high school dropout

out of a job

out of options

soon to be out of the
rented studio
apartment

he went to the local bar
and drank himself
to the point he had to *****
to make room for more
and next thing
he knew
he was dating a woman
named Cactus

Life can get pretty
weird when
you don't live it
consciously

I knew the guy and heard
he moved in
with his lover
and started a new life

I really, really hope the
headline
'LOCAL ALCOHOLIC DEVELOPS SCHIZOPHRENIA,
DISMEMBERS GIRLFRIEND
PLANTS HER LIMBS IN FLOWERPOTS,
STICKS NEEDLES IN THEM'
is not about him

"He started writing," she
said, talking
about her
father.
"He's an old man now. Had
me when
he was in his
late forties. You'd think
late forties would
be enough to realize
that a man is crazy, but
well, not my mother
I guess. Or perhaps it was
the craziness that
attracted her to him. I'll never
know.
He says that writing is
something you can
do until you drop
dead, unlike
sports where you can only be
truly good when you're
young, in your prime.
Also, he's
one of those artists who
believe that
one must suffer for art. I tried
telling him that's just
plain stupid,
but despite all my efforts he
still sprinkles
razor blades on his bed
when he goes to sleep. He moves
at night
or course
and of course he gets plenty
of cuts. All over his body.
And every time he gets a cut
he stands up,
turns on the light,
and sprays rubbing alcohol on
the cut.
He says it works 100% of
the time.
Instantly he gets inspired,
grabs the muse by
the throat, as he puts it.
There's a laptop on his nightstand,
ever turned on,
and he immediately starts
writing as the
blood seeps out of
the wound. When the inspiration
wains he grabs the bottle
of rubbing alcohol and
sprays some more. There's no
writing without pain, he says. And
of course
all his stories are
about pain and suffering.
He's even got one in which
this old guy
who never did anything worthwhile
in his life
finds himself paralyzed in
his armchair
from the waist down.
How he can't do ****
and just cries
and begs death to take him
already. But he doesn't really
want to go. He knows that all
his life has been lived in vain.
He never made one
soul happy as long
as he lived.
So he gets this idea that if only he can
make one soul happy
before departing forever
he had not lived in vain.
In part two of
the story he
starts cutting pieces of his own
flesh, from the legs
in which he's got no
feeling, and throws them
out the window for
the mongrel dogs and
street cats to feast on. Then he
dies in peace,
knowing that he'd made at least
a few souls happy."

"Did he really write that,"
I asked

"Sure did," she said. "And many
more. He doesn't care
about publishing
though. He just knows that
the world will discover his
art after he'll be gone. I guess
he made his
peace with this."

"****," I said, "listen, could I
read that story myself?
Or any other
of his?"

"Like I said, he won't
share his
writings with an audience. Only
postmortem, he says."

Well, after that evening
every time I met her
I kept asking
about her father.

He was still
alive and
writing

He also got diabetes
from all the
glasses of coca-cola
mixed with
six or seven spoonfuls
of sugar he drank
to replenish his blood,
but that was
all right, apparently it only
made him write better
now that he had more
suffering in his life

he also refuses to see
or be seen
by any doctors
or psychiatrists

Well, I don't want much
from him, only
to know that
he's got a big fan
in this world

there was a dog outside and it kept
barking for some reason
Ah yes, it was chained
and the chain was terribly short
and the poor animal was hungry

Mother wouldn’t bother feeding it
No, mother wanted it
to die
because it had been father’s dog,
inherited along with the
house after father died

Mother forbade feeding the
poor thing

Her child stood next to the window
and listened to the poor
thing barking outside

It was better than listening to
mother drinking and
talking ugly words with her
boyfriends

He opened the
window
and the dog saw him immediately and
barked at him

He wanted to cry
Tried talking to the creature
but it wouldn’t listen. It kept barking

“Mother would cut my hand off
if she caught me
stealing food for you.”

But he was
a smart kid

He leaned over the window
and ****** *******
down his throat and
vomited before the dog

It was just close enough for
the tortured soul
to reach with its tongue
and that’s what it did

and the barking stopped

other than
weirded
the **** out
she didn’t know how
to feel about it

so she read the
words again

SO GLAD TO SEE YOU
ALIVE AND FINE,
LOVE!
ALWAYS KNEW MY DAUGHTER
WILL MAKE IT BIG IN
THIS SMALL WORLD.
LOVE,
DADDY

The words were written
with a black marker
on a $100 bill
that someone threw at
her in the
club
while she was
stripping on the pole

Could’ve been a ******
prank
but $100 was a bit
too much to spend
for laughs

She tried to
remember the
faces of all the men
who gathered around
her and howled
as she did her number
but they were
simply too many
and too bland

Later that night
she asked the
management to remove
private lap dances
from her list of
services for a while
and
the request was denied

Well, when you make
it big
in a small world
you either carry the
weight of fame
on your shoulders or
get crushed

At least the
money bought a good
dinner for
her little daughter
and the two cats

these days a lot of
people call
themselves
empaths

They claim to be able
to feel what
other people
are feeling
and suffer with them

"I cheated on my boyfriend
with his brother," some
girl said,
“and being the empath
that I am
I started crying along
with him when he
found out. It's hard
being such
an empath."

And there was
the guy
who got into a bar
brawl and
knocked another guy's
teeth out
and held a hand to his
own mouth and made
pain noises

I guess he
was an empath too

If you have a
social media account
and don't describe yourself
as an empath
people will think you're some
kind of monster,
a psychopath, they'll compare
you with ******

Yeah, it's a good
reason not
to use social media

If you actually
needed another

drinking
alone
at night
with the
moon

the world is finally
beautiful

he fills another glass
and toasts with
the window pane
"Here's to normalizing
being awake at
night and sleeping
during the day!
Cheers!"

the moon
smiles back
in agreement

‘You’re going to be
the prettiest girl at the
funeral,’
he wanted to tell her
as he watched
that dark outfit that
resembled a maid for sorts

but it wouldn’t be
an appropriate thing to say
when the funeral was
for her father

Not that she displayed a lot of grief
either. She was more concerned
with the goth maid outfit
and how it would look on her

“My daddy would love to see
me in this,” she said

And then
her boyfriend said, “Who
wouldn’t?”

She eyed him from
across the room
and said, “My mom... Eh, but to
hell with her. If I’d listened
to her, I’d be a nun
now. In fact, if I weren’t an
adult able to make decisions
for myself right now, I’m sure
she would’ve arranged for me to
go to some monastery or something
like that, wherever nuns go.
And she dares wonder why I
reserved all my love for daddy and
gave her nothing. Every time
we’d get close
she’d get in the way. If I didn’t know
better I’d say she’s the
entity behind his death, really.
My daddy was a loving
man, this I know for sure. He was
all good and I... I miss
him so much already. I just wish
I could... Wait!”

“What?”

“I got an idea.”

He didn’t like the tone
with which she said
that, nor the grin
on her face
as she reached into her *****
and pulled out her phone

He had many questions
for her
but there was no time
to ask. She moved in and grabbed
his hand and dragged him
along,
out of the room and long
the corridor
all the way to the room where
her father sat in the
casket awaiting to be
taken to the grave

“Here, hold this,” she said
as she handed him her phone

Wordlessly
she climbed onto the casket
and stretched herself
along her father’s body
“C’mon,” she said, “take a few
pictures.”

Her boyfriend did. When you have
too many questions assaulting
you at once, you
give voice to none, just
play along

The funeral that followed
was a short one, with
few mourners

The loudest cry came from
the wife of the departed
after some unknown number sent
the pictures to her
phone