B

"I don't think I want to see you again."
"I figured.'
"How"
"Its in your eyes."
Her room is small and the windows are all closed. The morning air was warm.
"What are you talking about?" She plucked the cigarette out of my mouth.
"You lost that look."
"What look?"
"The special one."
"I wasn't aware I ever gave you a special look."
"You did."
What did it look like?" Grey smoke seeps out her mouth.
"It looked like,you were watching a race, but you already knew who would win."
She smiled but it didn't matter.
"Have you used that line before?"
"I don't recycle words, I don't even say 'hello' anymore because its too cliche."
We don't talk for a minute then she tells me she has work in a few hours.
I slide over her and sit at the edge of the bed. My socks are in my shoes and my shoes are neatly arranged by the door. I'm always ready to retreat. She offers me a shower and breakfast and implies that she'd be ok with goodbye sex. I decline all but the breakfast, she makes good hash browns, and I'm hung over and heart broken.

Is there a place we can go, to distance ourselves from what we've become?

Hey all, So June completely passed without one single update. And for this, fellow scoundrels, I apologize. I've been busy with work and family and getting sober and realizing that being sober kinda sucks. Making money, losing money, saving lives. I've also started and finished a short story (30 pages) called 'I lost the keys to my time machine.' Its about a really bad break up. I'm in the process of making a tumblr account where I will release a chapter a week until the epic story concludes or I realize no body is reading. But for now, I figure I'll let you guys have a few ramblings from my journal along with the first short story i ever wrote back in the dark ages of 2008. Stank you smelly much for reading you guys really make me happy, and don't forget to tell your moms and girlfriends and pets about who awesome this blog is.

8=========D,
A.H.L


Sometimes you get lucky and girls get naked in your room.
Sometimes you get lucky and find 3 dollars on the ground.
Sometimes you get lucky and your friends pay for your train ride.
Sometimes you get lucky and find your keys after 2 weeks of looking
Sometimes you get lucky and cashiers give you extra change
But most time you aren’t lucky at all.
Most of the time you are thrown to the wolves.
We just have to face the facts that we will all lose way more than we win.
Wallets will get lost.
Buses will be late.
Printers will run out of ink.
And ice cream will melt before you even take a bite.
It’s the small tribulations of everyday life that can drive a man mad.
The tiny inconviences that can send people spiraling into depression.
But I guess we are all living for those lucky moments, the moments where everything just falls into place.
Thing fall apart, but it is how we put them back together that defines us.
We just have to live, because the only alternative to life is death.
And I don’t want to be no ghost, Since most of the time I already feel invisible.




Time is running, and I have dress shoes
I’ll watch it disappear on the horizon
And hope it jogs a memory

It bullshit that theres a warning before those girls gone wild commercials. They sound be used as info nuggets like “you sister will get naked on camera for cocaine and rum shots.”
A few whores ago.


I sat in bed and watched Kelly hunched over my computer. My monitors glow lit her face up, she was so fucking cute (although she had a slight man chin.) She was reading short stories I had written. She was fresh out of high school, so I showed her a piece I had written about an unrequited love I had in high school. It had the perfect amount of cursing and vulnerability. Vulnerability in the sense that It was honest and pretty sad but not to sappy, she had already told me to “man up” in a serious tone when I made a joke about crying. It took her about 20 minutes to read it all, we sat in silence, not awkward in the least. Just her squinting at the text, and me eating the plate of Jose Ole mini tacos I had warmed up for us. She was wrapped in my comforter, underneath she was vagina naked. On the floor her clothes lay in a pile. She was pretty, so pretty.
I didn’t expect Kelly. We had been to a few parties together, but I was far to drunk at each of them to make a positive impression. The first time I talked to her sober was exactly one week before, and if someone had told me then that she would be in my room naked, reading my “work” at 2:17 am, I would have never believe them. She seemed innocent, even thou I didn’t know her well. I guess it was her eyes, she had big, glossy eyes. And when she smiled, which she did often, she looked like a cartoon character.
I looked at her almost the entire time she was reading. I’ll admit it was a little creepy, staring at her like that.
But in a way she was staring at me, she was reading one of the most genuine pieces I had ever wrote. Technically she was the creep, looking into my soul through my writing. I was just looking at her butt and side boob. When she had finished reading she looked at the keyboard for a minute. She put her finger on it as if to begin typing.
“You’re a really good writer.” She said still looking down at her fingers on the keyboard.
“Thank you.” I said, pretty generically. Thats what I said every time someone told me I was good. It was hard to tell if they were being honest, or just polite.
“I wish I could write.” She said as she took her fingers off the keyboard and looked at me with those eyes. I was briefly reminded of Alix and her piercing eyes. Both Rachel and Alix had incredible eyes, but totally different. Alix eye’s were sharp and almost cutting. While Kelley’s eyes were inviting and warm. I still loved Alix’s eye, but I could get used to Kellys.
“You probably can, just try. I takes a lot of work, and if you aren’t in the right mindset it can be boring but if you keep at it, it’s one of the most rewarding things ever.” I told her. I really did believe she could write. She was an intelligent girl, all she needed was the patience.

