He jumped off the building and
the metallic wings carried
him high
towards the clouds
where others like him swam in absolute
bliss

but then something
hit his head
and
he woke up

turned around in bed
and realized there
was blood trickling from
his eyebrow

The girl besides him was
holding a
stapler in her hands
and her eyes were watching
him with hate

"What the ****!?" he shouted

"Keep it down," she said. "Ah, you've
got some nerve to
play victim here, boy."

"What?"

"Oh, I tell you what. I was talking to
you and for a reply
you turned your back
to me and closed your eyes and
fell asleep. Like, what the ****? So
I figured if you
can't keep your eyelids away
from your eyes I'll give
you a hand. Ah, sometimes I think I'm just
too good for you, boy."

He put his head on
the pillow and breathed heavily
"Yeah," he said. "Me too."

he would start whistling
Very random
and very loud

even at night in bed

and stopping him was
very much a
gamble

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4779 digital pages filled
with ramblings
about feelings

thousands of
grammar and
spelling mistakes

a broken heart
consuming itself

a final ‘goodbye’ that came
out of a lover’s mouth long ago
still echoing in the ears

a stadium-load of cockroaches
and rats partying
in the house

a mailbox chocking
on unpaid bills

her room a mass grave
of empty bottles
snowed with ash

no income

electricity about to
be cut off

and she’s still
writing

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.

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

Here we go
open the beer can
bring it to the lips
have a sip
and...
There it is
that PSA starts running on TV
about a great part of the population
caring for nothing but how to get high
The numbers are alarming
Getting high has become
as much a science as it is an art
and a banal thing
Everyone seeks to escape reality

with desperation

therefore
the strongest drug of all
is suicide

so potent it can get you high
even if you just think about it

I had my share
but managed to change my mind early
I no longer think of suicide
but make others do it
and that still counts as getting high
since they're all characters in my writings

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

She worked as an
elementary school teacher

believed in the
horoscope

and witchcraft

and aliens

and demons

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

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

The last time they visited him
in the hospital,
mother made the big
announcement

She was once more
pregnant

at 44

Hoping for a second son
of course

Because the first son
aged 21
was such a failure, of course

He will never become
anything worthwhile
Not from this hospital bed
with a broken hip
and spine

It wouldn’t have happened
if his dream
wasn’t to make it big
in the gang

But his dream was to
make it big in the
local street gang
Serving the ******* goddess and
hustling his way to the top

Well it was all fine
until that one deal that
went horribly wrong

People die when they stop
dreaming

Now he dreamed to just
die already

Surely his brother will choose
a better dream. He
had to

when I was a kid I'd always ask
myself how would
life be if I were a
telephone pole
or a spirit trapped inside
a telephone pole
sitting there day and night,
winter and summer
and autumn and spring
just sitting
and watching
and perhaps hearing the
conversations of people
over the telephone, because their
words pass through me
and I communicate with the other
telephone poles and have our
network where we share
stuff we hear and see
while remaining totally indifferent
to emergency calls and people's
drama and tragedy and all of life

that's how life would be if
I were a telephone pole
pretty **** nice
with no school or work to do
and no people to deal with

So when I was a kid I wished
I were a telephone pole
but then I remembered...

If I'm a telephone pole I
can't pet dogs anymore

it's not worth it

she doesn’t let me drink
and insists
that I listen to her

insists with
a viciousness

“It’s because you work night shifts,”
she says.

“What’s that got to do with drinking
while I’m free?”

“Alcohol lowers a man’s testosterone level
and increases estrogen. Why
don’t you know that? You
need to take better care of
yourself.”

she made for me a diet with
rice and garlic

calls me while on the night shift
and tells me to go into the bathroom
and jump 100 times
and do stretching exercises,
tells me to drink more water
She even buys me bags of nuts and seeds
and tells me to eat between the meals

“No sugar,” she says. “No, not even in
coffee. Pure black or nothing.”

she even bought me a
hand grip strengthener with adjustable resistance
to use while I’m in the office

she encouraged me to eat
raw eggs but stopped when
I told her that you can get salmonella like that

when I came home from work
one evening at 23:36
I ate my rice with garlic
and she asked if I wanted anything else
and I said “Yeah, a beer.”

“Okay,” she said. Went into the kitchen
came back fifteen minutes later with
a cup of tea and a lemon

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Ginger tea. It’s better with lemon. Should
I squeeze it for you?”

“No thanks, I’ll do it myself.” I cut the
lemon in half and squeezed it into the cup

It was the nectar of gods
and I didn’t
hesitate to tell her
so

“All right then,” she said. “Drink it all, rinse
with water before brushing your teeth
and then come to bed.”

I did all that and went to bed

and she wanted me to sleep
because lack
of sleep is the worst
enemy of a man’s testosterone levels

best part about having no friends
is having no enemies either
best part of having no significant other
is being able to feel whole by yourself
best part of solitude is
solitude
best part of loneliness is...
I wouldn't know that. I never
felt lonely.

