15.12.16
Update
All of the poetry and rambling dated as published today have been recovered from the archives of my old facebook account. That's why they're so much worse than the stuff dated earlier. Enjoy
Untitled
I
am the bacterial residue that exploded moments ago upon the grime of
two lovers under the hot night of an August War. I have covered this
mass of sweat and love in a growth of a unique sort of beauty that will
never be felt again. All the universe began then for us down here. And
we’re all unique. The ones on the chin and the ones on the mouth and
the ones in the ears and the back of the neck. The ones that work down
in the central heating post of this waxing and waning and booming and
shaking and tickling. Some of us live in all the kisses left like little
outposts that creep upon every inch of their bodies. Some of these were
dropped like raindrops gently pattering every sensitive surface. And
some were floods and earthquakes sculpting life into its mystical frame.
Crowds of us came from there and built million dollar multiplexes to
watch the size of it. We laughed and cried and giggled and nodded at the
badass after he did something cool. And we drank a shitload of that
sweat and poured out little babies like we were real fucking hipsters
with infinite resources. And we farted out a steamy load of festering
and stinky ooze so sacred and beautiful it must have come from out Dark
Jesus. Good news came that day and we had a parade as we marched to our
first holiday. We didn’t know when it was, some of us live months but
most of us celebrate early when we get cleaned from our partying lives
and the negative of an irreplaceable photo disappears. We did it! We
proclaim. And it was so worthlessly terrific that every mistake couldn’t
be missed. The angels all died the same way. Each one melted like
Icarus and flooded the moon with the wastes of their corpses and wax
perfections. We died just like the unsacred filth. We were a perfect
filth, not the ones that don’t count like the interracial or atheist or
gay. We did it all right but we died the same fucking way. We didn’t
make any of the same mistakes as those other jackasses, we paddled right
through until we lost our membranes and oozed all over the floor just
like the soppy as shit ending to a soap opera. Just like the splash of a
diver with his neck on a noose. Just like the brown bags that burn to
start a fire in a filthy abandoned building. Just like the star than
meths into a black hole fishing for another ride on the heaviest
gravity. Just like the taxi that crashes into the school bus and starts
an awesome fire, exploding into the worst sort of terror. But we were so
sacred when we did it. We were the last of the most beautiful
endangered animal that was only beautiful because it was endangered. We
told stories around tables and built cities so we could invade and kill
each other. We snapped photos and then burned them away into
oscillations on an endless grid. And you ask us why the fuck should you
try it? How could that awful mess be so amazing? But don't knock it till
you try it.
Untitled
My mind died yesterday.
It was a slow death.
First it’d just go missing from time to time.
Little pieces fell off and I tried glue and tape and sutures and sometimes I’d try to just smash them back together like hardened clay.
It was a slow death.
First it’d just go missing from time to time.
Little pieces fell off and I tried glue and tape and sutures and sometimes I’d try to just smash them back together like hardened clay.
I’d
crumble more and more until I’d just give up and leave the lost pieces
to soak up the dirt in some memory of a place I’d never see again.
Sometimes, though, sometimes I’d just grab hold of it and throw it just to see how far it would reach before it hit the asphalt and crack apart like an old tree in a heavy wind.
And sometimes I’d squeeze it until it popped, grabbing onto to bits of air and stretching rubber ribbons around it
If I could only stick enough back in to make it float.
Sometimes I would kick it after it took a shit on the carpet.
Because the only way I knew to love it was to show it how much bigger I was.
Sometimes I’d try to just hold it but it kept squirming so I’d hold it a little tighter.
Just enough to keep it still in my hand.
And then I’d get distracted until it suffocated.
I’d try to revive it but I knew there was no chance
So I'd bury it but I’d dig a tiny hole and throw down a thread tied to a bell
I couldn't let it stink up the place but if it woke up I'd want to know so I could dig it out
And I'd listen for that bell to ring, and jump from my seat every time the wind teased it.
I'd ask myself if I should dig it up just to make sure
But I never did.
Sometimes I'd toss it like a speed ball at an empty plate.
Thinking I’ve got to make it strong enough so never again would I have to feel it break.
Or at least numb enough I'd never know the difference.
But eventually I realized it’s probably better off dead.
I didn’t want to see it go but I spent so much time writing the epitaph and more than that I just didn’t want to see it suffer anymore.
Like an insect that circled the fire until its wings burned off, leaving it to writhe upon the ground and try to walk it off but all the onlookers would say you shouldn't let it suffer anymore.
We excused our blood lust for pity though deep down we just wanted to hear that sweet sound when it crunches and we know it was us that did it.
After all death must be better than to leave it drowning in a pit until its lungs were full of mud.
I’d steal hope away from every possible mistake though I swear I’d never let it die in me.
My mind died a slow death like that.
Everyone wanted to end its misery but I said its better it die slow and painfully than to steal away it's chance.
I said feel free to try and kill it but hope twitches hours after it's dead
Sometimes, though, sometimes I’d just grab hold of it and throw it just to see how far it would reach before it hit the asphalt and crack apart like an old tree in a heavy wind.
And sometimes I’d squeeze it until it popped, grabbing onto to bits of air and stretching rubber ribbons around it
If I could only stick enough back in to make it float.
Sometimes I would kick it after it took a shit on the carpet.
Because the only way I knew to love it was to show it how much bigger I was.
Sometimes I’d try to just hold it but it kept squirming so I’d hold it a little tighter.
Just enough to keep it still in my hand.
And then I’d get distracted until it suffocated.
I’d try to revive it but I knew there was no chance
So I'd bury it but I’d dig a tiny hole and throw down a thread tied to a bell
I couldn't let it stink up the place but if it woke up I'd want to know so I could dig it out
And I'd listen for that bell to ring, and jump from my seat every time the wind teased it.
