Morning... Soon

“Don’t you think it would have been rad if we met in Woodstock…”

“Why?”

“…while Santana is playing.”

“The guy that did that Smooth song? I hate him.”

“No, that’s, who was it, yeah, Rob Thomas.”

“With Santana. Why would it be cool if we met in some hippie muck, twenty billion miles away, forty light years ago, while Santana rapes my ears?”

“It would just been, you know, um, cool. Woodstock has tons of acid.”

“So does Charles Manson, but I don’t think it would be cool if we met under those circumstances. Between trips and mass murdering pregnant women.”

“Um, okay. It would just have been nice to tell a story of how we met during cocktail parties your pill popping mother throws for her socialite friends.”

“You haven’t met my mother nor went to one of her parties. Your assumptions on my family are all without merit.”

“You just told me three hours ago that you came from one of those parties, how is that without merit?”

“Because I’m a liar.”

“In a cocktail dress.”

They sat in silence on a park somewhere. It was dark. Mid-October. Chances of rain.

He outlines her face, searching for a hint of something, anything, cloaked by shadows made by the monkey bars. He was transfixed for the past cascading hours, figuring out what to say next, careful not to be sucked in her vortex. She thinks, her gaze as far away as the parked stars, winking and telling ghost stories.

“I need to be going soon,” she tells him, not meeting his stares. “They’ll be looking for the dress.”

“Oh, so you’re one of those. The rebellious daughter that doesn’t get her parent’s attention, so she goes around in playgrounds at night looking for more depth via conversations with strange men,” he said, still keeping his eye on her.

“Strange boys. And no, that’s too many clichés. I just like to play dress up,” she answers as she looks away from grassy parts of the playground, shaking away whatever it is she is thinking.

“Have you ever questioned your existence? In this Earth, I mean. Have you ever thought that ‘Man, why am I here? Is all this drama dictating the whole course of my life? Why am I here?’ you know, existentialist shit. Profound pondering.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls and think you make them wet with all your intelligent bullshit. You know sometimes things don’t work out perfectly, they just work out. They fit like gloves, only we don’t wear gloves here, you know, because it’s too hot. Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is, no. No I don’t do profound pondering. I much rather think that I swerve randomly.”

“I wasn’t actually trying to be an intelligent bullshitter…”

“Sure you were. I bet you listen to snotty indie bands too and secretly dream you were Rob with the sense of humor of Barry, paired with the sensitivity of Dick.”

“Sensitivity of Dick, that’s a good one.”

“I know right? I just thought about it now. I have wit you know. My father tells me I have too much of it, resulting in too much talking out of my ass.”

“My father used to tell me things like that too. Thinking about it now, it seems that he was the one that had the tendency to talk out of his ass though.”

“Parents do that a lot. I have Jerry Springer episodes bookmarked on my computer to prove it.”

“I like the episodes with the Nazis. And that one with that guy from Swing Kids.”

“I knew you listened to pretentious music.”

“Okay? How’d you figure that one out then?”

“You could have just said The Locust since Justin is more known to be part of that band, but instead you pulled out the cred card and went with Swing Kids. You should be ashamed.”

“I like Swing Kids more.”

“Don’t pout. It’s unbecoming. That’s what my posture coach always tells me.”

“You have a posture coach?”

“Ha, yeah. Yes. My mother insists that I must be a lady, you see. But then again, she also insists that Tyra Banks is the next Oprah. Or I don’t know, maybe, um, because she’s black also? My mother is racist like that.”

“She should be in Springer.”

“This would be my last cigarette, and then I’ll go home. I still have to prance around and pray rosaries. Dub English subtitles to Kurosawa’s Red Beard. And think really hard of my existence in this life.”

She gingerly lights the cigarette placed on her pursed lips and inhales fire deeply. The fleeting joys of smoking a cigarette are lost in today’s youth, but hers is sensual, bordering gratifying. She is a poster girl of fifties black and white noir vixens; smart brain and even a smarter mouth. She could be a heroine or heroin—that all depends. Early morning hours that tick away, no matter how unsettlingly intimate and nonsensically grandiose, isn’t enough to judge someone if they’re insane or just out of it. Mere hours are not enough to bank on. All could be just red herrings.

The boy shivers and hugs himself. He watches her take lavish drags, the clouds of smoke like druid envelopes. In-between those gaps, shadows of cats run around looking for mates. It’s getting late, but late is slow like honey, Sundays folding church chairs, kids from the OC or 90210.

