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Cyril Blythe Aug 2012
I assured myself again that I was completely alone. Gingerly, I sat on the corner of her popcorn-and-perfume-scented bed and allow my tingling fingers to reach out and open that sacred journal again to page one. I never really understood it but maybe if I read it one more time. “Things I Wish I Never Knew:

1. People are selfish almost always.

2. Shaking hands does matter. ******.

3. Wine hangovers are miserable.

4. Puppies **** behind things ‘cause they feel guilty; you wont find it until it smells.

5. Friends really do come and go.

6. Neti Pots absolutely **** and bring you nosebleeds NOT relief.

7. Attraction and love are different. REMEMBER THIS ABOVE ALL.

8. Joy is clicking add to dictionary in Microsoft word.

9. If you can make it through Taco Bell kisses, morning breath will be a breeze.

10. Be jovial, it’s a choice and a side effect of living in daily adventure.

11. Make sure that your family knows…” I pause because I think I hear footsteps padding up the fourteen red-carpeted steps to her bedroom. I know I can’t move, the old wood floor in this crumbling house will definitely creak and give me away, so I just sit on the edge of the bed at full attention.

        “…No, ma’am, everything’s basically back to normal again, we’re getting the locks changed on Saturday. I’ll tell her you send your love.” The footsteps and voice were at the top of the stairs and I saw a shadow fall across the dusty floor in front of the white wooden door. I know it’s my neighbor Annie because she lives here. We grew up together. “Yes, ma’am, I love you too. I’ll try to make her call you soon. Bye.” Her phone beeped to signal the end of the conversation followed by a loud sigh. I peered from the bed into the hall and saw her sitting on the floor. Annie is a pretty girl. All the girls who live here are. We used to go to school together until my grades got too bad and I started my special school. We used to play in her front yard with her sister, Kelly. One time I kissed Kelly, but we were only seven. She is my only kiss. They both leave for most of the year now to go to college but come home for Christmas break. I will never go to college, but that’s ok.

        I felt my pants vibrating and the theme song to the TV show Who Wants to be a Millionaire was somehow blaring from somewhere around my crotch. Before I could silence it, the shadow at the door became a tangible whirlwind of brown hair, sharp screams, and clawing grabbing fingers as she tried to wrench the ratty Moleskin journal from my fingers.

        “******, Cyril, I thought I heard someone in here. You give it back and get out of this house. You can’t, like, break into other people houses like this. This is just not what normal people do. Can’t your father control you?” At this point we’re both standing in the middle of the bedroom. I’m confused so I just dangle the journal in the air above her grasp. “It’s not yours and you know that. I know you at least understand that, right? Right, Cyril? What the hell would you do if Kelly had been showering or changing. Oh my god, ew, do NOT answer that.”

        “Ow,” I yelp as she scratches at my forearm to retrieve the precious journal. “Your claws are sharp, Annie, I have more scratches from you than I do Jimmy-cat and Jimmy-cat is mean, mean but fluffy… and he purrs but you don’t purr. Is that because you don’t like me?” I lower my arm and Annie snatches the Moleskine out of my fumbling fingers, avoiding eye contact at all costs. I hate it when people do that. I notice it, but they don’t think I do.

            “Cyril, get out.” Her right hand is now securely around the Moleskine and the other is shaking, pointed towards the doorway. “Now.”

            This is always the worst part. I walk out of Kelly’s forbidden bedroom: head hung as I creak down the fourteen red, carpeted stairs and make my way to the front door. It’s always quiet and I don’t like the quiet so whenever it’s quiet I count. I am good at counting. …Twelve, thirteen, fourteen…silence.

        I turn to her, “Annie, I’m sorry…”

            “Out.” She opens the front door and points me to my apartment, directly across the street. Its autumn now and the leaves and cold rustle down the street and I crouch deeper into my black coat as I step outside.

            “So maybe I’ll come over tomorrow?” I turn as I start down the steps, hopeful to have conjured up a smile from Annie, but all I see is the flash of brunette hair disappearing behind another thick, white wooden door.

            “Get off our property before I call the cops, you creep!”

            That’s what I’ve always been to these pretty girls: a creep. I don’t really understand what the word means, but I’m pretty sure from the way they say it that it’s not nice. Pops always tells me that I’m different because it’s better to be different. I don’t understand why Annie and Kelly don’t think it’s better that I’m different too.

            I decide to walk to Captain D’s and tell Earl hi because it’s Friday and that’s what I do on Fridays. Earl owns Captain D’s and has forever. Earl is my friend. Earl and Jimmy-cat at Captain D’s that I feed my left over fish are my friends. At least I think they are. I named the cat Jimmy-cat because Pops says mom used to listen to a man named Jimmy Buffett before she left us. I don’t remember those days.

            I turn the corner knowing Captain D’s is just 560 steps ahead and that to get back home I go 910 steps back and I’ll be at my front door. Counting is one thing I am good at; even the tests they used to make me take at the doctor’s office said so. I am good at numbers. Seven is my favorite number.

            I walk into Captain D’s and, like normal, its just Earl inside. He makes me two Fish-Filet sandwiches and we go stand outside. We usually don’t talk much, but I like that . I sit on the crunchy curb, put on my hood because the wind and leaves have made my ears sting. I unwrap the greasy paper on my first sandwich and Earl pulls out his red Marbolo’s and sits beside me lighting up his first cigarette.

            “Why do you smoke, Earl?” I ask him every Friday and he always responds the same way.

            “Eh. Why do the fish swim Cyril? Why do the Eagles and Crows fly? You know we don’t know why Women like shoes so much.”

I never really understand what he means but it makes me giggle and before we know it we’re both laughing. I’m pretty sure this is what friendship is. I lick the wrapper to get all the tarter sauce off and start on my second sandwich. Earl starts his second cigarette.

            “Where’s that alley cat you got trained up, boy? Go get ‘em and I’ll cook him his own fish patty.”

            He means Jimmy-cat. I wipe my fingers on my jeans, tear off a piece of the damp fish from my sandwich, and walk towards white picket fence that Earl built around the dumpster where Jimmy-cat lives. Jimmy-cat has a good life; he can eat anything in the green dumpster he wants and he is safe behind the big white fence. I don’t like the smell but maybe cats like eating and smelling the furry tarter sauce that clings on the sides of the dumpster. As I pull the lever to open Jimmy Cat’s home, I think it smells even worse than normal. After jiggling the latch a while, it clicks, and I swing the door open to Jimmy-cat’s house. It definitely smells worse. I step up one step and crunch on leaves and squish cold fries as I circle the dumpster. “Jimmy-Jimmy-Jimmy-cat, where-oh-where-oh-where ya at?” I stop as I enter the back right corner, I see Jimmy-cat but I don’t understand what is happening. I don’t understand what is wrong. He is covered in ketchup, maybe? But if that’s true what are the little white thingssss crawling around his stomach and why are they covered in ketchup and mayonnaise too? He is mewling and I’m scared. I smell fish. Fish and furry tarter sauce, one, two, three, four, my feet are crunching on the cold fries and leaves again, I know I’m at the door without even turning around.

            “Boy, what you doin’ in there?”

            “Earl?” …One…two… “Earl, can you help me? Earl, I, I don’t understand. I don’t like it.” …Three…four…five… “Jimmy-cat needs a bath, Earl, and something is eating his stomach.” …Six…seven…silence. Earl’s hand fells like a dead fish on my shoulder as he walks me back up to Jimmy-cats home.

            “Stay here, Cyril. Just gimme’a sec to see what’s happening.” Earl disappears into the leaves and fries and fur.

            eight…nine…ten

eleven…twelve…

            thi­rteen…

fourteen…

            silence.





            “Boy? Come back here now. C’mon.” Earl’s voice echoed around the green corners and I followed. One…two…three…four…five…six…seven I stand above Earl and I know the ketchup and mayonnaise and Jimmy-cat eating monsters are just on the other side of his crouched over body.

            “Well don’t be shy, come look.” Earl stands and I see his work apron covered in the ketchup and mayonnaise but beyond that in a bed of Fish-filet wrappers is Jimmy-cat and all the stomach eating monsters mewling at his stomach, as I get close I think they look kinda like little Jimmy-cats. I push my hood off my head as I lean over closer and that’s when it hit me, “Kittens! Jimmy-cat had kittens, Earl!”

            “I think Jimmy-cat may be more of a Jasmine-cat or Jennifer-cat.”

