I’m—

A sibilant drift whistling through cracked windows; I walk through memories’ walls west of pain. [Away go I] Return to the dirt road tho’ I’m a cloud sliced on its belly dripping over

And over the hearth—The Fall.

No cane helps, can’t ever stand straight on flat ground

Yet on the mud I’m able. To be

Slayed by my own kin. It’s in my nature. Nature, it’s in mine the way it’s violent. Underskin it broods and I don’t let the bruise go quiet—it blooms like violets. Under, still, the careful watch that’s full with lack of care.

I’m a—the way I—

Deny and deny and deny but I know (don’t ask)

Don’t show. Don’t tell.

I’m the wave and shore I crash on and the jutting rock the splash bursts. A lost drop when back in the great sea. I’m a ghost the way I disappear before my own eyes—No expectations for a performing specter in a spectacle of added commas—Terrified of The Full Stop.

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This piece is part of “Day of the ___ Writer,” an open collab on the daily experiences behind our writing. Post on your pub about your day, and check out our growing mosaic of many lives.

Work consumes most of my days. Jotting how a day of mine looks like, at the moment, ranks lower than wanting to slice my jugular so I’ll stick to how the fiction writing organization process or lack there of, looks like for me. Thanks for the initiative, .

Im always in my head—mind racing—waking up never happens and neither does going to sleep. Scrambled static with occasional yellow trickling gleams followed by soft blue hues that fade transparent and that’s just opening my eyes again because having them closed means nothing to the senses. At times this curse has been life saving to not say that it’s an illness; it’s always kept the mind actively tying stories together—following the web ( it’s not paranoia, trust) finding molting spiderlings or flares of the subconscious joining the loam in which the cacophony of the conscious self takes place.

And ideas are born. Born to roam said space, proving their worth by not falling in forget. I’ve molted with time several times. Each shed layer holding its own method. A singular philosophy destined to perish at the dawn of another.

To be honest I dont ritualize writing. Or anything in my life for that matter. By saturating the senses eventually I enter another state. It’s a detached approach to creating that helps silence my mind for short bursts. Music, visuals (movies, shitty docs, interviews, inordinate amounts of bodycam footage, etc) and heavy smoking. In between all of that I will also read, not only for research purposes, sometimes I need short injections of inspiration by means of evoked feelings. This is 3/4 of the bottle full.

Nothing is special. Nothing of mine at least. And with nothing sacred comes a sense of freedom allowing me to roam wild on the page. It’s emptiness while brimming. Rejecting a set space or a set of parameters to then engage in the act of writing itself fosters a sense of calm that in turn becomes a space outside of any set locality.

Sentences speak themselves into existence only to die beheaded by their own sword of words. An implosion that occasionally reverses. Giving birth to a bloodied amorphous blob plopped top of the sullen chert.

To me writing is an invisible art. The glyphs are just smoke. The blank page where they dwell: a mirror. I attempt to shatter the glass and with those remains build a mosaic. Then repeat. Ad infinitum.

Writing is my suicide and rebirth.

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She called me Daddy, but I didnt raise her. Another thing I have in common with her father. Out of sight.

Her ex-husband, senator Franklyn R. Colt, had law inside his pocket and the trite control kink that comes with the trope enlarged his ego to lengths that made Alejandra request my services. Nothing major had happened, other than having to shake one or two off our tail. I knew that would change.

Below a grandiose double set of twin stairs laid a turned off fountain, a smaller replica of the Clarence F. Buckingham Memorial. In my hand is a remote controller for a vibrating plug I Doordashed and Im buzzing her into Agartha as she speaks to a group of five engineers. Im out of her line of sight. The room’s filled with chitter-chatter and clanking cups and glasses, clear ice melting inside rock glasses, thick glasses on thin faces, fat faces. With a glassy glaze her gaze goes from the group and back onto me. I smiled and said, Anything I can help you with? then pressed the button two times to alternate the vibration. To change the pattern.

We were out of town at a convention. Inside an enormous sala with marbled arches and painted domes adorned with neoclassic images. Her: networking, hunting. Me: her security. Private. We played our roles all while playing a game between ourselves. But who preyed on who? She asked if I could get a hold of Perez. Of course, I said and clicked the toy off on command. On my periphery a shade dashed past and hid behind a set of columns. I dont know why I thought of a cat. I walked towards the columns, between the old men, and the jocks in suits soon to be old men, when from amidst the moving crowd—I saw her, the cat was not a cat it was a woman with silver hair in a black dress and she moved quick and out of sight. The fountain activated and sprung on.

I turned around: Alejandra wasnt there: I looked to the bar—my phone vibrated, a message: Outside, called a ride. Come.

We would spend nights together tethered. For her to physically shrink between my arms was the ultimate cosmic joke for it was me who transformed into the size of a pea when in her embrace. We spent that night at the West Virginia Motel, the owner was from Tennessee. Inside room 107 we watched an obscure short film Alejandra casted from her phone. Obscure because I dont recall her mentioning the director, and there’s no credits in the film.1

Maybe he forgot about us. About me. Maybe he now has someone new. Someone he can fixate on, Alejandra said.

Maybe is being half a step into the precipice. Maybe is not enough. Maybe you finally let me take care of it. My way. No maybes.

Her silence—all I wanted.

I dont tend to smoke weed, but that night, I took some hits from Alejandra’s joint. Followed the smoke and thought of what a friend of mine once said about Finding your place is imperative. He said he read it in a book, someone called Castaneda.

I dont know, Ale, but this movie is pointless. I rather watch a tree grow in real time. At least I know itll give me shade, or fruit, or both.

Or none. Have you thought about that? Alejandra said.

The movie continued to play and she continued to watch. You know you dont have to understand it to enjoy it, right? You dont have to get it.You dont have to get everything. How does it make you feel?

Uncomfortable, I said.

Right, and why is that? You dont have to tell me.

Later that night I played Maruja’s Resisting Resistance. It rained outside. Inside I poured myself in her. Or we poured our selves into each other. Like overflown cups on a server tray.

I could hear the wet road outside and ongoing vehicles added a layer of texture that signaled wrongness the moment it went silent. I heard gunshots but they came from the television.

Can you turn that fucking movie off.

I turned the lights off and walked to the front window. Approached it from the side. We were on the second floor.

What’s wrong? Alejandra asked. You dont think—

The sound of multiple feet rushing upstairs cued me and by the time I saw a shadow under our door block the light from the hallway my finger was on the trigger ready to let my puppy bark on them all. From the pace and the tapping they had to be at least four—no five, one was a woman. Her heels stood out from what I bet were boots. Those steps were cement heavy.

Voices—a language I couldnt pick. They went inside the room next door. I peeked from the side of the window: a white van with an orange tag hanging from the rearview: it’s parked next to the office. That could be good or it could mean that theyre here for us. Deep pockets exist in deeper networks.

What do you want to do? You want to stay?

Im not going to be able to sleep. I want to leave.

There was a frame of the protagonist holding a crooked cigarette on the tv. Loud banging came from next door. Loud arguing and I thought they were Albanian. If true it’s nothing I should worry about. But Alejandra wanted to leave. She called another ride and we went to a hotel next to the airport.

Next morning I woke up and she was gone. Out of sight. I knew it would happen, not when, but I knew. One would say I expected that to be the outcome. I could go back to Ginsberg, Illinois. Had enough to open an office or not. That’s when I heard the three knocks.

Room service—said a voice with a Balkan accent, the door opened and the shiny black muzzle of a pistol poked in.

My pup was out of reach but Peppa’s always on me. Two, three, fourfive loud pops ripped through the wall inside the room and I crouched and pulled her from my ankle holster and tapped once and saw the head pop and color the side of the wall and the body fell opening the door entirely: revealing one, pop, two, pop, three, pop, four, pop, pop, pop.

One of the bullets ricocheted off somewhere and I got hit on the waist. Covered it with my hand and—

Standing—the woman with silver hair shot me in the clavicle once and twice in the face. Last thing I saw was an orange flash to white—Alej—all I taste is sour. But I could hear everything. I refused to die.

Dito, poor boy. Yes, I didnt mean to. I dont know, make it look like a suicide. Framing him wont make sense now. Gotta go. I hear sirens, said the voice of the woman.

I heard the paramedics. One of them said DOA but another found a pulse. They put me on the gurney. I knew what I was involved in and I wasnt scared then and even less now. What mattered was Ale. I failed her.

There’s a crooked cigarette pinched between a broken nook of the glass ashtray on top of the night-table next to Ruy Ramos. He received a message that read: I need your help finding a woman and her child. Her name is Rochelle González. Covered in bandages, Ruy’s eyes were the only visible feature.

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Bird songs are one of two things: marking territory, or a mating signal.

I can relate to the bird, whether territorial or not. It’s a morning thing.

Now, the air sticks to my skin like seran wrap. Overhead the fan squeaks. Next to me’s a body whose silkskin brushes against my tree bark. Good morning’s a pain au chocolat and pressed coffee, good morning’s are sweet nothings whispered ignoring the morning breath.

Sitting against the headboard, I reach for the pad on the night table–bird songs still titillate the air with their horny tunes. It’s an exercise I’ve been taking part in, writing the first thoughts that come to mind, without forcing anything. Then actively willing a sentence into existence to set the tone for the day.

I wrote:

I’m tired of being tired from being strung along. Yet, here I am, and there they are. I hate this feeling, hate how their peace comes at the expense of mine. How their anger is justified by actions I took no part in.

Followed by:

Today is going to be the day I turn the page. I’m grabbing life by the steering wheel, and if I crash? I crashed knowing it was me driving.

Putting my palm on their nude back, I get close, and lay my lips on their sunmarks splayed on their tender shoulder blade. It smells like puppy love, and cardamon, or patchouli and lemon verbena with a note of cedar.

Another day I let myself remain hooked as a fish in the open sea.

Sadie lied down on the davenport spread out watching three colored aliens gang rape a gray woman with one tit, on the tv; they’ve penetrated all her orifices, and alien cum is pouring from her pores like extruded spaghetti.

The Gray Woman’s riddled with nipples all over her body so the alien cum could pass as milk for babies.

Sadie’s touching herself; there’s a closeup of the Gray Woman’s face shining eyes, her pupils are two 18 wheeler wheels, and Sadie’s hands are both busy playing with her pussy.

The Gray Woman cried cum. Sadie came right after.

What the hell, Sadie? Watch that anime stuff in your room, said Rachel pushing her feet off the couch.

Damn, bitch, angry much? Sadie said. Can’t get no privacy around here, fuck.

Rachel’s cleared the floor picking up Sadie’s socks, pants, and shirts.

You know that’s messed up, right? Even if they’re cartoons. What if Joe were here?

What are you doing with my things? You need to relax. You’re going to have a heart attack, Sadie said. What? You’re afraid he’s gonna fuck me?

Rachel stood for a minute with a blank stare—She wouldn’t…

He wouldn’t?

Sadie smacked her lips and got up from the couch, Oh my god, I’m kidd-ing, she said. Or, am I?

Her Cannibal Corpse shirt ended right where her panty line began. She grabbed half a joint from the ashtray on the center table and lit it.

The intensity of her sharp eyes sliced through Rachel’s spell.

Rachel dropped the clothes, sat on the sofa, and looked at Sadie; defeated.

The stench of the socks forced Rachel to breathe through her mouth.

Sadie blew a cloud that shrouded Rachel’s head and said, Oh, my god. You need to chill.

Nobody’s trying to fuck your boyfriend, but you, said Sadie with a face of disgust, she picked her pile of clothes and pinned it under her right armpit. Socks fell.

The tv had the Gray Woman taking the head of an alien from the back. It was paused, the frame showed her sphincter engulfing the alien’s cranium down to the shoulders. A creamy white substance drooled out from her vagina. It had a grainy texture.

Sadie scratched her left butt cheek, went into the bathroom, and brushed her teeth after taking a piss.

She left a trail of clothes on her way.

Rachel’s patience towards Sadie’s been thinning ever since Sadie started parading herself through the apartment with little to no clothes. The biggest issue being the fact that this all started as soon as Joe started spending nights over.

Rachel knew she would endure that, and more. That resilience and good faith, as Joe called it, is what made her a saint. She liked that people viewed her in that light. She was a martyr.

The perfect complement for Sadie.

When can you send me your half of the rent? I paid it already, so I’m tight until my next check, said Rachel. Her eyes transfixed with the frozen frame in the tv.

It’s hot right? said Sadie, disconnecting her phone from the tv. She looked at the time, 11:11.

I don’t know, rent. Let me see.

It’s fine, you can send it later.

Is Joe paying rent?

He doesnt live here, Sadie. You do. Which reminds me, can you stop using the couch for your masturbation sessions? You have a room. I know you dont give a fuck, but Im not comfortable with you parading yourself like that, especially when Joe’s here.

Look, Ima get a pedi, and take some pics and sell em; youll get that money by tomorrow morning. The couch thing is uncalled for, though, but whatever. I forgive you. Sadie smirked at Rachel, she looked down at the tray on the center table, there were earrings, pens, takeout menus, cheap sunglasses, bracelets, all sorts of cheap and expensive jewelry from both Rachel and hers. She picked and draped on her blue and gold rosary; the crucifix had a small retractable blade, enough to slice skin, enough to glide through flesh. She laid it on the centre table before masturbating.

Rachel laid completely on the couch, rolled her eyes and sighed. I thought you were taking gigs at Cole’s, Sadie. Youre selling nudes again?

Nudes? No. It’s fetish content. I don’t have to show shit, I do it because I want to. I like it. So does your boyfriend.

Sadie stared at Rachel.

Im kidd-ing. I do have a gig tonight, so Im going to get ready. We can talk later about your white knight, Joe.

Time passed and the way from the apartment toward Cole’s shrunk in a bus ride followed by a two minute walk.

Sadie took bartending gigs here and there. She liked getting hammered for free; sometimes if she was feeling like it she would take one or two wannabe punks back to her place. She preferred women and had the most fun when humiliating men.