“Want to hear a story?”

“I thought you had to leave?”

“I have time. I still have cigs. Do you want to hear the story or not?”

“Shoot.”

“One time, I had this boyfriend, well, ex-boyfriend, and that prick told me that if I don’t sleep with him he’ll leave me.”

“That’s dumb. You seen all theses sitcom episodes where some jock pressures the girl, then hilarious moments follows. So you slept with him?”

“Fuck no! God, no. Are you seriou… yes. Yes, I did. I was a dumb girl that thought he was the one. Then two weeks after, he dumps me and I try to kill myself.”

“Can you smell that?”

“What? No? What?”

“Clichés. It smells like a big stinking pile of clichés.”

“Fuck you!”

“So, you want to hear my story?”

“If you must, then you must. Be quick though, my cigarette is almost done.”

“Light another one.”

“I don’t want to; I’m saving it for later. You know, just in case.”

“Just in case what? You need to torture someone with lit cigarette sticks?”

‘No, just in case. Jesus, you suck at this game really bad don’t you? Just in case, just in case, JUST IN CASE.”

“Can I walk you home?”

“We’ll see, won’t we? Tell your story already. Stop stalling.”

“Cigarettes are bad for you, you know.”

“If you’re story is not about cigarettes, then you should drop it. Is it about cigarettes?”

“No.”

“Then drop it.”

She taps her cigarette’s last ashes and takes her last drag. The girl looks over to the boy, blowing her smoke in the other direction, followed by a gracious flick of her fingers. The cashed cigarette sails into the dark patches of the grassy playground. Without a word she gets up and walks below a streetlight, a halo forming on her head.

The boy rushes over, in some sort of panic, but more bewildered than most. Almost stumbling on his own shoes, he catches her just standing there, watching him. “Wait, my story,” he calls out, almost in desperation.

She eyes him once over, “Let’s hear it.”

“I always dreamt of leaving, you know. Just leave everything behind and never look back. Won’t even pack a bag, not even an ID.”

“Why?”

“Because, I don’t belong here.”

“Where are you going then?”

“I dunno, the Bahamas maybe. Anyway, last night I broke it off.”

“You broke what off?”

“Everything. All my ties in the world. My mother’s heart. My girlfriend’s, or should I say, ex-girlfriend’s bank account—which by the way only had five hundred bucks left, that made me feel guilty so I didn’t take it, even if she still lives with her parents and works a shitty call center job for foreigner hicks. Everything. Like a Viking funeral.”

“Sounds like something Johnny Cash would sing, doesn’t it? You know what you should do? Make a pilgrimage to Haight-Ashbury. Be a Dylan. I would love to do that.”

“I don’t have money. And a passport. I have nothing.”

“But dreams. So fucking go for it for crying out loud. You’ve gotten this far, what the hell is holding you back? Sneak in a traveler’s bag if you have to, I don’t believe NAIA is that secure.”

“Do you want to come with me? You did say you would love to do that.”

“I dunno, um, maybe. When are we leaving?”

“Tonight.”

“How?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Hmmm, sounds like a plan, although, I don’t know.”

“Have you heard the new Minus the Bear? The acoustic EP?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“That would be the perfect soundtrack.”

“Meh, give me Blonde Redhead. Or, goddammit, Nativity in Black. I want to go out with some really rocking tunes.”

“Elliott Smith?”

“Hmm, passable.”

“Charlotte Gainsbourg?”

“Should stick to making movies.”

“So you’re coming?”

“Maybe.”

“Is this your ‘just in case?’”

“Psh, no.”

Smiles creep on their faces. A sudden wave of reality washed over them, making them hesitate, although, not extinguishing their pearly whites in full view. It just made it look awkward. Ambiguous. To vague to tell.

“Can I walk you home?”

The streetlight flickers, like its trying to wink. The night is already growing hot, and the dark slowly seems visible. It would be morning soon.

.102608.

Home

Beneath the candlelight that dances with the rain, the storm, the shadows are the only company left. The electricity flickered shut more than twenty four hours ago, my Ipod not charged, the cellular phone near its death.

There’s comfort with only the wind and its gestures, the rain and its pitter patter on the roof, no soul around, no alcohol to be intoxicated with, no drug to be high on, just a quasi primitive, hollow boned existence. The darkness that envelopes the street spills through my window, trying to eat away the remaining light left, but the brave candle keeps holding, and I’m guessing it would keep holding on until morning, five or six hours away – same as the exact time for dreams to travel and occur underneath the back of our heads to the forefront of the lobes of our brain. But for now, I only sit inside, with, beside, under the near dark of pitch black, thinking and swaying with the thoughts that ravage me and the land of waking sleep.

