This girl smoked 14 cigarettes in
a span of one and a half hours

"Yeah, but they're slim," she says

"But they're still fourteen."

"Yeah, but so am I," she says.

"But... you look at least eighteen..."

"I know. Smoking helps, doesn't it?"

"Um..."

"Say, you wanna go to sum' club right now?"

"Oh, sorry but, it's Saturday and... You know, there's
church tomorrow morning. I've to be up.
How about you come with me though? And
my grandma."

She laughed
Lit another cigarette.

there was a time when he’d
fear nothing more
than the bluntness of the
empty bottle

his torment
his nightmare, his hell

The bottle would be
all right as long as it stayed full
It was like Lucifer before the fall

Oh, but once it emptied
then it would change completely
Then he’d see father’s grip
reverse on its neck
and turn it into a blunt weapon
that delivered its fair share
of bruises and scabs on the scalp

It never broke
like in the movies
but it surely hit harder than wood

But in the end
after all those years of standing
in its greenish shadow
he found himself thanking the bottle

It’s simple
What you don’t pick up
you don’t end up holding

He never touched a beer in his life

and certainly didn’t use
the bottle as a blunt weapon
against anybody

not even against his own father
as revenge

The cleaver was far
more effective

there was a dead body in the room

Had to be

Else where did the smell
come from?

Every time he’d turn around to catch
a ghost or a zombie
from the corner of his eyes the smell
would slap him

A smell of death

He decided he’d look around for the
dead body
but later

He didn’t have the energy now
or the disposition
or anything

He only wanted to sleep
some more
He just woke up and needed a good
nap to recover

Perhaps there were times when it
didn’t make sense
but now, today, nothing made more
sense that this

All you need is a healthy
dose of chronic depression and it makes
sense

Just like not cleaning the room
and not taking a shower
in a time longer than memory can be
bothered to remember

So he paced back to the bed
and climbed in
and dragged the blanket, heavy with
caked dirt, on his body
and closed his eyes

He fell asleep in spite of
the smell of death
coming closer still

The dreams were always a little bit better
in the nap taken after
waking up from
the night’s sleep

One time he even dreamed he
was a published author. Not a great or
even a good one, but published

what else to do when
the rain falls so heavy
against the window
outside?

Get melancholic
get poetic
have a drink
have another

close and then lock the door
to your room
and don't listen to
the voices coming
from outside
They want to distract you
They don't want you
to be successful
and make it in
life

They're all haters

He covered his ears
and squinted his eyes at the
computer screen
doing his best to block out
the negativity that came
from beyond the door

“I can't get up!” the voice
croaked. “Come help me. I can't
get up.” And then with
a cry, “Please!”

“Shut the **** up, grandma!
I'm trying to
write in here. Jesus Christ, I'm
trying to make
it big, don't you understand?
For ****'s sake now.”

He had also sent a manuscript
to a potential
publisher and was waiting for
a reply. It's been
two days already

adopt a demon tonight
and if you're a writer
she'll help you become a
great one even
It is worth exposing yourself
to her
You won't call her a demon,
of course. That term is offensive
You'll refer to her as The Muse,
your muse
and she will visit you when the
time is right
and the time will be right
when you start doing your thing
You'll see.

It is known
You can never hold on to
an adventurer

and she was one

And she was gone

and he stood by the window
and smelled the
guitar she left behind,
not knowing how to play it

A girl like her
travels around the world
like a sailor and
loves many boys and men
and they never forget her

The one mistake
they all share is
trying to lock her in their
world

It’s like trying to
capture the sun’s light in
a bag and take it
into your dark house

Women like her
are responsible for
men who call themselves
romantics and write love poems
and dream

He struck the cords
of the guitar
once. Looked out
the window. Warm, sunny day.
Streets busy with children
running fast, passing by
adults who walked slow

she kept texting me links
links
links
to posts on her
law of attraction blog

Find Your Soulmate In Six
Easy Steps

Meditations For Prosperity

Meditations For Prosperity
Enhanced Edition

14 Visualization Techniques That Will
Manifest The Perfect Life

How To Show Gratitude To The Universe
In Order To Get More Of What You Want

Find Your Dream Job Using This
3 Step Meditation Formula
Works 100%

Grab God’s Hand And Let It Pull
You Out Of Debt. Here’s How

How To Listen To The Correct
Inner Voice And Let It Guide You

How To Befriend And Make Love To
Your Higher Self. A Step By Step Guide

“Leave me a like. Comment too.
Thanks.”

“I need an account to do that,” I said.
“I don’t have an account.”

“Well, make one.”

“I need an e-mail address to make
an account.”

“Are you telling me you don’t have
an e-mail address?”

“I forgot the password.”

“Oh, why do you have to be like that?
You wouldn’t move a finger
to help anyone. Ever! How can you
live like that? You’re… uh, horrible!”

“Okay, listen. Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll make
an e-mail address and give you the password
so you can make an account for me
and leave likes and comments on every
post. How about that?”

She didn’t answer.

And didn’t text me for a while

A few months later she sent me an
invitation to her wedding.

I didn’t go.

