Baby Steps

Something new happened in my life.  It happened three times.  Each time it happened I felt very uncomfortable.  I feel uncomfortable now. 

But I know it needs to keep happening.

I would say that 99% of the people in my “real life” don’t know I write.  The other 1% have known I enjoy writing but don’t know about the publications.  NOBODY IN MY REAL LIFE KNOWS ABOUT XTX.  When I have had small successes with my book, or the fact that I HAVE A BOOK, I could not tell anybody.  Have not told anybody.  NOBODY WHO LOVES ME OR WHO I LOVE KNOW ABOUT MY BOOK OR KNOW ABOUT MY CHAPBOOK OR MY EBOOK OR THE NICE BOOK REVIEWS I’VE GOTTEN OR COOL STORIES I’VE GOTTEN PUBLISHED IN COOL PLACES OR PUSHCART NOMS OR BEST OF THE WEB NOMS, ETC.  I just keep swallowing it all up and jump around in silence asking myself what the fuck am I doing and how long am I going to keep doing it and feeling like a double-agent or some shit.

I know I need to begin to merge my “two lives” so I’ve gradually begun slowly “sharing” tidbits about my writing with real people in my life.  Usually it’s when I’m drunk.   I only offer it when I’m talking the ‘down n dirty’ with true friends…about “life purposes” and “soul-fulfillment” shit.  Then I let it slip out.  I WRITE.  I AM A WRITER.  Then they go all drunk-batshit on me and I immediately back away from those statements. I make them very small and insignificant. Almost like, “just kidding” because when you tell people you are a writer, I am finding, they get very animated and start asking you a shit ton of questions you are not prepared to answer. Or, at least questions that EYE am not prepared to answer.  Some questions I can’t answer. 

One time I just pointed off to the corner of the room and went, “Look over there!” and then I skittered away. (escape plan win!)

Twice last week, during such an exchange, two different people asked me, “What do you write about?”  I did three things in response: shrug my shoulders and shook my head while making a gah-gah-um-uh-ber-neer-neer-uh sound.  Surprisingly, people don’t accept this as a real answer.  They want a real answer.  They keep asking and I keep doing that same awkward response.  Seriously, these two people were practically in my face FORCING me to supply them with an answer.  (they were also a bit drunk, so let’s give that to them)  They started throwing out suggestions to help me: “Werewolf vampire love stories?”  “World War 2 stuff?”  “Horror?”  “Romance?”  And the more I heard the suggestions the more I realize that the literary world I live in that sometimes has writing that cannot be classified so simply like a section at Barnes & Noble is such a different world that the people in my life aren’t familiar with and it’s hard to explain to them without getting into a long discussion that I’m not prepared to have. 

I eventually just said, “nothing you’d want to read” and “weird stuff.”  Oh, and I said, “sad stuff.” 

One guy strong armed me into sharing some of my writing with him.  He begged and begged me telling me he wanted to read some of my stuff so I finally broke down and emailed him a few word docs.  That was on Wednesday. 

My mom did the same thing.  “So when are you going to let me read some of your writing?”  I printed out a few stories, handed them to her, said, “Read them when I’m not around.”  That was last Sunday. 

I haven’t heard anything from either of these fine folks. Nothing. Nada. Silence.

I guess part of me feels relieved I haven’t heard anything.  But part of me fills in the blanks with all the negatives; “They think I’m weird now.” “They don’t like my writing.”  “They hate it and don’t know how to tell me.”  Etc.  But part of me wants to get an email that says all of the opposite of that stuff. No I don’t. yes I do. Alkdsfja;ghj FUCK IT! I DON’T CARE! GAH!!!!!!

These exchanges make me highly uncomfortable.  I am not used to sharing my writing with people in my real life.  I know you guys “get it.”  I am comfortable with the internet knowing I am a deviated, wacked-out, sexually fucked up, weirdo.  But having my writing “evaluated” by people that have known me for decades, well, it’s a whole new ballgame.  Like, I feel so naked and exposed.  And like, there are no blankets nearby that I can grab.  Or I grab for them and they are all the size of napkins.  