I think of you.

How are you? I think. Do you still have your ailing health? A soft knock at my window pane by shadowy fingers prove me otherwise.

You’re there, trying to take me away into the dark, baiting me with promises of cigarettes and toys and love and blood. That slick black hair, blacker than the night without electricity, drenched to its pores, hanging down to your shoulders, are longer since I last saw them, since I forgotten them, a long time ago.

“Tu privire drăguţ,” I say.

“Tu privire sănătate, nu mai mult rat sînge?” you ask, “Dacă you’re nu venire, a putea I cel puţin intră?”

Ah, that is just classic. Straight from textbook definitions. That is so you. But you’re forgetting something.

I try to search for your eyes and gaze straight into them when I say this, because I won’t utter any words, and gazes work best for hours like these (it’s in the manual, look it up) – I shake my head. No.

Even cloaked in blackness, I see you’re unsurprised. Only disappointed. A frown ready to be a scowl is etched on that young, ageless, mouth.

Sinking back to my chair, an uncomfortable couch with its metal body almost protruding through its cushion flesh, only the brave candle as guide, I dig the ashtray for a half smoked cigarette. Time has gone slower, judging by how the wax melts to its glass holder, forming a soft, hot puddle on the wooden floor: five hours until morning. I’m growing hungry but I light my cigarette instead, then I look at you, still with a scowl ready to be a frown, ‘sif you’re ready to cut your teeth. Are you?

“A face Eu am la spre drag al tău pitiful carcass spate casă? Sau voi I unic bring al tău cap?” you say with much gusto, with much anger, with much spite between letters and words and sentences and spit.

You’re getting good at that, netting thoughts, this city with dark alleys and darker souls train us well. But you’re forgetting something. And you still ask too many questions that try too hard to be ironic.

I wait for a moment to answer, savoring the drama of the low light, ambience, and the howling wind. The storm is drawing to a close but it’s still as furious as you.

“Cum eşti mergi la a face that , cu prayers? UN thousand Our Tată? UN moară Hail Maria? UN notă de plată Glory A fis?” I say to you with a triumphant smirk, adding, “This isn’t confession tînăr fată. You’re departe away de la biserică.”

“Ce kind de viaţă eşti tu viu? Don’t tu ai orice şampon? Feasting on mai mic things şi a aduce cadou as cursor?” you shoot back. This, much to my amusement, sounds rehearsed. Oh how many times have I heard this before?

“Tu trebiue have chemare. Sau tu a putut have text mesaj eu. I folos un mobile telefon acum. It has un aparat de fotografiat şi un expandable memorie pentru muzică şi tablou. Tu know trying la spre a păstra sus cu art.hot. timp,” I calmly answer.

You instead put your hands on your waist. Your curves could send any man blind and sinful just by mere thought. You do look better since almost being poisoned by our tainted livestock back in the homeland.

How sad it is for it to be moonless tonight. A bit of moonlight would have been nice. To see you clearly, not shrouded by lack of electrical power, may make my decision to stay, harder. I indeed missed you.

But instead we have this storm to sit through. And darkness. Low light. Brave candles. Four hours and a half. Just like the old days.

“I domnişoară tu de asemenea. A face pe plac la a veni casă.” Your stance softening, your eyes sincere and pleading. This is the first statement you utter, not a question, a statement.

“Numai darling I sînt casă.”

“Şi I’m exterior un goddamn fereastră."

Four stories up, nearer to the dark and cloudy sky, nearer to the crying Mother Earth, the rain, it won’t wash away our sins, or the sins of the world. Nor your curse, my gift, through bloodlines.

“Energie casă. Fly away. I’m nu venire spate,” I strain to tell you this. I bite my lower lip and draw blood.

“Vladimir, I dragoste tu, numai you’re un bastard şi traitor.” This stings but I roll with the punches.

“Nadja, meu darling fiică, I know. Aceasta este tot de ce I’m nu venire spate cu tu.”

But you’re already gone, letting the wind carry you back to our dear Romania. And I am left here alone with my brave candle, my storm, my four story home.

Three more hours until morning. I’m hoping the storm would let the sun peek through its menace.

I would like to see it again after all these centuries.

.062208.

