old makeup spilled on my floor
dirty clothes strewn on my floor

You can hardly see the carpet for all the clothes carelessly being trodden on.

Blue holiday lights are strung around the mirror.

I am watching Andy Warhol eating a hamburger
I am watching Andy Warhol eating a hamburger
on a new, thousand dollar laptop, slick-as-a-whistle, paid with a magnetic swipe.

For the past six months,
I have had less than four hundred $
combined in checking and savings,
and that number dwindles by the day.

I have no groceries,
but I've got fistfuls of orange prescription bottles,
and I was handing pills out like treats and candy.

(but they are needed, much and every day)

Where did all these bills come from?
Money is paper, but it means things.
Suddenly, it costs money to breathe.

Eating? Oh pshaw, that costs money, time, and the store's six blocks away.
We can subside on government cheese, beans, and the fiery licks of whiskey.

I pout on my throne of dirty cotton, thinking
"I get what I ask for, when I ask, and it always comes--at a price!" I sigh.

It's always over a hundred dollars more than I could spare
and brings bad luck, moreso than a couple broken mirrors would,
smashed over a the front of your mother's blackest cat.

"Quick! Let's do designer drugs with the paltry change given by our parents, given as allowance!
I wouldn't feel like I wasn't nothing, nothing at all," I say, batting my eyelashes, "Wouldn't they feel proud of our feelings of entitlement to the greater things in life and consciously responsible adult-like decisions?"

I crack open my father's checking account with that swipe of a magnetic strip,
it makes me seem responsible when he sees I just use it for pills and foodstuff.

(I prove I love him, and he loves me in this way)

Now, together, we will buy strawberries with his money, until our lips are pink.
They must be four dollars, at the very least, then we eat like the bourgeoisie (!)

I kiss the cheeks of my reflection in the bathroom
"Como ca va, darling? Comme si comme sa. . ."
I lick my lips, put on red lipstick and then blot,
tousling my hair, tipsy, as I touch up my face by
licking the tips of eyeliner up like a cat's little tail,
the ends of eyes, coated with eyeliner as black as
my tightest velvet pants and dark, dark heart.

We go together. You and me.

Lying on the floor, holding hands, in vinyl bliss
listening to the crooning of sweet Francoise Hardy,
and the addictions of the near-dead soul of Lou Reed

You should move to a big city
and I'll come call, prepaid, with
a voice that is thick and ripped,
from expensive French cigarettes
chattering of sugar-white beaches
as I cross the seas all on a plane,
burning money all along the way
all the while drunk on red wine,
twirling my fingers around, with
bags under eyes, a little anemic

(I think it adds to the glamour)

We will go out to a dimly lit place
We will go out dancing then after

I will put on dab perfume under my ears and on my wrists,
I will wear black tights for pants, but first, do a little cocaine
and you will fasten the clasp on my silver necklace tonight,
while I smoke, before helping me put on my favorite fur

And we will go see Andy, at the factory
I hear he's doing something
with that Basquiat fellow (!)

I will go follow false luxuries, come with me.
I will gamble with you in Monte Carlo or Las Vegas,

just as long as you pay my rent at $695 per month,
and keep pretending,
until I die, or overdose, or something.

Edie strolled into the restaurant, her favorite place
as a child.
The diner was decorated in a 50's theme
and looked like it was a drunken night's
regurgitation of the one in "Pulp Fiction."

She sat down in front of her father,
who had been watching her ever since she pulled up.

"Jesus Christ, Edie. What did those shoes cost you?"

Edie was wearing a pair of pink heels with
Louboutin trademark red soles.

"Enough," Edie spat, with obvious contempt for her father's concern.

The waitress approached,
sat her plump buttocks on the booth
next to Edie's father and took their drink order.
Two coffees, two waters, and an orange juice.

"I want you to meet my new girlfriend, Edie."

"What the fuck do you mean by that?"

"Have dinner with us."

"No, thanks."

Edie's father took a deep sigh.

"I know this is about your mother---"

Edie threw a ten on the table, and
strode quickly to the door.
Elvis, Marilyn, and Frank look-a-likes stared
curiously at her full-figure.

Edie sank into her car with tears rolling
down her cheeks.
She drove to a convenience store and purchased
two bottles- Tylenol and Jack.
She threw a couple swigs of each back and raced
towards the Turner Motel, where her next
client waited eagerly with a sweaty forehead and a
chest panting like a diseased dog.

Edie let it fester.

Edie was caught in the claws of copulation.
She was attractive, with no roots showing
on the top of her scalp.
Great tits, great ass, could hold a conversation.
Everyday, she got into her workhouse of a car,
more home than her dingy apartment, and drove
to her first "appointment."

But on this day, the appointment that loomed ahead of
her had her shower cold and her face white.

She drove past an old movie theatre
and an abstract and title company with
the fanciest sign in town.
It was Edie's favorite.

She glanced out the window.
A regular bastard standing on the sidewalk was chatting
up a woman who looked bored stiff
and there was a young man a few jumps
away who couldn't hold his liquor.

"Pathetic," Edie muttered.

An average run-of-the-mill bar slouched behind
them and there were ridiculous looking people
spilling out the door.
But only those who had survived the night before.

Across the street, a newspaper dispenser erect and chained
to a light pole stood content as its contents spilled from
it's belly like the guts of a dead gazelle.
Like the guts of it's readers.
Like the guts of a building out an open window.

Edie's breasts were sore and hurt after the
manhandling of last night.
They began with a porno that got straight to
the point and then they did too.
He had advertised himself as "sweety but meaty"
and Edie discovered later
that his genitals were uncircumsized and below average.

Oh well.
Submission.

She had a headache in the morning and no aspirin.
Her decision was to stop later and get some.
But before then, she had something to take care of.
Something big that needed to be handled.
Something she hoped would be brief.

"Something," she thought, "that's for damn sure."

She pulled into a front spot in her black '98 BMW,
fixed her make-up, then her hair.
Edie closed her eyes, took in a rather large
amount of oxygen,
exhaled and stepped out of the car.
She had a hankering for eggs after all.