“How often do you write?”
“500 hundred words a day, Just like Jack London.” I lied. I was lucky to write 500 hundred words a week. I did admire Jack London for his 500 word a day ritual but I was way too lazy to mimic it.
“Really?” Kelley said sounding impressed.
“Yeah, it’s hard but worth it.” I felt like a bastard lying to her. But it wasn’t really lying, it was just realistic exaggeration.
“Wow, I should write 500 words a day.” She said as she got out of the seat and shuffled to bed with me. We laid there together, I had gotten drunk and thrown up all over one of my pillows so now I only had one that we shared, our faces were incredibly close, but I don’t think she cared and I certainly didn’t mind being close to those gorgeous brown eyes.
“I wish I could break dance.” I said, half joking.
Kelly was a dance major. Before I gave her my stories she showed me a video on her myspace of her dancing. I’m a terrible dancer, thus a terrible judge of dancing, so I couldn’t tell if she was good or not. But I did know she loved it, and her ass looked great in tights and that was good enough for me.
“I could teach you.”
“Ha, for sure.” I said before I kissed her on the forehead and put my arms around her. “Sorry I don’t have another pillow, the other one was a fucking mess, I had to dump it.”
“What happen to it?” She asked. I paused for a minute, I could tell her the truth, the rather vile story of the night John and I went half on a gallon of some shit off brand rum, but I concluded that the idea of me helplessly puking into the very bed we were laying in might put a damper on the mood of the night.
“ Spilled Pepsi all over it, I’m a clutz.” Crisis averted.
“Damn, that sucks.”
“Indeed.”
Neither of us said anything for about two minutes. Barely even moved. I kissed her after awhile.
“Did you play any sports in high school?”
“Yeah actually. I wrestled sophomore thru senior year.” I told her.
“Really?’ she said sitting up a little and looking at me before continuing “You a wrestler? In a weird way I can see that.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty terrible at most sports. My mom, she used to send me and my cousins to this sports camp. I went there for like, 4 summers. Didn’t get any better at anything, besides shit talking and faking injuries.”
“Hahaha. What made you want to wrestle?”
“ I’m an only child and haha, I’ve always a lot of stored energy and aggression and shit. You know, from not having a little brother’s ass to beat or something. Not that I’m violent or anything, I just enjoy putting people in headlocks every now again, is that so wrong?”
Now that I think about it maybe I was a little violent. To this day I still attack cousins and close friends. Every family gathering I look forward to throwing my little cousins over couches and into laundry baskets. And my assaults on friends my age are rather hostile and elaborate. This past summer I was approached by three mall cops and almost banned from the premises after play fight I had initiated in a clothing store and just last month I choked Justin with my dogs rope toy thing.
“Yeah, ok psycho.”
“Ahhh bite me, Did you play any sports?”
“No not really..” She continued on about how she was in a collection of plays and performances in high school. She had showed me pictures of her in high school through her face book. She wasn’t always cute, in fact in most of her older pictures she looked like a Puerto Rican boy, curly hair pretty bushy eyebrows. All she needed to do was let her leg hair grow and stand outside a 7/11 trying to sell food stamps. Hahaha, I’m sorry that’s racist.
“Yeah, ok psycho.”
“Ahhh bite me, Did you play any sports?”
“No not really..” She continued on about how she was in a collection of plays and performances in high school. She had showed me pictures of her in high school through her face book. In my old school the dancers were the popular girls, cheerleaders, prom queens and other assorted pretty faces. This was not the case at her school, the dance team she showed me in the pictures looked more like the chess team. Maybe the chess team paints to nerdy of a picture, more like the environmental club. They posed. They laughed. They got caught off guard. All with an air of adolescent awkwardness
There was another silence. I could here the T.V through the walls, it was “The Cable Guy.”
“Are you hungry?” I asked her as I looked at the ceiling.
“Yeah, a little but I never turn down food. What do you have.”
“Oh, you’ll see. I’m going to make us the most romantic meal ever.”
“Oh, wow. I can’t wait.” She said smiling at me.
I put my pants on and walked into the living room. Not three steps out of my room I see Kelley’s friend Jasmine’s head jerk up. She was sitting on the couch with Freddy who was now scrabbling to fasten his pants. I had just walked in on oral sex. I made eye contact with both of them, there was no need to pretend like I didn’t see it. The room reeked of lust and penis. Freddy wore a tank top and sweated a lot. The living room couch was drenched in his sweat, back sweat and ball sweat. I was smirking, they were giggling.
“Well alright.” I coughed out and headed to the refrigerator. I had no idea what was in it, I barely shopped and I was sure that the items I bought were either eaten or rotten. I opened the freezer; Ice cream, steak, French fries, more ice cream, mini tacos, mini corn dogs and three frozen pizzas. The only thing that belong to me were the box mini corn dogs, and it was half empty. Before moving in my mom prepped me on how to deal with the house food thief. The thief was me now. I had been eating Randy’s mini tacos and Kyle’s hot pockets for the better part of a week. Not to mention I drunk the shit out of every soda Valens had ever purchased. I decided to cook us my corn dogs, didn’t want to spoil the night with thievery.