Wicked Game

R.I.P. Lester (December 13, 1948 - April 30, 1982) and Hunter (July 18, 1937 - February 20, 2005). We need more of you to regain our excuses to ride the colors of pinwheels.

This is non-fiction, a cautionary tale.

Two junkies in a symbiotic relationship, hooked on each other, hooked on meth and pain killers and other vices yet to be named. Their gateway, each other. Stuck lil' guinea piggies. Their names only muttered to mask the track marks, "Jack and Jill."

They went up the hill, fetching from the sources pails of acid -- joints being passed around while walking up the steep, grassy knoll. They have plans to ensure their delinquencies and masterful inadequacies.

Everything seemed mechanical, detached, sleepy; fluorescent eating away at the buzz. A country that survived Stalin could survive a little dope.

Every taste
Every specter
Every nectar
Every spectacle

Every little ounce of breath -- its the drugs that do the talking. The shakes and molehills, dilated pupils, service part worshippers, the left living in a hot sardine tin can... there's one rule: no one can fall in love. It ruins business, and distracts the patrons and saints and hogwashed brown nosers.

Its the drugs. It always was. And you want, you need, it all. Do you even read stats at all? Or are you too busy being butt fucked by well hung towers of religious enterprise? Either way kiddo, you choose a side.

They came tumbling down. And its often debated. Keep the engineer, feed him burgers and fries -- or if in England -- bangers and mash. Oh did you forget the words that you scraped? Sweet, sweet downfall and doom and gloom and cheery melodies of "you wouldn't know it." They came tumbling down.

Which was expected, if I should say so myself.
Either way kiddo, you choose a side.

.070508.

Untitled #2

He was telling stories of ghosts in pirate ships, that's all he does. Circling with the fog, his heart skips. "This has happened before, hasn't it?" It wasn't really a question. He sees it as circles, but its really cycles that go around, around, around. He spits and his blood rips through the yarn of passing time, and age old science of content, a geranium patch held up by cops and robbers.

She's pissed. She doesn't like it when the larks get to clingy. It fills the bus stop and the bus. that fleeting feeling when you service the sun all your life, she fells like that. But she keeps to herself, all the nagging inside her head. "You never are around, you never were, you never are," the whisper of the rain was telling her in small pitter patter against the window, the bus ride home. Home never feels like home anymore, home never feels cozy, it was all work to keep it together.

They crossed paths. Eggboy vs. Cocolulu is the background music, like it was a scene from everyone's favorite indie movie. Running off, running off, running off. Come to realize this movie is pretentious, just buy the soundtrack.

He tells her the story of the mariner that seen the ghost ship, a slight revamp to his earlier stories that keep repeating. She just shrugs and walks. The spirit undeterred, he continues jogging near her fast paced feet, continuing his stories filled with apologies.

"You're not helping any cause. Just wait for the resolving clocks," she said when she stopped in front of her stoop.

"Oh, that is just gold. You and your cute nose," he blurts out. Maybe it was time to back away and just sit around the bus stop and wait for his home to come over.

Although, he doesn't want to.

So he just stands there clutching himself, circling with the fog, as she enters her door with loose grips of menace. He sits down in the middle of the road, around this time no one drives, he's safe. maybe.

She cooks herself a TV dinner. He sits there outside in the cold. She washes her dishes. He sits there outside in the cold. She abuses wine. He sits there outside in the cold. She whispers against the static of the television. He sits there outside in the cold. She brushes her teeth, dresses up in pajamas, turns off the TV, nods off to sleep.

He sits there outside in the cold. Alone. But safe. Maybe.

Maybe he needs to work on his stories.

When she got up in the morning and was greeted by yet another day of being there, she didn't even feel any chipper than the last day. The radio announces today would be another cold day, one for the record books. The patches of geranium at her garden didn't want to bloom either, the day would go downhill, assuming. The machination bites her tongue. She spits and her blood rips through the yarn of passing time.

Sober.

Once she stepped out of her door, he sees him there, sitting in the middle of the road. the most tired look on those eyes greeted her.

"I have a different story this time around, about a cute teddy bear on heroin."

And a tired smile matching his tired eyes creeps on her face.

.082007.

