Wednesday, June 1, 2011

intimacy


is it gross or wrong i want to date timid girls who smile shyly but always glance at me and look downwards when i stand too close to them on purpose at parties

because i want to smell her breath while i put a leg in between hers and lick her open lips as i hold the side of her tight waist with one hand and the other against the back of her thigh

and that i want to make her cry when i blame her for something she didnt mean to do and tongue kiss her when she tries to push me away on my bed when we argue at night

or that it makes me want to pull her hair backwards and put my hand on her throat with an aroused grin and soft eyes like some sort of wolf because shes angry i cant get hard from not sleeping

but i love it when a cold girl who barely ever smiles with grey eyes shoves her slender fingers in my mouth testing my gag relax with the same look on her face

pulling my short cut and uneven boyish brown hair back starting to breathe heavily as her tits heave up and down drenched with sweat from being fucked all night

while the fan blows facing us both as we stink up the room in the summer on dirty bedsheets and open windows let in the sound of crickets as she spits into my mouth and slaps me

and when she leaves me i cry but if i get her back i will cum in her without a condom and mindlessly infect with chlamydia just because i want to feel the insides again

but i will let her emotionally abuse me for years till i wanna die and squirm on the bathroom floor as long as she climbs back into bed with her tongue hanging out and her crotch moist..

or even when she doesnt

i guess its an eye for an eye

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

snoring vs. puking


walked far downtown
at the door, turned around
knuckle dusters follow us
cut a left and lost the schmucks

drop down a doubleshot
the chaser made my face hot
we undo our collars then
huddle up and smoke pot

we eat food, we lose shit,
i throw up a sandwich,
face on a toilet seat
half-have a violent fit

drink till whenever,
we kept on going later
until we hit a deadend
4 was the time, and,

the sun was coming up too
tommy had an interview,
wasted a night till
the sky fuckin turned blue

9 is the time and
sam's got the bends again,
tommy's straightend up but
his knuckles look all fucked up

stopped past the breakfast club
ordered a bacon sub
five cups of coffee did
absolutely nuh-thing

time to chuck the dummy said
billy with a smashed head
bleeding on a pamphlet
his white shirt was half red

we shuffle out the front door
dirt forming on the floor
the owner looks and shakes her head
and someone whispers "fuckin whore.."

Friday, March 5, 2010

Get Rich or Die Trying


So I sit down and start writing one night after watching a few movies. It's cold outside, I know because I went there to smoke a cigarette, only reason to leave a house am I right? Only other time I ever leave is to buy something to bring back home, food or a wireless internet connector, and other than that I spend my time drinking or hitting that cesspool of a city. Joining the rat race, wearing the right t-shirts, not overdoing things and keeping eyes out for girls. No wonder they don't dig you, or dig most guys, because where's the charm? Where's the difference? All these good-looking, quick-witted slang-heavy guys are total identical twins with the rest of the world. Considering you have 60 seconds or less to make an impression on a girl when you chat her up out of the blue, to sum up the innercore of your personality, drawing out the appealing aspects of yourself is astronomically difficult. And if it doesn't work, well, some might think you don't "click", while others think you're not worth the fuck. As in not worth the time talking to, getting to know, then heading around town searching for a double-sized bed. It's all so hopeless isn't it? How do you do it?

How I try to do it is this. Pick up a pen, start scribbling down, and get 150 pages done by the time I leave college. If I write the right shit, write the right words, maybe I can have my sex appeal trapped in paper and ink, sitting on a shelf for all kinds of girls to pick up. They can get to know me, they can get to fuck me, and I can get to fuck them. Even a relationship isn't such a terrible idea, as long as they don't leave me hanging and cut the life cord. That's been the case one too many times in the past perhaps; I've never been in love but I've had the taste of heartbreak, and the problem is I want more of it, more of those women, and more of getting to understand them to prevent this problem in the future. If I really wanted to prevent any sorta heartbreak I'd go stick my dick in a coffee grinder but oh no it's gotta be everything or nothing. It's this sorta attitude that's gonna get my head stuck in a fucking coffee grinder but as long as I got blood in my veins there isn't much I can do about it. Being a robot is more like it, made of metal and wires sending direct and neutral thoughts throughout your mind via electricity and protons. A monk is the closest thing I can get with my unavoidable destiny as a human being, but even they get embarrassed walking into the ladies bathroom by accident. I've seen it.

