he takes his old wrinkled
notebook
and the black pen

and finds a
spot from which he can observe
the people
and write down what he
imagines to be their inner
conversations

It passes the time

and it takes away
attention from his own
inner conversations

It’s like a prescription drug
he has to take for the
rest of his life
and the twenty-nine bookshelves
filled with notebooks
he has at home stand as proof of that

But this will be
the last one,
he promises himself
as he closes the notebook and
walks up to the bridge

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

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

again
she grabs a stool
and places it into the corner
of the room,
climbs on it, assumes the lotus position
and closes her eyes
and covers her ears with headphones

She faces the corner

The voice that speaks into her
headphones starts a
countdown

Meanwhile
her father shakes his head as
he watches her
“You can’t be serious,” he says. “Are
you meditating again to ask God to make life
fair? Is that it? What happened?
Was your Uber late? Internet connection slow?
Heheh!”

She doesn’t hear him. The voice
in her headphones says, “And twist. Remember
to always twist. If you only stab
him it’s not enough. That’s just gonna do
a little damage that can be fixed with a quick visit
to the ER. You have to twist the blade. That’s
when the significant damage happens. Twist
as much as you can. Show no mercy.
Take advantage of
the fact that he will not expect this from you.”

Pink
pink would be the right choice
because the doctor said it will be a girl
He would paint the room pink and await
her coming into the world
What a blessing
How fortunate he felt
His back and sides were tingling with
happiness

He came out of the store and a
homeless woman came his way
and he was quick to say
“Sorry, no spare change right now. I spent
all I had on paint.”

“That’s all right,” said the woman. “I don’t want
your money. Actually, I was hoping you
could give me some
of your paint.”

“My paint?”

“Yeah.” She held a tin can to him

“Um, all right,” he said and opened the
can of paint and poured some into the woman’s
can. “But what do you need paint for?”

She watched him
Put the tin can to her lips
and drank the paint
“Plan Z,” she said

He wanted to say something in protest
but couldn’t even gasp
when he noticed her swollen belly

He walked away and got into the car
and drove home
and just wasn’t as eager to paint that room
anymore

three weeks
and the shards were still there
still scattered on the tiles
of the kitchen floor

that was a thick glass
meant for classy strong drinks
like whiskey

Yeah, now that he thought about it
it was whiskey she
ordered. But he filled
the glass with milk and said,
“You know what the doctor said, mother.
No more alcohol for you. Here, try
this instead.”

And he would strongly
prefer not to remember what followed
after

The shards were still
on the kitchen floor

and the **** still on the side of
his neck. Stitched now
but painful nonetheless

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

In the morning
she ****** him off
and had him
*** in the cups of her
bra and then
he watched as she put it
on and went about the
rest of her day like
that

She worked as an
elementary school teacher

believed in the
horoscope

and witchcraft

and aliens

and demons

and told the students in
her class that
her dead husband reincarnated into
her dog and every morning
she took his seed to
hold in her ***** for good luck

It definitely worked
because she got a raise in
the next few weeks

the old lady didn’t mind being
called crazy

or being laughed at for
spending her days
alone
in her small cottage
facing the dark corner
of the room and
talking to
her dead daughter

encouraging her to eat up
and grow up
and complimenting her on the good
looks she’d gained

“Oh, I bet the boys are all dropping
dead in your wake, hehe. Look
at those legs. So slim and long and
deadly. You’re a beauty
among beauties, my dear. Here, have another
one. Eat up to grow up. You’re gonna
have hundreds of strong, beautiful
children, hehe.”

The neighbors and the world
could keep calling her crazy, she
knew she was just very happy

She grabbed another grasshopper from
a jar and ripped its hind legs
and placed it
on the spider’s web

“Here’s another one, dear. Eat up
and grow up, hehe.”

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 are many reasons a woman
can say her final
goodbye to you

and somehow they
all feel
different

He supposed the worst of all
had to be when
her final goodbye is
influenced by another man

made sense

but that wasn't his case
Also he was too drunk
to think
straight now. And in too much
pain

“It's the final goodbye,” she had
said. “You chose the bottle
over me, now live
with the bottle. Goodbye.”