After she got married she stopped
posting on her blog
Her husband was ten years older than her
and they moved to the UK

A few months later a common friend mentioned
she was having a baby
and showed me pictures of it
on the various social media sites that
portrayed life at its absolute perfection

The account was full of pictures of
quotes from self-help books

‘It’s never too late to be what you
might have been.’

‘Dream positive or wake up!’

‘Shoot for the moon! Even if you miss
you’ll still land among the stars.’

‘When things aren’t going well in your life
scream to yourself STOP! and think
of all the ways things can go right from
then on.’

‘Remember that what you think
and feel now creates your future!’

‘Doing it badly is infinity times
better than not doing it.’

‘HOPE is the best medicine.’

‘Always ask yourself, what would the best
version of myself do?’

‘Actions first, feelings later. Act on your values.’

And on and on.

And a few months later she divorced and left
the UK
Her girlfriends said the husband was
abusive
The girls who weren’t so close to her
said that she cheated on him

the truth was probably somewhere
in the middle

Now she was living on child support
and returned to writing her
blog
Only this time the posts weren’t so much
about the law of attraction and more
about her life and what she’d been through
and what d’ you know,
they were actually good
they were worth reading.

It worked!

the law of attraction worked

Her blog was finally popular
it was getting likes
and comments and followers

I read the latest post titled
“When you’re going through hell, keep going”
and it was good
there was some real feeling behind
each paragraph
each word

She made it

and now I sit back and wait for the post
titled
“Nothing comes without a price”
or something like that.

at 08:22 he awakens and pushes
away the tarp he uses as blanket

he’s already dressed up
and wears shoes

looks around at the blackening
dampness of the walls

stretches a bit

takes off his coat and
the blouse
and the shirt
and the tank-top

grabs a tissue
wets it with rubbing alcohol
and uses it to wash his
armpits. He knows it’s good for killing
the bad smelling bacteria

He knows much about how the world works
for he’d been to school and even
one year of collage in his youth

When his armpits dry
he dresses up
and gets out and checks under the
big flower pots that stand before the
entry to the building

He is wise to keep his savings there
Otherwise the others would’ve
smelled it on him and would’ve
robbed him a long time ago
He counts the money
and feels satisfied with the sum

At 09:30 he eats a warm meal at the
local soup kitchen
and turns down
four bums who ask to borrow money

At 10:10 he walks up to the
big casino and
enters

Now his imagination kicks in

Behind the entry
he is greeted with luxury, he walks
on the red carpet
and sees the bright lights
and the game attendants who greet him
like a king

He is the king in his vision
and he had returned to his castle

He smiles
and walks around leisurely

A man needs to have but a clear
vision of a bright future
to live a happy present

He finds a seat
in front of a slot machine

puts the money into
the bill acceptor
and starts playing

He is one of the happiest
customers the casino
ever had

there was a new guy in the park
among the homeless

He arrived just after the mayor had
eradicated all
the tents and improvised huts

and it was easy to spot him
He was the one who
always had a book in his hand, always
reading

"Check out the new guy," they
said. "An intellectual. Heh, hey buddy,
what you reading that for? Not like
you gonna get a degree that'll take
your *** outta here anytime soon. Haaahahah!"

He was reading his own poems
from a time when
he was young and his dreams were
still alive

Today nothing was alive
but misery itself

“and I still hadn’t changed my
opinion,” she said. “I still
believe that
a double suicide is the absolute
highest
display of love there is. Think about it,
two lovers dying in each
other’s arms. What in hell
can be more romantic?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “staying alive
for each other’s sake, maybe?”

“What? That’s, like, not
romantic at all. The longer you stay alive,
the higher your chances to fall
out of love. Nothing
chews at love like life does. That’s
why death is the answer.
It’s the only way
to immortalize love. It’s the way towards
that plane of existence where all
you feel is love and nothing else.
I wanna go there!” She squeezed her fists
and eyes, braced herself as
she said it.

“Well,” he said, “We’re both out of a job,
unwanted by family, no home,
no cash, no future…”

“All we really need
is love!” she screamed, jumping into his arms

“Yeah,” he said, “and an overdose.”

“I’m with you, dearest cousin!”

A lone ant
crawled into his hair and went across
his forehead to
his eyelid

He woke up
Sand all about him and wood above

But this was so far
from hell
Hell was a thing of the past now

Now he had her by
his side

She was still sleeping
in her rugged sleeping bag

For the past few days
they slept under the cabin
to avoid being ambushed inside

He knew she wouldn’t be by his
side
for long. The infection in her
mouth was really getting out of control
putting her one outrageous fever
away from death

This was the world today
A warm wasteland full of predators
and no medical help of
any kind. **** or be killed. Law of
the jungle. And so on

He liked to believe he
adapted

Too many didn’t

His luck stood in not having that much of
a fine life before the disaster

In fact
life was actually better now
in some aspects

For one
he had a cute companion by his side

A man really doesn't need
much to cling to life

She awakened a few minutes later
from another one of her fever dreams
All sweaty
Breathing heavy
Reaching out for his hand

“Do I smell?” she asked

“What?”

“I said, do I smell?”

“Well, yeah, we both do. Just look at…
where we are. How we are. But hey,
one thing you can be sure of, I
really, really don’t mind.”

