There is Something Happening in My Backyard
I can’t say that, that thing I just said
There’s a knock on my door, “This is your final warning”
I sigh, like I do a lot of the time
Same act, different particles
The air I was born into is an intangible artifact
Perhaps it’s preserved in a tin can somewhere, like the ones they sell for tourists who want to but can't climb Mount Everest
It’s green, moss green, with a punch of lavender from up here
Looking down, I feel guilty and remorseful
I practice my apology in my chest, or at least I try to
The need for speech is pressing and urgent, perhaps now more than ever
But as the knock intensifies, I can only see gossamer
All vague impressions and no sharp letters
And for a second I wonder if I’m in the wrong house
Are you my child? Not some stranger in disguise?
I want to ask, but I tape my mouth shut
I contemplate sewing it, but decide that I am no David Wojnarowicz
You’re all around me, yet I don’t know you or your kin
I’d like to share this view with you, kick our legs a little over the cliff if you'd let me
But we know you won't
I can’t twist your arms behind your back the way you do many others
I can’t pry your eyes open the way you do many others
I want you to see this thing we call beauty
Only what you want us to see is an absence
An absence of what could've existed between us, of the abundance of all things good
Suddenly, with no mercy, I realize
There is no door, there never was one—yet I still hear you pounding
Beyond the carved-out doorframe is a piece of fabric waving high up, high up
Nylon or polyester, a gauche selection of hues
There is no wind, only a dozen men fanning their arms toward the painfully azure sky
I’m left with no words, only a sigh
Same act, different particles
Only this time, it’s multiplied
Horrid, That
Walk straight and don't forget to crash into the tall gray wall. It's so big, you can't miss it. Feel your bones rattle a little. Exciting, isn't it? Why do I feel so awkward in your arms? I've known you for two hours. Split decision. Right here, right now. Focus before it's too late. Do I run up the stairs or go downstairs with you? Two hours. And it's gone. When will I ever learn to use my brain? Kick it around like a soccer ball in a hooligan's dream. Gentle, yes, I know. I am aware. But my bones feel crushed nonetheless. All I wanted was a little shake. Learn to say no, learn to say yes, learn to say maybe. Words suddenly mean nothing when the weight of it all envelopes you. Legs, kicking, like a hooligan's. Arms, flailing, like a drowning child's. Horrid images and horrid times. Do you live for shit like this? You don't. And I know that. I am aware of that. Still, something within me pushes you out. And I say sorry and stare out of the small window. I wait for any sign of life on the dead street. 8 AM. An ungodly hour to break.
How Do I Measure Time?
Digestive biscuit crumbs on my tired chest
Tumbling, then trickling down to the carpet below
This is how I measure time
Teeth, forgotten in some blue liquid in a dusty cabinet
My words are cloudy around the corners, spilling from chapped lips
This is how I measure time
A car whizzes by, beeping and cursing at phantoms
And a gust of wind lifts my skirt up, but no one is there to witness it
This is how I measure time
I remember the stolen glances, a brush of the shoulders in the hallway
Wordplay turning into a laundry list of concrete desires and wants
How do you measure time?
Late night debauchery eclipsed by early morning confessions
The exchange of middle names, birthdays, mother's names
How do you measure time?
I still drink coffee the way you used to—a sprinkle of cinnamon and a dash of milk
Let me make one for you, your seat is still at my dining table
How do you measure time?
