Excuses

Why not...
well...
come on...
just a...
very quick...
painless...

who would even...
no one would...

maybe one or two people...
but, come on...

but I've run out of bullets,
my rope is frayed,
I can't afford a belt,
the bridge is too far,
I haven't paid my gas bill,
My toaster's in the shop
my knife is dull,
my brain is soft

I'm a coward,
I'm a procrastinator,
I'm a whiner
I'm a loser
I'm a pain.

Come on, really...
Why not?
Come on!
It'll be painless!
Quick!
No one would miss you!
No one would know.

But...

But.

Youth

Isn’t it strange? Isn’t it? I think it is… I was seen as a monster, but not that long ago… Not that long ago, I was 14 and watching a sitcom and there was this girl, not much older than I was, and I thought she was the prettiest woman I had ever seen, I thought she was spring incarnate and it’s probably the first time I felt anything that remotely resembled love. One day, my parents asked me if I liked her and I stupidly, and innocently, said that I did, that I wish she could be my wife. My parents and my siblings laughed, and they seemed so happy that I had a crush on some actress. They kept saying: ‘Oh, my little son likes Alyssa!’ And, well: I did. I was embarrassed that they kept saying it, but it was true, so okay.

Then I turned 17 and I met a girl who was the same age as me and we kissed and we slept together and I thought I had met my soul-mate, we were so made for each other, it wasn’t even funny! Until she met Richard and thought he was leaner and hotter and sweeter than I was and left me for him. I was heart-broken, but I had my Nintendo to fall back on, so it was okay.

When I turned 22, I met my second long-term girlfriend. She was 21 and people said we made a beautiful couple and I really think we did, we were sweet and innocent and we also fucked like rabbits on death-row whenever we were alone. But then she met someone who was nicer and smarter and older, but that was okay, I was old enough to get wasted by then.

Then I moved to Europe, to a country where the age of consent was 15, and that’s so wrong and gross. But I was 25 and I was lonely and I was horny, so I fucked women and I fucked girls and I fucked kids. 15 to 24, they were all fair game and I tapped all them asses, because I could and because they were willing and because I could. I really could.

In my mind, I still thought of that actress, who was about the same age I was. In my mind, I was still that kid, longing after an actress who could have been my classmate.

Then things happened so fast…. One day, I was 37. Fuck. But I was still the same kid. I was still attracted to firm thighs, flat stomachs, soft lips and innocent eyes. Once upon a time, it was cute and sweet that I had those thoughts, but now it was just creepy and wrong and disturbing. My body had aged, my hair had thinned, but my mind had stayed the same.  I was still me, I was the same boy. A boy in a man’s body. How could I explain that? Well, I didn’t have to. My girlfriends were usually between 19 and 23, and yes: that was young. My friends, with their children and their grandchildren and sometimes as widower or more often than not divorces, well, I was envying them, sure: They had a family. But I know that deep down they were envying me because I was an almost 40-something and I was getting 20-something poon. And fuck: if that’s not happiness, then I don’t know what is.

Problem was: the older and fatter and uglier I got… Yes: uglier. They say an elderly man looks better than his young self, but that’s bullshit. Maybe you look better if you exercise every day or at least swim once in a while. But if you’re a fuck-up like me, sitting on your couch and drinking whiskies doesn’t make you age well, trust me. So, as I was getting older, I found myself disgusted by the women of my age: flabby skin, liver spots on their hands, saggy tits, fat soft asses. And the older I got, the better the young girls looked. And I don’t mean the 15 or 16 years olds (although a couple of my friends’ granddaughters, well forget about it: I’d tap them asses any day!). I mean the 22 year olds. Or even the 26 year olds. But by then I was just a dirty old man.

How did that happen? One minute I’m a teenager who likes a teenager and everyone thinks it’s so cute. The next minute, I’m still me, I still like young girls. But I’m 60-something so it’s not okay. Well, fuck.

Now I’m on my kitchen floor, my pasta are getting over cooked in the boiling water, my cat is somewhere or other cruising for pussy, literally. And the world is fading and that’s not cool. I’m old, but I want a few more hours. One more hour, so I can call my friends, okay: my acquaintances, okay: the people I talk to once in a while, and say good-bye. Just one more hour so I can call the girls I dream about every night, the girls who could never love me and who made me who I became. The ones, I dreamt about almost every night. Yes: I want to punch them in the face and smash their noses, but I mostly want to kiss them and hold their hands one last time. I want them to be near me. I want them next to me. I want one of them nearby. I want my fingertips to brush their young firm flesh one more time. But it’s much too late. I can already hear the worms eating my decaying flesh.

What almost makes me smile is to imagine them old as well, lonely or better yet: dead. That’s petty of me, I know. I’m such a child, aren’t I? But I can’t help thinking about them. About all the shes. All the hers. I say ‘all,’ but really, there were only two. Possibly three.

And I would really like one of them to remember me. But she won’t, she can’t. She won’t even know I’m gone. And if one day she hears of my demise, she’ll go: “Who? Oh, yeah… that name sounds kinda familiar. But I don’t know. Who cares anyway, right? Pour me some more wine, honey.” 

Open Letter

Dear One,

What I was doing in Istanbul, I do not know, but there I was. Gotta say, I wasn’t impressed by the minarets, the food, nor the women who all looked tired, worn out, pockets under their eyes, looking almost dirty, as if they spent their nights caring for an army of wailing babies. The clean-looking ones were overfed and wore jeans that were too tight.

Anyway, I was walking one day, somewhere or other, it all looked the same to me: cats everywhere, old blind men begging, the smell of half-cooked kebabs and dog piss in the air. But I saw a bar and entered, hoping to find some solace in the guise of a whisky or two. The Crow, that place was called. At least that’s what I guessed, since it was in Turkish, but there was a giant picture of a crow inside, even though it looked more like an ostrich to me. In any case, I found a table somewhere upstairs, and that’s when I saw you.