That night two no-names (a fat Walton Goggins and a miniature Jacob Elordi), vied for Sadie’s attention; someone always did. Her deadpan stare triggered some caveman instinct with a mirror effect of meaning they mistook as an inviting look.

Goggins wore a shirt of The Casualties two sizes too small and Mini Jacob wore a Lower East Side Warzone album shirt.

Ninja vs Unicorn, and a handshake for our friend here, said Mini Jacob.

Ninja, shitty beer, and a shot; gotchu, said Sadie pointing at the men.

25 Ta Life’s, Da Low Down played on the jukebox.

The bar’s placed on the right side of the space when coming in from the street, same side where the pool table stood, next to the entrance/exit. Stained glass lamps illuminated spots in the grime ridden darkness.

Two couples played pool. The girls were wearing leather skirts and mesh shirts, almost like a uniform, their personality accented by the different shoe ware. One (Katha) wore Bed|Stü Infamy platform boots and the other (Amélie) wore black and white creepers. Next to them were their side pieces wearing flannel shirts with skinny black jeans. The blonde wore green vintage Geoff Rowley’s XLIII’s and the one with the cap wore Nike’s SB’s.

Sadie got a text from Rachel saying Joe would be dropping by. That was her cue, either Goggins or Mini Jacob, maybe both, would make the cut at the end of the night.

They chatted her up, pounding their beers as fast as a Minor Threat song would go. On the tv screen: a Hoods, The King is Dead1 music video played with no sound.

She rolled her eyes in such a way Goggins thought, Sheesh, is she having an episode or something?

Hey, you guys should have a kitchen, said Goggins, laying his head on top of his right arm on the bar.

Not sure where youd put it, but that’s something youd have to take with the owner, said Sadie. Of course the fatty thinks we should serve food

Yeah, Id kill for a cheeseburger right now, said Mini Jacob.

Okay, said Sadie, polishing a rock glass.

Mini Jacob pounded his fist on the bar.

I could really fuck a motherfucker up right now for a cheeseburger, he said, dangling his feet off the bar stool.

Cool, theres a Small Cheval on Armitage.

A patron walked to the jukebox and played Eyehategod’s Take as Needed for Pain2. That’s the stuff, he said.

Can’t believe this bitch’s buying this douchebag’s bullshit; Ive been with her since we were in sixth grade for fucks sake; This little guy’s so cute, Oh I want a cheeseborgor, Baby wants a cheeseborgor? Aww; Who orders a Mojito? I fucking hate mint; This aint The Violet Hour, asking if I have lavender syrup, fuck outta here; I bet fatty over there has a chode, wonder if little man’s packing, looks like he is.

The floor was sticky with spilled drinks, a dirty mop must lingered. The girl with the boots lined herself low, eyeing the cue ball—the sound of the shot pleased Sadie, who gazed over and pictured herself getting fucked with a cue, squirting all over the crowd and then fucking the men in the ass until they bleed and the women would both watch and fuck themselves and then take turns fucking the men until theyre nothing but a sack of meat no bones on the ground.

The girl, Katha, sunk a green 6 in the left pocket, facing the bar.

Sadie chuckled, she’s been pounding shots of Wild Turkey throughout the night.

Katha grinned back. Suck on that, she said.

Lucky shot, said the blonde.

Yeah, best 2 out of 3, just in case. Calling it now, said the dude with the cap.

The night was coming to an end and Sadie felt like the two bugs caught on her web would suffice. Nobody fucks you harder than an ugly motherfucker, she always said.

You boys have any plans after this? asked Sadie to the slushed slimy pair.

Goggins grinned and coughed—looking at Mini Jacob—he had his hand on Mini Jacob’s chest like he was about to say something—but didn’t say anything so Mini Jacob said: I was thinkin’ of getting a cheeseburger, but I’m down for whatever. Do you have any plans?

Sadie raised her eyebrows, her most expressive look since the eye roll. I love her as a sister; What do men see in her? she’s such a masochist, I know she gets a kick out of it, she knows Joe’s fucking around, look at his instagram for fuck’s sake; The lengths a woman will go to get ring on their finger; He’s not going to marry her, she’s delusional

Get shitfaced and go back to my place. Wanna join? said Sadie looking at both the men.

Back at the pool game, the men babied and complained about their companions being better than them. The girl with the creepers, Amélie, called the shot.

Don’t get cocky now, you’re good but you’re not—the carom interrupted the salty blonde.

Another ball went around the table before going in the pocket, a striped red 11.

Amélie jumped, her skirt flailed, she wore a red thong. Hell yes! she said. Called it.

F’course, in that case I’ll head off to get that cheeseburger and we’ll meet you there? asked Mini Jacob.

Sure, said Sadie. Shoot me a text, here’s my number.

The bar was half full, most of the crowd gathered on the left side of the space. Several groups of 5, most of them all men, but in some 1 to 2 women were sprinkled in.

Superjoint Ritual’s Dress like a Target3 played.

What? you want everyone here to look at your ass? said the blonde man. He lifted Amélie’s skirt revealing a solid round pair of smooth tanned cheeks, they swallowed the red thong. They jiggled in place.

Katha sneaked on the blonde’s back; the man with the cap spun his cue in place, entranced with his friend’s date’s ass.

Youre an asshole, you know that? Amélie said yanking her skirt down with one hand and slapped the blonde’s face with the other with such speed, the man didn’t register which happened first. Everything blended in one movement.

He lifted his hand and—Katha smashed the thick side of her cue against his face, unhinging the jaw, it shattered several teeth from both bottom and upper rows. His cry came out like that of a sea lion. His mouth, a broken basin filled with blood, spilling in streams of drool.

Get the fuck out of here, you dick! said Sadie from behind the bar.

A group of men rallied around the bunch and threw both men outside on the sidewalk.

Katha and Amélie laughed.

Fucking losers, Amélie said.

Sadie laughed and gave Amélie a Negroni and a French 75 to Katha.

The news showed images of the Pope with no sound.

Last call, Sadie said.

Today is the day; three hours from sundown for the end to commence. People pause under an eclipsed heaven above, so below, the void devours us whole. At least that’s how the heart sees it. It’s three hours from sundown and Nick Drake’s Three Hours plays and plays and plays—in a loop. I’m strolling down North Canal. Fall’s last wet breeze blows reds, oranges, and yellows from the trees—Strewn above the expansive grave growing hungrier for bones and all the humours that soak into tacit joy expressed with its lagniappe chance to continue the cycle—of cultural phagocytosis. And we fall like rain only to burn into vapor, elevate into cloud and fall again—In search of a master, in search of a slave.

Day four-hundred-and-fourteen recounting the exact steps we took last; same route: hundreds of windows frame others as it does with us; ensconcing depravities, fears, ambition and isolating loneliness inside a capsule meant to be a safe space. Streetlights are on. Buses and humvees—vvfff— pass north to south and vice versa. Once I cross the river on Lake it’s a straight shot until Dearborn and then a right: everything after the river stands barren to outsiders but I can sense their eyes on me. You can hear wind rustle between buildings, the howling like metal sheets waving and cutting pressured air. Swooshing high speed aluminum foil.

Fiorella’s voice is burning coals to my ears, and the thought of them vibrating in my mind brings heat to every bone in me. “Are you even listening?” she asks, her Chelsea’s splashing on the puddled sidewalk. Answering shouldn’t be complicated, a simple Yes, would allow her to continue, even if it’s No; but if I say No, might as well pour the rest of this Evian over her head.

“I am, you’re talking about those guardsmen. It’s a tragedy—wind-currents drown my voice as soon as it touches air— but they shouldn’t have been there. Don’t you agree?”

Above us you can hear rattling—SKSKSKSKSK—from a helicopter hovering above the emerald-green building behind us, to our left. I put the water bottle in my backpack.

What? When I peek to my right—Nobody—Then to my left—James Nederlander Theatre—I walk inside the dim lit space and it is empty of people, the scent of wet dirt lingers. There’s only a chair sitting in the middle of the room and behind the chair in the far back of the room are two doors to two different rooms. Lacquered black doors with silver polished knobs stare into my eyes, and I step back. “Hey, what’re you doing?” Fiorella says, startling me. “You have your badge, right?”

“Sheesh, I could’ve hurt you. I thought I lost you for a second; yeah, I got it. What is this place, do you know?”

Her room’s walls covered in odd shaped mirrors of distinct sizes, all warped, but don’t tell her that, I’ve gone down that road and ended on foot. Three Hours ends, or I finally skip it from the repeat. Nude by Radiohead plays next and it’s not her room I’m in but it’s the room before me like morning mist.

Fiorella’s not here, not now, not physically. I should understand that. Understanding is the universe contained in a strand of hair. I learned that climbing the stairs in between her’s. The smell of her perfume cuts my breath for a dry second.

Years ago, inside the sundrowned apartment, you could smell the crepe batter cooking slow in the coated nonstick pan on top of the range with a low flame below. As soon as it sheened you saw me flip it on its other side and cut the fire off. Whipped cream inside the KitchenAid bowl with twelve grams of Madagascar vanilla and one-hundred-and-fifty grams of caster sugar. Her feet hovered soft in the air, hanging from the arm of the sofa I could see her pale blue jeans loosely cut at her ankles. Pale Blue Eyes played on an Audio-Technica in the living room corner, next to the sliding doors that opened to the balcony, overlooking South Wells street. Inside the sink a chinois sat with a film of batter on the outside mesh, thinned. “Aren’t you going to finish getting ready?” I served the white crepe on the plate. “How many do you want?”

“I’m okay, thank you.” She flipped a page on her book. “Kelly and I are grabbing a bite in Logan. This book is so good. Huuu–Okay!” I stayed quiet and poured a second crepe on the pan, shifting it around until it coated the bottom. “I’ll get off the couch.” Lowered the flame and looked back at her on the couch; heard her shut the book. Then she jumped off the couch and ran towards me. “Oh, no. I’m late! Shit, okay, gotta go. Gimme a kiss.” I flipped the crepe and killed the gas or at least I thought I did, at the moment. “Hey. You’re putting a shirt on, right?”

Fiorella laughed and glanced over her shoulder as she picked her blouse from the counter.

“Still no news?”

“I don’t know, I wasn’t on my phone. Okay, bye. See you tonight.”

Her voice stayed back, behind the closing door. Behind the twisting lock—letting anyone near know the door’s closed now, there’s no-body inside. I see the succulents in the balcony, leaves gleaming; the train rumbles the railway tracks, metal clattering as it speeds, drilling through the brick and concrete dense forest that is Chicago.

Outside, a clatter followed by bursting machine-gun fire—then a crash echoes loud. “Halt! Non-authorized vehicles will get shot on sight.” I run towards the west wall and lay flat against it—peering towards the revolving door—Back quarter hind of the humvee with a gunman on top. “They’re not in a vehicle, man,” says the one manning the M2A1. “There! Shoot!” says the driver. The belt feeds as fast as the cannon can spit the .50 cal out.

I raise the volume and Fontaines D.C., Roman Holiday starts to play. Even then, the noise rattles the room. Love this song

“Fucking drive! Why are we stopping?”

—Lightning ripping from one end to the other blows through the gunner’s helmet—

Head turns to a splattered maraschino cherry pie. His body drops like an overripe mango. And the humvee drives off in Daley Plaza’s direction.

Sniper

It takes me a second to notice my hand on my head and the headphones around my neck, I can still hear the song playing. The lacquered door hums—I glance for a second—A loud swooshing flat-dry projectile whistles past and blasts what sounded like the street and then squeaking shock absorbers—I run to the door and stare at the scene—You can hear the debris from pavement fall. Humvee flips screeching the road ending upside down in what used to be Petterino’s patio sitting.

Outside a cloud of smoke and dirt runs south. I can’t stay put.

So I run. When I zag—a bullet whizzes by my left ear from behind. I fall on my hands and jolt back up and keep running without looking back then my heart pounds my eardrums and the TUKUN TUKUN TUKUN is all there is to hear and my breathing gets heavier with each step the oxygen sitting mid-chest nose clogged and I see a figure in the plaza. The shadow of a person.

Clouds roll a curtain and blue smoke shoots south of Daley—arching above the figure. Wind pushes them enough that a stream of light pours on the figure—like a saint.

Daley Plaza. The figure raises their rifle: the running man waves his hands at them: behind him—Rifle barrel steady in front of the smiling face of the soldier—Finger on the trigger—Breathe—SQUEEZE.

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To the Moon, Darkly

An empty crooked trampoline on the yellowed grass flashed him green memories of a laughing boy jumping on its mat. Everything dimmed, brightness dulled as if someone put a filter over sun’s face, a mask. Thursday as with any other Thursday, at any given time, of any passing week, crawled idle into a hopeless, bruised purple night sky reached by Eastern redbuds and Hackberry trees; the swaying view went in and out of focus until the blur brought out the sun and Holy Friday breathed life anew into Collin Truth. He found that morning waking under the bare naked two by four above the steps of the back porch. Unforgettable by Dina Washington played from somewhere inside the house. The invisible breezebarrened dome around their space fixed clouds, it amplified that perturbing noise that came with silence. Curtains moved and two lights switched inside the house; a toilet flushed, followed by muffled steps. Lights switched off and it all went quiet. Outside, air staled on the same backyard he watched his son, Enoch Truth, throw his first baseball; laughing on the swing as he reached high for the clouds curling his baby soft face into an innocent smile. Collin motioned his hands in a circle and his body jerked grotesque.

Green memories swelled little circles on his shoulders, so he would scratch them. He would scratch the memories off like a dog with mange. And on that day every green memory bled red.

A burning sensation rose feet up stepping through memory haze and a distant echo drowned the outside forcing the inside to float.

Brume falls weightless on Mourning, its haunting whitegray makes morning seem like a full moon night.

It’s quite spacious, I like the second entry in the kitchen

She stares at the walls and the flooring; her face: unimpressed—Office for you? Ha, cute—she says, looking inside a room with four windows facing east. Theyre on the first floor.

Why this town? Why not somewhere more exciting. It doesnt need to be New York

Sophia sweeps the floor with her eyes coiling her hair around her index.

