I am the spent host of a lavish party. None of the guests can spell my name. Everything sparkles. I feel inclined to drink the champagne. It’s cheap. I scrunch my nose. Glitter powder hides my distaste. Next to you, I’m eighty-five and knackered. I’m your sour tongue taste after a long, hard day. You propose a toast to the idea of me. I propose a shot and reach for another. You place two before me and I nod and smile. We get shit-faced before long. I have a headache. Everything shines like new. I feel inclined to touch something. It dodges me. Smartly chosen footwear hides my distaste. Next to you, I am three-year old worn panties. The revellers, they nod and smile.
Everyone that looks your way wants to see your warm, white face smile. Every man whose eye line you unwittingly cross intersects the passing between lust and desire. You could feel pretty, or not. You could feel smart, or not. Unequivocally, they want to put their cocks in your brain and hump your earlobe silly. And maybe your eye socket, too. Who needs to see, when a face full of cock is all you ever dreamed. Feel them snaking in and out of slobbery holes, fat, thick, animated; plump wet, New-York-rat-width worms throbbing in your skull. See the lights, see the lights, Maria. You were conceived but for one purpose:
To Be Face Fucked
Though you passed unseen, in your head sexual organs were magnified a million times over. Multiple cocks, large and hard as apartment blocks and just as cold and sterile. Tits like hackneyed mountain peaks and pussies gaping as the sea. But you can’t live there, then, in your head. It’s too full so let’s just blow it off and start afresh. You can’t give birth, you un-special. Come now. That’s not semen in your belly, darlin’, it’s just the yellow snow.
Death, come quietly to me; I’m sick of trying, trapped, bound. I want to lose the fear in a hacking coughing fit. I brought it up. I can spit it out, I try, I’m sick of trying, death come quietly, we need no more raucous inertia tonight. I’m sick of being you, waiting for you to come circles full and aching, bound bound bound. I just want a cock in mouth, a handle to hold of bicycle bars, breasts to nuzzle into and honk the horn; I forget myself. I should be insistently if not actively calling for death, this is the death prayer, but the fantasies of this reality hold me steady. Awake. Why am I still fucking awake? I’ve lost the thread and I care that you know.
The funny thing is that you just have to ask. Strangers, in public, just ask me: I’ll give you. Sit at my table uninvited: I’ll marry you. Sleep next to me on the early morning train: I’ll cuddle you. Push me to the back and force me: I’m the best victim. Just tell me what to do, Jack. Tell me what to do.
If you can’t smell me, do I really exist?
I can’t fucking believe / I rubbed one out / to a picture of your insecurity
The Americans brushed their teeth and went to bed. The Americans had bad dreams for 75% of the night. The Americans had wet dreams for the remaining 25% of the night. The Americans took a really stinky shit in the morning before breakfast. The Americans learned from the news that the Americans had attacked Syria. The Americans weren’t sure why the Americans had done that. The Americans poured themselves a bowl of Cheerios with skimmed milk. The Americans pulled up their drawstring pajama pants. The Americans thought about past mistakes the Americans have made. The Americans felt like cheap imitations. The Americans showered and masturbated to release some tension. The Americans left the house under the pretense of being fully functional. The Americans lived up to the Americans’ reputation abroad by speaking of the Americans’ bodily functions. The Americans felt hopeless and bored. The Americans wondered how long they can keep this up. The Americans were tired of hearing about themselves. The Americans were filled with dread.
Take me, for example. I seem to have many theories on human suffering that curiously never apply to myself. I looked at the pictures and wished to be in them. Not as me, of course, because that would never do. I hate pictures. No, I don’t. I love pictures. As long as they don’t show me what I don’t want to see. Apparently, cameras suck the souls from their targets. I learned that at a very young age and I’m afraid it stuck. Or rather, it didn’t. That is, the soul didn’t. I don’t really know what the word means.
I want to say something I’ve never heard before, but I keep rehashing the same, tired old themes, it seems. I use too many commas, mostly.
A colon should never be followed by a dash:- Who would do that? And to what end?
Leafing through this moderately heavy, reddish-orange book, my head is full;- my thoughts muddled. I’ve always been passively rebellious (well, I used to be more active, but the years wore on). I’m not being purposefully morose - I’ve got: problems. With commas, with pronouns. With clarity. Thankfully none of that keeps me from communicating with you. I think. In some way.