I have something wrong in my mouth.  A small hole that got bigger and bigger.  It seems bigger now. Today. There is a pain.  I can look for things in there.  Sometimes I find things.  Things that smell bad.  I want to become very tiny and go exploring.  Mine the inside of the hole with scrapers and fluoride.  Die under a flood of pus. 

I think I exploded veins in my face.  It looks like my eyes are leaking a fan of blood.  I hope it doesn’t spread.  Did vomiting do that?  If you vomit in the dark, would that make it worse?  I do not know what is happening to what I live inside of on a daily basis.   

Somebody needs to take all the footage from the past four days and break it down frame by frame.  Analyze.  Formulate.  Theorize.

Feel like I’ve lost interest in a lot of things.  Like, being away from my normal environment shook everything I look to for worth loose.  A rake of leaves.  My insides are like, shit and food and piss and liquids and blood.  Before this week they seemed like more than that.  Now I'm scared that's all there was.

When I become that tiny miner and crawl inside my mouth hole I will look more around.  I’m  going to try to get to my guts.  See if I can find all of the swallowed watermelon seeds.  See if I can find that tiny plastic horse.  See if I can make out the edges of where that ulcer healed up.  The ulcer that made me not want to eat for a long time a long time ago.  I think that if I can find these things I will feel better, like finding proof of things I was starting to believe never happened.

Everything is wet outside but I’m not sure that means it rained.

All of this white is forcing me to be extra careful.  I have to move slowly.  Very slowly.  I do not want to spill.  You should see how my feet go.  I creep.

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I don’t get what everyone is doing on his Facebook wall.  “Oh poor you! Oh we will miss you! You were such a great guy! We will pray for your wife and kids!”   He did not get hit by a bus.  He swallowed both barrels of a shotgun.  And right before Thanksgiving, no less.  What a giver! Ruining a holiday for years to come!  You think you had your family in a hole before you took the easy way out? Well, now they are underground. Forever.  That’s what EYE want to say on your facebook wall.  “Do not come in. Call 911”  At least you tried to spare them the horror.  I wonder how good your wife was at following directions.  Or did she think, WTF and open the door?  Guess they will have to hose down the shed.  Or tear it down.  I mean, it’s become a monument now, right?  Way to go.  I am mad at you.  Maybe I will be sad later, but not now.

New Dogzplot
Lit Pub Shizzz

All of these stairs are forcing me to be reminded of how shitty my knees are. OMG they make so much clicky noises with every step.  I flinch. I’m like, “how do I get up the stairs without using the stairs?” I try to walk up without bending my knees, straight-legged and that is hard to do.  I feel like I keep injuring myself by just walking up some friggin stairs.

How do I get up the stairs without using the stairs?

It is raining. 

I just saw a cat walking in the rain.  I stopped and watched it walk in the rain. I watched a cat walk in the rain.

I played motorcycles last night.  It was an Ironman motorcycle.  The floor was hardwood.  Do you say “played motorcycles” if it was only one motorcycle you played with?

I have two new tattoos this morning.  The exciting one is a sparkly star that is by my eye.  It’s like unicorn thug.  “Does that mean you murdered one person when you were in prison?”  “No, it means I bludgeoned a fairy to death because she fucked with my Hello Kitty thermos.” 

I will go out in public today with my glittery star face tattoo and when people give me a wide berth on the sidewalk I will stare them down like, “yeah, you made the right choice there, bucko….” 

Because, you know, anyone who uses the term “bucko” is a force to be reckoned with.

Homeward Bound

Today I am all tits n hips n ass n hairdo.  A caricature of womanhood.  It’s turning me on.  

Dental floss underwear. There is only one real point to them.   