Look at a guy like Van Gogh. Cuts his ear off cause he's got no love, lives a life time being rejected for his paintings, and hundreds of years later, when everyone around him is six feet under, my work place gets filled by old tourists with coffee breath who complain about the tuna sandwich. You fucking ordered it, I think, and spend my day shrugging my shoulders so much that my arms are hanging loose like a sock filled with sand. At a cafe in a museum, you get two hipsters a day coming in for a Latte and a date, but as soon as Van Gogh's depression seeps the walls the old spiders come crawling in. These wrinkled fiends emerge from each dark corner in the shadows; suddenly they got something to do aside from playing bowl with rimmed hats and eating chips at the club. A heroin overdose at the ripe age of 50 will do me good if it means I'll end up like them, which is just right around the time my marriage gets sour and we stop having sex. Sex isn't even the problem, fine I'll be infertile if my wife can give me kicks, just hanging around cracking jokes and having a decent time, but if all we're gonna do is wake up go to sleep wake up then count me out motherfuckers I don't want it. And neither do most of us... The legal mortal age should be 50 at max, after that there's the choice of painless overdose or a concentration camp. That'd certainly clean things up.

Van Gogh gets respect now, but what's the damn point? Yeah wow, he left the world with so many masterpieces that will be treasured for years and years by millions of marveling and astonished audiences to come... While his skeletal figure gently weeps in the ground. Still it's true, something's better than nothing, but really, you gotta put it into perspective. If some girl you thought stood you up turned out to be crushed by a car on the way there would that make you feel any better? "Hey, at least my self-confidence was in no way affected! I was gonna buy a train to the otherside of the country but now my life doesn't need to be turned around!"

Woody Allen is an old man, almost completely bald with sprouts of white hair sticking out in spontaneous directions. He marries his step-daughter almost 40 years younger than him but Christ if the world doesn't love him. And if it doesn't, then my knuckledusters are getting a polishing tonight, cause if there's one autobiographical genius he's your man. Either way, some bum leaving down the street from you does the same thing and you'd go around terrorizing the guy. Wait till the teens find out, oh boy, I can almost see the toilet rolls and egg yolk running down his walls every day. Spraying "PEDOPHILE" in big fat letters with red spray paint just cause he's an unusual guy. True, that word may pop up, alongside something like INCEST, but you watch his films and how could you hate him? He plays himself, you know who he is, he's got charm he's got jokes he's got style. He knows what love is, and if he doesn't after making 50 flicks about it then he's blind, deaf and mute (surprise twist), so how can you blame him for marrying his 18 year old step-daughter?

See in this world, no matter what you say or what you want to believe or what you avoid; it's all about self-projection. It's all about the image you got, the show you put on, the lighting in the room and your trimmed fingernails. That's not to say you're in for good once you've captured the moment though; women are easily disappointed people. You gotta keep it up, keep the game going, and once you think the coast is clear start picking your nose and eating it. Not literally, although that's a great idea for an experiment; I meant more so on the "letting the beast out of it's cage" note, without the cliche. Open up and take your clothes off, to see if they like what they see. Conclusively, the easiest way to do that is to write an autobiographical book.

For these reasons I sit infront of a blank screen and wonder what to write. Normally I'm not the type to persevere or not lose my concentration after several one-digit seconds, but walking around town seeing people work is a horrible screamfest of what could be coming. You catch a bus downtown and hand the driver some cash, sit down and zone out and wait until you're out. But the driver, the bus driver, he sits in that same chair all day long. Where you were temporarily sitting killing time bored as hell, that was his goddamn workplace. The smells you smelt, the temperature of the air, the sights you saw on the way; all these timed by eight or nine hours and you get his shift. His day. He gets home, slaps his hat on the coat hanger and sits down to eat his dinner. Hits the showers, hits the hay, then the alarm blares all over again.