*******, this
really hurt
His **** was only getting harder
and more blue
stuck in the mouth
of the bottle

Yet still, through all the
pain and the
dizziness he reached for the
phone and called her.
He said, “Hey, I just want you
to know that… It was
you I had in mind when I did it.
I did it while thinking
of you, love.”

She hung up

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

the ashtray was looking more
and more
like a sick hedgehog
  
and her yellowed fingers
added one more quill to it
  
she sat back in her chair
  
work wasn't in the best of stages lately and
her office looked like a ******'s
trailer. You could
scrape the nicotine
off the walls. In fact, she
would get nicotine under her nails if she
just scratched her skin
anywhere
  
But otherwise she was
a beauty
and that was a problem. Beautiful
women have the worst
luck in marriages
  
The husband left and the two girls went
with him
They were sick and tired of her
habit to consume more cigarette smoke than
oxygen
  
And drinking was also a problem
though not nearly
as big
  
The worst drinking has ever done to her
was to make her lose
the driving license which she never
bothered to take back
  
The real problem was,
as always,
a lack of money. If the **** phone didn't
ring soon
she would have to **** someone
for a pack of cigarettes
  
Assuming she could still
****
someone with her body rotting from the
inside. She was fine with
breast cancer
but now lung cancer joined too
and it was by far nastier
  
Still
that was all right
It doesn't take a healthy body to pull
a trigger
  
And speaking of triggers
She opened a drawer in her desk
took out the gun
studied it
  
Not loaded
  
She browsed through the drawer
  
Only one bullet left. One single bullet.
These things cost money
too
  
**** it
  
But it's like they said back in
the mercenary camp
The last bullet is always preserved to be
used on the self
  
She loaded the bullet into the
gun
  
A life lived well is one
lived without regrets and without
ever asking for mercy
or feeling sorry for yourself
  
At 39
she had that. There was nothing
else to be taken
away from it
  
She put the gun to her
temple
  
Smiled
  
"Except for a final smoke."

he had no shoes
and you could hardly call
his shirt a shirt
but he
sat between those two
trash cans like some king
on his throne
  
holding to a stick
like a scepter
  
He drank from an old
rusty can of
beans
but held it like some golden
goblet
  
Clearly he lost the
ability to
taste because in the can
he mixed all he could
find in the trash
  
Beer with *****
with tequila with wine
and acetone
and rubbing alcohol
  
He had a fearsome guardian
about him
A white dog who constantly
licked his ***** from
the ground
  
It looked black
and spongy
like coffee grounds
  
Some passersby offered to help him
and he refused
  
This was a king who
would go down with honor
after he lost
his kingdom

the little girl was scared
at first
but now she was terrified
and about to have
a panic attack

He kept her tight
in his arms and covered her
ears and
told her to calm down
and that everything will
be all right

It was 02:24 AM and the
knocks in
the door and all around
the walls and windows
still carried on

And there were howls
coming from
outside and
curses and a constant sound
of nails scratching
on wood

“Daddy, I’m scared! I’m…”

“I know, dear, I know. But
you have to
calm down. Remember to focus
on your breathing like I told you.
Deep, deep breaths, okay? Deep. In
and out. I promise you,
tomorrow everything’s gonna
be fine. I swear.”

“Is it zombies?” asked the
little girl.

“No, dear. It’s something else.”

“What’s it called?”

“An ex-girlfriend, dear.”

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

he opened another beer
and sat on
the couch
but turned off the TV

He watched the kid

The kid was on his knees
before the coffee table
busy with
an orange pencil and a
piece of paper

Tongue poked
to one side and held
firmly between
the lips,
he was writing letters to
the pet dog
he’ll never see
again

And he did that
all day long

Dad sipped at his beer. The
years of action
were far beyond him now
but by all the gods
he swore
tonight will be the
night
he sneaks into his ex-wife’s
home and kidnaps
the dog

He even rented
a van
for it

A pretty thick
slice
of hell

That was life
so far

But today things
will change

Today he was six
years
old and that meant old
enough to
guide his blind father
on the streets