            I laid down the piece of fish I brought and Jimmy-Cat looks up into my eyes and I swear he was happy to see me.  I looked up at Earl and he was happy to see me too. I sat down in the mess of wrappers and fries and mold and laughed and laughed and laughed.
A PLAY


BY



ALEXANDER   K   OPICHO









THE CASTE
1. Chenje – Old man, father of Namugugu
2. Namugugu – Son of Chenje
3. Nanyuli – daughter of Lusaaka
4. Lusaaka – Old man, father of Nanyuli
5. Kulecho – wife of Lusaaka
6. Kuloba – wife of Chenje
7. Paulina – Old woman, neighbour to Chenje.
8. Child I, II and III – Nanyuli’s children
9. Policeman I, II and III
10. Mourners
11. Wangwe – a widowed village pastor

















ACTING HISTORY
This play was acted two times, on 25th and 26th December 2004 at Bokoli Roman Catholic Church, in Bokoli sub- location of Bungoma County in the western province of Kenya. The persons who acted and their respective roles are as below;

Wenani Kilong –stage director
Alexander k Opicho – Namugugu
Judith Sipapali Mutivoko- Nanyuli
Saul Sampaza Mazika Khayongo- Wangwe
Paul Lenin Maondo- Lusaaka
Peter Wajilontelela-  Chenje
Agnes Injila -  Kulecho
Beverline Kilobi- Paulina
Milka Molola Kitayi- Kuloba
Then mourners, children and police men changed roles often. This play was successfully stage performed and stunned the community audience to the helm.













PLOT
Language use in this play is not based on Standard English grammar, but is flexed to mirror social behaviour and actual life as well as assumptions of the people of Bokoli village in Bungoma district now Bungoma County in Western province of Kenya.

























ACT ONE
Scene One

This scene is set in Bokoli village of Western Kenya. In Chenje’s peasant hut, the mood is sombre. Chenje is busy thrashing lice from his old long trouser Kuloba, sitting on a short stool looking on.

Chenje: (thrashing a louse) these things are stubborn! The lice. You **** all of them today, and then tomorrow they are all-over. I hate them.
Kuloba: (sending out a cloud of smoke through her tobacco laden pipe). Nowadays I am tired. I have left them to do to me whatever they want (coughs) I killed them they were all over in my skirt.
Chenje: (looking straight at Kuloba) Do you know that they are significant?
Kuloba: What do they signify?
Chenje: Death
Kuloba: Now, who will die in this home? I have only one son. Let them stop their menace.
Chenje: I remember in 1968, two months that preceded my father’s death, they were all over. The lice were in every of my piece of clothes. Even the hat, handkerchief. I tell you what not!
Kuloba: (nodding), Yaa! I remember it very well my mzee, I had been married for about two years by then.
Chenje: Was it two years?
Kuloba: (assuringly) yes, (spots a cockroach on the floor goes at it and crushes it with her finger, then coughs with heavy sound) we had stayed together in a marriage for two years. That was when people had began back-biting me that I was barren. We did not have a child. We even also had the jiggers. I can still remember.
Chenje: Exactly (crashes a louse with his finger) we also had jiggers on our feet.
Kuloba: The jiggers are very troublesome. Even more than the lice and weevils.  
Chenje: But, the lice and jiggers, whenever they infest one’s home, they usually signify impending death of a family member.
Kuloba: Let them fail in Christ’s name. Because no one is ripe for death in this home. I have lost my five children. I only have one child. My son Namugugu – death let it fail. My son has to grow and have a family also like children of other people in this village. Let whoever that is practicing evil machinations against my family, my only child fail.
Chenje: (putting on the long-trouser from which he had been crushing lice) let others remain; I will **** them another time.
Kuloba: You will never finish them (giggles)
Chenje: You have reminded me, where is Namugugu today? I have not seen him.
Kuloba: He was here some while ago.
Chenje: (spitting out through an open window) He has become of an age. He is supposed to get married so that he can bear grand children for me. Had I the grand children they could even assist me to **** lice from my clothes. (Enters Namugugu) Come in boy, I want to talk to you.
Kuloba: (jokingly) you better give someone food, or anything to fill the stomach before you engages him in a talk.
Namugugu: (looks, at both Chenje and Kuloba, searchingly then goes for a chair next to him)
Mama! I am very hungry if you talk of feeding me, I really get thrilled (sits at a fold-chair, it breaks sending him down in a sprawl).
Kuloba: (exclaims) wooo! Sorry my son. This chair wants to **** (helps him up)
Namugugu: (waving his bleeding hand as he gets up) it has injured my hand. Too bad!
Chenje: (looking on) Sorry! Dress your finger with a piece of old clothes, to stop that blood oozing out.
Namugugu: (writhing in pain) No it was not a deep cut. It will soon stop bleeding even without a piece of rag.
Kuloba: (to Namugugu) let it be so. (Stands) let me go to my sweet potato field. There are some vivies, I have not harvested, I can get there some roots for our lunch (exits)
Chenje: (to Namugugu) my son even if you have injured your finger, but that will not prevent me from telling you what I am supposed to.
Namugugu: (with attention) yes.
Chenje: (pointing) sit to this other chair, it is safer than that one of yours.
Namugugu: (changing the chair) Thank you.
Chenje: You are now a big person. You are no longer an infant. I want you to come up with your own home. Look for a girl to marry. Don’t wait to grow more than here. The two years you have been in Nairobi, were really wasted. You could have been married, may you would now be having my two grand sons as per today.
Namugugu: Father I don’t refuse. But how can I marry and start up a family in a situation of extreme poverty? Do you want me to start a family with even nothing to eat?
Chenje: My son, you will be safer when you are a married beggar than a wife- less rich-man. No one is more exposed as a man without a wife.
Namugugu: (looking down) father it is true but not realistic.
Chenje: How?
Namugugu: All women tend to flock after a rich man.
Chenje: (laughs) my son, may be you don’t know. Let me tell you. One time you will remember, maybe I will be already dead by then. Look here, all riches flock after married men, all powers of darkness flock after married men and even all poverty flock after married. So, it is just a matter of living your life.
(Curtains)
SCENE TWO

Around Chenje’s hut, Kuloba and Namugugu are inside the hut; Chenje is out under the eaves. He is dropping at them.
Namugugu: Mama! Papa wants to drive wind of sadness permanently into my sail of life. He is always pressurizing me to get married at such a time when I totally have nothing. No food, no house no everything. Mama let me actually ask you; is it possible to get married in such a situation?
Kuloba: (Looking out if there is any one, but did not spot the eaves-dropping Chenje).
Forget. Marriage is not a Whiff of aroma. My son, try marriage in poverty and you will see.
Namugugu: (Emotionally) Now, if Papa knows that I will not have a happy married life, in such a situation, where I don’t have anything to support myself; then why is he singing for my marriage?
Kuloba: (gesticulating) He wants to mess you up the way he messed me up. He married me into his poverty. I have wasted away a whole of my life in his poverty. I regret. You! (Pointing) my son, never make a mistake of neither repeating nor replicating poverty of this home into your future through blind marriage.
Namugugu: (Approvingly) yes Mama, I get you.

Kuloba: (Assertively) moreover, you are the only offspring of my womb             (touching her stomach) I have never eaten anything from you. You have never bought me anything even a headscarf alone. Now, if you start with a wife will I ever benefit anything from you?
Namugugu: (looking agog) indeed Mama.
Kuloba: (commandingly) don’t marry! Women are very many. You can marry at any age, any time or even any place. But it is very good to remember child-price paid by your mother in bringing you up. As a man my son, you have to put it before all other things in your life.
Namugugu: (in an affirmative feat) yes Mama.
Kuloba: It is not easy to bring up a child up to an age when in poverty. As a mother you really suffer. I’ve suffered indeed to bring you up. Your father has never been able to put food on the table. It has been my burden through out. So my son, pleased before you go for women remember that!
Namugugu: Yes Mama, I will.
(Enters Chenje)
Chenje: (to Kuloba) you old wizard headed woman! Why do you want to put    my home to a full stop?
Kuloba: (shy) why? You mean you were not away? (Goes out behaving shyly)

Chenje: (in anger to Namugugu) you must become a man! Why do you give your ears to such toxic conversations? Your mother is wrong. Whatever she has told you today is pure lies. It is her laziness that made her poor. She is very wrong to festoon me in any blame…. I want you to think excellently as a man now. Avoid her tricky influence and get married. I have told you finally and I will never repeat telling you again.

Namugugu: (in a feat of shyness) But Papa, you are just exploding for no good reason, Mama has told me nothing bad……………………
Chenje: (Awfully) shut up! You old ox. Remove your ears from poisonous mouths of old women!
(Enters Nanyuli with an old green paper bag in her hand. Its contents were bulging).
Nanyuli: (knocking) Hodii! Hodii!
Chenje: (calmly) come in my daughter! Come in.
Nanyuli: (entering) thank you.
Chenje: (to Namugugu) give the chair to our visitor.
Namugugu: (shyly, paving Nanyuli to sit) Karibu, have a sit please.
Nanyuli: (swinging girlishly) I will not sit me I am in a hurry.
Chenje: (to Nanyuli) just sit for a little moment my daughter. Kindly sit.
Nanyuli: (sitting, putting a paper-bag on her laps) where is the grandmother who is usually in this house?
Chenje: Who?
Nanyuli: Kuloba, the old grandmother.
Namugugu: She has just briefly gone out.
Chenje: (to Nanyuli) she has gone to the potato field and Cassava field to look for some roots for our lunch.
Nanyuli: Hmm. She will get.
Chenje: Yes, it is also our prayer. Because we’re very hungry.
Nanyuli: I am sure she will get.
Chenje: (to Nanyuli) excuse me my daughter; tell me who your father is?
Nanyuli: (shyly) you mean you don’t know me? And me I know you.
Chenje: Yes I don’t know you. Also my eyes have grown old, unless you remind
me, I may not easily know you.
Nanyuli: I am Lusaaka’s daughter
Chenje: Eh! Which Lusaka? The one with a brown wife? I don’t know… her name is Kulecho?
Nanyuli: Yes
Chenje: That brown old-mother is your mother?
Nanyuli: Yes, she is my mother. I am her first – born.
Chenje: Ooh! This is good (goes forward to greet her) shake my fore-limb my
daughter.

