Jet Car

This part is true:
And we’re in a hotel room but we’re in separate beds, and I can see her lying down across the canyon between beds that might as well be impossibly deep and wide but I don’t care. I’ll be Evel Kneivel and I’ll ride a bicycle or motorcycle or jet-car over the gap and crash in a huge fireball that could be a raging inferno or could be her crushing blue eyes. Either way she’ll put out the fire, smother my smoldering wreck in her open palms, smoke trickling through her fingers, and I’ll be taken to the hospital and condemned to bed rest, so that I can recover and heal and try to jump the canyon again because this is what I do and this is what I will do until someday or somenight I’ll make the jump and land and will be welcomed with cheers and praise and most importantly an open heart that is really all I ever wanted to begin with.


Uhhh, yeah. What was the name of the wine I was drinking?

Electricity

This part isn't true:
I think I want to have my heart broken. That way, I can always be falling in love. I think I’m addicted to that feeling you get when you think about someone you want. That electric rush, all excitement and desire and passion. And you want her, you want her so bad your heart beats irregularly and your blood becomes liquid electricity even though you’re just lying in bed. The brief moment of weightlessness before you fall back to Earth. All that matters is the quiet touch of her glistening lips and fingers drawn across her naked back. Legs interlocked and the faint smell of her hair that you use to tickle her slender neck. Every time you exhale you want to fill the empty space in your lungs with her scent, her breath. There is a hole in your chest and it creates a vacuum that draws in air and energy and if you don’t feel her skin on your skin your body will cave in on itself. The contrast of her dark hair on the white pillow case is most noticeable at night, when the only sound is the rustle of sheets as they rise and fall with each effortless breath she takes. Crisp autumn air pours through the cracked window and you can’t tell if your hairs are standing on end because of the cold or the electricity between bodies. She is on her side and the sheets rest at the summit of her hips, a single finger whispers lines of latitude up her meridians, following epicurean topography. I think about her clothes on the floor, how her jeans seemed to melt off her body, how her shirt slid over her head in one flawless motion, how her bra came off like turning a page in a book.

Another fragment of the novel. I need to find another word for "electric."

Hard Boiled (full)