Ok, I getcha, there's better jobs than that, but are there really? Any job, any old job where there is no passion to it, no excitement, only the thrill on Saturday when you go down to the bar, eat dinner with your family, get your paycheck in the mail. Like the human race needs a reminder that we're all dying already, right from the get-go, from day one? Sitting in a chair all day long doing something that gives you no joy is going to lead you where? These people could look more alive lying in a coffin than when they're paying the bills, that's for sure. When they're walking the dog, when they're watering the garden, when they do their tie up to play online scrabble in an office block while the phone rings, glancing at your hand-watch for the next cigarette break. Ohhhhhh Jesus.

The thing is, we worry. I for example, worry. Double dose of prozac helps, yet only partially. I got chlamydia and need to get a blood test in three weeks to see if I got HIV. Symptoms include weight-loss, check, skin discolouration, check, and there's some weird lump in my neck that keeps popping up (cancer?). My shrink knows me better than my ex-girlfriends, I cry I puke I lie, and most of all I worry. But Christ if I've got the reasons for it. No chance of pursuing any career other than in the "literate industry", I break my fucking fingers on this keyboard trying to scrap together some concept of a future. It's true that no one knows what's coming, what the future looks like or how it would be, but in my mind it's closer to a blackhole than a cute little box of chocolates. I'm gonna get sucked up into that thing, man! Wouldn't you be shaking in your boots? Hell, I bet you are anyway, but at least your soles aren't cracked...

I sit infront of a finished piece of work... examining the messed up sludge-of-consciousnesses. Too much internal monologue, I think, and crumple up another piece of paper. Way too much internal monologue. What am I gonna do? Do you wanna be a character? I'll give you cool lines. Help me out here, I'm desperate.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Bug's Life


We met outside a restaurant and walked around for a while.
“At least your ass still looks good”, I said when I first saw her.
“You shouldn't say that sorta thing anymore...” she mutters as we walk up the viny road.
We sat down at a bench, dimly lit by a lamppost that projected an ugly white. It was past eleven pm and breezy.

“So how you doing?” she asks, and I turn around to answer.
“I'm on double dose of prozac. Doctor wants to give me more. Can't sit still I'm so happy. ”
It wasn't unlike her to detect the sarcasm in my voice and she was quick to make a remark.
“Don't fucking pin this on me! You didn't think of how limp your dick would be after having sex with that hooker in Thailand, did you?”
“Well there's a variety of ways I could answer that question..”
Cutting me off she slaps me in the face and stands up.
“You didn't think I'd be so fucking mean to you did you? Huh? Mr. Bigshot Hotshot I Took Her Virginity She Won't Leave Me Because I'm Better Than Her? Mr. I Fuck Around And Don't Suffer The Consequences Because I'm an Existential Writer Who Looks At Things From His Own Little Outside Stupid Fucking World!? Well news-fucking-flash Phoenix now you got nothing! Cards on the table, empty pockets, it's done, I'm gone, it's finished!”
I guess I didn't have much of a choice but to watch her lips move as she talked, and covered my face with my arms from time to time whenever she started wailing her arms around. When the tirade was over and her pretty face walked away, I thought “well, that's what you get for getting your dick caught in a Thai vending machine.” She didn't care if it was pure business, she only cared that I fucked another girl.

The relationship was dysfunctional from the get-go to say the least; fingered her on the first date, fucked her on the third and it all seemed more like a two-month-long fuck around than anything real or committed. That's why when I fucked another girl and asked mine if she cared, all unexpected hell broke loose. Two weeks later I found myself with a hand full of flowers and a dick full of HIV (this was not actually the case but it had been itching and burning like an infected mosquito bite. The penis guy at the hospital gave me the thumbs up though, thank Christ). I found myself standing on the corner with a piece-of-shit grin, clutching my presents for her.

We tried it for a long week and that didn't work; we fucked on every date and barely made the effort to talk. The stress of fighting about bullshit had worn me out, and she had realized she was pulling my leg. Her eyes looked even more gray than her natural color, and the wrinkles under her eyes that showed up when she smiled were getting scarcer by the day. When the break up finally happened it was neutral, but some gaping horrid wound opened up inside that stung me every minute. I break her heart and she breaks mine, fair deal, but at least we were never in love, I concluded.