My first thought was that you couldn’t be Turkish, you were too beautiful… Casually – but tastefully – dressed, you were sharing what looked like a Campari with a dark-haired man, one of ten million in this God-forsaken city. I became jealous of him, instantly. I felt I had more to offer than him. Even physically, which doesn’t happen often. I kept stealing glances at you, hoping you’d return my gaze, but your elbows were on the table, head in hands, enthralled by the banalities the guy was probably spewing out. I could tell you had long legs under those blue jeans and the slightly-tight T-shirt you wore let me guess you had small, firm, well-defined breasts. They made me think of apples freshly fallen from a tree, begging to be bitten into, and I was more than willing to oblige, to see their stars. I wanted to bury my nose in your long hair and feel the smoothness of your skin. Our bodies would be one, entwined for eternity in a sea of peacful slumber.

In short: I wanted to fuck the living shit out of you.

Then, after what sounded like a rather contrived laugh, you got up to go to the bathroom, or so I guesssed. I didn’t think twice about it, I also got up and followed you upstairs. ‘There must be a God,’ I thought as I saw the WC was mixed. Or maybe it wasn't. I just conveniently decided to ignore that fact, though.

I waited behind the door (after checking whether you had locked it or not) and imagined you with your panties between your ankles, a light golden spray coming from close to what I wanted my fingers to fondle. Then the lock clicked and the door opened. There you were. You gave me a polite smile. I didn’t think: I grabbed you, pushed you inside and locked the door behind us. What happened next is ours, and ours only. You might think you didn’t want it, but somehwere deep inside you did, I’m sure of it. I understood rather quickly why you had come up here: it was your time of the month. But I didn’t care. I removed and threw aside that white spongy plug and enjoyed you flowing around me. In fact, it somehow made it better.

I’m sorry I hit you.

You were starting to be too loud. I’m sorry I destroyed that perfect face of yours. Sorry about punching your nose so many times. Sorry I banged your head against the toilet bowl. And the mirror. I sure hope that silvery shard wasn’t too painful to remove from your eye.

I figured that once I had you, nobody else should. Why would you, anyway? I am sorry I left you behind, sorry I left. Unfortunately for you, the music in the bar was too loud for people to hear us. Funny, Nick Cave’s “Straight To You” was playing. A sign, surely. People didn’t notice me leave and the day after, I was back home in the civilized world. This is my letter to you, my love. I miss you. Do you miss me? I hope so. I shall return to Istanbul very soonish. Hope to see you there.

Very sincerely yours,

Me

The Game

As the cigarette was slowly dying in the ashtray,

She undressed and showed me her new bra.

I feigned enthusiasm and hoped she’d soon leave

So I could watch the game.

Her hips gyrating, her tongue licking her upper lip,

She kept eye-contact and I thought of getting more gin.

Soon she started grinding her panties against my crotch

And sooner still I came in my underwear.

I pushed her off, calling her names,

Thinking of the laundry I now had to do

To get that stain off from my shorts.

She swore at me and scratched my face

With her badly painted nails.

But soon, all was back to normal

And I could finally watch the game.

Parties

Just another evening, home alone, time to party. Because, yes: I like parties, I like to have fun. As far as I can see, the only problem with parties is that they’re full of people. Boring people, drunk people, slobbering, dancing, talking people. Parties would be much better without them, don’t you think?

And so I organize parties for myself, what’s wrong with that? First, I get dressed up, a nice suit, no tie, no need to look stuck up. Then I make myself a cocktail. That’s another thing about parties: you go there, sometimes in the cold, sometimes in the rain, sometimes in the snow, sometimes in all of the above, and your only reward is a lukewarm beer in a cheap plastic cup. So it’s not so much a party as provided shelter for the next few hours. A homeless shelter at that, with drunk and annoying people. Okay, this isn’t fair… a homeless shelter would actually have people congregating for the same reason: a warm bed. And I’m sure they’d have interesting stories to tell. Instead, you have to plaster on a smile and answer the same questions over and over again: ‘So, what do you do? How do you like it here?’ Who cares what I do? I didn’t know I was supposed to bring my resume with me. For a while, I just started lying, I was saying: ‘I’m a maze designer.’ Or ‘I skin livestock.’ But I became a victim of my own smart-assness and they asked more questions, wanting to know more. As for the how do I like it here question, well, I walked for thirty minutes in the pouring rain to find a cab, then I spent too much money on said-cab and walked five flights of stairs to get here. Now I’m drinking non-imported beer that’s not even cold. So, in short: I hate it here so much, I want to jump out the window, but me doing so would nullify all the effort I put into getting here. So I’m staying for now, although if you keep talking to me, one of us will end up dying, and it’s not gonna be me.

Surprisingly, people seemed to get a bit offended at that.

So, now: parties just for me. I dress the way I want to dress without hearing people saying I overdressed or underdressed. I don’t need to hear people pretend to like my outfit and, more importantly: I don’t have to look at people silently judging me with a look.  I also get to drink what I want to drink: a Martini, a Scottish single malt or Czech beer. Or all three, who cares? It’s my party!

I know, if I hate going to places so much, why don’t I organize parties at my place? Well, because 1: I am too kind to impose this on the few friends I have left. And 2: those friends would just come over empty-handed and imbibe all the good booze I have stashed, so screw that.

So, dressed the way I want, drinking what I want to drink and, finally, listening to what I want to listen to. 

When I want to listen to it.

