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

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

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

“What?” he said

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

He blinked. “How... would that help?”

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

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

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

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

The village looked
nothing like
when he was a kid

Or did it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

But he doesn't
know how
it works anymore

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

in high school
he repeatedly told her
that he was saving
himself for marriage

and eventually
she left him alone
but after graduation
she approached him
yet again

and this time he told her
that he was focusing on
his career as a writer

they both had their dreams
and they kept dreaming and
fighting to accomplish them,
insisting and getting up
from every defeat

failing forward
as some would say

It took decades but
eventually both of their
dreams came true

they were married
and he still hadn’t struck a deal
with any publisher but
made a relatively okay
income self-publishing

he wrote for a very narrow niche
very ****** ****** fiction
and his lovely wife helped him
with inspiration and research

“C’mon,” he urged her,
“moan a bit harder,
cry some too.”

she did as she was told
as he went around her
with the camera

it was hard work but
at least the German Shepard
******* her from behind
had fun

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

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

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

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

high school dropout

out of a job

out of options

soon to be out of the
rented studio
apartment

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

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

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

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

the old boy
wakes up three hours ahead of
the world that lives in concrete buildings
and one hour ahead of the
competition
and emerges from his damp tent

looks around the park
looks at the sky

Overcast

He stretches a bit and scratches his
head
and walks over to the fountain
and has a drink

collects some mint leaves
chews on them
spits
and rinses his mouth

The work clothes are already on him
Boots
two pairs of socks
cotton and wool
faded jeans
a shirt
a sweater
and coat over them
mittens
and a cap that covers his ears as well

It's now time to set about
collecting tin cans around the neighborhood
to make just enough for
a meal and a half
and maybe a few cigarettes sold
individually

It's been
enough years for all this to become
routine
When you don't know of any better you
don't expect any better

And now he only did this to have just enough
energy and life force to
visit the public library and
read heart warming poems

To work at the peak
of the desert heat

The adults told him he’d need
an injection for that
and the man dressed in white
grabbed his arm and lifted it
and stung him with the needle in the shoulder
and injected the serum

It took away all doubt
from his mind
and all weariness from his heart
and limbs

He was ready

“Good boy,” the adults said
and patted him on the back

They gave him an assault riffle,
one he’d held and used
before for practice,
and sent him out of camp
and towards the enemy soldiers

It’ll be fine

there was a dead body in the room

Had to be

Else where did the smell
come from?

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

A smell of death

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Get melancholic
get poetic
have a drink
have another

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

They're all haters

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

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

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

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

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

like a baby left for
hours
and hours in a hot car
he
woke up
with a sweaty forehead
and a buzz
in his temples

no room to stretch

he got out
of the
car

in his underwear

shook his legs
and hands
rubbed the pain away from
his knees
and back of the neck

There was a bottle of water
he got from
the park fountain
among the litter in the back seat

he opened it

hot

took a sip and swirled it
around his mouth
spat
took another sip
swirled
spat

that’s for dental hygiene

He put on pants and a shirt
locked the car
and walked 50 paces
to the nearest public restroom
where he removed his shirt and
washed his hairy armpits

He studied the violet circles under
his eyes in the mirror
checked his teeth
his tongue
felt for wax in his ears

put on a professional smile

went to the public
library
and the desk by the window was free
His smile grew brighter
as he sat down
and opened the notebook

Chapter 86 would
be next in the manuscript

He looked out the
window
This writer life was precisely as
romantic as he thought it’ll be

no more
no less

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

He woke up
Sand all about him and wood above

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

Now he had her by
his side

She was still sleeping
in her rugged sleeping bag

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

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

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

He liked to believe he
adapted

Too many didn’t

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

In fact
life was actually better now
in some aspects

For one
he had a cute companion by his side

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

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

“Do I smell?” she asked

“What?”

“I said, do I smell?”

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

“You sure?”

“More than sure.”

“Good. Then hold me.”

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

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

“Wow,” he said. “What a silly dream.”

“It felt so real.”

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

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

“Well… I’m not your husband.”