As I watched the corn dogs heat in the microwave and tired to avoid looking at Freddy and Jasmine on the couch I thought about how it was only 12:48. The night had pretty much been a whirl wind for me. It started in Cohen’s room, like most of the early nights did. I didn’t have much to drink that night, so I was slightly more composed than usual. I can’t remember a damn thing I said to her in Cohen’s room. Her friends pulled me aside a few times to ask me did I like her. I charmed them into convincing her to come to my room. In a comedy book I read there was a passage that said “When things go right, it’s a blur. It’s when you crash that you remember every detail.” Things went right that night, with Kelly. The night was a river, and I was just a floating log. Lucky drift wood.
2 minutes and the corn dogs would be ready. Jasmine charged into my room, I’d never seen my door close so fast. I looked at Freddy. He was still in high school and here he was getting mouth love from a college girl. He smiled at me, cocky little shit. Earlier that night Kelley told me she had a thing with one of the guys who lived in my building, she didn’t tell me who but she did she I knew him. Apparently he liked her way more than she liked him, but she was trying to spare his feelings and not be seen entering and exiting my room. This was the third time I had been in this situation this year, girl stealing. I never did it to disrespect anyone, in fact this time wasn’t even on purpose. Kelley had been in my room a few hours earlier then left to settle things with the mystery boy. I offered to talk to him to, but she said it would make things weird, I didn’t give a fuck about weirdness, it was benefit of being socially challenged. I simply didn’t have time to give any fucks.
Corn dogs were done. The microwave open button got stuck pretty often, I pressed it a few times until the door finally swung open, I Jackie Chan dodged it and grabbed the plate. I knocked on my door, I knew better than to interrupt girl talk. I waited a few. The door open and Jasmine was standing there.
“Hello.” I said holding the plate in one hand and trying to keep my pants up with the other.
“I need to talk to you.” She said taking the plate from me and giving it to Kelley.
“Corn dogs is your idea of romantic?” Kelley said with her mouth already eating one.
“Try it with barbecue sauce. They are divine.” I said pointing to a bottle that was already on my desk, I wondered how the hell did that even get there? I was lead by the hand by Jasmine to the bathroom.
She closed the door and I sat on the toilet.
“Having a good night, Jasmine?”
“It’s alright, what about yours?”
“Not so good, I missed Super jail, it was a new episode.” I laughed.
“Do you like Kelley?”
“Didn’t you already ask me this?”
“Yes or no?”
“Yes. A lot.”
“What do you like about her.” She sat down the sink and looked at me like I was a criminal.
“Her eyes..” I whispered.
“Huh?” Jasmine said leaning her head in. She was smiling slightly so I was to intimidated but I knew this was a relatively serious talk.
“I like her because she I can actually talk to her. I feel oddly comfortable around her.” I said looking down at my pants, they were dirty. I looked up at Jasmine she seemed pleased with my answer.
“I like her because it is easy to like her.” The words snuck out of my mouth. They echoed and then disappeared. Moments of inadvertent honesty were becoming more routine ever since I moved in. They oozed out, the truths. Unapologetic truths. I didn’t know what to make of it, I had no choice but to accept them, and pray I learned to internalize them.
“Good.” she said.
“Think I have a chance with her?”
“Maybe” she laughed before saying “You are cuter then most of guys she talks to.”
I laughed. I saw a picture of Kelley with a guy she identified as her ex boyfriend, I thought I was cuter. But I knew it was about looks with Kelley, she was into artists. And more turned on by passion and creativity then faces and muscles.
After I finished with Jasmine I went back to my room. She was sitting on the bed talking on her phone.
“Here he is now” Kelley said.
“Who is that?”
“It’s Ashley, I think she want to go back to the U.C now.”
Ashley was Kelley room mate, her crush on Cohen was the reason I met Kelley in the first place.
“Oh really?”
“Yeah she is tired and doesn’t feel like staying withCohen tonight.”
Even though we had already had sex, I still didn’t want Kelley to go yet. Cuddling after sex was the cherry on the sundae, if she left now I couldn’t cuddle. I’d be robbed of my sex sundae, I had to do something.
“Let me see the phone.”
Kelley passed me her phone. I didn’t know what I was going to say to Ashley to convince her to stay, but I am a writer and words my tool.
“Hey Ashley. What’s this I here about you trying to leave and take Kelley and Jasmine with you.” I cut to the chase, there was no need to play it subtle.
“Yeah Adam. I’m getting sleepy and want to lay in my OWN bed.” She said, clearly emphasizing to Cohen.
“Well it’s 1 in the morning and this is Chicago, there are dangerous men out there Ashley. Men that wouldn’t think twice about harassing three pretty young girls walking home this late.”
“I always carry pepper spray and the U.C is like ten minutes away.”
“Yeah, that’s what all rape victims say. Next thing they know they are tied up in an attic getting fingers put in there butt. You don’t want to be the victim of a booty pinky do you Ashley?” the words fumbled and flipped out. Booty pinky sounded like a Trina song.
“Hahaha, whatever Adam I’m tired tell Kelley to met me in Cohen’s room.”
“Hmmmm, That means she has to put back on all of her clothes, that might take awhile…” I looked at Kelley. She had sex hair. “And plus, you have your whole life to sleep in your own bed. You are young and who knows how long it will last, take chances, sleep in mysterious beds, even if it is a rough night, one night is in the flash in the pan in the long run.”
There was silence on the other end and then “Put Kelley back on the phone.”
I handed Kelley the phone, they talked for few seconds then hung up.
“Well I’m staying, but I have to leave tomorrow early.” Kelley looked up at me.
“Glad to hear it.” I kissed her and grabbed a handful of corn dogs.
We talked for a few hours. About the movie Pulp Fiction and consumerism and how it had made hip hop dance a fad. Then we went to sleep. Well she did, I had an erection, and about 20 minutes into her slumber I woke her up for sex. Then we went to sleep for real.