The name’s Smith. I’m a cop. I’m not though. Actually, I’m a lawyer. Not a particularly good one, either. The cop line is just something I say to pick up women. I finish rolling a cigarette and place it between my lips, scanning the dim bar for my next victim. Her eyes catch me through the haze of conversation and cigarette smoke and I know I’ve found what I’m looking for. I weave my way in and out of the mass of people gathered in the room until I’m standing next to her. I light my cigarette, take a drag.
“The name’s Smith. I’m a cop,” I say, letting the smoke float out of my mouth.
***
At work I’m assigned a big case by my boss. I browse through the manilla folder containing all the details. The defendant’s name is Peter Quistgard. He's thirty-four years old. He’s been charged with three counts of murder. I continue to flip through the assorted documents and photos in the folder until I find a picture of the first victim. It's a picture taken before her autopsy. She's naked, spread out on a metal table. Her dark brown hair is splayed around her slender shoulders. Three inch long gash on the right side of her stomach. I know this woman. I killed her.
I notice that she is drinking water.
“Don’t drink?” I ask.
“No. Don’t like the taste,” she replies.
“Oh, that’s good. Keep that liver healthy.”
It takes longer than I expect to get her to come home with me. It would’ve been much easier if I could have drugged her, but she’d have been a little suspicious only drinking water. Whatever the case, she’s in my bedroom now. She’s on her back, her shirt peeled off. I’m on my hands and knees, hovering over her. I lean down and kiss her neck, strands of my hair tickling her face. I kiss my way down her body, stopping at her stomach. She exhales, grabs my shoulders and tries to push me farther down. I nibble at the soft flesh a few inches to the left of her navel. She tries to suppress a giggle. I push away from her, lean back onto my knees. It's very dark in the room but I know she's frowning.
“Why did you stop?”
I don’t say anything.
“Smith?”
“Sorry, I’ll be right back.” I slither off the bed and walk to the kitchen. I retrieve a steak knife from the silverware drawer.
“Hurry up,” she says, the volume of her voice dampened by the distance between bedroom and kitchen.
“I’m coming,” I say. I return to the bedroom.
“Mmm, there you are. What’s next?” Her voice is liquid, oozing sex.
“Next, I’m going to eat your liver.” I close the door behind me and move towards the bed.
***
I finger through more documents until I find a picture of the second victim. She too is on a metal examination table. Unlike the other girl, this one is clothed and face down. Long auburn hair drawn back into a pony tail, hanging limply to one side of her head. Large patch of blood around a hole in her otherwise white t-shirt. I look at the hole in her shirt and know that her left kidney is missing.
I don’t have to drug this one. She is more than willing. In fact, she can’t get back to my place fast enough. I let her in and she immediately goes to the couch, lays down on her back. She grabs my jacket and pulls me close, trying to get me on top of her.
“Roll over,” I tell her. She bites her lower lip and obeys. I slide over her, my right hand clutching the knife I had in my jacket.
“Wait, shouldn’t I take my clothes off?” She asks. I respond by plunging the knife into her side. She screams but I push her face into the couch cushion. I jerk the knife in and out of the wound and soon enough she stops struggling. When I’m sure she’s dead I withdraw the knife and walk to the kitchen. I chop a potato and cut a carrot into slices, then toss them both into a pan of water on the stove. While the water comes to a boil I debate which seasonings to use.
***
Before I get to the picture of the third victim I already know what I’ll find. Blonde hair. Black dress. Green eyes. I know the eyes won’t be in the picture though. I cut them out and boiled them three days ago.
I finish looking through the documents in the folder and toss it down on my desk. In the top right drawer is a plastic bag with two emerald green eyes in it. I take the bag out of the drawer, open it, place one of the moist spheres in my mouth. With my tongue I roll the eye against the roof of my mouth, then push it against the back of my teeth until it ruptures and squeezes through the gaps. The viscous mass slides easily down my throat.
A legal assistant knocks on my door. I put the bag back in the drawer and close it.
“Come in,” I say. The assistant opens the door and steps inside my sparsely furnished office. She is very attractive, dressed in a dark grey sport coat and short skirt that reveals just enough of her slim legs to be both sexy and classy.
“Mr. Smith?”
“Yes?”
“They’re ready for you to talk with Mr. Quistgard.”
“I see. Thank you.”
When she leaves I take the remaining eye out of the drawer, toss my head back and pop the eye into my mouth like a piece of candy. I’m still chewing as I walk out of my office towards the elevator.
***
“The name’s Smith. I’m a lawyer,” I say. Peter looks up at me, his hands bound in metal cuffs.
“Yeah?” he says.
“I’m here to take your statement. Do you have anything to say about all this?” I ask.
“I didn’t do it. I swear. I didn’t do it!”
“I know,” I say. “I believe you.”



I don't think I captured the noir theme very well, and it might be a little short. Perhaps it is a bit too similar to the last story as well, but that's what you get and you will like it, love it.

--EDIT--
This is the current revision of the story. Didn't really change anything, just chopped out bits of sentences here and there, to make the whole thing more noir. Or something to that effect. The conclusion is that the natural voice I tend towards is a little too verbose for noir. That's a shame--I strive to be as concise as possible. Hemmingway FTW!

Eleven

Regarding today's date:

"Why don't you just make ten louder, and have ten be the highest?"

"These go to eleven."