Everyone is taking things away from me and nobody knows it.  Bob Barker shouts, COME ON DOWN and I wish.  Man, I wish.

I like that whole phrase, “come. On. Down.” It says so much.  It can mean so many things.  It can be said many fine, fine ways.  I want to hear it from the mouth of a man.

There is a large part of me that wants to try the new vodka tampon thing.  I know that says something about me.  I’m not sure what.  When I get home I am going to check if I have vodka.  I think I do and if I do I will do this thing.  The vodka tampon thing.  I want to do it because of what it is.  I want to experience a new low point.  My old low points are so every last year.   I probably won’t do it tonight though. I have important meetings to attend.  A roomful  of women, one of them a butch dyke who wears these cowboy boots.  Something about her…  I think I will sit in a closer chair to that one.  I hope she smells of leather.  I hope she looks at me twice..

Sometimes my friends are so bright it hurts to look at them and because I am an empty vessel that needs constant filling I can never get enough and things that should only normal hurt end up hurting more and why is everyone I cannot see so very beautiful? So very bright?  Sunglasses don’t help and here, take this knife, it’s sharper. 

You stab in the dark and it feels like you are hitting nothing, right? 

That’s what you think.

You are all better than me.  I am by your shoes and I can barely hear you laughing and shit.  Oh wait, now there’s piss.   It’s okay, I will play in the mud. It’s what I usually do.

How come not getting what I want is my lot in life? 

Just know that you can never hug me hard enough or long enough or tell me you love me strongly enough that I will ever let myself believe you.  Even if you scarred it on your soul, even if you bled it into your skin.  Doubt is my constant.  I know there are more important lives in everyone’s lives except mine. 

My truth is so ugly it’s hard for me to type it but typing it is about the only thing I can do.

Something Wrong With Me

My fingers can’t stop smelling like onions or garlic.  My mouth smelled like them too, for a while.  Then I washed my mouth. I washed my mouth out.  My mouth is fine now.  It tastes like my mouth.

I am not sure why.  This thing.  The explanation would be that I did things with those things but I did not.  There was not a way with them.  I only have this buried smell.

I find myself smelling my fingers when I want to be reminded, when I want to see if it’s still there.  I put them to my face like they were just in bad places.  I close my eyes. I inhale.  I hope for clues.  The rush back of an explanation.  So far there is nothing. 

It might be disease.  A condition.  A phenomenon.  I should feel special.  Chosen. And I do.  What can you say about yourself this morning that is something you could not say yesterday?  Today, I have that.  Tomorrow I may not.  Let’s wait and see.

When the surface is clean that means it must be inside of me, right? Inside my skin.  Cellular level?  I do not understand biochemistry or things of that nature.  I just hope I am not becoming an onion or a garlic.  A big, aromatic vegetable thing.   I do not want to die that way. 

There it is again.  It’s still there.  Don’t you believe me?  Here… smell my fingers.

Perineum Cyanide Kill Factor Ken

Oh jeebus! Oh jeebus! Oh!

Cornelius walking.  Friend me on facebook for lyfe. A feffineffer.  Cogitation contagion.  Sanctimonious.

Do you hear me when I walk?  It’s inevitable.  This feeling of feeling.  How many omelets do you want me to eat until I look pretty?  I will eat corn ones and cheese ones.  The regular kind and also irregular. 

Pasta primavera headcase.

There is a winch in my spine and it cranks the dawn away.  Carve a small boat out of my nipples and place it in the It gutter river.  Tell Pennywise I said hi.  Fill in my nipple holes with sodomy. 

Birdcage freedom.

I got horny for cops today.  Pull me over with your bullhorn and be wrong with me.  Sorry, officer, I have no pens.  I texted to ask if I should pull over and buy some. She said no.  She said, “Rude ass.” ZOMG, right?

 

So many transsexuals.

Get defeated.  Buy aspartame.  Twinkle my dutchies.  Feel my perpendicular. When you hit cervix, turn back. You’ve gone too far.  Or wait a while, see what happens. There could be piñatas. There could be  whippoorwills.