Spin

Its Tim’s twenty third birthday. We’re at a bon fire at his girlfriends house somewhere next to a tall bridge in Indiana. Tim’s girlfriend family is there, they wear mustaches and shirts with tour dates on the back. They look at Tim strange, they don’t look at me at all. They’re nice enough, except for the fact they drink Samuel Adams. Tim’s friends are there, I know a few. We sit in the kitchen and talk. About Tim mostly, about the time he walked through a glass door. We talk about he got to drunk and threw up in Kyle’s car and used his dirty sock to clean the chunks off of his mouth. When Normet brings up the night Tim stole a cake from Diary Queen and in the semi epic chase with an employee, he trips over a curb and falls. Ruining the cake and skinning his chin. Tim’s a klutz, gauche in every aspect, he has become one of my dearest friends. The lovable loser, he lives in his mom’s basement. His walls plastered with video game magazine covers, he has maps to places that don’t exist. He jokes about ending his life, but I don’t think he’s joking all the time.



Tim’s girlfriend’s gay Uncle’s boyfriend made Tim a cake. Its shaped like sonic the hedgehog, Tim’s favorite video game character. We sing happy birthday, Tim blows out the candles and cracks a sheepish half smile. Sincerity incarnate. We dig in, the frosting is delicious. I sit back down at the kitchen table with my slice of cake and my fourth beer of the night. It’s weird, beer and birthday cake, not the taste, just the sentiment. Birthday cake are innocent, a remnant of a simpler time. And beer gives me headaches and makes me buy lottery tickets. There are a few little kids their, Tim’s Girlfriends cousins, they look at me while I eat. Their eyes are innocent but level, waiting to follow or judge. I laugh and open my mouth as wide as I can, showing them the half chewed birthday cake mush, all blue and green and gross. They giggle, kids love stupid shit like that.

We get kicked out the kitchen so we sit around the fire. Tim’s Girlfriend said I could have some of their vodka, but I took more than I should. I’m pretty drunk and Brian is talking about ACEN. The annual Anime and Comic Convention. He tells me about how they have a rave going on out in some Hilton hotel in Palatine, Illinois. The only time I’ve been to a comic book convention was when I was seven, I have no solid, reliable memory of that day but I do remember a man dressed as wolverine and giant Ren from “Ren and Stimpy.”
“It was trippy.” I mutter. Looking as the fire eats the woods. Fire pits are a lot like being drunk, you never want to burn out.
“Haha, its interesting you say that.” Brian says while he digs in his coat pockets. He tells me to open my hand, I peer at him, and then lean over and outstretch my hand., open my sweaty palms and Brian plants a bag in my hand. The bag is full of fungus. Mushrooms.
“You don’t put these on pizza. Do you?” I joke. Its hard to say if the smile I wear is because of the mushrooms or because after 7 beers and three shots I right on top of the happy drunk that has sailed and sank many a ship.
Brian says he’ll sell me half and he’ll pay for parking if I convince Tim to drive of to ACEN. This proposal sends my baked brain into thought. The concept of being drunk and tripping amongst a bouquet of people dressed like Super Mario and Darth Maul and Goku and all types of other freaky character excited me.