Nanyuli: (shaking Chenje’s hand) Thank you.
Chenje: I don’t know if your father has ever told you. I was circumcised the same year with your grand-gather. In fact we were cut by the same knife. I mean we shared the same circumciser.
Nanyuli: No, he has not yet. You know he is always at school. He never stays at home.
Chenje: That is true. I know him, he teaches at our mission primary school at Bokoli market.
Nanyuli: Yes.
Chenje: What is your name my daughter?
Nanyuli: My name is Loisy Nanyuli Lusaaka.
Chenje: Very good. They are pretty names. Loisy is a Catholic baptismal name, Nanyuli is our Bukusu tribal name meaning wife of an iron-smith and Lusaaka is your father’s name.
Nanyuli: (laughs) But I am not a Catholic. We used to go to Catholic Church upto last year December. But we are now born again, saved children of God. Fellowshipping with the Church of Holy Mountain of Jesus christ. It is at Bokoli market.
Chenje: Good, my daughter, in fact when I will happen to meet with your father, or even your mother the brown lady, I will comment them for having brought you up under the arm of God.
Nanyuli: Thank you; or even you can as well come to our home one day.
Chenje: (laughs) actually, I will come.
Nanyuli: Now, I want to go
Chenje: But you have not stayed for long. Let us talk a little more my daughter.
Nanyuli: No, I will not. I had just brought some tea leaves for Kuloba the old grandmother.
Chenje: Ooh! Who gave you the tea leaves?
Nanyuli: I do hawk tea leaves door to door. I met her last time and she requested me to bring her some. So I want to give them to you (pointing at Namugugu) so that you can give them to her when she comes.
Namugugu: No problem. I will.
Nanyuli: (takes out a tumbler from the paper bag, fills the tumbler twice, pours the tea leaves  into an old piece of  newspaper, folds and gives  it to Namugugu) you will give them to grandmother, Kuloba.
Namugugu: (taking) thank you.
Chenje: My daughter, how much is a tumbler full of tea leaves, I mean when it is full?
Nanyuli: Ten shillings of Kenya
Chenje: My daughter, your price is good. Not like others.
Nanyuli: Thank you.
Namugugu: (To Nanyuli) What about money, she gave you already?
Nanyuli: No, but tell her that any day I may come for it.
Namugugu: Ok, I will not forget to tell her
Nanyuli: I am thankful. Let me go, we shall meet another day.
Chenje: Yes my daughter, pass my regards to your father.
Nanyuli: Yes I will (goes out)
Chenje: (Biting his finger) I wish I was a boy. Such a good woman would never slip through my fingers.
Chenje: But father she is already a tea leaves vendor!
(CURTAINS)


SCENE THREE
Nanyuli and Kulecho in a common room Nanyuli and Kulecho are standing at the table, Nanyuli is often suspecting a blow from Kulecho, counting coins from sale of tea leaves; Lusaaka is sited at couch taking a coffee from a ceramic red kettle.


Kulecho: (to Nanyuli) these monies are not balancing with your stock. It is like you have sold more tea leaves but you have less money. This is only seventy five shillings. When it is supposed to be one hundred and fifty. Because you sold fifteen tumblers you are only left with five tumblers.
Nanyuli: (Fidgeting) this is the whole money I have, everything I collected from sales is here.
Kulecho: (heatedly) be serious, you stupid woman! How can you sell everything and am not seeing any money?
Nanyuli: Mama, this is the whole money I have, I have not taken your money anywhere.
Kulecho: You have not taken the money anywhere! Then where is it? Do you know that I am going to slap you!
Nanyuli: (shaking) forgive me Mama
Kulecho: Then speak the truth before you are forgiven. Where is the money you collected from tea leaves sales?
Nanyuli: (in a feat of shyness) some I bought a short trouser for my child.
Kulecho: (very violent) after whose permission? You old cow, after whose permission (slaps Nanyuli with her whole mighty) Talk out!
Nanyuli: (Sobbingly) forgive me mother, I thought you would understand. That is why I bought a trouser for my son with your money!
Lusaaka: (shouting a cup of coffee in his hand, standing charged) teach her a lesson, slap her again!
Kulecho (slaps, Nanyuli continuously, some times ******* her cheeks, as Nanyuli wails) Give me my money! Give me my money! Give me my money! Give me my money! You lousy, irresponsible Con-woman (clicks)
Lusaaka: Are you tired, kick the *** out of that woman (inveighs a slap towards Nanyuli) I can slap you!
Nanyuli: (kneeling, bowedly, carrying up her hands) forgive me father, I will never repeat that mistake again (sobs)
Lusaaka: An in-corrigible, ****!
Kulecho: (to Nanyuli) You! Useless heap of human flesh. I very much regret to have sired a sell-out of your type. It is very painful for you to be a first offspring of my womb.
I curse my womb because of you. You have ever betrayed me. I took you to school you were never thankful, instead you became pregnant. You were fertilized in the bush by peasant boys.
You have given birth to three childlings, from three different fathers! You do it in my home. What a shame! Your father is a teacher, how have you made him a laughing stock among his colleagues, teachers? I have become sympathetic to you by putting you into business. I have given you tea leaves to sell. A very noble occupation for a wretch like you. You only go out sell tea leaves and put the money in your wolfish stomach. Nanyuli! Why do you always act like this?
Nanyuli: (sobbing) Forgive me mother. Some tea leaves I sold on credit. I will come with the money today?
Kulecho: You sold on credit?
Nanyuli: Yes
Kul
this is a manuscript of a play, please guys help me get any publisher who can do publishing of this play
i  will appreciate. thanks
I don't know why it makes me sick to my stomach everytime I look at you. You're beautiful and cunning and interesting and I hate you because you're so different than me and yet I'm fascinated by everything you can be that I can't, and I'm in awe of everything you can do that I can't. God you have so much talent.

Yet everytime I look at you I get sick to my stomach. You're perfect because you know that you aren't. And you're so wrong sometimes, but I can't even know this because I hardly know you and just writing about you and ranting about you makes me feel so weird because you would feel so weird if you knew that I was writing about you and ranting about you. This must mean I care about you, but I don't know why. I care so much about someone I've never even met.

Everytime I look at you I get sick to my stomach. I guess this means we should meet. "Hi, I'm Peyton." Oh, wait. You don't know this is about you or who I am for that matter.

So I guess all I can do is keep getting sick to my stomach everytime I look at you. And all I can do is be jealous of you for some reason that I still can't figure out, because there's no way that I'd ever want to be you. You're so ******* fascinating. I wish you knew how fascinated I am by you. Wait, no I don't. If you knew then you would know that I know who you are and that I'm writing and ranting about you and I would get embarrassed about how creepy I am.

So I'll just keep looking at you and getting sick to my stomach, because no matter how hard I try not to, I still can see you everywhere.

I don't know why I get sick to my stomach everytime I look at you.

Oh wait. I guess I just told you why.
A letter to my alter-ego, to whom I've never met.
Mateuš Conrad Mar 2022
title: snuggle
body:
limitless
loss
of sleep    another 502 bad gateway bypass...
i just want to love like...
Edward Scissorhands... Ice Dance song...
playing in the background...
we meet in a graveyard... at night...
and it's snowing... it's snowing ballerinas...
ah... the impossible...
well then... no point blaming ****** omelettes
on prostitutes... either.


