Goddammit, they were looking at a doctor He came into the casino in a suit, the same suit every day and night dark gray shiny with grease around the elbows and lower back smelly patched up in places
he kinda forgot what it was like to be sober
and lately he kinda forgot what it was like to win at the slot machines
he forgot how to perform surgery how to diagnose a patient
forgot what the company of a woman felt like
forgot what love was
he was a machine that consumed cheap but strong alcohol Rubbing alcohol filtered through bread That stuff was 70% alcohol his liver knew it
"Ah, pleaseeee, for the love of God, don't make me work with this stuff again," he would scream while playing at the slot machine
and the bouncer would walk up to him and say, "Hey…
the bartender was displeased with him and the patrons didn't like him much either He was the sickly, slender man who came at opening time and sat at the table by the window, watching the people outside he sat there until closing time problem was, he occupied that seat for so many hours in a row with only one drink usually a cognac sometimes he would mix all sorts of pills in it and wait for them to dissolve some did others didn't Regardless, he sipped at his drink and watched the people outside and spoke to nobody and seemed never to be bothered by noise, like he was deaf and the days passed and the weeks went by and he'd show up without fail When they did talk about him they called him The Watcher and speculated about his mental illness However, when I went to the bar myself…
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
young people, they think nobody has the same thoughts as them they take great pride in some made up originality as if really nobody ever thought up scenarios of themselves descending some rope from some helicopter and dropping in the middle of enemy forces and starting to shoot around, all movie like ‘an shit and killing all the bad guys while not taking one bullet One man army or there’s those other thoughts of being simply the greatest at some sport and being admired and envied for it also, the thoughts of sex in all its forms the thoughts of mindless violence of saving the day of being somewhere else and doing something else all kinds of thoughts and all the minds who think them label them as original but they’re not original they’re every young person’s thoughts and me, I also have thoughts I consider original I think of…
those cold evenings
coming inside
the house and crying
"Mom, I'm hungry."
A whirl on the heels
A stare colder than
the outside weather
Hands on her hips
"Show me your tongue."
The little mouth opens
and the tongue
comes out
She stares at it
and then grabs it between
her thumb and index
and studies it, gives it
a rub and
declares: "No. You're not that
hungry. Get out of
here and leave me alone."
And her words carry the finality
of God's words from
the Bible
because she is the god of this
small world
and her word is law
my neighbor from upstairs
claims that
God sticks
post-it notes on his
fridge overnight
I did ask him
what they said but
he only told me that I'll
have to follow
him to church if
I want to find out
I'm generally not a very
curious guy
so I declined
and, what do you know, few
days later I see
lots of other
people following my
neighbor to church
They all looked the
other way when
I passed by them and said hi
Thing is
I don't even doubt
God spoke to my neighbor
through post-it notes
and gave a lot of people hope
I just
like being the outsider
more than I like
being hopeful
this morning the pills
have not been there
kitchen
top cabinet
not there
but of course the world wouldn’t explode
if he didn’t take
the pills for one day
Things were going too fine to
slip downhill now
He didn’t need the pills. It
actually was like the doctor said, the
power was inside him
The power to change
to become better
to leave the past behind. The
power was in him
And in dearest Kyu, his therapy dog,
a small corgi who needed to be walked everyday
He smiled as he thought of Kyu
called him
and Kyu came
and he put the leash on
and went outside
The rain didn’t bother either of them
Only problem during
rainy days
was the lack of other people
to socialize with
People hated rain and that was that
but not him and Kyu
They walked through the park
and the rain grew more intense
fatter drops
heavier
colder
louder
splashing
the little rivulets flowing on the
sides of the streets weren’t
so little anymore
This would turn out to be a total flood
better go back home
Kyu seemed to get the meaning
they turned back
and the rivulets at the sides of the street
grew more potent
and the leash grew lighter
and lighter
Gods! The rivulet carried Kyu away!
Oh God, no! Straight into the
curbside storm drain! In the sewer! Kyuuuuuu!
And there was no one on the streets
not even cars passing
He had to do something
by himself
because no one would help him
nobody ever helped him
He had to pull himself out of this ditch by
himself once
more
Cursing between clenched teeth
he dropped to his knees
and crawled into the
storm drain after his beloved Kyu
He landed on hard concrete and broke
his foot
so badly that
the jagged shinbone protruded through the flesh
and skin and came out like a
blade
He screamed and cried
and cursed the day he was born
and the people in his life
and outside of it
Of course everyone would be outside of it
Nobody would be in his life
not mother
not father
not sister
grandparents
friends?
What friends? He never had any of those
People were cold
people wanted to see him cry
because seeing him cry was their food
and they needed food to stay alive,
they needed to eat
and their hunger was insatiable
they should…just die actually
The dirty water showered all around him
and onto his wound
and onto his head and eyes
but he still saw it
He saw them
carrying Kyu away
dragging him by the paws
towards the darkest spot of the sewer
despite his whimpering protests
He screamed, shouted at them
but they wouldn’t listen
“Hey, you bastards, let him go!”
No, they would not let Kyu go
Words were not enough to
convince people. He had to do something.
He crawled after them
through the cold filth
with pain and determination propelling him
Oh, it was them, of course
Mother and father and sister
they were dragging Kyu away from him
just as they dragged everything away from him
This was too much
He couldn’t let this happen.
Too much!
He crawled after them
crying
screaming
cursing
and reached for his broken shinbone
and pulled it out of the leg
and stabbed them with it
again
and
again
He kept stabbing at their backs
their
heads, their throats, their chests, their arms
everywhere
stab
stab
stab
“Thought you could take
everything away from me
my friends, my life, my love, my soul, my
freedom, my purpose, my way,
my choices, my health, my possibilities, and
now even him,
my dearest Kyu?
Fuck you! I won’t let you! I
won’t let you!”
and he kept stabbing
and stabbing
stab
stab
stab
until that hand just wouldn’t
work anymore
and he fell with his head on Kyu
like on a pillow
as he always did
and darkness came about him
Good night,
Kyu
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
(Bio: Bogdan Dragos supervises casinos for a gambling company, working twelve-hour shifts locked in a dark office full of TV monitors. There he mostly daydreams and writes poems and stories. He also manages a poetry blog at bogdandragos.com He has a book…
Daydreaming as a profession 