Back in the Kitchen Tim sits with his girlfriend, holding hands across the table. She is good for him. Tim is introverted, gullible, near sighted and unemployed. He has deep anxiety and is in all God fearing, Flag flying honesty, a terrible candidate for mushrooms. The fungus can spin your head, hard. And to a guy with a thought pattern like Tim’s a 48 hour head spin surrounded by people in costumes carrying fake swords isn’t the ideal atmosphere. Soon it becomes a question of ethics, with enough pressure Tim will do just about anything, hell a few hours before I convinced him to jump over the fire pit. The trip would be new to Tim, he’d never ate mushrooms but had been wanting to for awhile, I knew how intense it could be. Sinking feelings, shrinking feelings, paranoid feelings, feelings of scales and rats and people with no faces. It can get scary, it can really spin your head. But sometime a good head spin is what we need, because when (if) our heads settle, the world will seem a bit smaller, and we will seem a bit bigger.


Tim’s Girlfriend’s Gay Uncle’s Boyfriend has had too much to drink and he’s now sitting Indian style in the grass sniffling, crying a little. The two had got into a spat, a shouting match. I’ve often when arguments between to men should turn physical, there is only so much verbal abuse pride will allow. But I suppose between lovers the line is a bit further. Once I was seeing this girl and during one of our weekly arguments she threw shoes and a can of axe body spray at my head. After that she charged my, bawling her eyes out screaming an incoherent frenzy of swears and threats. She wailed on my face for awhile and yanked my hair. I was scared. Eventually I had enough and threw her on the ground, she said I had hurt her back, I said she busted my lip. We made sweaty love. I am glad I don’t talk to her any longer.



At around 12 am we are on the highway too the anime convention. We all ate the shrooms and the trip was starting to manifest in are actions. I feel bad for dragging Tim away from his own party but I figure his girlfriends always around and ACEN only comes once every year. Tim drove and Brian was in the passenger seat, I was laid out in back. Out of my peripheral I see the clouds darking to an almost green tint, but when ever I would look directly at them, they’d clumsily morph back into the deep grey the night sky permitted, like a child pretending to sleep. Yeah, it wouldn’t be long to the drugs kicked in, and we freaked out. I ask Brian how he got the money for the fungus and the parking voucher. He tells me he works. I ask where.
“At a rehabilitation clinic by cook county jail.”
“That sounds hella interesting.” I say, still trying to catch the green clouds.
“Yeah, he has all types of crazy stories, the craziest stuff happens there right, Brian.” Tims voice is in a higher pitch, jovial. He’s trippin, but his driving isn’t affected which was one of my main concerns. Granted on these long stretches of Midwest road there aren’t many cars driving this late. Brian tells me a story about how he works sanitation at the clinic. Mopping, cleaning windows, changing bed pans. He tells me about funny patients with eye patches and lisps. He tells me about how he walked in on a man in a wheel chair getting oral sex from a nurse. He has good delivery I think, He’s make a fine comedian.
“You know what the most fucked up thing about my job is?” Brian asks sincerely. “Taking the bus back home, I work by cook county jail and a lot of former inmates and shit take the bus with me. They be trying to look all hard and shit, but I sit back and think, damn, I wonder how many of these niggas got fucked in the butt.” I laugh hard, but the though of buttsex on mushroom makes me queasy so I cut the laugh short and close my eyes.



Driving up I can tell we are close by the amount of weird people I see, cosplayers they are called. For those of you who don’t know, cosplayers are people who dress in costumes resembling a fictional cartoon character. I see light sabers and platform boots and helmets. There are demons and giant scorpions and men with wings and women’s with whiskers in high cut skirts. Tim is looking out the window and smiling, seeing Tim happy makes me innately happy. Soon our happiness shifts gear into panic because Tim drives straight into one of those flashing lights on those wooden structures. Cracks the window, a nasty spider web crack. Brian is laughing, I pat Tim on the back and say at least we made it. He sighs. We park.



