Leather on Fire

Swollen with the food you ate by the wall, you called me on the cell phone. You described your mouth's inside to me and the saliva was a runny ink. You wanted it thick as glue to shoot like bullets that harden in midair. You said you could spit at me and crack my skull. My neck jerks, my eyes bleed, my head opens and thousands of Agnostid trilobites pour out into the sunlight and immediately die.

Path to Citizenship

I go away for a sweet numbness and listen to the rising and falling cheers of some gathering somewhere below me. This topography comes blowing out of me and manifests itself on this city. All of it is somewhat less than my sickness of cynicism feels capable of allowing. Cynical, cynical, cynical tight little mass like frozen black blood, digested hair, bone flavored paper wad and clay. Ears floating on oily water. Just ears.

Put a Label on Your Experience

My finest aspiration as a child, a boy, was to be a lake monster. Not in the sea where such ugliness seems to ooze from hadean chimneys super frequently. Not in the sea but in a lake, in a small spot of water near a town, fringed with fine conifers and full of pristine little pebbles which would tickle my monsterbelly, which would skip from child hands on the surface above me, leaving momentary silver blemishes.

I would pick one child to befriend, one needy boy or girl with darkness on their brows and hunger and empty shoes. Having watched and waited, I would pick one sad moment when the child's world was like a sack of molasses and I would rise above the cool water and the eye contact would bond us.

And there would be adventures, naturally. There would be dopey sheriff's deputies to foil. Wicked land developers to battle. Bait shop owners to confuse. Victories and heavy auras of champion energy. One day, boosted with confidence and a powerful sense of self-worth, my friend would walk away from the lake forever to enrich the world with whatever the hell it was they wanted to do with their adult lives.

I loved talking about these dreams to the children at school. I rendered them in finger paint, in poster paint, in crayon, in marker, in colored pencils. When they put the kibosh on my dreams, I argued that they were wrong; in their mind they were the experts, but I wasn't happy to accept their cynical bloviating. I noted with bitterness that fairly frequently, they tended to have a habit of translating something weird into something somewhat less splendid.

That's a problem. That's a dealbreaker.

Shall We Flourish?

I make quesadillas. It is a service I provide. I've purchased the latest stovetop from a reputable manufacturer. The same goes for my skillet and the rest of my utensils, which probably doesn't interest you. Why should it? Once you taste the quesadilla I serve you, your questions about my process will be irrelevant. You'll feel a profound gratitude for my abilities and generosity.

I will, however, regale you with the story of how I obtained the unique apparel I while preparing the victuals upon which you are presently feasting. This is convenient, as it relieves you of feeling obligations of conversational reciprocation, i.e. saying stuff to me, too.

Upon Senator Hill, a lovely Lesbian Woman who drives a Dodge Ram has taken up the pastime of leathercraft. After seeing her wares at a local arts festival - of which I am a perennial attendee - I set my mind to the purchase of comfortable britches, a belt, a tunic, a jacket, and a heavy apron to protect the rest of the ensemble from the messiest of the foodstuffs with which I must contend. I've commissioned a cap as well, but this final element is not yet complete, and to be perfectly frank, I grow impatient with the excuses I hear, week in and week out.

I just really love quesadillas.

Egg One

Roll down the face. Tumble headlong down the slope of that greasy nose. Hold tight the precious eyelash in your pink fist. Feel your foot smack a balmed lip. Strike the bearded chin.

When you land in the giant's soft lap, don't hesitate to still your mind and catch your breath. Scramble down his pants. Don't lose the eyelash. If the giant's cat harasses you, there is a bazooka hidden behind a potted plant. Shoot the cat in the face and run. Actually, shoot it anyway, harassment or no. I hate that giant's cat. Hurting it will distract the giant.

Don't lose that fucking eyelash! I need it.

Succor For Tormented Fathers

There was a long night of fog and light during the final days of our sickness. In the damp heat, you slept like a sloth in the jungle time, the diffuse light rippling across your mossy integument like star fingers. I watched the fabric of my fashionable slacks undulate with cnidarian logic. I watched the telephone’s cold weight on the pressed wood bedside table, silent next to the swollen circular trace of some other person’s ice water. Like a whimsical ichnologist, I imagined the water’s entry into the patient’s body, to be greedily claimed by its cells, to quiet its sensation of thirst, and to be eventually excreted, completely alienated from the ephemeral form the glass had lent it. I knew that some small trace of that water had found its way to me. In the wild haze around us I watched you in your bed, secretly alive.

Ha Ha, I Wrote the Poem

That dog is gone. No doubt it got chased away from the house by friendly women with hot paychecks in their pockets. Those are the women who don't carry purses. And you know, that's okay. They don't have to carry purses. They like that fast-moving feeling you get with running with a sweaty brow and teeth full of fierce visions. So they don't need heavy purses. They sink battleships, and as previously noted, they occasionally chase dogs away from houses.

When I was in a funk, I sold purses on the boulevard. I knew three brothers with different knives and big antelope colored faces. I never fought anyone and I never let people insult each other. By that, I mean that I spoke up and registered my disapproval when I heard one person insult another person. That's the best you can do. You can't stop people from insulting each other. You can't stop some friendly ladies full of ancient worries from chasing these dogs away, either. You just wish it wouldn't happen so much.