I mean, you know I can work too. Money isnt even an issue

Collin steps closer, Sophia’s face is millimeters away from his chest. His breath is a holy spirit moving her fine hair, and her, taking it as her cue to step in the embrace, does so nestling her cliffs on the wall guarding his heart.

Theyre inside a two story house. Same house they’ll be till end comes.

It’s not the house—I mean, I love the house, but, it’s the town. It compels me to be here. We’re close to the highway, so you can still work; the school district is one of the best, in case we ever decide to, you know. Look at all this, nobody will disturb us, our peace. You can have your own home-gym, and I, my office. And the woods… maybe I can learn how to hunt. Is that hot? You like that?

Sophia scoffs, Youre stupid, she says.

Oh, really? Im stupid, Collin goes cross-eyed.

If youre breathing I know youre doing something stupid, she laughs.

Collin closed the closet. Lights blinked, and a noise from the bathroom—a shower curtain drawn doesnt break his spell. Björk’s Hunter plays from nowhere, somewhere.

Go in, baby. Jump in

Sophie’s smile clears the somber skies, her hand extending to Collin, her eyes slashing the yellow—Now they sit eating a simple cheese pie; Collin cuts Enoch’s triangle slice into squares leaving out the thick crust, Dont want you to choke, kiddo. Enoch’s pudgy fingers pick and stuff the little red squares in his mouth, beaming green as he looks at his parents.

Collin lunged forward down the steps and felt the dewy humid lawn carpet below his feet brush him as he threaded ghastly across the plane towards the bouncing moments of a gone life. Then an unknown urge, a pull to get on the trampoline; he countenanced the violence of neon memories, light painted in his mind’s eye, while walking slow. The kitchen light turned on low, followed by utensils clattering, then two beeps and a loud wet suction noise—birds singed like rubber ducks and the garbage truck passed by. Sobbing sounds echoed from what had to be the bathroom.

Thin static hummed white from the highwires. He peered above the fence, a visible current zapping through the power line, a copper scent circulated with the wind, lifting dead leaves, and sending them in a swirl—fire rum fumes spiraled from his gorge, before it knotted; the feeling of him having kicked his feet triggered spasms. The grid would fault from time to time in Mourning, MO. It faulted three years ago as well when his son, Enoch, said, Aw, Paw. It’s only seasonal. I’ll be back in Fall. Fall never came, but a sempitern winter serpented its way into staying. Chokeheld, Collin gripped his neck and breathed white noise; he burped and felt a faint heartburn sitting on his chest like a royal-blue wool mantle. A hare hopped and hopped—then stopped. And hopped again in Collin’s view—And a rooster crowed, then an eerie shiver shot—Creaking came from inside the house before the hinges of the backdoor squeaked open. Kitchen lights off; sun’s on medium. A wallpaper sky and you couldnt tell if it was sunset or sunrise the way the source of light smudged everywhere it fell.

Up before the rooster crows, said a voice that adjusted as the words fell out.

Collin’s back turned cold as the words crashed against it. He looked at the trampoline and muttered, Remember when you would spend hours jumping, saying—

I remember being afraid, alone, without you and Mother’s help. I remember wanting to die quickly. Besides that? Very little memories. I think I need help, Father.

Collin stared at the trampoline. Through the trampoline into—

Can we go inside and talk? The man took some steps or didnt but the boards strained. Want some coffee?

He spoke from the porch or from the door. His hands on the wooden frame, maybe.

Enoch? What? How.

Collin straightened his posture and his neck strained; clouds moving down down down.

Who else? the voice chuckled.

Collin’s eyes welled up and his nose stuffed. He dropped to his knees and keened.

Fire ants crawled around his spread fingers on the ground. Tears fed his lawn.

Enoch? Youre back? Where have you been?

Come on, let’s go inside. We’ll have time for that, later.

Enoch walked or didnt but the boards strained and the hinges squeaked and then the door smacked against the frame, bouncing as it closed.

Inside in the kitchen, Enoch’s face is covered by the oak wood cupboards, you could only see him from the neck below.

Where are the cups? Oh how Ive missed having a cup of coffee with you, father.

Where theyve always been… Im so groggy. Like I broke from a chrysalis. In a new shell; new to these old surroundings.

Collin jolted from his chair. Rattling the round table and tipping over the salt shaker.The small white pile piled next to the silver holed cap and a single grain of rice clogged one of them. Collin stared at it: the polished white kernel stuck—not out—not exactly in.

I was already awake when I woke up this morning, outside of all places. And even now with the lights on, it all seems so dark. What’s to say this isnt a dream, but I cant ignore the fact I dont remember ever going to sleep.

Calm down, Father. Im here to stay. For now.

Enoch opened cabinets, all of them before finding the cups.

How long did you look for me?

His face revealed at last, bearing no marks, his skin with no blemishes, flushed as when a child.

Collin chuckled, Three years, Enoch. Youve been gone for three years. I looked everywhere. We looked everywhere, the whole community canvassed the whole town. Not a single clue where you couldve gone. Like night you left and now youre back, easy as morning. Classmates, kids down the block, Rita, nobody knew anything. Everybody thought you were… Three years, where?

Over a steaming never cold coffee inside two cups, Collin and Enoch shared, both souls flickered like candlelight on a cold hunter’s night. The father gestured with his hands as he spoke; the son mirroring his movements with his responses, controlled Collin like a thermostat. A glare captured Collin’s eye, it came from the glass of a framed family photo on top of an old wooden table; the light broke through the face of who mustve been his wife. Like a beam of light bursting off her visage. He scratched his left shoulder. Enoch clapped five times, icy tears slow dragging down his face, turning at his curled lip, dried by the time it got to the chin.

Why am I sulking… What am I doing?

Out in the street, outside of the hunting grounds, life continued about rolling common. Kids walked to their bus stop. The yellow bus brakes hissed two blocks away.

Enoch’s head tilted, amused, mouth parted enough to see a glint of his wet tongue, bulging veins on his neck and forehead. Oh, I hope Im not late.

Collin sprinted out the dining room cattycorner into the living room and upstairs inside his bedroom.

Dont go on the trampoline! said Enoch out of reflex. His voice thrice as coarse.

We have to celebrate. Youre back. My son… Our boy’s back!

Voice faded as he moved away, mist seeping out along his words of joy. Fruit for rot. Hairs on his neck on end.

Please dont run, Father.

Without a sound, Enoch entered parents’ room, sitting down on bed swift as a black cat. And all cats are black at night some say but it wasnt night-time then, and be warned, you dont want it to be night-time when you hear this. Enoch’s eyes were glass yet no light reflected off them, but you could feel them on you. Watching.

Where is Mother?

Enoch’s voice hit an odd register, a grim grin hiding in confusion. Its sound’s texture scraped inside his father’s ears. Sophia’s jewelry box was on top of the dresser next to a candle and a small ceramic plate with coins and one pair of silver earrings.

Sophia. Sophia

The Father stopped rummaging through his closet. In front of him hung her wedding dress inside a transparent cover. His hunting rifle right behind.

You called her Mum…

Collin’s feet felt heat, rising hotter.

Collin and Enoch jump on the trampoline, Sophia’s voice sugars their ears.

Going touch moon, Mum, says her boy

She never stopped believing we would find you. He’s smart; I know he will find a way to escape, she’d say. Escape from where, I’d say back, He’s just sixteen, we dont even know if he’s alive. Sometimes she would come up with these ideas, these outlandish theories. Like one time, where she said that maybe you werent abducted, that you just escaped out into the world, alone, escaping us. I think she wouldnt have cared where it is that you ended up being if you didnt want her to know, as long as she knew you were somewhere youd be taken care of. At the same time she’d cook for the whole camp. Some of the wives would help. He paused a breath, his eyes never leaving his boy’s face.

On the shelf frontside Collin, a thin black plastic moulding framed photo of Enoch: Smiling ear to ear with a centipede looking black scar on his left eyebrow.

He continued: But she would take on the main bulk of it all, and she did it with love. Real love. You could feel it. Embracing, bright. What is with this fog?

Sophia holds Enoch in her arms, twirling makes the boy giggle in glee under the pall’s gargantuan cast shadows falling hard in high contrast. The waterfall of darkness disemboguing around the joyous family pressed an atmosphere of morbid moira, it filtered through memories’ cracks. Gazing at the glinting edge of the fangs protruding downward from the sky, is Collin. Lightning falls and cracks ground to smithereens near Sophia and baby Enoch—when another strike, this time the fangs—crush against the earth and it all goes black—Fangs gone and the family’s about to get in the car when Enoch turns to his mother and says: It’s weird you havent asked to take a picture of me. To which his mother, Sophia, responds: I figured youve grown so fast; I just dont want to make you feel embarrassed. Enoch smiles, It’s okay, Mum, come on, take one. The mother does, and it’ll be the last one she takes. Sophia caresses his face with the back of her fingers, blades shining tender. The family drives out to the city, they stay in a hotel. Collin’s in the shower.

Sounds good to me, love. Want to meet after? I dont know how long Richard will keep me, you know how he is once he starts rambling. One slap for him to talk and a beating to shut him up

What if you take Enoch?

Sophia looks at Collin’s clothes laid on bed, his Brioni white Cotton Twill dress shirt, Kitton blue wool dress pants; she scoffs.

Enoch’s on his phone, watching unsolved mysteries videos.

I would love to, but I dont think it’s the best place for a kid, you know? We’re going to be drinking and you know Richard, he gets loud and I dont want Enoch to be near any trouble. Im sure you can understand

Right, sure. Okay, have fun. Say bye to your paw

See you later, Paw

Take care of Mum, love you. I’ll see you later

Collin sits inside a French restaurant, next to him is Monica. They get the poached pears with the whipped marrow butter on a gallette topped with a tarragon-mustard vinaigrette seasoned frisee. 2000 Château Kirwan Margaux Grand Cru Classé fills Monica’s cup before Collin splits the mignon pithivier. A half eaten piece of baguette next to cultured butter and duck liver mousse remains after theyre done laughing and touching, flirting with each other’s souls inside the small bustling bistro. Collin’s phone lights up: LOML calling. Monica looks at the screen, her smile is imaginary-red and when her eyes bounce to—Collin turns the phone upside down—Server brings the check—Alain Chamfort’s, Géant plays on the restaurant speakers.

I didnt bring my car, my boy’s mother has it

It’s okay, my hotel isnt that far

Dad?

Enoch got off bed and slowly crept over to his father, who stood scratching his shoulder while whispering to himself; silent staring outside his window into the yard, at the trampoline, he gazed at the porch’s lintel and a noose holding a windchime when he said, A windchime? When did Sophia put that there?

Collin steps closer to a woman in large sunglasses; theyre inside a theater. Stretching his arm, he pretends a handshake but makes a claw and twiddles his fingers instead. He shows his hand and smiles.

Hey, youre Catherine’s roommate, right?

Sophia Park. Nice to meet you, she says, with a slight nod.

She’s in a gray Le Réussi wool blazer with a relaxed fit white collared Ralph Lauren Oxford underneath. Or a striped oversized cotton shirt, also Ralph. Slim wool black pants, or is it a black wool skirt? She’s standing in front of Collin.

Men walking around fixate on her, then when no longer in their line of sight they snap towards Collin—and quick glance at Sophia again.

Her eyes are carbon steel and their patina’s hue pale night’s pearls across sky. No comparison.

Im Collin. Pleasure’s mine. Is she in the restroom?

Space warms around them under the tungsten lights. He wears a white shirt with an oversized black blazer, a crooked tie and jeans. No discernible brand but his Allen Edmond Oxford’s. Under them a marble floor with ivory white columns that extend as far as the firmament will allow itself in a memory. His eyes are lightdark tree resin.

Sophia’s chewing gum, her cliffed cheeks level her eyeblades; bouncing her knee, she inhales deep.

Cat couldnt make it. She got a last minute call from her boss. Said she tried calling your house, but the machine was full

Sophia holds her blazer in her arms, her blades slice through Collin’s ice. Her nose is pierced and so is her upper frenulum. Theyre about to watch La Carreta. Her voice is charcoal gray but this will change. The scent of magnolias with blood on the leaves percolate time’s memories. Three contiguous tables topped with handmade jewelry, black and white Puerto Rican flags, stones, artisanal soap, dulce de coco, de leche; also Pedro Albizu Campos shirts and others of Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, sat next the main staircase in the middle floor, above the restrooms and below the upper circle.

Oh, okay. Sheesh. Thanks, that’s so nice of you, to still come. I hope the play doesnt bore you

He’s no longer dressed as chewed gum. The blazer fits; no jeans. Tie’s still crooked and his neck pulses and the body spasms, convulsing.

Marble turns to carpet, red as fresh blood. Wet like oil paint.

I did pay for my ticket. Why would I leave

Did she call you before coming here?

Collin’s stare swings between her mouth and eyes. Perhaps a tell.

She beeped. Yeah, not great

Sophia sighs out loud and looks at one of the tables.

Looking down at his feet—Collin wiggled his toes and yellowed grass spawned from the wooden floor—Their house flowered placing its insides outside—Little green circles poked his skin and because of this he pushed his shoulders back and tightened his core ignoring the itch—The hare that he thought to be brown, was now white and sat in the middle of the trampoline with its nose twitching. Its red eyes held no gleam. A deep purple brewed from his inside out at flower’s touch bringing Collin’s body to shake and jerk, his feet kicking involuntarily. Space and time thinned—splitting themselves from the fabrics of reality—Warping blues, reds, yellows and greens—Pulsing magenta headflashes stabbing Collin revealed like negatives—His head turned slow—Enoch stared, grinning—Are you okay? Do you need help?––Crystal sounds like shining glitter came from the windchime tickling his ears with an iridescent shimmer.