Inside the lobby of one of the many hotels sponsoring the event I’m tripping and making a scene.
“Ok, I get it. It’s pretend I know. But listen, please could you find it. Find it in your heart to just TELL me that, that head isn’t real.”
‘Dude, you know it isn’t real.”
“Yes, yes I realize but I need you too say it. I know dude, its weird but, trust me, I need you to say that the head isn’t real.”
“Why would they even let me in if it was a real head?” He’s chuckling, but this isn’t funny. On mushrooms reality is warped. You’re unstable, and nothing helps more than validation. At that moment. I need this man to tell me that the bloody, severed rubber head wasn’t real. But he would not, and I began to spiral into insanity .
“Kratos, listen man, I’m not joking ok? You need to tell me that head is fake.”
“Whatever man, you’re creepy me out.” He walks off. Clutching his fake swords tight, just in case I lunge after him, which I’m not sure I won’t.
“Fuck you, you dirty dick eating fish fucking son of a bitch.” I point to him violently. Then I notice my yelling attracted the attention of about 100 costumes adolescents, their eyes were burning me. I ran off, I pass a man dressed like Chewbacca holding a girls hand. The girl has a impressive chest.




Tim and Brian come tumbling toward me as I sit outside smoking a cigarette Tim asks can he get one but I tell him I gave my last smoke to the man with the top hat wearing the trench coat with glowing lights. No body knows if I’m lying or not. We barter our way into acquiring three VIP passes. These passes get you into the rave. And that exactly wear we go. We dance for a little bit. Brian runs into some friends and they offer use glow in the dark body art, me and Tim declined but Brian rips his shirt off and begins having everybody write on him. The rave becomes hot and menacing so I exit.

I meet a girl from Kentucky. She is dressed as Mugen from Samurai Shamploo, says her names Christine.
“This your first ACEN?” She looks over to me, and right into my dilated eyes.
“Yeah, this is pretty amazing. I’ve always wanted to go to one. Happy I finally made it out. This is refreshing.”
“Refreshing?” She takes I sip from a water bottle that I’m almost positive isn’t full of water. There were a lot of drunk nerds out that night. I had a conversation with a valet and he told me the police had been called 3 times in the last day.
“Yeah its like. People are here. For this. No, no ulterior motives. Just here, for this.” I shake my head and beat myself up for claiming myself a writer and fumbling with words.
“Everyone is hear to bond man, its all good fun.” She smiles like a millionaire. Her hair moves, it’s the mushrooms making me see that thou, there is no wind this late at night.



i'll finish it, i promise

Our Igor

NOTE: I'm doing something really cool right now for the blog, this ain't it thou.

I once got asked the question If I’d rather have my feet cut off or my hands. I can’t remember the context of the conversation, but I can say that amputation is a frequented topic among my friends. Not a whole lot of thought went into my answer “Feet, man fucking, cut em’ off.” My reasoning being that hands are more noticeable part of the body, hand shakes and hugs, high fives and masturbation. “A world with out hands seems like a dark place man, a place I aint trying to go to.” We laughed and talked more about hands and how we’d much rather lose our feet than go through life never holding a hand or running fingers through the hair of a lover or a whore, which ever comes first. The conversation meandered from amputation to insemination, or something else gross. But I dwelled on my feet for a little while, looking down at the beat Nikes that had become my signature shoes. This size 12 had helded me up all my life, and I never thanked them. And here I am, so eager to remove them just so I could get some up, the shirt, under the bra action. If my hands were hedonism my feet were devotion. They are martyrs, willing to be dragged and drowned all the while holding us up like the venerated roots to an ungrateful tree. They are martyrs like Jesus, willing to take to the cross to absolve us. At risk of sounding blasphemous, I’ll even go as far as to say our feet love us more than Jesus. Think about it, Jesus want all that thanks and penance and money feet don’t ask for any of that. It’s like, I get it Jesus, thanks for doing me that favor but you don’t have to bring it up every time we meet thou. (I have a friend, Jonathon, who picked me up from an airport once and every time we see each other he brings it up, that shit was like 2 years ago man.)Our feet are suffocated by boots, constricted to be put in hells, bound and mutilated. Arguably our most valuable exterior body part, we treat them like lepers, leaving in sweaty dens, lumbering around in their own stench as we pummel them. They are our loyal servants, our Igor. Imagine if you will, and uprising of the feet, a subversion, a rebellion. Imagine if our feet suddenly took matters into their own hands. Imagine you are running from a lion in the Serengeti, and your feet, fed up with the abuse choose to stop, you go limp, you fall, and the ravenous beast rips you shreds. Or you are crossing the street, maybe you just got out of class and suddenly get a taste for some delicious Blizzard treats at the local Diary Queen, half way across the street you notice you movements become sluggish, you panic as you watch the incoming traffic barrel your way, you push and push, straining your tendons, but its not use. Your feet feel like lead, immovable and spiteful. A Ford focus, pounds the brakes but its too late, the impact catapults you 20 feet in the air you fly and crash onto the asphalt, dead as hell. Thank your feet people, they are the real heroes.

