I always wonder what life would be like if I took my future more seriously. I’m a capable person. I always showed promise in everything I’d ever done. But now, at 36 years old, I have no marketable traits. I’m a writer, and a half-assed musician—kind of ___ it’s a long story. I thought I had no future. Isn’t it so much easier to think you have no future before the future comes? 36 years of fucking up and what do I have to show for it? 36 fuckin years! I have paper, and I have a pen. But that’s it. Nothing else. No priors whatsoever. No promise. Do you remember when the future used to be better? Brighter. Bigger. Whatever. It was the drugs, the booze, the depression, the nihilism, the existential angst, you know. The fuck all! I can write a story about wasting away like it’s no one’s business but my own. Then what do I do? I set the pages on fire because I have no future and there’s no use in trying. No one buys my books. I wrote created & designed these books myself because I had fuck all else to do, and no one cares. So if I were to write a note to myself five years in the future, I’d say one thing: Remember when the future used to be better? But then I’d set the page on fire because there’s no point; I don’t have a future, I never did…. Do your homework. Study. Set goals. Do something. I smoked my homework, and I shot my goals. The future only gets better if you plan for it. But I don’t see the use in preparing for it if it doesn’t get better. This is what I told myself 10-15 years ago: Nothing ever gets better, it either stays the same or gets worse. Future Self, if you’re reading this, just know, you’re a fuckin idiot for believing me!
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the day I turned 19
they wanted to beat me up said I narced out their friend the whole gang was there wanted to beat me up I stood my ground in my pocket I had an eight-ball I got on the train met Mindy took her to my place we lay around got drunk the following day Andrew picked me up we drove out to the Cape picked up Samantha went camping the drive was a blast never laughed so hard I didn’t know him too well we hit it off from the start ever since the day he tried to hit me with his truck on my 20th birthday a fat black chick bought me a 40 I laid her down by the river I hit a car in a rainstorm couldn’t see Ryan and Bell were there the Indians got out left their car in the center of the street six of them got out yelled but nothing happened there was no damage I parked at my place we all went to Harvard Square one year in Rutland someone gave me a cake but I only had me to share it with as I rode in the trunk of a car back to Rutland I rubbed frosting all over the interior I was so pissed then threw empty Monster cans out the window tomorrow I turn 36 I’m getting a new tattoo THE LIFE I LIVE THE CHOICES I CHOOSE closing the book on a chapter after Lethal Erection went flaccid Andrew died I got married everything’s different now when I turned 18 the Dilweed Elite played in my backyard my closest friends were there we sat around ate cake the cops came the music was too loud disturbed the neighbors Pat, Kyle, Mumbles, & Jeremy stopped by we all got covered in cake Walking through
a sea of emptiness my heart beats feverishly as I shake hands with another failure I scour the sewage for an ounce of truth but the crazed clouds open fire upon my head Set fire to another dumpster where the answers lay barren The reasons for persevering are beyond me Bland smiles find me Eyes like voids peer through the dark Tendons like phony vessels rip the truth from the sky The flaming wreckage of the edge of life’s refugees pulls me into a crater The basis of rhetorical theories brought me to life again Scatological nothingness A futile solution Delusions make me feel worthy of being Dark skies rising
encompassing the small towns cities enveloped by dark clouds Then the rain comes down like bullets Cars flooded in urban lakes Drivers blinded by tidal waves descending In a crowded room an alarm goes off Everyone thinks FIRE phones jangling all at once warning of tornados and floods and heavy hurricanelike storms They laugh Not here they think The meeting commences and throughout those by the windows keep peering out at the storm that clatters and crashes against windows and doors The worst storm in 100 years says the weather channel Newscasters soaked from the head to their toes as they showcase worlds devoured in rain cars floating like boats windows smashed in people on roofs waiting to be saved It’s like the scene from a disaster movie The objects of destruction real-life natural mischief When I was 18 I carved HATRED IS PURITY into my arm (only it was more like HATRED IS PU——, because I passed out at some point during the procedure). At the time I did it to be edgy, but now I think I get it. Having passed from being a hateful cretin to an alleged loving individual (I say “alleged” because I don’t always feel like I’m there) I realize now why hatred is so pure. When you live by the gun there is no reason to stop and question your motives. As soon as you put down the gun, all the moral questions come flooding in, the inner torment that keeps us up all night, torturous dilemmas of right and wrong; but when you live by the gun, none of that matters. It’s the purest state you can be in. I yearn for that kind of purity but I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore and as long as I don’t want to cause harm, I will never reach that state again. Love causes loss and regret, hatred gives us a sense of surety, and when we know what needs to be done, without question, boy does that sound like a heavenly state///
Morning time comes
like a shock to my system I’m lumbering through warehouses walking on rivers of human wasted bodies spread out across time each face has a name but I feel no connection as I prowl the dungeons of self-destruction and passion My mind snaps overcome by tension I itch my cranium seeking my youth in a pile of beat-up records My wholesome world transforms I’m livid in red I follow a maze of death as the clockface hits an hour that doesn’t exist I’m shivering in a lonely hole The people I know squander forests foraging for resentments I sought forgiveness but the mirror is ripe with nefarious opinions of the man I shall never be So I burnt them last night I sat amid a fiery fierce transformation where the day took on a whole new perspective It’s better this way In the field of dreams we nightmare our way into your heart >>> but this reality reeks of stark antagonizing salvation Covid was a journey into restlessness. When I went to San Francisco and saw people wearing masks and I heard about the Coronavirus and everyone warned us about going—aren’t you worried about getting sick? they’d say—there was no way I could have predicted a total world shut down———and thus, a restlessness, an irritability, and an acceptance would follow.
