her dad and tell him that she’d forgotten them when he’d very specifically reminded her at least a dozen times. The kitchen wasn’t dirty yet, and she didn’t even have to cook herself anything to eat – the remains of a pizza were sitting in their box on the counter next to a four-pack of her favourite beer and a thermos of something she suspected was probably originally coffee.

Refresh. Still nothing. Where was everyone? It was early December, so everyone was either out of school or procrastinating heavily, and either way, she reasoned, they should be at least checking for her updates. What kind of friends were they? she grumbled to herself as she logged onto her favourite MMORPG and began to go through the agonizing process of deciding which character to play.

--

Lily was bored – and not just bored, but bored.
Not there was much difference, she sighed as she polished her crystal ball for the fiftieth time in two hours and sent out a mass prod into the network.

Three seconds. Rattle.
Three minutes. Rattle
Five minutes. Rattle
Seven minutes.

The damn thing was probably broken again, she reasoned, and stalked away from the stand to slump on her throne and stare at the new colour scheme that her idiot interior decorator had assured her was all the rage in Necropolis. She was secretly positive that the moss was a little overdone and kitschy-earthy, aside from being the most horrendous shade of puke green that anyone could fathom – and it clashed terribly with the amethyst of her throne. Perhaps, she mused, she should have taken the decorator’s idea to have the throne redone as well before throwing her from the tower in a fit of (entirely righteous) anger. She sank a little lower into the cushions. The moss really was hideous.

There was absolutely nothing to do, except possibly supervise her minions, and she wasn’t exactly going to do that, not on the day of their annual bath. So many wet, squirming, naked minions in one place was something she could just not handle. She briefly considered whipping up a new batch of poison, but thought better of it – the last one had somehow burned a hole in the bottom of her second-best cauldron, and the best one was really only for show and cracked under any significant heat. There was, she mused, the concept of running through catalogues for a new lizard of some sort, but that was really a little beyond her, what with Morris being only three weeks dead and the fact that she desperately wanted a fire-orange one and it would clash terribly with the new colours.

She stomped back to the crystal ball, still pulsating purpley at her, and shook it again. Still nothing. Where was everyone? Probably, she pondered darkly, at one of Sarah’s terrible séances, spooking nine year old girls in some godforsaken corner of Antarctica or something. What kind of friends were they? She grumbled to herself as she pulled out her wand and transported herself into a battlefield site near the Green portal.

Abecedarian

It's been a tough week, creatively speaking, so have a previous work--Monday's Abecedarian. Untitled as of now.


aimless under
broken streetlights we let
causal notions of the sidewalk
draw us home.
enough of stepping, we think,
forever losing balance to move forward.
god, if only life were escalators!
hope is last century but I swear
I would stay near the railing and
just look at the advertisements on the sides,
knowing that at
least I'm
moving.
nothing would give me more pleasure than
opening it all up, cracking through asphalt and gravel,
pulp of the city glistening and exposed, city
qua city in our minds being (and
rightly so ) electricity under wires, breath and
sweat and
tears of the living and the dead
under all the pressure of buildings of
video conference and nothing without us
walking on it and pushing forward like
Xeno's paradox disproven.
yes--it's better to walk,
zenith passed or approaching.

