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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

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“I tried to hire my mentally ill
brother,” he said. “I gave
him a knife. He’s
forbidden to touch them but I gave
him one anyways and
told him to
use it on me. That was my
strategy for productive writing. My
brother would stand by
the door
and I told him to cut me
down if I dared stand and walk away
from my computer. A
computer with no
internet connection, of course. Only
a word processor.
That’s all.”

“Impressive.
And how did
it work
out?”

He shook his
head.
“It didn’t. My brother got
very bored
and played around with
the knife
and hurt
himself, dammit.
Today
I imagine I’m locked in a cell
with a computer
and my captors made a
deal with me. You
have to write 50 poems
a day, they told me. Else you
don’t
get out of here. It’s
an okay method
but I still would’ve
proffered the first one. My brother would’ve
made some money too.
I’ve life insurance.”

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well it’s been about four days of
fasting
Four days of eating nothing
but smoke from
his cigarettes
so it was difficult to tell whether
the woman
who sat in his bathtub
and smoked some of his cigarettes and
watched him writing on his desk
was real or not

“Of course I’m real, you
dumbass!” she said, exhaling smoke. “I’m
just hiding. This seems
like an okay place.”

“Hiding from whom?” he asked

“Well,” she said, “since you don’t know,
it means they hadn’t looked
for me here yet. That’s good. Anyway,
you got something to
eat in here?”

“Um… no, sorry. I’m fasting.”

“Fasting? What the fuck for? So that God
might forgive your sins
or some shit like that?”

“No. I’m… a writer. I get my inspiration
like that.”

“Oh? A writer? And how’s it going so far?”

“Pretty good,” he said. “I wrote this
story about
a woman who disguised herself
as a prostitute to infiltrate
a corrupt officer’s home and killed him
to fulfill a revenge pact.”

“No shit,” she said. “And what did the
officer do to her?”

“I haven’t gotten to that part. The
story doesn’t unfold like
that. It starts with her
running away from the authorities and breaking
into the house of a lone writer
who suffers from
schizophrenia and can’t tell whether she’s
real or not. So he
begins to regard her as a muse
and their relationship develops from this.”

She lit another cigarette. “No shit.
Well, I bet it’s gonna
be a hit, this story of yours.”

“You think so?”

“Sure, sure. Say, you won’t mind if I
go through your kitchen a bit, right?
Maybe you’ve some leftovers or
something that I can help
myself to?”

He shrugged. “I probably don’t. But, okay,
have a look.”

She got out of the
bathtub and now he could see that all
she wore was a gray tank top. No
pants, no shoes. A bright green snake
with stars for eyes shone
tattooed around her crotch. “I will,” she said,
“thanks.”
And she disappeared into the kitchen

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they didn't even know
who the kid watching TV in the
other room was

but maybe that was
not their number one problem

"You goddamn bitch," he said. "Tell me!
Tell me you didn't
steal any from me, so I can say
I don't believe you. C'mon, tell me!"

"Fuck you," she said. "You lost it."

"I knew you'd find some
excuse, some lie. Cuz you're one lying bitch,
that's what you are."

"Hey, what about the tenant?"

"Who?"

"The tenant, deepshit! From the other
room. You'd rather believe
I stole it, not him?"

"What the...? Bitch, that's your son. He's
like five. He don't pay no rent."

"What? We gotta kick 'im out then!"

"Aha! So you did
take my shit! You so high you don't
recognize your own son. Again!"

They were louder than
the TV
but it didn't matter. This TV had one
channel only
and it played commercials on a loop. Commercials
about frying pans. He
liked to watch the food
displayed in those commercials. It looked
divinely good.
And he was hungry and they ran out
of toast again
But dad threw mom out the window
again. Maybe she'll grab some
on her way back.

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“You need help,” they
told him. “Get some therapy, some
counseling, something. Reach out, man,
you need help.”

He would raise his
glass at
such advice and say, “Oh, hell yeah, I
need all the help I can
get. Thanks.” But he
would never actually reach for it

He’d reach for the
closest bottle
and pour himself another drink

and maybe reach
for some leg
or breast or ass

By this time the ladies knew he
wasn’t a bum, even though
he looked like one
with his ragged, soiled green suit
and his worn out shoes
his cobweb-like greasy hair
and the unkempt beard that looked
like he was chewing on
a dead, rotting octopus

He was loaded
with cash
despite all that

And the explanation was simple

He was
a poet

He laughed at all those well-meaning
advisers and their
concerns

He would return to his home
in the slums
and wrestle with a door that wouldn’t
open because of the mounts of
empty bottles from
the other side

and would enter through the window
once more

fall on his face

start bleeding
from his nose and lips

Stand
and look at the redness pooling on
the dirty floor beneath
and start laughing

“Haahaaaah! Advising me to seek
help. What garbage. Calling me
a fool.
Fools are those who trade their madness
for the privilege to fit in.
Fuck those people! I’m gonna write
a poem with the
used tampon my new girl gave me.”

He went to his
desk
searching his pockets

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a thief had entered the house
and all
he stole
was the TV remote
Perhaps some prankster kid
because at times
the TV would act strange. So he's probably
close and messing with them.

there was only the two of them
home. The old man with
dementia and his
daughter, not a very young woman herself

unable to speak,
the old man
began to cry because he couldn't
watch his favorite
cartoons on TV

and he cried and cried and kept crying
about it
It was too much
and, the daughter thought, it was
about time. About time she
left the past behind and
started her
own life. She was 39, childless,
no husband, no boyfriend, nothing.

Over the next few days
she arranged for the old man
to be placed into foster care. He was still
crying.

Sacrifices had to be made. She was wiping her
own tears when the
phone rang.

She picked up
and a nurse told her they'd taken her
father to the ER
as he wouldn't stop crying

"Goodness, what happened to him? Is
he all right now?"

"Um, mam, this might be
difficult to hear but..."

"Yes?"

"In the ER, they found a TV remote
lodged inside his
rectum."

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The building had 60 stories
and he was 60 years old
Still cleaning it from bottom to top
for the past 35 years

one thing remained unchanged
as time passed

the coldness

Every surface he’d ever touch would
be as cold as the glass
of a window in the winter

And the people who
worked in the building were
pale and cold as vampires

He forgot how it was to be saluted
or how it was to salute
and get a reply

No one talked to the janitor
No one knew his name

No one cared

There were no souls in this isolated
monolith
that stood in the center
overlooking other monoliths

Hell is cold
and monotonous
and plays constant factory noises
or keyboard noises
and exudes smoke

Even the plants were made of
plastic and their flowers
and leaves had to be sprayed with alcohol
and wiped with a rag

Real plants wouldn’t
accept such treatment

They would punish you with their death
and that should be enough

But not for those pale vampires

The only thing alive
was him, the janitor
who imagined jazz music playing in
his mind as he scrubbed the tiles

and one mushroom that grew behind one of the
toilets in the women’s bathroom from
a used pad

He left it there for days
It was his little secret, his little friend
in this world of soulless beings

It was life sprouting against
impossible odds

Life in hell

It was something to look up to
every day

Something to kneel before and say
hello to and sing jazz to
and even pat gently with the finger

He promised himself that the day that
mushroom died
he would retire

So far it was still alive
Still sprouting spores that he
inhaled
and tasted with his tongue after
rubbing it gently with his finger

Living beings
stick together
regardless of species

Just like the dead do