“You sure?”

“More than sure.”

“Good. Then hold me.”

He moved closer and circled her with his
arms. Buried his head in
her hair. “We can go inside. No one
came tonight either. It’s safe.”

“No,” she said. “Hold me for a bit longer.
This night… I had the worst of
them. Worst nightmare. A boat came
here on the beach. With saviors. They weren’t
even pirates. But actually good people.
They rescued us.
And among them… there was another woman.
A healthy, pretty one.
And the two of you fell in love. And I
lost you. And I killed myself. Threw
myself over the board. And drowned. My lungs
were burning.”

“Wow,” he said. “What a silly dream.”

“It felt so real.”

“You think I’d leave you for another woman
just because she’s healthy and pretty? After
all we’ve gone through?”

“Look,” she said, “my husband left me for
another woman
even before my gums and tongue started to
swell and rot. When I was still
healthy and… somewhat pretty.”

“Well… I’m not your husband.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I… shouldn’t have brought him
into the discussion. And you’re right. You
are… the most… You’re all I’m still
alive for, really. And I know
I won’t be alive for long.”

“Don’t talk like that,” he said

“It’s true. That’s why… I want you to know
that these past days…
I’ve been praying. For God not to send
us any rescuers. I prayed not to be
found by any other humans. I hate all other
humans besides you. I know it’s incredibly
selfish of me but… We’ve enough
provisions here to
survive… You know, in my case, for the rest
of my life. It’s all a matter of
days, really. I want these last days to be
spent with you alone.”

They made love there in the
***** sand
and he didn’t mind covering that rotting
mouth with his

By the time she died
her belly
was quite swollen

And he made his peace
with the fact that he’ll never get
over it

She followed him home from
the casino
because he
swore he was a gambling addict

A true gambler

he lived only to gamble

Never missed a chance to declare it

"I like gamblers," she
said. "Love 'em to death."

He was all
smiles

and then she continued, "Say, what
about a little gamble
of our own? You down for that?"

"Baby," he said, "long as it's a
gamble I'm down to hells
and below, haha."

Once in the room
she climbed on the bed
and removed her clothes
and shuffled through her purse
and pulled out about a dozen
hypodermic needles

"What you doin' with those?"
he asked

She grinned at him
and spread her
legs and pointed between them
"I'll stick some of 'em
here in these lips. Your part
of the gamble is to
turn off the lights and slide
your way between 'em. Let's go, gambler.
Oh, and no fingers. It's
an all-or-nothing gamble."

the voices said
there's nothing like
waking up deep into the night
and not hearing any voices

and I believed them

he sits alone in the
darkness

on a wooden chair

The walls surrounding him
have no
mirrors and
the windows are covered
by the thickest blinds

He doesn’t want to see his
old age

and the decay that already
started consuming
his body

In his mind he’s still
young, still
in his early twenties

still dreaming

He’s listening to music

He’s playing the music
and it exhausts him

The music comes from
within

An instrument with strings

His growling guts

He lubricates them with more
beer

mashed potatoes
poached eggs
beans
and some homemade garlic sauce
but no meat for the
princess's sensitive stomach

"I'm full," she said

"No, you are not," said mother. "Eat up. Finish
everything from your plate
and trust me, it's been calculated. It's
the right amount. Now eat up."

Father agreed. Being a step-father he
didn't have much of a say in this
matter or any other

It took the princess another twenty
minutes to finish the
food from her plate
and then stood
and went to the bathroom but
it wouldn't be that simple. Mother had to go in
with her

And she did
and both of them came out and
the princess went to her
room
and mother started cleaning the table
always just one step away from
bursting into tears
which gave her new husband some work
with emotional support and all

A princess doesn't steal
but this was a desperate princess
she locked the door to her room
and pulled out from under her
shirt the
roll of plastic bags
took one
opened it
sat on the bed leaning forward
elbows on knees
face before the bag

and she didn't even have to
put the fingers in her mouth
the ***** just came
every bit of mashed potatoes
and poached eggs and every pea
and the homemade garlic sauce

She tied the bag
it felt very warm in her hands
placed it under her bed
got her phone and sent a text

in twenty-something minutes
he was under her window
and she threw him the bag of *****
and he walked away with it
carried it to a trash bin far from her home

He was such a sweet guy for
doing all this for her
He was her prince
Except he still kept his frog form
even after all the kisses and *******
after school

but well,
when you're desperate...

He comes home from art school
and finds cold food on the table
and a note
Something along the lines
be good, eat, do your homework,
clean your room, be good
Love, mom

He puts the food in the microwave
pushes the buttons
waits
takes the food out
eats
There's a mirror on the wall
across the table
and he stares at his reflection
as he eats, watches the way he chews the food

He turns the TV on
and then off again
The house is silent as always

He gets into the bathroom
and removes his clothes
steps into the shower cabin
turns on the hot water
stands under it, shoulders slumped, looking down

The glass walls of the cabin fog up

He smiles

raises his finger
draws a feminine shape on the steamy glass
and rubs his hard ***** against it
He knows that's all the art he will create
and all the love he'll get

it was a charming night
She really
liked a man who could
drive her from
the restaurant after having
quite some glasses
to drink
and he was that man

He drove her to
his house
and helped her out of the
car like a
gentleman
and even held her hand
all the way to
the door

Her heart was pounding
and her brain too. A voice
kept saying
'He's the one. He's the one!'