I'd ask myself if I should dig it up just to make sure
But I never did.
Sometimes I'd toss it like a speed ball at an empty plate.
Thinking I’ve got to make it strong enough so never again would I have to feel it break.
Or at least numb enough I'd never know the difference.
But eventually I realized it’s probably better off dead.
I didn’t want to see it go but I spent so much time writing the epitaph and more than that I just didn’t want to see it suffer anymore.
Like an insect that circled the fire until its wings burned off, leaving it to writhe upon the ground and try to walk it off but all the onlookers would say you shouldn't let it suffer anymore.
We excused our blood lust for pity though deep down we just wanted to hear that sweet sound when it crunches and we know it was us that did it.
After all death must be better than to leave it drowning in a pit until its lungs were full of mud.
I’d steal hope away from every possible mistake though I swear I’d never let it die in me.
My mind died a slow death like that.
Everyone wanted to end its misery but I said its better it die slow and painfully than to steal away it's chance.
I said feel free to try and kill it but hope twitches hours after it's dead
Untitled
I caught a glimmer of light and it told me I’d spent all my
memories bathing in shit. I caught a glimmer in the middle of mealtime
devouring darkness. It was an accident. My head poked through the edge
of a shadow and there it all was. Fire. Stars. Parades stampeding music
into my bones and mainlining beauty straight to my soul and my eyes were
gluing themselves to the fabric. Then,
with the flick of a wisp full of wind I found myself drowning again in
the shit and the shadows. And as I look around my dark home I bleed
dissatisfaction. I was broken by the world outside of here, cursed to
find no solace until that music comes back and my heart fills once more
with whatever that was that spilled into it. Happiness once assumed like
background noise has become a worthless attribute without the colors
that I used to know. And I stink like lust now worse than the shit I’m
surrounded with. I reek of sweat from digging for fallen shards of those
stars I can only imagine exist the way my memories claim that they do. I
reek of hope and it rots like maggots consuming the husk of complacency
I used to consider my skin. I dream that my dreams will swallow me up
and I’ll never know the pain of waking again.
Because I caught a glimmer of light and that light caught me in its eyes and it changed me forever. And my heart was caught in the jaws of this world and when I receded the thing began bleeding and ached to be swallowed, breathlessly screaming for this place that it saw. With the taste still in its mouth it led me like a lantern through mazes and tunnels and all those scary places I’d never willingly go and when those waves of pain came I’d try to protect it and close it and keep it safe but it always stayed open even when plastered with rains of falling glass fragments or haunted by the burdensome weight of old ghosts like rejection, regret and early goodbyes. And I’d try to protect it and close it and keep it safe from those things but I couldn’t stop it because I realized what I fear more than being killed by my passion is that I would kill it. So my heart goes forward, much braver than I, still with the taste in its mouth and the music in its ears.
Because I caught a glimmer of light and that light caught me in its eyes and it changed me forever. And my heart was caught in the jaws of this world and when I receded the thing began bleeding and ached to be swallowed, breathlessly screaming for this place that it saw. With the taste still in its mouth it led me like a lantern through mazes and tunnels and all those scary places I’d never willingly go and when those waves of pain came I’d try to protect it and close it and keep it safe but it always stayed open even when plastered with rains of falling glass fragments or haunted by the burdensome weight of old ghosts like rejection, regret and early goodbyes. And I’d try to protect it and close it and keep it safe from those things but I couldn’t stop it because I realized what I fear more than being killed by my passion is that I would kill it. So my heart goes forward, much braver than I, still with the taste in its mouth and the music in its ears.
Space Station Diaries 2
Expectations come from shadows and claw my flesh from bone and
tell me with fear of disappointment tenderizing every flaccid hope. Am I
so fixated on the end I can’t appreciate the passage there? Worrisome
knots bubbling up to boiling gobs of poisonous doubt rising to my skull
and spilling out I don’t want it broken! I don’t want it broken! So I refuse
to touch it. It's got me trapped inside my head because I can’t stand
the loss of it or even a hint of a threat. I get glimpses through it
sometimes but today I need surgery to remove the screaming little bitch
nibbling on the back of my spine. I need canons to launch an assault
and break every wall that separates me from all of you. I need a
parachute to send me safely from the space station where I sit paralyzed
watching the world I want break apart and be replaced by the one that
is. My brain wants like sewage waste and I want to give up so bad
sometimes I can’t stand it. But I’m still stuck in that paradox that if
I can kill my expectations I can finally have them all. And I’m still
stuck between fear and love, and god I wish I wasn’t because then you
would have known how loved you were. But you never did because we all
hid it.
For one day let me escape the race to build evidence on facebook that I’m happy and prop up cardboard cut-out smiles faster than the world can take them down and then maybe you’d know you weren’t alone because I feel alone sometimes, too. But we’re such proud fucking shits we cover up our soft spots and bury our hearts in bottles until we can’t hear them begging for each other.
For one day let me escape the race to build evidence on facebook that I’m happy and prop up cardboard cut-out smiles faster than the world can take them down and then maybe you’d know you weren’t alone because I feel alone sometimes, too. But we’re such proud fucking shits we cover up our soft spots and bury our hearts in bottles until we can’t hear them begging for each other.
Ode to the Hipster
I’m
growing a mustache that will curl like the toes of the girl I tie to
train tracks. I’m building a float for the parade celebrating the
completion of a thin plastic membrane to cover the natural darkness of
creation, the blackness bleeding from the soul in the ground, and this float will
have treads pounding sizzling sharp spikes into the asphalt and this float
will spray burning defiance into the audience to steal their twisted
grins off and this float will spill kilos of candy along all sides to
call the clueless heaps of hungry kids.
