the police found her on the porch steps with the shotgun laid across her lap the roof was burning behind her and she was talking about fish “My head's starving,” she was saying. “The fish... they ate all my dreams. Fuckers think they can just swim around eating people's dreams when they please. Swim away from me.” She had no reaction as the cops came to take her shotgun away and restrain her. Just kept talking about fish and how they swim around and eat people's dreams There are many others like her in town and all over the world and it's not even the worst case scenario The worst of the worst are those who make the fish starve because they no longer have dreams to be eaten These people are all over the place, yet the news never mentions them There's nothing to talk about them Only to…
It became more and more
obvious
There was a storm inside her
growing ever stronger
and she sought
to terminate it
before it was too late
It's arguably more difficult to
terminate such storms
when you're fifteen
and still living with your parents
so she decided not to
share her struggle
with them
and reached inside her
for the eye of the storm
with a steel wire she'd kept in
a bottle of hand sanitizer for a day
and a night
Yes, the first raindrops painted the
white of the bathtub
they were crimson
and salty
like her tears
“I don't take a lot with me when I go cave exploring,” she said. “And I do go quite often. And I do go quite deep. It's because I always manage to find something there. Not something material, but a feeling. It's hard to explain. Like Mother Earth herself holds you in a very tight embrace. Like she's squeezing you back inside the place you came from. And above all, there's of course the thrill. The thrill of knowing that you might no longer be able to get out of there. Ever. I love that. It's like the opposite of claustrophobia. I get aroused by feeling trapped. Squeezed. About to have the air squeezed from my lungs.” And there was no one, not her parents, not her friends or the strangers she spoke to over the internet. No one who could convince her that on her last trip she didn't…
earlier today
the curtains before the window
just fell
nothing touched
or pulled
or even brushed against
them. They
just fell
They're still
on the floor
He doesn't feel like
picking them up and
putting them back
why bother
anymore
Why bother with
anything
Ever
He got out of bed only
to grab the
bottle
and then went back
and watched the stars outside
through it
switching from clear vision
where the liquid
was absent
to distorted vision where
the liquid was present
The stars were smiling
back
but they couldn't speak
back. And the moon
was absent tonight
It would be
one of those nights
that leaves the whole bottle
with clear vision towards
the sky outside
Just another night
among many
among all
of them
late autumn
cold enough to
turn a breath visible
he leaned against the
rail of the bridge
and watched the
river run
below him
and imagined he was in a
spaceship
hovering above the land
Smiling
he said, "Yes, I'll be there one
day, brother. I'll pick you
up with the spaceship we wanted
to build together. I'll
put it together and then–"
and just then a pair of
hands grabbed him
from behind and pulled him apart from
the rail. "All right now," said
the nurse, "let's not get
carried away again."
He startled. "I wasn't going
to jump this time. I swear."
"I believe you," said the nurse. "But
let's just leave now. Let's get
back. I'm cold and
I'm sure you're hungry too and
we could get a cup of
hot chocolate. How about it?"
"I wasn't going
to jump," he said.
She held his hand. "I know. I know, dear.
Come now. Let's get back."
"I wasn't going
to jump."
She dragged him away from the
rail and held his
hand all the way back
to what she called the friendly house.
it's hard to get bored these days there's all these gadgets and technology and stuff and there's the ghosts of the past to keep one company and, if smart enough, one can learn to combine them He lied on his bed and finally turned on his phone The notifications were there and they assaulted him. The missed calls and the text messages YOU PIECE OF SHIT! ROT IN HELL GO DROWN IN SHIT, YOU ASSHOLE! CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR ACTIONS DOING A NUMBER ON YOU! EVERY. SINGLE. LIE. YOU TOLD THERE'S A SPECIAL PLACE IN HELL FOR FUCKERS WHO MAKE SOMEONE FALL IN LOVE WITH THEM AND THEN TURN AWAY. YOU'RE GOING THERE!!!!!!! HEY, I'VE THROWN YOUR PICTURE IN THE FIREPLACE. I'LL SEND YOU THE VID OF IT BURNING SOOOO NICELY. JUST TO KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT SOON. OH, HOW SOOOOON... He turned the phone off…
when nothing happens, nothing happens and tonight nothing happened. He rolled over and turned his back to her There was a long silence She took her phone and accessed the surveillance camera installed in her parents' bedroom Nothing happened there either. They were just sleeping It was 01:32 AM Finally, he said, “Hey, have I told you that one story from back in the day when I used to live on the streets? About me stealing a sex doll from a shop?” “No,” she said. “I mean, you probably did, but I was too drunk to remember.” “Alright. So, wanna hear it again?” She put her phone away and turned to him and hugged him from the back and told him to go on She fell asleep before he got to the good part but that was alright it left something to talk about for the morrow or the next…
they were kissing and playfully biting each other like teenagers in love as they walked up the stairs to the bedroom Once inside she made him sit on the bed and turned around to a desk in the corner. Opened the drawer “This,” she said, “was my father's study. He was a writer. And after his death I insisted that this become my room.” From the drawer she pulled out a silver revolver. Showed it to him. “This, he put against the roof of his mouth and fired. I was in my room, which is next door, when it happened. And, as I've told you before, I was playing with myself. Hard. And... it all ended with a bang. A big one. Ever since then, I've been unable to forget the man. How could I when it was him I was thinking about even before? Now, I always sleep in…
“You can’t put a leash on art!” she cried. “The moment you do so it turns from a majestic lion into a grumpy house cat. Tell me, would you rather see grumpy house cats or majestic lions when you go out exploring?”
“Do I really have to answer that?” He said. “Look, I’ve had just enough of your shitty analogies. I’m really starting to think the people at the gallery were right.”
Those words delivered quite the hot stab into her artistic heart.
As an artist she was already quite famous for being rejected at the free gallery for presenting a poem about climate change written on a large, thick cardboard.
Nothing wrong so far, but the letters in the poem were formed with living earthworms and maggots and centipedes and small insects glued to the cardboard.
Daydreaming as a profession 