The old man was only
blind for
a year after some work
related accident involving acid

And there was a mother
somewhere too. She left
shortly after
father’s accident

Today father held on
to his son’s shirt
at the shoulder and told him
to walk towards the
railway

“I want to listen to
the train,” said father

but it turned out he
wanted much
more than that. He wanted to
feel the train. Against
his face

So he stood on the rails
and told the kid
to go back home
and return after an hour or so

“Okay,” said the kid. But
he didn’t leave. He watched
from a safe distance

Didn’t even find
the
event particularly disturbing

Then he went back home
and had some
fruit loops with milk
and his first taste of
beer

He had become a
man

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.”

and the few survivors who couldn’t
fight
were lined up
along with the civilians
and shot
or killed in ways to entertain the soldiers
And dogs were trained to
tear them to shreds
and the ground became black with
their soaked blood
and over the next few days a carpet of
butterflies gathered on top of it

“It’s beautiful,” he said

She didn’t pay attention. Was too busy
removing golden teeth
from a severed head
she held in her lap. “******, whoever made these
implants did too good a job. I’ve
to take ‘em with gums, alright. Look, my
knife keeps slipping.”

“Stab his eyes please,” he said

“What? Why?”

“Because he’s looking at us. I can’t
stand it.”

“Jeez, you’re such a *****.” She quickly
stabbed the blade into
the head’s eyes one after the other. “Better?”

“Whatever,” he said. “Just hurry up
and pull those teeth.”

“I’m trying. If I had better tools though…”

He was silent for
a long time and then
he cleared his throat and said, “Hey, so… now that this
****** war is over… like, what are you
gonna do with your life?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Get myself a few
gold teeth as extra spoils and
go back home. My mom wants
me to marry this
fat guy from the neighboring village. I probably
will then I’ll **** him out a few
kids and… well, grow old and die, I guess.”

“What? Is that it? That’s all?”

She looked at him with
a grin. “Hey, don’t worry, you’re still
getting some. Just wait until
tonight, okay?”

“******, that’s not what the heck
I meant. I meant… you know, there’s gotta be
more to life than just… just
getting married, making kids, and dying.”

“Really? Well, what are you
gonna do then?”

“I’m… gonna write. About it all. The war
and… everything.”

“Write? Like, a book? A story?”

“Yeah. It’s been my dream
since before the war started. Now I’ve the
experience to write about.”

“******* experience,” she said. “Who in the ****
d’you think will wanna read that?
What’s the story gonna say? How you
killed the enemy? Poisoned their wells? *****
their women and enslaved their children?
Stuck twigs down the **** holes of
prisoners and broke them inside for fun?”

“Hey, I never did any of that.”

“But you were there when the
others did it. And did nothing to stop them.
It counts as--”

“****! Okay, you’re right. Writing a book
about this would be
a terrible idea. Thanks.”

“****, look, I got one. This is solid gold.
Two more to go.”

He sighed. “Listen…”

“Yeah?”

“About that marriage of yours…”

“Yeah? What about it?”

“Well, let’s just say… I mean, you know…”

“******’ spit it out already!”

“Don’t marry that fat guy from
the neighboring village! ****, I said it.”

“Oh? And marry you instead?”

“Well…”

“Y’know, the fat guy from the neighboring village
is the son of a fairly rich butcher. Family
business. And you… Your father’s the
drunk who hung himself to avoid paying
back his debts. You see the conflict here, I hope.”

“So all you care about is money?”

“Why wouldn’t I care about money? I want to
live good, thank you very much. This is
the real world, not some
romantic story. Wake up. I gotta make the
rational decision.”

“I thought we had… something.”

“Yeah, we ****** a few times cuz’ there
was nothing better to do. And we’ll
**** again tonight, sure. But
that don’t mean we’re lovers now. Look, you’re
a nice guy. I’m sure you’ll find
love back at home. You don’t need a *****
like me. I mean, if you think I’m not
gonna ***** other guys
behind my husband’s back, you’re seriously trippin, boy.
So think about it, that could’ve been you. Would
you want that?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Good. Well then, let’s get these teeth
and go have some ale. It’s on me.”

