The scabs burn with a yearning I can only compare to the decrepit African child who looks at a photograph of a banquet.

The cafe is cool, the sweat on my forehead glistens, I feel droplets in my eyebrows; my left hand hasn’t stopped shaking since I left Los Angeles.

I feel my cheek with my right hand, scabbed between the fingers and black beneath the nails; my face is pocked and scarred, I can almost feel how pale I am. The sharpness of my cheekbones bones jutting forward like spikes of granite after an earthquake could cut my fragile hand and I stroke the shadow of a five o’clock I can’t remember.

My companion stares into his coffee mug, he’s tearing up from the steam, he doesn’t seem to care. I’m handling all of this much better than he is, it’s fairly obvious, his eyes are as blank and black as the very pits of the Hell I don’t believe in. In his left hand he cradles three teeth which I can only assume came out of his mouth either this morning or on what I can only imagine was a hell of a night – a hell of a night I bet he wishes he had said no too. Celebrity can be a bastard.

I stare at the teeth, brown and black in spots, yellow in others; yellow like the haze in my Grandmothers apartment when we took the body out, yellow from the decades of smoke, yellow from the steaming pool of piss we found her in. Sickly, dead yellow.

Plague yellow.

I keep staring at the teeth and all of the sudden I realize why I haven’t seen him open his mouth, to give his usually smarmy grin or to glower at some disapproving bourgeois bastard; one of the teeth formerly held residence front and centre on the top of his mouth.

Poor sod.

The burning continues and I think of another description for the yearning; in fact, I don’t think of it as yearning, I look at the scabs, some of which bleed now and then (I haven’t been clotting as fast as I used to) and I see none other than poor, desperate regret. Regret for taking the first sniff off of that hookers landing strip, regret for cooking my own with a mix of Mother’s own spices.

I regret, yet I regret nothing. Poetic perhaps?

More like ridiculous, I look at my friend and then at his teeth; I try and look calm as I shove my shaking right hand into my mouth, forgetting briefly that I had a mouthful of tea – now I have a soaked leather jacket.

Bugger.

Teeth wiggle, but they seem okay, god forbid I should lose this smile, what would the fans think of me then. I’ve got a few words but i think I’ll spare myself the grief and self-loathing (for awhile). I notice my companion staring at me now, a stupidly perplexed look plastered to his still-high face.

“What you lookin’ at? What?” He says nothing, but slightly cocks his head to the left; did he just raise an eyebrow?!

“Sod off prick, what you expect… I see your fucking teeth in your hand… course I’m gonna check mine! Stop staring at me!!!  … Okay, alright, here me out. Stop staring at me and explain! Please.”

Sweat buckets out of me from all orifices, I feel like I’m sinking into his coffee mug full of bubbling sludge and it smells delicious. But I can’t take my eyes off of those blackened pits, my shoulders twitch and I start to sniff at nothing. I wipe drool from my mouth, i think about Mother and I don’t know why.

I’m sorry I made fun of Gram! In fact, I’m sorry I didn’t share the Gram either. Please stop staring at me. How did he know I’d done that? Were heroin addicts telepathic? Better yet, ARE heroin addicts telepathic? I could have been a heroine instead, but I followed those eyes, I followed them.

God help me I followed them.

“Jesus fuck man! What?!” I can’t take it anymore, if my soul was a bank and I was the manager, I’d be on the floor pissing myself right about now while he walked away with everything. Hell he could have robbed me with a rubber fucking duck.

Pits. Blackness, my soul is full of China’s finest, from Encino. Go figure.

My eyes are as wide as they used to be, I think I’m going to faint. I throw up a bit of Earl Grey inside my mouth and my head is hit with hammers beyond count. God I need a fix, with a clean needle; can you shoot heroin behind the ears?

I’m swimming in sweat but he’s still not saying anyth –

“That is one fine bitch sipping espresso behind you boy. Damn fine,” he sniffs as he whispers, I hate that.

He turns and looks back at his coffee mug, like the thousand shotguns he just used to blow my fucking brain back to Los Angeles never happened. Hot? Fine? What do those words even mean?

