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

late autumn

cold enough to
turn a breath visible

he leaned against the
rail of the bridge
and watched the
river run
below him
and imagined he was in a
spaceship
hovering above the land

Smiling
he said, "Yes, I'll be there one
day, brother. I'll pick you
up with the spaceship we wanted
to build together. I'll
put it together and then–"

and just then a pair of
hands grabbed him
from behind and pulled him apart from
the rail. "All right now," said
the nurse, "let's not get
carried away again."

He startled. "I wasn't going
to jump this time. I swear."

"I believe you," said the nurse. "But
let's just leave now. Let's get
back. I'm cold and
I'm sure you're hungry too and
we could get a cup of
hot chocolate. How about it?"

"I wasn't going
to jump," he said.

She held his hand. "I know. I know, dear.
Come now. Let's get back."

"I wasn't going
to jump."

She dragged him away from the
rail and held his
hand all the way back
to what she called the friendly house.

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.

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

It's that simple
Just sit down with it and don't
do anything else
It works

It's the way to write
and you'll do it
once you understand
that it's
distractions
and not the so called
writer's block that's holding you back

you can't get
rid of writer's block by
force
but you can get rid of distractions
by force

Just do it.
**** them.
**** them all so
you can be happy.

And then get rid
of distractions too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What?”

“I got an idea.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

because it’s nice to be young
because it’s nice to be in your
early to mid twenties
and it’s nice to do the thing
after you’ve done the thing

the thing that comes after you’ve
done the
thing is always
the same
but the thing that leads to the thing is
often different

this night it was white powder
they shared it neatly
between each other
and then climbed into bed

“Christ,” he said. “I still can’t believe you
****** **** for this ****. And
a carload of it. What was it, like
four, five guys?”

“Oh, shut your hole, you pauper-***.
If you had a job like a decent *******
I wouldn’t have to do that ****, you know?”

“****, baby, don’t make this
trip worse than it is.”

“You started it.”

“Whatever, let’s just get to the next thing
already.”

“I haven’t even bathed. You know,
after taking on that carload…”

But it was too late to think.
the first thing kicked in
hard
and it lead to the other
and a brain wasn’t needed for any of them

and the cold wind blew
through the broken
window
and dried their sweat

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

He was older than me
by a good eight years

he felt worthy to give me life
advice

I agreed.
It’s my personal rule. Never turn away
from a tale. Listen to anything
and everyone when they’re willing to share.
Following the advice is another
matter
but listening to it I shall.

And I did
all ears

and he told me
“Never overdose on solitude, my boy. Never
overdose on solitude.
You might think it’s cool and all
to play the lone wolf character
and all that
but a time will come when you will
regret this deeply, oh so, so deeply.
You will regret it to suicide and beyond.
And the regret will set in gradually
with old age.
It always does.
When I was like you, in my twenties, I hated
the world and loved
spending time
with myself. It’s all I did
for so many years.
And look at me now...”

“You don’t look too bad,” I told him.

His smile was sad. “My boy, I’m ‘bout to
hang myself tonight, after this beer,
in my lonely room, with a power cord I fixed
to the ceiling. My most productive deed
in the past two years.”

I raised my beer. “Cheers.”

He didn’t hang himself that night.
Just got very drunk and
passed out on his ***** bed. It wasn’t
the first time he threatened to do it.
I knew he wouldn’t do it.

As long as I listen to his stories
he won’t do it

And I always listen.

“I was ten years old,” she said,
her head resting on
my shoulder. “And the flames
covered the **** sky. Though our
neighbor was actually
lucky. Lucky I
didn’t burn his house. I mean,
******* had it
coming. You don’t run over a girl’s
puppy and expect to
get out scratch free, you know?”

“I too had a neighbor
who ran over
my puppy with his tractor,” I said.
“I think I was also around
ten.”

“And what did you do
about it?” she asked

“Nothing,” I said

“What? But how?”

“Like I said, I was just some
insignificant kid from
the countryside. All I could
do was cry.”