I’m thinking of ways to form an identity that will destroy all of yours. I’m raping murder and stealing treason. I hunted wolves when I was raised by chickens. I mate with angels that give birth to demons with evil pride and drinking problems. I lick the bones of every talented artist I can collect, living life just like my cannibal ancestors did when they killed off the giants so they could feel big. I sit in a river with my head plunged firmly looking for a clue of Jesus and when I don’t find it I seek the Devil and trade a little more of my soul to falsify the feeling. I ambush Caravans heading West of Fame and circle round them until they settle down into a littered pilgrimage of trailer park towns. I’m eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and finding anyone who hasn’t so I can clothe them in my assumptions about life until they learn Science is separate from Poetry, the way to be happy is by collecting more stuff, we’re all going to live in space some day and people on TV never die.
I let the Earth shatter too busy saving its misled creatures but curtains are closing for the play that hides the audience from their shadow of lies and blistering lackfuls of excuses for lives, and now every God we've loved has demanded human sacrifice. Dawn is coming to smash apocalyptic beams of truth on all the dark little cracks where we buried broken promises. Miracles are soothing the dead to waking but we’re grabbing shotguns to blow their heads off like we were taught in training. Death to the parasites in our brains that suck our identities into a vacuum of not enough. Laundry Day is here to purify the stains and colors from our clothes and shrink them down so they don’t fit anymore. Ladders are being sent to collect the poor souls drowning in possessions, astronauts suffocate in flying clay prisons, science is humping poetry in secret under the bleachers and the ambulance has been called for the last celebrity alive.
The Yin is making the Yang erupt buckets of purple sweat and sounds spill out the wrinkles breaking beats before Punk Music Remixes as the two wage a thumb wrestling battle over which one gets to be the Fresh Prince of the Assholes. I’m the world’s first Hipster and I’m driving a scooter into the sunset, smoking bent and flattened cigarettes with Wes Anderson behind the camera and a bloodstain drying on my leather jacket from poking a hole in a thin piece of plastic and watching my insides come out.
I’m thinking of ways to form an identity that will destroy all of yours. I’m raping murder and stealing treason. I hunted wolves when I was raised by chickens. I mate with angels that give birth to demons with evil pride and drinking problems. I lick the bones of every talented artist I can collect, living life just like my cannibal ancestors did when they killed off the giants so they could feel big. I sit in a river with my head plunged firmly looking for a clue of Jesus and when I don’t find it I seek the Devil and trade a little more of my soul to falsify the feeling. I ambush Caravans heading West of Fame and circle round them until they settle down into a littered pilgrimage of trailer park towns. I’m eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and finding anyone who hasn’t so I can clothe them in my assumptions about life until they learn Science is separate from Poetry, the way to be happy is by collecting more stuff, we’re all going to live in space some day and people on TV never die.
I let the Earth shatter too busy saving its misled creatures but curtains are closing for the play that hides the audience from their shadow of lies and blistering lackfuls of excuses for lives, and now every God we've loved has demanded human sacrifice. Dawn is coming to smash apocalyptic beams of truth on all the dark little cracks where we buried broken promises. Miracles are soothing the dead to waking but we’re grabbing shotguns to blow their heads off like we were taught in training. Death to the parasites in our brains that suck our identities into a vacuum of not enough. Laundry Day is here to purify the stains and colors from our clothes and shrink them down so they don’t fit anymore. Ladders are being sent to collect the poor souls drowning in possessions, astronauts suffocate in flying clay prisons, science is humping poetry in secret under the bleachers and the ambulance has been called for the last celebrity alive.
The Yin is making the Yang erupt buckets of purple sweat and sounds spill out the wrinkles breaking beats before Punk Music Remixes as the two wage a thumb wrestling battle over which one gets to be the Fresh Prince of the Assholes. I’m the world’s first Hipster and I’m driving a scooter into the sunset, smoking bent and flattened cigarettes with Wes Anderson behind the camera and a bloodstain drying on my leather jacket from poking a hole in a thin piece of plastic and watching my insides come out.
Menstrual Cunnilingus
Call
me a Vampire but I see nothing wrong with a bloody vagina. All that
gleefully nutritious, succulent sweetness goes to waste if you're
unwilling to assault the main gates and plaster your snout against the
coppery wetness leaking from those happy drapes. Sometimes if she's
bleeding I'll go down simply because I'm out of granola bars and don't feel like ramen. I can survive off her pussy for weeks and if I'm careful enough she won't even stain the sheets.
Don't you dare look disgusted. Have you ever tried it? Do you even know what it tastes like? Sure it's pungent and stings the throat and leaves a bloody mess on your chin but there's a rich and sugary undercoat like raspberry syruped over flavorful olives or a mucus of honey and cherry and bubbly soda pop. Alright I'm embellishing now it's more like salmon brunch or a nice tuna melt. Except covered in vagina blood. You know I'm failing to really capture the taste with words and I apologize. I suppose it's an acquired taste like oysters or artichokes. And each one different from the next. Some similar to delicious blush or a two buck chuck and others more like habanero gasoline. A few come pickled, usually the ladies in triple digits whose curtains you feel tickle your voice box.
So come friends and join me! Let us dance all night in vagina blood and play and splash about and wrestle, holding each others faces down in menstrual puddles until somebody calls uncle. And when we're done we'll shower in it and scrub each other thoroughly dirty until we fall asleep and when we awake it will have crusted over night and we'll find little snacks caught in our hair and behind our ears, tasty treats too delicious not to eat. I like to add it to my coffee. You can snort it off the floor but if you do make sure to mop, you don't want germs in your menstrual snot. You can hoard it in all in jars, you can leave them in a drawer then sneak it into soup and serve it to the poor. How dare you tell me I'm being improper? I say let them eat caviar!