100 hundred press ups...
stomach crunches?
   n'ah... i don't feel like it...
yesterday i woke up with my ****-cheeks
aching... they were still aching
today... i thought... better firm them
up a little... 2 hours of cycling ought
to do it, just shy of Rainham via
and back again via Hornchurch...
well... can't say that it helped...
but why bother doing stomach crunches?
i woke up today with my entire
torso aching... like i must have done...
1000 stomach crunches...
well... that's what having ***
in the ******* will do to you
while you're propped up on your
hands above a woman...
more ***... less of that stomach crunches
exercise... press ups: sure...
i'll keep doing those...
   mind you: i never go mad on lifting weights...
i have these two... handle bars?
whatever you call them... how much is on each...
15kg? maybe more... i do about 20 folds
on my knees... but i'm after the adrenaline
in traffic on the bicycle...
   to my demise... i started thinking about Jeminah...
looked her up on facebook...
pretending: it's a bit like me sitting
pitch-side at a football match looking at
faces in the crowd...
my god... you can really stare at people
in a non-creepy way... looking out primarily
for a potential heard-attack...
but if a pretty girl is sitting in the crowd...
you can just put on a poker face
and... no one is going to tell you:
hey! creep! stop staring!
                        it's actually more fun than
watching the actual football match...
if i get to see Khedra enough times i'm sitting pretty
on getting something remotely resembling
a six-pack... not that a six-pack would
look good if you are hairy...
        and i'm not going to just shave, wax...
metro-sexualise myself...
but that got me thinking...
            positive... is this even thinking? perhaps
more like gloating... but... what's the alternative?
wallowing? the plethora of emotions surrounding
doubt? self-denial: the ascetic approach?
can people on write about... denying themselves
an iota of self-appreciation?
in an age of self-employed people...
i'm pretty sure can attach a Dune-esque
self- prefix to what the mythos of Dune describes
as: thinking machines... machina cogitans...
that was always my pet peeve with philosophy...
the words: thing, nothing, something...
broad generalisations... or rather... words that
would make thinking along the lines of 1 + 1 = 2
in language much easier...
                         i am a machine of sorts...
another pet word: being...
       breaking down existence: ex-instance...
or... out-of-every-instance: insistence...
                     not will as such: more akin
to stubbornness... this mortal plea: one more day...
one more hour...
    in Latin that would be...
    out-of-every-instance: insistence (remember though,
the Romans didn't have all the prepositions /
conjunction words that modern English has)
    ex-omni-exemplum: instantiam...
             res cogitans is so vague...
given i have a scratch of consciousness regarding...
the schematic of my body...
i know my muscles in my torso ache...
not because i was doing stomach crunches...
but because i was arching over a woman
performing *** in a *******...
my brain aches from dehydration... i take a pill...
points of concern like so...
      eh... the atomised man...
then again: another "thing" to cut up his mind
with the instrument that i call the quasi-soul...
so stressed by psychology... oh hell...
when medicine sped up to get its whereabouts
with the human body... obviously the psychologists:
"doctors"... psychiatry and its hellish freaks
of instructed lobotomies... oh... one of those
***** envies... they had to cut up a man's mind into:
well, not halves... that's sure as ****...
a ******* Trinity... but like the profanity that's
Christianity... joke... how many schisms can
Christianity... accommodate? from what i heard...
an infinite number of schisms...
by that account... me prodding at a possible
2nd schism in Islam... spearheaded by the Turks
and not the Persians... hmm...
   well... Christianity is a Babel by now...
   i don't really have a criticism of Christianity...
i already had mine... when i was much younger...
a child... Nietzsche already did the "intellectual"
heavy-lifting... i remember being a child
and being confronted with the... if your enemy strikes
you... turn the other cheek...
some primordial argument arose in me...
that's ******* counter intuitive! i'll hit back!
i might not hit back: immediately... obviously...
i might take some time... get hold of the bigger picture...
explore... more avenues...
    but... that's so ******* counter-intuitive...
plus... i didn't take up the option of being confirmed...
confirmation is big in Catholicism:
you can't have a church wedding without being
confirmed... there... that's my "intellectual" take-down
of Christianity... but...
what did Christianity do? well... it turned European
barbarism into... European secularism...
that's all it did... but not that it would ever tame
the barbarism... as... plenty of examples...
plus... the New Testament? to me?
Greco-Judeo propaganda... esp. with the unearhing
of the Nag Hammadi library... in some cave...
in Egypt... and the scribbles of...
some Egyptian false prophet... trying to conquer
Jerusalem, but then retreating... found in...
a book about the Roman Hebrew wars...
by josephus ben matthias... or... as he was later known:
by the proselyte name: flavius josephus...
i almost feel sorry for Nietzsche: with hindsight...
because there's always that aspect of hindsight...
which... the finding came in 1945...
simultaneously... the finding of the dead sea scrolls...
which compiled the lost works of...
Isaiah? right... Hey-Zeus was crucified...
but i read somewhere that... Isaiah was...
eventually... cut in half... at the torso...
hmm... well... peanuts or bananas...
which is worse, if you're allergic to either?
i've had my criticism of Christianity... on a level of
a child... i don't need to elaborate on it...
that it breeds weakness... love is a weakness...
until i met either Jeminah or Khedra...
i had a heart of stone...
          now? i'd still love to get together with
Jeminah... drink some wine... listen to a New Order
record on vinyl...
i got the picture... she was showing me this book
of old, historical Romford...
well... she gave it to me... standing over me...
i asked her: why don't you sit down next to me?
talk me through it?
  she did... ha ha... on our whatsapp exchange
i sent her a link to: foster the people - sit next to me...
she did sit down, slightly reluctantly...
my god... the moment the recoil happened...
i must have "accidently" touched her knuckle
with my finger... phoom! the ******* Challenger
space shuttle disaster! she sort of bounced off
two walls and then the ceiling and was sitting
far far away on the other couch...
but then there's Khedra... the ***** that made
my ****-cheeks ache and my torso attempting
to have six-pack ambitions...
yeah... well... it's a bit different when you see
footballers "taking the knee" on a football pitch
for "some cause"... a bit different when you're
taking a knee... stark naked... before a woman...
just to be level-eye with her...
and... just... you know... fiddly-do-b'ah...
   whatever... oh... i can kneel before a *******...
kiss her stomach... kiss her feet...
i think that's a better altar than...
pretending to **** **** before the altar
of ZEE CRUCI-VIED 'UN...
             magic ******* numbers!
                       yeah... Greco-Hebrew propaganda
against the Roman Empire...
that's what the New Testament is to me...
to go one further... i already mentioned this...
Ba'al Yah'****... lord of mosquitos...
what... turning water into wine...
and wine into blood... is not some infernal metaphorical
device? oh sure... Hey-Zeus was like...
the biggest troll out of hell...
         how did i remedy the spell?
once... i poured myself a glass of wine... ****** in it...
then drank it... MAH-AH-GIC!
a bit like those guys in World War I...
when the mustard gas fell... ******* on handkerchiefs...
the ammonia... purifying the smell of rotten
eggs... blah blah...
then again: why am i writing this?
am i happy? or do i... haven't got anything better
to write? or... perhaps this is easy?
imagine introducing the concept of Ba'al Yah'****
into Islam... to the Turks... hmm...
do you... perhaps think... the Turks might splinter
off... from the prior orthodoxy and heresy
of the Persians? reasoned with?
hmm... they do allow alcohol...
                      and they have the best barbers...
plus... the women? **** like they might be
from the harem of king Solomon...
*** starved... since... not even king Solomon had
the sort of stamina to **** over 1000 women...
if he did... he must have been an ******...
or at least... he wasn't ******* anything by
the end of a session... ergo... trophies... ***-starved
single men... and women... also *** starved...
with... perhaps... very crude ideas of the original ******...
then again... when was a cucumber cultivated,
proper?
sure... look up that josephus ben matthias ref.
regarding the false prophet from Egypt...
wait... wait... didn't Joseph take Mary and Hey-Zeus
to Egypt, the flight to Egypt?
sure... the historian was born circa... 32 AD...
but this is at the time of... NO INTERNET...
    imagine... what it must have taken...
to establish a YEAR ZERO...
                         wow... the amount of work that
went into that... few years... even a 100 could
go missing... just... "missing"...
   the fact being: this prophet wanted to overthrow
Roman rule of Judea: failed... fled back to
Egypt... and where was the Nag Hammadi library
found? in a cave, in Egypt...
just as the theatre of war of World War II was
coming to an end, come 1945... sure...
just "coincidental"... Ba'al Ya'**** had his fun...
not exactly endowed to please women...
abstain from this...
   if the modern girls want their... ahem... feminist war...
on men... sure... let them come...
today i perfect my mango curry...
i started to use whole piece of chicken... on the bone...
today it was drumsticks...
i marinated them in... yougurt...
turmeric... Kashmiri chilly powder...
coriander and cumin powder...
then i baked them...
   i had a spare mango... but already preprepared
mango curry sauce...
****... run out of garam masala...
but i made this other... curry powder...
strike me down i don't remember what i used...
a teaspoon of this curry powder...
some korma curry powder... some more
coriander powder... some more cumin powder...
a third of a teaspoon of clove powder...
some more Kashmiri chilly powder...
some more turmeric... put the heat right on...
to infuse the powders with the chicken stock
and the coconut milk... bay leaves...
taken out before blitzing with the onions
the ginger and the garlic... some peppercorns...
oh... and nigella seeds... a must...
some raisins... and a splash of apple cider vinegar...
yo! Faust! we're cooking! Faust... mate...
we're cooking tonight... sorry to disappoint you...
but tomorrow we're having fish & chips...
from where? Lighthouse Fish & Chips...
145 Heath Park Road, Gidea Park, Romford...
   RM2 5XJ... the best fish and chips you'll ever get...
trust me... i'm endorsing them...
Faust... what's that? chaos... oh... don't worry...
you'll get to the thrills...
there are plenty to come...
  look at me... i'm trying to juggle two women at
once... one... Turkish: a bomb in bed...
wants to meet outside of the brothel...
in a hotel room... "talk"... "improve her English"...
just wants to **** for the whole night...
sure... we'll go for food... me-be even a moo-v...
the other... a shy doe... but that dark tinge of ginger
that's just irritating to the *****...
Faust... curry come this Saturday...
yes, yes... the mango version of a korma...
more spicy... certainly no almonds so not as bland:
more acidic... no... i'm not going to infuse
the rice with turmeric... how much yellow do you
want on a plate? yes, i'll add the peppers...
for a bit of crunch... garnish?
fresh coriander... sure... i don't think anyone
will be asking for extra yoghurt...
   (burp)...
                   and you remember that "other" girl...
the friend of the manicurist that comes to see your mother...
she just tags along... she has a "thing" for Scandinavian
aesthetics on a man...
     nervous as hell: esp. when you peer into
her eyes and then peer at her face...
so much make-up... a body of crumbs... petite...
if you had *** with her: you'd crush her...
but this manicurist brings her daughter along...
you were talking in the garden while holding
this toddler in your hands... exposing her
to the sunlight... from time to time...
gripping the exposed feet of the toddler in
your hands: to warm them up...
you introduced this girl to the music
of the band Ghost... you spoke about wishing
to die on the Faroe Islands...
like it was your place of birth... well... isn't death
just that? a man's actual birth? a completion
for time to ascend toward a forwardness of
the spectacle? ugh... verbiage... unavoidable...
but who the hell just wants soap opera:
uncomplicated vector simplistic language of
purely: verbs... some nouns?
no... no etymology? wow... what a chunk of
history just: ****! gone! back to the analysis
of the comparisons of the ape to human skeleton...
**** similis is an ancient idea... there's nothing
new about it... nothing has changed...
because it's not supposed to...
                and what did it take?
my doctor's concern about my high blood pressure...
you either lose weight... or we're going to put you
on high blood pressure tablets...
**** that... you already miscalculated
by putting me on anti-psychotic drugs...
which made me put on weight...
i took myself off them... you have any...
actual.... counter-insomnia medication?
phenergan? sure... i'll take those... once in a while...
i'll stick to Naproxen and APAP...
and whiskey...
        though...
               wow... what a world changer...
giddy school girls... bro'... n'ah...
  not enough experience... they're just posturing
self-assurance... i'm after the mandible jaws...
but imagine... from a time when someone like...
Brautigan... no, not Brautigan...
       Berrigan... no... not him... ****... it does start
with a B, though... hmm... B... Berryman! John!
that's the one... how many marriages... how many
divorces... not that i'm counting myself...
                     oh, we're ******... esp. ****** right now...
it was possible back then...
but now? one ****-tease after another...
   thank god i chose to not have money...
i'd look like a complete idiot if i was honey-trapped...
because i might have money...
then again: i think i have money...
sure... gold standard... from IMPERIAL RUSSIA...
coins... stamps from elsewhere...
a ******* banknote from IMPERIAL RUSSIA with
Nicholas II's face on it...
   hell... i'll keep it until times becomes really
desperate... but? until then... when they find my body...
and they find that... i'll spin the myth...
i like seeing how people treat people...
depending on their social stratum...
i stopped watching movies...
                  hmm...
                              let's see some more...
high value man: the high earner... "alpha"...
well... fair enough... for a society that's supposed
to follow the lineage of the words:
i'm the alpha and the omega...
                    it's nice being on the outside: looking in...
my supposed value gets a direct translation...
prostitutes are like: the gold standard... or the FIAT...
not being demeaning...
but the money i give them: i wouldn't spend...
on... anything they might spend it on...
if i spent money like i do... Scotland would be
a Switzerland...
but, hell... if all these videos i've watched... are true?
if women want to bring the fight...
with what? i iron my own shirts... i cook my own meals...
i vacuum my own house...
i don't think there's a bargaining chip in sight...
and ***? i just found the best *** in my life...
*** so good that even she thinks it's not fair me paying
for only an hour... she wants to meet in a hotel...
for the whole night... "talk"...
so... Sartre mentions this...
   i'm still in the realm of skim-reading... the entry
points... the freedoms we have as individuals...
and how we express them...
                         i'm not willing to be a wage-slave for
someone to spend that money on...
something non-essential... because...
i call it the LIBIDO FACTOR... well... there's only
this amount of farmers we can have...
there's only this amount of metallurgy factory workers
we can have... beyond that?
attention seeking ******?
freely passing money around?
for what? ****'s sake... CONTENT?!
what.... CONTENT?!
                 it's not that there's too many people in
this world... per se... it's that...
there's enough people to have figured out
what to do... at this point...
i think we're going to run dry on ideas on...
what people can do... beside: plagiarise, steal...
and generally turn towards crime...
which is... a bonus for me...
         i'll have freely available clones... pawns...
should push come to shove...
i know what i'll have at my disposal... clones...
pawns... it's rather beautiful...
******* mind-drones... ditto-heads...
                 but then again... i'm not the one prone
to dream up architecture for a Freud-type
to interpret... all i dream of is a void...
sometimes a word pierces it...
                         no... no symbolism of a big hat...
or a cucumber... simply... NO-THING...
zilch... nada...
   yes... i've watched these supposed "alpha" males...
they're... always... weirdly... over-compensating
for a... hidden deficiency...
they are always posturing... they always seem
to be: eagerly disposing a set of rubrics of anger...
of... awaiting violence...
in a crowd of people... they never manage
to: get the jyst of "things"...
    weird... weird as ****... you know when you can
smell fear: sniff.... sniff... hmm.... i smell something...
it's a bit different when you find an
example that's... posturing... oh... a very different
sort of fear... not a fear from a direct attack....
"beta" males don't give off this vibe...
there's always some variation of a protector....
but these "alpha" males... oh... their fear is born
from... being... undermined...
sabotaged... it's thrilling to watch...
                                      why wouldn't it be thrilling?
it's like that scene from Hotel Transylvania...
when that old lady gremlin swallows something,
shaking, says... i didn't do it...
it wasn't me...
            and they get all hyped up...
become so talkative...
                         yawn...
                      i get scared too... i sometimes jolt back
when seeing a random hallucination in the night...
wait! ****! that's not my shadow...
oh... right... it just maybe is...
        ha ha... they had to go through all that
crap of building up resources...
seeking the "****** bride"...
                 me? what supposed artist gets rich
in his lifetime? i'm investing in...
post-humous legacy...
    i sought value in society's lowest ebb...
among prostitutes...
and what treasures i found there...
certainly no hook-up culture: mentality...
    i can kneel naked before a naked body of a woman
and... if i'd like: **** on the crucifix...
because? by now... i can...
with Christianity and its forever schismatism...
orthodox, catholic, protestant, baptist, blah blah...
whatever... i'm thinking about making Islam endure...
like a Janissary might... or a... Mamluk...
**** me... i'm willing...
                   but there needs to be a splinter...
one... there the Turks take over...
i already established the ground work...
Hey-Zeus? Ba'al Yah'****...
                  there's nothing for me here...
  nothing worth the life i'd want to life...
                           but i'll kneel before the altar of
a ******* standing before me naked...
while i'm kneeling naked myself...
and my eyes come level with her chin...
       time for change....
                     even if i die forgotten...
most people who accumulate wealth are forgotten...
now... that all depends... on the wealth
of my idea... could it be the proper probe...
let the court of time: decide;
i'm still going to enjoy the remains
of this whiskey... whether anyone likes it....
or not.
Alex Caldwell Apr 2010
You send shivers down my spine when you walk in,
Cause the butterflies to flutter like mad.
When you look in my eyes,
You burn right through me.
You are the sunshine when my skies are clouded,
The light when I can't find the good in the world.
I could be all that you need,
You are all that I want.
My stomach knots when you are next to me,
You make me nervous and giddy.
I smile at the thought of you,
Quake in your presence.
You have all control over me,
And you don't even know it.
Johnny Zhivago Aug 2013
Spanish influenza
walking pneumonia
icepick headache
common cold
whooping cough
Diabetes
anorexia
getting old