Some parties have so-called DJs, who are just people who want to show the guests how cool they are and how edgy their musical tastes are. Or they just have no taste at all and we’re stuck with Celine Dion or Aguilera for most of the night. I’d rather drown in a puddle of poodle-vomit than listen to a Celine Dion song. Not a fan of Aguilera either, but she’s kinda doable, so that’s okay. Kinda.

So, I’m listening to my own songs, dancing if I want to, drinking and sitting if I want to. I do what I want, it’s my party, I’m alone, no one is grabbing my hands forcing me to dance, squealing and thinking that this is exactly what I want to do. Seriously, bitch: if I’m chain-smoking and hanging on to my drink while lodged in the sofa, do you really think it’s because I want to boogy?

I’m dancing around my apartment, smoking as much as I want, without having the need to step on the balcony to be face-to-face with a blizzard, just because smokers are now a notch below rapists in our society’s eyes.

I smoke, I drink too much, I sing along and make a fool of myself, but the only witness is the mirror on my wall.

The reason to have parties is to see people you don’t want to see and work on a hangover for the next day. My parties are better: I get the hangover, but without going through all the idle chit-chat.

And, hey: pressure-wise, meaning women-wise: no problem. I don’t have to feel butterflies in my stomach when I see a beautiful woman. I don’t have to think about what kind of shit I could say to start a conversation, hoping to be clever. I don’t have to see another guy beat me to her and see them exchange phone numbers. I don’t have to watch happy couples kissing and dancing and laughing and talking. No, all of this is spared when I am face to face with my mirror.

Some people might think this is sad, but I tell you: tomorrow you’ll be waking up next to your loved one or next to whomever you picked up the night before, and your head will hurt and you’ll be nauseous and you’ll have to talk with that person over breakfast.

Me, I’ll be nauseous, sure, but I’ll be alone.

All alone.

Shut it!

What the--?!?!

Whoa!

Close the door, close the door! Close the fucking door! For God’s sake, for Satan’s love, for all that is holy and whole and for all the holes in the universe: close that motherfuckin’ door! No, really: close it! What the fuck?! Come on! How else am I gonna say it? Close it, shut it, make it un-open, mind that gap and make it disappear, ‘cause I fucking mind the fuck out of that fucking gap! So, close it, please, really, pretty please, super please: close it! For fucking fuck’s sake!

Yeah, so I swear, so what? Get used to it! I’m in here doing my thing and you’re in there fucking things up with my thing. I’m doing my thing, it’s my thing and myself, it does not involve you, so fuck off and close the door behind you because fuck off, really. What’s my language gotta do with it? Seriously! I swear, yeah! Woopdee-fucking-doo!  I say fuck, so fucking what? Really! Close the door na-fucking-ow. That’s right, I’ve managed to nudge fuck in a one-syllable word. So fucking what? You gonna sue me? No? Then please close that fucking door!

I’m up to no good, I’m doing things you don’t wanna know about, I’m choking and pulling and oiling and rubbing things you don’t wanna know about, trust me. Really. Fucking trust me already. So close that motherfucking door before I tear it off its hinges and shove it so deep up your ass even your spelunking cock of a husband won’t be able to find it, not with his spelunking cocksucking friends, not with his cocksucking spelunking equipment, and not even, and especially not with his cocksucking cock. Yeah, I’m saying your husband is gayer than a day in May and I’m not saying that’s wrong, I’m just saying you’re gonna have to wait a long long time before he decides to spelunk your grotto. You dig?

So, come on: close that fucking door! I don’t know how else to tell you! It’s awkward enough as it is, but here I am monologuing or soliloquing or whatever! You’re looking at me and I’m spewing my shit, and I mean my shit is spewing out of my mouth for now, okay? But all I want is for you to close that fucking door, so why aren’t you closing, shutting, that fucking fuck of a fucking door? Don’t you know that the sooner you shut it, the sooner I’ll shut up? I’m on a roll, I can’t stop, I’m a whirling, swirling, spinning Dervish on a quest and you’re the ground I trample to find the truth, the absolutism, the ultimatism, the totality, the whole.

Yeah, whatever: close that fucking door before I get up and punch the living shit out of you. Literally. I’ll stand up, walk to you and punch you so hard you’ll shit this morning’s breakfast into your cheap K-Mart pants and then you’ll weep and cry and go on Sally Jesse or Geraldo or whoever is out there nowadays and you’ll moan about how much of a monster I am and you’ll talk about the time you shat your pants that time I punched you so hard, which is about to be right now if you don’t close that fucking door. Really. Don’t make me get up, woman. Consider this a friendly warning.

Yeah. Stare at me if you must. Look at me if you can. Talk to me if you have to. Speak if you are able to. Fuck! See what you make me do?! You turned me into a fucking English-as-a-Foreign-Language teacher and for that alone you deserve to lose your teeth and your tits and your eyes and your face. And your bowels and your flesh and your scalp and your liver.

Seriously: I will punch the face off of you if you don’t at this very moment turn around and close that fucking door behind you.

Atta’ girl! Good! Thanks! Great! Good. Really. Okay. Nice. Thanks. For your sake, really: thanks. Okay. Close it all the way. Yeah. And yes: I’ll be right down for dinner.

Thanks for letting me know, mom.

Single

He enters and straight away

he smells the cheap perfume

and the cigarette smoke.

The broken dreams

and the sexual desperation.

The music is insanely loud,

the floor is a burial ground for

Marlboros, Winstons, Pall Malls and Camels

and the weak and the ugly are spewed out

before the final strike of the 2 AM gong.

He sits on a stool,

casually flicking the ashes of his smoke

on the used up carpet.

He drums his fingers on the counter,

pretending to like the song that’s playing,

even though he’s never heard it before

and actually hates it.

