these people

I can’t see them anymore
I don’t want to see them anymore
I have no desire to see them anymore

I never think about
phoning them or
messaging them or
stopping by to say “hi.”

I don’t care about
what’s happening
in their lives or
who they’re dating
or what memories
we had together

yet they insist, they demand
that I visit them
that I sit down with them
that I talk about nothing important
with them

and I can’t say no

because I know how it feels:

during those times,
when I was down and out
and needed someone
to turn to, to talk to
but there was no one around
I felt the terror & the darkness
constricting my cold and lonely heart
as all the vitality and connection was draining
from my ventricles of ire
like blood from a stone

and so much of that
over a lengthy period of time
has made me a lot stronger,
more independent from people
and maybe even borderline aloof
from all human interaction

I no longer need them
I no longer want them around

but I can’t let anyone
feel that same way
that I felt

so long ago.

pitiful.

It’s a sign of weakness, they said, to show your face: “too pale, too tired, too human.”

My mind is racing, looping like a broken wheel… Do they hate me?

Every glance feels like a weapon; every word, a cold dissection. I try to walk through the crowd unseen, but I am simply raw meat on a butcher’s hook, spinning slowly under the fluorescent lights.

And then I see her. She laughs, and I think it’s a kindness, but she looks away too quickly. My fists tighten; the world sharpens into jagged edges. Pull her hair, I think, rip the scalp off, strip the mask, and see if what’s underneath is as hollow as what I feel.

But the moment passes, like all moments do. My pulse somehow slows, the crowd swallows me whole again. I have no mouth. I want to scream. I can’t. I want to decide something, anything, but the choices aren’t mine to make.

Don’t you see?
Nothing is decided by us, in this modern world.
It’s a strong bond to appearances.

I took note of your scathing criticism.
It’s the best joke of the century.
Hell, even of the millennium!

  “You should’ve learned how to change.”

Change? CHANGE?!
I changed so hard I broke the mirror
And swallowed the shards for breakfast!
  (The taste is particularly exquisite)
  (Taste? Heck, you can call it a rebranding!)
  (With a side of narcissism and a pinch of performance — natural for an artist!)
    (Believe me — it digests easier)
    (And leaves less of an aftertaste)

I became:
  Gene Kingstone,
  Ásgeir Geirmundsson,
  Frodo Clayhanger,
  Rakin Badr Shamoon,
  Ouya Ishikawa,
  René Bérubé,
  Sargent Fresne,
  Fabien Giroux.

Eight names, a thousand apologies.
Eight lives, and not a single one wasted.

Look at the barrel you set aflame!
And I’m the neologism you feared to create.

I was standing in the fields one day, like I usually would be doing, legs deep in grass, the wind nudging my ears with things I hadn’t yet lived. The sky above me was in a shade of grey I couldn’t name.

  “The weather is beautiful today.”

That’s when the horse appeared.

He jumped, upright, landing with the brutality of a ballet dancer, although he shouldn’t know how to. He had only two legs, thin and humanlike, and one of its molars, impossibly large, vibrated, producing a melody I couldn’t recognise, yet somehow remembered.

It leaned close. His breath smelled like burnt tobacco and languages. Then it said:

  “But Aleksejs…”

Terrifying in its intimacy.

And just like that, it was gone.
No sound. No dust. No hoofprints in the grass.

Nothing.
  Nothing.
    Nothing.

I stood there, frozen.
Not cold.

Later, when I woke up (though I couldn’t say for sure when the dream began or if it had ever truly ended or even started), I sat on the edge of my bed and told myself:

  “Was it me he was talking to?”

Frankly, no one answered. But the top left corner of the ceiling pulsed once, lightly,
And for some reason, I took that as a yes.

A: A pump?
B: A pulse.
A: A ****?
B: A nurse.
A: A dump?
B: A purse.
A: A lump?
B: A curse.

A: An illiterate curse? Like the King of Suicide-Land?
B: Yes, and his land beyond this limited veil.
A: You mean my curtains?
B: The agreement you signed while asleep.
A: I don’t remember.
B: You weren’t supposed to. That’s how contracts work here.
A: So I signed away my thoughts?
B: Just the ones with teeth.
A: I liked those. They bit back when I cried.
B: That’s why they were taken.

A: And the King?
B: He governs with a broken wristwatch and a hymnal full of typos.
A: Sounds professional.
B: His grimoire is made of expired passports.
A: How charming.
B: He doesn’t speak anymore. Just shivers.
A: I think I’ve heard of him! When the showerhead told me—
B: That’s his embassy. In your bathroom.

A: Is this real?
B: You’re asking the wrong room.
A: The wrong room?
B: Yes. This room only answers while wearing someone else’s shoes. Try the hallway, it lies best.

A: And my dress?
B: Tomorrow evening.
A: Does it bleed?
B: Only when you wear it backwards.
A: That’s the only way I wear anything now.
B: Good. Then you’ll fit right in.

Every second is a bomb for the ice cream man to produce.
Inconsistent shaking? Have some neon.
Make the creamsicle's go to waste.

You park beside the morgue and hum in F minor,
Melting coins into syrup for the children who never drank alcohol.
A girl trades her elbow for one pistachio and a half.
A boy eats time by the hour (soft-serve style).

The sun peels back its citrus skin in ****** motion.
Flies memorize everything. Everything.
The truck grows legs and no one ever asks for change.

I opened a letter addressed to no one
And found a wet map of my own grin.
The postmark said “Somewhere Between”
And the ink ran like a guilty priest.

The ceiling hummed its usual sermon:
  “You are a question your mirror asks gently.”
I nodded, chewing on glass-handled scissors,
Waiting for the floor to finish deciding its shape.

A horse walked in, dressed as my therapist.
She whined,
  “Your trauma wears a wedding dress.”
I asked for a refund
  And received a gun filled with sleep.

Behind the curtain:
  Someone’s mother melting into a fax machine,
  My ex spelling “forgiveness” with her teeth,
  A child screaming “I’m your future, father!”
  While drawing on a body bag.

I stood there,
  Drenched in six contradictory versions of myself,
Clutching a plunger and a birth certificate.

Someone whispered,
  “Your voice is a privilege.”

And all my response to that was:
  “Shut up louder.”

Why is it all just a storm?

A crisis?
    More than a crisis
A jester?
    More than a jester
A king?
    More than a king

I’ll end thee, brutal vulgarity
Your arms folder in envelopes
  And the laggard you call a brother
  Can’t sign his own name

But I remember one thing I was told
“Rotten eggs always taste fresher
  Because they remind you of hunger
  And hunger reminds you you’re real”

So I bit down on the yolk of it all
  And laughed like a man being hanged
Because the wind never stops —
  It just changes itself.