I thought the world was going to end. I was one of those people. I was wary at first. I felt like this would all blow over. But that day I went to the grocery store and saw all the toilet paper sold out, I thought maybe I should jump on the bandwagon. A store fully stocked, except for the toilet paper. So I store-hopped in search of toilet paper and hand sanitizer. We stockpiled canned food and emergency meals. We constructed bugout bags filled with all the necessities for surviving the most hostile terrain. We watched apocalyptic, end-of-the-world movies and TV series to prepare—such as Contagion and Station Eleven. Michelle baked bread, I walked the dog and steered clear of all the neighbors. They were sick and I didn’t want to die. I thought of conspiracies: maybe this is the Illuminate’s way of separating us, because a world separated doesn’t have much of a fight when it comes to global domination. I remembered when I was told about the secret camps this government had constructed so that they could shepherd us into them when the time was right—when we all believed that this was the safest, easiest way; the government was to be trusted and we all must pile into these camps to be taken care of like pets. We’d be pets to the Illuminate, trained and obedient because we saw no other choice. This was survival. We built an indoor trampoline for Annmarie so that when we’d shut ourselves in, she’d have a mode of unloading all her useless energy. We cleared the living room and turned it into a roller disco. I downloaded Spotify and started discovering new bands and downloading them so that when the shit hit the fan and the internet stopped working, I’d have plenty of music to get me through. Michelle discovered a different sort of spirituality so that when these religious nuts showed up on our doorstep with pitchforks and torches, she’d be ready. We bought vegetables from a local farm. Drive half an hour to a bumpy, dirty, shifty road, wait in line with masks on, and one after another, we would pull up and pick up our vegetables. We bought a camper van. It was the only way we could travel so we took up camping because one day it might be all we had left. We bought a new puppy. Eventually things cleared and vaccines were being administered. I was wary; we were all wary. Do these vaccines even work? It’s mind control. We’ll all be slaves. Haven’t you ever the read the book Divergent? It’s happening just like that. People started travelling again. Are they crazy? We stocked up on Covid-tests. Annmarie went back to school and she wore a mask every day—is this for real? She wanted to see her friends outside of school. At the stores, people were wearing masks. Everyone wore masks. This is the end of the world. It was so depressing. We were all faceless shoppers. We had no names. What we looked like, who we were, hidden behind these veils. I told myself stories that I liked covering up my face. I don’t mind because I don’t want people seeing me. It’s why I always wear sunglasses. Michelle became agoraphobic and I started to drive more often. I used to be a nervous driver and now I drive all the time. I love to drive now. At first I had to drive because someone had to get us groceries. Things were going back to normal. I went to my first open-mike in years. I was just an image on a screen. It was unreal. I was condensed to a box. Facebook had won. We were all just faces. On a screen. In a box. I had so many friends and I knew their faces but I didn’t know them—we were all strangers, living in our own filtered bubbles. This was the end of civilization. Frustrated, restless, I took to taking more errands than needed because I needed to get out and stretch my legs. I walked the dog more often than I should have because otherwise, what else would I have done with my time? Michelle started her own business. She started selling dolls and dollhouse furniture on Etsy. I wrote a lot. Took a lot of writing classes on Zoom. The camper van was unsustainable because we had nowhere to store it in the winter. The guy we had bought it from said: We don’t winter in Vermont. We couldn’t just up and leave. We had a teenage girl to take care of. We would have had to keep it plugged in on days there was no sun or else the battery would die. So much for solar power. We sold it to a used car lot and made back a fraction of what we had originally paid. It was a loss we had to make. I went to my first open-mike in person, and I was nervous. I’ve never been nervous about going onstage. I was out of practice and my anxiety was at a high. I wore a mask. There were three other performers, two of them wore masks. There were two other people in attendance—they were not wearing masks. I took off my mask when I read. So much for needing to hide my face. Off stage, I mingled. The other mask-wearer played the fiddle, then took off his mask and never put it back on. I went outside, took off my mask, and looked for a cigarette to bum. This was our world. More and more open-mikes, less people wore masks. Is this really happening? Everything’s going back to normal. The world, as we knew it, is coming to an end. We went to Maine and we brought masks with us on our trip. It was the first time we travelled with our new puppy, who was now a full-grown, eight-pound dog. The first time we had travelled since giving up the van. The dog who we