He ate flowers.

this mentally challenged boy
from the countryside
I used to watch him
in the fields
when I visited my grandparents
as a kid
He was like an exotic thing
a wild beast chasing
static pray
They had no chance,
the flowers
he would assault them
with a killer's smile, frothing,
and would grab
and tear and rip them from
the stem and
would eat them

Nobody knew why
and the only explanation given
was that he was insane

then the men and women
who saw him would
scream at him
to stop and he would raise
his head and watch them
like a deer surprised by
headlights
Then he would spit the colorful
froth from his big mouth
and would run home
hopping and leaping like a horse
through the tall grass

He was mostly inoffensive,
this flower eating boy
but they all told me to stay away
from him and would
always chase him away when
he got too close

Time passed and I moved to the
city and went to school there
and stopped visiting the
countryside and its wonders
I got busy
and my busy life drove away the
magic and mystery of childhood

The flower eating boy is now but
a memory
neither good
nor bad
just strange, interesting

He doesn't eat flowers anymore
because he doesn't live in the
countryside anymore
No, from what I've heard
he's in some mental facility and it was
his last flowery meal that sent him there

I don't know,
maybe if they hanged signs with
"Don't wear flowers in your hair!"
around the village and the fields
that little girl would've been saved
and the village would still have its
magic beast.

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

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 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."

but that handle was made for his hand
hand - handle
handle - hand

the fingers would close
around it to never let go
It had to have flesh around it
at all times
But the blade...
the blade was still naked. He couldn't let
the blade naked
It wasn't fair

"So that's why you stabbed your
mommy then?" the psychiatrist asked him.

"Yes," he said.

"The knife is more important
to you than mommy?"

"The knife listens. Mommy doesn't."

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 promised himself
as he closed the notebook and
walked up to the bridge

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

I visited my girlfriend in the hospital
after her appendicitis operation.
she looked good
and her smile made me smile

"I made a friend," she told me.

There had been another girl in the room with her
and this girl,
she was in the hospital because she sprayed a whole
can of bug repellent into a cup and drank it

"Why?" I asked.

"Oh, well," said my girlfriend. "You wouldn't understand.
Let's just say she wanted to **** the butterflies
in her stomach."

"Okay."

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

It twisted hard

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

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

He didn’t survive
and she faced no real consequences

The world is full of fetishists

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

and some men
like to hook up with
psych ward patients

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

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.”

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

the last time they
saw him
happy
was when he told them about
that weird dream
he had
in which wine
poured from the tap in
his kitchen

and that
was it

he had nothing else
in life to
be happy about

They didn’t need to
ask his
profession

Somehow they
all knew
he was a
poet

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

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

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

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

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

If this world has something
in abundance that'll be
people who offer solutions to
problems that don't exist

And to offer a solution to
a problem that doesn't exist
means to create the problem
yourself

Thus,
computer viruses are created
by companies that develop
antivirus software
and
diseases are created by doctors
and
crime is created by police
and
ignorance is created by teachers
and
hate is created by spouses
and
famine is created by chefs
and
the milk man creates a lack of
calcium in the bones and dentists
create tooth decay and owners of
beauty parlors give birth to ugly children
and I'm not even gonna talk about 'em
priests, man.

Only the bums and the orphans and
the stray dogs and cats and the
rats in the sewers and the pigeons
that **** on cars and statues
are truly without sin

as long as the world has them
the world is going to be just fine

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

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..."

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

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

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

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

There were times
when I got
home
threw my backpack in the corner
took off my shoes
my jacket
walked into my room
took off my pants, my shirt
put on sweatpants, another shirt
turned on the PC
ate a bag of salty potato chips
drank whatever I could
wasted time

I was happy in those times

Today I write.

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...

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

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

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

It became more and more
obvious
There was a storm inside her

growing ever stronger

and she sought
to terminate it
before it was too late

It's arguably more difficult to
terminate such storms
when you're fifteen
and still living with your parents

so she decided not to
share her struggle
with them
and reached inside her
for the eye of the storm
with a steel wire she'd kept in
a bottle of hand sanitizer for a day
and a night

Yes, the first raindrops painted the
white of the bathtub

they were crimson
and salty

like her tears

there he was
arriving on main street
carrying a backpack
and a suitcase

both stuffed with
papers

“WELCOME TO THE TOWN
OF FORGOTTEN POETS.”
said the shadows that
watched from the
windows
of nearby buildings

He didn’t like the
sound of their
voices

but he sighed
and dragged his
tired feet along

they were almost as
tired as his soul
and just as hurt

He'll have to live on the
streets,
for the town
was overpopulated

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
******."

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.”

Um... it doesn't rhyme,
she said

I looked at her
You kidding?

And then she shook her head
No, look, this poem
really has no rhymes
at all
You sure it's the right file?

Let me see

She handed me her phone
and I looked at the text
on the screen, smirked, turned off
the phone and kissed her

You are truly the cutest, I said.

well
there's plenty of cutesy names to
call one's children
but his was 'unlovable trash'
He remembered it from the time he was in the crib
They held him there
for longer than most parents
held their kids in cribs. Though only dad
called him so
because he constantly claimed he wasn't his

unlovable trash

he had the wrong skin tone
was too pale
with curly orange hair
and freckles

but mom always pretended she didn't
hear
the words
unlovable trash
she would act as if they were never uttered

and growing up
he thought
unlovable trash was a good thing
thought it was how you show love to your loved
ones

"Mom, you’re unlovable trash."

she was so happy to hear it
she burst into tears and went into the
kitchen and uncorked a bottle of wine
and drank it all by herself. What an
unlovable trash she was

Unfortunately
by the time he could pronounce the lovely
words
father was no longer in his life
but father too
was an unlovable trash