It was silenced
when she saw two small
animal heads on his
doorstep. A cat's and
a bunny's. The doormat
was soaked with
their blood

She froze and
the gentleman said, “Oh crap,
not this **** again.”
And he walked up to
them and kicked them
to the side like mini soccer *****

“My ex-wife,” he said with a shrug. “Just
another one of
her antics. You get used
after a while.”
He opened the door and
motioned her in

She hesitated

he downs the second bottle
of wine
and then curses the
beer for not
tasting as good

the rectangular desk before
him looks round
now
and his chair grows wheels

all the insects in the
apartment
crawl under the
clock on the wall
and spin the hands
backwards

lots of things are happening
but the
story before him doesn't
write itself
The paper is still pale
the pen
still frozen
The next word will never come
out
let alone the next line

He leans back
and the demon calls from
the other side of the window
and tells him
to hurry up

"That's not how
writing works," he whispers back

But he doesn't
know how
it works anymore

So he just stands
and walks to
the window
opens it
and answers
the call

She came from work pretty early
and I knew when I
saw her that
she quit yet again

She changed four jobs in the last
five months and
got a tattoo that said APATHY
on her lower back

Her father died five months ago. He
died of what's called
almost-drunk-driving
He was sipping on a beer bottle while
driving fairly slow
on a country road
But the front wheels hit some log
or something
and the impact triggered the
airbag
It bloomed in his face and stabbed
the beer bottle into
his eye
causing him a major trauma to the brain

R.I.P
old man.

Maybe not your wife but
your daughter sure will miss you

She's coming from work
***** and ragged
Approaches me and demands a cigarette

I give her a small lighter

and she tells me to go
**** myself

"Well you're done with work
early today," I tell her.

"I quit," she says.

"Really? What was it this time?"

"What's every time, deepshit. The boss
or the coworkers or
the customers. Or all of them.
******* expect you to work on
holidays. Imagine
that. Like, Christmas is in three
days, for ****'s sake."

"I work on holidays," I say

"That's cuz you's a *****-***-*****
who won't say no when you
mean it. You're like...
all the rest of 'em."

"Maybe," I say. "But also, if I'm at
work I don't have to be with my relatives
and that's
a plus in my book."

"Pff, yeah, whatever. Lend me
a ten, will ya?"

"Best I can do is a five. And you
can keep the lighter."

The soul must know something
that the mind
can’t comprehend

That’s what they said when
they watched him
from afar

He slept under the bridge
at night

During the day
the poor fool sat
by the river banks
and threw stones into the water

All day long

With obsession

And when he’d see no other stones
he’d start crying

Few things are more disturbing
to the ear than
the cries of an adult

He had a family some years ago,
they said

Had a wife and kids

And a job in the mine yonder

Then a boulder fell on his
head one day and
along with his mind
it took everything away from him

You can still be good
at what you do
without liking
what you do

It’s more common than
you’d imagine

The words reflected his face
in the steamy bathroom mirror

He watched
until he felt cold in his
nakedness
and shivered

reached for the towel
wiped
got out of the bathroom
put on clothes
and returned to his writing
desk

The blank page was ugly

unlike the somewhat encouraging
words on the steamy mirror

He reached into the drawer
pulled out the pen
stuck it into his mouth
clicked it

Reached again into the drawer
pulled out the gun
pointed it at the blank page
fired

He wrote for the remainder of
the day and the next
night around the smokey hole

It was finally
beautiful

You can still be good
at what you do
without liking
what you do

It’s more common than
you’d imagine

The words reflected his face
in the steamy bathroom mirror

He watched
until he felt cold in his
nakedness
and shivered

reached for the towel
wiped
got out of the bathroom
put on clothes
and returned to his writing
desk

The blank page was ugly

unlike the somewhat encouraging
words on the steamy mirror

He reached into the drawer
pulled out the pen
stuck it into his mouth
clicked it

Reached again into the drawer
pulled out the gun
pointed it at the blank page
fired

He wrote for the remainder of
the day and the next
night around the smokey hole

It was finally
beautiful

That did it
He was tired of coming home from work
and finding
a ******* book on the table
instead of food

but the book was also on his
pillow when he went to bed

on the toilet tank

in the garage

in the shed behind the house

and on the dashboard of his ******* car

He had enough of it

And one day he told her
he had enough of it and enough of her
It was time to break up
this wasn't going to work

He was not going to quit smoking
and she was not going to quit nagging him
to read her book on quitting smoking

"I won't marry you until you're 101 days clean,"
she'd said

He smoked a pack and a half a day

It was time to break up
and, gods, she didn't take it lightly

In that morning he left her alone to collect
all her stuff from his house and be gone
by the time he returned

She was indeed gone by the time he returned
and took nothing more than what belonged to
her and even left something behind
Her self-published book on how to quit smoking,
what else?

