31.1.12
Heaven
The Christian Heaven is a real place but it didn't actually exist until the mid 70's. It was the advent of televangelists that made it real. The mass concentration of thought combined with the electrical magnetic waves of television signals ripped a portal in the time space continuum to a dimension that became a physical repository for imaginings of Christian heaven. In the same way Christians created a physical hell. In fact, hell was created before heaven because of fundamentalists emphases on divine retribution as means of control. Only people who believe in heaven or hell experience these places when they die. Most other people melt into divine substance to be re-purposed. In this way they become infinite without disturbing the flow of the universe. In contrast, the Christian heaven swells like a pustule in space-time, a stagnant concentration, while all that is dances around it changing forms in infinitely beautiful iterations.
29.1.12
He thought that if he envisioned me decapitated with enough intensity it would have some effect on my person, maybe even lead to it actually happening through some freak accident. I would feel his thoughts, laugh at them, and reverse whatever feeble energy was contained in them. He also liked to draw illusions between me and the more volatile aspects of Marilyn Monroe hoping that it would deflect from his own glaring instability.
Hugo
"... If a few sweet words can lead your guy "astray" he was never really yours to begin with. I don't have time for your idiocy. Out of all the men he's played boyfriend with why single me out when we've never even kissed? I think you know the answer. You can threaten violence but again it just points to how desperate and pathetic you are. Won't change a thing."- Hugo
27.1.12
26.1.12
25.1.12
24.1.12
The Conversation
...He felt Arty's pink meaty glans swell on his tongue. It made him desperate for it. He lunged his face forward filling the back of his throat with him and held it until Arty moaned, then the words "show me that hole" became audible from him. Arty leaned down and spread Silvio's cheeks. He took his index and middle fingers and sucked them, making sure they were shiny with saliva, then used them to rub Silvio's hole, applying pressure, then spitting, licking, slowly stretching... Silvio bucked back riding Arty's fingers, jerking off as Arty pushed on his g-spot. Silvio begged Arty to give him his dick. Arty squeezed a thick dollop of lube onto his penis, coated it and rubbed the excess on Silvio's hole. Arty eased into Silvio. Silvio almost climaxing just from feeling his hole pop over the ridge of Arty's inflamed penis head. The length of his cock applying continuous pressure to Silvio's prostate as he slid in and out over and over again. Silvio pushed back into Arty, wiggling his ass around, grinding into his pelvis. He needed him balls deep. Silvio's member so swollen and hard it almost hurt. He began masturbating feverishly while Arty pounded him. Arty reaching around to help. Dense spirals of cum squirted onto the squeaking mattress under them, one after the other, the organism making Silvio clench around Arty's manhood. Arty pulled out and groaned. Hot sticky splashes landed on Silvio's spine. They both rolled over onto their backs and passed out in each others arms.
23.1.12
The way this nothing shakes you...
Wait until this continent really starts to move. All of your slimsy fences like a spilled deck of cards. You lost the moment you tried to involve me in a game I never intended to play. Your coffin black and cold like onyx stone, sleek into it's ditch, as if you were in the belly of a panther slipping into the night. This silence divine. I can be with my love.
Wait until this continent really starts to move. All of your slimsy fences like a spilled deck of cards. You lost the moment you tried to involve me in a game I never intended to play. Your coffin black and cold like onyx stone, sleek into it's ditch, as if you were in the belly of a panther slipping into the night. This silence divine. I can be with my love.
22.1.12
21.1.12
"... Here's the thing that you still can't seem to understand. Your stupid ass doesn't get to decide what's appropriate for me. I'm going to do what I want anyway and just agree with you to shut your dumb ass up. But here's real the kicker, my desires and interest, make the world a more interesting place to live in, yours just make you fatter and dumber, so you can fuck off in whatever direction you like as long as it's away from me." - Sharky
20.1.12
Sparse Dirge
Jalil's body lay cemented in the white satin lined box. The thick makeup on his skin gave it the appearance of putty. Tight red and white carnation wreaths propped around the slivery casket. He was finally truly gone. The silence and peace was transcendent.
Mister Mountain
Hey you! Mister Mountain Climber! This is Mister Mountian speaking! Listen here, if you want to climb me you have to understand that I am made of many rocks, you can't try and grab them all and expect to get anywhere. Grab the ones that stick out for you. The ones that make you feel loved. I hope to see you at my summit soon.
Sincerely yours always,
Mister Mountain
Sincerely yours always,
Mister Mountain
The Funeral
The trestles of the railway bridge connecting the land masses extended into imperceptibly, dissolving into the blue gradient of sky and water in the distance. In this moment everything else ceased to exist. He felt like he was part of the most gorgeous Richard Diebenkorn painting. There was no funeral to attend at the end of his journey. No grievers at the train station waiting to whisk him away to the funeral parlor. Nothing. Only this majesty and the rhythmic clacking of the train car on the rails. It was true that Jalil's death was long overdue but his anger did not overshadow his sadness or his relief. He felt confused. Exhausted. Right now, none of that existed. None of it mattered.
19.1.12
Complete Smut
Nothing, outside of actual sex with a man he really liked, got Dustin off like interracial gay porn. Plain old black on white gay porn was good, but interracial gay thug or bear porn was best. This always made him feel guilty. He was a typical white man, all the assumed societal power of that position applied to him. He knew his attraction to the raunch was purely animalistic and it bothered him. He knew he was partaking in a long malignant history of black objectification through hypersexualization.
His world was completely separate from the type of men in those movies. It's not like they could have conversations about Malevich or Kandinsky and in all honesty, he didn't want to. It would ruin his fantasy of letting himself be used by a rough and tumble overly sexual hyper-masculine personage. As bad as he felt about the social dressings of the situation, getting off felt better. After all, it was just a fantasy, incomparable to getting the cum fucked out of him by someone he really loved.
His world was completely separate from the type of men in those movies. It's not like they could have conversations about Malevich or Kandinsky and in all honesty, he didn't want to. It would ruin his fantasy of letting himself be used by a rough and tumble overly sexual hyper-masculine personage. As bad as he felt about the social dressings of the situation, getting off felt better. After all, it was just a fantasy, incomparable to getting the cum fucked out of him by someone he really loved.
18.1.12
Cat Burglar
All of those little thefts you justify in the name of "fairness" or as some sort of payment for whatever bullshit you have imagined. Those things you take from me, they lead back to their source. They bear my distinct mark. Instead of eradicating and demoralizing me you are helping me to survive in a traceable "essence." Even in their reproduction, the letters of my name are present albeit scrambled. And the best part is you can't do it without the shadows I've left in your mind. I will live well beyond you, well beyond my body and the form of this land. It was your theft, your slide of hand, your efforts to quiet me, that made it happen. I am emblazoned all over you. We should make love you fucking dirtbag.
17.1.12
Don't Forget.
Bright yellow umbrella and white framed sunglasses in spite of the gray drizzle. I decided to be an abstraction of a sunny day. Canopy ablaze with my own glare. I am my own light. Don't you forget it. The shades were particularly helpful in that they obscured your smug face pretending to know what it couldn't possibly understand.