flat foot
bad back
heel spur
heart attack
spasticus
autisticus
tongue tied
amb(i)dextrous

my weakness
is my forte
my sickness is  my skill
my illness
is my realness
it makes my life a thrill


Trying to fight this
bronchitis
gangrene
runny nose
frostbite
tooth decay
hat hair
broken bones

bed bound
shell-shocked
flea ridden
sinusitis
cholera
dropsy
eliphantitis
out-all-nightis

wom­b fever
winter fever
black water fever
remitting fever
ship fever
jail fever
camp fever
or schizophrenia

scarlet fever
tuberculosis
American plague
rock n roll
Wheezing
Paralysed
Got gas
In both holes

rabies
scabies
rickets
and SARS
man flu
bird flu
swine flew
from Mars

multiple sclerosis
tennis elbow-sis
stomach ulcers
and leukaemia
night blindness
hypothermia
lung cancer
sickle-cell anaemia

French pox
Lockjaw
Polio
Gout
Nostalgia
Dropsy
Knocked right
Out

Stuttering
Bellyacher
Anti-social
Leprosy
Sleep walker
Sleep talker
Absent minded
OCD

Tourettes, ****
Pyromania
tonsillitis
Conjunctivitis
Food poisoned!
Warted over
My Psoriasis
(Will I survive this?)