My head lolls back and forth and I can’t see… is that foam on the corner of his mouth?

I see more yellow.

- – -

I’m in Berlin now, it’s 1977, if God has a sense of humor then I’m the Devil’s favorite fuck toy.

My friend isn’t doing as well as I am.

be back tomorrow after work!

Ltr!

Now, as I work my way out of my block I turn to what I’ve always fallen on to pry myself out of the ol’ block – music.

(I know, shocking right?)

Anyway, I’m not writing anything tonight, I have the day off tomorrow and I intend on breaking the block for good by the end of the day, so expect good stuff… nice and pulpy!

So in the meantime, I think I’ll leave a snippet of my current inspiration… Epitaph. via King Crimson.

The wall on which the prophets wrote
Is cracking at the seams.
Upon the instruments of death
The sunlight brightly gleams.
When every man is torn apart
With nightmares and with dreams,
Will no one lay the laurel wreath
As silence drowns the screams.

Between the iron gates of fate,
The seeds of time were sown,
And watered by the deeds of those
Who know and who are known;
Knowledge is a deadly friend
When no one sets the rules.
The fate of all mankind I see
Is in the hands of fools.

Confusion will be my epitaph.
As I crawl a cracked and broken path
If we make it we can all sit back
And laugh.
But I fear tomorrow Ill be crying,
Yes I fear tomorrow Ill be crying.

“credit: sinfield, fripp, giles, giles and lake”

Drip

Drip

George plunged his sweat coated fingers into his left eye as the agonizing sting of his own blood pooled in the corners of his green eye. He grunted at the force of his attempt to clean it out, feeling the blunt force squash his eyeball into his skull until he saw stars out of the ever-blurring right one.

Vigorously wiping his eye he removed his hand, staring down into his open palm he saw more than just the blood from the cut on his forehead, the brown ooze fell between his blood encrusted fingers, into –

… for God’s sake, this is ridiculous, for anyone who’s ever experienced writer’s block, my god, it is the worst. NEVER try to write completely uninspired… Ugh, the abomination i just puked out of my drained subconscious is not even fit for the stephanie meyer crowd – better yet, not even the racks before the cash in a Zeller’s or Sear’s.

I sincerely apologize for the terrible, utter, utter filth i just attempted to put out, like so many danielle steel’s. I promise to never stoop to the level of forcing something like a constipated llama, onto paper, or screen.

*Scouts honour*

Back with something credible soon… (still reeling from the abomination)

I need to go wash my hands, i feel a Lady Macbeth comin’ on!

-j

midday

shimmering sands

narrow

empty

roads

billowing trench coat

scruff

hollow eyes

mountains

fires

dunes upon dunes

alone

left behind

seeking

destination

goal

redeem?

It took me to a dark place, his tale brought out painful memories; of myself mistreated and misled, of myself naive and quick to love and lust, of hearts broken; hearts that I’ve gone to great lengths to mend. Of emotions shattered and beliefs shaken and questioned to their very core.

Memories like old bank vaults burst open like outlaws on their biggest heist, flooding my mind with the burnt remnants of scars… scars i thought buried forever.

Now I tip another whiskey and cradle it with white knuckled hands, I stare into the liquid and watch the ice cubes dance. I shudder at the thought of darkened lonely nights, nursing my wounded, crying heart – the poor victim to the knife… of one-sided love.

I must pull myself together, I cannot go back down that road, it’s been too long, I’ve grown so much stronger, it can’t possibly be worth it.

But I was so hurt, so pained, so drained…

***

I was marooned on an island of grief without the hope of any silver lining to my sorrows, no hope of relief. I wept on a deserted beach, no contentment from the soothing waves, no peace in solitude… more like terror.

I felt a child amidst a darkened empty house, full with tales of ghouls and ghosts and all bloody horrific phantoms that literature teaches us and peers tempt us to fear. I was a raft flowing ever onward along the blackest rivers of darkest jungles, red eyes of hatred and deceit following my every move.

I shake my head in disbelief, how can this be happening to me, again no less?