Wine Press
"... Wanting to express myself like grapes under foot. I wish it were safe to tell you of this wine, how much of it I've made with the intention of sharing with you. I wish I could settle down with you and slowly sip it until a shared sunset. I wish we were husbands." - Oliver Valentino
16.1.12
Commuter Line Nietzsche (def not a reg)
My commute had been as expected until the very end. The only difference up until that point was the new album download I was enjoying on my iPod. The just released M83 was really doing it for me. It was that interspersed with old stand by's like Power Corruption & Lies, Aftermath, Japanese Whispers and Combat Rock. Typical, but it was getting the job done. Anything that made the commuting experience less pedestrian was perfect, which is paradoxical in that my carbon footprint is near zero due to all of the walking and train riding I do, but that's another story. Finally my stop. I get up, walk towards the train doors and do a quick turn around. Sitting in a seat to the right of me is a man that is the splitting image of Nietzsche, outlandish mustache and all. It was uncanny to the point of alarm. I do a double take. Yep, just like Nietzsche. I turn to the woman standing behind me and compulsively say "Did you see Nietzsche back there?" in a joking/friendly manner. She looks at me like I have ten heads and says "I think you have the wrong person" With a look of terror in her eyes. She had no idea what I was saying and it apparently scared the crap out of her. I tried to explain myself but it just made me sound more insane to her I'm sure as the look of fear on her face did not lessen. So painfully awkward. This is what I get for trying to deviate from my usual misanthropy. Failure!
"The Buzz"
The grog of the morning had not left Kendle. He sat in front of the TV with his favorite blue mug filled with strong coffee. He needed it. The night before was not kind. He just could not manage to get to sleep. He tossed and turned and rearranged. He was unintentionally a four in the morning yogi. He flipped through the channels and landed on VH1. The "morning buzz" was on which usually consisted of terrible adult contemporary music. Not the kind of stuff he was normally into. Occasionally something listenable came on. Kendle was a bit of a music snob. For some reason one particular song caught his attention. Maybe it was the lack of sleep. It was some duet about a man getting cut off and lamenting it and a woman trying to explain herself. The song was kind of hilariously pathetic but the beat was good. It sounded like something Brenda would absolutely eat up. He thought about Brenda dancing around her apartment as she imagined him as the guy and herself as the girl in the song and laughed out loud. He caught the credits of the video. It was "Gotye feat. Kimbra-Somebody That I Used To Know" He felt glad she was no longer in his life. He imagined her lavishing herself in his imagined regret, which he did not feel. He knew with all assurance that is exactly how she was and what she would do. He took a satisfying gulp of coffee and changed the channel.
15.1.12
No True Beginning, No True End
Fragments with infinite combinations, points of entry and exit. No true beginning , no true end.
14.1.12
Oscillating
Whirling dervishes, intensive forces, a flaming ferris wheel still turning on an island in the distance reflected in the eye of the storm.
Mr. Albers
The emergency room teemed with feral humans. One woman in particular was excessively wild. She was pacing, screaming, stealing things from other patients. She took a tall thin black mans silver bubble jacket and modeled it around her room. She wore white crocs with sparkly flowers puffy painted on them, green plaid pajama pants, a yellow shirt, and now, a silver bubble jacket. Her face wrinkled and sunken in, light brown hair stringy and oily. Everything about her exuded suffering and abandonment. Her gravity pulled you when she walked by. I could see into her room from the chair in the hallway where I sat listening to a librivox recording of Kant's Critic Of Pure Reason on my iPhone. I'd been meaning to get to it. I had time to kill before the doctor came around to see me. Why not? Mostly, I had to block out the babies crying and wheezing, the fiends conversation next to me who kept on trying to score food and more pain pills, the guy at the other end of the row of chairs taking loudly on his cellphone about something completely provincial but with unrelenting intensity, as if it were something grievous. Suddenly, the tightness in my chest and pain in my right lung when I inhaled seemed to worsen. Shrill squeals pierced the bubble I tried to create for myself. The thin tall black man tried to retrieve his coat, this really set the wild woman off. She lurched and struggled as people tried to take the jacket from her. Other people in the ER reacting to her as if she was fully cognizant of her actions. I tried to ignore it but the whole thing made me want to laugh and cry all at once. The pain in my chest persisting. Just as the dust settled and I was getting back into the rhythm of my audio book, I hear the doctor call my name "Mr. Albers" she said pointedly. "What brings you here today?" I explain my symptoms. She takes out her stethoscope and listens to me breath. "You sound fine" she said, could be the exterior muscles but just to be sure we'll run a few tests and take some x-rays. All tests were inconclusive. The pain persisted. They gave me a Motrin and prepared my release papers. "geez, what a fucking waste of time and money" I thought to myself. I felt cross with myself for being there. I told the doctor dispatching me that it felt like something was lodged in my lung. She sort of wrote me off as paranoid or high or something that felt completely demeaning. I felt empty and unresolved. I could hear the wild woman dervishing again through closed doors just behind me.
13.1.12
Dumb Ass Ding-ding
Ding-ding was a complete tard. Anytime someone mentioned alcohol or drugs, Ding-ding imagined them strung out, under a bridge, legless from frost bite no matter the context or it's basis in actuality. Ding-ding was annoyingly stupid. His relation to existence tainted by a devastating inability to understand anything outside of his own little world which was one of inner city blight, blind religiosity and xenophobia. It angered Ding-ding that not everyone was as limited as he was. It angered him that some people had rich imaginations and could envision anything in detail without having to act on it. This was not like Ding-ding at all. He was impulsive. A complete slave to his whims. His life unexamined. He needed strict guidelines and the threat of a punishing god for him to function and resented anyone who was not like this. Tragic. Hopefully Ding-ding will realize some things before he proceeds to pass judgment and wish ill on another person again. Maybe Ding-ding will realize that his entire approach is warped and valueless when examined in context to actuality.
Everything Is Perfect
Spruce opened the jar of clover honey, drizzled it on whole wheat toast and took a bite. It's sweet crunch completely satisfying. The sun tea was just about ready. A few more moments and it could be served. It gleamed in it's pitcher like amber in the light. There was herb goat cheese and figs. Nice red wine. Joints rolled with a little sage and lavender mixed in... Everything was perfect, even the grass was an iconic jeweled green. Clifford sitting Indian style across from him looking through a copy of The Sun Spruce picked up for him at the grocery store. Sometimes Clifford liked to make art with tabloids. He would scrutinize the images before he decided to use them. His latest piece was a steel basin with images of Lindsay Lohan mod podged to the outside and a hot pink vibrator running on the inside. The whole thing hooked to a microphone that was hooked up to an effects box that slowed down the sound of the vibration on tin too something minimal and ethereal. The altered recordings played in an empty white room on the other side of the gallery. Conceptually it was Spruces piece from start to finish. Cliff just physically made it, adding his own visual flare. Spruce didn't mind. Cliff and he were partners through and through. What benefited Cliff benefited him. Spruce was the brains of the operation, Clifford was the action. Sometimes the roles switched but ultimately they completed each other.
The tea was ready.
Spruce poured Cliff a glass. Lit one of the joints, inhaled, it's perfume wafting through the park. All of his muscles gave way. He lays back and melts into the grass. "Right now everything really is perfect" he thought.
The tea was ready.
Spruce poured Cliff a glass. Lit one of the joints, inhaled, it's perfume wafting through the park. All of his muscles gave way. He lays back and melts into the grass. "Right now everything really is perfect" he thought.
11.1.12
Everett
Doreen's suggestion to Everett that he move to Denver Colorado was wildly unrealistic to the point of comedy.
"You don't get to tell me where to be or what I need to do." Everett replied
He found it so incredibly pompous of her to think she could just suggest whatever and expect him to comply because it's what she wanted. Her wisdom was always everything but. She wanted Everette to subscribe to her absolutely warped world view in which the gradient was nonexistent. Doreen was the worst kind of idiot. Willfully ignorant, convinced her personal desires and childish fantasies were "The will of Christ." Everett was up to his neck with her stupidity. He had been kind, smiled, ignored her up to this point. He was going to have to really put her in her place if she continued. He was going to have to tell her how ridiculous she really was, in detail. Maybe then she would learn to mind her business.
