nomnom

i don’t have friends, only people
whom i eat with
and people who read my poems

sometimes they overlap
and then you get people who eat your poems
also known as cockroaches.

nailbiters: a triptych (story ideas three)

1.

phinneas can’t stop biting his nails. he’d been granted eternal life at some point, he can’t really remember these things. in between the two or so hours he spends each time biting his nails, everything is a gray mist. in this manner, phinneas whiles away a good part of ten years, then twenty, then fifty, then a hundred. history unfolds and humanity unspools as he sits in a shady spot, gnawing at his fingers. given enough time, he could think up solutions for all the problems of the world, but he arrives at these at least two years late on average (he constructs a world without poverty in his head, two weeks after the last person on the african continent dies). and anyway, he’s too busy biting his nails.
he couldn’t tell you why he does it. he just has to.

2.

it all started when natalie decide to bite her nails. it gave her something to do, during those stultifying periods of boredom in the orphanage. at first, it was fun, amusing, refreshingly trivial.
but soon that didn’t quite do it for her anymore. the feeling just wasn’t there. that was when she moved on to peeling dry skin off her arms. still harmless, and that sweet split-second twinge of pain that came at the end was addictive.
but she tired of even that, after a time. so she started plucking out tufts of her hair. the instant of pain and pleasure was now concentrated in the most miniscule of miniseconds, and her room soon filled with black strands, like a barber’s parlor.
but she got bored of that rather quickly. so she ripped off the chapped skin on her lips.
and then she started rubbing her tongue against the tips of her teeth so it would become swollen and ulcerated.
and then she began to stand in the cold winter until her facedried up, and then yawned until the edges of her mouth ripped apart.
and then she started to grind and knock her teeth together, until they were loosened.
and then she started to use her fingers to twist. her gums ran red and her dress was covered with shards of ivory and clotted blood.
and then she bought bottles of vinegar and downed two at a time, every night. after rubbing her maw with coarse salt.
finally, she went back to biting her nails, which had become quite long.

3.

have you ever tried biting your toenails? it’s a very difficult process. if you aren’t careful, bits of skin come flying off. but once you master it, it’s very hard to stop. see, the good thing is no one actually notices, unless you walk around barefoot (you freak), so they can’t judge you or anything.
it might be a good idea to wash your feet first. gangrene of the mouth is no joke.

friendship is like a lake

we all want to drink from it until someone takes a crap in there when he’s drunk.

Story ideas part two

A HIV-positive boy has made a deal with the Devil (and not with his antipode, for reasons unknown) for one more night alive. He spends it on the boardwalk of a harbor overlooking the ocean, thinking about nothing in particular as his life force slowly melts into moths flying towards the rising sun.

base notes of musk and wood

when the water hits my perfumed neck it sends wispy whiffs of vanilla and vetiver into the evening air.

you could have said something,

but you didn’t. it’s awfully quiet now, but shut up.

Story ideas, part one

In the interests of true equality, the various governments and regimes of the world have engaged in individuality repression. Everyone wears white, impermeable, opaque bodysuits that conceal from head to toe, and voices are filtered through a device that makes everyone speak with the intonation and enunciation of bullfrogs. Identities are eliminated, and no one truly knows his or her name, and has no idea who anyone else is.

A nameless protagonist (or protagonists, for it is never made clear that the character starting a new chapter is the same person who ended the previous one) journeys through a nameless city, and at its center finds an igloo. His contemplations on the igloo, and his experiences as he walks in, redefine his perceptions of the world. In the end, he (or she) is driven to depression and suicide; and since identities have been conflated, the only death he can comprehend is the death of the whole system.

He is discovered, tried, placed into a self-sustaining pod and launched into space, where he spends the rest of his life trying to come to grips with this new isolation.

The presence of the igloo is never fully explained.

what i have is a foul thing and must be thrown away

Surely I’ve seen you before; you’ve been slithering in through my window on moonless nights, pouring seductive despondencies into my ear.

apologies and confessions for about half a dozen or more people

1. I will never admit it, but I was wrong. But I will admit that I will never admit it. But I was wrong.

2. I want to see what’s under that porcelain mask.

3. We’re running out of things to say. When we do, you’ll finally be free of me, and I of you. I think I can’t wait. I think I am sad.

4. On dark days your mind is as brittle and enigmatic as can be. I will never be able to get in. That’s why I like pounding on the door.

5. You and I are like Moby Dick and Captain Ahab. It’s love-hate-obsession-Iwanttospearyouandcutyouup, minus the human/beast homoerotic undertones. I’m not sure which I am. (You’re probably the whale)

6. We’ve finally realized just how mercenary we can be.

7. I’m sorry we can’t understand each other anymore, and I’m sorry that you realize this and still want to try. I’m not sorry that I still want to try.

8. I have nothing personal against you, but I hope you die.

9. Thank you.

busybusy

I am told I should keep my mind occupied, as a way of forgetting and ameliorating. Most of Asia was occupied in the late 1930s, and I don’t think they forgot anything. Although, maybe they forgot just what they were doing before they were occupied, in which case it worked.
Also, this would seem to suggest that most people with occupations have something to forget. Something that necessitates a lifetime of occupative escapism. Life, maybe. Or lousy home cooking.