The Japanese Beatniks Sold Out the Scene

Japan got bombed and everybody was infected by the crazy virus. Their gum drops are multiplied by randomness, candy swirls, political malfunction, diatribes of the dead. The haikus tell stories with clever conviction -- but the mask looms in every computer jacked into cyberspace, the death of the human race, boob reels and crotches on the face, Neaderthal IQ busters like the O'Reilly Factor at FOX "News" with the chilling factors of how everything sunk a long time ago, Atlantis here we come, goodbye cruel world goodbye, pun intended. When America is fat and overflowing with lard and Japan struck crazy just in time -- Barbie dolls, "diet cokeheads," Youtube, not funny jokes of wasted time and space, love and hate, everything in-between. The lovely spiral of our lives like we wanted to live them, like we really mean it, like we're in this giant mess of a K-Hole the size of Jupiter, with its colors and structure of the Kings of Saturn, pass the asteroid belt, and like it or not, you got to admit -- you're crazy too.

Japan got bombed and everybody was infected with the crazy virus. Everybody who breathes wears neckties now and Asia has a du-rag on top of its Asian head, thinking they're black, but the morning comes too soon for everyone and with one flash and twice the damage an explosion discharge, the gas of the future; sperms die and nothing sprouts, our eyes are blank, teeth rotten to the core... we shiver like its winter. But there is no winter really. Just hugs too cold like glass lips over ours, sucking the glass dick, cooking up, "fire-fire-fire!", gun addicts and bullet holes. They're selling the gas! Or hasn't anyone seen the bastard Duke eating Soilent Green? How's about a kiss, a peck on the cheek, even a tongue in the ear? Its just a language barrier, only the flavor of the week, nothing has really changed -- nothing really. Nothing. BUT the gum drops with its Wonka cookie flavors. Instantly you cope and head out with the other crazies out of town with those same pills with different colors, sizes, everything sold by retail, even human organs (especially the eyes).

The ghosts of the past are hard to escape, if only the help is at hand. But it dropped decades ago, a century, a millennia, and now we're an asylum of loonies. The bin is full, go back home to the Polar Ice Caps. The Japanese got it right, the toilet is God. Just read the script darling, along those lines you could find sweet uniforms of Japanese school girls that dance like voodoo rice to the best of their abilities, these are crazy times and crazy times need crazy characters to fill the pages, read on soldier and march to the beat of the plutonium drum, grace the land soldier with that cock filled with seed! Japan got bombed -- make love to the flames like an immigrant. The imminent second coming is over. Bikini girls vs. bikini girls are on, time to tune out.

.031207.

Lifespan

Juxtaposition

Confused, the words lingered on. It spoke and it was impatient. Mid-sentences were cut shorter with sobs and tears and a small bit of yelling. It wasn’t the best of days, no. Better ones came and went.

They spoke of times that passed and how clearly Joy Division sounded when Ian Curtis sang those lyrics:

“If routine bites hard
And ambitions are low…”

Indeed a scary thought. Indeed something nobody would want. Clearly, not them. Not ever.

There were promises wrapped in reassuring words, hugs and kisses. A conviction that trust prevails; and truth is they were just getting started.

There is more time that would come and go. “Stay longer. I’ll work you into more prose,” he whispers not so poetically as intended with subtlety. She stays every time and says she doesn’t have any plans in going anywhere anyway.

Meeting

When their eyes locked they knew. All awkwardness melted to the floor. Puddles of it where left as reminders to the audience.

The look was long. The first 54.2 seconds no nerve endings twitched, no bones rattled and not a single word was uttered. A great sensation of paralyzing calm swept the floor, and swept them both.

She comes up.
He comes up.

They were intertwined even with space. And they knew like they always knew all along. Sparks caught fire when pressed together.

It was perfect.

Waiting

The wait is crippling. It was like being in the hospital, just sitting down there with their number palmed. Every second they glance at their numbers as if that would help make things go faster like in the movies and TV shows where everything speeds up in a drugged up amphetamine phase. It’s the hardest feeling in the world.

Each had their own inquisition about the matter, but both come in the same conclusion. It was not wishful thinking. Not at all.

It was being lost at sea and finding its shore. No one truly waits forever because sooner or later that time would come. The decision of which way to look at it lies on the eye of the beholder. The main characters of the story. Your story. My story. Our story.

The more you look at it, the more clear that things are worth it. The harshness and bleakness of the world has a silver lining.

We’re all waiting for something.

.112107.

Green

He was green. Sifting through the letters he got greener every second. Peek 824545201 was pulsating in the airwaves setting a mood. A long list of stagnancy protrudes through the static of the screen, could almost hear the crackle and the pop. He caught himself staring at binary. 1’s and 0’s flooded his sockets; it was like staring at the machine’s soul.