Measles
Malaria
Meningitis
Migraine
Scrum-pox
Worm fit
Water on
the brain

apparitions
seeing things
rattly chest
bad breath
la duzi
tormentation
inflammation
black death

measles
malaria
migrane
mumps
leprosy
lice and
leg bone
lumps

kleptomania
bubonic plague
black *****
feeling ****
bone shave
falling sickness
wanna stop
just cant quit

Huntington's and
Parkingson's and
Hare-lipped
Hay fever
Typhoid fever
Glandular fever
Night fever
And Hysteria

intellectual
dyslexia
dysfunctional
family
cancer crab
stillborn twin
bad blood
epilepsy

Parking spot
disabilities
all the wounds in
all the militaries
pity thee with
lost agility
lost babes or
infertility

ear infection
starvation
Hepatitis
E to A
smallpox
chicken pox
cow pox
what a day

tuberculosis
stuttering
panic stricken
star struck
scurvy
shingles
headless chicken
bad luck


paranoid
in the void
premature
*******
stomach ulcers
feeble pulses
chronicled
*******

autistic
gallstones
double-jointe­d
wrists and knees
consumption
bad digestion
quinsy palsy
ticks and fleas

amnesia
typhus
amnesia
heart failure
radiation
cholera
amnesia
bad behaviour

Hypochondriac?
By gosh, no!
Poorly are ye?
‘Fraid so.


nostalgia
        suffer me
wanderlust
suffer me
insomnia
suffer me
loneliness
let me be



god
complex
mother
complex
father
complex
ego
complex

­

its complicated
im superior
its complicated
im inferior
its complicated
im a short man
got ingrown hairs
got a bad tan



im suffering
ocd
im suffering
obesity
im suffering
jealousy
xenophobia
and nosebleeds



stokholm
syndrome
toxic shock
syndrome
got it down
syndrome
irritable bowel
syndrome

yellow nail
syndrome
stevens-johnson
syndrome
restless leg
syndrome
shoulder-hand
syndrome

lambert-eaton
syndrome
mi­ddle-lobe
syndrome
mobius
syndrome
pickwickian
syndrome

post rubella
syndrome
riley day
syndrome
straight back
syndrome
ulysess
syndrome



alcoholics
we are prone
drug addicts
we are prone
mind benders
we are prone
fortune spenders
we are prone



My illness, my illness
My illness is my realness

*Pick it up
Tide it over
Fight it off or
Cave in

Save it
Suffer it
Pass it on
When its Raining

bleed him
restrain him
shave his
head

he went from being
quite well
to being quite
dead.
unfinished but did you bother to the end?
bucky Jan 2015
1.
there's a gun in your hand that doesn't belong there, a windmill where your heart should be
painting on the inside of someone else's skull screaming "i don't give a ****"
did your voice break? OH MY GOD YOU DISEASE
YOU GREAT UNDERESTIMATER, YOU FILTH
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TURN A PERSON INTO A JACK-O-LANTERN
scooping out seeds for your masters degree
"new advances in science every day" can you smell the ink drying on the back of your wrist
ghost stories arent the same thing as ghosts
"why do hospitals think white is calming" and other laments
sorry, i mean bulletholes
sorry, i mean manmade caverns, tunnels built for metal to crawl its way out of membrane
question: what kind of science experiment requires a human corpse
answer:
answer:
answer:
you will never understand the answer to this question.you will never understand why someone stands up in their seat, screaming "i don't give a ****"
its raining outside.its raining outside.seven of your family members are lying in trash heaps,limbs discarded
and you don't know this yet
but it wasn't my fault.it wasn't me this time (stop looking at me like that
tail clenched tight between your teeth
you smell like a swamp,oh god)
choking to death on someone else's blood: typical.you're a cliche
this has happened before, hasn't it?we were murdered before,
but you don't remember that, or you do but youre pretending not to.tend to
your wounds, lick the blood.
papercuts are a gateway drug
you used to be something pretty.shiny and unkempt,
pretty and a ***** kinda clean:i wanna rip my own throat out
carve triangles in the pit of my stomach so
at least part of me will know how to smile.
clawing at yr eyes like itll make the flies go away
its in their nature
god,what kind of monster are you
what kind of beast.
everything you know up in flames:wither
do you know how fast human bodies decay?welcome to wormfood.welcome to paradise
coughing up tar and feathers "you came prepared"
for what?for an execution?happy doomsday
punch the wall.rub your knuckles.try again
make it bruise
****** and mangled, paint chips cutting off your circulation
YOU JUST NEVER KNOW WHEN TO QUIT DO YOU
youre so kind.thanks for everything,thanks for
the hollow chest,thanks for
****** fists
(you knew this would happen eventually
can you even take a punch?can you even take a punch?)
severed conscience, or whatever it was.
"No One Will Miss You Anyway"
is that what theyre saying?
your nailbeds are sticky
soda and something sweeter and dirt
you had so much to live for,until you didn't
(isnt that what they all say?god,youre such a cliche.)
found dead or dying,isnt that how it goes
no one just drowns
"we have reason to believe--"
you can hear every star dying,all at once
kneeling in front of a toilet that starting to look a lot like you
theres a gun in your lap and a bullet in your head and you dont know which one to trust
this isnt your fault.this isnt your fault.
clean yourself up,god youre disgusting.
how to say your name without choking on it
holding hands with a girl you never met
isnt this what its supposed to feel like?arent you supposed to feel full?
emptiness is your native language.the hollow space in your body echoes back at you
chimneysweep swallowing dust clouds,brushing their teeth with acid and magellanic galaxies
JUST STOP, SHUT YOUR MOUTH, GOD IM TIRED LISTENING TO THE SOUND OF YOUR SCREAMS
paranoia is smooth, blurry around the edges:
its not your fault you couldn't meet a deadline.

2.
war in your sheets and the soft folds of your belly
(and in the soles of your feet
i feel rough ground, rocks pricking into your skin
do you smell blood?)
not quite human, but vampires havent scared you for years
"**** me dry" can you taste it yet, can you feel the fear crawling up out of your stomach
your throat is so empty, a cavern without bats
stalactite secrecy pooling at your feet: this is what it feels like to be alone
sorry about the mess we made
sorry about the paint on the walls
scrubbing glitter into your arms,rubbing skin raw and red
arent you pretty? arent you pretty?
tombs cracking, mausoleums wishing for more graves to dig
havent you robbed enough for one lifetime
write eulogies for people who havent died yet,this is your calling
arent you pretty?
WHITE NOISE ON REPEAT, 10 HOURS
boxed wine stinking up the trunk of your car
(well,that and something else)
dont feel sorry for me darling
you say my name like it’s killing you,and maybe it is
thanks for the flowers and the card,what kind of greek tragedy is this
are you tired? are you tired?
what a spectacle
you,lying on a bed that doesnt belong to you,dying without permission(How Rude!)
dionysian struggle,and look,now the wine’s spilt over everything
i told you this would happen
what a pretty train wreck you are!2:30 am,still alive,
god youre bleeding on everything,how rude.how rude.
heart cut out and beating three thousand miles away under your mothers bed
oh,sweetheart
YOU KNEW IT WOULD END LIKE THIS,dissociating,can you feel the earth bend away from you?
what a demon
crust,mantle,core,screaming at the sight of you
when was the last time you believed in magic,hands on thighs
walls of the abandoned building screaming back in your face
(“i don’t give a ****” like someone can hear you
like someone cares enough to listen)
a broken Bic lighter/someone else’s EpiPen/a ****** handkerchief, shoved in the pocket of a jacket you dont remember buying.
wrapped up like holy things and you think maybe they were one time
“******* with no end” god youre so cool arent you?how edgy,how punk.how grotesque, the mess on your hands.
shouting your **** streak in the dead of night
is that supposed to impress us?are you putting on a show?Holy Prophet
here to forgive your sins
a woman sitting across from you is bleeding and you imagine swallowing her hands whole
“just let them win this time” how sweet of you,how kind!
this isnt my fault.this isnt my fault.
im just a corpse,remember?i hope you regret every part of this
i hope you choke on her fingers and i hope you die
MY GOD IT MAKES ME LAUGH
painted in the image of god:how funny.how sweet.what a nice thought
you called me a weapon like it was supposed to mean something
like it ever did