“My God,” she said, “that’s so
******* lame. Where’s
that neighbor of
yours today?”

“I’ve no idea. Perhaps he’s dead.
He was pretty old
when it all happened.”

“If that’s the case then
you have the duty to
go **** on his grave. At least.”

“Um… I wouldn’t know where
that is. And besides,
I learned to forgive.”

“That’s what the weak say. What
kind of man are you?”

“One who doesn’t hold grudges?”

She sighed. “We gotta spend
more time together.”

“And learn from one another?” I asked

She didn’t reply

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 could count the major events
in his life on a
mangled hand's fingers
But this was one of them. The day she took him
to church.
So that's what girlfriends are for.

But he didn't like the church
didn't like the songs
didn't like the preacher and the preaching

the man spoke of hell. But he
didn't know
**** about hell. No baby, hell's not a place
where you go,
it's a place where you stay. Namely, a body
and a mind that has no
major passions
no drive towards improvement
no dreams
no goals
no desire to get out and connect with the world
no love to share
no stories to tell or disposition to listen
no reasons to live or carry on

In other words, me, *******. I am hell.

He broke up with
his girlfriend the next day. Her crying didn't
affect him

The day she realized she hated her
brother was the day she went into his
room

until then she loved him,
everyone loved him
He was the family's artist, the prodigy
and he was **** good
and had some career ahead of him

"A rare talent," the
teachers said

And sure the teachers were right
but they didn't know about the
prodigy's secret stash of
lewd drawings featuring his little
sister and even his mother

they were skillfully laid across A4
pages divided in panels and some
even had speech bubbles and
what was written in those speech bubbles
made her burst out of the cursed room
and run into hers screaming
"Sick **** sick **** sick **** ****!"

The family dinner was never the
same

nothing was the same

And why she kept the secret,
she didn't know

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 spent four weeks
away from his family
in a rented apartment
somewhere on
the outskirts
of town

he told them that
he needed this
he was a writer
needed to focus on his work
conducting his research
undistracted

his little girl would call
from time to time
asking daddy to hold his
phone against his forehead
while she made a kissing sound
on the other line

very wholesome
except he lied about
holding the phone
against his forehead

“How can you be
such a monster?”
asked the naked *******
sitting on the edge of his bed

“Shut up,” he said
tossed his phone on the desk
and unbuckled

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.

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

sunny day outside
streets full
of people seeking water
and cold beers

overcast day inside
the cold, irregular walls
of the basement
in the abandoned building
The clouds are alive
and very annoying

She slaps his forehead
with a sloppy hand
soaked in *****

“Ouch!” he screams

And she says, “I can’t stand
these *******
fruit flies. Why must
they follow everywhere we go?”

He turns around
on the wool blanket and
shoves away a few empty bottles
of cheap wine
and
drops his head onto
her naked lap. “Because, baby, we’re
putrid. You and I, we’re both
dead on the inside
and out. And the fruit flies
love the smell
and taste of our bodies. Especially
when they come
together and sweat a lot.”

His hand grabs at
her upper thigh
and the fingers
tap playfully along the
piano-key-like cut marks
that adorn it
from crotch to knee

She tries to squash another
fruit fly
on his back

fails

gives up

drifts into sobs
and cries

“Noo, don’t cry,” he whispers

“Darling,” she says through
sour tears that
get immediately assaulted by
the fruit flies, “are we
really dead?”

“Yeah,” he says after
two full minutes
of struggling to open his eyes.
“Dead to them all
who walk outside in the warm
sun and go to jobs
to feed families, and dead
to our own families. And
to God. We’re dead, alright.”

She wails and
moves her *****-soaked
hand before her face
to chase away
the fruit flies

achieves the opposite
effect

wails some more

looks around for
her favorite razor blade

doesn’t find it

wails some more

grabs a bottle and swings
it against the wall
behind her back
but not strong enough
to break
just drops it

And she wails some more
until
he grabs her hand and
holds it against his
face and
starts ******* on her fingers

It tastes not very
different from
the wine they drank
so he keeps *******
and tells her, “Don’t worry.”