When our meeting was over, or ended abruptly, I drove home and initiated the Bear Trap. The Bear Trap was a ritual-like activity I partook in whenever my warm and dark blood felt cold. I would lock myself in my room, smoke endless amounts of cigarettes and drink off a bottle of whiskey. I did this originally while listening to the most heart-shattering music to lure the demons out, and shut the cage with a sip and inhalation. The sting goes away for several hours, but once I sleep and wake up again it's a whole other story. Who knew the morning sun could make you feel so wasted?

This time the feeling was quite different though; instead of having a heart in two with a crack down the middle, it was cut up into small portions that pulled in different places. The pain stemmed from the fact that we wouldn't work in a relationship together, and I was glad everyday we were finished, but almost wished at the same time that I loved her and treated her better. Like my ex-ex-girlfriend, the fact that I wanted to be with her came rather from the fact that I wanted to treat her better, and make them feel better, but man, if I had to sit and listen and beg at her feet then the trouble isn't worth it, especially if she's gonna stick her nose in the air. I have done this before and it doesn't change shit. Although I felt like apologizing for the sake of making her feel better, I know she'll be hysterical and pissed off before I even get the chance to say “hey man... I'm not in this to win a medal”.

The trouble with this break up is that it is the best choice for both parties involved, though during sex we can convince ourselves in love. I never loved her though, and if I had, I would stitch a blanket around me and cut a hole out for cigarette smoke. This bed I would never leave, until the sun comes up or the curtains come down. If I feel better, I'm standing on my head, but if I don't I stay in the shade. No world today for this bug, I'd say, and roll on towards the wall.

The same old story I hear every time. “I don't regret that we went out though,” they say, the long pause, and then: “because I've learned a lot about relationships”. Phoenix The Bad Example I always was, the guy not to date if you want it to work out. The guy who sits around with a megaphone at the pool telling you what and what not to do. What's the big deal though? I'm making it easier for the next guy right? Especially since I was popping fresh cherries before anyone else did? And I do all this for what? Not a single thank-you letter from the next-gen boyfriend and yet I made the effort. Man, what a whack job I am. Anyway, pack it up, I'm gonna go watch porn.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Women


Several months ago I witnessed one of the most memorable arguments I have ever seen or heard throughout my life. It took place in the middle of a relatively upper-class Mediterranean restaurant where I was eating with my girlfriend on a rainy Valentine’s day. The conversation between a balding man and his Vietnamese wife sitting in the corner of the joint gradually erupted into explosive shouting and insults. The interesting thing was that they seemed perfectly fine and happy together when they walked in, but after several minutes of looking at the menus the shouting began. I could hear the voice of the woman slightly escalating with a whiny twinge, while words like “why are you always…” and “this is why we can never...” were flying around in the mix of a hushed down angry whisper. Unaware of what was about to happen, assuming the argument was never really going to take off, my attention went back to the yellow rice and fish sitting in front of me, as well as my girlfriend's voice I could hear somewhere in the background (she was a real fucking bore. Why I was spending that night with her instead of getting high and watching TV, single and happy about it, is still a real mystery to me). From what I can recall our conversation at the time went a little something like this:
“What would you do if I slept with someone else?” she says, trying indirectly to get me to say how much she meant to me.
“Well… I'd hit you over the head with a shovel and bury you somewhere in Western Australia”, I said with slight humorous attempt and general lack of interest.
“No, but what would you really do?”
“Probably just stab you to death. I don't even have my P-plates yet.”
“Am I ever going to get a straight answer from you? Ever?” She asks.
“Fuck, is that Tom Waits?” now focusing on the music coming through the stereo.
This is how most conversations between her and I were conducted. Stupid questions, lack of interest, stupid questions, etc. etc.
 
