there was a new guy in the park
among the homeless
He arrived just after the mayor had
eradicated all
the tents and improvised huts
and it was easy to spot him
He was the one who
always had a book in his hand, always
reading
"Check out the new guy," they
said. "An intellectual. Heh, hey buddy,
what you reading that for? Not like
you gonna get a degree that'll take
your ass outta here anytime soon. Haaahahah!"
He was reading his own poems
from a time when
he was young and his dreams were
still alive
Today nothing was alive
but misery itself
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…
She told me that women like
men with grizzled,
bestial
faces, men with scars
men with eyepatches
men with very unkempt beards
Mouths that snarl
when it’s time to smile
Eyes that are like eggs buried in
a nest of wrinkles
Noses that are never straight
And the jaw,
oh the jaw has to be big
square
like a drawer
A man’s face must have a chin
that can take sledgehammers
that’s why the luckiest woman
in the world
was Belle
from The Beauty and The Beast.
That was a real man, The Beast.
although the story is a tragic one
because in the
end he turns
into a charming prince
with smooth face and polished
features.
“What a fuckboy,” she said. “If only
he stayed a beast…”
Meanwhile I think about
myself
the most grizzly feature about
my face is the mad
eyestrain I developed
because of my job, after staring
at monitors in a dark room for
all those years and then coming home
to stare at another monitor.
it is now impossible for me to get
outside and keep my eyes
open like a normal person. I die if I
don’t strain them as hard as I
can. Sunglasses don’t even help.
and there’s also the dark
circles below my eyes
they’re not even purple as I’ve seen
in other people
“They have the texture of the
skin around the asshole,” she said,
laughing.
She was right.
She was also right when she pointed
out that if you can’t grow
a beard by the time you’re
twenty you’ll never grow a proper
beard.
“Shit,” I said. “Guess I’ll never
be a beast.”
“It’s never too late to get your
face fucked up
though,” she said. “You
just need
to hang around
the right people.”
“Such as your dad?” I said.
“Oh, fuck you,” she said,
dragging the blanket
over her breasts.
he watches the rain like
it's alive
but he feels less alive himself
behind him
the house turns dark
its last light going off
don't turn back
don't look back
keep going ahead
and maybe another house
and another wife
will open up before you
or maybe there'll be another
war coming
and the nation will need
your service
again
this time the fear shall be
less intense
The first time
someone points
a gun at you
you're terrified
the second time's the same
third
forth
and so on
but eventually there comes
a time when you
run out of people
to point guns at you
fifth
twelfth
forty-third
and none of them make you
feel like her eyes
watching from the window
behind the curtains
and no pulling of the trigger
and no bang
is like her voice screaming
at the kid to go away, to not look
"A stranger! That's what the
man outside is. And I'm calling
the police if he keeps staring like that.
DON'T!
you dare look at him. Go to
your room. Now."
What's a man when all
the wars are over?
A squirt gun against the sun.
His good hand, the one with
whole and working fingers
reached into an inner pocket
of his uniform, found
nothing.
He walked on
And it rained on
And there were no more wars
you ever just sit or lay on your bed and stare at the ceiling and wonder if you’ve ever eaten meat from an animal that was the offspring of another animal you’ve eaten?
I’ve once read an article about the food industry’s secret glue that can paste together the meat belonging from many animals and makes it look like it’s from a single one
thus you could eat beef thinking that it’s from a cow when in fact it’s from nine different cows of nine different ages and breeds
a friend of mine declared herself vegan after she sliced a steak and found gray slimy puss oozing from it. The blade struck a cyst
“I’m a vegan forever from now on!” she screamed
And I said, “I’m a writer.”
“What?” she said. “What’s that have to do with what I said?”
“I’m a writer,” I repeated. “Meaning I have to compare everything to writing. Your discovery of the cyst inside the steak is akin to reading a really nice book only to reach the most disturbing scene you’ve stumbled upon in a long while and be taken by surprise and change your opinion about the whole book. There are some books like that. Doesn’t mean they all are though. And unlike a meat eater, I like to believe a writer can tell the difference between a book written by a single person and a collaborative project.”
“Boy, you’re scaring me.”
“Can I have that steak?” I said.
“Wah? You… don’t mean to eat it, do you?”
“Nah, my cousin has a dog who surely won’t mind the cyst.”
she gave me the steak and she didn’t ask (I only wanted her to), but the writer equivalent of this situation would be to recognize when a story fails real bad and instead of stubbornly striving to submit to agents you just give it away for free, publish online, maybe even under a pseudonym
Anyway the dog loved that steak.
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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…
All he’s got on him besides his clothes and the bike is a thermos filled with coffee he got from the vending machine at the mall,
coffee bought with money earned from a day’s work of standing by the traffic lights at the intersection, waiting for them to turn red and offering to wash someone’s windshield.
Once on top of the hill he leaves the bike at the base of the water tower and climbs the cold iron ladder.
There’s no one to stop him at this time.
He sits down cross-legged
opens the thermos and pours the coffee into the cup part
Daydreaming as a profession 