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

“Don’t talk like that,” he said

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

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

By the time she died
her belly
was quite swollen

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

she 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

she never finished college
but she was a pill expert
and took pride in it

"Here, this one'll make you rock
against your will. You'd need some."

"Not me," I said

"You afraid?"

"Yes."

"Hahahahaaa, afraid o' some pills, boy?
D' you know what being afraid of
this stuff's called around here?"

"I don't know what's called around here
I'll call it wisdom where I'm at. No
pills for me, thanks."

"Wow, you're such a *****, ain't ya?
Oh, well that's too bad, I guess.
Would've been fun to rock the bed tonight
but I ain't lookin' for no *****. I wanna give that."

She gave it to one of my friends along with
some sketchy looking pills
and from that night on they were a couple
of some sorts for a little over a month

And when she took the right pills
she talked in the wrong ways
In her sleep
to the walls
to her cat
to her left foot, but whispering
so the right won't hear

And when she was on pills she would have
her new boyfriend hold her phone
and not allow her to answer if her dad called
Her dad didn't call too often but
somehow managed to call when she was on pills
He just wanted to check how college's going
not knowing she'd quit
or was expelled
months ago

"Ah, my daddy would so **** me
if he found out. Like, yeah, he'd **** me as ****!
But that's all right. I'm all right.
I know this dude who prints 'em, makes 'em
look like the real thing.
Just give 'im the ID an' cash
and you're good. I'll be good."

Well, I don't know
I guess wisdom comes in many, many forms
that friend of mine she hooked up
with considered it wise to
one day just tell her father the truth

The phone rang for the fourth time
and she was lying in bed
naked with froth about her lips
and eyes staring up into her skull
probably looking for salvation or something
He answered and introduced himself to her father
and told him everything,
even switched to video call to show the man his daughter
He thought he'd save her life this way

Sacrifice the relationship to save your partner's life
I guess that's wise

She went into rehab, I heard
and, what do you know, a few years later
she's married and pregnant
I wonder how wise her husband is...

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

“You made me take drugs,” she reproached
him

But he didn’t hear her
over the pain in his lower belly

“You made me take drugs,” she repeated.

“Huh?”

“And for this I’ve decided to
replace you. With someone better, someone who
would never make me do something
I don’t feel right with.”

He shook his head and noticed
that he was in the kitchen
tied to a chair
And there was a horrible pain in his lower belly
and his chest and
most of his body
and he felt like vomiting

His woman was at the gas stove
pouring oil over a frying sausage
in a pan

The dog was at her feet
salivating

“This is what you get,” she said, “for making
me do drugs, darling.”

“What?” He was still with a foot
in the world of painful dreams
but he watched her take
the sausage from the pan and toss it
to the dog

The dog grabbed it before
it could land on the floor and began to chew

She pointed at the dog. “He. He’s gonna
take your place now. He’ll never
make me do drugs.”

“What?” he said. Still not understanding
what was going on.
He looked down and saw the blood
and the tissue dangling from
his crotch.

Then he screamed
And the dog barked

The building had 60 stories
and he was 60 years old
Still cleaning it from bottom to top
for the past 35 years

one thing remained unchanged
as time passed

the coldness

Every surface he’d ever touch would
be as cold as the glass
of a window in the winter

And the people who
worked in the building were
pale and cold as vampires

He forgot how it was to be saluted
or how it was to salute
and get a reply

No one talked to the janitor
No one knew his name

No one cared

There were no souls in this isolated
monolith
that stood in the center
overlooking other monoliths

Hell is cold
and monotonous
and plays constant factory noises
or keyboard noises
and exudes smoke

Even the plants were made of
plastic and their flowers
and leaves had to be sprayed with alcohol
and wiped with a rag

Real plants wouldn’t
accept such treatment

They would punish you with their death
and that should be enough

But not for those pale vampires

The only thing alive
was him, the janitor
who imagined jazz music playing in
his mind as he scrubbed the tiles

and one mushroom that grew behind one of the
toilets in the women’s bathroom from
a used pad

He left it there for days
It was his little secret, his little friend
in this world of soulless beings

It was life sprouting against
impossible odds

Life in hell

It was something to look up to
every day

Something to kneel before and say
hello to and sing jazz to
and even pat gently with the finger