So the argument that happened that night in the restaurant was an absolute life saver, if it was ever possible to die of severe boredom. At this time I was especially not paying attention to what my girlfriend was saying, and she wasn't dumb enough for this to go unnoticed. However, my excuse was that I was a little hazy from the sleeping pills I took the night before that give me strange nightmares, and this is what I told her. It was all entirely true and I had a free pass for inattentiveness for the rest of the night. What I didn't tell her though, was that I was taking the pills for inspiration; I was writing a short story horror collection that had a chance of being published by a friend of a friend, and the deadline was just around the corner. First time I swallowed these pills I took twice as much as I should have, didn't get to sleep until 4am, then woke up at 2.30 in the afternoon screaming like a goddamn banshee. It was a strange drug, or perhaps just a strange reaction on my part. At least they were good for something, but really, my waking life in the past week had been like a preview of the afterlife. Barely felt like I existed at all. Funny thing is, I was still tired as hell. Got my prescription changed a few weeks later.
 
I was stabbing at my fish with a fork continuing to think about my state of mind when the balding man stood up and started yelling in the corner of the restaurant. “Hey! I got an idea!” he screams. The whole restaurant jumps up and turns around at this. “Why don't you wipe your cunt with a fucking tissue and come back when you feel better? You and your temper you bitch, you and your fucking period, can't fucking stand it, can't stand you, you cunt!” He goes on like this for a while and storms out after being confronted by a waiter. Hilariously, the Vietnamese woman stays and orders a full course dinner banquet and a bottle of wine, with little to no change in her body language or facial expression. “What a prick!” my girlfriend says, referring to the man who left, and to this I can agree. The woman though, to me, appeared elegant and graceful. She changes something in the air and the way I feel about where I'm sitting, and what I'm doing there. After several minutes of contemplation, I stand up and grab my jacket.
“What are you doing? Where are you going?” she asks.
“What am I doing? I'm going home to die in my sleep, I'm so fucking exhausted. Have you even glanced at me today? The bags under my eyes are so deep you could go grocery shopping with them. My face is so pale I can almost communicate with the dead. I had a heart attack looking at myself in the mirror before!”
She pauses and looks back at me with a confused look.
“…No movie??”
“No movie. I've already seen The Wrestler.”
“You know what this means, right? I mean, it’s Valentine ’s Day…”
“Yeah I know what it means.” And I leave. In retrospect, that was one of the most heartfelt conversations I ever had with her.
 
Wish I had the courage to thank the Vietnamese woman that night. She gave me more inspiration than those pills ever will. It’ s good to be free and we know it like nothing else. Me and her. Fucking carnival of freedom.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Apartment Man


An event that occurred several months ago which is worth noting and revisiting.

It was early 2009 when my friend had just moved into his new house in an expensive, atmospheric part of ********, where jazz cafes blossom and noise bands perform. The area would be the definitive centre of hipster communities, where University students with fixed gear bikes come to discuss the Indie music scene to the best of their abilities (if they even knew anybody to talk about, that is). Upon passing the famous Art & Front cafe, tall, egocentric kids with slick black hair can be seen lighting up cigarettes like they had practiced in the mirror. Girls with short, dark hair and skinny frames gawk through their round, eye-shadowed eyes, cute by stupidly empty. Chai-tea is always steaming through the nozzle of a pot on a small round table, and 30 year old failed writers push their luck on laptops under heavy beards and old clothes. The interesting thing here is that in this part of town, the differences between a hipster and the homeless are so blurred that it is almost dangerous to ask for directions if you aren't carrying any spare change. Although a very friendly and expensive neighbourhood, the flats that are located several blocks down dispatch a number of ghastly junkies and low-lives every now and then who wander up the street to the shop/cafe area. Anywhere in Australia you are bound to find these people lurking around, even in the cleanest of areas, as long as the council flats remain and the IGAs sell Long Beach cigarettes for less than 15 bucks. Anyway, this stuff isn't so important.