"You don't get to tell me where to be or what I need to do." Everett replied
He found it so incredibly pompous of her to think she could just suggest whatever and expect him to comply because it's what she wanted. Her wisdom was always everything but. She wanted Everette to subscribe to her absolutely warped world view in which the gradient was nonexistent. Doreen was the worst kind of idiot. Willfully ignorant, convinced her personal desires and childish fantasies were "The will of Christ." Everett was up to his neck with her stupidity. He had been kind, smiled, ignored her up to this point. He was going to have to really put her in her place if she continued. He was going to have to tell her how ridiculous she really was, in detail. Maybe then she would learn to mind her business.
"You only live once..."
Brandon had a near death experience caused by an waterskiing accident during his vacation in Antigua. When the paramedics came he was unconscious, not breathing, he had to be revived. The experience left him with a sense of urgency and desperation. After the accident he didn't care if his actions hurt others, he just did what he wanted, used who he wanted, said whatever he wanted whether true or not to get what he wanted because "fuck it" he thought, "you only live once and I'm not going to be left behind."
He was absolutely tyrannical.
Jordan loved Brandon anyway. His outlook on life was different than Brandon's. Jordan felt everything was already eternal and it was the way we processed this eternity that mattered... True freedom and choice being the ultimate illusion. He loved Brandon just as much as, if not more than, he disliked the way he behaved when scared even if he said otherwise, even if he thought he felt otherwise, his real feelings would eventually surface. But, he would never admit his love. Not unless Brandon let him know it was safe to do so. No such thing would ever happen.
He was absolutely tyrannical.
Jordan loved Brandon anyway. His outlook on life was different than Brandon's. Jordan felt everything was already eternal and it was the way we processed this eternity that mattered... True freedom and choice being the ultimate illusion. He loved Brandon just as much as, if not more than, he disliked the way he behaved when scared even if he said otherwise, even if he thought he felt otherwise, his real feelings would eventually surface. But, he would never admit his love. Not unless Brandon let him know it was safe to do so. No such thing would ever happen.
Those Moments When...
Dear Clive,
I'm writing to tell you that all memory is fiction. It is sensation abstracted by language and sequence. All physical evidence falls under causality which only functions when dissected from total reality. None of it actually exists. There is only this moment passing. That being said the memory of you leaves me wanting, the fiction stronger than the reality of this moment. I hold onto those instances when... The fiction languishing, evolving with time or staying frozen while your reality shifts away from those thoughts, away from me. I don't think I can bare it any longer. Under it all, under all of the junk and miscommunication those tender feelings still live. Gentle phantoms who's hands weaken the muscle of my heart with each touch. You should know this Clive, I think you should know this. I am stoic in the face of everything but this.
Sincerely,
Oliver
I'm writing to tell you that all memory is fiction. It is sensation abstracted by language and sequence. All physical evidence falls under causality which only functions when dissected from total reality. None of it actually exists. There is only this moment passing. That being said the memory of you leaves me wanting, the fiction stronger than the reality of this moment. I hold onto those instances when... The fiction languishing, evolving with time or staying frozen while your reality shifts away from those thoughts, away from me. I don't think I can bare it any longer. Under it all, under all of the junk and miscommunication those tender feelings still live. Gentle phantoms who's hands weaken the muscle of my heart with each touch. You should know this Clive, I think you should know this. I am stoic in the face of everything but this.
Sincerely,
Oliver
Nyles
Nyles Timberswap, (pictured above) didn't find Veranda De Cynclaires snooping very amusing or appropriate. Quite frankly, he thought it was sad and pathetic. Not only because it was testament to her absolute boredom but also because she was so dim witted, her opinions so affected by a lack of cultural literacy and by spite, that she misconstrued absolutely everything and then tried to use her harebrained inferences against him, albeit "covertly", but she was too dim to even do that correctly. What a miserable human being that Veranda De Cynclaire must be inside, he thought, trying to collude against him with other regrettable examples of humanity while smiling in his face.
Location:N 3rd St,Philadelphia,United States
10.1.12
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Vinny was a small man. Just about five feet tall but whatever he didn't have in height he made up in manliness. In fact, Vinny was so masculine you didn't really notice his height once you got to know him. He always wore a white v-neck t-shirt, a tuft of black chest hair visible through the top, blue jeans and black work boots. He was stocky too. Built like a little truck. Only smoked cowboy cigarettes. Face like Brando. Freely expressing his love for large breasts. He was like a small dose of 50's lawlessness incarnate. We would sit in his room listening to old records (Eric Burdon's The Twain Shall Meet and Bob Dylan's The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan were favorites) doing line after line on his drafting table while he simultaneously cut out tiny images of ships from old history books with his x-acto knife. He would dissect them further, turning them into shipwrecks and then glue them to expansive pieces if off-white Cotton paper. I would start going on and on about the island made of plastic bottles in the Pacific and what it would look like with the passage of geological time... Imagining the kinds of creatures that would evolve there, the plant life that would evolve to need the compounds in plastic to survive. He would make some heady Deleuzian reference to try and upstage me... The night went on like this until we couldn't see. Seems so innocent in retrospect, never considered how those moments would evolve into something desperate and broken.
9.1.12
Augur
"From when?" she asked with disbelief "From when I was an augur" He answered without pause. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a piece of peppermint candy, unwrapped it and popped it into his mouth. "I think I used to be an augur..." he continued, words half muffled by the mint.
Dear 2006, Remember The Pac-Man Table Game Between Us
Person one unrelated to person two:
You make the most idiotic assumptions, please stop, you are embarrassing yourself. This pac-man table game between us forever and the bland tacos still alive inside the tongue.
Person two unrelated to person one:
Your pictures on that wall there, invading my space, you never wanted them there before, not until I haunted the back room leaving trails of cannabis smoke like spectral vapors. Grated cheese everywhere.
Person three:
You make the most idiotic assumptions, please stop, you are embarrassing yourself. This pac-man table game between us forever and the bland tacos still alive inside the tongue. Your pictures on that wall there, invading my space, you never wanted them there before, not until I haunted the back room leaving trails of cannabis smoke like spectral vapors. Grated cheese everywhere. I heard you reading bad poetry through the door of the cellar intended for me to hear. It was terrible and again it made the most idiotic assumptions. I would have felt bad for you but the words were so incredibly self righteous, dogmatic, so laden with embarrassing cliches that I could not be bothered. Stop insulting my intelligence with your buffoonery. I am annoyed that my life has devolved to the point of having to be subjected to that kind of nonsense.
Person four unrelated to person one two and three:
I heard you reading bad poetry through the door of the cellar intended for me to hear. It was terrible and again it made the most idiotic assumptions. I would have felt bad for you but the words were so incredibly self righteous, dogmatic, so laden with embarrassing cliches that I could not be bothered. Stop insulting my intelligence with your buffoonery. I am annoyed that my life has devolved to the point of having to be subjected to that kind of nonsense.
We now serve sushi. The Pac-Man table is gone.
Person five unrelated to person one two three or four:
We now serve sushi. The Pac-Man table is gone.
It's 2012. The earth is shaking, not that I believe in that sort of thing... Would you like some extra Wasabi? Don't you think its time you found Jesus? RUN MOTHERFUCKER, RUN LIKE HELL FROM THIS AWFUL PLACE!!!!
Person six unrelated to person one two three four or five:
RUN MOTHERFUCKER, RUN LIKE HELL FROM THIS AWFUL PLACE!!!! Wait... there is nowhere to run too.
Person seven:
There is nowhere to run too. Gotta deal.
You make the most idiotic assumptions, please stop, you are embarrassing yourself. This pac-man table game between us forever and the bland tacos still alive inside the tongue.
Person two unrelated to person one:
Your pictures on that wall there, invading my space, you never wanted them there before, not until I haunted the back room leaving trails of cannabis smoke like spectral vapors. Grated cheese everywhere.