On the other side of the thinning shroud inside the house, Sophia’s immaculate soft feet stepped across the hallway and down the stairs in a teal lace gown; part of her silvered hair, leveled with her tensed jaw covering one of her eyes revealing: one dull blade. She passed the photo with Enoch’s black caterpillar scar and with a deep breath put a hand on her chest and went into the kitchen towards the fridge and grabbed the cold-blue glass water pitcher, when from her peripheral—A dark hanging shadow—Her spine electrified and her reality blinked like she shorted—Sun was out by the time she came to be, small cuts on her feet, shards of embedded glass. Laid next the staircase, she removed the glass. The deep burgundy splurting from the small wounds smelled of cherry and cinnamon. Sounds of clapping cut the trance.

Damn it, Im late. Coll? Collin!

Sophia glanced at the console table. His keys, gone. Her eyes welled and a soft whispering voice said, Give the barrel a little kiss goodbye, why dontcha. She snapped to see where—Who—hardcold metal between her teeth—Sophia light-pink screamed, rifle falling on her crossed legs, hands shivering like a stickhouse on an earthquake. She stood fast but her knees turned rubber and she plopped back on the floor in front of her closet door, sobbing. She heard the bed creak behind her, as if someone had gotten up from it. She then heard the door leading to the porch slam shut. Her ears thumped with the sound of her pumping heart, tunktun, tunktun, tunktun, tunktun, tunktun—Shorted again.

When she woke up she was in bed, drenched in sweat. When are these nightmares going to end? she asked. Lights were on and the sun wasnt all the way there yet. With the closet door shut, Sophia looked next to her, Collin, she said and got up and walked around the bed—She saw the rifle on the floor. Next to bed, front of the closet. Calling.

She ran towards the bathroom and shut herself in. Under the prickling jets of the shower she broke in wails, her weeping echoed outside. Water washed around the body but not her soul, that part remained untouched, steaming vapor. She stood front of the mirror, clearing the steamed glass with the wing of the towel, wrapped tight around her body; she traced one finger marking her lines on the reflection, the trace of years passed.

Birds sang and chirped, flapping their wings, others standing on a tree outside the bedroom window. She played REM’s E-Bow the Letter. The rifle on the foot of the bed, barrel pointed to the window, thrummed to be picked up. Her memories were a perfume and the marzipan of death clung behind a tinge of apricots.

Rain pours like nickels and dimes falling from high. Collin’s fake laughing, his hand is on Monica’s lower back, her jet black hair tied high, clears the view of her exposed back. Thunder growls and lights a set of cumulus ash-gray but all there is, is red.

Your kid’s huge, just like you haha

I was petrified the whole time, you handled it so gracefully

Oh my god, what did you think I was going to say?

Cars swoosh in front of them, on the street. One flies past hitting a puddle—Collin pulls Monica and she clings to him.

It’s called decorum, she says.

It helped Richard was here, I can guarantee it wouldve been different if he hadn’t

Of course, Dad being there boosted my innocence points but that’s besides the point, haha

He was so quiet, that was strange

Yeah, I noticed that too. I dont know, he gets in his head all the time, he’s probably thinking about business like every cynical old man

I think that’s our ride. I hate when they do this. Come on!

Collin waves at the car parked at the other side of the street. On his phone: Driver will depart in four minutes.

Monica giggles, What an asshole, I’ll give him one star

Cars swoosh by like hockey pucks and then silence hits. Monica tells Collin to just cross, rain doesnt seem to be stopping any time soon. Collin agrees and takes the break time from traffic as confirmation of it being the correct decision. Monica stands on her toes and kisses Collin, then drops her heels back on wet ground, splashing droplets of gray water. Come on, let’s go, she says, almost running, dragging Collin by his wrist. No light but the one from the awning; all street posts in that area are fried. Crossing halfway with two minutes remaining—Roaring and rubber burning grows close—Headlights turn on blinding and—SKTPOOM—Monica flies sixteen feet across the pavement splashing the back of her head against asphalt—Tires screech—Zoom off again—Seven teeth on the street—The waiting car leaves—Collin runs in opposite direction of Monica’s corpse.

His phone rings, it’s Sophia, he looks back and the rain is blood fast falling, splash—Headlights—-Splash—Monica’s body flush to the front of the vehicle—Decline.

Collin’s body trembled and fell on his knees, his head thumped red, orange, red, orange. In front of him Enoch said, I thought I lost you there for a second. I hoped not to be late but you decided to change plans and start your own party early, huh, Father? Have you heard of The Veil?

Collin raised his head, Is that where youve been? he asked. What is it? Where is it?

Oh it’s everywhere, not around but in between, Enoch said. He called Collin with his finger, signaling him to get closer. I want to take you with me. I want you to see where Ive been.

David Bowie’s Lazarus played after E-Bow the Letter. Sophia called Collin, when something started to vibrate near—She heard a knock downstairs, on the front door, ending the call; she walked out of the room and stood on the first step gazing down at the door. TUK, TUK, TUK. Three knocks.

Mourning, PD. Is anyone in?

TUK, TUK, TUK.

Sophia rushed to the door and swung it open, Good morning, any news?

Mornin, Maam. Doug Douglas. Maam, we’ve found your son’s—Enoch’s remains.

No, no, no, no. My son, my boy, no. My boy’s alive, I know it. Where? Where did you find this?

My condolences Miss Truth, we’ve had forensics run samples on the remains and they matched Enoch’s DNA. The remnants were found in the outskirts of Ginsberg, Illinois.

Sophia’s breath escaped her, white filled all space around the cop and her body turned sand and her skin a plastic bag and she heaved, and heaved and her chest wheezed, tears uncontrolled pouring out her dull blades. Officer Douglas noticed bloody footprints running from what seemed to be the kitchen leading upstairs. A photo laid upside down. He looked at Sophia and noticed her bloodied cuts; she wouldnt stop weeping, so he entered the house and asked her, Maam, is your husband here with you? Is there anybody else in the house? The officer kept pushing slow inside, he walked upstairs, each step creaked loud. Who’s there? Come out with your hands in the air, now! Im not going to repeat myself, man. Im not playing games.

Officer Douglass charged up the last steps and into the main room, weapon drawn. He scanned the room from the door, and saw the hunting rifle front of bed.

10-32, requesting backup on 4733 Sterling Dr.

A breeze pushed the officer. He bolted downstairs, panting. The front door shut close, splintering the frame. Sophia wasnt at the entrance but the weeping could be heard from somewhere inside. Douglas crept into the kitchen—Oh, hell no! Oh, hell no. Hell, no. Send in an ambulance, there’s a body, and possible intruders. Possibly armed.

Copy that.

Clattering noise from the stairs getting closer alerted the officer who turned back to—How dare you! screamed Sophia—He was my everything—She held the hunting rifle directly at the officer’s face—Collin? No, no.

Sirens circled the air and flocked to the Truth residence.

Before anyone could enter—One shot cried red into the thin blue—Dead leaves fell on the trampoline.

thanks for lookin out

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Lookout’s on the roof with the walkie, no birds in sight when children single file to school; dragon wings flap in the wind someone falls

Someone’s mother screams

Humpback junkie’s on the corner, cardboard cutout fixed.

Mothers of mothers in batas clank iron bottoms of the caldero full candela;

Titeritos ready to click up running their bread earning seals; cement salad.

Mothers of mothers outlive Titeritos and when birds rattle the sky

We’re alley rats running towards Light’s mouth

Back in the womb

.

thanks for lookin out

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Rooster’s crow and click my eyes—Open orbs

In an orbit of solitude—Pull, Pull, Pull—Press

Over a rock the wet plop splash echoes with spilling innards.

From puddle let me rise in reverse candle wax form

then set that gel aflame, then I can come, come, come;

Spread across your bones, lathered

Nestled inside the ribcage like a sparrow with wax wings

Watch the sun drown again.

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Thanks for lookin out

Air pressed dry in darkness. Breezebarren.

On the border of Ginsberg, Illinois, an unnamed bar invited passersby to come inside. Weary or bored and or both. Its neon generic BAR sign on the blackedout window turned on meant OPEN.

Joe Martin pulled into the parking lot in his white F-350 playing Golden Smog’s Until You Came Along. Next to a telephone booth stood a sign for the 53 bus; inside the lot ten cars parked. All far from each other. A white BMW took two spots by the entrance.

Joe parked next to the dumpster. He practiced smiling on the rearview for the entire song.

Phone buzzed in center console, lit with a message reading: Who’s with you? Joe opened the glove compartment and pulled a silver ring. He put it on and gazed at its figure. A gargoyle. It doubled as a locket.

He ran his thumb and middle finger over his brows, Lets go, he said—and got off the truck grinning.

4TUNE read the Beamer’s plate.

Piece of work, right, said a man from inside an old Oldsmobile. His face shrouded in shadows couldnt mask his teal voice. See you around.

Joe nodded. Confused. Disinterested.

Warm light above entrance flickered and buzzed next to a cobweb. Bugs swarmed the bulb, forming a halo.

He pushed the green door open.

I dont know what you want me to say; I already told you where I was; Joe. Hey, Joe; Listen. Listen to me

Right; Except that I called David and he said you left at 7; And where’s your bag

Rosef, the brown Labrador barks outside the house; Eagles play against Steelers in the living room; A show for children plays on a laptop in the family room

Im not fucking stupid Mia

You watched a wedding between two cousins of the royal family in Brunei playing on an old analog TV above and behind the beer tap.

Loud sounds from performing band—in a halfpacked venue—convinced you to bounce as soon as the drink you hadnt ordered yet was done.

Long day? asked a woman in a black Björk shirt and jeans with beaten Air Force 1s. Nude lips. Canned Pop eyes.

Aint enough hours for long days anymore.

Not a small talker, huh?

She removed her purse from the seat to her left and placed her phone on top of the bar, her gaze on mine, to her right.

Here you go, said the bartender; a butch, probably.

Thanks. Keep the change.

One of the six cats had to be driving the Beamer. Maybe the suit ogling Shortskirt over there. Cant judge these days, tho. Could be loser on corner next to the restrooms, recording under those girls’ skirts.

Here, take a seat.

Im just having this—raised the shitty beer with my left and an Old Grandad shot on my right—and then I’ll leave. Thank you, tho.

To be honest I didnt want to talk to her. Or to anyone. My plans were set. This bizarre scene with the incestuous wedding inside the golden palace as a backdrop kept making me doubt. Everything.

Come on, dont be rude. There aint enough hours to be rude. Name’s Rochelle, by the way.

Nice to meet you Rochelle. Look, I dont want to be rude but Im not planning on staying. I have a date.

The cover band? You have a pretty smile. What? Dont laugh. It’s true.

She was good. Charming. Huge tits with a roundish face. She wasnt fat, tho. I noticed the band playing sang in Spanish.

Her stout eyes held a dim gleam like light bouncing off a glass of ale.

Yes. I like it. Kind of sad to be playing for 4 cats.

Vos sos fan de Manolo?
Her face opened up.

The shift in her accent pulled me in to the cleared seat. I threw back the Old Grandad—leaned in and said, Sorry, I didnt catch that last part.

They do Spanish band covers. Right now theyre playing Eterno Viajero by Extrechinato y Tú. It’s a project between 2 bands, Platero y Tú, Extremoduro and a poet, Manolo Chinato. Theyre very good.

Oh, wow. Yeah. Well, I like the guitars. I dont speak Spanish, tho.

One beer turned to two beers turned to late too late. I looked at my phone: 3 messages.

Wayne: On scene?

Rochelle kept her gaze on me. Locked my phone.

Whats that grin on your face, Stranger? Huh, Stranger?

I saw her perfect teeth gleaming with more life than her eyes between her modest lips.

Stranger? Weve been talking.

Everything is like pulling teeth with you, man. Whats your name?

Her phone lit up—a photo of a child and Rochelle’s face next to his—1 missed call.

Joe got closer.

Oh, sorry. Didnt realize I hadnt introduced myself. That mustve came across as weird. Haha. Name’s Ted. Ted Jonas.

Oh, a TJ.

Mia, Im sorry; I know I must sound crazy but you have to understand; Youve been acting strange

Strange how? I work, go to the gym; Whats strange?

I dont know Mia, youre distant; We dont talk anymore

You know Ive been following you right?

Following me; What the fuck Mia

I dont know what youre doing exactly but I know it’s weird; I just feel it’s not right.

Youre overreacting Mia; I can explain

How old is he, asked pointing at her phone.

Eleven. A baby.

She grabbed her phone and showed the photo. A closer look.

Gorgeous. Baby have a name? He’s getting old.

Thanks and I know. They grow up so fast. His name’s Yadiel.

Brother?

Youre slick. No. He’s my son.

Rochelle ensnared in Joe’s intensity.

Band stopped playing. Vocalist walked and ordered a round of four Old Styles.

Good stuff man. Like your style.

Sure, dude. Thanks.

Name’s Ted.

Ted. Okay Ted, thanks for hanging out.

The vocalist nodded at Rochelle after grabbing the beers from the bartender. Ignoring Joe.

A zero to the left.

Lou Reed blared from the jukebox.

What does your boy like doing?

He’s a good kid. He likes playing on his computer. Doesnt go outside much. I worry sometimes about him. Feeling lonely, you know? His father isnt really around anymore.

Her voice softened pink.

They stared into each other.

But, I dont think he thinks much about that. Being lonely that is. He’s a good son. He’s a good boy. Anyway—Rochelle’s tone bounced back—what do you do? Ted gives me teacher, but your face gives me salesman.

Joe pinched and pulled the skin on his hand. She noticed a wedding band on his finger. Or so she thought. In reality it’s the gargoyle piece.

Salesman? Ha. I do love teaching children. Theyre so malleable and innocent. What about you? Who watches Yadiel?

Can you not? Hey, Tinna. Give me another one, please.

Sure, babe.

Tinna glared at Joe, reaching for a bottle of Don Q.

I apologize, didnt mean to pry. Here, I got you.

Joe placed a 20 on the counter. Tinna still glared, took the bill. Didnt say a word. He scratched his arm like a ticked dog.

Ok. Keep the change. Thanks. What’s up with that, pointing at the TV.

Rochelle stared blank into the screen. She sighed and turned to Joe.