The strange event took place in the earliest stages of the night, where the three of us (me, my friend and a dark skinned girl-friend we both wanted to fuck) had gone shopping for groceries and were lining up in the queue. It was the Asian part of ******** which was often infested with students who ransack the Chinese supermarkets for 30 packs of dumplings that went for 3, 4 dollars. The 24 hour fastfood joint was also an attractive facet, and every corner of the district was packed with a liquor store, Subway, KFC, yam-cha restaurant etc.; basically making the place a large dining area with a library and gas station on the side. Apart from the students, there are many empty-pocketed, track-armed fiends who smash beer bottles for fun and push their four year olds around in trolleys in the middle of the night. Kids beep at old Asian ladies to flip them off, truckies stare you down while they smoke their cigarettes, and the generally heavy atmosphere of the place will make you jump at the sound of a bird flying off. The public toilets are littered with syringes and successful heroin dealers loom over the area from their dimly lit flats only located across the street. During the day the public swimming pool is packed with kids of all ages who have the time of their lives there, myself included as a six year old, and the area always had a nostalgic quality attached to it for me. But thirteen years later, all I see is dirt and insanity staining the concrete with trails of repulsive odours. The food vans (vans that park in the middle of shopping areas or any open space, providing things like sandwiches and coffee for the underprivileged) are surrounded by flocks of hungry seagulls who throw the food up right around the corner, unable to keep it down after days of not eating. I once remember being stuck with a number of dirty but friendly junkies on that side of town, hanging around to score some mescaline (very rare in Australia). These guys had just fixed up in the aforementioned public toilets and came to the food van to eat. Less than 3 minutes later all three of them threw up, complaining about the catch 22 that their appetite only came around when they were smacking.

So I'm sitting outside of a Woolworths smoking a cigarette, waiting for the other two to emerge with their shopping bags, when I notice this fairly young, dark kid smoking a cigarette very close to me. Not taking any particular notice I continued to stare ahead and smoke, when I realize out of the corner of my eye that this guy is inching closer and closer to me extremely slowly. Taken back, I turned around and looked him in the eye, pulling a face that suggested he explain himself. There was the longest pause between us before his expression changed to an extremely fake sense of recognition, which he followed up with "Hey man!! Do you remember me??" His eyes widened up at such a delay it was almost laughable. At this point I was quite speechless and even more taken back before, wondering if this guy really intended to pull this act off. The guy had obviously contemplated this for a long time, and his recognition of me was the furthest thing from natural I had ever seen. "No, who are you?" I replied with little to no apologetic tone in my voice, 100% sure he was just making this all up on the spot. This time he goes for the "I can't believe this" act and starts saying "Man.. I can't believe you don't remember me!" laughing between his words. This sentence was done more convincingly but he was still a far way off, since his smile was quivering and weak. I asked him where I had met him before and he said here, the other day, which was impossible since I hadn't been to that area in months. I said "Oh yeah? What was I doing?" which I said in a way that must've sounded interrogative to him (although this was unintended), and he paused, seemingly choking on the question, and stammered "I-I think you were shopping!" At this point I was no longer interested in talking to him since his jig was obviously completely up, and told him I had to go. He looked at me as if he was hurt, and blurted out "Oh, ok man, I'll catch you around dude!" still acting as though he knew me. Hilariously, I stood up and walked less than 10 meters away and stood there until my friends came out.

Although I told this story to my friends as if it were a joke, they didn't seem to think it was as funny as I did. They stood there with a bewildered, slightly unsure expression, claiming the whole situation to be extremely strange. A little while afterwards I continued to think about this guy, wondering what he wanted. He was already smoking a cigarette, so he didn't want one of mine, and he was wearing decent clothes, so wouldn't have wanted change. Something about the whole act was desperate and lonely, as if the guy spends monday to friday working and then sits around in public areas in his free time looking for potential friends. It made me wonder if he tried that move on a lot of people, expecting them to return him with a "Oh yeah! You're that guy!" and start talking to him until they realize he's a different person. He spoke coherently enough to be sane and wasn't strange enough to be not. It is easy to see him sitting around his empty apartment with nothing to do, loneliness slowly eating away his sense of social norms and eventually sanity...

Friday, May 1, 2009

parklife


h in the park
putting adults on the spot
begging five dollars
out of nervous hands

same thing everytime
"i know this sounds stupid"
"this is really embarrassing"
don't think so

11 dollars in half an hour
not bad at all
marlboros from the supermarket
stolen drinks on her shoulder

i got my bag checked but she didnt
face on the camera but not concerned
came out smiling
gave me the cans
went to the park to drink them

she shoots in the park
but only once a week
her boyfriend shoots it daily
but he goes to the gym

pale as a ghost but still eating healthy
circles around his eyes but still the same guy
shooting h in the park

i stand around in black
watching vultures with binoculars..
carving boxes out of trees