Hard Boiled

The name’s Smith. I’m a cop. I’m not though. Actually, I’m a lawyer. Not a particularly good one, either. The cop line is just something I say to pick up women. I finish rolling a cigarette and place it between my lips, scanning the dim bar for my next victim. Her eyes catch me through the haze of conversation and cigarette smoke and I know I’ve found what I’m looking for. I weave my way in and out of the mass of people gathered in hazy room until I’m standing next to her. I light my cigarette, take a drag.
“The name’s Smith. I’m a cop,” I say, letting the smoke float out of my mouth.



Another one in the works. This one is for a class genre project, wherein everyone was randomly assigned a genre and character. Mine happened to be lawyer noir. The girl next to me was lucky enough to get zombie western. The poor chap next to her was stuck with animal erotica. Anyway, I've been brewing the basic concept of this story for a few weeks prior to the assignment, and am struggling to fit it within the restraints of the project. Regardless, I'm pretty excited about the plot of this one, which will be revealed through further postings.

Ricochet

This part is true:
Around five in the afternoon I decide to take a nap. I spread a blue fleece blanket over the speckled, gray couch apolstery and lay down. I don’t feel very tired, but I keep my eyes closed, knowing that eventually the sleepiness will come. It’s some time before it does. I settle into the comfortable feeling of being awake enough to know that I’m about to fall asleep. Then I hear an oscillating, high-pitched whine from outside my window. It doesn’t ever stop, but the volume fluctuates, indicating the source of the sound is moving. I come to the conclusion that a neighbor from across the cul-de-sac must have a remote controlled car. The noise it makes is very irritating, but I keep my eyes closed, holding out for payoff of sleep. Instead I am rewarded with a half-conscious memory of my childhood.
At some point between third and fifth grade I had an RC car. I think it was called Ricochet or something along those lines. The body of the car was very slim and the the tires were very thick, so that you could flip the car on either side and it would still drive. You could toss the car however you wanted and it would always land in a drivable orientation. I remember one hazy summer evening my neighbor and I walked across the street from our houses to our elementary school, both of us driving our Ricochets. He walked up the fire-escape staircase of the main building and tossed his car onto the roof of a connected building. He piloted his Ricochet off the roof. It landed on a sidewalk and he proceeded to drive it into the gravel playground.

A brief excerpt from the novel, currently called Episodes of Sunshine. To be clear, my intention is not to write a novel, but I must for class. What better way to fill up 40,000 words than vaguely fictionalizing everyday from the beginning of the semester to the end? I'm also inserting essays, stories, and poems into the novel, to take up space. Don't look for it at your local bookstore, it won't be there. But I do like this passage, for sentimental reasons.

The Digital Environment

Back in my bathtub of sound, depressing computer keys beyond the keyboard, through the desk and into some dark realm of space and wet heat, with very nice resistance on the fingers. Can't even feel them (keys) moving, really, just the hard tap (fingers). Keep that in mind, folks.

I think the auditory and physical aspects of typing are very important. I prefer typing on a laptop; I think the keys make a far more pleasing sound than those on a standard keyboard. However, I don't feel like I can really type hard on laptop keys without breaking the whole machine. A typewriter would be preferred, but that would involve a lengthy transferring process from paper landscapes to the digital environment. I'm not against simple pen and paper, provided the pen is a high quality roller ball, heavy in weight, fine tipped (.07 is a touch big, .05 a bit small--someone should make a .06) and with uninterupted, flowing, black ink. But mind is faster than hand and I can never keep up, when involved in serious wording. What to do, what to do.

Also, I'll call myself out on the semicolon above. Dab.

Hand Lines

Bones in my wrist broken like little gears metal on metal,
calcified

*

An incubated frail limb nursery

*

Grainy scratches of flesh under a fingernail--
articulated manifestations of desire

*

Lines of skin road mapped on my palm

*

Palmtop hairs standing on end, electrified,
tremors / trembling

*

Swollen lips pinked at the touch of feather tip fingers


*

Underground blood vessels pulsed with fingered precision,
over in a heart beat

Hungry

I sit in her apartment and wait.
Wait for her to come home so I can push my fingers into her supple skin,
penetrate smooth-glass surface, peel back each layer and wrap my fingers
around her pulsing liver.