Person three:
You make the most idiotic assumptions, please stop, you are embarrassing yourself. This pac-man table game between us forever and the bland tacos still alive inside the tongue. Your pictures on that wall there, invading my space, you never wanted them there before, not until I haunted the back room leaving trails of cannabis smoke like spectral vapors. Grated cheese everywhere. I heard you reading bad poetry through the door of the cellar intended for me to hear. It was terrible and again it made the most idiotic assumptions. I would have felt bad for you but the words were so incredibly self righteous, dogmatic, so laden with embarrassing cliches that I could not be bothered. Stop insulting my intelligence with your buffoonery. I am annoyed that my life has devolved to the point of having to be subjected to that kind of nonsense.
Person four unrelated to person one two and three:
I heard you reading bad poetry through the door of the cellar intended for me to hear. It was terrible and again it made the most idiotic assumptions. I would have felt bad for you but the words were so incredibly self righteous, dogmatic, so laden with embarrassing cliches that I could not be bothered. Stop insulting my intelligence with your buffoonery. I am annoyed that my life has devolved to the point of having to be subjected to that kind of nonsense.
We now serve sushi. The Pac-Man table is gone.
Person five unrelated to person one two three or four:
We now serve sushi. The Pac-Man table is gone.
It's 2012. The earth is shaking, not that I believe in that sort of thing... Would you like some extra Wasabi? Don't you think its time you found Jesus? RUN MOTHERFUCKER, RUN LIKE HELL FROM THIS AWFUL PLACE!!!!
Person six unrelated to person one two three four or five:
RUN MOTHERFUCKER, RUN LIKE HELL FROM THIS AWFUL PLACE!!!! Wait... there is nowhere to run too.
Person seven:
There is nowhere to run too. Gotta deal.
Crosshatched Magnolia Sky
I woke up on the couch. The cat fell asleep on my chest again. I sit up as if it wasn't there. Socks jumps away looking back in confusion. My deep purple oversized Oxford, untucked, loose and airy, is completely covered in dander. I pat it down ridding myself of as much of it as possible. I button my fitted Levis. Fix my cuffs. Slip on my loafers and straighten the pennies in them so that Lincoln is upright. I make my way to the kitchen and start the coffee maker. It hisses and gurgles like a tar pit, it's primal sludge Leaking into the glass pot. I pull the pot away before it's completely done percolating letting a few drops land on the hot plate. The tiniest poof of aromatic steam rising. I drink it black with a teaspoon of sugar.
Socks is on the counter sniffing around. He's hungry.
I go into the broom closet where they keep the cat food and fill his bowl. The pebbles of kibble turning the polished aluminum into a zen bell. Spring was entering through the kitchen window, calling me to it.
I finish my coffee and go outside. In front of the house there is a large magnolia tree reaching out of one of those squares of soil that interrupt the sidewalk in residential areas of the city, it's roots warping the walkway, cracking it, puffing up through the broken parts of the path. A line of ants following the exposed root, carrying orangey BBQ potato chip crumbs into it's base diligently. Its branches and flowers forming the most pleasant aromatic canopy. I sit on the stoop in the morning quiet, everyone else still sleeping. I light a smoke. The roll and spark of my lighter seems loud in the morning when it doesn't have to compete with all of the other sounds of the day.
I start to think about the events of the night before.
About Joanne, about the way she drunkenly poured herself all over that married man. I felt worried for her. I also felt annoyed that she did these kinds of things for attention. Possibly more annoyed than I should have been but she was brilliant kind and generous. It made her look like a silly tart. It frustrated me. I take one last long deep puff and chuck the rest of my cigarette into the street. The magic of the morning tainted by my thoughts. I could never just be in the moment. My mind had to swim around in whatever nonsense had transpired.
I felt disappointed in myself, disappointed that I let these thoughts ruin the lovely ant parade and crosshatched magnolia sky. I needed to get away.
Socks is on the counter sniffing around. He's hungry.
I go into the broom closet where they keep the cat food and fill his bowl. The pebbles of kibble turning the polished aluminum into a zen bell. Spring was entering through the kitchen window, calling me to it.
I finish my coffee and go outside. In front of the house there is a large magnolia tree reaching out of one of those squares of soil that interrupt the sidewalk in residential areas of the city, it's roots warping the walkway, cracking it, puffing up through the broken parts of the path. A line of ants following the exposed root, carrying orangey BBQ potato chip crumbs into it's base diligently. Its branches and flowers forming the most pleasant aromatic canopy. I sit on the stoop in the morning quiet, everyone else still sleeping. I light a smoke. The roll and spark of my lighter seems loud in the morning when it doesn't have to compete with all of the other sounds of the day.
I start to think about the events of the night before.
About Joanne, about the way she drunkenly poured herself all over that married man. I felt worried for her. I also felt annoyed that she did these kinds of things for attention. Possibly more annoyed than I should have been but she was brilliant kind and generous. It made her look like a silly tart. It frustrated me. I take one last long deep puff and chuck the rest of my cigarette into the street. The magic of the morning tainted by my thoughts. I could never just be in the moment. My mind had to swim around in whatever nonsense had transpired.
I felt disappointed in myself, disappointed that I let these thoughts ruin the lovely ant parade and crosshatched magnolia sky. I needed to get away.
8.1.12
Domestic Bedroom Brahman
It is us, falling into different bodies and filling out their appendages, entering every possible state of humanness, entering every era, entering every object. Divine substance in conversation. In flux.
The means of change can be salacious. On occasion it happens by way of things like pulling down pants zippers slowly. The methodic clicks of the copper teeth separating in sequence prompting the body to roll it's hips towards the loss of self. Towards becoming a modular piece of a whole new creature, a many limbed Vedic god writhing out of the primordial waters, this blue carpet, this whole room is now the first cosmic place. Our faces dumb with it. Our new reeling form reflected in the mercurial lenses of door knobs and furniture hardware, in the shine of glazed ceramic lamp bases, in the shiny dark gray of an empty tv screen... A reflection of brahman bouncing through all time and space, bouncing through the universe that is that room.
When it's over we hit the luncheonette.
I stir some cream into my black tea forming miniature spiral galaxies. You sit across from me, staring out of the window, contemplating the repercussions, making yourself paranoid. You ask me if I'm dating someone, praying for me to answer that I am. I pull myself away from the cosmic clouds, the lactic space gas piercing the spiced dark matter and quietly answer no, my disappointment in the question audible in my voice.
The means of change can be salacious. On occasion it happens by way of things like pulling down pants zippers slowly. The methodic clicks of the copper teeth separating in sequence prompting the body to roll it's hips towards the loss of self. Towards becoming a modular piece of a whole new creature, a many limbed Vedic god writhing out of the primordial waters, this blue carpet, this whole room is now the first cosmic place. Our faces dumb with it. Our new reeling form reflected in the mercurial lenses of door knobs and furniture hardware, in the shine of glazed ceramic lamp bases, in the shiny dark gray of an empty tv screen... A reflection of brahman bouncing through all time and space, bouncing through the universe that is that room.
When it's over we hit the luncheonette.
I stir some cream into my black tea forming miniature spiral galaxies. You sit across from me, staring out of the window, contemplating the repercussions, making yourself paranoid. You ask me if I'm dating someone, praying for me to answer that I am. I pull myself away from the cosmic clouds, the lactic space gas piercing the spiced dark matter and quietly answer no, my disappointment in the question audible in my voice.
Location:Bettlewood Ave,Oaklyn,United States
This Medal
The goals in mind never included absolute concealment. By the same token, they also never included a desire to make you feel remorse. This creature lives in a place beyond all that. Neck line adorned in Lapis Lazuli. Feathers like razors. Heart of pumice. Soaring.
7.1.12
Repository
Jan 6, 2012
Carl was my favorite. This is how I always described him, simply, my favorite. He was a gentle giant. I cherished him.