Healing

NOTE: It's been about a year since I started Scoundrels and Vagrants. I was in bad shape, to say the least. I was going through this self inflicted depression that I can only refer to now as an identity crisis. S&V started off as my way to whisper to a world that other wise never seem to listen. I wanted the world to know how much I hated it for what it had done to me and people like me. It was my way to deal with my social anxieties and awkwardness, without drinking or drugs.Eventually, with a little help from my friends, I pulled myself out of that existential gang bang and emerged as a better, healthier, smarter, prettier Adam. That's when I sold out, I started writing with other people's satisfaction in mind, dumbing things down, taking out lines I thought would reflect myself badly. I forgot about empowering the wicked, wierd, disenchanted rebels and started thinking about all the skirt these words could get me. Then that sent me into another emotional shit factory, that I worked myself out of (well kinda, I'm still a little bit of a sellout, but fuck it, sell outs at least sell, right?) Anyway, lets cut this self-indulgence short and let me tell you that what you are about to read is a piece a wrote when I was 17 and completely honest. I was immature but at least I was sincere and my heart was good. My hearts still good, I think...


The truth regarding me and Karla Solis


Karla Solis is a girl. I am a boy. I met Karla Solis my junior year in high school. She was beautiful then, dark curly hair, beautiful eyes, and 36 C breasts. She was perfect for me. It wasn’t long after I noticed Karla Solis enter the lunch room that I would talk to her. Karla Solis sat at a table with the new crop of freshman girls, all of them as pretty as they were naïve, they laughed and whispered, they ate and talked with their mouths full, disgusting freshman, but not as disgusting as I was watching Karla Solis stuff her face with chips and homemade sandwiches and carrots and apple juice. I walked over to their table, they all seem to stare up at me, all of them were beautiful in there own right, but my eyes stayed on Karla Solis as she wiped her mouth and said. “Hello.”
For weeks after that day I sat at the freshman girl table, I had made casual friends with all of them, they liked me because I was funny, not because I was cute, not because I helped them with homework but because I made them laugh, which wasn’t very hard to do. I listen to their stories, they asked me my opinion on boys, I hated giving advice on relationships, but they all seemed to ask, I’d usually give them a half-thought out answer and being impressionable they hung on my every word. I watched as the freshman boys glared at me, they too wanted Karla Solis, but they were to shy to approach her, I had grown out of that phase, shyness, nothing good came from it, the quote “good things come to those who wait” is bullshit. I guess hey lacked confidence I had grown over my high school career,
After school me and Karla Solis would talk before her mom came to pick her up in her yellow van that often had a dog in the back, we would talk about how are days had been after lunch, we talked about other girls at the table, we talked about teachers, none of these topics I particularly gave a shit about, but it was what Karla Solis wanted to talk about, so I didn’t mind. One of these times after school Karla Solis had taken out her phone, to text someone, one of the goofy lunch table girls no doubt, I asked her, “Hey how come you never text me?” knowing that she didn’t have, nor did she express any interest in having my number.
“I don’t have your number silly.” Karla Solis said in her voice that if attached to anyone else I would hate.
I gave her my number, just as her mothers yellow van pulled up,
“Bye Adam.” she said looking into my eyes
“Peace” I said in an attempt to be cool, I waited to the yellow van and Karla Solis were far enough away , put my hood up, and made my way into the short white school bus that honked for me. I hated the school bus, and I hated people knowing I rode it.
Days past and no text or call from Karla Solis, it didn’t worry me to much. In school one day I decided not to sit with the freshman table but with my friends who claimed I was “Pussy wiped” and hassled me into sitting with them. I got my food from the lunch line and sat down and ate. I looked over at Karla Solis and her friends look at me and grin, I saw Karla Solis take her phone out, to text me no doubt. Seconds latter my phone vibrates with the immanent text message. I read “Why aren’t you sitting with us, get your but over here mister.” with one of those stupid fucking faces made with symbols…the one with the tongue hanging out. I escaped my friends and squeezed into the chair with her.
“I’m surprised you can fit with my fat-ass.”
Karla Solis thought she was fat, infect she wasn’t at all, its just the rest of her friends where twigs, Karla Solis brought her own lunch from home, because school lunches were fatting, although she would often pick at other peoples food. She was very self-conscious. She jogged and toke karate and dieted in attempts to loose weight.
“I lost 10 pounds Adam, aren’t you proud of me?” Karla Solis would ask me one day
I walked up to her and poke her stomach, “yes” I’d reply.
We talked and text on the phone everyday, stayed up way past her bedtime and laughed thru the night, I’d go to bed thinking about her, I’d read her texts over and over and over again. I’d look at her myspace, that I had convinced her to get, when ever she had a new picture posted I’d look at it, and smile. I was becoming very smitten with Karla Solis, no longer did I just want her 36 c breasts on my face, I wanted her. I was falling for Karla Solis. With every word we said to each other my heart grew fonder of her, I’d hug her and kiss her forehead everyday, I’d watch her blush when I did. I put my arm around her in hallways. She wouldn’t jerk away like some, she wouldn’t even ease out like most, she just stayed there, in my arms, like she didn’t mind that Adam Lawson was touching her.
As the year progressed the freshman boys gained enough confidence to ask Karla Solis out, I was jealous but never came right out and said it. She ask me if I should go out with them, I would take my anger out on her.
“Sure fatty, you need all the love you can get.” I berated her even more, calling her all types of names, like a lover scorn, She cried that day, her deep brown eyes peered at me a welled up with tears and she cried and cursed me. I was glad I made her cry, I was glad she cared enough about my words that she cried.
“Fat whore.” I spat.
“Why are you acting this way?” Karla Solis would say.
“Why are you acting so fat.” I couldn’t tell her, I could only insult, and insult I did.
She eventually ended up going out with him. I apologized and we were back to the way it was before. Us on the phone every night, she told me how much she wished her boyfriend could be like me, funny, charming, honest. When she said charming I laughed, I was in no shape nor from charming, at school I was known for my vulgar jokes and how I wrote “balls” on every black board in the school. And as for honest, if I was so honest why couldn’t I tell Karla Solis I felt, how I was falling in love with her, how I’d give most anything to be her boyfriend. How I’d Love her, How’d buy her presents, How I’d probably cheat on her, How I’d hide it, How I’d marry her.
Going into my senior me and Karla Solis didn’t speak much, I ignored her, I wanted her to come and speak to me first, She did, once a week almost she’d make an attempt to talk to me, I’d pretend I forgot the memories she brought up, I’d pretend I didn’t want to text her, I’d pretend to hate her, I’d tease her. Karla Solis went thru boyfriends fast, bout one every month, one of them was my friend. I’d casually ask him how things were going between them, how far they had gotten, how her room looked, how she was doing. He said he hadn’t gotten far, didn’t even let him grab her boobs he said.
“Oh man, what a bitch” I’d say, inside grinning, and thinking that a girl.
One day her boyfriend got hurt in a wrestling match, being a witness to the injury I thought it the perfect excuse to call Karla Solis, I didn’t care that he was hurt, I just wanted to talk to her.
The phone rang, she answer almost immediately.
“Hello?” she said in a shaky voice, obviously surprised by me calling.
“Hey, just thought I’d tell you Mario is getting hauled off in a ambulance.”
“What!?”
I explained the situation, she said she’d call him. The next day at school Karla Solis hadn’t said a word to me. Her boyfriend came back to school in a cast few days later.
“Hey man, I just want to thank you for telling my girl I was hurt, that’s respect man.”
“Yeah, no problem.” I said almost sincerely. “She told you about it.”
“Yeah she said that you called her and gave her the news, she said she was surprised, she thought you hated her…” he talked for awhile after that, about how much his arm hurt, and how good he had it and how much he was entitled to a sympathy lay.
Me and Karla Solis had a few conversations after that, I would text her occasionally, she’d text back. One of my favorite memories of her is after school it was raining softly and we talked in the rain while everyone else was under the small shelter under the schools awning. I toke my phone out I played with it.
“Eww still have that old crappy phone I see.” Karla Solis joked.
“Shut up.” I said, and opened the phone and grabed her lip with it. She looked at me, I looked at her with my phone attached to her lip, she didn’t mind it, I loved that about her, she didn’t me. I’ve sense graduated, moved on. I still think about Karla Solis. Still look at her text messages sometimes, still wonder what could have been. I hope I see Karla Solis again.