He sips his beer and once in a while looks around,

without looking around,

hoping to make eye contact with a woman

who could be might be should be

going home with him.

Then it’s time for everybody to be kicked out

and he stumbles on the sidewalk,

turning his collar up.

The flashing red of a street light

is reflected in a puddle of sick in the gutter

and he lights one last cigarette,

hoping The Amazon will step out

and leave with him.

But he drives home alone with himself

and, in his cold bed, all his hate and anger

squirts out into his fist

before he falls asleep and dreams of what

could be might be

Will be.

He enters and straight away

he smells the cheap perfume

and the cigarette smoke.

The broken dreams

and the sexual desperation.

The music is insanely loud,

the floor is a burial ground for

Marlboros, Winstons, Pall Malls and Camels

and the weak and the ugly are spewed out

before the final strike of the 2 AM gong.

He sits on a stool,

casually flicking the ashes of his smoke

on the used up carpet.

He drums his fingers on the counter,

pretending to like the song that’s playing,

even though he’s never heard it before

and actually hates it.

He sips his beer and once in a while looks around,

without looking around,

hoping to make eye contact with a woman

who could be might be should be

going home with him.

Then it’s time for everybody to be kicked out

and he stumbles on the sidewalk,

turning his collar up.

The flashing red of a street light

is reflected in a puddle of sick in the gutter

and he lights one last cigarette,

hoping The Amazon will step out

and leave with him.

But he drives home alone with himself

and, in his cold bed, all his hate and anger

squirts out into his fist

before he falls asleep and dreams of what

could be might be

Will be.

Hey kid

Hey kid, pull up a seat, get a load off, put your feet up, chill out, relax, cool down, rest. Please. Yeah… So… Yeah… So you want to marry my daughter, huh? Yes, no, please: lemme finish. You’re a good kid, your dad’s a good golfer and all. But you want my baby, my little girl, that’s a… that’s… you know, it’s not… It’s a… Well, you know what I mean. You’re doing the honorable thing, here, but come on: why so soon? Why now? I mean, look at my wife and I, we… we had ten years of happiness. Pure joy. And then 20 years of misery until that old cunt finally had a stroke and drowned in the hot-tub. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, really I don’t, but that’s just the way it is, son. Love dies, it doesn’t last. Sure, you’re lucky if you got it and enjoy it while it lasts and all, but when love dies, that’s more painful than getting hit in the balls by a golf club swung by a drunk Jack Nicholson, lemme tell you. I know. Trust me. Really. That’s why we couldn’t have a second kid. But anyway… My baby girl… I don’t know, I mean she’s 23 but I can’t imagine her getting married. I can’t… Well, let me be honest: I can’t imagine her being sexually active. I mean I just shook your hand. Maybe that hand I just shook was in my baby’s pussy recently. No, no, don’t be uncomfortable! I’m being honest, here. That’s what I do: I speak from the heart. But, yeah: imagining your dick in my daughter, I don’t know, it’s… it’s too hard. No pun intended. Okay, how big are you? Come on, don’t be shy, loosen that belt and lemme see your cock. Oh, come on: I was in the army, I’ve seen my share of cocks, don’t be so shy. Come on: drop ‘em. Look, if you don’t drop your pants, I won’t let you marry my baby. Yeah, there you go. So, let’s see… Huh… Good thing I’m wearing my glasses! Ha! Just kidding, relax. Jeez, kid, you ever thought of trimming that foliage? Well… Okay, you know what?... I guess I can imagine your cock in my baby’s pussy, I can live with this thought. I mean: I’m sure she can barely feel it, right? Oh, come on: don’t be like that, we’re men, we’re talking! We’re shooting the shit, just taking it easy! So… tell me… How often do you fuck her? Yes, I’m serious. Do I look like I’m not serious? And for God’s sake, pull your pants back up, what is this, Dicks ‘R’ Us? So... yeah… How often do you have sex with her? Come on, ball-park figure… Yeah? Oh, yeah? That often? Yeah? And do you make her cum? Come on, don’t be shy! Yeah, sure: have a drink. So: do you? Make her cum? Oh, yeah? Good for you. Good for you! You gotta please your woman, trust me. Yeah. Yeah… So… does she blow you? Come on, don’t be like that! Sure, have another drink!... Yeah? She does? Is she good? Yeah? Good, I’m glad she got better. What? No, no, I didn’t mean anything by that. A joke. You know, one of them jokes people say. Just that. Yeah… So, yeah… Let’s have a drink and forget about all of this, huh? Yeah: let’s. Cheers. Let’s go back to the party, what do you say? Yeah, yeah: let’s. Oh, but, uh: before we do, just uh… Well: drop them pants once more. Never mind why, just do it, sonny boy!

Spoke Too Much

“She spoke too much, she spoke too much. She just spoke too much. I'm not looking for excuses, I'm not looking for your forgiveness. She just spoke too much, what else can I say? She spoke too much! I'm not taking the fifth, and I’m not saying I was right. All I’m saying is I wasn’t wrong. Really. You understand. You’d have done the same thing. Seriously. I mean… I mean how many questions can the bitch ask? Seriously. ‘Do you like my new shoes? What did you get me for Christmas? What’s wrong with you? Is my make up on okay? What do you want for dinner? Do you love me?' and on and on and on. I mean, for fuck's sake: Enough with the questions already! Stop talking! I'm going crazy, here! Okay, for those of you who have nothing else to do, here are the answers to the questions, in the same order:

- No, they’re fugly.

- I didn’t get you shit yet, it’s only September, for crying out loud!

- Well, since you asked, actually: I can’t stand you, your mean eyes, your fat legs, your dirty hair and your forever-yappin’ mouth!