He promised himself that the day that
mushroom died
he would retire

So far it was still alive
Still sprouting spores that he
inhaled
and tasted with his tongue after
rubbing it gently with his finger

Living beings
stick together
regardless of species

Just like the dead do

you can only see through the keyhole
but you’re never meant to
go through the door

She wrote the words
on a napkin
as she watched
from her lone table
the couple holding hands
and kissing
a few tables away

Then she turned the napkin
on the other side
and wrote

Maybe I should just stop searching
and start writing poetry

followed by
a smiley face
that she copied with her own

There was indeed silence now

Oh, and it's been but days
since the screams
cracked the windows
and the thrown bottles stripped
the walls of their paint
and the curses made the
gods cringe and cover their ears

The house of madness
no longer lived up to its name

For she was finally gone
and he was left
with the echoes

"C'mon, dare me to down it!" were
her words as she opened
the last bottle

And his were, "*****, you're mad!"

"Dare me, *******! Dare me
to down this here bottle. You
don't think I can, do you? Ah, you
slime-gutted piece of
****."

"I'm telling you to knock
it the **** out already! I'll bury
yer ******' eyes in, see if
I won't."

But she was already
pouring down her throat. She
had this talent that
allowed her to drink without
swallowing. Pouring
down her throat was like pouring
down the sink. No choking

And then she'd hurl
the empty bottle with terrible aim
and break it against the
walls, planting shards all over the carpet

and then
finally
she'd be waiting in the
bedroom

But not today

Today she was no more
and all that was left of her were
the echoes of curses

The neighborhood was
probably celebrating

And her man
stood by the broken window,
a bottle of her favorite *****
in one hand
and a fistful of painkillers in
the other

She no longer awaited him
in the bedroom
but underground
and he could already hear her
greeting words as he washed the
painkillers down with the *****

"Took you long enough, *******.
Now where's my *******
drink?"

They had the poor girl lie
on the cold tile floor
and then they all ****** on her
and you could hear them tell her to open her
mouth wide and stick her tongue
out
It was one of the
poorest videos on the site
but the women watching it
recognized the girl
She went
to the same high school as them
back in the day

So
****** **** is what she turned to

Not exceptionally unusual, but
one of the kids
running in the park before them was her child
Just eight or nine

"You know," said one of them. "Like it or not
it's just a matter
of time until our sons catch wind of
this and then..."

"Oh my..."

"Goodness!"

"The sins of the parents are visited upon
the children. It's not fair. Imagine
the life her poor kid's gonna
have."

"Yeah, our own kids might
very well be the bullies, we'll never know. Like I said,
it's a matter of time..."

"Well, goodness, what can we do
about it?"

"Flag the video?"

"You know it won't work..."

"Oh, I got an idea. What if... you know, what if
we all uploaded **** vids of us. Um, not
necessarily as ****** as this one
but just pornographic enough. The boys
won't be able
to gang up and bully one if all their mothers
did it... Right? C'mon, let's do it
for that poor kid. Think about his future..."

The other mothers
looked at her

and they kept looking

mute

until one of them pulled out her
smartphone

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

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

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

R.I.P
old man.

Maybe not your wife but
your daughter sure will miss you

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

I give her a small lighter

and she tells me to go
**** myself

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

"I quit," she says.

"Really? What was it this time?"

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

"I work on holidays," I say

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

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

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

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

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

father punched him lightly in
the shoulder
and said, "Hey, keep that chin up, buddy.
Just know that a time
will come when life'll smile at us."

Sure, he'd been saying that
since forever. That was the earliest
and most common memory of him

Grinning from ear to ear
and saying that a day will come when life'll
smile upon them

But until that day
they'll have to sit in the town square
and play their cheap instruments
for passersby to drop money in their box

Keep that chin up…

Oh, father. You can't play the
violin holding your chin up
And life won't smile if you keep playing
it sad songs

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

A true gambler

he lived only to gamble

Never missed a chance to declare it

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

He was all
smiles

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

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

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

"What you doin' with those?"
he asked

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

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.”

what would be the reason
to have an open casket funeral?