My heart has mended, I’ve learned from my blissful ignorance that love is meant to be when two share the same belief, not one seeking opportunity, not interested in love or comfort or ever feeling the need to be complete; and the other, the blissful one shocked and living in constant ecstasy that someone would even feign love to them.

That person was me, I paid the price, I was beaten down, I was torn to shreds and used until every penny gone and fled and like a used up hollow chunk of meat I was flung… at my most vulnerable moment it seems, a pivotal point in time, like it was planned the very first week.

***

As I contemplated and pondered these undead memories, searching for the right advice, the aid so sorely needed for my friend in his ever-growing uncertainty, I drew a blank… a veritable joker card, useless in this game of feelings. My friend left the same tonight unchanged; hateful and scared and worried for the future, I wish I could have helped my friend lest history repeat. I wish I could have given more, instead of hazy, vague critiques.

But I still don’t know what I could say, I don’t think I ever will, perhaps everyone needs to hit the bottom of the well.

Maybe everyone needs to visit hell.

The Monarch butterfly glides along a swift current of harsh wind, it flaps its wings idly, hardly noticing the change from daylight to dusk to night.

Normally it would be heading to its tiny hovel among the rosebushes on the edge of town, but not tonight, tonight the butterfly was heading to the other side of town.

As day turned to dusk the rolling green hills and deep valleys of the countryside dimmed from vibrant greens and blues to a warring red and psychedelic purple, lightly etched with shades of brightest orange and deepest violet. The shadows danced along the old barbed wire fences, trickling over the ancient artillery bunkers and sandpits long forgotten. As the field was left behind the warm green grass quickly began to fade away to distant, sparse burst of bristly weeds and thistles, dried earth juts up from among the Earth’s surface, gracelessly protruding through the middle of anything showing any chance of growth.

Among the ruined earth the dust clouds swept across the barren desert, sweeping up old newspapers and bits of debris, a dolls severed head is carried along the breeze like some creature in its final death throes. As the butterfly continues toward to the center of town a howling wind that was not wind screams across the waste, a cloud of concrete dust and particles of rust and soot and decayed ashes that were once flesh, they zig-zag through the centre of town. Among the ruined beams of rusted steel and falling boulders that were once the town’s sidewalks the butterfly glides along, waiting, hoping to see the fabled other side of town.

A deafening crash was heard echoing in the distance to the West, another cloud of blinding white shot up into the sky, briefly illuminating the red dusk, then it flickers out like nothing had ever occurred. The charge had been set and the clock timed perfectly, whoever was left alive in the wasteland was still looking for whoever the good side was after, I can only assume the other good side was doing the same, nevertheless, as another once shining showcase of man’s architectural talent was leveled to the ground in a fireball of heresy and diplomatic forgery, a shock wave was sent out across the no mans land the butterfly called its home, the lonely rose bush at the edge of town was there one moment, and as the wave of destruction passed through it, all that was left was a tiny mound of petrified earth, still reeling under the intense heat and sickening dryness.

All the while the butterfly continued it’s journey, blissfully unaware that it would never make it to the fabled other side of town… merely a mile away from the mythic side the shock wave hit the butterfly… then nothing lived in the town once more… Peace had been… achieved…

I’m small enough to cry.

I wish I had the answers,

and no one had to die…

Please tell me why I’m here

and why the time flies…

I wish I had a perfect frame,

a name that you’d remember.

My patience will not prevail,

I’m letting go of my rope

I might not get to Heaven.

But at least I’ll believe in Hope.

Forgive me for my bad designs,

I never thought of how they’d mine

the thoughts. Of all the people,

who never read my mind.

I cannot joke,

I cannot lie.

My body is frail,

And you can’t tell

that I’m no longer there.

were there enough peas in your pod?

have the cows littered the floor with paste?

is that it?!

it is is’nt it?

Questions!

Answers!

Tweedle Dee

Tweedle Dum

copyrighted names

cannot be undone.

Leave me in the treehouse,

underneath the blind man’s bum.

Haha.

been sick, haven’t had the energy to write…. it sucks.

be back at it though, after work tomorrow… i think i’m pretty much back on my feet!

anyway,

j

ps. that guy from “DEPRIVED” needed more…. i’m thinkin of expanding him

ideas?