She stood and with her hand
soiled with blood
she reached out and pinched his cheek
and stretched it to force
a smile on his face. “C’mon, cheer up, **** you!
We still have a life ahead of us. Let’s
******’ live it.”

“Yeah… let’s.”

a songless bird

that would be the nicest
name she’d been
called

the others,
far more common,
being
that little *****
your ******* kid
the little rat
useless ******* that came outta you
and others

She liked the term
songless bird
It was a title worthy of her in
all the good and the
bad ways

The songless bird stands
locked in her room
and knocks and waves in
the window
for she has no voice to sing

She gives silent cries to the
neighbors and
the passersby when the noises
from the other side of
her door
get too violent

or when it smells
of smoke

Which happens
every now
and then

she kept saying how much she
hated her tattoos

and kept showing them
to us

"Got 'em when I was young and
dumb and now I
jus' wanna rip my skin off."

She pulled her skirt up
to show one on her inner thigh. "Ugh, look at
this one. It's supposed to
be a bottle of Jack but looks
like a wrinkly **** that's about to
get in. ****, and this one… This one
looks more like a **** than
an eye, really." She kept pulling her
skirt up farther and farther
until it became very
clear that she
had no underwear

"You wanna touch it? she'd ask
from time to time

It was funny cuz she was in her late
twenties and we
were kids. I was twelve if I remember right

She probably got a kick
out of making young boys *****

It validated her
and we had not a **** thing to object

Good times

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

there have been
too many fights lately

she was a
musician
and she put it as,
“Darling, we need to change
the tune.”

He was a
writer
and he shot her

and then himself

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

She pushed gently against me
and fell on the
bed
Stretched a leg towards me
began unbuttoning at her
jeans

I helped her take them
off
Not too gentle, not too rough

Grinning, she turned around
in bed and said, “I just
remembered, you never told me
what your muse looks like.”

“Huh?”

“And please don’t tell me
it looks like me. We both know
that’s ******* sweet talk poets use
to get girls. Don’t
lie to me, boy. What does your
muse look like? You
can tell me.”

I reached for her foot
moved it out of the way
not too gently, not too rough
Reached for the *******

She pushed my hand away
not too gently, not too rough
“Tell me. Is it, by any chance, a little
girl locked inside a basement like
it was for my ex-boyfriend? Do you
whip her when she’s naughty
and doesn’t give you inspiration? Do
you deny her food and the
bathroom?”

“What?”

“Tell me, poet! Do you? Do you
lie on your back when you *******
and imagine the muse
squat above your face
and shower you with her ****
as blessing?”

I took a step back. “What?”

“Oh ****,” she said. “Just tell
me already what your muse
looks like and how d’you get
intimate with her. Tell me!”

“I, I don’t know. I don’t work
like that.”

She stopped touching herself
Watched me expecting
to add more

I gave a shrug.

Honestly, the last time I thought of
a muse it was
some broke, homeless young guy,
scrawny as a putrid
plank and roaming the streets

He had nothing in this
world
but hunger
A hunger that possessed him
and made him write like a madman

That guy was my muse

But I figured
she wouldn’t care to hear about that

Anyway, we didn’t go out for long
after that evening

She said we’re not compatible
because I’m too vanilla

It’s been a rough rainy season
and rain always
put father in
the drinking mood

He drank more in this
rainy season than
ever before in his life

Mother’s missing teeth
and broken shoulder
were proof of that

Surprisingly
the old story about falling
down the stairs held up
with the doctors

Well, just like he messed
his wife up
the rainy season messed up
the roof of the house

He downed what was left of a bottle
of ***** and got the
ladder and a few tools
and went out

His son held the ladder for him

He always cursed
plenty when he worked on
something. He was cursing his
wife as he hammered at the
roof and said something
about his son not
being his

and the second best thing
about his fall
was that the son didn’t even have
to shake the ladder, as planned

Father just fell on his own
thanks to the ***** he
drank before climbing up there

The first best thing about
father’s fall was
that he landed on some
screwdriver in his pocket
and got stabbed in the kidney