Why should the living
see the dead?

He addressed the questions to no one
in particular
but his dead wife answered from the
picture on the wall
"Don't you wanna see me, darling?"

"Not like that, I don't," he said. "That's
why I have your portrait. So I don't
have to look at your
dead body in the casket. But your
mom wouldn't understand..."

"Darling, I think you're the one
who doesn't
understand. And I think it's
time we talk about your therapist."

"What about my therapist?"

"You tell me. You tell me why did she have
to tell you that she's single now
and looking to settle. I thought she
was supposed to
help you cope with the premature death
of your wife, not tell you her
problems."

"Dear, please..."

"And one more thing. I don't like
the medicine she
prescribed you. Have you even read the
label? That ****'s dangerous, you
know?"

He stormed out of
the room and
went straight to the morgue
and told the morticians to seal his
dead wife's lips with glue or
something

They looked at him like he
was crazy

"What is it?" he asked

"Well, sir, to glue the dead's lips
for the open casket ceremony is
just... standard procedure. Else the mouth
opens and it's not a pretty sight. Did
you work with the dead or something?"

He thought a bit
"Yeah," he said. "Something. Something
like that."

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

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

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

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

The glass walls of the cabin fog up

He smiles

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

it'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

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.”

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 law forbids him
to walk the streets with the
label of that bottle exposed
but he does anyway

and there's no one to care
enough to report him

he's just another drunkard
getting his fix

also homeless
he wears baggy jeans with lots of
unruly strings around the hems
and the belt
a few holes at the knees
a hole in the shirt
dirt, sweat, something that looks
like blood splotches, something
that's probably just mustard

just another drunkard getting
his fix

but they don't know him for an artist

in the breast pocket of his shirt he holds
two long yellow pencils
and he uses them to make music
for the crows in the park and for the pigeons,
though the pigeons are less impressed by his
performance

he empties the bottle and finds a park
bench and pulls out the long yellow
pencils and starts
drumming into the wood
of the back rest
and the crows gather round to listen
and sometimes the dogs join as well
and sometimes the snails after the rain
but never the people

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

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

"I'm not married," I said.

Apparently it was the
wrong thing
to say.

She left.

and I
returned
to my
desk

and wrote
something
that was
not a love
poem.

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

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

on the toilet tank

in the garage

in the shed behind the house

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

He had enough of it

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

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

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

He smoked a pack and a half a day

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

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

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

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

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

but it was too late now

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

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

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

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

Finally.
“I love you too, dad.”

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

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

so it's true
there is a world out there
in which the rich are
inferior to the poor

and there's a woman, more
beautiful than any, desired,
waited upon, a woman to
die for, a woman who only
comes to the dead and sometimes
to the poor and the miserable
and rarely, almost never to the rich,
to the well-being, to those with
full bellies and pockets and
no worry of the morrow

strange tastes she has

above all
she loves madness
the mad never have to search for
her. It is her who hunts them
and unless they grow sober
and sane she never leaves

she goes by many names
and no name at all
and a name this second and
another the next
But names don't matter
she only cares about making love
and you'd better not wash yourself
before getting in bed with her,
don't chase the stingy smell
of hot spirits from your breath
don't clean your teeth or the
***** stains from your shirt
or the sweat
If your stomach keeps turning
around empty, void and
if your guts could make a little
music while you're at it, it's
even better. She loves this type of music
And if you still wanna take a step further
have your body covered in wounds
and rashes and some broken
bones where possible, a swollen
eye, a bent nose, a chewed off ear,
enough scars, missing teeth, and
oh, boy, she's yours

"Name me, lover boy!"

I call her simply The Muse

What about you?

four jobs in two months

and it wasn't even his
fault. He just
left because they didn't pay him

"Nobody works for
free," he said as he closed the
fridge, the
last can of beer in his hand,
not too cold

"Hey, leave some for me," his
girlfriend said

He threw himself on the couch,
careful to avoid
the spot where
springs poked their rusty
silver heads out

He opened the beer. "I keep
tellin' you I should
just open
my own business."

"Um-hm."