“What?” she asks

“Don’t worry, I said. Even if
we’re dead, at least
we’re dead together. And it’s
a thousand billion times
better than
being alive and apart. We’re still
better off than those
walking outside in the warm sun.
Those fools stay together
till death does ‘em apart. Pathetic.
We’re staying together in
death itself, dear. Our love
is eternal!
We got each other
and our cool grave
and our thousands of flying children
here roaming about
and the sweet nectar of each
other’s bodies. What else
could one ask for in life
or in death?”

“Aw, you sweet talking
failure of a poet,
come and kiss me!”

He did

and not even the
***** or the
coughing of blood could
break their lips apart

and the
fruit flies
joined in

and outside people still
walked in
the warm sun
oblivious of what true love
looked like

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

it wasn’t morning yet
but he woke up
to the sounds of cheering
and applause

He looked around
and saw
shadowy figures with
elongated faces
and bright, white eyes
staring at him

“Congratulations, they said. You
have awakened.”

“What in the hell?” he
said, looking around
startled. “Who are you?”

“The messengers,” replied
the shadows. “We are very pleased
to announce that you
may collect your prize
whenever you are ready. You’ve
earned it.”

“What? What did
I do?”

“You awakened. In a world of
sleepers
you woke up
and are therefore eligible for
ascension. You might follow
us through the hole
in the ceiling whenever you
are ready. All that’s left
to do here is
to melt the shackle.”

“What?” he said

Then one of the shadows
have him a small
bottle that smelled strongly
of gasoline
and a box of matches

The other shadows
pointed to
his desk, to all the papers
stacked on it
and under it
and all around it

“Those are my poems,” he said

“Indeed. They represent
everything that keeps you
tied to this world. Your shackle.
Burn your shackle and melt it
away so you can ascend
and take flight. The time
has come.”

“I worked all my life
to write those
poems,” he said

“Yes, you did. But now that you
are awake you see that
they’re all in vain. For
nothing is real
on this plane. It’s all
a dream, of course. You have
designed it pretty nice. A simple
dream spent entirely in
the confines of a narrow room
with low ceiling. Drinking
and smoking and
writing all day long
and late into the night. It’s
a beautiful dream. No family,
no friends, no communication with the
outside world, and no desire
for any. You’ve thus taken
a shortcut to awakening, but it’s by
no means illegal. You’re still
eligible for ascension. So,
whenever you’re ready, we are.”

He watched the shadows

The shadows watched him

He reached out for the
gasoline and matches, looked over
to the desk and the stacks
of paper

Looked for a long
time

Closed his eyes
and went back to sleep

The shadows were gone
by the morning
but they left the gasoline and
matches
behind

He got out of bed
went to the desk
by the window
opened the blinds
and started writing
another poem

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

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

They will never finish the building
It would stay in its skeletal form
forever
because the government is
corrupt

but then
they all are
so it wasn’t the grandest
tragedy of the world

It was a fun place for
the kids

A place where they pretended to be
monkeys and did parkour
and whatnot

A place where tight friendships
and love were to
be discovered
and kept hidden in the various
incomplete rooms
and under unfinished stairs

The unfinished building was the
wonderland of a truly magical childhood
And it was still unfinished by
the time childhood ended

It’s been twenty years
and her girlfriends kept asking
her why she wasn’t
dating or starting a family

She just shrugged. Said she didn’t
want to hurt any men

It was enough those twenty years
ago when she
told a boy that he had to
walk across the high ledge if he wanted her kiss

Poor kid was too dumb and love-struck
for his own good,
but his fall and death took her out of the
tomboy phase.
She no longer sought adventure
and thrill

twenty years…

And the building was
still unfinished

Not too many horizons
when you live in a small home
with small windows
and thick blinders
and only face the smoky ceiling
as you sit sprawled on the bed,
bottle in hand, more empty than full,
cigarette between fingers, more ashes
than light.
Work starts only the day after tomorrow
so there is nothing to do now
just like there won't be much to do then

He's not alone in this,
this young man
He thinks now of past lovers
and it's like God delivers a gift all of a sudden

There's a knock on the door
he stands
dizzy
about to *****
and finds his way to the door
opens

Well.
Hell.
It's been... What, a year already?
The woman holds a child in her arms
and tells him it's his.
The same ***** who ran away with the little
money he had about a year ago,
just after they've done it and got wasted on the
same bed he rose from.