had named Velvet sat on my lap the whole trip while Michelle drove. She was so well-behaved. We stayed in an air B&B. Michelle showed me the town she grew up in. No one wore masks. Things were slowly going back to normal. Every time we leave the house, Michelle brings a bottle of hand sanitizer. I used to douse both hands in sanitizer every time I left a store; now I forget to bring it with me when I leave the home. Today we went to a large, in-door flea market. A few vendors wore masks, but only a few. People were smiling; I could see their faces as they talked. They were shaking hands. I watched them exchange products for cash and then go on their way. The crowd was huge; there were so many people, so many faces, so many germs, so much happiness and joy, that it made it rather difficult to remember that this kind of event wouldn’t have been allowed to happen more than a year ago. It almost makes me forget that these past few years were spent mostly inside, at home, with my family. When we left, Michelle doused her hands with sanitizer and told me to hold out my own…. When I was 19, I was arrested and charged for Possession of Cocaine. We parked our truck in the Staples parking lot because we were meeting a friend when he got out of work and he worked at Staples. So we left the truck in the parking lot and walked to our dealer’s house carrying my Playstation 3. We traded him the console for a small bag of cocaine and then went back to the truck. Sitting in the truck, we each gummed a small amount of cocaine before I turned around and saw through the back window a cop coming toward the truck. I shouted: The police! Andrew rolled down the window and dumped the cocaine and tossed the bag, then rolled back up the window. The cop arrived at the truck and picked up the bag and tapped on the window. He asked us what was in the bag. Then we were arrested.
A few days later the police report came in. Andrew and I thought it was funny because there was no way the cops could have possibly scraped the amount of cocaine they said that we had had off that tiny plastic wrapping. My lawyer was pretty good. He got me off on a Continuance without a Finding, with a year’s probation. I met with a probation officer. Every day I had to call a number and if my color was up, I had to drive to the Charleston Courthouse and go up five flights of stairs and wait in a room for my turn to stand in a bathroom where every wall was a floor to ceiling mirror and a cop in full uniform sat in the corner and watched me pee. Ever since this experience I have had a shy bladder. I assume it’s because of the trauma of having this happen that I can no longer pee when someone is watching. One time I was at the Courthouse and I tried to pee but I couldn’t. So after a while I stepped out and had some water and sat down in the waiting room again. They let me try a second time. Still no pee came out. The cop in the waiting room told me I get one more chance and if I am not able to pee, then they will say I was positive for every drug. Well, I tried a third time and thank God, I was able to pee. 10 years later I found out that for all the drug arrests in that period of time, the charges were dropped. Apparently the two women in the drug lab were discovered to have been lying about how much drugs people had had in their possession. It was a big scandal. Now it all made sense. Yesterday I received a check for a very large sum of money. It was said to be a settlement for my troubles. I guess that money makes up for my shy bladder. I remember
the good ol’ days for what they really were It took awhile but overtime the truth sunk in The good ol’ days that kind of thinking an excuse to go wild But what were they but us trying to escape something we couldn’t quite grasp at the time I thought we were having so much fun I could not let go of the party I hated myself so much I needed to escape all the time I diluted my reality The good ol’ days Were they really that good to want to go back there It really is romance at its finest a retrospective illusion When they went right
you went left You danced to your very own beat with a style that could not have been duplicated A Boy brought up in a society of clones You did it your own way and no one could have taken that away When they went up you dove into the underground A language of your own you spoke fluently A life of your own you created so diligently No one could have told you what was what Where you lacked in brains you made up in creativity All the uniforms of your peers you tore holes in our culture No one could’ve told you the right way because you’d always do it your own way You were my friend and I danced with you in the flames You taught me so much about life ——but somehow it wasn’t enough because that needle’s calling was too strong for you to resist You thought it was the only way to coexist in this freakish world where left was right and up was down You tried to carve a name with the rocknroll you played but you were too late to make it You lived in a veil of misery a shameful voice of oppression You were disillusioned from the day you were hatched Born a tortured soul Died a tormented genius —but it was much too late ————but you tried so hard to persevere You were loved You were you And you died too soon If only you knew/// |
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