- No, you look like a deranged raccoon who’s just been raped in the Sahara by a retarded badger!

- I want food, that’s all I want and that’s all I need, so get behind the stove and cook and if you can't manage that, then call for a goddamn pizza, light sauce, extra pepperoni!

- Do I really need to answer that?

There. Now you know. I didn’t love her anymore. She used to be young, she used to be leggy and beautiful and tight all over. Then she got older and chubby all over. Even her pussy felt like a slab of ten-year old bacon left to rot in the sun. Yeah, I know, I shouldn't be saying shit like that. My lawyer told me as much. But shit, come on: You're a man, too. You know how it is. Sure, we gotta be PC and all that shit, but come on: If we didn’t have to, we’d be tellin’ them what’s what: ‘I work, I toil, I sweat, I put food on the table. You clean, you cook, you raise the kids and you shut the fuck up.’ Is that too much to ask? Back to the fucking middle-ages is what I say. Nowadays, men are weepy and weak and gotta talk about their feelings. Fuck that shit. I wanna smoke, I wanna eat a rare steak and I want head whenever I ask for it. Really, is that too much to ask for? Is that sexist? Okay, then call me sexist, scream all you want! ‘Just cook me my steak and get on your knees and swallow what’s coming to you!’ Okay, okay, don’t get mad, I’m just explaining things to you, here. Really. I’m a decent guy once you get to know me. I vote Democrat, I’m in the PTA, I don’t run red lights, I wash my crotch daily. No, I don’t want your pity, I’m just telling you how it all happened… What? I’m not telling you? Okay, I’ll tell you. Sure... What the hell…

I worked hard all day, dealing with asshole bosses who think they know everything. I get home, I expect dinner, but no: she’s watching The West Wing and Toby and Josh are mad at each other, so she can’t be bothered to fry me up some beans. So I get in the kitchen, pissed off. I look for a pan, how the fuck am I supposed to know where the pans are? I look and I look, and I find what your honor calls ‘Evidence Number 2.’ That gives me an idea, so I run to the garage for Evidence Number 1. Then I walk to the living room and find Evidence Number 3. Okay, okay… In short: In the living room, I find the glass ashtray. I don’t think: I just pick it up and hit her over the head. The ashtray breaks, her head doesn’t, but she falls down screaming bloody murder. Insulting me. The nerves on the bitch! To calm her down, I lean over her, grab her thinning whitening hair and hit her head against the floor. Only three times. Not five, like the DA’s been saying. Honest to God! Only three times. She shuts up, thank heavens. She’s stunned or whatever. With my left hand, I pry open her lips and with Evidence 2, my trusty pair of pliers, I grab hold of her tongue. I pull it out. Gently, mind you, gently. I didn’t break no teeth like the DA said. Anyway, then Evidence 1 comes into play. The scissors, yeah… So, I’m pullin’ out the tongue with one hand and I got scissors in the other. You know the kind. The kind school-children use to cut up shapes in colored papers and what have you. You know: small red plastic handles, round edges. Safe to run with and shit. So, anyway… Her tongue’s out, her eyes are bulging, her hands are flapping. Good thing I was smart enough to sit on her chest and block her arms with my knees. I ‘open’ the scissors, I bring ‘em closer to her pink in-mouth muscle. And I took a moment. That’s right, I did. I savored the moment. Do you know how satisfying it was when the blades closed down on her tongue? Do you? I bet you don’t. Well, lemme tell you: it was quasi-orgasmic. It was like cutting through raw veal. Soft, with just a tiny bit of resistance. Blood was flowing everywhere, but that was okay. I started cutting my way down. Squish-squish went the blades. Kinda like: ‘squish squash, I was taking a blood bath.’ But the truly amazing part was when I hit the nerve. The smallest of resistance was felt in the blades and then a satisfying soft crunching sound. And the tongue was dead. Red was everywhere, but I knew she was done talking. For good. Finally. So really, if anything: you should be thanking me. Her yapping is at an end. I did the world a favor. My advice to them fucked up Muslims is: don’t bother sewing a girl’s poon, sew her mouth and then fuck her senseless. That’s more logical. Right?... What? What did I say? What? Oh, I’m the crazy one, here?! Okay… How about we talk again in a few years. I bet you’ll come running to me, asking for advice. In the meantime, I’m guessing I’ll be in solitary, right? Yeah… You know where to find me. Kumbaya to you, your honor.”hit. I wanna smoke, i waand gotta talk about theor feelings. n sto be leggy and beautiful and tight all over.