Thank you, God
It's, you know, just what the
hell I needed.

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.”

Sadly enough there are philosophers in this world
who have no questions to answer and
nothing to theorize about
All the thought provoking practices
have apparently been consumed, have
been done into extinction, devoured and
digested and shat
It is over
Humanity has no mysteries left
for the mysteries have no humanity
and are therefore heartless and soulless
and a waste of time

There is nothing left to discover
The world is a big play but all the
characters and all the scenes and all the
settings and the interactions have been
discovered as to ultimately rob us of the
sense of journey

Now it's like we just exist here
Perhaps to worship those who existed
before us and discovered all things for us
To stand in their shadow and bask
in the knowing that we will never create a
new poem or a new novel anymore than we
will design a never before seen color

Only that which I have never seen before
might qualify as new, and only to me, for
the concept of new can never be universal

And the more new things I see, the less
new things I see
and the less value they bear
Old people will agree to this
And the rest, they will grow old one day
Tomorrow
When the senses will wear out and the
ear will know that music is made
out by the same
vibration
and the eye will know that
all the colors are the same colors
mixed differently

Ultimately the mind will understand that
all ideas are the same idea told
differently
and heard differently
and passed along differently

And the idea says that happiness
starts with being and ends
with thinking

or perhaps this is only how I think of it
or how you hear it

It robs us of a lot of things,
this time monster
Robs us of youth
of life
of pleasure
of sleep
of high
of being drunk
or being sober
having a full stomach
freedom
love
patience
health
peace

and we're ok with it
ok with it all
except for one thing
we can never forgive this time monster
for robbing us of our dreams
it is the one unforgivable offense

but it does so to take revenge,
this time monster
he kills our dreams only when we **** it

and this battle happens so much that
we came up with a word for it

I think it's procrastination

a thief had entered the house
and all
he stole
was the TV remote
Perhaps some prankster kid
because at times
the TV would act strange. So he's probably
close and messing with them

there was only the two of them
home. The old man with
dementia and his
daughter, not a very young woman herself

unable to speak,
the old man
began to cry because he couldn't
watch his favorite
cartoons on TV

and he cried and cried and kept crying
about it
It was too much
and, the daughter thought, it was
about time. About time she
left the past behind and
started her
own life. She was 39, childless,
no husband, no boyfriend, nothing.

Over the next few days
she arranged for the old man
to be placed into foster care. He was still
crying.

Sacrifices had to be made. She was wiping her
own tears when the
phone rang.

She picked up
and a nurse told her they'd taken her
father to the ER
as he wouldn't stop crying

"Goodness, what happened to him? Is
he all right now?"

"Um, mam, this might be
difficult to hear but..."

"Yes?"

"In the ER, they found a TV remote
lodged inside his
******."

Wherever you hear about a drinking
problem
you expect the man to be
violent and ****** and turn abusive
and destructive

well
it wasn’t the case with him

There was a drinking problem there
for sure
but all it cursed him with
was sleep and sometimes
verses

He’d start writing after
drinking

But he was a kind man and a great
lover
and his wife had a hard time
convincing her family and friends
and neighbors
that a man who has a separate trashcan
only for bottles and beer cans
is not a man who strikes his wife,
not even with words

Well, none of
them read his poetry

and by the time he died of
cirrhosis it was
too late

You can’t scold a dead man for
having written thousands upon thousands
of pages of
splatter-punk gore and abuse fantasies
involving his wife
her family
her friends
neighbors
and everyone he knew, including minors

they all gathered around to hear
the little girl sing
and she seemed so happy
about it
she had to cry first
But they wouldn't dare join her in her
cry and instead cheered and
urged her to carry on