The pain must’ve been
something to follow him
all the way to the afterlife
as he bled to death
and cried silently

The kid watched him,
watched his watering eyes,
and kicked dust in his face
and went back inside the house

They waited until it was too
late and then
called the emergency number

He was a boxer

Picked up the craft at six
and never put it
down

Unfortunately though
being a good boxer doesn’t
earn you a good job
in today’s society. Best he
could do was bouncer
at a local bar
His IQ wasn’t much help either

He beat up quite a number of
troublemakers
and earned a reputation

became a local celebrity

The women desired him
and got him
and life was good until the one
invincible opponent stepped
into the ring

Well, there are many invincible
opponents in a man’s life
but his was prostate cancer

All the women who wanted to
take pictures with him
and have his autograph on their
chests and wanted to take
him home meant nothing now

One of them was a rich
older lady who
gifted him a car after he served
her a few times in the bedroom

He used it to
drive at full speed into
a pole

And as it happens after someone
dies, the people had only
good words to say
about him

They thought he didn’t leave
much behind
but one of the girls he’d been
with knew better

She rubbed her swollen
belly as she
thought of him. It’ll be fine
as long as her husband wouldn’t
suspect anything

She parked in his driveway
and got out of the car
and went to the door
and knocked

A woman opened up
“Oh, hi. You must be my
husband’s date.”

“Um… what?”

“Oh, it’s okay. We’re in a very
open marriage, really.
It’s fine. Come in.”

She tried to remember
a time when she felt more
embarrassed and out
of place. Failed. Gave up.
Came in.

The woman closed the door
behind her
Locked it
Took out the gun
Fired

It was worth it

The husband was dead in the
bathtub. Shot in the head
And his wife used his phone to
text this other woman
and ask her to come
over

The wife got a very, very light
sentence
and no one disagreed with
her actions

She was the hero all local housewives
wanted to be like,
an inspiration, a celebrity,
someone they looked up to

the *** was good
She loved to swallow. Even
from the ******. Had
a real fetish with it

They passed out eventually
in each other’s
arms
and somewhere towards
the morning he
woke up with a blade in the
gut

It twisted hard

He gasped for air
and watched her eyes, demanding
an explanation

Her response was a shrug. “Just
wanted to see what it
feels like. I think I
love it.”

He didn’t survive
and she faced no real consequences

The world is full of fetishists

some girls like to
swallow *** and carve their
partners up for fun

and some men
like to hook up with
psych ward patients

There never was a time in history
when madness was not
romanticized
and idolized
and alluring as sin

well, she was cute in
the pictures
and in person
but she kinda broke the
spell when
she sat down at the table
and opened her
mouth

She just had to follow
every **** sentence
with a
cringe-worthy “meow” or “nya”
and she would
even rub her hand against
her face cat-like

“What’s up with that ****?” he
would’ve liked
to ask, but
kept to himself and stayed
a gentleman all throughout
the date

She only spoke about
animated shows
she watched and conventions she’d
participate to, always dressed
as some fantasy character

She showed him some
pictures on her phone and he
decided to make this
first date
the last
but then she said,
“Also, when I get ****** I
make those sounds, hehe.”

“What?” he said. “What sounds?”

“Oh, you know what I’m
talking about.” And then she proceeded
to reproduce the sounds
Right there
in the ******* restaurant

Sounded like some child getting
beat up real good
and repeatedly stabbed all over and
in tremendous pain

The other customers and
the staff
looked over and he could see
hands reaching for
phones, ready to record the
****

Well, to their credit, it
was some **** worth
recording
You don’t see and hear that
every day

Anyways, at the end of
the day he decided that it
just wasn’t the worst date
he’d been on

nor the worst ***
he had

Anything was better than
that time he
got stabbed by a
self-diagnosed ****** girl

he would start whistling
Very random
and very loud

even at night in bed

and stopping him was
very much a
gamble

The caterpillar-like
stitches on
his wife’s arm were a testimony
to that

He’s never been the same
since his head injury
Poor fellow just had the terrible,
terrible luck to
walk underneath an overpass while
some teenagers were throwing
big rocks for fun