I didnt even know this country existed until now. Apparently it used to be a British colony.

Lo and behold, a country ruled by a royal class of hillbillies. Bride’s beautiful, considering the inbreeding.

Yeah, you can definitely tell from his face. Hills Have Eyes, but make them the ruling class. Look at the ears, too.

Joe pinched his ears and simulated them being wings.

Rochelle laughed.

Yeah, he’s hard to look at. Hurts the view.

Haha, hurts the view. Hey, Im going to hit the restroom real quick. Ok?

Sure, you dont have to ask for permission. Youre a big boy. Right?

Joe walked to the restroom. Inside, yellow walls—a toilet with no lid—mirror cracked next to, You’re exactly where you need to be, written with marker on the cement.

Maruja’s, The Invisible Man seeped through the closed door. Joe grinned into the broken mirror. Reached inside his pocket and took a pill bottle, opened it, took one out. He smashed it to dust pressing it under his thumb on the porcelain sink’s rim. That dust he then put inside the ring. He peed and then walked out without washing his hands.

Around the pool tables near the stage in the back, next to the restrooms, a group of scene kids got louder by the minute.

Youre a fucking poser. Pig! Get off. Go away.

Calm down, dude. You dont have to be a bitch about it.

Rochelle’s gaze remained glued to the wedding.

Im back, what I miss? It’s pretty dry outside, how about something refreshing.

Joe walked over to Tinna.

Can I get two Ranch Waters.

Tinna looked over at Rochelle, who didnt know what was happening. Hey, she said, you want another drink? Youre not even done with that one.

Rochelle gazed at them both, confused.

What? she asked.

Gurriers, Des Goblin started to play.

It’s hot outside so Im thinking Ranch Water, to freshen up. I asked for two, to not be rude. Ya know?

Joe shone his smile, again.

Oh ok. Sure, I mean, why not right? This will be my last, tho. Things are getting rowdy here. Yadiel’s home too.

Tinna scoffed and made the drinks.

It’s practically a highball. You driving?

Of course not Ted. Okay…

Wait—Joe smacked his hand on the counter, catching Rochelle’s eye—let’s toast your boy. While she glanced at his fist on the counter his ring poured inside the fizz.

Salud.

Rochelle’s thoughts merged with the bubbles.

Wunt me to call you ride? an old fat drunk asked holding the door open.

Oh, no, Mikey. Im good. Thank you, doll. Love you. Stay safe, please.

You sure? Right then. I’ll see you round, Rochelle.

Bye, Tenna! Tinna, haha.

Outside, shattered glass lay under the Beamer’s door on the driver’s side. Capitalist PIG scratched on the hood.

Why dont we go to my place? It’s not too far. My car’s right here.

Joe looked at his phone: 3 unread messages. One is from Wayne, You blew the casting. Fix it.

He opened another message, The man in the store said he didnt know no Randi with an i.

Joe texted back. Bouncing his eyes between phone screen and Rochelle.

Rochelle stared, her mouth slightly parted. Her brown hair pulled back.

Im not fucking you if thats what you think we’re doing. Making that clear now.

Rochelle crossed her arms and stood across Joe. She struggled to maintain balance.

That grin. Youre kind of a creep you know, Ted? Haha. Weirdo.

Sorry, it’s just…

Your date? Haha.

Yeah. It’s okay. And no, I dont expect to have sex. We’re having a good time. I enjoy talking to you. Youre interesting. Actually, look—he looked for a photo in his phone, showed her. He said: This was my son. His mom took him. Long story.

Rochelle’s eyes turned blood-red.

Im sorry. You didnt mention you had a son.

Sweat poured down Joe’s cold face.

It’s a touchy subject. I can give you a ride. My car’s right there.

Rochelle fidgeted her fingers looking at Joe head to toes. Her vision waned. She snickered.

Fuckit. Alright, Ted. Wecan—go to—my housethen. I do have to wake up early, ssso. Cant stay late. Okay? We can have drink in the backyard and call it a night, night. Matt?

Who’s Wayne, Joe? I mean, considering the fact that you spend 90 percent of your time with your good friend Wayne and then the fact that me, your girlfriend, have never met this so called Wayne is very strange. Dont you agree.

Come on, thats so silly, love. We never coincide, that’s all. It’s not deep. Besides, Wayne’s not a social guy. I’ve told you this.

Right. But youre always going out together. Whatever. Why are you following that little boy, Joe?

Void deep into the night. Hours later. Inside the basement of a nondescript building.

Theres a padded room with no edges or hard surfaces—Rochelle lies belly down—Legs splayed—Ankles chained—Dried blood inside her thighs. Her fingers pulse and her head beatsbeatsbeats. Her eyes crawl and manage to see white soles, crinkled. The room breathes with her. With the woman once called Rochelle, now Nameless.

She whimpers. Soft sobs.

Aaahhjjlllm. Baaaanmmlk.

Her tongue’s heavy. Almost as dead as she’ll wish to be.

Yadiel; Yadi

Aaahhjjlllm! Aaaaaaahhhhhwww!

Her eyes continue to crawl and she’s outside herself. Next to the feet attached to a body not hers. It lays like a painting. Like a dead leaf at the mercy of a wind that never comes.

Her sight lifts from floor, above the body. She sees the body squirm, its skin juts out without breaking and with a swift drop—her vision hovers in front of broken body nameless person.

Doors open.

The woman’s vision stays fixed on the body thats not her body or shouldnt be her body, yet her eyes well up. She sobs every time the body convulses.

She’s now eye level with the dark stout eyes before her.

They smile. Pupils blown, they open their mouth and the woman sees several hairy white spiders crawl out their tear ducts and mouth and ears. They continue to enter and exit the body. Nonstop. Their eyes glow red.

Aaahhjjlllm!

The woman sobs. She feels the spiders enter her mouth. Between legs.

She can hear the spiders laugh.

Once white the nameless body is now a goose or a duck or any game bird. Her inside both empty and full as outside.

The woman’s ears ring. With an echo of silence pressure cooked in despair. She hears distant laughter close. Closer and farther away as she zooms in.

The animal once nameless is now the Brunei princess. No longer surrounded by gold.

Nameless tries to sit pushing her weight off ground but she slips on urine and sweat and tears and other fluids.

By midday next day, humidity cornmeal thickens, ramping heat from yellow to orange.

Joe’s inside an abandoned building. The fourth floor is fitted as a filming studio, the floors covered in plastic tarps. Walls are on wheels.

Took you long enough, motherfucker. What you have there?

Wayne looks at the talent—His beady eyes sunflower blown—One slow tear runs down his cheek.

Joe stands behind the talent, laying his hand on his shoulder and says:

Not a stiff, something better. Name’s Yadiel.

Read my previous piece. Hate it? Comment and share. Love it? Comment and share. Let the world know.

Consider throwing some coin below

One raccoon scavenged inside a garbage bin outside of a two story house. It got caught in ripped and bloodied bedsheets, it banged and screeched and panted.

Then it jumped outside and landed on its face in the street with some of the garbage spilling. Among the trash, a box for a Diesel suction cup 10'' dildo with an invoice for 20 pounds of potpourri.

About 3 miles away from there, several weeks back...

Against the fish tank glass a green and orange iguana stared at a slouched man entranced on his phone. He sat on the edge of the bed.

Felt calmed in the warm thought of you swimming naked inside the thickened lake of my cum

Can you see me? For what I am? You're not like other girls

I know you're not; Craving garlic chicken

The room he spent most of his days in gave him the space to plant the seeds that flowered under your careless watch.

Shades held back sun's light from clammy skin too pale to not shine. Dust particles sparkled like fairies inside his damp room. Brown mold formed inside the walking closet's wall. Breaking light woke him every day. A vague sense of don't die yet propelled him to make it to the night.

Once sundown the monitor's glow lit his face and glazed his eyes turned soil for desires holding strong roots in his mind. Having the illusion to access her 24/7 justified the work and made the expense holy.

A reason to keep the lights on.

Inside the monitor screen: Sad Pocahontas twirls in a cinched sundress crying. She hammer motions her right arm with a closed fist hinging at the elbow like a pendulum and front kicks with her left leg to the beat of Slip of the Memory by Enjoy. Streaks of petroleum stream down her face. She smiles in between sobs and hip swings inside a room with no furniture. A white caption hovers in the middle of the screen. It reads: i just want a man that pays the bills and lets me cut his d*ck off. A human shadow covers her light. It looms in the last frame.

im down if you are, he typed.

Three days later she responded: :3

Her followers were around 69 thousand. A reply from her? A blessing disguised in a colon followed by a 3. He gripped his dick and jerked it until it burned.

His gaze cropped her bawling eyes. Tears geyser uncontrolled. Streaming next to her half-open mouth. Dripping down her chin. His dick head tingled and a heavy splurge of cum shot out—forming Lake Huron on his desk, next to a framed photo of his mom and him. He lives with her. Some semen splattered on the mother's face. He wiped it with his thumb.

Shit; What the fuck; Why

On the other side of the stream: Sad Pocahontas updated her Depop. That, Patreon and digital panhandling were her income sources. The woman accrued a sizable sum. Called it the Simp Fund. She's inside a mostly vacant two story house, not counting the basement or garden unit. She moves in between five spaces: closet, bedroom, bathroom, family room and kitchen, leaving the rest of the residence empty. She walked in her room and took her clothes off, throwing them on the dirty pile on the floor, about 4 feet from her mattress, also on the floor. Koreans do it, she said to a friend that brought it up once. A photo booth strip of her and her twin pinned between the mirror and the wood frame laid below, You're enough, written in lipstick. She sat on a stool next to the kitchen counter and swiveled. Staring at her lap. Multiple white scars overlapped each other on her upper thighs. Her phone buzzed with a text that read: why do things have to be so difficult with you? text me back please.

Im in control

She took a screenshot and messaged her friend: girl what do I do?

Ignore him, the friend responded. I dont know how you still speak to him. A man hits me once and that’s the last thing he'll do. I dont care if I start shit, they have to take it. He's not a real man. Fuck him.

Sad Pocahontas responded with the black heart emoji and a teary face emoji. You always know what to say.

He's so boring and controlling I dont want to

Days, weeks, or hours later, Sad Pocahontas snapped a photo of her feet. Her slim candy red toes wriggled like a row of cardinals on a branch. She wore a silver ring on her ring toe.

She went to fill her tub and saw black mold formed in a straight line between the porcelain and the tiles.

i want to be owned by you

$end 100 for sliding in my dm, pig

He paid the communion.

Each new stream surpassed the one before. More unhinged. Less clothes.

Custom videos. Diamond tier perks. No nudes. 1 on 1 chat. I respond to all messages. $80 charged every 13 of the month.

Fuck yes! I may have a chance now

The man ordered a gallon of shrimp fried rice with extra garlic and green onion and Mongolian beef extra sauce with three egg-rolls. Total: $72. Delivery and fees included.

So fucking expensive; Im so fucking fat; She doesn't know that, she doesn't care; Forgot to feed Vladimir

The iguana flicked its forked tongue and smacked its tail against the glass. He opened the fish tank and dropped half a head of frisée—when a notification made him snap his head back like a dog recognizing its owner's call. Package delivered, read the message.

Leaving the tank open. His attention merged with the urge to submerge himself in the virtual waters where flat fried egg titties dwelled with plump pussies, skinny pussies, round red marked fat asses, flat asses and huge tits. Fat and skinny, didn't matter much. A gooner from the simp genus.

Then another notification popped on his phone.

Sad Pocahontas is live, read the notification. Clicked on it.

On the monitor screen: Sad Pocahontas wears a Philipp Plein pleated leather mini skirt with an Off-White white halterneck top. Her hair is dead-straight jet-black and her eyes are 2 black holes gazing from the abyss. She's slow-walking backwards, she has long white socks with black Balenciaga strike platform derbies. She's outside in what looks like a backyard facing a forest. There's a clearing between the trees on the left side, the corner of an old yellowed billboard stands out. The word FEAR can be seen through it.

The chat explodes. He read every message and looked at the usernames.

lovelyguido73: Baby you precious baby. Love leg

ranma9nhalf: wiw

luka_modri: r u fnlly shwng sm slutt?

popcorntoglog: is adrian with you?

ranma9nhalf: wow* i can change your life princezz

4obe4tfourfive: Your just a focking tizz bitch

babyboochill07: I love you! You're so perfect!

anonymous094535: wheres your bf

britinparis: I don't get you Americans, but you're so entertaining

rosebudv1b3$: i recognize that sign

trevorwisemug: damn u fine u don't even look like u have a baby. how u have no gut?

4obe4tfourfive: Show focking tits

localbigd77: yeah that's close I-294 right?

crissanfran808: Come to Cali baby

bluelizard: she's not in the west coast

violensempl0y33: I would breathe in your farts no questions asked

bluelizard: @4obe4tfourfive look at her leaked vid. go 2 my prof and click the link in bio

princecharm34: I want to adopt you baby

anonymous083213: k1ll y0urs3lf

omegadouchebag04: what r you even doing? dumb bitch

anonymous094545: wow your not crine

yusef3876: yeah your bf not beating you anymore? liar

gigashulsky: Your a bitch you never responf

Sad Pocahontas doesn't read the messages. She's got her elbows close to her core and she's rotating her hands inward balancing on one foot. And then she steps on the other. Her skirt raises with each movement. There's a black bag looking thing on the lower far right of the frame. She kicks and sways slow, puckering her lips. She sharpens her eyes. They slash through the screen. Kali Uchis' Moonlight is the song she's dancing to. She walks off frame humming Moonlight.

sadp0cah0ntasfan43v3r: omg 1ts lik3 y0ur3 p3rf0rm1ng!! 1 l0v3 1t!!!