The Dying Man in Bed

“Goddamn. I do really wish I wrote that book,” the withering old man muttered, lying on his death bed.
“And that I believed in God. Christ. HA.”
He laughed with a low bitter roughness, before breaking into a coughing fit, the wrinkles on his face cringing, creases closing.
The boy stared by the bed. A young blonde boy. One who began to question life and its perplexities, death being one of them.
“Where you gonna’ go?” the boy asked the old man.
“Well hopefully in the ground. Maybe in a wall, I wouldn’t mind that. The fuckers better not burn my corpse, fucking Nazi corporate Americans, just to leave more room in their cemeteries. I guess they’re gonna’ need it.”
The boy stared, light eyes in awe. A frightened awe.
“Oh,” he barely whispered.
“What’s your name, kid?”
“Jonathan… Frankel.”
“Frankel, eh? I knew a couple of them.”
“Really? What were their names…”
“All fucking faggots! Faggots and politicians, and either way, they’re going to fuck you in the ass. Am I right, kid?”
The boy truly had no idea what to think. He stood there quietly, trying to understand the meanings to these words, these sayings. By contrast to the dying old man, the boy looked angelic; soft glowing light skin, smooth and bright blonde, blue deep eyes. The old man was brooding, dark features sinking within his pores, wrinkles and grey dying hair.
“Why are you dying?” the boy asked him, on a whim.
At this question, the dying man became hesitant.
“Because everybody dies, kid.”
“But why are you dying?”
He hesitated once again.
“… Because I wasn’t a good man.”
“What’s your name?”
“Hubert.”
“Well I think you’ll be just fine Hubert.”
The old man smiled a rare glow, one hidden for decades on end prior to this one fleeting second.
“Thanks kid, appreciate it.”
At that point, a platinum blonde mother ran into the room, a look of absolute fear on her face, and a tidal wave of relief as she saw the boy. She grabbed him in her arms.
“Johnny, how could you run away like that? You almost gave me a stroke!”
“Yeah… almost gave me one too,” the old man echoed toward them, as the mother ignored him. She got off her knees, grasped her kid by the hand and walked toward the exit of the room.
“Hey toots, if you’re lonely, you know where you can find me. Won’t be here for long though, I’m one of those limited time specials like they have at Pizza Hut. Might have to take a pretty deep subway if you wanna’ meet me later… HA!”
He old man broke into that harsh coughing fit again.
Out in the hallway, the mother and her kid walked past bald people in robes and chubby women in blue.
“Why would you go into that room, John,” she asked her son. “What a dirty old man he was.”
The boy hesitated, and thought up of an excuse which he had heard constantly by vicious kidnapper alerts in between episodes of The Simpsons and Dragonball.
“He told me he had candy.”

Miranda

She is frozen
In her moment
In her mind
The wind moves around her
The rocks,
Alive with algae,
Are weighed down by her relinquished wish
For heartbeats
The darkness in which she sits surrounds
A halo of black clouds conjured
By her lack of power
Still she sits
Steadfast
Distilling thoughts of life
By looking in the yellow strokes of horizon
Yellow like her dress
Like her hair
With silver edges like the ribbon in her locks
Which pulls toward the water
In promise of the damage of the storm
She lets it pull,
Looks towards the doomed forever
In which shattered pieces of broken people
Surely grind against the waves,
And rests her foot on shifting sands
She does not move
She is frozen
In her moment
In her mind

as yet untitled

Hopes are dashed with such sudden force to the floor and the shards bury themselves in my arms and legs and feet, the cruel reality is shoved in my face and I’m shaking, and I realize as much as I had told myself not to hope, I still had …but now it doesn’t matter as I look contemptuously at the pieces of my dream strewn across the floor, embedded in my skin, I can’t even work up concern for the blood that is trickling down my arms and legs, that is slowly covering my hands, I step numbly across the floor accidently avoiding the slivers or not feeling them I can’t be sure, and I smile, sneering at my pathetic ridiculous hopes lying scattered and shattered, I feel stupid to have ever entertained the shred of hope that…but it’s too late now, it’s too late, and it seems I can’t escape the debris of my broken dream, as I track blood and pain through the rooms of my mind, I can’t seem to escape the broken bits I keep stepping on, shrapnel of misplaced ambitions, and I am just waiting to sink into a numb grey, a monochrome home…

Canon

{Excuses for the rawness, this has not been edited. I have an important essay and an important exam in the upcoming 48 hours. Needless to say the creative part of my brain is dead.}

Mount Milton.

Shakespeare Pass.

The River Joyce:

So large at places,

it is almost like a sea.

I look at the geographical map

of those who have written before me.

So many obstacles to overcome,

So many dangers to surmount.

How do you survive

(or thrive)

In a field of mines?

How do you inscribe yourself

in so rigid a world?

How do you scratch your name on the worn marble

already darkened with

ink

and blood

and sweat?

Everything has been said.

Everything is set.

Stagnant.

The Canon has been fired already.

A stream of inflamed confetti

Has illuminated the vaulted minds of many.

An all encompassing brightness.

Nothing else can shine through.

The voices that have spoken

Can be shunned or ignored

But not undone.

They have spoken

And they have spoken so well...

The muses have sung for them.

I do not think they will sing for me.

-- Even that's been said before

By a mind greater that mine,

In a previous century.

Before the blank page I bend my mind

and scribble inconsistencies.

My words lilt for a moment

Then wilt

wither

and die.

In comparison.

Yet how not to compare?

If I can't ignore the great

I must acknowledge them

And tread in their steps.

I must take the ruler

(As long and hard as Hemingway's ego)

And measure myself to them.

So I am doomed

To forget myself

In their shadow.