I’d pull it out, take a small bite,
feel its warm rubber texture around my teeth as they tear into it,
tongue the piece of liver to the back of my mouth,
slowly mash it with molars, then let it melt down my throat.

Her blood is black viscous seeping between fingers still clutched around her,
I squeeze until pieces of liver ooze through the gaps and fall
like dark raindrops onto her naked chest.

When I open my hand little bits of liver stick to my skin.
I plunge back into the warm void of her abdomen
up to my wrist, my elbow and I know she can feel me searching
for that spot, that one spot where her pancreas used to be
before I took that too.

Treefingers

Barren trees mourn fallen leaves,
their empty branches snake into the sky like blood vessels.
Roots, deep, wormed through dirt like buried telephone wires.
They communicate through crackling lines,
dry voices tongue smoke down throat:

We like you, like your body.
Like the idea of your body in our arms,
your lips
your eyes
your breasts
and the subtle curve of denim around your ass,
suspended from our fingers.


My apologies to Radiohead, but I needed a title. I think this definitely needs more, perhaps an image of pieces of a person hanging from tree branches instead of leaves. Or is that image implied well enough? I wonder...

Ghost Coffee

I sit on my couch, watching television, admiring the way the fabric of my new pants drapes over my legs, which are stretched out and propped up on the coffee table. The blood spots are a bit conspicuous, but they should wash out. Good pants are hard to find. I try to explain this to Madeline. She tells me I’m crazy. I tell her she’s just a ghost and what would she know about good pants anyway. She gets upset and disappears. Stupid ghosts, I say, always leaving when there’s an argument.
I get up from the couch and walk into the kitchen, smiling at the way the pants hang from my hips. They really are perfect. The legs are short enough that the cuff doesn’t drag on the ground, but long enough that they don’t expose my ankles when I sit down or walk up stairs. Their color exists somewhere between gray and black. I’ve taken to calling them soft black. The zipper is very satisfying, and the button is a shallow concave disc with a pale orange ring printed on it, for contrast. I open the refrigerator. There isn’t much inside, just a half-full half-gallon carton of milk, three eggs, a brand new jar of raspberry jelly, and a metal water bottle. Madeline appears, standing behind the open refrigerator door. Look at you, she says, Mr. Trendy. How much did that cost you? I grab the water bottle and close the door. I say I didn’t buy it, I stole it. She rolls her eyes. She asks me if I’m going to steal cat food too or am I going to let them starve. I explain to her that you don’t need to feed ghost cats, but she’s disappeared again. I take a drink of water, then open the refrigerator and put the bottle back.
I’m so happy with the pants that I decide to sleep in them. That should ensure their molding to my form, for the perfect fit. I toss and turn for an hour before deciding to take the pants off. Sleeping in clothes is always awkward. The two ghost cats are sleeping on either side of my legs and I worry about disturbing them while I try to worm out of the pants. Then I remember that they are ghost cats and that even if they were real cats they probably sleep enough as it is. I kick the pants off the side of the bed and go to sleep.
* * *
My alarm goes off at 9:30 and at 9:34 I roll out of bed and slide into the pants. The ghost cats are chasing each other through my apartment. I walk into the bathroom and am halfway through brushing my teeth before I remember the blood spots. I finish brushing my teeth and take off the pants. I put the section of the pants occupied by the blood spots under the tap and turn on hot water. I take my toothbrush and scrub the pants. Madeline walks into the bathroom. She is wearing a black bra and tiny black shorts. Her shoulder length black hair is pulled into a pony tail. I wouldn’t use that toothbrush anymore, she says. You don’t use any toothbrushes anymore, I say. I ask her why she’s dressed the way she is. She says that’s what she sleeps in. I tell her she doesn’t sleep. You’re right, she says, I just like teasing you. Sorry to disappoint, Maddie, but it isn’t working, I say. I’m lying, of course. Madeline is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, alive or dead. Except, maybe, the pants. I turn the faucet off and use a small hand towel to dry the pants. I put the pants on and look at myself in the mirror above the sink. Madeline stands next to me and puts her hand on my shoulder. It’s cold. Are you sure, she asks. I say yes, now I’m going to work, and ask her if I’ll see her later. She says sure, whatever.