Loneliness

Hmmm, right, yes. Good one. Right. Let me light a cigarette before I answer… Yeah. Smoke helps my brain, you know? Watch the road, will ya? So… yeah… Your question was: ‘what’s loneliness?’ Yeah. Great question. Especially coming from a happily-married 28 year-old. No, really. No sarcasm. I’m callin’ it as I’m seein’ it. Anyway... So… Loneliness. Shit, I don’t know. If you gotta ask then you can’t know, that’s pretty much it. But okay, I don’t mean to avoid the question or dance my way around it or whatever. I’ll tell you what loneliness is. Sure I will! Will you understand? Probably not. Do I care? Probably not. So we’re even, Steven. It’s all cool, Raoul. It’s the shiat, biatch. Anyway. Yeah… So, loneliness, for me. For me, mind you, not for other people. But you asked me, so I’m guessing it’s my answer you want, my wisdom, my point of view, right? Right. So, loneliness, let’s see… Okay… Yeah, okay: it’s going to get a haircut when you don’t need one, hoping an at-least-mildly-attractive woman will do it. Because, you see, when you’re lonely, you’ll take any kinda contact you can get. Physical contact. So if a so-so girl, who happens to be wearing a skirt and boots and who happens to have a stomach flatter than Belgium starts fondling your scalp, well… For the next 50 minutes you’re almost content. Because a woman who would not give you the time of day in an overcrowded bar at two in the morning now massages your skull. Yes, you’re paying her, but I’m guessing that money is better spent on this than on the empty moans of a cheap whore. But that’s just my guess, I’ve never paid a whore. And what about that? Loneliness is when you feel so overwhelmingly alone that you know that a so-called ‘lady of the night’ won’t do it for you, because: what’s the point? Sex isn’t the answer. Meaningless sex is definitely not the answer. Because, even if you pay the hottest girl in the universe to straddle you, she’s still just your employee for the next hour and at some point you’ll have to walk all the way home and you’ll have to shower, hoping you don’t have some weird STD, and you still have to get in your bed; and you have to fall asleep. Alone. And even worse: you have to wake up alone, drag yourself out of bed for god-knows what reason, shuffle your way to the coffee-maker, force yourself to not look out of the window, knowing that if it had snowed the previous night, things would be just a little bit worse. And a little worse, at that point, is a lot. It’s the thing that might push you over the edge. So you pray for non-snow, you pray your coffee will be strong enough, you pray a friend will call you at some point during the day to invite you for a drink. But if it happens, and it seldom does, if it happens, you’ll turn it down because you just love wallowing in your self-pity. You say you hate being alone, but you live for it. How’s that for a paradox? Loneliness is when you wanna call a friend and you flip your phone open and realize that all the numbers saved in the phonebook are work contacts or, at best, mere acquaintances. Loneliness is getting a thrill when you start using a new stick of Chapstick. Loneliness is taking up smoking just so you’ll have something to unwrap every once in a while. Loneliness is when you start hating, I mean truly hating, your shower-curtain rod ‘cause you know there’s no way in hell that it’ll hold your weight dangling at the end of a rope. Loneliness is when you’re pissed off ‘cause you don’t know where to get a good rope and you don’t want to ruin your best belt… Loneliness, loneliness: it’s dreading the weekends because then there’s no reason to go to bed early, you simmer in your thoughts, sipping a lukewarm whiskey, feeling abandoned by the world. Even worse than having no reason to go to bed, it’s having no reason to wake up. Tomorrow will be another long, lonely, sad day. And then there’s still Sunday. And on Sunday you’re not only sad ‘cause you’re alone, you’re also sad because you have to work tomorrow. Another paradox for you! And… And… Anyway... Yeah. Shit… Sorry, I kinda went off on a rant, here. Sorry. Really. But I think I answered your question. Being lonely is being alone for so long that you can’t interact in society anymore. Loneliness is the most addictive of drugs. It’s when you’re with someone and talk non-stop because you’re so used to talk to yourself that you forget that other people also want to talk. It’s when you’re with your with friends, having fun, and you’re already dreading the end of the night because while they’ll all return home to their loved-ones, you’ll go home alone. In the morning, they’ll have breakfast with their significant others and you won’t. And you’ll think about them. Them: the ones you left, the ones who left you. The Lenkas, the Petras, the Annas, and all those other names that end with an ‘A.’ Loneliness sucks. Loneliness is great… Anyway, that’s my answer. Now, if you don’t mind, keep driving and shut the fuck up. ‘Cause if you ask me another question like this, I swear to God, I’ll punch you in the neck so hard I’ll end up squishing your aorta between my knuckles and your window.

Just kidding, of course.

Now gimme another cigarette and focus on the road, we still got a ways to go.

Platitudes

There are three mice on the head of the needle

and I just baked a pie with the apple of my eyes.

Now, I’ll finger paint with Wednesday’s ashes,

but who knows where she is,

running wild, ferral,

naked,

happy.

The illegals are being hauled in, but who’s laughing now?

It’s all about free style, but who cares anyway?

When it comes down to it,

I lie awake at night and dream of her

flat stomach and her

long legs.
I joke, I jest, I ironize,

I ‘sarcasmize.’

She be a bitch, she be a whore, sure.

But I fell for her and ended up splattered

on the pavement of her teflon heart.

It could be worse, sure,

but it could also be better.

I’m a rat with a stake through its innards,

I’m a weasel who drowned in an over-chlorinated California pool.

It’s all good.

In my head, she’s turning tricks

and shooting up like there’s no tomorrow.

But bohužel she’s not,

she’s happy,

leading a clean life with just the right amount of cocks.

That’s good.

I stare at the portrait she painted for me

and I dream of a stranger’s hands running over her body

and giving her the pleasure I could not provide.

That’s good.

But still: fuck her.

Yourself

A break-up before there even was a relationship

Regrets before you were able to build memories

The end, and it hadn’t even started

Longing when there was lust

Understanding when there was friendship

Tears when there should have been smiles

Chopin, when it should have been Handel

Insomnia instead of peaceful slumber

Smoking, yes, a lot of smoking even though you quit a year ago.

Drinking, too much of it, but it numbs you

The heart can only be mended so many times

before it gets irrevocably shattered

and you just have to live with splinters in your chest

and your stomach feels heavy because all the

butterflies that used to fly in it are dead

Your head is light, not from happiness,

but from the lack of life

You know the sun will rise again

and you know it could be worse

and you know all the other clichés

But the fact is, at this moment,

at this hour,

right now,

right here,

you don’t care about anything

and it feels good to feel sorry for yourself.

Grieve, let it all out

you owe it to yourself

you really do.
Because no one else

will do it for you.

