excuse me

Sitting on the toilet,
a teal pair boxers with pictures of little crocodiles on the tile floor
to the left; laptop
pressing weird shapes into
the skin on my thighs.

Woke up twenty-eight minutes ago.
Blew a ticket.
Seventeen minutes ago, got horny.
Took my teal crocodile boxers off, and sat on the toilet.
Fully hard watching a blonde with weird tits and a gap between her front teeth on an illegal video stream, fourteen minutes.
Precum, ten.
Climax, seven.
Shame coincided with wiping my sticky dick with pieces of toilet paper, and getting soft, six and a half to four.
Peeing while sitting down, too lazy to stand up, three to two and a half minutes.

Sitting on the toilet,
in the sweaty/heavy aftermath of masturbation.
Alone
reading European soccer gossip
on the internet.

Not for long.

My bathroom has three doors:
a normal door from the hallway, which can be locked,
and two sliding doors, one from my bedroom,
and the other from my uncle's office.

The door from my uncle's office slowly starts to creep open.
I can see his bald head looking into the bathroom,
me, still pantsless, laptop on my lap, sitting on the toilet.
Cum, piss, balled up toilet paper swirling underneath my balls and ass.

"excuse me."

He stands there.

"Excuse me."

Nothing.

"EXCUSE ME."

Unresponsive.

"Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. EXCUSE ME!"

Finally, movement.
His fingers ungrasp the edge of the door.

He mutters fast and low as he closes the door,
"I saw the light was on and I didn't know anybody was in here.
You know, I just don't want to waste electricity. Costs so much these days.
All these taxes, Obama....."
goes back into his office,
back down the stairs,
and everything fades back to silence.

I take the laptop off my lap
put it on the counter,
turn the shower on,
take the navy t-shirt I've been wearing
for the past three days off,
and flush the toilet.

I have work in thirty minutes.

The Krokodil Effect

 

A half-eaten stump dripping thick brown fluids into the layers of dust, used plastic bottles, and empty bags of potato chips, my arms have become strong after the years of dancing to electronic house music with the assistance of aluminum crutches.  I move from side to side, wiggling hips to the bass thump as the skin disintegrates leaving trail of breadcrumbs for emergency services to follow.

I will never get lost in a forest, but I can/have been lost in a large crowd of people at a social gathering, which is why I have chosen to rot from the inside-out. Missing the vein on purpose. Two years to live.

There is no hope, only optimistic lies which lead to suicide and gingivitis. I have yellow teeth. Luckily, I saw a commercial for whitening toothpaste and an electric toothbrush.  The woman in it had perfectly white teeth and looked genuinely happy. I went to the Rite Aid and bought the toothpaste and the electronic toothbrush as a way of turning my life around. I used them every night. Brushing each quadrant for 30 seconds. Watching plaque swirl in the pulsating bristles, as the foam gathers in the corners of my mouth—this is rabies. After three months, my teeth were still yellow, and numb from heroin. But not numb enough, which is why I switched to krok.

 

I don’t care about celebrities, just cigarettes and cannibalism.

 

When we kiss, I will slit your gums and watch them bleed like a fountain in front of a national monument. I will jump in before security comes, and steal the loose change at the bottom of the rubicund pool with a hand missing digits because wishes never come true—I am a realist.

 

My lips are lined with knives, which slice tongues neatly in one smooth motion, eliminating auto-pilot compliments, self-centered sentences, conceited words, and narcissistic syllables—I hate my friends and relatives. I can sell them to you, but, just to let you know, they are worthless and defective. Planned obsolescence.  I will dry them in a wooden oven. I will grind their bodies down into a powder with a mortar and pestle, and mix it with household chemicals, then you’ll be ready to get fucked up.  Reaching cloud MOTHERFUCKIN 10! Yes, I can cook. Thank the internet because in the past, specialists diagnosed me with a low IQ, anorexia, ADHD, and you’ll never amount to anything syndrome.

 

You will receive a twenty dollar medal engraved at a trophy shop.

You will receive a twenty dollar medal engraved at a trophy shop when you sleep with one of my best friends.

 

When you sleep with one of my best friends, I will wrap myself in a blanket made out of the mantle of the earth and cook until I’ve reached the proper temperature for consumption.