So come friends and join me! Won't you have some with your toast? You've heard of a Southwest Omelette, but have tried the Cannibal Coast? You can even have it on your sushi if your soy sauce lacks in flavor, or throw it on a hotdog because you're already eating a fucking a hotdog so--Look, don't take my word for it, try it for yourself but heed my warning, you may come to love it. I'm just kidding. You'll probably get sick and throw up.
Don't you dare look disgusted. Have you ever tried it? Do you even know what it tastes like? Sure it's pungent and stings the throat and leaves a bloody mess on your chin but there's a rich and sugary undercoat like raspberry syruped over flavorful olives or a mucus of honey and cherry and bubbly soda pop. Alright I'm embellishing now it's more like salmon brunch or a nice tuna melt. Except covered in vagina blood. You know I'm failing to really capture the taste with words and I apologize. I suppose it's an acquired taste like oysters or artichokes. And each one different from the next. Some similar to delicious blush or a two buck chuck and others more like habanero gasoline. A few come pickled, usually the ladies in triple digits whose curtains you feel tickle your voice box.
So come friends and join me! Let us dance all night in vagina blood and play and splash about and wrestle, holding each others faces down in menstrual puddles until somebody calls uncle. And when we're done we'll shower in it and scrub each other thoroughly dirty until we fall asleep and when we awake it will have crusted over night and we'll find little snacks caught in our hair and behind our ears, tasty treats too delicious not to eat. I like to add it to my coffee. You can snort it off the floor but if you do make sure to mop, you don't want germs in your menstrual snot. You can hoard it in all in jars, you can leave them in a drawer then sneak it into soup and serve it to the poor. How dare you tell me I'm being improper? I say let them eat caviar!
So come friends and join me! Won't you have some with your toast? You've heard of a Southwest Omelette, but have tried the Cannibal Coast? You can even have it on your sushi if your soy sauce lacks in flavor, or throw it on a hotdog because you're already eating a fucking a hotdog so--Look, don't take my word for it, try it for yourself but heed my warning, you may come to love it. I'm just kidding. You'll probably get sick and throw up.
Chronicles of a Pretend Psychic Part One
This is a true story, but it takes place in the future.
Glass spread like fountain drops from the breaking bottle Oscar chucked at a stop sign. My feet dangled against a mangled, melting sidewalk and my eyes lit up a world in napalm cigarettes.
“How much did you take?” asked Oscar as shattered glass ballets unfolded on the street corner.
“I don’t know, like a swig?” I replied in automated and dissociated throat sounds.
“Holy fuck!” he exclaimed, “You’re not gonna go crazy are you?”
“No, I’ll be fine,” And I thought I would be. I was wrong.
It had been a year since I first fled my holocaust state and hit the road. I’d always looked up to Jackie Kerouac and the abandoners but assumed ifI tried the same I’d starve two days in and my parents would find a voicemail describing the way my body was found like roadkill and stinking. Being hypoglycemic, starvation presented a real danger to me even without involving homelessness. But the choice made itself for me when I found myself forced to flee Law Enforcement for conspiracy to take over the government. I’m lying, my charges were not so epic, but I always admired acid dealers labeled revolutionaries even though all they were trying to do was get people high.
Truth be told the incident occurred one particularly upsetting night at Helicon West where I sat in intolerable rage, required to listen politely to a wannabe novelist reading a chapter from her shitty book about Unicorns raping Griffins or something to that effect. I’d taken all I could stand, and I know I should have just stormed off. A normal person would have left, or even just smiled politely while secretly whispering hateful criticism and sharing awkward stares with their friend. But I am not a normal person. I rose to my feet and approached her with a look of cruel deliberation as if I just discovered she’d fucked my mother. She stopped mid sentence and stared at me in discomfort, and I stared back unsure of what I would do next. Unsure which of the two of us was more frightened by that fact. But after I bit her nipple off and spit it in Josh’s face as punishment for permitting this torturous presentation I knew instantly which of the two of us was more afraid.
On the day of my appointment with the Judge my attorney advised it would help my case to drink some datura tea and blast enough meth to kill an orca whale. Needless to say both the bailiff and prosecutor left that day with scars where their nipples used to be. I was going away for a long time, but luckily for me a month into my sentence Lindsey Garvin crashed her van into a school bus full of mentally handicapped children and I was granted furlough for the funeral. I’m not lying when I tell you I did intend to return to jail, but bath salts are a hell of a drug and waking up in the middle of nowhere covered in my attorney’s blood told me that bridge was burned to dust. I never even made it to the funeral.
I always admired Andy Kaufman and Aleister Crowley so pretending to be a psychic with a fake British accent was a natural occupation to keep me fed on my journey. Calling myself Kipernicus Drifter, originally I intended to trade readings for food money but soon learned if I bought booze instead I could just get drunk enough to turn any garbage can I saw into a buffet. I felt like Jesus in that sense.
On one particularly hungry day I found myself searching for food in a dumpster when I stumbled upon a rather delicious looking piece of shit. Upon attempting a bite I discovered it wasn’t actually shit at all but a short Mexican named Oscar. It was at that moment I realized I might secretly be a little racist. Oscar and I would soon become best friends. It turned out he was making his home in that dumpster but in case you’re wondering this is not an allegory for Sesame street, though we did end up purchasing acid from a guy named Big Bird. Well, I use the word “purchase” loosely. To speak more accurately, we beat him within an inch of his life and stole the vial. Police would later find him stark naked with a chest covered in fresh diarrhea, though neither Oscar nor I are willing to take credit for that one.
Apparently the acid we stole was some really high quality shit. It’s the same acid that would end up preying on my sanity like a predator drone on Muslim children.
“It’s okay,” Oscar consoled, groping my shoulders. “You’re just a bad person, that’s all.”
I lay at the peak of my trip, gripped by a terrible empathy for beating up Big Bird and stealing his drugs.