A slammed doorface

.

In uvula becomes you. Hold my hands and let’s do spins. A cartwheel mantra.  I fell off the swings once. Landed on my mom doesn’t care.  A hopscotch bandaid.  If you keep lying to me I will maybe start believing you. 

A disgrace from outer space.

A time cavity in my head for a wheelthing.  Carl came carving carcinoma.  A suntan spectacle.  Who wants cake?  Who wants all the cake in the world?  If you say, “That guy!” I will kill you.  I will give you a tsunami of pain.

Wench trenches.

Personal space becomes you.  Have an olive. Have a case of beer. Come over here. Don’t be queer. You snow crows and it shows.

Habitrail habitual.

Tangible spikes made of ledbetter. Bleed me from the vines in my veins. Jungleman transposition. Trips triptych.  Tangle inside me.  Wrap around and twist.

Flarfbarf.

Conception contraception.  A plum stain under my elbow skin.  She needled me. Took blood. Her stern eyebrows. Can you dig?  Can you dig it?  The Doors.

Mesa Arizona.

Big metal chairs.  Skin graft sunshine on the water over rice take my wife. Please.  Circumstantial evidentiary claustrophobia nickelback dimestore hoodwink.  Yes. Exactly.

Time cop.  A hulk Hogan experience.  Retail store retirement.  Dove body spray.  My nose hasn’t stopped running cocaine addict style since before noon today. Some semblance of semantics.  I know you can see me.

A virtual virgin.

Fire away. Take it from me.  A gathering in.  Adult swim.  Let’s begin. The beguine.  I have so many eggs I could lay you seventeen times.

Spinach hands.

Form fitting from French feeding.  Pretzel twists. A cake with a fish on it. No, a LIVE fish. A cancer girl.  A widow.  A cranky newborn. Nasty Nancy rides again.

Crackle the crackwhore.

Where in the world is a girl with an ethnic name?  Must everything be puzzles? Can’t we all just tie one on?  My thighs haven’t stopped rubbing together since the day of my birth.

Lying liar. Flat tire.

A case of beer to the first person who is nice to me and how I hate myself constantly. Drudgery fudge. A common denominator of filth. Butthole pleasures, colon, infinity.

Take it away. Burn it down. Consensual sex.

Minors have so much sex. I think of pretty things. A way to be.  Gargantuan gargoyles. Lemonade stands. A almost empty jug of SWEET ICED TEA TAKING UP AN ENTIRE SHELF IN MY REFRIGERATOR.

 

I just want to write my own Oh Comely.  Oh come all ye faithful.  Come on my face. Come sit over here and I will pet your dog.  Let’s own a car.  I will bead fantastic. I will take umbrage with two splendas and some half n half.

Touchdown there.

Lick your fingers first. One. Two. Three. Me.  Catch up, you. Mock smock, cereal frock.  I have so far to go before I can go anywhere. I am arrested. I am a prisoner in a cell made of my brain. Coat check dream song is a song by bright eyes.  Meth addicts do not rule.

Wear my tshirt. Tell me you love it.  Tell me you can still smell me in it and it murders you.

Can’t not you like all about me?  A one upmanship upmanship. Cradle babies with skullcaps, wandering.  A blasphemy bladder party where all everyone has is a handful of herpes.  We dance in the center. We pass her around. We take turns. It’s okay, I’m from Los Angeles. It’s okay, I have nothing else to live for. I am a dead thing.  Just like you. 

Hold my hand until we are bones.  That is a big please.  That is a big please in a font that dwarfs the universe.  Because, you know, science.

My pulse. My pulse in my throat.

When You Want a New Landscape

Picnic under my left breast. 

My neck the place you repair your car. 

Jump the fence at the top of my thigh.

Pick grapes that aren’t yours. 

Plow the fucking fields.