Jan 6, 2012
Justin was awkward, tall, limbs and feet that didn't correspond to his torso. He reminded me of one of my favorite cartoons as a child. Ichabod Crane from the Disney animated version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow "...are they shovels or are they feet, ichabod, ichabod, crane..." went the title track in the cartoon and I compulsively hummed it under my breath every time I saw Justin. Another thing that came to mind was a giraffe on roller skates fumbling about. I would switch between these two images in my mind whenever I was forced to be in his presence. All I wanted was a god damned cup of coffee. I wanted to sit and write and shoot the shit at my favorite place without having to see Justin fumbling all over himself trying to get my attention. Justin had decided that I was the person to beat, in what, I'm not sure, but he was generally a regrettable human being who let himself be ruled by a myriad of self deceptions. He invented so much fiction about me, scrutinized everything I did so much, that I started to feel famous, like he was some po-dunk paparazzi and I was his own personal Lindsay Lohan... or so he liked to make it seem. The whole situation was pathetic. Justin was not even in my galaxy in terms of personhood. I would pretend that I didn't understand what he was trying to do. He took this as an indication of his wit in comparison to mine and not his ineffectuality. It was hilarious.
Jan 4, 2012
It was a masterpiece, full of the warmth and character of human imperfection, supported by personal innovation, without once relenting in it's complex beauty. It was the best hand knit doily Edgar had ever had the honor of knowing.
Jan 4, 2012
It's the quiet of this city in winter that gets to you. It's not like other cities where at least the constant din of beeping horns and the hum of wheels speeding off into green lights compose themselves into a minimalist composition. The alien language of other people's conversations at a distance becoming clear once in auditory range and then fading back out into the extraterrestrial. No. It's just you with the rouge of winter being blown onto your face as other people glide silently by you like mollusks across the floor of the Arctic ocean. Sunlight barely penetrating the gray air so cold that it could be mistaken for deep water. The quiet grips you and begins to show you it's horrors, only letting go of it's hold for ghastly oracles, moirae, glossolalists promising more doom.
Jan 3, 2012
It infuriated Joey when Derrick referred to him as a "little brother." Firstly, Joey was several months older than Derrick. Secondly, Derrick knew Joey did not see him in this way. Thirdly, Joey pined for Derrick and he found the monogram dismissive of his feelings. Joey inspired Derrick to push boundaries, to look at things in a different way. He was brilliant and Derrick wanted him around for this reason, despite the fact that he intentionally downplayed his intelligence to others to conceal his source. He reconciled this by referring to him as a brother. Joeys self-esteem was a consistent problem and he allowed it to happen.
Jan 3, 2012
Adam hadn't had a drink in over two years, a cigarette in even longer, which is remarkable given the amount he used to drink and smoke. Almost Cold turkey, just like that, he reached his limit and was done. It wasn't Jesus, or some horribly effacing 12 step program that try's convince you of powerlessness so it can brain wash you into a miserable sobriety, he felt it better that someone happily and honestly drink themselves to death than be subjected to that nonsense. Nope, it was about figuring out what he really wanted and behaving accordingly. It worked because he was doing what he really wanted, not what society told him he should want. He wanted sobriety for himself not for social decorum.
Jan 2, 2012
Roxanne stormed by Paul with the same crap look on her face she always seemed to have for one reason or another, peering his way for a reaction. Paul smiled, comforted that her tantrums and bad attitude were no longer his problem. He felt airy and new like the world just cracked wide open for him. He almost waved hello, just to show her how much he didn't care but decided not to give her a chance to infect him with her negativity and just walked by smiling. He made his way to the grocery store and bought himself some smart dogs as a personal reward. He loved smart dogs. "What a fantastic way to start the new year!" he thought to himself.
Jan 2, 2012
Loupe Santiago's name was misleading. It conjures images of traditional Mexican costumes and pastoral scenes of women outside of adobe houses grinding corn in a mortar and pestle. This was not Loupe. Her parents immigrated to America from Mexico in the 70's and she was born just outside of Chicago in the early 80's. Loupe was practically bald. She sported a crew cut from about the time of her quinceañera. All of that traditional frill made her uncomfortable and this was her protest. She had read The bell Jar in sixth grade completely by accident, she picked it out for a book report because she thought the title was strange, it changed her forever, by highschool she had discovered riot girl music and punk. She was called freak and dyke by almost everyone she knew in spite of the fact that Loupe was striking and not gay. Nothing stopped her from being herself. Her high cheek bones and exotic eyes made her look like a petroglyph of an aztec princess come to life. She loved makeup and painted her face accordingly. Loupe was still basically the same as she was then except more refined with age. She was in college now, studying art history and fashion design. Her best friend was a boy named Tito, he too was a child of Mexican immigrants. Tito always wore the same Smiths shirt everyday that looked like it had not been washed since the band broke up in 1987. In the spring Lupe and Tito would sit in the park drinking cheap 40's. Tito gushing about a hopeless crush on a straight boy, loupe rolling her eyes and laughing while still being comforting. She would be dressed in something flawless like a distressed black leather motorcycle jacket with gold hardware she bought at the salvation army, high-water jeans and bouncing souls. They would end up at some dive bar filling the juke box with Jesus and Mary Chain and forgetting about time...
Jan 2, 2012
The morning sun effected his eyes the way it effects tulips in the spring as it shone through the slight partitions of the thick umber curtains. Nothing would shut his eyes again now no matter how badly he wanted to go back to sleep. For a moment, just before he surrendered to the radiant glow, he thought he was in his own room until the feeling of the rise and fall of a sleeping body next to him jolted his memory. "Not again" he thought to himself. He turned to see his ex's light brown hair and nude body. This always happened when they drank and he always came to regret it. He carefully, silently, crept out the bed with the mastery and agility of a praying mantis making sure Hypnos was not vanquished completely from the room. He picked up his clothing from the floor and got dressed in the hall reducing his chances of being caught. He tip-toed down the steps into the kitchen. Took a strawberry pop tart from the box on the table and left still somewhat drunk.
Jan 1, 2012
Donna came home to her one room utility. Early from her job at the library. Her hours cut again. "Everything is digital now" she lamented to herself. She popped her low fat tv dinner into the microwave, waited for the annoying beep, popped it out, poured herself some scotch and sat to watch her "shows" on her virus ridden, constantly crashing, net book. soap operas were her guilty pleasure. A nice break from Proust. Her obese long haired grey cat named "Violet" who clearly had not been groomed in months, patches of matted fur dangling from it, curls up by her side. She farts loudly and shovels another spoonful of indistinguishable low fat slop into her mouth.
Jan 1, 2012
People didn't know much about Macks origins. Two things were known for sure. He used to be a trolley driver and he always lived in the same house on Dillard since childhood. Things were different on Dillard now from when Mack was a kid in the 60's. The corner pharmacy he loved then, once a cheerful robins egg blue building from the turn of the century with ornate wooden molding in contrasting high gloss white, had become a gray filth covered bog monster that would occasionally emit noxious fumes from it's singed orifices. In the summer heat It's lumpy skin would erupt in bright rashes of pejoratives. It's ornate moldings have become ugly worts and lumpy tumors, details concealed under thick layers of paint. Mack too had changed. He was old now. Alone. A hoarder. He became just as dirty and boggy as the pharmacy but he was a good man. He would spend all of his time at rummage sales finding "treasures" filling his house and yard with them even though actual space had run out years ago. Sometimes, if he found something really nice, he would leave it somewhere people would find it... He imagined he would live on this way even if nobody knew who he was. The trace of his existence would be inseparable from the object he thought. Mack was a very deep thinker, read lots of books, but no one knew it. Illness from smoking had taken his voice years ago and he didn't like writing. The neighborhood kids laughed at the way he hissed and groaned when he got upset, when he tried to scream, talk, curse, when he cried. They would pelt him with rocks, break his windows, steal from him, beat him up and take his wallet. "Dirty old white faggot gimmie your shit!" was a common thing for him to hear, in fact it was the last thing Mack ever heard. They found him bludgeoned to death in an ally not far from his house. He had to be identified through dental records it was so bad. His treasures rotting on Dillard street.