 

When you sleep with someone else, I will listen to a self-help tape while balancing on the edge of a guardrail in meditation like an emaciated Buddhist monk.

Bust me out on this and it will be okay. I just need something temporary that will bring me closer to death to make it through this.

Turn up the volume because I’m not listening to the words you’re saying; I’m just drinking a warm beer in the bath tub, and holding my cell phone just under the limpid surface of the water until it malfunctions.

Lately, I’ve been thinking of becoming a porn star. Some straight up S&M shit. Ass red from leather smacks. With cat o’ nine tails etching abstract images into the skin on my back, I have the potential to own a mansion and an SUV with 24-inch rims, and a metallic green candy apple paint job.

Lately, I’ve been thinking I’ll become a rickshaw driver with just enough money to scrape by living in a tarp house in the slums of India, or a homeless man drinking a forty out of a paper bag, telling my life story to random twenty year-olds on the street as I ask them for loose change and a spare cig + a light.

 
Lately, I’ve been thinking removing my brain from my skull, marinating it in ice, frying it in oil, and selling it for $.99 a pound even if it’s past the expiration date.



No one cares.



I don’t care.



So alone.



Pushing away anyone who tries to understand my motives on a daily basis.

 

 

 

 

In Russia, they call it krokodil because your skin corrodes until it resembles the hide of a crocodile and falls off. Nothing left but a portrait of decaying skin and nicotine stained bones resembling frayed rope and bent pieces of oxidized rebar embedded in concrete.

I fucking hate all of you. I fucking hate myself.

My calling in life is disintegration.

 

 

(photo source: here)

Scabs

And my back is scarred.

Picking scabs with long fingernails.

Picking scabs and finger-painting what loneliness would look like on the surface of Mars on a piece of looseleaf.

Picking scabs and sleeping in a haunted house that isn’t really haunted.

Picking scabs and stapling rejection letters to my face so people don’t assume I’m a failure.

Picking scabs and branding my forearm with a hot iron rod at work, thinking: This will last forever.

Picking scabs because I watched my father do it when I was a kid.

Picking scabs.

And my back is scarred.

Forming new scars like islands emerging from the depths of the Pacific.

I take my shirt off and twist my upper half so I can see red and white spots.

I imagine them all fusing together into one wound.

And my back is scarred.

Self-conscious.

I write, HELP ME with a black sharpie across my stomach and never take my shirt off for anyone ever again.

“So What Have You Been Doing with Your Life?”

I am a motel on the side of a highway with a sign that advertises “ACANCY” in pink neon glow. The owners/employees are too lazy/apathetic to replace the burnt out fluorescent tubes of the “V” which is caked in dust and numerous dead insects. There has been a sharp decline in profits because of a mass suicide involving an entire family—husband, wife, kids (1 girl and 2 boys, ages 5-17), aunts, uncles, cousins, a poodle, a goldfish, and both sets of grandparents— in room 8. Their bodies were discovered in individual blow-up kiddie pools—each pool occupied by a decomposing corpse and a yellow-bellied sea snake—by one of owners’ wives. She subsequently went into shock, got dizzy, lost her balance, fell into one of the kiddie pools, and was injected in her right arm with 2.3 CCs of venom. Water spilled on the carpet and a colony of mildew started to form.  It was a real fucking massacre, which had a run on the national news circuit until it was dropped because of low ratings. People didn’t give a shit anymore; they were more interested in seeing images of crushed brown bodies unearthed by orange clad safety workers from piles of broken concrete—two weeks after the mass suicide and accidental death there was an earthquake in Chile. Now, it’s two years later. No one gives a shit about replacing the “V”. The owner, whose wife had died, committed suicide by repeatedly bashing his head off the coffee table in room 3 a couple of months ago.  Families in minivans drive by because even though they stopped giving a shit, they still are uncomfortable with the idea of sleeping in the beds of this establishment. An establishment where people have killed themselves in the past. Free HBO and the lowest rates around aren’t persuasive enough to stop them from being scared. Instead, they’ll drive ten miles to a chain hotel with continental breakfast, stiff beds, an inground swimming pool, and safety. The remaining owners are thinking about turning the motel into a paranormal tourist trap, and are in touch with the paranormal investigators of that one reality tv show, negotiating an agreement for a one hour episode, which could air sometime next fall.