"No really, you know what this
town has in abundance?" He
took a sip

"Poverty?" she said, already stretching
her hand for the can

He handed her the can. "Yeah, poverty.
And poverty means homeless men.
Men nobody gives a **** about. Hell,
everyone wants them to
vanish. I was thinking,
maybe I can cash in on that. I could hunt
them down at night and
use their meat in a fast-food restaurant. It can
pass as pork. Everything passes in
this town.
What do you think?"

She took another sip. Handed
the can back to him. "Yeah. I know
where you can
begin, by the way. Tonight I'll show
you the alley my dad
and uncle sleep in."

He raised the can. "Cheers."

There was a knock in the door
at about six AM

He wouldn't have opened if
he didn't check
through the peephole. It was
his aunt. Why would
she visit at a time
like this?

When he opened the door
she slapped him
across the face. "You *******
monster! You had the money, you
*******! You had the money all along!
You could pay for your mother's operation
and you didn't. You watched
her die in horrible
pains! How can you live with yourself?"

Ah yes, he knew what she
was talking about. But there
was no point explaining. He
closed the door in her face

went back to bed

"Who was it?" his girlfriend asked. "Another
one of your crazy exes?"

"No. It was my aunt who doesn't
have what I call internet education."

"What?"

"Internet education, dear. Rule number
one: not everything you see
on social media is true. Just because
I pose at the wheel of a brand new
Lamborghini doesn't mean I own
the **** car and am therefore
rich as ****, you know?"

"What kind of idiot would think that?"

"Oh, you'd be surprised..."

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

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

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

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

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

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

She hesitated

her back to the world
she stands outside into the
cold
and the snow
made her a white helmet
and shoulder guards
and is now knitting a cape

the deer don't dare come
near her and the
boars too
stay away
and the men agree

this woman's a warrior

better not bother her

there's a blade stuck in
her heart
and you better not reach
to pluck it out if you're
not the one who put it
there

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..."

Somehow it's always the
people that
are most alone who
know the most about
people

here's one undeniable fact:
all of them, everybody, everyone
loves and seeks constantly
to get high

the loners
will drink and pretend
to meditate and
the social ones
will party and **** and the dull minded
will explain how smart they are
and the truly intelligent will turn
sadistic
and the ugly ones will be
more outgoing and the pretty ones will
get knocked up more

the rich will buy the children of the
poor as *** slaves and the
poor will fill plastic bags
and balloons with feces and would
leave them in the sun and will inhale
the vapors
The middle class will seek more
friends, acquaintances, relationships,
dealers, promotions, real estate,
festivals, explosions. They will always
love explosions of any kind, the bigger and
louder the better

and the young boys will think
of old girls and bully other
young boys to assert dominance and
both those things will get them hard
and high on hormones

politicians will aim to imitate the rich
and poets will aim to imitate the poor

rich singers will sing of how
poor they are
and poor singers will sing of how
they came from rags to riches
and those with a small ***** will buy a huge car
and short people will be more aggressive
and the losers will shout "It's not
a contest, you guys..."
and the women of high pride will
adopt one more cat. Forty-two should
be enough, right?
The most outrageous ideologists will
buy megaphones, collect them

weak men will brag about owning
weapons and the right
to use them

the youth will talk to each other
before seeing each other
and the girls will want to know
how tall the boy is and the boy will ask
how much the girl weights and then
he'll be hated so much, so passionately
And the smart girls will use dating
to get free drinks and meals
And the people who play games will
turn to suicide when the artists who
design characters won't do
something exclusively for them, "I want
this character to act like she loves me back!"

the women who love to travel will be
accused of loving to travel because
they secretly wish they got *****

the most valuable of people will become
those who get famous precisely
for having no talent
and everyone will want to
invest in them
so the masses will see them
and feel a bit better about
themselves
No one wants to support the
superior but all laugh
when the inferior acts royal

and "how do you *******?"
the journalists will ask the
interviewed hermit

Why are there no hermit women?
Are there no women hermits?

Look, those big companies are
fighting over the right to lie to the
population

fake
fake
Fake

Knowledge is not power anymore
The ability to escape the loop is
and they who are not even caught
in the loop in the first place are
gods

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