He sighed
picked it up from the coffee table
looked it over
sat on the couch
put a cigarette between his lips and
when he lit it the house blew up

Perhaps a big moral in the book was to
always check the gas after a
breakup

but it was too late now

evolution is when you no longer
write about money and ***
and ***** and violence and
change the subject to
cats and leaves and the passage of time
and the waiting, the great waiting
for death

evolution is when you
no longer talk about it to others
except yourself
you do it and you shut your mouth
about it
if there's something you have to say
you say it through the writing, not through
the spoken word

you must cast the spoken word out
of your system
as if to speak aloud is to
draw the anger of the gods upon you
that's commitment

and you need commitment if
you are to evolve

"You might lose
your way one
day
but you'll never
lose me
I'm your desire
to get better
As long as you
have me
you'll keep
going."

that's what he wrote on the
back of his daughter's photo
Today makes a full year since her death

he put the photo under the front cover
of his first published book
and went back to writing what would
soon be the second

she slid out of that short
skirt and
removed the ******* as well
and hopped on the bed
and took off her shirt
and bra

then assumed the lotus
position and
very calmly said, "You got like…
a needle and some rubbing alcohol?"

"Um, what for?" he asked

She looked him
in the eyes. "I want you to
watch me pierce my
*******. I've some cute rings
I want to see shining in 'em.
So, you down for it?"

He was silent for a long
time. Just staring
at her ****. "Um… I'm out of rubbing
alcohol. Will some
***** do?"

"It won't be nearly as
good," she said, "but hell,
let's give it a shot."

His mind was already ablaze with
images of her
being his wife

He had a big belly
but he wasn't a fat man
he wished he was a fat man

his daughter was four
and she told him that he
looked like a
turtle
born
on the wrong side of
its shell

and mother laughed.
He didn't.

Surely he would have if the
swelling wasn't a terminal
disease
a type of cancer of the
stomach and guts whose
name he struggled very
hard to
forget
but the regular visits to
the doctor kept reminding him

his wife kept laughing
she said that laughing
is the key
the best healing
Laughter and love
lots and lots of love
Love

but the other night when
he tucked the little girl
in bed and kissed her forehead and
said "I love you."
she poked her tongue at him
and said "I don't! You ugly and weird.
I love mommy and puppy Bran. Good
night." And she put her
head on the pillow and
closed her eyes.

It was I who went to the shelter
and brought puppy Bran home, he though
as he closed the door, tears
blurring his vision
He didn't go into the
bedroom where his wife
was probably asleep

he went into the bathroom
vomited
washed his face
rinsed his mouth
went into the kitchen
and grabbed the leash
went outside
and took puppy Bran
for a walk

the moon lighted their path
and the shadow of his
big, swollen belly
covered all of puppy Bran

At 22:00 she would come out looking
for him
Would call out his name
and eventually find him by the
sandbox or the slide
and would dust him off a bit
and take him home
and feed him

As she’d put him to bed
she’d kiss his face, sometimes
his mouth
and he’d ask, “Why did you do that?”

and she’d reply, “I don’t know.
But did you like it?”

And he’d either nod or say
yes, knowing that it’ll make her smile
and then she’d cuddle with him
until he’d fall asleep
and whisper in his ear that she always
wanted to have a little boy
just like him
and that he was making her unbelievably
happy just by existing in the same
room with her

She was the best neighbor he could
have dreamed of

She gave him all the attention
his mother gave to her bottles and
her guy friends

and everyone was very happy

The way she'd creep up on you
and just appear
from behind like some cat,
you'd think she
was some trained assassin or something

I felt her punch
my shoulder and then her
other hand falling on
my nape and squeezing
"Hey, lucky boy. You should be so ****
glad you ran into me."

In the fist that hit my shoulder
she held a bunch of
crumpled bills
and brought them before my eyes

"What's that?" I said

"Our tickets to the bar
down the street. And you've the honor
to accompany me there. Drinks
are on me today. But you do
owe me, don't think otherwise, okay?"

"Where'd you get that money?" I asked.
"Why's it so *****?"

"I stole 'em from Ol' Horn Nose
while he was taking a ****."

"What?"
Ol' Horn Nose was the homeless guy
who roamed around the block, usually begging
in front of the supermarkets
and pharmacies

She brought the fist to her nose
and smelled the bills
and then shrugged

"You can't be serious," I said. Of course
I didn't believe her
but just then
the old man rounds the corner
and spots us
and points his crooked finger at us
and screams

Immediately two cops
round the corner
and approach us with big strides
but by the time they get to us
there's only me

The assassin girl
was gone

I haven't seen her since
but she does
cross my mind every now and then

Especially when I pay with
cash at the bar

the little building was made of
wood
though it looked sturdy
enough

the high windows were barred
and he could only
see part of the girl’s face
as she called out to him from inside

“If you got a good drill,” she said,
“you could make
a hole in the wall
and stick it in. I’ll take care of
the rest
real nice for you.”

“What?” he said

“What? Don’t you wanna help a poor
girl in distress, Mister?”

He blinked. “How... would that help?”

“Tremendously,” she said. “If you get me
pregnant it’ll mean
I’ll be set free.”

But somebody else called out to
him before he could
ask his next ‘what?’

A man coming from behind
the building. “Hey! It’s off limits here,
stranger. Away with you
before trouble sparks, got it?”