* * *
I get to work at 10:03. Three minutes late. Not that it matters. My shift overlaps Ricky’s by fifteen minutes, and there is rarely enough business at the 24-Hour EZ Copy to necessitate two employees. Especially at 10:03 on a Friday night. I say hi to Ricky and walk into the back room. I clock in and put on my orange employee apron. I hate wearing it. I don’t understand why a name tag won’t suffice. This particular shade of orange does not go well with the pants, I think. I leave the back room and walk to the Island. The Island is where the cash register is. It sits in the middle of the room like the North Pole, surrounded on all sides by icebergs of office machinery. I tell Ricky he can leave now and that I’ll clock him out at 10:15. He says thanks, and tells me my pants look good. Thanks, I say, have a good night. Ricky takes off his apron, wads it up and tosses it behind the counter. Peace out, he says. The door makes an electronic ding when he leaves. I sit in the tall office chair behind the Island’s counter, my feet propped up next to the register.
At 10:15 I get up, grab Ricky’s apron and walk to the back room. I hang his apron up and run his time sheet through the machine. I hear the electronic ding of the front door and walk into the main room. Hello, I ask. I don’t see or hear anybody. Hello, I ask again. I weave through the copiers and printers and laminators, but I still don’t see anyone. I make my way back to the Island and stand on the counter. Hello? I heard the door bell, I say. A deep voice erupts behind me. Nice pants, it bellows. I nearly fall off the counter spinning around to face the voice. It belongs to Mike. Mike is a ghost. I don’t really like Mike, but at least he keeps me company some nights. I step down off the counter. Mike says, no, really, nice pants, and asks where I got them. You don’t want to know, I reply, but thanks anyway. I really like the way the legs maintain their shape. He looks at me and his eyes tell me he doesn’t really care, that he was just being polite. What do you want, Mike, I ask. Oh, nothing, I was just going to tell you I can’t hang out tonight, I’ve got places to be, he says. You’re a ghost, I say, what places could you possibly have to be. Well, not here, he replies. I was looking forward to having someone to talk to tonight, so I tell him he should stay for a bit. He asks why don’t I talk to Madeline. I tell him I don’t know where she is. That’s a shame, he says, then asks if the two of us have ever fucked. She’s a ghost, I say. So, he replies, and disappears.
No one comes into the store until 2:36. I am sitting in the office chair at the Island, browsing through random papers that customers have left in the trash, when I hear the electronic ding. I look up from the papers and see a man walk in. He is in his mid-twenties and roughly my height. I nod at him and go back to my papers, keeping an eye on him while he navigates the store. He stops at a copy machine and fishes through his black backpack, removing a thick set of papers. I wait for him to set to copying before I return my attention to the papers in front of me. After a few minutes he walks up to the Island. Excuse me, he says, the machine is out of paper. I tell him I’ll be right with him. He is walking back to the copier when I notice his pants. The are the same soft black color as mine, but the fabric they are made of looks much nicer, much softer. I grab a ream of paper from under the counter and follow him back to the copier. Along the way I ask him why he’s making copies so late. Homework, he says. I want to ask him more, but he doesn’t seem like he wants to talk. I replenish the copier with three hundred brand new sheets of Imperial White paper. There you go, I say, all set. He says thanks, already starting the copier again. I tell him he has nice pants. He looks up from the copier, clearly taken off guard by my statement. No, really, nice pants, I say. He hesitates, then says thank you. He opens the lid of the copier and places a new piece of paper on the glass. I look at his pants and notice how the cuff at the ankle rests on his shoes. I ask him what waist size he is. He looks up from the copier again, trying to mask his discomfort. Uhhh, thirty-two, he says. Perfect. I lurch forward and grab his neck with my left hand and his hair with my right. I slam his head down onto the glass surface of the copy machine. I hold his head there with my right while my left reaches for the lid. He is so surprised that he doesn’t have time to react before I mash the lid down on his head. I snake my right hand out from between the two pieces of the machine and firmly grasp his right shoulder. He’s making all sorts of spurting, sucking sounds through his bleeding, broken nose. I push down harder on the lid and twist his shoulder upwards until I hear a satisfying crack and I’m sure his neck is broken.