“Why did you have to shit on his chest though?” I asked with a quivering lip and a tear exploring my cheek.
“That was you,” Oscar rebuked.
Shaking my head, I rose to my feet and stumbled through a cacophony of sorrow and self-resentment. What had I become? I asked myself. So many mistakes, so many people left ruined in my wake. For eternities I wandered, Oscar following and handing out comforting quips like, “At least we didn’t rape him too” or “Everyone makes mistakes, yours was being born.”
Eventually I stopped, some new feeling flooding through me. Some holy presence called out. I turned, and before me stood two massive doors, behind which I heard the tongue-speaking repertoire of a Pentecostal Church. My feet inched toward it.
“The fuck you doing?” asked Oscar, “That place is evil.”
“Wait out here,” I instructed, “I’ll be right back, I’m gonna to go get saved.” As I slipped inside, my nostrils basked in the foul stench of Holy Ghost. Together, men and women of all ages, races and creeds mumbled pseudo-Aramaic praises for a man that allowed himself to be murdered by his own people in order to protect them from the Devil. A man whose every pore became a menstrually bound vagina when he witnessed the collected pain of every human being, including me. For I was also one of those things.
Slowly, I approached the snake-skin attired cowboy of a pastor as he channeled grace though his palm like a needle. One by one, each broken sinner fainted only to awaken moments later perfected and ready to join the masses shouting nonsense in Jesus’ name. Finally, he stood before me with his hand raised above my forehead ready to mainline the Word of God directly through my skull. As I fell back, Angelic visions flooded my perception. I knocked upon the pearly gates and God answered, who it turns out does actually look a lot like Morgan Freeman.
“Yes?” said God, “What the fuck do you want?”
“Um,” I was taken aback by the harshness of his greeting. “I was… sorta hoping to be forgiven for my sins, God. You know, be made whole again?”
“Fuck no!” snapped the Lord.
“But I’m one of your creations, aren’t I? I thought you were supposed to love me.”
“I was so fucking wasted when I made you,” God explained, “You are a mistake. You are the broken condom of the wonder that is the universe. I will never love you. Now get the fuck out.”
I awoke dumbfounded. The church had mostly emptied. The pastor slyly conversed with a handful of his fans. A woman leaned against a pew next to me, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Are you okay?” I asked sincerely.
“I’m healed,” she choked out. “God healed me. He healed me. For thirty years I was a filthy, worthless dike but now I’m cured. God healed my gay.” Then she turned to me and smiled, “Did he heal you too?”
“No,” I answered flabbergasted. “He rejected me.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“He… he kicked me out. He doesn’t want me.”
“But that’s impossible,” she argued, “God is love and compassion.”
“Actually,” I reflected, “God is kind of a dick.” I pulled myself up and left the church to find Oscar standing outside smoking a cigarette. He offered me one, I took it.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asked.
“Not yet,” I answered, searching my pocket for a lighter. I felt the vial of acid and pulled it out, opening the cap and taking another swig.
Glass spread like fountain drops from the breaking bottle Oscar chucked at a stop sign. My feet dangled against a mangled, melting sidewalk and my eyes lit up a world in napalm cigarettes.
“How much did you take?” asked Oscar as shattered glass ballets unfolded on the street corner.
“I don’t know, like a swig?” I replied in automated and dissociated throat sounds.
“Holy fuck!” he exclaimed, “You’re not gonna go crazy are you?”
“No, I’ll be fine,” And I thought I would be. I was wrong.
It had been a year since I first fled my holocaust state and hit the road. I’d always looked up to Jackie Kerouac and the abandoners but assumed ifI tried the same I’d starve two days in and my parents would find a voicemail describing the way my body was found like roadkill and stinking. Being hypoglycemic, starvation presented a real danger to me even without involving homelessness. But the choice made itself for me when I found myself forced to flee Law Enforcement for conspiracy to take over the government. I’m lying, my charges were not so epic, but I always admired acid dealers labeled revolutionaries even though all they were trying to do was get people high.
Truth be told the incident occurred one particularly upsetting night at Helicon West where I sat in intolerable rage, required to listen politely to a wannabe novelist reading a chapter from her shitty book about Unicorns raping Griffins or something to that effect. I’d taken all I could stand, and I know I should have just stormed off. A normal person would have left, or even just smiled politely while secretly whispering hateful criticism and sharing awkward stares with their friend. But I am not a normal person. I rose to my feet and approached her with a look of cruel deliberation as if I just discovered she’d fucked my mother. She stopped mid sentence and stared at me in discomfort, and I stared back unsure of what I would do next. Unsure which of the two of us was more frightened by that fact. But after I bit her nipple off and spit it in Josh’s face as punishment for permitting this torturous presentation I knew instantly which of the two of us was more afraid.
On the day of my appointment with the Judge my attorney advised it would help my case to drink some datura tea and blast enough meth to kill an orca whale. Needless to say both the bailiff and prosecutor left that day with scars where their nipples used to be. I was going away for a long time, but luckily for me a month into my sentence Lindsey Garvin crashed her van into a school bus full of mentally handicapped children and I was granted furlough for the funeral. I’m not lying when I tell you I did intend to return to jail, but bath salts are a hell of a drug and waking up in the middle of nowhere covered in my attorney’s blood told me that bridge was burned to dust. I never even made it to the funeral.
I always admired Andy Kaufman and Aleister Crowley so pretending to be a psychic with a fake British accent was a natural occupation to keep me fed on my journey. Calling myself Kipernicus Drifter, originally I intended to trade readings for food money but soon learned if I bought booze instead I could just get drunk enough to turn any garbage can I saw into a buffet. I felt like Jesus in that sense.