On the outside (or did you ever stop to think it might be in the outside?) torrential downpour gathered puddles and small children – laughing, hooting, hollering, pointing accusing fingers merely in jest. All joyous occasions come during December – the rain, Christmas, the birth of your savior Jesus Christ.

He was green. Green as if he was glowing with radioactive waste. In the darkness of his territorial bubble, he was his own night light. A green glow that could enter glass tubes and could transport itself through different places – a whole time zone worth, GMT, EST, DST… time, time that is slowly but surely running out. Hourglass syndrome. His head swims into the puddles outside. Detachment. Cold shoulders from ice queens dripping wet as they slowly melt into another puddle, where he will jump into and swim like a shark.

I would like some milk from the milk man’s wife’s tits…

Spinning into a web of who’s talking to who and thoughts of where is this conversation going anyway, sharp pains from blows of a metaphorical hammer to the side of the head pangs his wits. A cigarette isn’t far off to make him puke his heart and place it on his sleeve so everyone could see how much of an asshole he really was in thinking something is amiss.

He crawls into bed with electronic candlelit beeps as a blanket. A name scratching his tongue to the roof of his mouth causes his pupils to dilate. Mechanical puffing.

Green. Green was always his favorite color, even though he always says it’s red or black or mother of pearl. But not this kind of green, the kind of green where a printer loses all its ink. It feels like a coma.

He drinks soda to refresh memories. Or to drown it out. Either or.

Dutifully the shaking eyes close for slumber of approximately 5.32 minutes. The screen glows like an obsidian, the last visions of grandeur and of touch and of intimacy. He crawls back, 5 minutes is up. Time to dance silly little dances of swimming snakes writhing in the salt of the ocean. All it takes to force him to wake up was a paragraph. He was making all this up inside his head.

But isn’t that the fun part of it all?

He was green. But not as green as before. He started to think that maybe he wasn’t even green in the first place. Maybe it was optical illusions with Christmas lights and hanging ornaments outside the window – the constant bane of the season.

Standing next to me
He’s only my enemy
I’ll crush him with everything I own

A sugar was twirling into a cube as he gazed more and more into the constant tangent of specters that plague the new religion of hyperspace. Skin crawling with moss and uncertain periscopes, being born again and swelling to the hilt of unwanted pregnancies. He was green. He was green indeed. Words made him so. That was his assumption, no longer optics.

Certain amount of dream qualities hang on him that it bleeds through his own realities. Can it be a choir that can be acquired as you sleep like the boy who laughed as he wrapped himself in wet sheets to keep from being in heat? In his dreams someone else plays the different villain. In his reality, the same bastard has that eminence of lying to his teeth. A bitter aftertaste perhaps.

He swims and cascades to the depths of the floorboards. The rain has stopped but only for the shortest forever. Those eyes tell stories, but the tangles of the words don’t hold it up for any merit.

He was green. A jade green pendant, as he tortures himself with more baffling sentences versus his sack of self importance versus manic tendencies. It’s turning into a cycle. A redundant quip to postulate an excuse carved in his headboard and embedded in RSS and CSS codes. No wonder he was green. He brought it to himself. A masochist that wants milk delivered to him… in the morning.

The wires obtruded through his speakers and onto his ears. Melancholy prism cut into a shape of a blizzard, amputated senses of blurred out emoticon kisses and hugs, cleverly disguised as xoxo. And these guises are hollow point shells shot into a barrel filled with baby powder and care. The appliances talk and he can’t keep up.

He sits back and watches as he glows into a more neon color. Or odor. Whichever is appropriate enough to describe the meandering senses? A voice so oblique to get caught on any tape reel or vinyl scratch.

Qwerty keyboard. Headphones. Microphone. Cellular phones. Smooth voices and accents. Snake charmers. Inside stories of sordid affairs that never worked out but still, the meeting place and timeline is there. Forked tongues.

He was green. He has so many reasons.

He was green.

.121007.

Happy

William would turn in his grave when he reads this and Hunter would return to shoot himself again, these were the words etched at the bathroom stall the young buck was sitting in. He kept on reading them over and over trying to grasp sense and enlightenment with the beatific, why his eyes itched with tears and mascara, why his knuckles are soaked with blood, the smell caked in his fingertips, his shirt ripped into shreds, pieces of broken down sympathy and dignity scattered the bathroom floor with the sections of his cashmere sweater that can’t be stitched back in the story, left for mere evidence. Glancing at his wristwatch the face tells him its 9:15, 2 hours too late for his chance meeting with his father, the man that isn’t proud of him one bit, not proud of his fake eyelashes and inconsistent swagger, because oh dear God he wouldn’t want to be cursed with a son like his.