Now he kept calling the emergency
number and crying that
his wife had
gone missing when she’d be just
in the other room or at work

The neighbors filed
noise complaints
because of
his nightly whistling
and apparently he no longer knew
how to use the
toilet paper. He always smelled
and it was worse when
he climbed in bed
besides his wife

It was hell
and hell broke people
and tonight again he started whistling
and woke her up
and as a response
she started whistling as well

They whistled together
in the dark
under the covers
and held hands and smiled
after so long

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

He just wasn’t a bright kid,
mother told the
doctors

“Got his finger stuck in
the bottle
and he panicked and smashed
the bottle against his head.”

Right

Well, it was true that
there were no
other toys for him
around the house. There were
only empty wine
bottles

ever since
daddy left

so the assignment was to write about
what the perfect
vacation would look like

and he wrote about
running away from home and
stealing a car
and running people over

robbing a gas station
assaulting and beating
a lady in the restrooms

shooting the cops
smashing their heads in

and at the end driving the car
into a wall and
dying with a shitload of money
and a lady’s head in
the trunk

“Your kid seems very…
troubled,” said the
teacher

“Oh my God!” said the mother. “No,
it’s his father…”

“Hm? His father treats him…
inappropriately you mean?”

“Well, you see… no actually.
His father doesn’t spend
much time with him. He is
a writer…”

“Oh. I see.”

she ran to the desk
opened the drawer
shuffled around
got the scotch tape
and a ******

Ran towards him and
fell to her knees

She hurried to put
the ****** on,
laughing like a child
knowingly doing something
bad, yet exciting

Then she wrapped the whole thing
in scotch tape
giving it plenty of
sharp ridges and pointy
spots

When it was done she spat on
it a few times
and gave it a few
licks

It was the best way to get
****** while
dealing with a yeast infection

The scratching sensation
on the inside
is simply divine, she
said

he was a doctor

*******, they were looking at
a doctor
He came into the casino in a suit,
the same suit every day and night
dark gray
shiny with grease around the
elbows and lower back
smelly
patched up in places

he kinda forgot what it was like to be
sober

and lately he kinda forgot what
it was like to win at the slot machines

he forgot how to perform surgery
how to diagnose a patient

forgot what the company of a woman felt like

forgot what love was

he was a machine that consumed cheap
but strong alcohol
Rubbing alcohol filtered through bread
That stuff was 70% alcohol
his liver knew it

"Ah, pleaseeee, for the love of God, don't
make me work with this
stuff again," he would scream while
playing at the slot machine

and the bouncer would walk up to him
and say, "Hey, hey, doc. Everything all right, man?"

"Oh, sorry. That was my liver shouting
through my mouth. He's a *****."

They say companies that deliver food
get very suspicious when their
regular customers,
the people who order every day,
stop ordering all of a sudden
They even check on them

Well, we don't deliver food
but we got really concerned when
our favorite doctor stopped
showing up
all of a sudden

Maybe our managers would've checked
up on him but
there was no phone to call
and no door to knock on

Still, one of our boys went to the nearby
park and asked the homeless men around
for our favorite doctor
and the man handed him a
newspaper

****,
it wasn't even on the front page
there was some political **** on the
front page
Nobody gave a **** about that article

The real thing was a few pages
after, not even colored
HOMELESS MAN DIES AFTER TRYING TO
PERFORM SURGERY ON HIMSELF
IN PUBLIC RESTROOM

That was a doctor with guts
Guts pouring out of him
straight into the sink
and another cluster found in the toilet

We framed the article and pasted
it on a board in the back room
of the casino

our very own patron saint

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?

silence
Silence is the most important thing
It's what renders headphones
and earbuds
and headsets one of the
greatest
inventions of the modern world

The ability to enjoy entertainment
without disturbing those
around you

Silence

It's important to know this about it
cuz unfortunately some of
the lessons
about the importance
of silence
are taught by the most
extreme teachers

Myself and a friend of mine had been
taught the lesson by such a teacher

We were twelve and thirteen
and he got a new gaming console for
his birthday and we spoke with another
friend to lend us a cool game,
some shooter