Back to human suffering, though. I believe everyone suffers equally and everyone has a right to suffer. No burden is more / less heavy than any other. All mules have a back on which a ton is loaded and they must all make it to the: - wherever it is mules go to drop off their load.
So why should it be then, that I’d happily trade my load for yours? Why does another’s load seem so much more attractive? I go out of focus again when I think about it. It screams at something I’d rather not shine a light on.
I seek out avenues to feed my escapism, if not to fully escape. This, what I’m doing here, now, this is a way of not facing reality. Open a blank page on which to wander, turn the music up on high, light a cigarette, make a drink - immerse myself in imaginary worlds, worlds that, curiously, aren’t very imaginative.
And when I’m tired of that I’ll force myself to sleep for 10 hours or more if I can. The very first hint of awareness or consciousness is to be extinguished immediately and without question. Goodnight, curious.
* * *
Update: somewhere I have heard this before, in a dream my memory stored:-
The truth, the truth, the truth, we’re all so preoccupied with the truth. The word has no meaning anymore, if it ever did. The truth is I can be pretty fucking awfully self-serving. I take what I need and give only as much as I can afford, and with my resources, naturally that isn’t much.
I didn’t realise, I don’t realise often times until it’s too late. I know, I know, I know how trite that sounds, I can’t help it, it can’t be helped, I can’t ask for help, I don’t deserve help, but I need help. A specific type of help, if you’ll hear me out. Yes I did, I did, I did say that I believed that the truth was that the help, this help, this specific assistance wasn’t forthcoming. Mmm, I’m reaching for the slightly longer ones now, now, now that I’m nervous, I’m anxious, I’m scared - am I too revealing? am I not revealing enough? am I fun? am I zany? but in a ‘cool’ way? not too much? too girlie? too butch? too needy? too withdrawn? too self-loving? too self-hating?
Am I bitter? am I clear?
Clarity.
Clarity of thought, of word, escapes me. I see the patterns, I see groups of three, I think in parallels, I feel just there, just behind the hazy yellow mist there’s a real, three-dimensional, unequivocal, undeniably real… something. That you can touch. That you can see. That you can form your mouth around and express. But when I try, and I do try - it’s a glob of mess, of nothing, undefinable pulpy, gloopy, shit. And even I can’t abide that.
When I dare to cast my gaze in that direction for long enough to see, there’s only one thing I want: the one thing that will make it worse. Because what makes it worse, makes it better in the short term. And the advice-givers tell you to ‘live day by day’ and take things ‘one step at a time’, don’t they? Well I need it. To take the next step. I can’t step knowingly. My legs won’t cooperate and my hands are pins and my burden is heavier than all the world and if you don’t believe that, fuck you. It’s mine to carry until I decide otherwise. Until I can decide otherwise.
I am trapped and swept along in a horde of workers all clamouring for the attention of a non-sentient being, non-being entity, unfeeling and unwashed and illogical, masses clamouring nauseous. I feel dull and repetitive and listless and ashamed.
I am free, they tell me. Free to serve, free to act, but always in my best dress and matching muzzle. I am trapped. In a mass of grey cotton clouds, seeming fluffy yet rough-heavy with water, retaining me, flush to the surface. The inactive captive sways, my captain.
I am tired. Been chained to the radiator for weeks without the promise of a healing wash and dry, heaving fuck at the end of a hard day’s work of waiting and waiting. I can feel the wrinkles around my squinting eyes become permanent, minute by minute by minute and mute. I am queasy with the ghost and green with the promise I can’t fulfill.
I am sick. Of absence and doubt and mindfulness and helpfulness and helplessness and whipstitched seams. Rip. And break apart. And breathe in and cough. No oxygen is forthcoming, no mask enough to veil the unmasking.
I am afraid I need to be bound and gagged and fucked and beaten mercilessly every time I mince our words again, again. Beat to the beat of a beating heart I can’t prove still beats there, in a chest cavity unknown. Write and release. I must do something. Eke out the short-lived high of the quickly exhaled paragraph or the quickly inhaled puff. Whichever makes me come quicker. Scratch my skin and bleed. And bleed. And be bled.
And admit once and for ever that no one is coming to save me.