* * *
I get off work at 6:30 and drive straight home, thinking about how much better these pants are than the others. I was right, the fabric is much softer, more supple. The ghost cats are waiting for me at the door when I open it at walk into my apartment. Madeline is there, too, sitting on the couch. She is wrapped up in an old yellow blanket I’ve had since I was a boy. When she hears me come in the door she stands up, letting the blanket fall to the floor. Light from the morning sun filters through closed blinds and reflects off her naked body. She walks towards me. I open my mouth to ask her what she is doing, but she puts a cold finger to my lips until I close them. She walks away, towards my room. When she gets to the door she turns and looks at me. You’re just a ghost, I say. She smiles, says so, and walks into my room. I follow her and close the door, leaving the ghost cats to chase each other.
* * *
I wake up an hour before my alarm because I am cold. I wonder if I left the window open before I realize that I’m cold because Madeline is sleeping next to me. I steal a long glance at her smooth form, admiring her subtle curves before I crawl out of bed, slip on the new pants and t-shirt and walk into the living room. I pick up the yellow blanket off the floor. I notice that it smells vaguely of Madeline. I fold it and put it back on the couch. I slip on my sneakers and head out to my car.
I meet Jeff every Thursday before work at a coffee shop near the EZ Copy. He is sitting at a small table when I walk in the door. I wave at him while I stand in line. I order a cappuccino and sit down. We exchange greetings. Jeff asks me if I got new pants. I reply yes, just last night. I ask him if he likes them. He says they are damn fine pants and I agree with him. The barista is looking at me, quite puzzled because she doesn’t see Jeff, she only sees me, talking to what she thinks is thin air. I ignore her and continue to talk to Jeff. Jeff is lonely. He doesn’t get along well with the other ghosts. That’s why I meet him here every week, so that he’ll have someone to talk to. I genuinely like Jeff, but most of the reason I feel obligated to keep him company is because his situation is partly my fault. The ghost part, that is, not the lack of social interaction with the others. That’s his own doing.
Jeff asks me about Madeline. I tell him that we had sex. He asks me what it was like and I say it was cold and distant. I am about to tell him that she didn’t disappear afterwards, that she actually stayed, but I’m distracted by someone walking into the shop. It’s the guy from last night. He looks around the room until he spots me. Motherfucker, he yells, and marches towards our table. Jeff looks at me, worried. The pants, I say, and Jeff relaxes a little. The guy arrives at our table and pounds his fists down on top of it. Hey, calm down, I say. Have a seat. He looks at me, then at Jeff. Jeff excuses himself and disappears. Really, sit down, I say. The guy picks his fists off the table and takes Jeff’s abandoned seat. Mike told me I’d find you here, he seethes through clenched teeth. I take a sip of my cappuccino. I ask him what his name is. He replies Eric. Eric, I say, I’m sorry and I know you’re mad, but I assure you that you’ll get over it. Eric gives me an incredulous look. I ask him to just listen for a minute and explain to him that I’m sorry I killed him, but that I needed the pants and I hope we can work it out and become friends. He pushes away from the table, stands up and walks out the store silently.
A minute later Jeff reappears. Well, how’d that go, he asks. I say not well, but I’m not worried about it. Yeah, he’ll come around, eventually, Jeff adds. They usually do, I say. I tell Jeff I have to go now, and that I’ll see him next week. I finish my cappuccino and go to work, content with loose but not baggy fit of the pants.