I stayed over the night
and we started playing
and the TV was quite loud
The game was fun
We were loud
and there were bangs and explosions
and guns firing and screams and flashes

and suddenly
the door of the bathroom bangs
open with a kick and my friend's
grandfather storms into the room
with froth about his bleached lips and
he grabs my friend's arm and
pins him to the ground and holds him there
as he looks around the room with crazed eyes,
more scared than both my friend and I

I think what's worse
is that the old man was previously
on the toilet
using it
and he got up without wiping
or washing his hands
and came into our room like that

My friend's father came when he heard
the commotion and
dragged the old man away
and left us mute
and shaken

we didn't say a word until he
came back a few seconds later
and lectured us about PTSD

but I guess the real moral of the
story is that silence is important
and headphones are really one of
humanity's greatest inventions

the stress was messing with
her periods
so she got even more
stressed as a result

Oh, and that guy she met
through the dating app, he considered
himself catfished. Why?
She looked like
in the
pictures. No difference.

More stress...

It all started with the premature
death of her
mother
And then there was
the messy divorce and all that
But she didn't wanna think
about it

There was only one way to cope
with the stress

She sat on the couch
and turned the TV on
and got the
nail clippers out of her makeup kit
and used
them to chip pieces of skin
off her knuckles
and then chew them like sunflower seeds

it worked wonders
as a stress relief technique

The skin of her
hands looked very much like
Swiss cheese but
the dents were rimmed with redness

She watched her hands
as she chewed on the pieces of skin
and then it hit her
"Oh God! I'm such
a *******. I forgot to take off my
wedding ring.
No wonder the guy considered
himself catfished. He
saw my hands and
thought I was some unhappy
wife looking for hookups. Oh dear..."

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

same thing
After a painful breakup
she would
have her sister over
for some ******* drinking
and nasty chatting

Usually
there would be a little over
ten shots of tequila
with salt and no lemon
that brought along their favorite
story

"When I told you to
lie down on the carpet," her sister
said, "and I brought the
dog over you and ******
him off in
your hair."

"Crazy *****."

"No, it was funny! It was funnier when
dad saw you with
that **** stuck in your hair and
your collar and he
beat up our babysitter's boyfriend who
visited that day. Hahahahaha!"

"Poor ******..."

"Yeah. Him dying in the
hospital put daddy
behind bars, you know?"

"I know."

"And then it was all heaven for us."

"It was?"

"Duh. We were free to
go out with guys then. Mom didn't mind. She
had her own."

"Yeah, I guess
life was
pretty nice to us..."

He kept coming back
That was his only skill

Respect is not something you can possibly
be born with. The children of
kings and lords
should know this
but most don't

Though this kid who kept coming back
he was no one's son
A vagabond
His body bony in all places
no meat
under the skin

A skin that had all the colors
from pale to yellow to blue to
crimson to pitch black
*****
scarred
sore
and something that looked
like bone peeking out of tissue

He got beat up every time he came to the
fighting pit behind the tavern

Never won a fight against
those well-fed, bulky sons of farmers
and blacksmiths and butchers
with puffy arms and wide napes

They fought mostly for respect
and the money was a side prize
But the bony boy
came only for the money
and he never got any
But he never begged in the marketplace either

The bony boy had
a pride about him
a pride that never left until the day
he could no longer stand in the fighting pit
after that fatal blow
It wasn't even that much of a strong hit
but his neck was so weak
it snapped

And they gathered in a circle
around him
mute
and stared

stared until their backs felt brushed,
shoved to the side by a pair of
hands weaker even than the bony boy's
Softer

"That's his little sister,"
someone said as they all moved
aside and let her reach the
bony boy,
crying

"So it's her that he fought for
all this time."

"Yes."

"And he kept coming back
every time."

"Yes."

"Insane."

"Wah, respect for the little guy."

"You know what, boys,
I think we should do it.
Give the little girl the prize money."

"Yeah."

"Though this ain't no fantasy land
and no poem.
So, no poem, no poetic justice.
We'll give the girl the prize money alright,
but she'll have to earn it.
Hopefully doing a better job than
her brother."