On one particularly hungry day I found myself searching for food in a dumpster when I stumbled upon a rather delicious looking piece of shit. Upon attempting a bite I discovered it wasn’t actually shit at all but a short Mexican named Oscar. It was at that moment I realized I might secretly be a little racist. Oscar and I would soon become best friends. It turned out he was making his home in that dumpster but in case you’re wondering this is not an allegory for Sesame street, though we did end up purchasing acid from a guy named Big Bird. Well, I use the word “purchase” loosely. To speak more accurately, we beat him within an inch of his life and stole the vial. Police would later find him stark naked with a chest covered in fresh diarrhea, though neither Oscar nor I are willing to take credit for that one.
Apparently the acid we stole was some really high quality shit. It’s the same acid that would end up preying on my sanity like a predator drone on Muslim children.
“It’s okay,” Oscar consoled, groping my shoulders. “You’re just a bad person, that’s all.”
I lay at the peak of my trip, gripped by a terrible empathy for beating up Big Bird and stealing his drugs.
“Why did you have to shit on his chest though?” I asked with a quivering lip and a tear exploring my cheek.
“That was you,” Oscar rebuked.
Shaking my head, I rose to my feet and stumbled through a cacophony of sorrow and self-resentment. What had I become? I asked myself. So many mistakes, so many people left ruined in my wake. For eternities I wandered, Oscar following and handing out comforting quips like, “At least we didn’t rape him too” or “Everyone makes mistakes, yours was being born.”
Eventually I stopped, some new feeling flooding through me. Some holy presence called out. I turned, and before me stood two massive doors, behind which I heard the tongue-speaking repertoire of a Pentecostal Church. My feet inched toward it.
“The fuck you doing?” asked Oscar, “That place is evil.”
“Wait out here,” I instructed, “I’ll be right back, I’m gonna to go get saved.” As I slipped inside, my nostrils basked in the foul stench of Holy Ghost. Together, men and women of all ages, races and creeds mumbled pseudo-Aramaic praises for a man that allowed himself to be murdered by his own people in order to protect them from the Devil. A man whose every pore became a menstrually bound vagina when he witnessed the collected pain of every human being, including me. For I was also one of those things.
Slowly, I approached the snake-skin attired cowboy of a pastor as he channeled grace though his palm like a needle. One by one, each broken sinner fainted only to awaken moments later perfected and ready to join the masses shouting nonsense in Jesus’ name. Finally, he stood before me with his hand raised above my forehead ready to mainline the Word of God directly through my skull. As I fell back, Angelic visions flooded my perception. I knocked upon the pearly gates and God answered, who it turns out does actually look a lot like Morgan Freeman.
“Yes?” said God, “What the fuck do you want?”
“Um,” I was taken aback by the harshness of his greeting. “I was… sorta hoping to be forgiven for my sins, God. You know, be made whole again?”
“Fuck no!” snapped the Lord.
“But I’m one of your creations, aren’t I? I thought you were supposed to love me.”
“I was so fucking wasted when I made you,” God explained, “You are a mistake. You are the broken condom of the wonder that is the universe. I will never love you. Now get the fuck out.”
I awoke dumbfounded. The church had mostly emptied. The pastor slyly conversed with a handful of his fans. A woman leaned against a pew next to me, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Are you okay?” I asked sincerely.
“I’m healed,” she choked out. “God healed me. He healed me. For thirty years I was a filthy, worthless dike but now I’m cured. God healed my gay.” Then she turned to me and smiled, “Did he heal you too?”
“No,” I answered flabbergasted. “He rejected me.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“He… he kicked me out. He doesn’t want me.”
“But that’s impossible,” she argued, “God is love and compassion.”
“Actually,” I reflected, “God is kind of a dick.” I pulled myself up and left the church to find Oscar standing outside smoking a cigarette. He offered me one, I took it.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asked.
“Not yet,” I answered, searching my pocket for a lighter. I felt the vial of acid and pulled it out, opening the cap and taking another swig.
1.12.16
The Star Spangled Banner
I have an explanation for why I don't
stand for the National Anthem. My grandfather was born in Belgium.
When the Nazis invaded, he refused to surrender so they put him in
prison. On his way to execution, he escaped along with some other men
but so far as he knew, the rottweilers got to the rest of them. He
proceeded to become a liaison between the French Underground and the Allies until the U.S. invaded and freed them from
German occupation.
Today we're taught the French owe us a
favor but our soldiers knew then that we were just getting even. Upon
their arrival on Normandy's beaches, they declared, “Lafayette, we
are here!” giving admiration to the French Admiral who fought for
us in the Revolution.
You may think you know our founders'
intentions but honestly, this country was founded from compromise
between two ideologies that could barely stop screaming at each other
long enough to defend themselves from their former masters. And when
Francis Scott Key wrote the national anthem about how no bombs
dropped by the British could burn our star-spangled banner, the third
verse of his song emphasized the triumph of the white man over
escaped slaves that joined the British ranks for a chance to slay
their former masters.
The flag is a symbol and it represents
what was given to us to by the blood of our ancestors but for Native
Americans it may as well be a swastika. Ideas may be bullet proof but
they aren’t real. Human beings are real. The people perceived as
our enemies wouldn't be so upset, but fear has them looped in a
cycle, trapped in a defensive posture so nothing gets in unless it
fits their preconceived bias. And if you presume this type of denial
will exclude you because you’ve been victimized, too, welcome to
the spiral because evil perpetuates in our blind-spots. It remains
hidden in our generalizations until we can no longer see the
distinction between a war criminal and their citizens, or a terrorist
and all Muslims, or a bigot and the privileged.
Pain cannot be mutually experienced and suffering is like a gas in that any amount is enough to fill the room. That's why the size of your fart doesn't matter, I still smell it from here. That doesn't make our
problems equivalent, but it does mean your enemies are hurting, too, and no one has any excuse to give into fear. You can be hate's captive or love's instrument so choose.