What have you been up to?

I’m sorry, that was a rude fucking question.     

Looking at patio furniture late at night makes me suicidal.

Tessa sits down on a beige aluminum lawn chair in the dark on the back porch, and surveys her yard. Her creation, partly illuminated in an artificial blue haze by 24 solar powered LED lights winding along the perimeter.

The landscape had completely changed: The garden was dugout and replaced by an in-ground pool + pool shed + patio + patio furniture set recommended by a home and gardening magazine. The tiered flower beds were erased in order for the backyard kitchen to be built + a new BBQ grill for her husband + BBQ utensils. Circles of slate were swapped for a cobblestone path. A new aluminum fence was erected.  And the two 18 year old miniature conifer trees were ripped out of the ground for a pool heater.

It’s perfect.

At least in her mind.

And the interior (knick-knacks, décor, appliances, and husband) would still be up to date for the next five years. And that includes every season.

But its completion left her with nothing to do.

The only genre of literature she was into was home and gardening magazines.

The only tv she watched was home and gardening shows.

Same with the internet.

And her husband took care of the maintenance duties while getting drunk on canned light beer, which leaves virtually no time for maintaining a healthy relationship + her two children have grown up and moved away.

Tessa nuzzles her shoulder blades into the malleable plastic material, which is weather resistant, trying to make herself comfortable.

Boredom.

She opens up a bottle of box wine and slugs it straight from the tap while popping two bars of anti-anxiety medication.

Admiring.

Hating.

Admiring.

Hating.

Tessa looks at the inflatable pool toys (a yellow duck with black and blue eyes, a pink translucent beach ball, and a couple of neon green and yellow rings) skimming across the dark reflective surface of the water. Chaotically. Randomly bumping into each other.

She takes another hit of the wine, shakes her head from one side to the other, and thinks:

“Looking at patio furniture late at night makes me suicidal.”

Greasing the paw of something that is seven times smaller (It has a tiny brain)

Jim slides four 10 milligram tablets of Percocet into the left pocket of his khakis while his grandmother’s dog, a tan toy poodle, sits next to him on the carpet.

The poodle stares at Jim. Two inquisitive black eyes under a poof of fur make her aware of the outside world. And that makes her a witness.

The poodle racks her tiny brain: To bark or not to bark? That is the question. And she has the leverage.

Jim picks the dog up under her front paws and contemplates killing her. He can get her with one hand clasping her neck. A quick jerk and it would all be over. Afterwards, he can run to the pet store and buy a poodle that looks exactly the same. The old switch-a-roo. He’s seen it work a variety of times in his favorite tv sitcoms. But then he remembers that eventually the owners always decrypt the truth. Either the pet is a complete fuck up that shits everywhere and obliterates every expensive object in said person’s house/apartment. Or the perpetrator confesses to the crime. Shit hits the fan either way.

But there’s another option, which is the one he always chooses because this has happened a number of times  before.

Jim puts the dog in the middle of his lap. She carefully lowers her slender frame into the largest crease in his pants. Jim’s fingertips delicately massage the small gaps between the ribs before they steal a couple of the meat treats from the jar on the counter and offer it to her as a sign of peace. The poodle devours the meaty morsels. She shows her loyalty to silence by licking his fingers. Then the poodle jumps down and trots away confidently with her head held high because she got her cut of the pie and ate it. The grease is still stuck between her paws.

Used. Jim feels like a smear of shit on a wad of toilet paper waiting to be flushed. His friends and his family members will probably talk about all the potential being wasted as they repeat the word, “disappointment” over and over.

“Under the control of something seven times smaller than him. What a disappointment.”

Jim inhales two of the percs, so he can tolerate himself, and wipes the counter clean with his hand making sure that nothing is out of the ordinary. His grandmother will be back in a few minutes to talk with him about her childhood after she’s finished folding the laundry.

prematurely giving birth behind bars while witnessing something that has never been seen before (This Could Lead to Divorce)

My bra feels like a piano wire.

Tangling around a neck.

Becoming taught.

Rubbing jugular skin raw.

It feels like I’m starting to hallucinate:

Your eyes are onions

And I’m pulling thin translucent rings

Out of your pupils

Because I hate the taste

And the smell .