Friends

“So, lemme get this straight... Yeah... So: you call me on Friday out of the blue, you tell me you want to see me to have a drink or six and I accept and you tell me where to meet you and I meet you there and we drink and we talk and we drink some more and then you tell me that you want to go to my place because it’s quiet there and we’ll be alone. So I pay for the drinks –happily, I might add– and I call a cab and we get in the cab and I pay for the cab –really, no problem– and we get to my place and you sit next to me on my couch, showing a whole lot of leg and I mix you some fancy cocktail and you keep touching your hair and smiling coyly at me and then, and only then mind you, you tell me that you want us to be 'just friends.’

Yeah.

Right.

That’s cool. Really. I mean, yes… I’ve been having three wet dreams a night about you for over a year and whenever you call me my heart rate doubles and the mention of your name makes me smile like the village idiot. But I respect your decision. Sure. Let's be friends.

Excuse me?

You want to talk about your boyfriend? He’s young and you’re not sure you like him?

Haha. Sure. Please forgive me while I run to the kitchen to shove a fork up my nose.

You what? You’re not too happy with the sex? You like older men?

Yeah.

Please forgive me while I run to my bedroom and set myself on fire.

No, of course I’ll give you advice. I respect you. We’re friends. That’s what friends do. My advice? I think you should introduce me to your boyfriend and let me shoot him in the back. Haha, no, I’m kidding of course. What should you tell him? I don’t know. How about: “Dude, I’m an angel and you should worship me?” Haha, yes I’m kidding of course. As friends do.

Look, it’s almost nine in the morning, we’ve just spent 10 hours together, most of them on my couch. As a friend, I feel I have to tell you that it’s very hard for me not to caress your face, to not hold your hand, to not try to kiss you and try as best as I can to hide my raging erection. So maybe we should call it a day. You go home to your boyfriend and I’ll jump right out the window.

Haha, it’s another joke, yes. Of course

One of many.”there and we drink and wre e blue, you tell me you want to see me to drink t

Forever

The bass is drummin’, the guitar is strummin’, the voices are a’singing.

The sun, it is shining, but the tears they are pouring

The mouths are grinning, but the hearts are breaking

Somewhere a dog is barking and somewhere a woman is weeping

The wolves are howling as the humans are breeding

The moon is shining and the sorrow is waxing.

But who’s on your mind?

But why do you say it?

But can you really dream it?

The legs are opening, but the males are unwilling

The fingers, on the keys, they are falling

The voices, on cue, they are singing

The women, as always, are shouting

And the girls are laughing.

But what are you afraid of?

But what are you talking about?

But who are you thinking of?

The phones are always ringing

The winos keep on drinking

Your friends are forever dying

Somehow you are still hoping.

But who do you really want?

What do you really need?

Where should you really go?

The doors are forever closing

The claws are still scratching

As the papers are burning.

And you know you have to go

And you think you know

And you know you think you should

The dead are still rotting

The living are still dying.

But and you but do you

And but do you but

And so you but do you…

It is all never ending

The Kid

   Sure, he was ugly, and sure, he always had bad breath. And he wasn’t too smart and nobody liked him. And he couldn’t dress for shit, and he was poor, and he was religious, and he was wearing glasses, and had an acne problem. Yes, he needed crutches to walk and he had a slight speech impediment; his nose always seemed to be running and since he had some kind of bowels problem, he kept emitting gas and kept apologizing and off he went, the clickety-click of his crutches on the linoleum getting fainter. But he always lingered on long after he was gone, because of his gas and because of his breath, which were hanging on in the air like invisible clouds of poisonous gas.
   Yes, the girls pointed at him and laughed; the boys avoided him, and even the teachers couldn’t bring themselves to feel sorry for him. He was just too much of everything. And yes, his father beat him once in a while but nobody, not even the police, could blame him. In fact, we all secretly admired his parents for not having killed their son. He was so messed up, an accident would have been believable: the crutches slipped on the stairs and he broke his neck, or... he was taking a bath and the toaster just fell in the tub. Anything. Anybody would have gladly given a hand to get rid of him. A cop could have shot him at night, for example, and then claim that he mistook one of the crutches for a rifle. But he never went out at night. Because it was too damp. And of course, he had lung problems.
   When we heard that, we all started to smoke around him.
   The unpopular kids became popular, because next to him, everybody was popular. The ugly kids liked him around since they didn’t seem quite so ugly anymore. The cool kids resented him because they couldn’t wear sunglasses anymore. It was a sign of being a sure loser. He always wore sunglasses. He was an albino, you see.
   He was a freak of nature. A bad joke from God, who felt mischievous when He had created him. A bad cosmic joke, that’s what he was. He was so ugly, I felt offended looking at him. Looking at him was like being insulted by a close friend: something you couldn’t quite believe and preferred to ignore.
   Nobody could pronounce his name. But nobody needed to anyway, since nobody ever spoke to him. The teachers never called on him in class, but it didn’t matter: He always shouted out loud whatever answer the teacher was waiting for. Nine times out of ten, it was the wrong answer. Or nobody could understand what he was saying. People like him - and God, please tell me there aren’t many more like him - well, they’re usually extremely smart. But not him, no. A plastic chair had more smarts than he had.
   On the good days, he just fell asleep at his desk, probably because of his narcolepsy. At least we didn’t have to listen to him for a while. But when he woke up, he was usually in a strange mood. His Touret syndrome came on at full force right after his sleeping episodes and so after a few months of this, whenever he would fall asleep at his desk, the teacher would ask for some volunteers to drag him out of the room – chair, desk and all - and out in the hallway. When we heard insults through the door, we’d know he was awake.
   Other teachers complained, saying that the insults in the hallway could be heard all over the school and that some of the words he was using were offensive and shouldn’t be heard by young children. Personally, I always wondered how anybody was able to understand what he was saying.
   One day after the Christmas vacations, my friends and I were discussing the presents we had received from our parents when we heard the familiar sounds of the crutches getting closer, and so we all of a sudden felt like we had to be somewhere else. But as I turned around, I found myself face to face with him. He smiled and I gagged at the smell of his breath and at the sight of one of his pimples oozing pus on his cheek. He told me something, but I couldn’t understand what, and kids being cruel and mean, I told him to get the hell away from me and I left him there, all alone.
   To this day, I still don’t feel sorry for him. Maybe I should, but I do still think that I did the right thing. In fact, I started thinking that if we could all be mean enough with him, maybe he’d eventually do us all a favor and kill himself. But that never happened. He was one of those happy cripples, the kind that’s happy to be alive and all that crap.
   I wish I had a great story to tell, or a tragic ending to all this. Maybe one day he came to school and killed himself in front of us all. Or he shot a few people. Or he killed his parents. Or something like this. But no, we just graduated and went to the prom and seeing him in a blue tuxedo, with his sunglasses on, his leaky nose and his crutches was not sad, it was pathetic. Of course, he didn’t have a date. Rumor was that he’d actually asked the prettiest girl in school and she’d laughed at him. Then he asked the ugliest girl and she laughed even louder than the pretty one. Then he asked his mom, but she slapped him and told him she never wanted to be seen in public with him.
   At this point, a normal person would have gotten the hint and not gone. But not him. He rented a tux and came alone. Of course, he couldn’t dance with his crutches and everybody at his table made sure not to sit anywhere near him. I was one of them. I was exhausted, I danced so much. When I wasn’t dancing, I was standing by the punch bowl. I tried to sit at another table, but it was somebody else’s chair. In the end, the people at my table ended up outside, on the steps. Somebody had of course brought a flask and we were drinking and laughing, trying not to talk about him, not wanting him to ruin this night. Our night.
   But of course, we soon heard the crutches and we took this opportunity to run to our table and all sit. Somebody grabbed his chair and dragged it at the other end of the room and when he came back, he looked for it and couldn't find it. And so, instead of going away, he just stood there, smiling, pretending he was in on our conversation. That’s when we decided to dance some more.
   And then the prom was over and we all went our separate ways. I had my first French kiss and it was divine.
   Then I went to college and graduated and got a job and a family.
   Sometimes, late at night, when the whole house is sleeping and I’m alone, enjoying a smoke in the living room, I think of him. First, because I started smoking because of him - to give him lung cancer. And then because I wonder what he’s become.
   I’m sure he’s still around, probably still in that town, living with his parents, or maybe on his own. His parents might have abandoned him; or maybe they agreed to pay for his rent if he’d only move out. He probably wasn’t working. After all, what could he possibly do?
   And I usually fall asleep in my chair and my dreams are filled with the hollow sounds of crutches on linoleum, of sniffling and insults echoing in hallways. And I see a big face, full of anger and zits, approaching me, ready to smother me with its sulfur breath.
   And in my dream, I scream.