I don't care if some indentured
servants were white and some slave owners were black. Do you identify
with the hand that holds the whip or the back it breaks against?
You're not a victim of the people who have less power than you. The White Supremacists are the ones killing the white race by revising our history so we can't learn from our own mistakes. The knife pulled to the white throat is the lie told to the white folk there's nothing to fight for because our founding fathers said "All Lives Matter" and the bombs bursting in air proved it, when that flag was still there. My flag is the star-spangled banner because I'm part of a Union that says we're all in this together but I won't stand for your fucking anthem anymore because our fight isn't over.
My father was drafted into Vietnam. For this country he sacrificed half his intestines to a bullet wound and lost more than half his platoon, including his best friend, but if you claim he protected your freedom you might find him in disagreement. He'll tell you that freedom was no where to be found in Vietnam, it wouldn't be until later that he would come to his country's defense when a cop smashed his camera with a billy club while he was working for a newspaper photographing the civil rights movement.
My father was drafted into Vietnam. For this country he sacrificed half his intestines to a bullet wound and lost more than half his platoon, including his best friend, but if you claim he protected your freedom you might find him in disagreement. He'll tell you that freedom was no where to be found in Vietnam, it wouldn't be until later that he would come to his country's defense when a cop smashed his camera with a billy club while he was working for a newspaper photographing the civil rights movement.
I choose the star-spangled banner despite the bloodstains accrued
because I am part of a dream, and you tried it to take it away but our
dream is still here so you can shove that ugly blue X up your inferiority complex. Through each generation we've been beaten and
battered and told to let go of that lantern but our dream is still here. And if you want to control the narrative of what it means to be an American then I have a different story to share. And if you say I ain't a
patriot I say you've mistaken your country for a myth made of
borders, colors and creeds. I say you aren't fighting for this
country if you aren't fighting for its rivers and its trees, its
mountains and valleys and its motherfucking bees.
And if you say I hate capitalism, I say
you don't even practice it. The philosophy is based off market
velocity not just extracting wealth. You live in a colonial system
that ran out of space and started eating itself. And if you say I hate the constitution,
I say you should read it because it was written that this nation
would be one people with divided power not divided people under one
debt machine. I say when the wealth disparity between executive and
employee is the same as a slave and the owner of a plantation then
it's time once again for us to declare our emancipation.
And if you say I hate freedom, I say
this isn't the first time greed and division seized our vision and
squeezed it as if the dream would retreat through intimidation and
our ancestors never let the fire deplete and right now they're all
watching. And they say listen, for we are the people who built this
country and the people whose graves it was built upon. We are the
captives who came here stripped of freedom and the refugees who
sought it through Ellis Island and the Rio Grande. We are the
soldiers that fought against Fascist Persecution and we survived
the camp on Angel Island.
We are both sides of history and we beg you not to repeat it. Our silence regarding the military industrial complex has thrust Europe into a refugee crisis and as terrorist acts threaten the liberty of countries like Belgium
and France, they call out once again for that nation that
fought for their freedom the last time. I am my Grand Papa's grandson and to the
children of Lafayette, I declare: We Are Still Here.
Update
For years this blog has served as my cache for writing I've wanted to hold onto. That means poetry, and a couple other things here and there. I've been through so many hardware issues, it's just been more practical for me to archive my writing online so I can always retrieve it.
Now, rather than start a new blog, I want to reinvigorate this one with new focus so it becomes less of a catch all for my work (they invented cloud for that) and more of like, something you can subscribe to, and read, and stuff.
So here's the thing. I have a plethora of interests from political activism to poetry, and while I will always continue to post poetry and fiction writing on here, I'm considering expanding it so that it contains more content. The question begged is what should the content be? My poetry game is pretty strong but it's also a slow process. I'm only churning out about one solid poem per year. From there, I could continue fiction rambling when I'm inspired, and I could do more of that, or I could include more politically themed essays, or both. I could also include more personal entries about my life, if I ever get inspired to do such a thing. We'll see.
Now, rather than start a new blog, I want to reinvigorate this one with new focus so it becomes less of a catch all for my work (they invented cloud for that) and more of like, something you can subscribe to, and read, and stuff.
So here's the thing. I have a plethora of interests from political activism to poetry, and while I will always continue to post poetry and fiction writing on here, I'm considering expanding it so that it contains more content. The question begged is what should the content be? My poetry game is pretty strong but it's also a slow process. I'm only churning out about one solid poem per year. From there, I could continue fiction rambling when I'm inspired, and I could do more of that, or I could include more politically themed essays, or both. I could also include more personal entries about my life, if I ever get inspired to do such a thing. We'll see.
25.10.16
National Coming Out Day
For National Coming Out Day I'd like to come out and confess that I'm
very bad at meeting deadlines and remembering dates or appointments.
I'd also like to come out and confess I have no idea who Tom Hanks is. Like I've heard of him. I've heard he's even in some of my favorite movies. Fuck, I'll even tell people, "It's got Tom Hanks in it," when describing said movie, even though I never recognized any individual named Tom Hanks anywhere in any film ever. I thought I tracked him down back in the 90s but it turned out to be Meg Ryan.
And for those still tuned in, which is hopefully no one at this point, here's a story about what it feels like to come out.
I was told I never appeared to have gender dysphoria. Dysphoria is an interesting illness. Defined as a state of restlessness, anxiety or fidgeting, it's the sensation of permanent and perhaps implacable discomfort, like an incessant itch that cannot be scratched, one that's existed for so long it's been forgotten about; dismissed as the way things are, another unremarkable aspect of everyday life. Free of comprehension, this unease retreats into the unconsciousness and resurfaces as phantom pains and other ailments with opaque and baffling origins.