He smeared his bloodline across the writing on the door and every 5 minutes lets his eyes wonder around the cubicle, his own private world with his own private theme song, channeling the Golden Girls and Cheers and Friends, feeling nostalgic for a decade past that he wasn’t even born in to be nostalgic for. And he died that night for the 5^th time only to be reborn again in misery and nostalgia and his goddamn paper trails all over place, everything was his, but at the same time it wasn’t worth spit, not worth it when the only person you value the most in your life turned back and walked out like there wasn’t any door there to begin with. So he sits there and he bawls his little eyes out, messing up the blush he just put on an hour ago, his feet scraping the drenched floor, his knees aching and he’s praying for it to stop shaking uncontrollably, the blisters in his palms are small targets like burnt cigarette holes in his tattered frame. Betty Davis can’t help you now, kiddo. Just take those deep breaths the best that you can.

Just take those deep breaths the best that you can.

That blanket quilt muffled the sound, the walls all held their tongues, not even blinking to pass certain judgment, and those ribs bruised from kicking and screaming wants attention from white coats, memories hid behind truths uttered to no man. 1 word and it was all over, but his teeth and gums bled royal blue, the camera lens, unforgiving. He shoved it away and tried to stand at his own volition but his beaten down body, scarred for life, wouldn’t want to cooperate, like his bowels and human urges, and it made him dirty and disgusted with his own skin, his own flesh and blood, his own insides. So he just sat there condemning himself, promising he’ll never come out, what’s left of his mandible clenched. The ghosts are already haunting him this fast and this early and this ruthless. His heels broken in two, it was the Earth’s worst color scheme.

He read the words etched at the bathroom stall, the world empty when he howled back at it, forever those words would be imprinted on the walls of his cerebral cortex, it shall be engraved on his headstone, damning himself when he didn’t die the 6^th time that night. He kept repeating to himself, with a crawl to the sink, a sigh into the dark, “Just take those deep breaths the best that you can.”

And with his own blood he scribbled on the floor: Oh, Allen. Where are you now?

.040108.

Summer Solstice: A Story of Longing

Here's the skinny... years from now, when every speck of memory of the Internet is forgotten, a man's aching heart bursts into flames and gathers dust. He mouths words of gypsy tongues longing for a good, sometimes collected, voice of this doe eyed girl (with make-up of course). "There was this time when everything fits the molds and crevices, I don't want those days over," he says.

Stories about parks and malfunction.

She wakes up drenched with sweat and the smell of wires. Another dream of tubes and codes in break neck speed. There's a cauldron of doldrums next to her bed, she stews it, mixing fragments of dreams about foot wars and trying to skip stones over the river; taking a deep breath she remembers. "Those who forget lose so much," she says.

She remembers fragments. He struggles to remember anything at all. Let's not make this happen.

Those same two people were walking at different time zones but staring at the same sky that evening, quietly sighing to themselves about lost space and life and love. "Their eyes speak volumes but what you don't topple over doesn't spill," the Moon says to the bright star of Summer.

"I have faith in them. She prays," was the star's only reply.

Sometime around June, the planets missing collision for the 4653216 time, still singing the blues with the most red dancing shoes, the momentum surging forward; the time came. Santa Claus just quit his job and he's giving away presents earlier this year.

"Bahamas may have sunk, but that doesn't mean we're sinking with it," he whispers. His voice is as hot as the season. He remembers.

"When day breaks, we'll fix it," she whispers back. Her breath is as cold as the season... and as close as humanly possible to his ear. She remembers.

At least, even for only this June day, they were together.

(Let's not make this happen.)

And at the soft whisper of the wind, listening to them, it whispers back, "Lifespan is their new forever."

A boy's choir sings. The walls speak. Shoes tap. The cross still hangs. The power turns off.

.0507.

(The Ballad of) Maria and Tin

I am a hex in hyperspace. Unabashed quadcore. Stop listening to my late night drivel of pro-socialist diatribes.

But hark! Here’s to the both of you!
Embed me – then I’ll embed you.
Here are my fancy words – rich and eloquent – and they mean nothing at all.
But let’s pretend that they do and at least it’s for you. More than I can give to most people bastardized by time and age and Mother Earth and Father Sky.
Literary confines be damned! Literary jerks, purists, sellouts, professors, scientists, hobby fuckers be damned!