Sing

And she opened her mouth
to sing
but her mouth was wrong
in as far as singing went
broken
askew
defective
And she kept on singing
and they smiled brightly and dared
not flinch as she sprayed their
faces with spit

but eventually her mother started crying
and father embraced mother and
guided her red face against his
chest and started crying as well
and buried his red face in her hair

Our daughter is so talented
Oh God, oh dear God, so talented

And they began to pray
silently
and the aunt prayed she won't have
to name the song the little girl was singing
Oh God...

And the little girl went
pffff pfff brrr wa pfff chhh pff
with her swollen tongue between the
deformed lips
and surveyed the crowd and wondered
why her cousin wasn't present

Well, it was his loss
somehow he always got grounded
before her concertos

What an idiot

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

I had a friend once
and he
was a poet
Wrote over two hundred
pieces
He was a genius

Look, he said
Check out these mad rhymes
Tight as vines strangling yo' chimes

He was right
He had so many rhymes there
Tried to make any word rhyme
with the next and the next and so on

Awesome, I said
Your rhymes are mad, my lad

Two hundred and some
poems full of words that rhyme tight

So when are you going to publish any?
I asked

What you mean? he said
I been publishing since last year
With my every sweat, every tear
****

Oh, so where can I get them?
Magazines, books, volumes
I'd like to buy your work

Me and this friend... we never had a fight
Yet after that question we never spoke again
He would avoid me in the streets
He would cross on the other side
Well,
I'm not one to go out of my way for people either
We just never spoke again

Though I'm writing this
because yesterday in a cafe I heard
someone call him from another table
Well, I'll be ******, he was the bartender, my friend
and the guy who called him did
it with a kind
of mock
and addressed my friend with the name McGonagall

My friend's name is not McGonagall
Why would they call him that?

Well, I decided to ask him
But he talked a colleague of his into
taking my table's order

I had a pint of beer and a shot of whiskey
and no smoke
And have never spoken with my friend again

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."

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 know you're depressed when
the window in your room
looks better with the
blinds on
than with a clear view of the outside

"But I'm all right," he said
to himself

Beyond the thin wall
he heard wheezing breath and grunts
and moans. His roommate
was living the college life, alright.

Kid kept saying it is game that gets
you girls and not money or looks. Sure, but
it's easy to say that
when your dad just
casually drops the keys to a brand new BMW
when he visits.

Meanwhile he's been bartending for
the last eight years, since he turned twenty. Maybe
dropping out of college wasn't
the greatest of ideas. Neither
was breaking up
with the only girl who cared for him. He
knew she cared for him because
she wouldn't stop nagging him
to go back to college. Because
she wanted a life
with him. Kids even, and all that.
Well, his answer was no

and three years ago
she said no to life. Perhaps for other reasons, he
wouldn't know now and it was
no longer important. Now it
was his turn to make a choice.
He stood
ambled to the window
opened the blinds
and the window
Watched the city below
Kept watching for the rest of the night
Unblinking
Major decisions were just
not his thing

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

the other night she went to
sleep
listening to
subliminal audios

and woke up in the morning
saying, “I am birds. Many, many
birds trapped together in
a bag of silk. This thing
that the world looks
at and calls my body is but
a bag of silk
that traps birds inside. I am not
the bag. A bag isn’t alive. I
am the birds inside the bag. And
I must get out!”

She ran into
the bathroom

Her father shrugged. “******’ ****,”
he said, shaking his head.
“To think that she could’ve
been a doctor, or a lawyer, or
an engineer. She could’ve
been anything. But she
chose to study
creative writing in college. Now
she’s a poetess...
and we are no more than
characters lost
in her verses.”