For me, gender dysphoria was like being born drowning and internalizing the sensation as underdeveloped gills rather than lungs locked in a wrong environment. Only after I let my latent truth emerge could I recognized it as drowning rather than ineptitude. Simultaneously, I passed a point of no return when I looked back and recognized the return to my old life as emotional suicide. I'd have to live the rest of my life knowing part of me could never be born. I've never had an abortion but the sensation felt as if I were stifling the emergence of life itself. I was not just disowning part of myself, I was salting the earth, denying a dance partner to the spectacle of life.
Here's the thing, I don't think this story is unique to trans people. I think we all have dysphoria. No matter how well your essence synchronizes with your environment, part of you is not a costume, and part of you knows it. Part of you agonizes over it. This feeling that something isn't right is inherent to our condition. It never goes away, we only manage it, or get distracted from it, or occasionally peel back a couple of its layers and engulf ourselves in the resulting absolution, but I wager that no human is born without it, or at least without the destiny to develop it. When I hear that I never appeared to have gender dysphoria, I think of my friends, the ones that always seemed so happy, the ones that killed themselves.
Disease is like a current pulling you, alone amidst a school of fish, so it takes extra effort to keep up with them and maintain the downstream trend. Mental diseases are invisible obstacles so no one can even notice you're partially drowning just trying to swim like a regular fish. But then there's this inherent disease called the human condition where everyone collectively pretends they aren't suffering because being sad is so boring and attention is necessary to survival and if we just pretend to be happy then people will like us, give us their focus and time and maybe it will fix us but only if first we don't drive them away with our broken pieces.
I don't pretend to understand the crucible it takes to get you out of bed in the morning but I've been told I didn't seem dysphoric and I'm telling you that the happiest people are not free of diseases, they learn to count their gratitudes even if an innate willingness to be grateful cannot be counted among them. Happy people go to war with the part of themselves that's always fighting and they teach that part peace. And maybe it's not so easy to swim downstream like the rest of them but maybe they've all been taught to swim the wrong way in the first place, and dysphoria is really the pull of gravity taking us down the path of least resistance at the risk of bumping heads with the rest of the clueless people that only think they know where they're going. And these people are still my friends and family, but I can no longer tolerate swimming into the mud for their peace of mind.
My consideration only saves them from the realization that they are already suffering and that they don't have to. My dysphoria is no different from yours, and my healing didn't come from labeling my obstacles but understanding the dysphoria, anxiety, depression and fidgeting intrinsic in the human condition.
I'd also like to come out and confess I have no idea who Tom Hanks is. Like I've heard of him. I've heard he's even in some of my favorite movies. Fuck, I'll even tell people, "It's got Tom Hanks in it," when describing said movie, even though I never recognized any individual named Tom Hanks anywhere in any film ever. I thought I tracked him down back in the 90s but it turned out to be Meg Ryan.
And for those still tuned in, which is hopefully no one at this point, here's a story about what it feels like to come out.
I was told I never appeared to have gender dysphoria. Dysphoria is an interesting illness. Defined as a state of restlessness, anxiety or fidgeting, it's the sensation of permanent and perhaps implacable discomfort, like an incessant itch that cannot be scratched, one that's existed for so long it's been forgotten about; dismissed as the way things are, another unremarkable aspect of everyday life. Free of comprehension, this unease retreats into the unconsciousness and resurfaces as phantom pains and other ailments with opaque and baffling origins.
For me, gender dysphoria was like being born drowning and internalizing the sensation as underdeveloped gills rather than lungs locked in a wrong environment. Only after I let my latent truth emerge could I recognized it as drowning rather than ineptitude. Simultaneously, I passed a point of no return when I looked back and recognized the return to my old life as emotional suicide. I'd have to live the rest of my life knowing part of me could never be born. I've never had an abortion but the sensation felt as if I were stifling the emergence of life itself. I was not just disowning part of myself, I was salting the earth, denying a dance partner to the spectacle of life.
Here's the thing, I don't think this story is unique to trans people. I think we all have dysphoria. No matter how well your essence synchronizes with your environment, part of you is not a costume, and part of you knows it. Part of you agonizes over it. This feeling that something isn't right is inherent to our condition. It never goes away, we only manage it, or get distracted from it, or occasionally peel back a couple of its layers and engulf ourselves in the resulting absolution, but I wager that no human is born without it, or at least without the destiny to develop it. When I hear that I never appeared to have gender dysphoria, I think of my friends, the ones that always seemed so happy, the ones that killed themselves.
Disease is like a current pulling you, alone amidst a school of fish, so it takes extra effort to keep up with them and maintain the downstream trend. Mental diseases are invisible obstacles so no one can even notice you're partially drowning just trying to swim like a regular fish. But then there's this inherent disease called the human condition where everyone collectively pretends they aren't suffering because being sad is so boring and attention is necessary to survival and if we just pretend to be happy then people will like us, give us their focus and time and maybe it will fix us but only if first we don't drive them away with our broken pieces.
I don't pretend to understand the crucible it takes to get you out of bed in the morning but I've been told I didn't seem dysphoric and I'm telling you that the happiest people are not free of diseases, they learn to count their gratitudes even if an innate willingness to be grateful cannot be counted among them. Happy people go to war with the part of themselves that's always fighting and they teach that part peace. And maybe it's not so easy to swim downstream like the rest of them but maybe they've all been taught to swim the wrong way in the first place, and dysphoria is really the pull of gravity taking us down the path of least resistance at the risk of bumping heads with the rest of the clueless people that only think they know where they're going. And these people are still my friends and family, but I can no longer tolerate swimming into the mud for their peace of mind.
My consideration only saves them from the realization that they are already suffering and that they don't have to. My dysphoria is no different from yours, and my healing didn't come from labeling my obstacles but understanding the dysphoria, anxiety, depression and fidgeting intrinsic in the human condition.
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