A raccoon creeps into frame from the left side. It gets close to the camera. Its face covers the whole frame: wet eyes staring as if reading the chat. His black nose sniffles the camera lens and smacks it, flipping it on its side. A world sideways or upside down.

yuyumapletree: bro that raccoon has more personality than her

4obe4tfourfive: Sly Cooper!

lazarus6000ad: that one tree has more personality than her wytb?

poppcorntoglog: where is adrian?

bluelizard: Oak Brook, Illinois ring any bells?

anonymous094535: Yooooooooo

anonymous094535: That leak!!!!! Thats herrrrr!!!!

nutrition.facts100: Wait what leak?

anonymous083213: k1ll y0urs3lf

localbirdwatcher69: Glendale ave?

princecharm34: I knew you were a slut not surprised

anonymous20519: I want to fuck you in the ass while your dad watches

trevorwisemug: das fucked up

ravnolga09: you're a pig @anonymous20519

saturnson: I would drink your bottled up diarrhea with a straw

whowhatwhen54: Your parents must've hated you growing up. Right?

anonymous094535: What did you do to Adrian?

bluelizard: 400 something Glendale ave? zip 60523?

The sun hid fast.

A pickaxe swooshed in frame, it hit the ground and spun like a throwing star, missing the raccoon by centimeters and landed next to a body sized black bag.

Go away! said a woman's voice off camera. Tilted back to be leveled, the camera captured the raccoon headed into the forest.

popcorntoglog: omg did you see that?? is that what i think it was? brooooo

ranma9nhalf: I think I did, it looked like a body-bag right? Or maybe a garbage bag but there's definitely a body in there

bluelizard: oh shit, im calling 911

whowhatwhen54: Yes I saw that too!!! Someone call the cops

nutrition.facts100: How do you even know that's her real address?

Fear...

I-294?

Think Michael, think

The man opened a new tab and searched for ads with the word fear, when it clicked.

Have no fear, justice is here, he said, hammering his closed fist on the desk. Rattling the keyboard, an old flat soda toppled and made a mess on the keyboard.

Shit, no, no, no.

Michael leaped off the chair and went out to the closet to get dry towels. Vladimir slowly tried sneaking out in between Michael's feet, its tail in the way of the door when he, by reflex, slammed the door shut—snapping Vladimir's tail in more than half without noticing. The reptile scurried under the couch next to the door. He heard his mother say something and ignored her.

Back in the room after drying the mess, 400 Glendale ave, Oak Brook; Buffalo wings were bomb, he thought as he gazed at the empty fish tank.

That's just a couple of blocks from here!

What? Vladimir? I dont have time for this. FUCK

Michael bolted to the kitchen leaving his bedroom door open. He grabbed the car keys and yelled: Validimir's out of the tank. Gotta go, Ma.

He grabbed the box at the front door. Turned on the car and the speakers blasted with Snuffed on Site feat. Peeling Flesh's Time 2 Dip. He backed away from the garage clenching his teeth; his gums started to bleed. FEAR

I'll show you how serious I am, you'll see Im completely devoted to you, you just have to give me a chance; Please give me a chance dont be weird about it; Please god or whoever, just please, please, please

Michael looked over at the box on top of the passenger seat and laid his right hand on top of it. Please let me be yours

Sad Pocahontas walks in frame. Her smile creases her smooth cheeks she bends in front of the camera. She reads some of the comments and says:

This why you fucking pussys dont say nothin in real life and have to do it behind a keyboard, motherfuckers. Cos if you do it in real life? Nah, like. You know you wouldn't. No. Cos in real life? If you come up to me and talk your shit like that to my face? I will smash your skull and leave your brains spilling on the floor, you fucks. Nah. You wouldn't dare–she's holding a gun in her left hand–come, come to my house. I dare you. You think Im afraid? Hahaha. You're all fucking pathetic. So brave you have to be anonymous.

sadp0cah0ntasfan43v3r: say more qu33n!!! slay!!!

anonymous083213: kys kys kys kys kys kys

anonymous094535: Whoa this got out of control real fast

anonymous094535: Are you admitting to something? Was that Adrian in that bag?

popcorntoglog: i can't unsee it, that's a head fr fr

The chat continued to rapid fire and Sad Pocahontas continued her monologue until she heard glass breaking from inside the house.

She stands, relaxed. Her brows are crunched together and her mouth is semi-open.

Michael broke in and looked for Sad Pocahontas. The backyard...

Through the glass squares he saw her. He ran outside and with a smile he said: Im here for you. I want to be yours and I mean it. He held a spray bottle and a scalpel in his hands. He walked towards the stunned woman.

She backed step, gun still in her hand.

Look, look–pulling his pants and underwear down–dont be scared. Michael sprayed his penis several times.

He's now in frame.

Michael walks four steps and flicks his penis with his middle finger.

Hahaha. I didn't feel that.

What the fuck? Who? Who the fuck are you? Stop!

Sad Pocahontas rises her hand and points at Michael.

He dropped the spray bottle and is holding the scalpel.

Michael grabs and stretches his dick with his left hand and traces a deep line with the scalpel around it.

Blood arches out from the open wound. Glans and shaft in his hand the testicles were still attached to the perineum.

He faints, landing on his back. The wrinkled soles of his feet face the camera.

The sound and blinking lights of sirens overlapping one another drowns the feed.

The voice of a cop ordered the woman to drop her weapon.

yuyumapletree: bro's balls are glued to the gooch lol

sadp0cah0ntasfan43v3r: sh00t h1m!!! g1rl 1t's s3lf d3f3ns3! p0p h1s ball00n-ass-h3ad!!

britinparis: Is that bloke gone barmy? Bloody Jesus

saturnson: is this happening fr?

nutrition.facts100: this is all staged, a skit

I said, drop your weapon and raise you hands in the air, now!

Back in Michael’s house his mother saw his bedroom door opened. It had been years since she last went into her son’s room. The monitor glowed inside the dark den. She went in the room and saw everything unfold in real time. She now sees her baby, Michael, lying on the ground with his mangled penis.

Michael's body bled out on the grassy ground about 30 feet from Adrian's stiff corpse.

Adrian lay with his mouth covered with a t-shirt scrunched into a ball, inside, his body got stuffed with potpourri. His anal cavity lodged with a 10'' dildo.

Sad Pocahontas was arrested for questioning and is currently awaiting for trial.

welcome to the first official volume of wonder hearse, an experimental photo literature zine. in this edition, words are spoken to empty space. art enters the vacuum. illusions offer only temporary solace. when the void offers you a wink, consider the possibility that it’s only a reflection.

press play and open up:

on the beat

the only way to start is to begin at the end

A traced line begins before the line is traced, and continues long after it ends.

the writer

feeding the fantasy again
of a writer by the swollen water
spilling that vacuous fluid
from his pretty head that makes
meaning from absurdity
    and he looks just like me
but with an unshakable
resolve in his eye, yet
even in the dream his words
miss the page for all his
tenacity cannot absolve the vision
of utter uselessness

he hangs over the water
until he meets his dissolution 

Gutted and in the cluttered gutter of self I lay
In frag]ments; backwards at work bent for display,
And their sole entertainment.

At their soles dirtied with souls hurting, their Sol
dimmed.

Innards turned tar  when the pearls get torn 
Away—It's all them!

Never I

lolita goth dreams

The man’s fingers swiped, pressed, swiped, swiped, and pressed some more as he browsed on the onion for filth. The moldy layer, yellowed like a bruised frail arm.

Gray.

Oxidized meat. Infants plumped like balloon animals bloated, their beady eyes swollen shut with pus pouring out and down the hill like flushed red cheeks of some; while others looked like grilled sausages, their squirmed bodies blistered, their eyes cooked like snails in herbed butter inside their sockets.

yummie, the knees, feet, and knuckles must be delicious! like burnt ends! pineapple bbq sauce, anyone? he commented in the thread.

like 3k❤️

closed lotus commute

bucket hat bucket list

if only everyone saw each other’s clutter

Ferrytale Woman

[ fiction ] by

As his sickly breath raises the gooseflesh on my neck, all I can think about is how sweaty and gross my panties are after walking up and down the Randolph Street Market. This utopia with darkened towers against wet mist, and I can feel his erection in his voice.

"How about here?"

Through the L car windows the streets appear clean, the lights of the spires shine rhinestone-sparkle with a whole city as witness, and he wants to fuck like we're on stage? I tell him no and he bitches.

"Aw, come on!"

Such a compelling argument.

In this resolution he looks six foot. With this filter he's wearing slacks and a crisp collared shirt. In my heart he's good intentions. But turn my brain-chip off and the filters come down. He's five foot nine, this I know, and he's probably wearing sweatpants and that godawful stupid shirt I hate, the one that says happy waifu happy laifu above a print of a big-tittied anime schoolgirl.

My bones know he's a road to hell.

Me? I look like I'm running out of patience as I’m fiddling with my new hatpin like it's a fidget toy. Well, new to me anyway.

Silent to all but me, an advertisement for my demo’d vision filter says: with You-topia™ the bustling streets of Chicago will be all to yourself, and as the railcar turns, jerking me to the side, I accidentally drop my hatpin. I watch as it bounces forward on the gleaming white floor near the pristinely clean seats. Not a soul in this car except for Travis and me, but the pin rolls in a semicircle before vanishing.

With You-topia™ anyone can enjoy our Windy City as they imagine it.

Travis grabs my hips with his too cold hands and pulls me to him, grinding his groin on my ass.

"It'll be quick,” my romantic partner says.

I tell him I dropped my pin and take a step forward, but he's pulling me back to his pelvis and complaining that he doesn't see it— and you know what that means.

You-topia's™ filter makes the unsightly shine!

This pin of mine? It's the only thing I've ever asked from him, aside from the silver coins that came with it. It’s his apology for my black eye. The date was his idea, the trip to Randolph Street something he wanted to do; public sex to spice things up? All him. When I saw it at the market next to an assortment of other antique trinkets, I told him how ladies in the 1880s used them to keep their hat on their heads. These long, ornate needles, some of them nine inches, they'd be stabbed into these absurdly pretty hats, then through the woman's hair to hold both in place.

My only gift, gone behind the filter, and my sweet Travis?

"I got something to stab you with," as he rubs against my ass.

"Fine," I say. "But let me find my pin."

"You'll have to turn off your filter."

You-topia™ makes a good day no matter the weather.

I reach into my purse and take out my phone as Travis guffaws at me. His parents can afford to buy the new brain-chips with the virtual menus where the cursor is controlled by thought alone. I still need my phone to control the apps in my outdated version. Opposites attract. Rich boy and pauper woman.

You-topia™ brings fairytale to reality...

I thumb the app off and the filter comes down. The pristine clean chairs and immaculate white floors of the L car melt away, leaving kids’ cafeteria-level of grime in their place. My eyes raw-dogging this sight, I see stains on every surface. No less than two dozen advertisements are on the ceiling and burnt tinfoil tumbleweeds to a bare and gangrenous foot ahead of me, as I see my hatpin next to a dead body.

I race to swallow back the throat bile, then gag. With the filter down, I can smell deadrot and curdled soured milk; Travis’ erect penis bulges on my hip.

"You find it?"

I nod with my hand over my mouth.

"Hurry up!”

Back at the market, after I meekly asked the love of my life to buy me my only gift, I kept quiet about how these hatpins were controversial. Safety was not a word the Victorians cared for and they were worried that women were using these sharp, fashionable hatpins to protect themselves. When the clerk handed me the pin and the coins, my wonderful, sweet Travis quipped that I could have them if I put out.

Now, my antique hatpin gleams, even with the filter off and at the foot of a dead man. Its pearl top just within a sneeze of blackened toenails. As Travis' cold hands reach up my skirt, pinching my thigh, I look into the lifeless eyes of a man who’s been dead and ignored long enough that a maggot falls from under his shirt.

It could have been fentanALL® that killed him. The tinfoil tumbleweed seems to think so. Maybe he starved to death. Vendors stopped taking cash for fear of disease even before I was born. Might be that someone murdered him. Whatever the case, he was ignored in life, as he is in death.

I hold my breath and kneel down by the body. Scurrying in my purse, I pull out the other half of my gift and place my two silver coins over his eyelids to keep them shut, and whisper.

"What are you sorry for?" Travis says behind me. With his filter up, he is seeing none of this.

I tell him I'm not talking to him. This is happening earlier than I planned, but what the hell? He's right, a train car is as good a place as any. I pick up my hatpin, it might as well be an icepick without a handle, the thing is so long and sharp.

"Come on, baby," he says. "Let's have some fun,”—and he’s not asking.

With my other hand on my phone I turn the filter back on, and the dead man vanishes behind an illusion of cleanliness and safety. I can't bear to look at my beloved Travis any other way. I stand and turn around to face him.

Outside, with a whole city rhinestone sparkling under glowing fog as witness, I’m cockstabbing him with my hairpin quicker than he cums. Again -and again- and again. The filter autotunes his scream to pitch-perfect T-Pain and butterflies in place of too much blood erupting from his wound. He’ll vanish under everyone’s filter when I’m done, but unlike our homeless friend, there will be no coins for his eyes.

The vendors stopped taking them.

the world is a safe space as long as you ignore it

we never see eye to eye when we battle the I in I

reflections are a reminder of everything being a fabricated illusion

strange

[ fiction ]

In the rounded reflection, our bodies warped and warbled. The bleeding sun washed this other convex world in unearthly white. He drew near to my ill-proportioned ear and spoke something distorted by the bent of reality. In one end and out the other, as they say. When I pulled my gaze from the heated metal, I found the flat thing I returned to was exactly as I recalled it and I grew bored. For a moment, in the bean’s wobbling glow, the laws of physics and possibility had been rewritten and I sagged like a steel beam under the knowledge that here they were the same and unchanging for always. He smiled funny at me when I explained this line of thought. He called me strange, and I said, well someone’s gotta be.

Okay, might as well be you, then, he said touching my elbow—and pulling his hand back like a cracked whip.

Mirrored on the surface of The Cloud an alternate cut played. Their faces were like their faces and their mouths moved as theirs moved, but the words were wrong.

Inside my head the head of another man with a hat on, spoke to me and said: Spin your neck until the world spins with you.

A smell of cooked salmon coated the bridge of my nose like VapoRub. Lisa looked at me funny, crossing her hands in front of her stomach; she gave me an awkward smile.