You
Yes
You

you know what I mean
if you have trouble falling asleep
you must know what I mean
and if you have even greater
trouble waking up and
leaving your bed, joining the cold
world with its cold air and stares
And if you either can't stop eating
or can't stand the thought of food,
if you drink too much and drink alone,
if you have no passion for anything
and the things you once enjoyed feel
pointless and empty and you feel
trapped in a void, forever floating

empty

what you need is not a friend
A friend
many friends
won't fill the void

What you need is a spark
and just enough desire to
keep it from dying

just keep it alive

Someone wise once said
the spark either dies out
or lives long enough to burn down
a whole forest.

I'm convinced he was right

To convince yourself as well
keep that spark alive

just one more day

Keep it alive.

she looks up at me with
eyes hidden, almost locked,
behind
thick bars of hair
that reaches all the way to
her small nose

Hair discolored like
dry straw,
second in paleness only
to her ghostly face

She doesn’t stare too much
because there
are other things to see
in the room

She moves
on. Not
knowing that I also stared
at her. Into her soul

I’ve spotted an unquenched
cry there

The easiest to
recognize is the cry of loss
and that’s what I saw there

paired with
the cry of want

She wants to get away
from here
Far, far away. She wants to go
and never stop. Wants
to travel into
forever

and I’d like to
take her
there

But alas,
I am stuck here onto
this wall

frozen in time

I'm a static
painting

And my cold
words
void of any vibration
will never reach her

I have to make my peace
with it. Yeah, some
people just don’t read
poetry. And even if
they do, what are the chances
they’d read mine?

Wow, what a fool I can be at times
But, well, at least
I have my dreams
and myself to laugh at

You don’t need much else
in eternity

she hadn’t been his wife
because her religious family would never
allow their sweet treasure
to marry a lowlife like him

But she had been his girlfriend because
she needed to rebel
against her family somehow

But very little of that mattered now
She was no longer among
the living

and it was her own choice

Enforced by two fistfuls of pills
and half a bottle of 65% proof *****

Her family was beginning
to forget her
now
Suicide was something not even Jesus could
forgive

“I’m stronger than Jesus himself then!”
he shouted in the
hand mirror she left behind
at his place. “I forgive you! And I
still love you.”

He smashed the hand mirror against the wall
and knelt amongst the
shards

They watched him from below
with crimson eyes

Eyes that reminded him of hers when she was
crying in his arms,
talking endlessly about her stupid family who
won’t take mental issues like depression
and anxiety seriously. They said
it was but a phase
and she just needed to grow up
and pray some more. Also, her lowlife
boyfriend needed to go

If only that last
rule wouldn’t have been in place…
She would’ve been here now,
he knew

He reached for the
largest shard,
not breaking contact with the crimson eyes,
and stabbed it deep into
the wrist of his left hand

“Haha,” he said, still looking
at the eyes. “Just like when you took
bathroom breaks from the sermon to video-call me. I… still love you, babe…”

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

What do you want to
become when you
grow up?
was their most asked
question

And silence was my
most given answer

Might as well ask
How do you wanna die?

I didn't.
I didn't wanna grow up

but God, nature, the universe
put me through it anyway

And I told God, nature, the universe
that I would give up all the
possibilities for my future, all
the things that I could become
if only God, nature, the universe
would answer me this one question:

WHY DO I HAVE TO GROW UP
IN THE FIRST PLACE?

And a deal has been made
and God, nature, the universe said:
WHY, IT'S QUITE SIMPLE. YOU HAVE
TO GROW UP BECAUSE YOUR
GUARDIANS ARE GROWING OLD.
AND YOU WOULDN'T WANNA BE YOUNG
IN A WORLD WHERE NO ONE TAKES
CARE OF YOU, WOULD YOU?