The girl disappeared from the
window
He raised his hands slowly
and backed away
apologizing to the man

The village looked
nothing like
when he was a kid

Or did it?

the skill
I want to develop
most of
all in this life
is imagination

So I can be with you
and hold you
and talk to you
kiss you
listen close to your
breathing
and beating heart
even when you're not
by my side.
This is what I call
a wise investment.

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

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

The world was growing colder
because the weather
was akin
to people’s hearts,
he was told

in a dream

The people had denied him
the world
and he was left with the backstreet
dumpster
And he had to share the
backstreet dumpster with the dogs
Or rather the dogs had to share
it with him

Regardless,
they agreed

and at least this corner of
the world
was a little warmer

He started writing at the
age of thirty-eight
and most of his early poems were
about starting late,
being a late bloomer

He said he'd spent those thirty-eight
years figuring out what not to be
and in the process of figuring
that out he did a lot of
living
changed countless jobs
and locations
and lovers
enemies
customs
religions
political views
philosophies
opinions

and now it was time to
document all that
with as little fiction added
as possible

he began
and went on
fueled by the saying
"Since I started so late
I owe it to myself
to keep going."

He kept going

And the young
fresh writers
the budding talents
the prodigies
****-talked him for being a delirious
old fool who mistook
fiction for reality
And they rated and reviewed
his works and referred to them
as being dull garbage that
belonged into the trash can

"Oh, poor fool," they said. "He's just
trying to sell the world bald cats.
That's what he's trying to do. He strips
them of fur, of the beauty that makes
cats desirable, lovable. Behold,
his works are so raw, the
writing so simple, so
lazy and devoid of any description.
He tells the reader that there are
curtains before the window but fails to
show what color, shape, smell,
effectiveness of keeping the sunlight away
from a housewife's eyes while she
examines the cucumbers brought in
with the last trip to the grocery store.
Raw and dry
that's how he is
raw and dry
and that deems his works not
worthy of our attention.
Though we are a bit sorry for the old fool.
No matter what the voices in his head
told him
there is such a thing as being too
late to begin
and this is it. See? He's like an eighty
year old playing hockey with the pros,
athletes in their prime."

What those who haven't done
enough living fail to realize is that
in this world there is a market for
literally anything and everything.
And a market you can't find
is just a market that has but to be
started
and the customers will come.
There are lots of people who love
bald cats and even prefer them
over the furry ones.
No market has ever died because
of the customer
only because of the merchant.
As long as you're that merchant who
doesn't give up you'll sell your
stuff eventually

It was a strange day

He still remembered it years
after it happened

Usually when he got
drunk

It didn’t take much for him
to get drunk
Sometimes two beers
were more than enough

He was perhaps
five or six
and big sister was in her early
teens
She was a rebel

Wore thick makeup
and revealing clothes
and fake piercings
and argued with mom and dad
about tattoos
and boyfriends

But on that day mom and dad
weren’t home
and there wasn’t much to do
in those times. There was
nothing interesting on TV
and the internet wasn’t a thing

But big sister had an idea

That morning they found the cat
dead in the basement. It was
old enough to die. Big sister
went there and retrieved it
and brought it upstairs
and placed it on the window sill
and they watched as birds
came to eat the maggots from
its rotting flesh

Big sister seemed to really
enjoy the show
and he didn’t want to upset her
so he pretended he
enjoyed too

These days
the drunker he’d get, the more
vivid the memory
would play in his head

He had three beers
now

there were times when she bit and
chewed the inside
of her elbow

to spit the bits of flesh
and the blood
on her grandma

but those times were over

almost forgotten

along with the teachings that
her blood is poisoned
because she was conceived with the
wrong woman, meaning
not the one grandmother intended for
her father

But today all those
people were dead. Only father was
alive

He was all right. A hard working
man, busy with life

busy enough not to notice
that his daughter
is constantly sprinkling ashes in
his food and coffee

He’d almost consumed the
contents of
his mother’s urn

there’s just
a bit left

it was dark and
hot
and every breath entered
with salty sweat
inside the nose

the mouth was
gagged and the whole head
covered by a
black trash bag
with two very small holes,
unaligned with her
nostrils

Her skin was itchy all
over
but there was no scratching
with hands and feet
bound to the chair

She didn’t realize that she
was in hyperventilation
and it was making things
worse

After the four hours
it took him to come back to
the basement
he found the greatest
disappointment of his life

He found her dead

There’s no feeling like
paying good money
for a toy
only to bring it home
and find that it’s broken
before you get to
play with it

He broke down and cried
for a whole hour
as he sat on her dead lap
and caressed her hair
and kissed her gagged
mouth and ****** the
snot from her nose

She was beautiful
too

Weeks later he was unable to
forget her
He carried her eyeball inside
his mouth wherever he
went

but what if it was
all a dream?
All a nightmare

What if he wasn't just a construction worker
who fell from the
scaffold and couldn't get up
and was in incredible pain from the torso up
because he had no more feeling below?