"Yeah, girl, just like your brother,
come back every time you need money.
Unlike him
you'll get it.
You really will."

"Right, now off with those
rags and let your fight begin.
I'll go first."

he was a very old dog and
he left hairs everywhere he sat
yet despite all that
she let him sleep in the bed besides her

Only because her family
said it was wrong

By definition
everything those people called wrong
was right and vice versa

So the old dog slept with her

The old dog was all she
had left

The old dog was the only one who
stood by her side
that time she overdosed on sleeping pills

The old dog was the only one
who didn't agree with mother when
she said, "Oh joy, another suicide attempt.
I wish she'd succeed at
something for once in life but…
well, no such luck, I guess."

The old dog had died
four days ago
but she still kept him in bed
besides her

they were having another one
of those heated
arguments on the porch
when the kid ventured
into the
street and got run over by a car

He didn’t survive

And there was no
getting out from under this guilt

“He tried to run away from
our screams.”

“Yes. He did.”

“And we can only…go after
him now.”

“Yes. We’re going after him.”

She circled her arms around
his neck and pulled him
in for a kiss
while holding the revolver
against his nape, thumbs on the trigger

It was the sweetest kiss
of their entire
marriage

The bang ended the problems
for both of them

She walked on tiptoes around the
house and
bounced a few times and
spun like a ballerina
and sang, "Today I don't wanna diiIiIIie."

It was rare for her
but he sure
was glad to see it. Glad and now
a bit anxious
not to do something that would
disrupt her
happiness. It could be anything really

She grabbed a towel and wrapped
it around his neck
to bring his body closer to hers
and said, "Let's open a wine
bottle and make love."

He smiled and nodded
and instinctively brought a hand to
his head to feel the
scab from the last opened bottle of
wine

it's a bit cold
I'm sitting by the margin of the river
Fishing
A bit upset
There were too many fish who escaped
my nets

I sigh
throw 'em again

wait

I catch one
pull it out and stomp on its golden head
rip it apart from the body
and drink its blood

...

Yeah, *******
I'm sitting in the office

night shift

supervising casinos through
CCTV cameras

it's 05:53
and I'm ignoring work to write poems
like this one

and something always comes up
and makes me forget my ideas
The phone rings
Some customer causes trouble in some casino
Some other customer is suspected of cheating
A bouncer falls asleep on his
chair due to lack of activity
The game attendant flirts with a customer
There's a bill fallen on the floor and I've to
determine its owner
A bunch of idiots are being too loud
Some other idiot keeps demanding alcohol
but his bets ain't worth ****
and so on
and on
and on

And the goldfish escape through my fingers
and the eyes of my nets are too wide
and that just *****, man
It really does

But I pick myself up
and tell myself what I always tell myself

A writer writes
A writer writes
A writer writes

Just like a fisherman fishes

And you don't stop because the catch
is rickety

You continue because of it

there was
simply
no other way

some things just have
to be done
else you risk dying
from the urge alone

Urge can ****

and his urge was
like the need
to inhale after exhaling
deeply

Unstoppable

There was no reason tied
to it other than
the desire to see what
happens, how
it'll turn out

so he did it

that's why they don't see
him around
anymore

He is now the stuff
of legends

He'll forever be the silent kid
who brought a knife
to the playground
because he wanted
desperately to stab it
through the underside of
the plastic slide
while someone came down towards it

it didn't matter who

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

the phone rang at 03:08

unknown number

Well, the bleeding wound
on his forehead prevented him
from sleeping anyway

He picked up
"Yeah?"

"Hey," a girl's voice said. "Are
you the guy who
has a thing for crazy girls fresh out
of the psych ward?"

"What?"

"Am I speaking to the guy who's
very much into dating
**** girls with mental issues that
other guys refer to as red flags?"

"Who is this?" he asked

"Oh no, this is not
about me. I just wanted to
introduce you to my sister. I think she
fits the bill quite perfectly
with you. What do you say?"

He sighed. "Tell her I'll call back
once my current girlfriend
breaks up with me. I hope she's patient. It'll
take a good couple of hours. Bye."

He hung up