Nostalgia in Crimson
Someone must’ve pinched the back of my right leg. I feel thunder, I feel rain. But I don’t want to feel anything at all. You tell me I should start biking, but you know I’m afraid of getting hit by a car. But that’ll make me feel more alive, much more than imagining a nullified future; things that will never come to pass. Jesus fuck. Why move at all? Why? I can’t help but drag myself toward the light. You inspire me to keep pushing. Do I have the same effect on you? I doubt it. I doubt I’ve actually made a difference in your life. Or anyone’s life, for that matter. I’m being facetious. I’m being asinine. Don’t believe a word I say for I am a compulsive liar. Does admitting I lie through my teeth make me a better person? If every dictator admitted he was a wretched excuse of a human being, does that make him a better person? Fuck no. You and I both know this. We of all people should know this. Or not. I wonder what it means to grow up in the shadows of an erased past. Rewriting history, write that into law. Ever heard of Nippon Kaigi? Well, now you know. Rose-tinted glasses used for evil. Rose-tinted glasses used by insecure nationalists who believe in a nullified future. God, who’s the idiot now? Hand the idiot a blade and see what they do with it. Go on. Nothing will be televised because we’re all glued to our phones and they’re laughing at us. It’s all unfolding in our hands, yet we don’t have the courage to do anything. Well, some of us, at least. So, yes, usher the idiot to the center of the stage and watch him be forgotten even before he begins his act.
Last Transmission From Out Here
Hitting the side of your head in the car, arguing about gun laws and the definition of "Eusexua" and whether shit is left-right or top-down. As we claw at one another and go for the jugular with devastating precision, a volcano erupts outside the window and leaves us in utter silence. We watch the once-green terrain transform into a creature we don't recognize (but perhaps it's us who have become acutely alien, so much so that the landscape has come to swallow us whole). And so we crack open a cold one (I told you I quit drinking years ago, but you never cared to listen, anyway) and watch everything turn to black.
In our little bubble threatening to burst any second now, we list off our regrets: "I wish I took a gap year and traveled to a different continent instead of making fun of people who did just that," "I wish I was nicer to my family," "God damn, I wish I fucked more, you know? No, seriously. I don't know why I was so insecure about my stomach. Who cares?" Nothing can be seen outside the window anymore. The past is here, reclaiming what's rightfully theirs. Someone once said there's an indigenous tribe that sees the future differently from us. Instead of the past being behind oneself as one faces the future, one walks backwards into the future with one's eyes firmly set on the past.
"Yeah, that's cool and all, but it literally doesn't matter right now, dummy We're engulfed in smoke. Engulfed!" You lightly punch my shoulder and slip into the driver's seat. All I see is the back of your head. You tilt it to the left and drum your fingers against the hot window. And for a moment, everything matters. But you wouldn't understand that, would you?
Infamous Intersection Interaction
You know how many times you can cut a piece of paper? Yeah, me neither. That guy over there with the long, black coat and slicked-back hair might know. Seems like the type of guy who'd know trivia. Probably memorized every leader of the world so that he could use it as a party trick. My party trick is never knowing anything, ever. My cognitive abilities decline year by year; a truly pernicious thing for my well-being. But this is my one-man epistemological study. Should I record this? Oh, right, I have no storage. Anyway. What were we talking about? Oh, right, we weren't talking about anything. We were just squinting at the night sky trying to catch some skyscraper rays. Did you know skyscraper rays can make your stomach feel numb? No? Yeah, me neither. I just made that up. Fiction and nonfiction aren't that different anyway. The former seems to take precedence over the latter, as god put me on this burning, flat earth to capture a moment and simultaneously zoom out and zoom in. Hail Mary, full of grace, the lord is with thee. Blessed are-what? Oh, right. I can still recite the whole prayer. My middle name was bestowed on me by a pastor. Priest? Father? He who is the arbiter of names. What matters is we're soaking up all the rays beaming from the towering sky. Someone's got to do the job. I'm glad we both agree that this is a good thing by Kantian standards. Did you know utilitarianism is the natural result of a psychtrance-faux-hippie experiencing ego death at an undisclosed rave? Yeah, me neither.
Another Year
I've never had a real conversation in my life, but I dreamed three and a half dreams last night
And you were in every single one
A whisper in the eye of the storm
A language yet to be invented
Oh fuck, sirens blast through my reverie;
I hear a cheesy pop song about lost loves and uncertain futures
But cliches hold a modicum of the truth, so I'll let it slide
Oh, how I wish every lilting voice and pulsating beat could reach you the way they reach me
I know our memories weigh differently, though, and growing older is about learning to accept that
That's why we write, don't you think?
