he deliberately chose
the nastiest
sound for the alarm clock
Zeeeehhweeeehhchhh
and there it went
again
Every four hours. Announcing that he
had to start the
engine again lest he
froze to death
The phone had 17% battery left. He
would need to visit
the library again
for a recharge but it was becoming
increasingly
harder as the smell of homeless
was growing more
potent on him
He checked the time again
turned off the phone
turned on the engine
wiped the windshield with his gloved hand
watched his breath leave his mouth
fumbled around for a cigarette
no luck
He took out the lighter and
struck it
and all it produced were sparks
It's been quite a lot of
no luck
lately
At the library he took small
chapbooks
with him to a desk and pretended
to be studying them
while the phone charged besides
him
but not having anything
better to do he
read some of the poems in
those chapbooks. He didn't understand
poetry, didn't know
how to read it to
make sense. He was simply not
a man of writing and reading,
didn't understand why
the lines were so choppy
and didn't go all the way
to the right margin of the page. Why did it
have to look so
intentionally wrong? Also
why didn't it rhyme if
it was called poetry? He resigned himself
eventually. He'll never understand
this part of literature
but still, there was
something
he read in one of those deranged
verses with words all
over the page. One poem that
ended something like this:
"then something else in me said, no, save the tiniest
bit.
it needn’t be much, just a spark.
a spark can set a whole forest on
fire.
just a spark.
save it."
His English wasn't the
best but he
understood the message well enough
the spark was
there
still
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To work at the peak
of the desert heat
The adults told him he’d need
an injection for that
and the man dressed in white
grabbed his arm and lifted it
and stung him with the needle in the shoulder
and injected the serum
It took away all doubt
from his mind
and all weariness from his heart
and limbs
He was ready
“Good boy,” the adults said
and patted him on the back
They gave him an assault riffle,
one he’d held and used
before for practice,
and sent him out of camp
and towards the enemy soldiers
It’ll be fine
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It is known
You can never hold on to
an adventurer
and she was one
And she was gone
and he stood by the window
and smelled the
guitar she left behind,
not knowing how to play it
A girl like her
travels around the world
like a sailor and
loves many boys and men
and they never forget her
The one mistake
they all share is
trying to lock her in their
world
It’s like trying to
capture the sun’s light in
a bag and take it
into your dark house
Women like her
are responsible for
men who call themselves
romantics and write love poems
and dream
He struck the cords
of the guitar
once. Looked out
the window. Warm, sunny day.
Streets busy with children
running fast, passing by
adults who walked slow
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that guitar is useless in
his hands
he spent over ten thousand
hours playing
it's all he does really
he had all the time
in the world
after the accident that
rendered his legs
useless
He sits in bed or in
the wheelchair all day
and plays the guitar
but it's all useless
he's lacking the fire
in his eyes
all his songs are the
same song
a sad tune
and the lyrics are all in
his mind
and they're darker than his
eyes
colder
the other day his
mother found a
knife in his room,
under the mattress
he said the guitar wasn't
enough anymore
the guitar was fine so far
because the cords
brought feeling
to his fingers
but now that the fingers
had gone completely numb
with thick skin
he wanted to
pick up the violin
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sunny day outside
streets full
of people seeking water
and cold beers
overcast day inside
the cold, irregular walls
of the basement
in the abandoned building
The clouds are alive
and very annoying
She slaps his forehead
with a sloppy hand
soaked in vomit
“Ouch!” he screams
And she says, “I can’t stand
these fucking
fruit flies. Why must
they follow everywhere we go?”
He turns around
on the wool blanket and
shoves away a few empty bottles
of cheap wine
and
drops his head onto
her naked lap. “Because, baby, we’re
putrid. You and I, we’re both
dead on the inside
and out. And the fruit flies
love the smell
and taste of our bodies. Especially
when they come
together and sweat a lot.”
His hand grabs at
her upper thigh
and the fingers
tap playfully along the
piano-key-like cut marks
that adorn it
from crotch to knee
She tries to squash another
fruit fly
on his back
fails
gives up
drifts into sobs
and cries
“Noo, don’t cry,” he whispers
“Darling,” she says through
sour tears that
get immediately assaulted by
the fruit flies, “are we
really dead?”
“Yeah,” he says after
two full minutes
of struggling to open his eyes.
“Dead to them all
who walk outside in the warm
sun and go to jobs
to feed families, and dead
to our own families. And
to God. We’re dead, alright.”
She wails and
moves her vomit-soaked
hand before her face
to chase away
the fruit flies
achieves the opposite
effect
wails some more
looks around for
her favorite razor blade
doesn’t find it
wails some more
grabs a bottle and swings
it against the wall
behind her back
but not strong enough
to break
just drops it
And she wails some more
until
he grabs her hand and
holds it against his
face and
starts sucking on her fingers
It tastes not very
different from
the wine they drank
so he keeps sucking
and tells her, “Don’t worry.”