Post script:
I thought this one was important because I still find myself pushing people away, for no good reason but my own self consciousness. Man, I was 17 I'm 20 now, nigga's gotta grow up.

Closeface

Girl, you got something terrible between those legs. Enchanting and infuriating, like playing Jenga drunk. I’m talking of course about your vagina. The bizarre folds of skin that gives way to a cavern of inarticulate wonder. A weapon of mass distraction, your sharpest sword, your Atomic Bomb. Utter destruction disguised as a roast beef sandwich, or the sagging, wrinkled skin in between the fingers of an elderly man whose swung to many hammers. And what’s worse than the way it looks are the thing’s I’ve done to for it. Traveled state lines as well as phantom lines that separate tolerance and criminal devotion. I’ve emptied my pockets buying clothes to make myself hip only to end up looking like an inept, chicken legged jackass. I should of just bought a bear trap, or a giant pussy magnet, or maybe a net gun. My dealings with your vagina have reduced me to mist. You’ve turned this yellow boy into a paper thin boner, who’s prime directive has de-evolved to bartering Claire’s gift cards in exchange for sex. But I do look fondly on those nights rich with alcohol, where we would talk about shooting stars and sand castles. And my darting, hazy eyes would journey up your legs, past your knee to that pink void, where I left my heart.

I am going to make it though this year if it kills me