And we damn them all to hell.

This is yours, to the both of you, as well as mine. Neither a song nor a poem, neither a literary piece. No, not at all. Just words and drivel and fragments. Because boredom, along with revenge, is best served with words.
(I rather not dispense bullets into heads for the benefit of all)
Promising intentions, darlings. And from some junkie motherfucker made out to be like he’s angry with every goddamn situation, wouldn’t you feel fucking special?

So here’s to you Maria.
Cheers.
And to you too, smoke quitter Tin.
Cheers as well.

Also, to me. For being bored and a fuck up at best and above everything else.

Hey at least we’re not a bunch of silly cubeheads twirling around boxes. At least we could masquerade as intellectuals late at night… amirite?

.032408.

Untitled #1

I walked the cold streets of the city, hugging myself against the cackle of the lightning and beggar smiles, toothless grins made by the machines, deus ex machina. On far away corners of the alleys, the far away crevices of brain neurons and its activities, shadows lurk like cliché gothic anecdotes from pagan songs about heartbreak and self-mutilation. They dance longer and more intricate when time elapses into a slow rhythm, a tempting image of boys kissing girls kissing boys and not telling their parents or lovers about these indiscretions, what they don’t know won’t hurt them, what they think would soon eat the apple’s core, spit out seeds of fucking werewolves and the vampires, cleverly named with internet handles. I walk the streets alone but the streets are not empty, it’s a barren land of fever dreams and flowers jutting out on concrete and soot and dirt and malice.

And these thoughts haunt me. Apartment Building A is so long away, too far and too pricy not to hear that voice at the back of my head, a voice with clear statements about overdue conversations and horny teenagers – rhyming trust with rust like a kindergarten poet of the playground. It amazes me how long I could stomach all the weaved excuses, all the falling down and getting back up, the scabs and bruises on my knees are maps of a cord torn from a mother’s womb to a fetus’ belly, showing great strength of conviction on being blinded, revolving around the sun too close for comfort. Who’s comfort? Certainly not mine for I cherish every moment the sun burns the wax on my wings, sending me to deep pits – only to get back up and stitch myself with Styrofoam and hopelessness as freedom.

The lightning claps and the thunders roll, but the rain won’t drop to wash away all these insubordinate clauses of distance and I miss yous. The beggars with the war torn eyes try and hand me moonshine to dull away the sun burnt wounds etched and traced on my figure, they say its nothing but an empty bottle to fill, I tell them my tear ducts are as empty as this glass ornament they hand me, rage is not an emotion I hide quite well. Footsteps echo into a poorly lit sidewalk, the streetlights don’t provide any sight, we are blind in this masquerade of pitiful human emotions, we hurt ourselves more than we hurt others and I take into account that I’m nothing but a pawn in a chess game, a rat shocked again and again if it grabs the wrong cheese, we hide away in masks, that we are not evil men. Checkmate.

I ask the voice not to talk to me like a friend, I’m not your friend, right this moment of time slowed down to a halt, nothing but a verbatim of crud in our feet, the dirt left at this same street we thread. Their words echo like the footsteps, laughing at the expense of the gap that grows bigger or smaller, a glass half-empty or half-full depends on the way you look at it really. I light a cigarette and clutch it close like it’s a shield from the unwavering anxieties of the early morning parade of wistful moments, an exhale of “its best not to say anything right this instant,” the air filling with smoke like a mist so we could pull away from punches thrown like curve balls. It’s unhealthy to talk to oneself when you can release frustrations by leaving a wall bloodied and squealing like a stuck pig.

Drawing closer, nearly out of breath from walking or swimming with the ghosts of the pavement, maybe we are better off with friends. All the pretenses of bearing everything out in the open is killed and mauled by words without merit. All the thoughts that cloud judgments would keep hanging around like teen suicides, I could only hope these could be swept at the welcome mat before I enter my one bed room apartment of claustrophobic proportions. I want to sleep well come day break. And if day breaks, the only recourse is to fix it. The city lights are brighter at night for a reason, but amongst the back ways we could see better, the passages are darker but there is no hindrance in sight – we are blind but we can see clearly. A man I admire once said: “It’s never anything, until its something.”

.121107.

We're Picking Up the Peices of a Broken Record and Other Kitchen Table Encounters

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.