If this was all a dream
all a nightmare
and he was no construction worker barely
making ends meet
then his wife did not divorce him
a few weeks ago
and she did not take the kids
and she did not have another man in her life

If it was all a dream
a nightmare
then
he did not
just
jump to his death

If it was all a dream
a nightmare

"You don't know how to write a love
poem," she said. "You couldn't
write one to save your life...
or your marriage."

"I'm not married," I said.

Apparently it was the
wrong thing
to say.

She left.

and I
returned
to my
desk

and wrote
something
that was
not a love
poem.

Dad was fat all his life
Obese
He couldn’t do a lot of things.
Walk without special help
Bathe
Climb stairs
Sit in a normal chair
Drive a normal car
Sleep in a normal bed
And say “I love you, son.”

To draw those words out
of his dad he became a cartoonist,
but that also failed.

And now that his father
was dead,
collapsed face down
on the kitchen floor,
blood seeping out of a head wound,
he struggled to turn him over
on his back
and dipped his finger in the blood
and drew a speech bubble
next to his father’s head
and wrote in it the famous words.

Finally.
“I love you too, dad.”

the cat was utterly
uninterested
and downright
bored

with him reading
mediocre poems
by her side

"You don't like this one?" he asked
"It's about nature
and birds
flying and... and... How good does
it have to be for you
to like it? I'm only ten, I haven't
lived long enough to
write poems of grief
and depravity like my father. But you
know, I'm actually aiming to become
better than him. I aim to be
a more
respected poet. What, you don't think
I'll be able to?
You think I'm just another
deluded fool? I'll show you!"

The cat stood
and stretched raising her tail
"Calm down, kid. First of all,
your daddy was no
poet. Just some drunk who spoke of
demons as he passed out
in bars. And you, you're not ten, okay?
You're just ten days
clean of meds."

"You think I should
end myself?" he asked

The cat waved a paw
at that. "Nah, just go on with the
next poem. I'll be listening
but please don't expect any
praise. It's not in my nature to
offer it, okay?"

"But... you think I'll be a great
poet one day?"

The cat closed her
eyes and offered no reply

She could say it if
she wanted
to but
the words would
carry no
weight behind them

like a cat shaking
the paw with
you
and not understanding
the real meaning
behind
the gesture

so was her
every
“I love you.”

Enough to make an
old boy cry
but he
preferred suicide

Needless to say
her response
was
“Meh.”

all right,
that sounded like good advice

Put your room in order first
and then your thoughts

Sure

He started looking around the room
for things that were
to be thrown and things that were
misplaced

There were a few

There was a broken snowboard
on his bed
It had the image of a naked girl
painted along

he slept with it at night
and would often find himself placing
his lips over hers
and licking at her slim, long neck

She had to go
It was time to get rid of her
and break out of this
ridiculous lifestyle

He grabbed it
Looked at the girl for a good minute
and decided to place the snowboard
under his bed

He knelt
by the side of the bed and looked
under

Alas, she had no room in there

There was the forgotten cave of
dead gods
he no longer thought about
And it was full

There were body pillows with
brown stains
Hardened socks
Doll heads
A teddy bear with a hole carved between
the legs
A drinking glass stuffed with
dishwashing sponges wrapped in plastic bags
Magazines with crumpled pages
Pictures printed on A4 paper
Sealed jars that contained small figurines
covered by a thick, brown substance
like melted wax

Those were the gods of nights
long past
They had their share of his worshiping
and had been abandoned
to rot away

There was simply no more room
for the present god
to be disposed of

“Funny,” he said
looking at her from above. “It's like
all the ones who came before you
had passed down their blessings
onto you. I… I am sorry I tried to get
rid of you, love. I’m such a fool! Don’t
strike me down, please. I’ll… I can only
try to make up for it.”

He placed the snowboard back on
the bed and
ripped two pieces from a paper towel
and placed them over the middle
of the snowboard
where the painted girl’s nakedness was exposed

He pulled his pants down
and mounted her

Rubbed his ***** against the
paper towels
and showered the girl’s face with
kisses
while apologizing and shedding tears
for wronging her so much

By the time he came he
felt forgiven
and cleaned the stains that made it past
the papers with his mouth

Well no wonder he kept dying
or the police
would catch up to him
in the first minute after hitting someone
or stealing a car. The game
was for big kids. It said so on the box. He
got bored despite all the things
he could do and put
the controller down.

He looked around the living room
went into the kitchen
She was nowhere

He went upstairs
opened the door to the bedroom
and, well, she was there
sprawled on the bed
naked
filming herself with her phone
while continually stabbing
herself
between the legs with... a lightsaber? It
seemed painful too. She was gasping.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

And her response was a scream
She pulled the
lightsaber thingy out
and threw it under the bed
and turned off the phone. "Hey, what did I tell
you about entering without
knocking?"

"Nothing," he said.

"Well... Just... Just don't tell
anyone about it, okay? And why did you come
upstairs anyway?

"I'm sorry. Look, I keep dying at
the game."

She came downstairs with him
grabbed the controller
unpaused the game
"Watch this."
Circle, Right, Circle, Right, Left, Square, Triangle, Up
She passed the controller to him
"Okay, now go **** somebody."

he crossed the street and punched an
old lady to death
and then stomped on her body

everyone saw that

no police showed up
no yellow stars. Nothing.