The words tickled my eardrums and made me smile.

The Man with the Hat, and the man that made me smile were two heads inside mine.

Joe gardened my lips; where the roots led was still beyond his limits.

The Man in the hat said: He is not for you. You are a mess. His inside joke with his friends.

The voice carried the stench of dead birds, and my ears were wet with anger as I looked at Joe with contempt.

I knew that he isn’t for me, I can tell he doesn’t care.

Joe’s gaze landed heavy on mine, a hummingbird lying on its nest. Beautiful, I guess, if you’re a bird watcher.

Soft looks and echoes.

To some that is all they need, but, what about the others? the ones that…

Run in front of that bus, I heard the Man with the Hat say backwards. Somehow I understood him, I knew what he meant, and I knew what I had to do.

Lisa, who’s been with us all day, tried talking to remind us she still existed in that space. Her words were bricks breaking her teeth as they came out.

Her mouth poured as her empty gums waterfalled red.

Lisa bawled clutching her face, she tried talking but her tongue was gone.

The Man’s voice in my head said she was right. I looked to my right and saw him there, wearing a hat—with no face.

Isn’t it weird how the hat doesn’t warp on the reflection? I asked.

Lisa fled in disbelief, but her reflection stayed.

What hat? asked Joe.

Where’s Lisa? I asked, knowing where she was. Stacked neatly behind that bricked wall.

Maybe the laws of physics were bending to an unknown force of will or maybe the only possibility that ever was is that of no change.

The Man with the Hat grinned inside my head, his rotting mouth was mine.

I ran my tongue across my teeth looking at Joe’s unmoving body.

He drew near to my ill-proportioned ear and spoke something distorted by the bent of reality. It went along the lines of: He smiled funny at me when I explained this line of thought.

He called me strange, he said, Well someone’s gotta be.

open four hours

alternately

won't you read my palm
   and tell me a story; any kind
       will do. soothe or scare or grind
           to a bland and endless pulp,
               just make me
                                         something else

someone’s always there to watch us fall; let’s give ‘em a show

sit with it.

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Dana’s clit twitched underneath black lawn lingerie: her tanned nipples exposed under the transparent gown. She bit on the bottom right corner of her lip, taking off the man’s Rolex off his cock as if it were his wrist. She waited like an empty chalice, longing to be full. Loaded, brimming.

White walls framed art with low ceilings under white lights closed space.

Television on no sound: a commercial for apple juice showed seed to fruit to product, and ended with a glass decanter filled with extract, in the middle of a family table gathering; two men, each at the end of the table grin, flanked by a girl on one side, and a boy on the other.

Don’t stop, keep going.

A mix of ylang-ylang and jasmine filled the air. It alone, made his deboned muscle flex. It’s been a long way since dime bag days.

Roja Haute Lux atomized on her skin. Worth every life ruined. All the sleepless nights.

Worth it.

Mhm? Yes? asked Dana.

Mhm.

Her hands, twisting. Ceiling, floor, ceiling, floor.

Rhythmic strokes played body’s music through blues, reds, milk filled swollen testicles (breathed) hanging.

Spit on it, said Brandon.

Particles still suspended in air. Her earth skin body, where he would plant his seed, glowed.

Heels dug in, toes angled up, knees pointed outward—the hand on top of his world, swelling up and down. An anchored ship at sea.

Ssslph, ssslph, tuah. You like that? Ssslph. Tuah.

Aaahh, that’s it, he said. Breath breaking like he’d been thrown in ice water.

He squirmed, wiggled his toes, fingers crooked, fused to the other’s skull. Fingers like roots under fine strands of hair, longing to be tied in a fist.

Pulled. Gentle.

—cut me

Hard.

Ach, ach, ach, ach—Like it how it hits the back of your throat? he asked and gave her a light tap on the face.

Ach, ach, ach—Aaaaaah—he eased her head off; she took a deep breath, drool dribbling down the side of her mouth, down the neck, on her chest.

Are you deaf? I asked…

Do—ach

You—ach

Like—ach

How—ach

It—ach

Hits—ach

The—ach

Back—ach

Of—ach

Your—ach

Fucking—ach

Throat!—ach

Her pink pussy grooled clear.

Ach, ach, ach, ach, ach, ach—she went for a breath, eyes hooked on each other.

Her face, flushed. Sharp gem eyes shined more than carnal desire. A necessity embodied on the end of her tongue whose propelled vans1 via voice carried on her breath.

Painted across her face and interpreted through her body, her movements.

Love it, she said. Love when you fuck my mouth, papi.

Love it when you scramble my brains up.

Ach, ach, ach…

Tears welled in Dana’s eyelets, mouth opened; her nose, inches away from Brandon’s belly, she clasped her hand on his waist, pushing him past the uvula.

Aaaach.

Dogs barked outside.

Barked, barked and barked some more.

Outside, cars drove by; a woman walked her dog, her dog—looked at the house—didn’t make a peep.

On top of the counter a sweaty glass, clanked as ice melted, blending back into the body of water.

Dana grinned, a fleck of hair covered part of her face with grace; you tucked it behind her ear and caressed her silkskin, seeing her jaw putting in work.

Brandon reached over and back, hand full of ass—squeezed—soft spreading her bum apart, revealing immaculate pussy honey. Resinlike. Sound of wet tongues smacking mouth’s hard roof. His fingers crawled inside the partite, flickering her plush juicy labia.

—cut me

Dana’s skin brailled.

Slipped one finger in, and out—took it up to his mouth, and sucked the yogurt tang clean. Licking his lips. Breathing heavy.

So fucking good, don’t stop please, put another finger in

Brandon smiled.

The baguettes around his neck—caught light—glistened and bounced their golden light on her face, making her look made of gold.

Scooting forward—Ach—leaning on her back, he then used both hands: one to part her open, the other to roam free—hovering inside of her wide thighs; her skin tightened and flushed. One finger in, went out. Two fingers in, then out.

Mmmmm, ach, ach.

Mmmm.

Ssslllph.

Mmmm.

She moaned.

L’Or de J’adore sprayed—Mmmmm, mmmmmm, aaaaahhh—from her fountain, arched as she was. Both her lips dripped, down her meaty thighs. Orange peel spritzed bent atop the cocktail. Flickers of gold shined thin beams like shower streams from the nozzle.

Nipples went from dark space to clear rosé. Turned bullets, longing to be nibbed on, squeezed, sucked on. Balls dropped, retracted, and went from rosé to gray, and back, and then again.

The water in the glass absorbed all ice.

His mind latched to a memory—Vanessa.

A beep from the ac signaled the vents closing, cutting all white noise as it turned off. Nobody cared.

No walls, no frames sky canopy inverted above; rain glittered down linked open space. A zapping pulse.

Coming out for air: Let’s go to bed, baby, Vanessa said. Her eyes, depressing-blue filled with glee; pupils bloomed in front of his, pale skin flushed pink.

On the television screen: thousands of petals on fly, flowers, fruits; naked woman cradling a dead baby walks into frame, she has no face. She stares at you.

—cut me

Vanessa’s red knees—bridge of feet, flat on floor—hands pulling pants down his waist—Victor stood and pulled his shirt off—lifting one foot off the leg of the pants, and then the other.

Victor traced Vanessa’s slim legs, her delicate frame made him want to hit it, repeatedly (closing a jammed drawer).

Extending his hand, lifted her up with him.

Grabbing her by the waist, pulled her close, hard cock pressed flat down her soft stomach.

Walls wing fluttered still; cement turned to wooden floors then the windows turned French as the nails on her delicate scarred hand.

Ground glazed crystal shimmered below feet. Steps slow long kissed skin wrapped tight bodies muscle to bone bent back tensing tight—slow kissed wet.

Fuck, she’s hot

Come ‘ere, let me—I picked her up—there you go, I said. Her legs roped around me, her skin cold warm, her breathing like the gusts before a storm, panting in between tongues clashing.

I don’t want to go to work tomorrow; Is Jonathan coming over on Sunday?; I just want to fuck already

Carried her to bed, laid her down—her skin peeling off of mine, saran wrap clung from chest to stomach. Her thick thin juices parched on me. Seeped into my pores. Sig Sauer P22 cock twitched heavy in anticipation of the grand entrance, a vein parting right through the middle branched out to two tines hugging the head. He anchored both hands on the soft mattress; fencing her nude fresh frame floating on the sheets below him; a single drop of sweat slid, pooled, and dropped right in the center of your chest from his forehead, his cock looking angry straight at you; I saw her eyes looking at it, biting her lips; reaching down, kissing her neck—smelled like green tea and cardamom—my ass tensed (flushing more blood to it) and I soft bit her trapezius and kissed hopped to the shoulder where like a suction cup I absorbed her into me; or at least he tried to.

Her trapezius cardamom exuded green tea outwards. All moans no breath. Green leaves like blue bills backwards bent to unfurl to reveal nothing breaking necks by serpents prowling no sound about like death.

Her ass ain’t as fat as I thought; Fucking Letty

Victor tongued her body holding her arms together above her head—as she squirmed—in one hand while he rubbed her clit with the other.

Accordion walls compressed—expanded, and again, repeating; breathing. Red.

I hope Rosco doesn’t get in; Why didn’t I lock him in the family room? He’s not barking, what’s he doing? This feels good

My nails traced canals on his skin, his arms, as he played with me, fingered me, rubbed me. Made me his center of attention. His breaths breaking like dried twigs. Opened my legs and lifted my back, moving forward enough to leave space for him to go deeper.

On the television screen: leaves swirling in the air unwind around tombstones; the channel changes to one where you’re featured: see yourself leave a piece of your self behind.

A vein in his neck, bulged, calling, it said: Nick me, open me.

I sucked on his neck, licked and sucked. Left a big (hickey) mark on it. Victor’s warm balls resting on my belly, the shadow of his cock, heavy, craving it inside me. He had to earn it, though.

Eat my pussy, I said, hands on his shoulders, pulling him down.

He took soft bites of me on his way.

You smell so good; Eun. You’re delicious, he said. I love how soft you are, he said, biting, a bull blowing air out his nose.

When he got to the belly, he swept his arms under her, swishing his shoulders up and back, putting her lips close to his face. Victor bit inside her thighs, and tongue traced circles and spirals, sucking on her lips—strafing signals from her hips through the whole body—kissing outside her sopped cushioned vulva, squeezing her butt cheeks like stress balls. Vanessa wiggled, closing her legs, hair down in the air, her hands holding like in a handstand on top of the bed; jamming Victor’s face (crammed) in her pussy (much to her enjoyment).

Waves shot all over, with his tongue on my clit and his fingers hooked inside me, going in and out, then—inside and waving—slow, eyes nailed on mine, as I gushed. His hands on me, unlike Juan’s, felt like they didn’t belong on my body. I still liked it.

I hope I don’t have any weird smell

At one point he stopped fingering me. He started making out with my pussy, french kissing it, every fold, every centimeter in between his lips pushed by his tongue. Waves kept washing over me. Kept flooding his mouth.

I wanted more.

Want to do something fun? he asked, spearing me with his gaze.

Stop fingering me and keep eating me out, I thought

Or…

Actually, yes, I said. Look below the bed, and pull the suitcase.

Pass Jack.

Jack? he asked, he reached for the strap-on.

No, baby, the vibrator, I said.

Jack?

It’s just a name, you don’t give nicknames to your toys?

That’s not a nickname, though, he thought.

Mei wasn’t a toy

Sky blacked out shattered no light no stars it’s leg-wings stretching wet wide smacked its red tongue devilish void spoken verbiage all sound no words uttered pleasure more than pain.

Bodies bent back snapped hinging from the orange dawn edge west wave of squirt puddles pooling from a perfect cum guzzling slut set free.

My slut. Free, he thought he thought.

[fuck it up]

I asked him for two fingers. Then three.

Mmmm.

Then four.

Yes, baby. Mmmm.

We’ve done it before, he knew I wanted his fist.

And he did. Juan fisted me, with his right hand. He wanted to plug me, and I wanted that too…

This wasn’t my first time inserting my (whole) hand inside her. Holes closed, almost shut, but not quite. Soft, sloppy wet. A succulent Spring scent emanated from between her thighs and, becoming a bee I rushed from the thought of her pollen alone.

Use the lube, she said, but we didn’t need it.

A brooding mantle fell upon the man, an ancient spirit channeled; insatiable lust made flesh.

—cut me

Tongue swaying like a snake being charmed, flute tune notes toiled around, except it wasn’t a flute, it was the rattling bass from the music playing. The devil swiped his viper tongue up and down her dripping softwarm cunt.

Her (Guerlain) L’Heure Dorée cap formed breasts perfumed a prurient mist.

[take a deep breath, babe]

See the bottom of his palm facing you, his hand signing “I love you” inside you. Feel your soaked pussy; ass, thighs, legs, twitch, flex. He takes his fingers out and presses the head of his hard veiny engorged cock against your small clit, swaying left to right. It tickles your asshole. Think of how it feels when he does that with his hand while his curved cock is wrecking your insides.

Or do you prefer how Brandon’s bat slugs you?

Squeeze your tits. Pull your hair back, spread your legs further out.

Juan’s tantalizing you, rubbing his hard meat against your pussy lips, he presses and rubs your pleasure button, your clit’s hard. Notice his predatory gaze, see yourself in his jaws. Eyes above water. Light white noise buzzes in between your thighs.

Tell him to fucking fist you.

Don’t smirk bitch, fist me, you said again. Pinching his fingers together, he went in, slow, tips first. Teasing you, stops. Swirls it outside, on the lips.

Juan takes the butt plug from the suitcase, spits on it, and teases you: cold metal doused in saliva giving light presses on the rim without going in, not exactly an all net or a swish, but it was about to be full basket no balls on that court.

His mind on Emma, and yours not on Breck, but on Brandon.

Think about Victor, he’s smaller than—but you still like him—who? Hits you right. In all senses. Or who taps it like so?

I’m really proud of you Dana, I don’t think I’ve ever told you that

Who hurt you?