3.
mistaken king centuries old stepping on Holy feet
(can you see him?pressed up against the grass trying to disappear
god, what a ******* poseur)
frostbite kissing you,what a nice sentiment
crying with joy as it curls around you
“you just gotta be numb to it, you know?”
please marry me, oh god, i’m in love with you
my heart beats thirty feet out of my chest when im around you (that’s what love means, right)
you feel it ripping you apart,glory
smell stardust in the air and then stomp it out
it never mattered that much anyway,or at least that’s what
you tell yourself
you move like it’s your death wish, like “better here than somewhere else”, like
they taught you how to bleed in all
the right ways.on cue. on cue.
broken telephone wires/that Bic lighter, again/a pile of pumpkin seeds digging
into the palm of your hand
How To Cauterize An Open Wound
torn skin, and blood, and maybe some of your intestines, too
stick knives in your stomach(look, we match!)
there’s still a gun in your hand and it’s smoking and you don’t remember firing it (but that’s
okay, isn’t it? this has to be okay)
you built a shipyard in your ribcage,sent sailors off
to die in your throat
choking on a swarm of ******* bees
youre so cool arent you?youre so cool arent you?
you feel the ***** coming up ten years before it actually does, feel your stomach
bloating,the stench of it all
terrariums bleeding onto the streets, how ugly.what a putrid sight.
youre missing teeth,mouth gaping open
stubbed and ****** where nothing new ever grew in,
don’t know know that hate breeds hate
precious metals ooze off your tongue, join the parade! fall into
a stupor,
collect your wits and die,just die.
“i’m sorry for your loss” written on twenty different greeting cards, did you
think i wouldnt know it was you?
i bruise so easily and you know this, even with a gun breathing heavy against your ribcage.lace spiderwebs
around your neck and pull them tight this time
lighting fires with one hand,putting them out
with the other
YOU’RE SUCH A ******* MARTYR
YOU GRANDIOSE *******

your shoes are too tight, your toes are turning blue,
and i’m still in love with you even though
i don’t even know who you are anymore
god, im a cliche
does that make you happy?
god, i hope it does
you tell me, “poems are supposed to have a rhythm”
smiling like i just said something funny
i’m sorry about the dead flowers.im sorry about that night in the living room.
sorry for the things i said.
the feeling of being in motion/radiation vibrating across your tongue/a handful of snow
listen to the church choir singing--
in. out. dead. it wasnt your-slash-my fault
you say it outloud:
“your-slash-my”, the only way you can tether yourself
to something else.
someone is digging into the small of your back (ill
give you a hint:its me)
can you feel the talons? you take off your clothes, press
your body to the concrete
let the frost build on your spine,your fingers,your
legs
kiss the spool of ants where your ear used to be
swallow hard.
o, songbird! o, thrush!
the mellow winter calling (your mouth
curves around the word vociferous like you cant breathe without it--
this was always my favorite part)
“who told you the ending” and you say
god,  i just knew.
holy, holy, holy, swept off the palm of your hand like dust
rusty spoons and nails And Other Artifacts pooling at your feet
***** with revenge, or desire, or both.
[ SEVEN HOLLOW CHAPELS SINGING ABOUT LONELINESS ]
dont bury this too.not the bibelots, not the science experiments, not the smoking gun
carving itself into your palm
you will forget the ships on the horizon, the feel of someone else’s stomach beneath your hands, your tongue, your skin.
all these things, too: she said.
this took three days and is 1836 words
Autumn Whipple Mar 2015
do you know the feeling
the twisted tremors
the slippery shivers
that linger in the
pit of your stomach
the feeling that something is wrong
the feeling that you
are left out
messed up
wrong
when you did nothing
and it seems that maybe
if given the chance
you could've done something
been somewhere
accomplished something
but the feeling in the pit of your stomach
only serves to remind you
of time wasted
i have this feeling right now... not my best poem but eh.
"The doctors said,
They found a mass in my stomach.
It could be cancer..."

The doctors said,
They found a mass in her stomach.
It could be cancer...

This scenario plays so smooth
On the movies and tv shows
But reality is my mom might have cancer
I than wrote so many sad stories in my notebook before
But I wasn't going through it
So the pain and tears I could ignore
But last night I drove my mom to the hospital
And she said

"The doctors said,
They found a mass in my stomach.
It could be cancer..."

The doctors said,
They found a mass in her stomach.
It could be cancer...

What happens when this happens in real life
And the victim isn't an overpaid actor
But someone you know and love
See reality is,
Life isn't full of happy endings
Saying to my self this isn't happening
It couldn't be
This woman who gave birth to me
Couldn't possibly have cancer
So now I'm on knees praying to God
Hoping he answer
Lord did you hear what she said???

"The doctors said,
They found a mass in my stomach.
It could be cancer..."

The doctors said,
They found a mass in her stomach.
It could be cancer...
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2018
. 'as for those poets, only the perverse follow them. do you not see that they go too far in every direction and say things, which they cannot do?' (ash-shu'ara / the poets 26:224-226).

call them what you like,
the Huguenots,
for all i care...

   you always side with
the "heretics"...
  
   given that, "said" heretics
retain some cultural value
relativism of other cultures,
namely in the form of
depiction -

    since why would, "the word"
be deemed holy,
    ****-naked,
                rather than donning
a bikini of "iconoclasm"...
         when words... are at
the meat-market of copyright -
what with © coca cola?

                 sunni islam would have
never allowed sufism...
  but Farsi does...
  and will continue...
since no Iranian will bow
before an Arab within the schematics
of history...

          Sunni Islam, it's Wahhabi sentimentality...
so why persist in signing
the Adhan?
   why not speak in a honing like
drone sentiment of plain speech?
i thought all music was banned?
the current Adhan is a form
of music... isn't it? BAN IT!

    you never side with these Sunni
muslims, exploiting Bangladeshi labor,
you side with the heretics of Iran...
these *******, i can at least respect...
  
      no fast cars, convenient ongoing
cultural insurrections -
   Sufism...
       Afghan women's poetry,
and all that much closer to Hindu mysticism...
    
yeah... "islamophobia":
but only against Sunni Islam...
   but Shia Islam?
   no problem...
   i could stomach these peoples
like i could stomach the in-between
of the Turkish variant -
no ideology - simply, pure, power throttle...

i could make a great Janissary -
with a Turkish barber...
         for a great trim of hair and beard...
i'd cast a shadow on some
obscure chocolatier of Brussels
who thinks himself a politician...

     but there are certain aspect of Islam
i am willing to tolerate...
   what happened to the son in law
of Muhammad, namely, Ali...
was raw ******* kicking...

               promises, promises...
no promises...
           Shia Islam, as an European,
i can tolerate, Turkish Islam, i can tolerate...
Turkey is incrementally shy
of being treated at the 2nd variant of Iran...
at least with Iran, we share a history
via the insurrection into the ancient
texts through Greece...

  come to think of it...
whenever i listen to
matta's song echo babylon...
i start feeding myself goosebumps,
reminding myself
of Cyrus... Nebuchadnezzar...
and the dim-wit that was
   Belshazzar...

always siding with the heretics...
if not on economic groundwork,
then at least motivating,
rather than monetizing an idea...

and the Shia muslims are...
    one way or another...
   unlike the gluttons of Dubai...
the barbie dolls of postage stamp
"proof" of progress,
in size, and worth...

   Sunni Islam would have
never allowed poetics to remain
a viable form of expression -
the Persian tradition that is,
far beyond the western concern
for a comment section...

         Shia Islam allows patronage
of the arts, notably poetry,
without concern for monetary
funding, it, at least, doesn't prohibit it...
given the pride of the Persians...
Sunnis and their continual quest
for finding water...
    sure... poetry is pointless within
such restrictions of
existential concerns...
    but... given the current, civilized
establishment?
   sky-scrapers in *******
sand dunes?

         the qu'ran should have
forbidden the architectural ambitions
equivalent to the tower of babel
being erected, in environments,
that could never sustain said projects...

    and who originally spewed the term
islamophobia?
Sunni Islam...
        i never liked this strand of belief...
i hate the Sunnis like
a Shia partisan...

p.s. it's called patriotism is America...
but nationalism in Europe...
    you sure that's not a synonym?
Europeans can't be patriotic,
and Americans are never nationalistic?

...

   well: how could i ever convert to islam,
i do enjoy the adhan from time to time,
"sorry", but i do...
  i can't help it:
if i'm a sucker for pop songs,
i'm also a sucker for the adhan...
   crusader songs, templar songs become
stuffy after a while...
and last time i checked:
     there were the northern crusades
against the baltic people:
notably prussians, lithuanians...
with that cushion of: mediating the
escalation of war by the polacks...
coming from the east:
  last time i checked the mongols
didn't reach leipzig...
               buffer zone people...
and what of the ottoman onsalught
of vienna 1529: the ****** winged hussars
won the charge...

so, coming back to heidegger... aphorism 26
ponderings IX... how am i to not be
the historical animal?
         perhaps in german, in germany
i might become a non-historical animal,
to begin: anew, but with a terrible
past to hide, to negate...
   i could do that: if i were a german,
speaking german, in germany...
but i'm in england:
            i might have some roots in
Silesia, but it's "hard" to not be a historical
animal, an "animal" with a sense of time,
i.e. a future a past a present...
esp. under the english conditions
of: the biological animal momentum narrative,
like a tsunami, like an earthquake...
ripples throughout...
              i can't move forward with
the english championing darwinism every
single ******* step of the way...
why can't they hide darwin like the polacks
hid copernicus...
given the motto: copernicus -
who moved the earth, and stopped the sun...
why wouldn't i escape into history
if the current biological reality is:
(a) a yawn... the cruel nature of per se?
   the courting of pigeons on a t.v. antenna...
pigeons get rejected all the time,
lesson learned, he bows and bows,
coos... expands his tail feathers upon
the bow then folds them... she flies away...
repeat...
    (b) i can't escape being a historical
animal in the way that what the current
facts are being repeated have encountered
a whiff of Chernobyll...
              history is inclided to answer reality...
biology? not so much... not from what i've
seen and heard...
             truly a schizophrenics disney dream:
to walk among the newly insane feeling
like the only sane among them...
beau-ti-ful!
                   well... given the current criteria
of being bilingual as being synonymous
with being a schizophrenic...
           magic!
                    