“What?” she asks
“Don’t worry, I said. Even if
we’re dead, at least
we’re dead together. And it’s
a thousand billion times
better than
being alive and apart. We’re still
better off than those
walking outside in the warm sun.
Those fools stay together
till death does ‘em apart. Pathetic.
We’re staying together in
death itself, dear. Our love
is eternal!
We got each other
and our cool grave
and our thousands of flying children
here roaming about
and the sweet nectar of each
other’s bodies. What else
could one ask for in life
or in death?”
“Aw, you sweet talking
failure of a poet,
come and kiss me!”
He did
and not even the
vomit or the
coughing of blood could
break their lips apart
and the
fruit flies
joined in
and outside people still
walked in
the warm sun
oblivious of what true love
looked like
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she looks up at me with
eyes hidden, almost locked,
behind
thick bars of hair
that reaches all the way to
her small nose
Hair discolored like
dry straw,
second in paleness only
to her ghostly face
She doesn’t stare too much
because there
are other things to see
in the room
She moves
on. Not
knowing that I also stared
at her. Into her soul
I’ve spotted an unquenched
cry there
The easiest to
recognize is the cry of loss
and that’s what I saw there
paired with
the cry of want
She wants to get away
from here
Far, far away. She wants to go
and never stop. Wants
to travel into
forever
and I’d like to
take her
there
But alas,
I am stuck here onto
this wall
frozen in time
I'm a static
painting
And my cold
words
void of any vibration
will never reach her
I have to make my peace
with it. Yeah, some
people just don’t read
poetry. And even if
they do, what are the chances
they’d read mine?
Wow, what a fool I can be at times
But, well, at least
I have my dreams
and myself to laugh at
You don’t need much else
in eternity
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A lone ant
crawled into his hair and went across
his forehead to
his eyelid
He woke up
Sand all about him and wood above
But this was so far
from hell
Hell was a thing of the past now
Now he had her by
his side
She was still sleeping
in her rugged sleeping bag
For the past few days
they slept under the cabin
to avoid being ambushed inside
He knew she wouldn’t be by his
side
for long. The infection in her
mouth was really getting out of control
putting her one outrageous fever
away from death
This was the world today
A warm wasteland full of predators
and no medical help of
any kind. Kill or be killed. Law of
the jungle. And so on
He liked to believe he
adapted
Too many didn’t
His luck stood in not having that much of
a fine life before the disaster
In fact
life was actually better now
in some aspects
For one
he had a cute companion by his side
A man really doesn't need
much to cling to life
She awakened a few minutes later
from another one of her fever dreams
All sweaty
Breathing heavy
Reaching out for his hand
“Do I smell?” she asked
“What?”
“I said, do I smell?”
“Well, yeah, we both do. Just look at…
where we are. How we are. But hey,
one thing you can be sure of, I
really, really don’t mind.”
“You sure?”
“More than sure.”
“Good. Then hold me.”
He moved closer and circled her with his
arms. Buried his head in
her hair. “We can go inside. No one
came tonight either. It’s safe.”
“No,” she said. “Hold me for a bit longer.
This night… I had the worst of
them. Worst nightmare. A boat came
here on the beach. With saviors. They weren’t
even pirates. But actually good people.
They rescued us.
And among them… there was another woman.
A healthy, pretty one.
And the two of you fell in love. And I
lost you. And I killed myself. Threw
myself over the board. And drowned. My lungs
were burning.”
“Wow,” he said. “What a silly dream.”
“It felt so real.”
“You think I’d leave you for another woman
just because she’s healthy and pretty? After
all we’ve gone through?”
“Look,” she said, “my husband left me for
another woman
even before my gums and tongue started to
swell and rot. When I was still
healthy and… somewhat pretty.”
“Well… I’m not your husband.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I… shouldn’t have brought him
into the discussion. And you’re right. You
are… the most… You’re all I’m still
alive for, really. And I know
I won’t be alive for long.”
“Don’t talk like that,” he said
“It’s true. That’s why… I want you to know
that these past days…
I’ve been praying. For God not to send
us any rescuers. I prayed not to be
found by any other humans. I hate all other
humans besides you. I know it’s incredibly
selfish of me but… We’ve enough
provisions here to
survive… You know, in my case, for the rest
of my life. It’s all a matter of
days, really. I want these last days to be
spent with you alone.”
They made love there in the
dirty sand
and he didn’t mind covering that rotting
mouth with his
By the time she died
her belly
was quite swollen
And he made his peace
with the fact that he’ll never get
over it
Daydreaming as a profession 