I would like to tell you it’s all good, but the truth is I think you fell on the wrong side. There was a split, you see. Unknowingly, I walked in and stepped in it and split it, down the centre, more or less, with a trusty pick axe and a bucketful of gin. More or less. And the thing is, is that this was supposed to be the good side, and I don’t know I mean, I still think this is the good side. And that’s good. Right? But when I look over there, over the gaping chasm, I see… I don’t know, you know I see them and they’re cool, too and whatnot and things. I lapse into vagueness because the nothing creeps over the painful bits, and that’s good, too, you know, that’s as it should be. I am here to protect me from it all. I am here to protect me. Only me. Because no one really wants to know how itchy this suit of armour really is.
I created a world out of bullshit beans, a bag of chips and a packet of crisps.
I’m confused.
I don’t know which end is up, which gap to mind, which mind to make myself of. Up. Whatever. Envy fuels me.
I set out intent on unmasking the injustice, the tripe; but always end up unmasking myself. So it fits. The glove lands on the other shoe and I for one never look a gift pony up the asshole. I mean, that’s just rude, right?
I know when I’m doing it, but I’m powerless to stop.
I am fragile, but it’s nothing to do with my gender.
I was somebody’s baby; now I’m somebody’s darling.
I hate loud noises.
I am sad and lonely and spilt cup-o-noodles will send me into a spiraling tailspin of despair.
I feel violently in love.
What they neglect to tell you is that once you wash them in hard water, lace turns to sandpaper, chafing your most tender, intimate bits. Yet you continue to don them, because you deserve - no, crave - low-level discomfort at all hours, because it’s what you know and what you know is more precious than what you could know. Because you like it rough and the color is still saturated, and the house is still warm, and your panties are still on, and your hope is still shattered (except for the fuzzy bit you keep way at the back, in the corner of the room under piles of dirty white linen, chipped china and back issues of New Scientist still bundled up in their protective plastic).
I wasn’t very forthcoming earlier. The truth is that I do care, of course I care. I want to be wild and fancy free, hair blowing in the wind, but I’m shiver shake step by step and scream.
When you roll over in bed and you hug yourself close to me with that mortal fear, I want to die, too. And I understand why you would. Your life, long though it’s been, hasn’t held much of anything in the way of happiness for you. I think. I don’t know. But I think. I could be mistaken, I was never good at that sort of thing. Whatever that is. I tend toward the hopeless.
In later years, though nothing much happens, contentment - or at least placid tranquillity - is still a struggle. It’s all a struggle. Until you close your eyes. And leave me. Like I once. Left you. Only a bit more. With permanence. For time. Without the courtesy of an empty promise like I made you.
I don’t know what to say to you, I never know what to say, but especially now, precious words cower under the duvet between us. Afraid to be spoken. Afraid to be. Afraid like us. Like you. You.
In the night, when the dark envelops you and you get a tiny glimpse of how it might be and you wonder if this is how it might be, only worse. Only worse. Scared. Alone. Hug close. Hold tight.
I swallow hard. I am not equipped to deal with this slow wasting away and yet it’s all we do. Waste. Things. Away. Slowly. I understand. I think. I understand. The self. The pain. I want you to go, but not like this. I’m not sure how. But not like this.
I haven’t been true to the self-imposed vacuum credo I spouted. I’m guilty. I’ve worried too much about words, pretty words, correctly-placed words, ordered words, meaningful words, thoughtful words, words brimming with emotion from the depths of my beautiful soul oh god somebody please hear me! feel me! save me! fuck me, jesus!
Bullshit.
From now on it’s cocksucking, fucking, sick cunting, rage, and armoured skies and jelly beans or maybe no words because none of this shit matters.
And in the same breath pretty words and prettier words and even more of the prettiest words fucking ever. And I’m going to relax my anal cavity. A bit.
And make paragraphs of varying lengths and strengths.
Or.
You know.
Not.
Because I’ve been reading your mental breakdowns, and your pleas for attention, your sorrowful realisations, and your shameless self-promotion, and your ticking clocks, and your ticking bombs and your fucking rhymes and your misplaced lines and shit that scans and shit that doesn’t, and shit that heals and shit that breaks, the shit you steal, the shit you barter, the ‘you’ you trade, the lies I buy, the lies that I make and take and fake and fuck fuck and fuck and fuck and.
And I’m tired now. I don’t want to speak your language now. I never wanted to speak. But maybe I will now. If I can voice the sound of my stand. For a time.