We're shooting an arrow into a polluted cloud,
Hoping it'll hit someone where it matters most, even if they don't understand what we're saying
The Truth is Perverted and We're All Complicit
As I shit blueberries on a fine Saturday afternoon, I cup my ear to listen to the majestic roar of a thousand cicadas. Temperatures are rising, according to rumors spreading in this sleepy neighborhood, and cicadas are dying faster every year. "I didn't know they were accelerationists." I hear laughter, but only in my mind. It goes silent, and the air is a vacuum. The only sound is the toilet flushing. How many people have stuck their heads in a dirty toilet?
The truth is perverted and we're all complicit.
There's a reason people dress up as slutty nuns on Halloween. I still wear my Virgin Mary necklace I got from my Catholic elementary school. I'm technically Protestant (I was baptized against my nascent will when I was a baby), but the aesthetic of suffering intrinsic to Catholicism has often appealed to me much more. I don't believe in God anymore, though. I wrote a whole speech when I was 17. I'm trying to write less about God. I'm trying to write more about something with substance. I'm also a hypocrite.
Some want to transcend to a higher realm without sacrificing their corporeal self, but I want to sink deeper into the depths of the self in relation to others. You, me, us. Damn it, I need to shit again. These blueberries are hardcore laxatives.
Talk to you later.
An Approximation of a Feeling
With dried jujubes between my calloused fingers, I think to myself, "I need to take a stroll in a cemetery." But I don't. I stay put in my sexless ergonomic chair, staring at a brown spot on my wall.
I can split open a new dimension if I keep biting the inside of my mouth, though. Perhaps that'll allow me to leave the house. A biodegradable portal, also reusable for raw meat enthusiasts.
"The Spectacular Commodity" by Glenn Branca penetrates my ears, forcing me to drop the jujubes in my sorry lap. I want it to penetrate me more.
God, show me a bonafide freak. One who toes the line between brilliance and absolute lunacy. The men you've sent us only speak in three-letter acronyms and empty laughs that echo in a silo of their own making.
Hey, I'm just about done with tearing open a new hole in my mouth. Do you want to take a gander? No? Alright, suit yourself, cowboy.
Esoteric Meat
No teeth on the corncob, tractor looking clean as fuck, backseat reserved for the desolate and lonely, but you know I got that esoteric meat on me (courtesy of Michelle), driving without a license, got me acting like a nuisance, on the road looking for a field, sometimes I want to ditch my sobriety to feel real, but shit goes on and on 'till the wheels fall off, and I wonder if it's all worth it, straight up everything feels like one demented circus, if Jesus is listening I got a million complaints to make, like how many more daggers do I got to take?, to hell with all that; I'm ready to get overstimulated, loud-noises-itchy-clothes-pupils-dilated.
Mental Smacking
I type, "evil (good?) dimes square be like nickel circle (just imagine we're back in 2021 again)," as I sit on the toilet for the 15th time in a little under an hour. My knees still look weird, but my ass is slowly returning to its original form, so I'm allowed to claim my Brazilian passport once again. (Sou triste porque eu não falo português, mas estou tentando aprender todos os dias). If Dimes Square is (was) a sharp knife, Nickel Circle is (would be) a curved ladle. An image of a ladle smacking my right cheek penetrates my mind's eye, but much to my dismay, it brings me no joy. Turns out I only like pain in theory and fiction, not in reality and practice. I flush the toilet and wonder what Georges Bataille would've said if he were alive. Rip Georges, you would've hated OnlyFans.
Word on the street is people prefer simple poetry. Limp, but warm. Firm, but small. I have no qualms with it. The world is beyond recognition and people yearn for the familiar. If some words on a screen could provide that, then (what the hell) sure. One's finger need not be on the pulse at all times, for obsessively looking for a heartbeat only leads to neuroticism... unless that's your thing, in which case, you do you. Tell me what you discover at the far end of your raging, piercing spiral, my fellow targeted individual.