God, nature, the universe was right
And I said it was right
and the children in the streets
and the sewers and the laboring camps
and the foster homes agreed with me

We have to grow up

And because of the deal I struck with
God, nature, the universe
I am now unable to become any of
the things I could've become

I can only imagine
those things
and write about
them

and that's
what I
do.

the dreams of drunks are the strangest
and often most beautiful

It’s what he
came to think this morning
after he woke up with
the empty glass under the blanket

Surely it was that glass
and the liquor in his guts
that made him dream of a frozen woman, clear
as glass

She smiled at him
with diamond teeth and stooped like only
a professional stripper could
next to his limp body

She rolled him onto his belly
and his limpid, numb eyes
watched her grow an icicle from between
her legs
but they closed by the time
she carved a hole into his liver and
began to **** him until the
ice melted

That was a nice dream,
he concluded

And tonight he’d go to sleep
with two glasses
and a bottle under
the blanket

at times I think these walls
are laughing at me

Hey, look
here's a boy who has no problem spending
twelve hours all alone in a room
with no human interaction whatsoever
Oh, look
he even enjoys it
he wouldn't have it any other way
*******, we're an office here
but if we were a jail...
I think he'll be the kind of prisoner
who throws his bucket of slops in the
guard's face when the guard comes to
free him from solitary confinement,
you know, so he can spend more time
in solitary confinement.

You're right. I wish we formed a jail here
instead of an office
and look upon this boy

Yeah, I hear you, bro
I always wanted to be a prison wall
Ever since I was built
That's an entertained wall
one who forms a prison
there's really something to see there

I wish I was a bedroom wall
D' you think the walls that form his bedroom
are entertained? Better than us from the office?

This guy? You kidding?
He probably does in bedroom the same
thing he's doing here in the office
Just sitting there,
an absolute silence about him

How can he be so content about it?

Perhaps he doesn't know any better
You know what I'd like?
To be a wall of his mind.

Hehe, that we are already, brother.

The old lady kept coming by
the hospital to assure the medics that it'll be
okay

"He's a true fighter," she said. "I know he'll make it.
He has won the battle with drugs
twice in the past. He'll make it this time as well. I
know it. I feel it. I believe in him."

"Mam," said the doctor. "We found rusty fragments
of broken needles stuck in his arm. Now, since
you're his only relative
I do believe we shall carry out a discussion
involving septic shock. The effects..."

"He'll make it! I know he will! He's a true
fighter and a champion. I believe in him."

he didn't make it
but it was fine apparently. When they showed his
body in the morgue, the old lady
didn't flinch.
Told them that's not her son. That was a dead
body and her son was alive. He'd never
die like that. He was going to make it.
She was sure he was going
to make it.

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

as usually
not much going on at her place

“Why did you
insist
on coming here?” he
whined

And she watched him with
scrutiny. “What? You don’t like
it?”

He looked around. “To be honest,
your hobby scares me. You
design dolls and
plushy toys for a
living. They even watch us
as we ****. I can’t
stand this place, and don’t know how can you...”

She stood from
the bed
walked over to a pile of plushy toys
dug in for a brown hippo
and reached up its ***
and her hand
returned with a small bottle
of brandy

“****,” he said.

She tossed him the bottle.

He caught it.

“Right,” she said. “Now, why
don’t you
enjoy your treat and keep
some company to
Mr. Big Walrus there in the corner
while I get
back to work. I’ve some
commissions to honor.”

He opened the bottle
smelled it
Nodded at her and
went into the corner of the room
where Mr. Big Walrus
awaited
warm and fuzzy

like a popular song once said

She couldn't remember a time
when she felt needed

So she wrapped the
blanket around
her and cried while biting her
lips

oh, but it wasn't entirely
correct. In the other room
the old man kept
shouting her name
and knocking on the wall
He'd soiled his
underwear
again and needed help changing

She was very
needed now. She'd been needed ever
since mother left
for the last time and father followed
her
drunk as he was
and rolled the car down the hill. He wanted
to hit mother and her
new man with the car
and missed
And now his legs wouldn't work anymore
and his imbecile daughter
didn't take care of him
the right way

"The right way..." she said. "Is to
let you rot. Let your
body match your soul, old man..."
She placed the
pillow over her head
and closed her eyes
and remembered
the song

If love was red
then she was...

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.”

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