That’s why I got all teary eyed

When I threw them in the garbage

*

The water broke. And he put me in handcuffs. Tightening  them way too tight. And carefully shoved me into the backseat of the car.

An amalgamation of fluids

Churning

Rustling back and forth

Against my belly button

Feels like indigestion

And I’ve taken recommended dosage of antacids

For a woman of my size

But it’s not helping.

And there’s no stopping it now:

PAIN.

“That’s it push!”

Latex gloves molesting my expanding vagina.

PAIN.

Relief?

PAIN.

Life.

I vomit out a fully formed child covered in a viscous film of half digested mash potatoes, shreds of buffalo chicken, specks of lettuce, and pieces of my personality saturated in stomach acid.

You smile behind your handheld video camera. Documenting every moment as carefully as an anthropologist in an unexplored region of the world.  Not missing a millisecond. Not paying attention. And you never held my hand or helped me breath.

“THIS HAS TO BE SOME KIND OF WORLD RECORD! WOW! AND I GOT IT ALL ON TAPE! THIS IS GOING TO BE AN INTERNET SENSATION FOR SURE!”

The doctor tries to hand him a sterile pair of scissors, but he was uploading the video on his smart phone. I grab the scalpel on the tray next to my bed and slice through the umbilical cord like it was a piece of paper.

PAIN.

“I still can’t believe I fucking got that on tape. What a fucking miracle. Right?”

The doctor tilts his grey hair down and exclaims, “Congratulations, it’s a girl.”

I readjust my body so that my back is representing my place in the conversation. It was terror twilight and rain was lapping against the pane of the hospital window before it dropped to the pavement below.

He inches closer to the doctor, shaking his head in disbelief.

“I mean, have you ever seen or heard of anything happening like that in your entire life?”

“No.”

“So this is the first documented case?”

“Yes.”

He rubs the outside his index finger over the scrubble on his chin. BINGO!

“You know this is going to make all of us fucking rich. Rich and famous! The rest of our lives our set my friend.”

He, the doctors, and the nurses, joined hands and began dancing and jumping up and down because they just won the lottery.

They put my baby in a plastic box, and left it as is because they couldn’t tamper with the evidence. It can’t be contaminated.

My husband posts the video on the internet, and it receives 50,000 views in the first three hours.

The best doctors from around the world are flying in on their private planes in order to study this strange reproductive phenomenon.

I think about the future: hours of medical tests and studies, syndicate talk shows, movie documentaries, parenthood, control, responsibilities, PTA meetings, and where I fit into all of this.

It was all his idea. And so far, he’s only touched his daughter through the movie screen.

“We are RICH! HONEY! RICH! RICH! RICH! No more office job. I can finally get whatever I want. And so could you!”

I peek over at our daughter motionless in the hodge-podge of fluids it was birthed in.

She isn’t crying, yet.

But I am, because I never wanted her.  And I never wanted to get rich. I wanted an abortion.

“I’m sorry, but she will be a carrot for the rest of her life,” the doctor said popping the cork off a champagne bottle. Foam raining down the plastic sides of the life support machine.

They go outside, imagining sports cars, awards, recognition, gold teeth, television specials, private jets, stacks of benjamins, and the American dream coming true in 2012.

Distracted.

I quietly sulk out of the bed in my hospital gown, and tiptoe over the linoleum, leaving footprints of DNA for forensic investigators to discover and collect later.

I look at my daughter. My baby carrot.

I love her, but she doesn’t deserve this:

I pick her up and cradle her close to my breast, swaying back and forth, humming a soft lullaby into her orange ear. 

I pop her into my mouth with a little bit of ranch, swallow and choke.

I will choke on her for the rest of my life.

*

Here’s some advice:

1. You’re life is not important because you get married. (The divorce rate in America is over 50%.)

2. You’re life is not important because you have the ability to reproduce.

3. You’re life is not important because you raise children.

4. You’re in jail, along with me. Life sentence.

5. And overpopulation is the number one problem in the world.

*

The jovial smell of jubilation masks the smell of bodily fluids drifting off the dirty linens in the hospital room. I bury my head in the pillow to escape the smell, and start tunneling through the center with a homemade tool made out of five scalpels and an ice cream scooper searching for daylight.

eavesdropping on customer conversations: #1

"Mom, look how tan I am."

"You're not really tan, just sunburned."

"Oh."