Life's a Bitch That Way

They find me guilty. The judge sentences me to, like, 400 years of prison...I dunno, 8 life sentences. When he does that, him looking at me with his fuck grey eyes, with his stringy fuck hair combed over his bulging sweaty head, I stick the tip of a pencil into the palm of my hand. I dig a nice hole there while he talks at me, at the nature of my crime, the heinous nature of my acts. The pencil was just recently sharpened, so it goes in deep. I ain't innocent, BTW -- I just didn't think I'd get caught. If you decide to be good, or you decide to be bad, life's a bitch that way.

Test Story A

He decided to write a story with the letter "A" in it.

6.2.98

we know we can't take it with us
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we aim to drag it out for as long as possible

to keep life lovely

to keep
life lovely

i terrorize
myself

Viva La Volvo

Clown Country

He picked up the telephone receiver, and it squirted water into his ear. He wrote a note to himself with a pen, and it squirted water in his eye. He opened the door of the hotel room, and the door squirted water all over his crotch. His keys, when opening the door to the car, squirted water up his nose. After that, when he tried to start the car, the engine moved rhythmically sounding like a large horny duck, Quaaack...quaaack....quaaack...QUACK...QUACK... --- he knew he had to get out of Clown Country. Now.

Speaking of That

Speaking of that....I know you are a Vampire and you've been trying to kill me. Damn you. All the mirrors have been stolen from my house, and that proves it. Even my silverware. Two fingers like that don't make a cross, you aren't fooling anybody. Besides, I am a Buddhist. The point that you aren't bothered by garlic just means you're an Italian Vampire. No -- back off -- seriously. I see your red eyes and your teeth and your half-hidden bloodlust. The way you jumped over the fucking couch, as if you had springs in your heels, is another indication of your true identity -- a blasphemy, hated by the sight of God, wanderer in the Outer Darkness, etc. Ouch! And what long nails you have -- all the better to clutch me with. Who has Holy Water hanging around the house? Why oh why do I have Holy Water? And where did that sharp wooden stake and mallet come from? You can writhe by you can't get away from me. I'VE KNOWN YOU ARE A VAMPIRE FOR AT LEAST A WEEK!!

Sleepy

I'm sleepy, so I decide to go outside and get the mail. Half way to the mailbox, I collapse on the sidewalk and fall asleep. I lay there sleeping for about 5 hours. When I wake up, man! Is one side of my face sunburned!

In My Office I Have a Small Window

In my office I have a small window, and through it, I can see the ocean. It is not a very wide window, but it is extremely long -- from floor to ceiling. Besides the ocean, I can see part of a white beach, glinting with cars parked by a lagoon. Between my view of the lagoon, beach, and ocean, there is a large freeway. I certainly should go visit the beach and dip my feet in the ocean that I look at all day long. But I never do. And because I look often, and I think about going there, and I don't go -- it becomes more likely I never will. All of us make these kinds of needless concessions throughout our lives. The more used you are to the process of denial, the duller you become. If I find myself quite unexpectedly at the beach tomorrow -- I shall be very very happy.

Going Out the Window

He wanted to call Linda saying it was over, that they shouldn't see each other anymore, but he knew she wouldn't pick up. So he left a message on her answering machine that was so complicated and self contradicting, it made no sense, really, whatsoever.

He kept sitting by the open window after he had hung up. He kept sitting by the open window, after leaving such a stupid idiotic message, a message that made him look badly -- a confused and selfish person full of himself. He hated feeling that he was a confused and selfish person full of himself.

The light was fading. For some reason, he took the cap off a blue ballpoint pen. The cap was smooth and pointed like a bullet. He balanced it on the ledge of the open window. He looked at the bullet shaped cap, balancing on the ledge of the open window. It trembled slightly when a gust of wind blew in the room. Soon it would be blown away. But he would save it from going out the window.

He watched, and right when the cap was going to be blown away, and he would save the cap, a roommate came in the room. Startled, he knocked the cap off the ledge, into the night. Then he realized he had fucked up his relationship with Linda, to try and keep a bullet shaped plastic pen cap from falling out the window.

a poem to my father

when i was in my 20s i wrote poems
looking into our relationship

then i gave up
i thrust through life

now i am aware that every
complicated construct i create

is another snare
another sickening trap

but for you i cannot
resist it

Some Fortunes You Won't be Getting from a Fortune Cookie

All of your childhood memories are completely fabricated.

Haven’t you done it by now, fucker?

You have no lucky number, so get over it.

The harmless pranks of your youth will become the bane of your old age.

Glorious mediocrity will be your ultimate refuge.

Mistaken. About. Everything.

It would be advisable to not answer the phone for four months.

Confucius say, "Piss-off, flathead!"

God hates you.

The Lights Go Out

The lights go out. We go outside, sit on the concrete patio, and eat melting ice cream. You ask, what if the power never came back on? What would that be like? We wouldn't have the news to criticize, we'd go to bed earlier, I say. Ice would be an expensive commodity, and everyone would get portable generators, you respond. The world would become little villages again, I think out loud. Superstition and the burning of witches, you say. Well, that could be, if for instance, for some reason, electrons no longer flow through the wires, I say. We look at the night sky in silence. Little superstitious villages -- and we'd have to do all our fucking laundry by hand, I realize. You exclaim, Shit! No! Like the show where they made that family live like Victorians! We sit and we wait. The power stays out. When the ice cream is inedible soup and my butt falls asleep, you grab a flashlight, and we visit the neighbors. We play a board game with them for several hours, by candlelight. We don't think about the future.

he wrote poems

he wrote poems that had nowhere to go
he didn't know they had nowhere to go
that was a good thing at the time

later he traveled and understood what he had done
he came back and looked at his poems
and he burned them but kept just 1