Defense of Execution

"He has think skin."

"You mean he can take a joke?"

"No, I mean his skin is really thick. You'll need a bigger knife."

Snake, Typewritten

We must move quietly. Stay low to the ground, man. Hands and knees are necessary, to be sure. Hunch over the keyboard, placed on the ground. Focus only on the keys, not the screen. A typewriter would be a more critically useful tool at the moment. Machine-gun punctuation.
*
Cats loom over the bed like, owls? Something that looms, menacingly. Little marble eyes reflecting my terror.
*
You’d think his fortress would be delicious, but it’s actually quite dangerous.
*
Now there are two of them, looming. Menacing me into the corner. I will escape under the bed. Freedom/Victory is only a crawl away. Now, if only I could fit. Need to be something like seven inches tall to get through these parts.
*
Pull the blanket down over you. Make your cave of bass sounds. Perhaps there are some Oreos in the refrigerator that need attending? Perhaps there are several tasty delinquents locked up in the refrigerator's iron-bar belly.
*
Slink away from the keyboard, or screen, rather. It’s can’t know you’re here. “Don’t mind my hands. They are just typing. They are alone in this caper; Special Forces acting in guerilla typeface."
*
I smell peanut butter. My god, what doesn’t smell like peanut butter? I am the peanut butter Keeper. You must go through me, should you want a spoonful or so.
*
I’m pretty sure various shadows are becoming cats. When I look they know to act like shadows, but when I don’t look they creep, menace. When they open their eyes and look at you, you know you’re in trouble. Acknowledgment, in this case, means instant death. No way out of it this time. Maybe if you had a horse.
*
I am positive there are Oreos that need to be eaten. What good do they do in their package? They are not fulfilling their destiny when they are not eaten. I must eat them, to complete them. To complete the circle. One needs purpose, and they are chock full of that. Now, time to make their purpose realized.
*
Forgot about those fans. Now we have battery power, though the lights are off. It makes it easier to avoid the fans.
*
It’s getting very loud now, but I don’t want to relinquish the volume. I’d have to fill its place, yeah? Might as well be with good volume, controlled volume. Maybe we should Dance? Or return to the refrigerator? But I’ve had so much chicken.
*
Will me phone vibrate with text messages proclaiming great love and willingness to copulate? God, I hear it vibrating, but it doesn’t move. I’m the one doing the vibrating, here.
*
I remembered where the peanut butter is, I’VE FOUND ITS CASTLE! I’m letting this happen.
*
How can I hope to explain, then? Relationships become too magnetic. Magnetic in the sense that it takes great effort to separate. I push my head into the side of the bed, expecting to make contact, but instead I keep leaning until I’ve become a snake eating its tail underwater.

Too Much Blood

I have too much blood so I bleed.
I bleed blood like syrup,
blood like melted wax,
blood like butter,
blood like a subway train under my fingernails.


Title=teh suck. Short, pointless, fulfilling assigments. I think I've used some variation of 'melted wax' in something like 37% of the poems I've written in the last year.

Man on the Moon

When I go to the moon, it’s alone.
Pale oceans, all white rocks, alone.

When I go to the moon I fly there,
my apartment the vessel,
one hallway like the link between
command modules.

When I go to the moon it’s cold.
When I go to the moon I’m not sleeping.

Atmosphere burns past my windows,
casts pink glow on living room control pannels;
television screens and radios.
Color evaporates,
pin-prick stars shine through the dark curtain.

When I go to the moon it doesn’t take long.
When I go to the moon it’s quiet.

When I go to the moon it’s my apartment,
exposed lonesome walls,
lights like ceiling suns suspended.
Vaccumed silent.