Fingers joined as in a conical high five—teasing, outside her garden’s entrance (swirling), the tips go in first, slow, gaze sustained, her mouth open ever so slight—leaned on her hands, irises tilting to the back of the head and back again; centimeters at a time pressing with the delayed push of his hand inside, being able to fit up to the first knuckles; Mmmmm, aaaaah—fuck, you like that baby? mmm; layers of wet flesh engulfed the bundled fingers, hugging them and sucking them in; her vagina: dilating as are her pupils turned sunflowers; his cock buzzed with white noise as his testicles crawled to his waist; and past the first knuckles—Aaaaaaah—goes down to the base: and his fist goes in.

Aaaaaaahhh; mmmmmm, fuck-shit-motherfucker, yes! Fuck.

teddy bear, where are you?; Oh, daddy, but…; Your friend said to call him Uncle Mark

Forehead goes cold, balloon head light, feathers down giving way to a sense of fullness.

Touching your cervix walls, stimulating nerve endings as if for the first time, a sensation not felt with anything else. Grip that power of your eyes on his, see how he surrenders to you, bends to you. His will, but not his sword.

Aaah, yes, yes.

Could always go for the kill

Mmmm, aaaaahhh. Eerrrr, mmmmm.

Not today, keep playing

I hate that he doesn’t pee on me

Her ass is so fucking fat, yum, can’t take my eyes off to look at her face, let alone her heart; Let me lick that asshole

Your guttural moaning continues.

Come ‘ere he said, you knew what for.

Why you pouting for? he asked. Get on your belly, he said, fist twirling still inside you.

Why don’t you pee on me? you asked. Get on your belly, keep the pouty face, look back at him. Put your face down or smack his face, smile, then get your face down, not before saying: Keep fucking me, bitch.

Mmmm.

Jack laughs. You know I can’t piss with a hard-on, he said.

You both laughed.

Who said you had to be hard? I just said to pee on me, as you said the letter p, he rimmed you, and your butthole blinked, letting his tongue in for a millisecond.

Oh my fucking God, don’t stop

Say yes, say yes please don’t stop.

On the television, Brandon is getting his cock gobbled on by Jonathan; you can tell Jonathan’s beard is bothering Brandon. Jonathan is wearing the thong you found that was not your size, on (Brandon’s) his side of the closet. The one he said was for you.

Take a deep breath—moan.

Relax. Don’t tense up.

Face on the sheets: smells like high school.

Memories of getting fingered in school, under your skirt, blend with the ones from college; Professor Valentín’s sad eyes fucking you from across the room, the sleepover with Lenny, how she whimpered when you touched her under soaked covers, how she touched you—Fuuuuuuckkk. Mmmm.

Give me that dick, you said, but your voice broke mid dick and he made you say it again.

Give me that fucking curved dick!

Not yet, he said. Jaguar staring your stretched anima down.

He took his hand out, pushed the plug inside your sphincter, and slurped your innie pussy like a mango—flicking his tongue: ceiling, floor, ceiling, floor, wall to wall, ceiling, floor, wall to wall, a circle and so on. She’s so good; [REDACTED] clit was so big, though; Is Tropical Taste open today? I want mangú

On the television screen: a woman under your bed with no face arms bent hips locked screams void gray little boy downward above clouds underground inside your head.

Walls cardboard box collapsed, and the bed is a bathtub where you pee on your man’s chest, stomach, arms, wherever you golden waters fall, they bless him.

A golden baptism. Amén.

Cocks stretched; shrunk; thinned, and engorged—

Plump paps propped between her arms; skin tightened wanting to watermelon burst juicy. Pudendal mound sprouting with force its effluent spring forth—she quivered, and filled space as she bellowed in guttural moans. Appetite whet yearned from inside out, walls within walls tinged vibrations rainbowing sensations that sizzled on the coldest of slippery surfaces, like sssssssso.

Aaaahhh.

Smoke swirled iridescent; an aurora borealis ballerina spiraled uncontested, petrichor must damping the room: their light bodies flared, glinting as they bounced from every surface; each life a wave—each wave a synapse.

Their bodies fireworked and nothingness draped over them all.

Bullet train into a beer bottle's broken cosmic purple colored neck,

tender trunk, or stem, whichever, irrelevant if a seed flowers,

for it will wither after the slate's been bleached clean—not a speck





[wywafm]




(kizzy ch






                                                                                                 eese)




of black-yellow fingertips, trying to grab gown; fruits grown sour


right at the immaculate feet at the altar of The Saint.




Ascension: 0 - 5.29; Declination: ♾️ 




from here I see the sun in a noose
                                                               I see              SPACE  &
                                                                                     embrace cold, with my warmth,

and memories play, where we hug, as we cry dust, crystals ripping my tear ducts, 
spouting blue rivers   [wywafm]                             —spun in cotton candied grief—

                           |   Stop staring at my figure hang spinning like a ballerina figurine,
                           | don't dissolve me as if sugar; if a star bucks—I'll take my coffee 
                           | black as the gaze that's haunted this body for the sick kick.
                           | 
down                |
                           | paint bayberry goodbye; the color of berries will tell you
                           | if they'll make a good pie. anything inspired in bayberry's
                           | blue, baby, will sure enrapture and capture the departure
                           | of light from all your dead eyes as hover and flutter inside
                           | your mind's eye.
                           |
                           |
my



face of the Earth
                               raped, gaped and robbed of time to see
                            (minds)     (cataleptic)

to the grave [wywnfm]      

me      see      this pain that's storming galaxies with it's violating   yowl

and so I ascend back the blue river [wywafm]

I finally see it escape myself                                      like cherry chapstick shrugged 
against pain's lips left hollowed.

just smile, sounds trite but try.      C
                                                               O N
                                                              M
                                                         L  E  T' S  PLANT A TREE AND I WILL ALWAYS BE
IN THE AIR YOU BREATHE
AND YOU KNOW THAT TRUE, EVERYTHING IS
                                                                                        INSIDE MY PARABOL

"we could have everything here, you know.
i could give you the world if i wanted,                  [wywafm]
on the whim that you desired it so."

whispered words     t      a         s     a    t     r   l   k    digits rushing skin in a last goodbye
                                         h      t         c    t    e         i    e           

I will visit all of you on Saint's Day.

supernova, you fed off whispered sucrose crystalized from dead tongue

KNOW I CLAW FROM THE OTHER SIDE BLACK BEAR ROAMING, ROARING

FROM THE SKIES

Where you will always find me

Breathe, they say, like air doesn’t drag daggers with it.

What are you doing?

😊 All you have to do is breath, they say, while you’re underwater.

Breathe in—breathe out; you better learn to swim, boy,

words tickling your ears, while you're underwater.

Breathe in—breathe out; think gray and you're body

fills with black noise, while you're underwater. 

All you have to do is what bitch?  All you have to...

breathe in—breathe out, you better swim, they don't give a fuck what you learned

while you're underwater and all those words tickling your ears:

breathe in—breathe out 😊 breathe in—breathe out

breathe in—breathe out breathe in—breathe out 😊 breathe in—breathe out

sound more like:

😊DROWN DROWN DROWN DROWN 😊

😊 DROWN DROWN DROWN DROWN😊

AND YES
                                    (you're still underwater)

DROWN THEM, DROWN THE VOICE

DROWN DOUBT, DROWN THE NOISE

OWN THEIR POWER OWN YOUR VOICE

breathe in—breathe out and

(you’re still underwater)

😊 You want me to be tracing paper transparent as if your eyes were dark pits
not able to tell the crumbling papyrus; tale old as mind.

If one believes mind is all there is, 
                                                                 then
it doesn't matter if you're underwater as long as you have time.

Hey can I rub salt on your wound? I'm a nurse (kind of) [not really]

I mean well 😊 
                            I see you're underwater, and looked at the forecast
and well, hope you like rain 😊 

Don’t pay attention to the pretty packaged smiley headshot clean boot licking bellybuttons, better yet, please don’t yearn to be one.

Self Loathing and Misery walk into a Mirror House Maze.

Misery goes left, which leaves the other to go just right.

THE SHIELDBREAKER SAGA

Introducing 'PABLO, MICHELIN POET'

We here at…whatever the fuck we’re calling ourselves, (un)incorporated, got together a few months ago when one of our own was in a dire situation and tried to use what clout and goodwill we collectively have accumulated on the Stack to put him in a better position to get out of it…

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a year ago · 73 likes · 46 comments · Tom Schecter, Emil Ottoman, Nick Winney, ARC, M.P. Fitzgerald, Luke Warfield, Simpulacra, James Worth, Zivah Avraham, and Zani D

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‘‘Battle brawler | born beast

winged bear | heir of Raven’s

Kingdom strain | rain vengeance

dispel falsness | harness

Father’s truth | pushing forth

breaking bones | own spirit

Yggdrasil | riding free

we will meet | in Valhalla,,

Blinding cold rage binding age old curses to bones de-marrowed of will power’s flame will be your death, deflowered of honor if you stay chained, said both Ravens.

Blinding warm loyalty bound to customs with wax wings won’t fly if you don’t die with honor they say: the grown child. No Ravens.

Covered in sweat and red with dirt smudged trickling down—maroon earth—his face, eyes crazed. Pelt of a wolf or a bear; cool winds shoo between rocks shaped like skulls that won’t break even.

Skies cry scarred. I carry on carrying carrion,

 clarion times if I ride tall mounting the stallion

said Passion was marred, by mundane monotony

prodded muse sparked a new inventive cosmogony

Oh, permit this skald to pierce the air in tension
of everything bleeding was
A chant that scalds with rhythm and intension
to lull death

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‘‘When I look in the mirror all I see is what’s not there; clawing back.

When I scream all I hear’s silence from the words I don’t say.

In pain find, and mine: diamond bones fractured; no comeback

one might shoot and not a falling star—

Canlight the sky.

Pour it, now it’s churning porridge, yes;

thicken heaven galaxies clotted in hell, it’s all grit.

Rich and horrid when bursting the sunyolk humorous thin filmskin

setting bright on their forehead at the other end of life’s sight projected.

Mirror the warm reflection shadow shrouded white in forget the baby cradle coconut cracked open spilled head smile. Streaming red-rain out the ears backwardsfrontrunning sideways with both feet snatched two smoke pits humming. Tender little knuckles floated in the brothy puzzle oily piece rancid maze meat soup hurled like knives to your face so don’t scream or cry or laugh and go walk off the cliff it’s your carnival anyway so celebrate like they cheered for you or don’t and the reason is that never happened.

Rotten putrid mangoes bleeding succor in their giving of flesh to gnats.

Candyfloss roulette inside the carrousel having corded tight all flaws

that light scares off when unbinding all shadows and their bottomless roaring pit.

Inured to suffering.

Clawing back when I look in the mirror the cold reflection

shadow gone black uncovered starts

streaming blue out the baby’s eyes inside

the cradle, their tender little knuckles furled

to the touch of falling skies.

Sugar spun rot carnival where they go

backwards front running sideways on their hands.,,

                                                                           G 
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N                                                                        I
U                                                                       N
R                                                                       N
E      S U G A R  S P U N  R  O T                  U
D     U                                      B A C K W A R D S
        F                                      S
        F                                      O
        E                                      L                               K
        R                                      E                       T E N D E R 
        R                                      T                              U
        I                                        E                              C
        N                                                                       K
        G                                                                        L
                                                                                   E 
                                                                                   S

THE SHIELDBREAKER SAGA

Introducing 'PABLO, MICHELIN POET'

We here at…whatever the fuck we’re calling ourselves, (un)incorporated, got together a few months ago when one of our own was in a dire situation and tried to use what clout and goodwill we collectively have accumulated on the Stack to put him in a better position to get out of it…

Read more

a year ago · 69 likes · 45 comments · Tom Schecter, Emil Ottoman, Nick Winney, ARC, M.P. Fitzgerald, Luke Warfield, Simpulacra, James Worth, Zivah Avraham, and Zani D

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TOOG TOOG TOOG SAHUR

ganta manikou

Drip a demonic deluge in delirium doused robes, o Devil slurps you clean.

TOOG TOOG TOOG SAHUR ganta manikou

Draped open chest—tear nipples off flesh—not before necks twist—knees dropped—in delirium doused robes, o Devil slurps you clean.

TOOG TOOG TOOG SA

HUR ganta manikou

Dip digits deep in dewy drow depth drawn; draw dotted i(s) in delirium doused robes, o Devil slurps you clean.

TOOG TOOG TOOG                        SA               manikou
                                                                    HUR  ganta

Dredged body in silt return to worms feast in delirium doused robes, o Devil slurps you clean.

TOOG TOOG TOOG SAHUR ganta manikou

“Entangle the body in shadows robe it in roses black petals turned silk,

wrest asunder the heart off your foul cage drain all your blood then sell it as milk,,

"Open, either your heart, or eyes

 Is there a difference if both are blind?

Grab a scalpel, trace around your scalp a line 

babies bodies bloating under sun aligned,,

"old gods waiting on their mortal rotting  prey
Pray this chant and sacrifice keeps them at bay,
 Away to seek a way to see the light in the End of Days.
 Raze ground to scorch the Earth— ,,

The last lines of the scripture were found illegible, as if chipped off from the slab rock. Not long after the discovery of the site where the relics where found, those whose eyes read the scripture, have all gone in one way or another, in a psychotic outbreak.

The last incident being that of Sicca Martell, mother of four, who bashed her infants head with a bat, in presence of her other surviving children.

THE SHIELDBREAKER SAGA

Introducing 'PABLO, MICHELIN POET'

We here at…whatever the fuck we’re calling ourselves, (un)incorporated, got together a few months ago when one of our own was in a dire situation and tried to use what clout and goodwill we collectively have accumulated on the Stack to put him in a better position to get out of it…

Read more

a year ago · 67 likes · 45 comments · Tom Schecter, Emil Ottoman, Nick Winney, ARC, M.P. Fitzgerald, Luke Warfield, Simpulacra, James Worth, Zivah Avraham, and Zani D

Subscribe now