Jan 3, 2012
Dennis lived with his parents through his college years but he didn't let this slow him down. He would sneak his "friends" into their house while they slept. He did have a boyfriend proper but not even he knew about this. These guys ran in different circles than his boyfriend. One of them was Mitchell. Mitchell knew all about Dennis but he played innocent. Mitch was kind of omniscient in certain ways. He knew lots of people and they all had stories. He quickly pieced what was going on together. Dennis would invite Mitch over. They would hang around his parents stately house while they were away. Talking, sometimes sharing a joint. The tension between them building. It was unbearable. Dennis would try and make a move but then quickly retract looking completely conflicted. Mitchell always came on too strong adding to Dennis's misgivings. Mitch always spoke too much. He ruined everything with heavy words. Its just the way he was. Dennis always spoke too little. If Mitch would have just shut up they could have both gotten at least part of what they wanted. Maybe all of it. Their hangouts always ended in frustration.
Dec 31, 2011
I slid on my cowboy boots, the way my foot and leg displaced the air in them creating a small vacuum was pleasing. I felt secure. Locked in. Cowboy boots give you a certain power, a certain invincibility that is hard to put into words. They set you apart just enough so people know you are not fucking around. I had just gotten off the phone with Tandy. Tandy was having her weekly boy related crisis who's roots she invariably traced to every crappy thing that has ever happened to her in her entire existence. It was exhausting but I agreed to meet up with her for a drink. I knew eventually the conversation would turn away from so and so and lead into something more interesting and fun. She was good in this way but you had to be a psychiatrist for the first fifteen minutes of your encounter. Pulling out all of the Jung and Freud and anti-Freud and Skinner and occult science and magic charms and horoscopes and whatever else you had ever read to bring her out of it. She wantonly puffed on her cigarettes as she repeatedly asked "do you think he likes me?" which I never really knew how to answer in a way that would not set her off but it was soon over. The drinks would flow and the night would turn into one of surrealist word games, great post-punk music, insane doodles and gleeful pandemonium.
Dec 30, 2011
The house walls seemed to be constructed of foam-core, three floors of flimsy and a basement. Sound traveled up through it like cheers through a megaphone. All kinds of sounds came from here. Loud piercing squeals and deafening base. Lamont Young's psychic offspring making machines ring like blithe spirits being cast back to hell. I would mostly hang on the second floor unless something "visual" was happening. The "visual" usually entailed someone cross-dressing and screaming bloody murder while being doused in gunk and glitter, exposing themselves, being very 70's happening with an unhinged 90's primetime tv show aesthetic. Very little of it was that intentional though... All of it was that ridiculous. This is what made it both interesting and unbearable all at once. it was kind of like the Jerry springer of the avant-garde. Fashionistas , internationals, severe looking beautiful people, freaks, drug dealers, DJ's, artists, all crowded in, swimming in filth, most likely high as kites, watching a woman in a little Bo peep costume mock strangle herself as her bandmates yelled the word shame repeatedly. Then there would be a massive dance party. Always ended in a massive dance party that extended into the morning. Sort of hellish but in the best way imaginable.
Dec 30, 2011
The art show was as I expected. A skateboard with some star wars crap on it. A work referencing personal tragedy with unabashed narcissism. Something digitized and "futuristic." one decent seeming piece of art with a title that completely negated whatever spark I had gleaned from the work. Something about video games. One of the artists stood in the far corner of the gallery surrounded by a gaggle of horrible reinventions of edie sedgwick. Lapping it up, looking in my direction and gloating as if it was something I needed to aspire too. I left soon after feeling somewhat hollow but also somewhat victorious.
Dec 30, 2011
I sat at the bar with a copy of the golden bough I had bought in the used book store earlier that day. It was a nice copy, hardback, faded red cloth pulled over cardboard with an dollop of gold on the cover, a small embossed image. I was reading about the pig as corn maiden or something arcane and comedic like that... I knew these kinds of books were highly speculative but I liked them anyway. I had taken to drinking alone and reading or at least trying to read in the din and haze of smoke. I always noticed people I would not notice otherwise when alone. Wrinkly old black men who looked like they had been soaking in formaldehyde, ill fitting but perfectly pressed suits draped on their skeletal alcoholic bodies, all in a row, as hipsters poured in around them never even noticing them. It seemed as if they had been on those bar stools for eons. Like when they closed the place down for the night they would just leave them there until the next day. Pickling. They made me uneasy. The men exuded a certain nefariousness that was palatable. They felt parasitic like barnacles or leeches stuck to the bar stool, waiting... I put it in the back of my mind and continued reading about how German peasants physically and verbally abuse each other in the name of fertility and bacon. I drank to amnesia. Woke up the next day in my bed with no recall of how I got there. It felt like magic until my senses came to me, my stomach seemed full of balsamic vinegar nauseatingly sweet and sour. Too much bourbon. My wallet empty. I pick up whatever change I could find on the floor for train fair into the center of town and sat in the park chain smoking. Thinking.
Dec 29, 2011
We entered the basement bar, ceiling painted in colorful snakes, a claustrophobics nightmare, damp with humanity. The music was decidedly retro. Disco but not in the "funky" costumey sense... This was all vintage YSL and good coke or at least it was trying to be... The obligatory post hardcore thirty-something's looming. I was ill with it that night. Fucking tired. I unbuttoned my blazer and got myself a drink. I hated every moment. I used to love things like this, knowing about "exclusive" nights like this used to make me feel special. Now I just feel like I'm watching people younger than me falling into those shiny traps so many of us have been snared by. I felt agitated. The people I was with sneaking off into the bathroom every so often. In the past I would have followed. Now it was just pissing me off. I decide to get smashed to deal. More people started cramming into the space, I felt like I could die from the heat and humidity. I decided to leave. The cold winter air enveloped me, soothed me, the night was made of camphor and diamonds. I walked long and hard, passed the bronze statue of the lion fighting the python, I imagined it was one of the snakes on the ceiling of the basement bar... I liked thinking about this as the cherry of my cigarette became a torch through a night of lonely wandering.
Dec 29, 2011
You are a phantom. A shadow who's voice is nothing but my own auditory hallucination. You are a figment of my imagination. Don't take yourself so seriously. You are mist.
Dec 29, 2011
The emotion of the days events collected in her solar plexus. The anger aching to reach up through her lungs and become words. Loud words full of rumble and sting. Her throat was now a wasps nest, the insects flowing out of her one after another in lines. They wanted to land on me and imprint me with her message but I am not a place for measly insects. They sense this and fall away from me as if they have encountered a UV light trap.
Dec 29, 2011
I saw nothing of him but a large hand pulling the door shut. Nothing else, just a hand poking out of a blue-gray 70's vintage jacket sleeve, the kind that is sort of puffy, quilted in geometric striations... But I knew it was him. No one has hands like his, perfectly formed, perfectly rounded thick fingers that somehow retained their articulation without losing any testosterone. Always seeming to emit the perfect amount of pressure. Soiled by something ridiculous like scented markers and spirit gum. Something that relinquished any notions of functional adulthood. Brutally real in my memory. That was the same hand I saw. I knew it. I could feel it from the half block away. I walk by the door as if I hadn't noticed, Fixating on the trash being blown around the street, fixating on how it let me see the shape of the air that was quietly oxidizing everything. I swallowed hard and felt strong.