"Whaaaaat? I don't believe it."
He wandered into the street, stopped
a car
opened the driver's door
pulled the driver out
beat him to death and stole the
car.

No police

"How did you do it?"

"A boyfriend taught me. Along with
many, many other things. You can
even get a device that lets you fly."

"I don't believe it!"

"Believe it. Infinite health too. I can
do that for you. If, of course..."

"Yes, yes! I'll keep the secret. I swear! And I
swear to God you're
the best, best babysitter I've ever
had. This! This is what I'm gonna
tell dad when
he gets home. I swear!"

"Don't bother. He knows."

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

Father used his fists
a lot
Though never on the kids

On the walls
and the furniture
and the doors
and the mailbox
and the fence
and the neighbors
and random people on the street
and strangers in the bar
and a few times the poor dog
and one time on mother

He was the childhood’s
villain

To defeat him one had
to become a hero

and becoming a hero
took time

And today
after all this time
the villain of childhood
was dead

He died at the hands of
some other character,
a neutral one

A cop who told him to
drop to the ground
and father didn’t
so he got shot

That was it
The end of his saga

Utterly unsatisfactory
anticlimactic
disappointing
just bad

There was no final showdown
between hero and villain

because those things
only happen in
childhood
and childhood had ended a
long time ago

she woke up because her feet were cold
The window was open
and she had not the audacity to
stand and shut it in someone else’s house

He was still asleep
beside her
The sheets were stained with her maiden’s
blood
That was all right
She was twenty
But him.... He was also twenty but that’s not the point

This was the boy who
put her through hell during both middle
and high school

The bully

There was that time when he pushed
her down the stairs
and broke her thumb

that time during the field trip
when he threw a rock
straight into the side of her head

that time when he put
a frog in her
lunchbox
And another in her backpack that she
carried home

That time he kicked the ball
in her face giving her
a ****** nose

that time when he threw a snowball
at her ear

And there was another incident
resulting in a chipped tooth

and all of that was besides the
name-calling and the random hair pulling
and the tripping and the scaring
and all...

Yet now here she was
Here they were
In his house
In his bed

And all because he contacted her the previous day
and apologized for everything. Truth
is her life placed some nasty miles both
behind and ahead of her
and someone being nice all of a sudden...

It was so easy to get her
And what did he think of her now?

She felt tears trickling down
her cheeks as she thought of this and
stared at his sleeping body beside her

Maybe the time to
get revenge was now

Or was it not?

Oh well, ******* too,
I say to the box of cotton swabs
sitting by
the mirror
It's pointed at me with the side displaying
the 'Don't insert in ear!' sign
And I push the swab further
and give it a spin
and I think to myself
I should write about this
I should...

Yeah, and then the eyes that
read
would say, '******* too'
and 'why do you write if you have
nothing to say, ******?'

Perhaps I am no different
from a box
of cotton swabs
somebody swears at
and what I write is equally frowned upon
as is the warning on the side of
that box

Yet there's something else
we have in common,
the box and I,
we display our message anyways
because we can't say it aloud

I put down the swab and
pick up the box with
a lot more
compassion this time
and walk away from the mirror and into my
room where my girlfriend is
reading something

I place the box of cotton swabs by my notebook
Open the notebook and start writing.
I write 'Oh well, ******* too,
I say to the box of cotton swabs'

“What you do?”
my girlfriend
interrupts
me

“Writing,” I say

“Pff, why do you write if you have
nothing to say?”

And I put the pen down and pick the
box of cotton swabs up and walk over to her, look
her in the eyes
and say, “why don't you go to the bathroom and clean your ears?”

you ever just sit or lay
on your bed and stare at
the ceiling and wonder
if you’ve ever eaten meat from an animal
that was the offspring of another animal
you’ve eaten?

I’ve once read an article about the
food industry’s secret glue
that can paste together the meat
belonging from many animals and
makes it look like it’s from a single one

thus you could eat beef thinking
that it’s from a cow
when in fact it’s from nine different cows
of nine different ages and breeds

a friend of mine declared herself vegan
after she sliced a steak and found
gray slimy **** oozing from it.
The blade struck a cyst

“I’m a vegan forever from now on!”
she screamed

And I said, “I’m a writer.”

“What?” she said. “What’s that have
to do with what I said?”

“I’m a writer,” I repeated. “Meaning I have to
compare everything to writing. Your discovery
of the cyst inside the steak is akin to reading
a really nice book only to reach the most
disturbing scene you’ve stumbled upon in a long
while and be taken by surprise and change your
opinion about the whole book.
There are some books like that. Doesn’t mean
they all are though.
And unlike a meat eater, I like to believe
a writer can tell the difference between a book
written by a single person and a collaborative
project.”

“Boy, you’re scaring me.”

“Can I have that steak?” I said.

“Wah? You… don’t mean to eat it, do you?”

“Nah, my cousin has a dog who surely
won’t mind the cyst.”

she gave me the steak
and she didn’t ask (I only wanted her to),
but the writer
equivalent of this situation would be
to recognize when a story fails
real bad and instead of stubbornly striving
to submit to agents
you just give it away for free,
publish online,
maybe even under a pseudonym

Anyway
the dog loved that steak.