In Hollywood, 1:30am

So... What? You be an ex-junkie and shit? Yeah? Tough shit, sure, no doubt. You be wearing your hair long, you be wearing army fatigues as a sign of protest. Right on, brother. Oh, and you play the guitar as well? Fan-fucking-tastic. Really. Wow. An ex-junkie who plays the guitar. An ex-heroin addict strumming the strings, singin’ the blues, talking about how shit life is for him and his peers in the ghetto. In the ghetto of Beverly Hills. Yeah. Your life was shit, I’m sorry to hear it. But it’s not because you’re clean and you can read music that you’re a demi-God, you know? I should pity you? Really?! You want pity for the life you’ve had? The life you chose? No, you don’t want pity, because you’re above it all, aren’t you? You walk up here with your cool strut, you tell us all about your horrible life and how now you’re clean and a new man and you found God or what-have-you and because you read Kerouac a week ago and you heard of who Kant is, you think you’re The Philosopher. You’re gonna walk up here and tell us about our lives, about how lucky we are and how deep you are? Sure. We’re lucky. We’re lucky because we’re young, we’re lucky because we’re healthy and because we drove to this here place in a forty-thousand-dollar SUV. Fuck the environment. We’re so lucky we’re not even worried about the ice caps melting, because if our primary residence in LA goes under water, we still have a house in Colorado and one in Switzerland, so we don’t give a shit. You’re so damn cool, you got so much to teach us. But you seem to forget that you’re the loser here. You’re the one who was married to the needle. You’re the one who turned tricks on Santa Monica Boulevard to feed your habit. While we were at the bar drinking ourselves silly before driving home and running over guys like you. No, dude, don’t talk. I’m saying fuck you, here. I’m saying fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Horse. Get it? Whatever. Fuck off. You’re not gonna teach us shit, we don’t wanna learn shit, not from you at least. Go play your hippie tunes in Echo Park where they at least pretend to care about you. Here, we don’t want you. Don’t tell us you know more about life than we do. You just know more about death, and we’re not interested in that. Fuck off. Don’t be walking here with your dime-store philosophy. Because my girl, she creams for guys like you. My girl is dumb enough to think you’re deep and cool. My girl’s a stupid bitch, yeah. But she’s hot, and you know that. You pretend to be the new Buddha, but I noticed you didn’t go talk to the overweight lesbians in the back of the bar. You made a bee-line for the leggy bitch with dyed hair, thinking she’d be an easy prey. Fuck you for being right. And fuck off before she decides to suck your cock. Here’s a dime bag of H. I’ll throw it out the door, you go chasin’ it. It’ll give you new ideas for your future songs and your weepy tales. Maybe you’ll catch another leggy white bitch who thinks she’s Mother Teresa with a cunt of gold. But for now, get the fuck out. Get the fuck out before I tell you that I wish I were you.