Carl was my favorite. This is how I always described him, simply, my favorite. He was a gentle giant. I cherished him.
Jan 6, 2012
Justin was awkward, tall, limbs and feet that didn't correspond to his torso. He reminded me of one of my favorite cartoons as a child. Ichabod Crane from the Disney animated version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow "...are they shovels or are they feet, ichabod, ichabod, crane..." went the title track in the cartoon and I compulsively hummed it under my breath every time I saw Justin. Another thing that came to mind was a giraffe on roller skates fumbling about. I would switch between these two images in my mind whenever I was forced to be in his presence. All I wanted was a god damned cup of coffee. I wanted to sit and write and shoot the shit at my favorite place without having to see Justin fumbling all over himself trying to get my attention. Justin had decided that I was the person to beat, in what, I'm not sure, but he was generally a regrettable human being who let himself be ruled by a myriad of self deceptions. He invented so much fiction about me, scrutinized everything I did so much, that I started to feel famous, like he was some po-dunk paparazzi and I was his own personal Lindsay Lohan... or so he liked to make it seem. The whole situation was pathetic. Justin was not even in my galaxy in terms of personhood. I would pretend that I didn't understand what he was trying to do. He took this as an indication of his wit in comparison to mine and not his ineffectuality. It was hilarious.
Jan 4, 2012
It was a masterpiece, full of the warmth and character of human imperfection, supported by personal innovation, without once relenting in it's complex beauty. It was the best hand knit doily Edgar had ever had the honor of knowing.
Jan 4, 2012
It's the quiet of this city in winter that gets to you. It's not like other cities where at least the constant din of beeping horns and the hum of wheels speeding off into green lights compose themselves into a minimalist composition. The alien language of other people's conversations at a distance becoming clear once in auditory range and then fading back out into the extraterrestrial. No. It's just you with the rouge of winter being blown onto your face as other people glide silently by you like mollusks across the floor of the Arctic ocean. Sunlight barely penetrating the gray air so cold that it could be mistaken for deep water. The quiet grips you and begins to show you it's horrors, only letting go of it's hold for ghastly oracles, moirae, glossolalists promising more doom.
Jan 3, 2012
It infuriated Joey when Derrick referred to him as a "little brother." Firstly, Joey was several months older than Derrick. Secondly, Derrick knew Joey did not see him in this way. Thirdly, Joey pined for Derrick and he found the monogram dismissive of his feelings. Joey inspired Derrick to push boundaries, to look at things in a different way. He was brilliant and Derrick wanted him around for this reason, despite the fact that he intentionally downplayed his intelligence to others to conceal his source. He reconciled this by referring to him as a brother. Joeys self-esteem was a consistent problem and he allowed it to happen.
Jan 3, 2012
Adam hadn't had a drink in over two years, a cigarette in even longer, which is remarkable given the amount he used to drink and smoke. Almost Cold turkey, just like that, he reached his limit and was done. It wasn't Jesus, or some horribly effacing 12 step program that try's convince you of powerlessness so it can brain wash you into a miserable sobriety, he felt it better that someone happily and honestly drink themselves to death than be subjected to that nonsense. Nope, it was about figuring out what he really wanted and behaving accordingly. It worked because he was doing what he really wanted, not what society told him he should want. He wanted sobriety for himself not for social decorum.
Jan 2, 2012
Roxanne stormed by Paul with the same crap look on her face she always seemed to have for one reason or another, peering his way for a reaction. Paul smiled, comforted that her tantrums and bad attitude were no longer his problem. He felt airy and new like the world just cracked wide open for him. He almost waved hello, just to show her how much he didn't care but decided not to give her a chance to infect him with her negativity and just walked by smiling. He made his way to the grocery store and bought himself some smart dogs as a personal reward. He loved smart dogs. "What a fantastic way to start the new year!" he thought to himself.
Jan 2, 2012
Loupe Santiago's name was misleading. It conjures images of traditional Mexican costumes and pastoral scenes of women outside of adobe houses grinding corn in a mortar and pestle. This was not Loupe. Her parents immigrated to America from Mexico in the 70's and she was born just outside of Chicago in the early 80's. Loupe was practically bald. She sported a crew cut from about the time of her quinceañera. All of that traditional frill made her uncomfortable and this was her protest. She had read The bell Jar in sixth grade completely by accident, she picked it out for a book report because she thought the title was strange, it changed her forever, by highschool she had discovered riot girl music and punk. She was called freak and dyke by almost everyone she knew in spite of the fact that Loupe was striking and not gay. Nothing stopped her from being herself. Her high cheek bones and exotic eyes made her look like a petroglyph of an aztec princess come to life. She loved makeup and painted her face accordingly. Loupe was still basically the same as she was then except more refined with age. She was in college now, studying art history and fashion design. Her best friend was a boy named Tito, he too was a child of Mexican immigrants. Tito always wore the same Smiths shirt everyday that looked like it had not been washed since the band broke up in 1987. In the spring Lupe and Tito would sit in the park drinking cheap 40's. Tito gushing about a hopeless crush on a straight boy, loupe rolling her eyes and laughing while still being comforting. She would be dressed in something flawless like a distressed black leather motorcycle jacket with gold hardware she bought at the salvation army, high-water jeans and bouncing souls. They would end up at some dive bar filling the juke box with Jesus and Mary Chain and forgetting about time...
Jan 2, 2012
The morning sun effected his eyes the way it effects tulips in the spring as it shone through the slight partitions of the thick umber curtains. Nothing would shut his eyes again now no matter how badly he wanted to go back to sleep. For a moment, just before he surrendered to the radiant glow, he thought he was in his own room until the feeling of the rise and fall of a sleeping body next to him jolted his memory. "Not again" he thought to himself. He turned to see his ex's light brown hair and nude body. This always happened when they drank and he always came to regret it. He carefully, silently, crept out the bed with the mastery and agility of a praying mantis making sure Hypnos was not vanquished completely from the room. He picked up his clothing from the floor and got dressed in the hall reducing his chances of being caught. He tip-toed down the steps into the kitchen. Took a strawberry pop tart from the box on the table and left still somewhat drunk.
Jan 1, 2012
Donna came home to her one room utility. Early from her job at the library. Her hours cut again. "Everything is digital now" she lamented to herself. She popped her low fat tv dinner into the microwave, waited for the annoying beep, popped it out, poured herself some scotch and sat to watch her "shows" on her virus ridden, constantly crashing, net book. soap operas were her guilty pleasure. A nice break from Proust. Her obese long haired grey cat named "Violet" who clearly had not been groomed in months, patches of matted fur dangling from it, curls up by her side. She farts loudly and shovels another spoonful of indistinguishable low fat slop into her mouth.
Jan 1, 2012
People didn't know much about Macks origins. Two things were known for sure. He used to be a trolley driver and he always lived in the same house on Dillard since childhood. Things were different on Dillard now from when Mack was a kid in the 60's. The corner pharmacy he loved then, once a cheerful robins egg blue building from the turn of the century with ornate wooden molding in contrasting high gloss white, had become a gray filth covered bog monster that would occasionally emit noxious fumes from it's singed orifices. In the summer heat It's lumpy skin would erupt in bright rashes of pejoratives. It's ornate moldings have become ugly worts and lumpy tumors, details concealed under thick layers of paint. Mack too had changed. He was old now. Alone. A hoarder. He became just as dirty and boggy as the pharmacy but he was a good man. He would spend all of his time at rummage sales finding "treasures" filling his house and yard with them even though actual space had run out years ago. Sometimes, if he found something really nice, he would leave it somewhere people would find it... He imagined he would live on this way even if nobody knew who he was. The trace of his existence would be inseparable from the object he thought. Mack was a very deep thinker, read lots of books, but no one knew it. Illness from smoking had taken his voice years ago and he didn't like writing. The neighborhood kids laughed at the way he hissed and groaned when he got upset, when he tried to scream, talk, curse, when he cried. They would pelt him with rocks, break his windows, steal from him, beat him up and take his wallet. "Dirty old white faggot gimmie your shit!" was a common thing for him to hear, in fact it was the last thing Mack ever heard. They found him bludgeoned to death in an ally not far from his house. He had to be identified through dental records it was so bad. His treasures rotting on Dillard street.