   now the crescendo...aphorism 24
ponderings X:

              the word designates, the word signifies,
the word says, the word is (heidegger)...

i found that you can only write
"philosophy" with a neat, fixed vocab. regime,
clarity of boundaries...
    quadratic events in vocab.:

i.e. the reflexive: yourself, himself, itself etc.
and the reflective: your, self....
                       his, self...
                                  it, and the self...
                    ergo? atheistic scissors,
  the two articles, indefinite and definite
                                 a / the "self"...

i'm not playing "identity politics",
when i say that only two peoples ever managed
to sack Moscau... the mongols and the polacks
with the help of lithuanians,
"identity politics" only happens in
post-colonial society, akin to the english,
i'll speak the english,
but i will not be a cucked indian of
the former raj: i will eat the fish & chips,
i will eat the sunday roast,
   i will eat the english breakfast with great
delight...
            but i will not do what these former
colonial masters expect of me:
integrate at the expense of making my
mutterzunge into hubris!
stubborness contra pride...
                hard to tell the difference...

and why do i like heidegger so much?
i'm not into the ad homine arguments...
my grandfather, was, a communist party member...
so?
       i like heidegger... because he appreciates
poetics, i like that poets can share the same
values as philosophers,
thanks to heidegger: we have been requested
back into the republic...
if plato and islam didn't like us, hanging around,
some offshoot german thinker / promenade
enthusiast like used enough to,
i suppose: ban the theatre puppeteers...

i am not playing identity politics...
biological reality is not enough...
but archeological reality?
       can you really advance to counter?
i was born near:
Krzemionki Opatowskie, a Neolithic and
early Bronze Age complex of flint mines
for the extraction of Upper Jurassic (Oxfordian)
banded flints...
  personally? i don't believe in
the African genesis conundrum...
i believe "my" people originated from
the Indian sub-continent,
as, associated with the complex:
Indo-European categorization of language;
i'm still to see an African phonetic
encoding system, beside the hieroglyphics...

i, was, born, there! i'm not a displaced
post-colonial debacle between former master
and former slave...
i have: roots... i'm not ******* up to the fish & chips
brigade with a friday night's worth of curry...
i cook my own curry,
and by god: it is the food of the gods...
i'll give the blue indians that counter...
but sure as **** not the worth of mead
or whiskey...

if they only tolerated themselves,
sure, learn the english language,
but know this much:
           english is the modern lingua franca...
it's the language of economics,
forget the natives, too ignorant to learn
either deutsche or française:
island-folk...
                what else, what other attitude?
even the russians are like:
that land of the weirdos? the idiosyncratics?
yes, we know that land...
the only "thing" that shelters the english
are the h'americans, the south africans,
the australians etc.,
  sure as **** the scots aren't sheltering them...
and, mind you?
   if the i.r.a. really wanted to plant
a bomb?
   a real bomb? they'd revert from speaking
any english to begin with... resorting
to revising their usage of gàidhlig:
ga-id-hlig... gaelic...
   like the welsh, stubborn people, proud people,
retaining their Çymraeg...
celt: said kelt...
the glaswegian football team?
       Çeltic... not: keltic...
  borrowed from the greek: sigma (ς: cedilla to ****)...
   wow! all the particulars in the english tongue!
guess it would take an ausländer to spot them!

U-21 european championships,
england versus romania:
                           a magnificent match...
the youngsters playing better football
than the oldies in their mid to late / early 30s...

i'm trying to tolerate Islam,
               it's not in my nature...
            hell... i enjoyed visiting a turkish barber
shop, i still have an unflinching opinion that,
the turks are the best barbers in the world...
but...

              this quote, is going to **** you:
same aphorism / pondering (24 / X) -


*** fight videos - count dankula...
you know what i'd love to do to these little
snarky *****?
the french revolution isn't enough...
n'ah, them hanging, is not enough....
ever heard of the butchers' hook?
                 it's also callled close-up fishing...
imitation hang-man...
   you insert a fishing hook...
and you let the sweeney todd ****** dangle...
on a hook, rather than a noose...
lords of salem come your way?
i'd rather the snarky teen hanging off
a fisherman's hook than dangle
like some lynched ******...
beside the suffocation,
i'd like them with a fisherman's hook entombed
in their hard palette...
         i don't want them hanging...
what am i? a sadist?
  i want them on the fisherman's hook!
when suffocating without a broken spine absorbed
by the neck isn't enough!
  fisherman's hook gallows is a
masterpiece... of suffering...
  most certain...
  when cheap comedy is being towed...
making fun of bums, or homeless people...
the current society is so welcome
to bypass all the "adventures" of Loki...
but akin to the lords of Salem...
burn!? such a limitated imagination!

ah... right... digressing...
        the reflexive / reflective quadratic...
language - only if speech  has acquired
the highest univocity of the word does it
become strong (enough) for the hidden
              play of its essential multivocity
(as withdrawn from all "logic"),
             of which poets and thinkers alone
are capable, in their own respective modes
and their own directions of sovreignty.

we do live in a time of a lost sense
of dialectic, since we do not live in a time
of etertaining dialogue,
perfectly sensible opinions,
that's all we have...

                       if one of these snarky *******
came up to me...
they'd get a chance to experience a rubric
of 4, knuckles...
what's 189 centimeters in empirical?
6ft2...      oh!
                   see where imagination takes you?
and here i was: thinking i was without it!
butcher's hangman...
oh, not so easy...
                  
                fame by no association to fame...
just the tears of parents who raised their children
to be nothing more than rugrats...
annoying gnat like bothersomes;
and nothing quiet special to be associated
with weimar berlin...
     just, these,
   h'american mall onlookers
with pwetty-guy-for-a-white-fly-mentality,
as borrowed from californian
1990s punk;

re-used ****** losers.

mad-hatter's fraction: 10/6....
      0.666...
      well: to the given extent:
1.666666(7)....
     1, 0, /6,
no number is divisible by 0,
every number, divisible by 1:
is the same number...
    mad hatter's 10/6...

   re-used ****** losers...
i like that phrase...
        7 for every 6, 7 for every 6...
until the 0. fraction comes
a 1.: exponential serf of 0...
0 being the multiplier...
          
         i really am growing a beard to less
don it, but rather to experience
a relief from patience...
war robots?
the first non n.p.c. game...
i like that, very much...
      and when i did:

you know my first experience of
love at first sight?
the younger sister of my then girlfriend...
****** up ****...

love at first sight is a terrible phenomenon...
i was nearing 18, she was barely 13...
i was dating her older sister...
but it was love at first sight,
the trouble with: love at first sight:
it doesn't lie...
it tries to lie...
          but it can't lie...

   paedophilia? a bit... untouched bodies
though... bodies of people who were
never supposed to touch...
i once said to a fwend:
well wouldn't it be ****** up if i touched
her?
   she's a muse, which doesn't translate
into vacating her as a busy body
worth of a touch, does it?
     if only my old friend samuel said
otherwise:
sylvester "contra" tweety:
my first girlfriend...
but her sister?
         i was nearing 18, she was about 13...
love at first sight...
untouched, cradled, unscathed...
and so she remained...
   until she did what every girl would
have done...thank god she remained
a figment of my imagination...
   rammstein: rosernrot...
    
           i have seen love at first...
such a load of ******* that it had to be
the younger sister of a girl i was dating...
and the **** that i had to be 18 and see
was just beginning her teenage transition...
the world unfair i grant
the most justifications... as being
the (just - unnecessary adjective) arbiter...

love at first sight becomes a forbidden love...
love at first sight was always a forbidden
love...
           and the sort of "love" that achieves
a perspctive of change that doesn't
translate into old age...
love at first sight is soon translated
into a love of affairs closely associated
with middle-age disenfranchised
state of affairs...
i.e. to love again...
            how else to feel relief from
having lost both one's inhibitions
               as well as one's ambitions?!
in the conundrum of the mortal
"question" of the continuum being
preserved?
Nathan Bradley  Feb 2012
Sestina
Nathan Bradley Feb 2012
In a book of faces, yours picks me out.
Your eyes pierce the screen
Detached from me like your heart.
The daggers tear through my chest
And cut me up. Knot my stomach
And tie me down for I’m still free

To love a memory. I am free
As his arm reaches out
From around your neck. Stomach
Twists as you paint the screen
With the contents of my chest
And the beatings of my heart.

You still live in my heart,
Beyond eviction, rent-free.
Your playground is my chest
And, like the slide you’ve grown out,
It is hidden behind a tasteful screen
Of ivy and moss. My stomach

An over-grown garden. I cannot stomach
How you wipe your feet on my heart
By appearing on my screen –
An act entirely free
Of your will – with-out
The pain of us on your chest.

Lock my disappointment in my chest
And deposit the keys in my stomach
For them not to pass-out
Until you have left my heart
Free.
Free of the affects of this screen.

My mind is burnt by the screen,
My heart rages in my chest
And I **** you within my ribs. Free?
I’d rather you’d knot my stomach
And let my heart
Bleed out.

But I must get out
Break the shackles of your making
And be free.

— The End —