Jan 3, 2012
Dennis lived with his parents through his college years but he didn't let this slow him down. He would sneak his "friends" into their house while they slept. He did have a boyfriend proper but not even he knew about this. These guys ran in different circles than his boyfriend. One of them was Mitchell. Mitchell knew all about Dennis but he played innocent. Mitch was kind of omniscient in certain ways. He knew lots of people and they all had stories. He quickly pieced what was going on together. Dennis would invite Mitch over. They would hang around his parents stately house while they were away. Talking, sometimes sharing a joint. The tension between them building. It was unbearable. Dennis would try and make a move but then quickly retract looking completely conflicted. Mitchell always came on too strong adding to Dennis's misgivings. Mitch always spoke too much. He ruined everything with heavy words. Its just the way he was. Dennis always spoke too little. If Mitch would have just shut up they could have both gotten at least part of what they wanted. Maybe all of it. Their hangouts always ended in frustration.
Dec 31, 2011
I slid on my cowboy boots, the way my foot and leg displaced the air in them creating a small vacuum was pleasing. I felt secure. Locked in. Cowboy boots give you a certain power, a certain invincibility that is hard to put into words. They set you apart just enough so people know you are not fucking around. I had just gotten off the phone with Tandy. Tandy was having her weekly boy related crisis who's roots she invariably traced to every crappy thing that has ever happened to her in her entire existence. It was exhausting but I agreed to meet up with her for a drink. I knew eventually the conversation would turn away from so and so and lead into something more interesting and fun. She was good in this way but you had to be a psychiatrist for the first fifteen minutes of your encounter. Pulling out all of the Jung and Freud and anti-Freud and Skinner and occult science and magic charms and horoscopes and whatever else you had ever read to bring her out of it. She wantonly puffed on her cigarettes as she repeatedly asked "do you think he likes me?" which I never really knew how to answer in a way that would not set her off but it was soon over. The drinks would flow and the night would turn into one of surrealist word games, great post-punk music, insane doodles and gleeful pandemonium.
Dec 30, 2011
The house walls seemed to be constructed of foam-core, three floors of flimsy and a basement. Sound traveled up through it like cheers through a megaphone. All kinds of sounds came from here. Loud piercing squeals and deafening base. Lamont Young's psychic offspring making machines ring like blithe spirits being cast back to hell. I would mostly hang on the second floor unless something "visual" was happening. The "visual" usually entailed someone cross-dressing and screaming bloody murder while being doused in gunk and glitter, exposing themselves, being very 70's happening with an unhinged 90's primetime tv show aesthetic. Very little of it was that intentional though... All of it was that ridiculous. This is what made it both interesting and unbearable all at once. it was kind of like the Jerry springer of the avant-garde. Fashionistas , internationals, severe looking beautiful people, freaks, drug dealers, DJ's, artists, all crowded in, swimming in filth, most likely high as kites, watching a woman in a little Bo peep costume mock strangle herself as her bandmates yelled the word shame repeatedly. Then there would be a massive dance party. Always ended in a massive dance party that extended into the morning. Sort of hellish but in the best way imaginable.
Dec 30, 2011
The art show was as I expected. A skateboard with some star wars crap on it. A work referencing personal tragedy with unabashed narcissism. Something digitized and "futuristic." one decent seeming piece of art with a title that completely negated whatever spark I had gleaned from the work. Something about video games. One of the artists stood in the far corner of the gallery surrounded by a gaggle of horrible reinventions of edie sedgwick. Lapping it up, looking in my direction and gloating as if it was something I needed to aspire too. I left soon after feeling somewhat hollow but also somewhat victorious.
Dec 30, 2011
I sat at the bar with a copy of the golden bough I had bought in the used book store earlier that day. It was a nice copy, hardback, faded red cloth pulled over cardboard with an dollop of gold on the cover, a small embossed image. I was reading about the pig as corn maiden or something arcane and comedic like that... I knew these kinds of books were highly speculative but I liked them anyway. I had taken to drinking alone and reading or at least trying to read in the din and haze of smoke. I always noticed people I would not notice otherwise when alone. Wrinkly old black men who looked like they had been soaking in formaldehyde, ill fitting but perfectly pressed suits draped on their skeletal alcoholic bodies, all in a row, as hipsters poured in around them never even noticing them. It seemed as if they had been on those bar stools for eons. Like when they closed the place down for the night they would just leave them there until the next day. Pickling. They made me uneasy. The men exuded a certain nefariousness that was palatable. They felt parasitic like barnacles or leeches stuck to the bar stool, waiting... I put it in the back of my mind and continued reading about how German peasants physically and verbally abuse each other in the name of fertility and bacon. I drank to amnesia. Woke up the next day in my bed with no recall of how I got there. It felt like magic until my senses came to me, my stomach seemed full of balsamic vinegar nauseatingly sweet and sour. Too much bourbon. My wallet empty. I pick up whatever change I could find on the floor for train fair into the center of town and sat in the park chain smoking. Thinking.
Dec 29, 2011
We entered the basement bar, ceiling painted in colorful snakes, a claustrophobics nightmare, damp with humanity. The music was decidedly retro. Disco but not in the "funky" costumey sense... This was all vintage YSL and good coke or at least it was trying to be... The obligatory post hardcore thirty-something's looming. I was ill with it that night. Fucking tired. I unbuttoned my blazer and got myself a drink. I hated every moment. I used to love things like this, knowing about "exclusive" nights like this used to make me feel special. Now I just feel like I'm watching people younger than me falling into those shiny traps so many of us have been snared by. I felt agitated. The people I was with sneaking off into the bathroom every so often. In the past I would have followed. Now it was just pissing me off. I decide to get smashed to deal. More people started cramming into the space, I felt like I could die from the heat and humidity. I decided to leave. The cold winter air enveloped me, soothed me, the night was made of camphor and diamonds. I walked long and hard, passed the bronze statue of the lion fighting the python, I imagined it was one of the snakes on the ceiling of the basement bar... I liked thinking about this as the cherry of my cigarette became a torch through a night of lonely wandering.
Dec 29, 2011
You are a phantom. A shadow who's voice is nothing but my own auditory hallucination. You are a figment of my imagination. Don't take yourself so seriously. You are mist.
Dec 29, 2011
The emotion of the days events collected in her solar plexus. The anger aching to reach up through her lungs and become words. Loud words full of rumble and sting. Her throat was now a wasps nest, the insects flowing out of her one after another in lines. They wanted to land on me and imprint me with her message but I am not a place for measly insects. They sense this and fall away from me as if they have encountered a UV light trap.
Dec 29, 2011
I saw nothing of him but a large hand pulling the door shut. Nothing else, just a hand poking out of a blue-gray 70's vintage jacket sleeve, the kind that is sort of puffy, quilted in geometric striations... But I knew it was him. No one has hands like his, perfectly formed, perfectly rounded thick fingers that somehow retained their articulation without losing any testosterone. Always seeming to emit the perfect amount of pressure. Soiled by something ridiculous like scented markers and spirit gum. Something that relinquished any notions of functional adulthood. Brutally real in my memory. That was the same hand I saw. I knew it. I could feel it from the half block away. I walk by the door as if I hadn't noticed, Fixating on the trash being blown around the street, fixating on how it let me see the shape of the air that was quietly oxidizing everything. I swallowed hard and felt strong.
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