Salt

this is how champions are made.
this is how hip bones are shattered.
this, this, this,

holy god almighty,
what am i doing?




this is not what my father wanted for me.
this is not what any father wants for his daughter.






this is how champions are made.
this is how integrity, tact, and excuses
are lost.

lost, lost, lost.

chicago is failing to lick my wounds in the way i had hoped it would.
if anything,

salt, salt, salt.

happy bandits

and we wrote nice things,
encouraging things,
like, "you are loved" and "tomorrow will be better."

and we put them in mailboxes,
bushes,
on driveways
and on porches.

and that made us feel good.

but between the cinder blocks of walls
and only to ourselves,
we wrote in invisible ink other things,
like, "your mother never loved you" and "i hope you die."

and we put them in mailboxes,
bushes,
on driveways

and on porches.

and that made us feel even better.

Bored

took the side street.

to live on the edge, mostly. you know. the dark, the creepers, the whole no-one's-around-so-this-is-where-they'll-find-your-corpse-in-the-morning kind of side street.

i stood in the shadows and watched some chick try to get high in her piece of shit civic. she kept trying to light her bowl and she kept failing and i moved a little closer. her hair got too close to the flame and she pulled back violently, the flame disappearing, me appearing closer yet. by the time she got it right, she lost it, her inhale halted by a strange sort of shadow spilling across her dashboard which of course was mine, face damn near pressed to her window, i'm talking like straight up twilight-zone-gremlin-nightmare-at-20,000-feet style.
and i don't know why, really. to live on the edge, mostly?

i backed away and turned, leaving her, my hood up and shoulders hunched and she was still screaming. when she rolled down the window i was still walking and she was still screaming, what-the-fucks and you're-a-fucking-creepy-piece-of-shit and i thought about going back and making her kiss the pavement, nice and hard, my knuckles lost in a tangled mess at the base of her neck, her playing tonsil hockey with the sidewalk, but i didn't.


i kept walking.

left the side street, to a main road.


because i'm boring.
 

Growths

rings and circles like cells and bumps, all in one giant petri dish.

what is it? for how long? from whom?

i stare at past MRIs and see the muscles and tissues and instantly want cheap beer, cigarettes, and baby back ribs. extra sauce.

if it's not one thing, it's another.

Tendons

the road to the valley is riddled with twists and turns. around one of those bends is a storage unit where i almost killed my best friend, i say to the other kids in the car. they laugh and say i'm funny when i'm drunk, but it's true. joe's blood is still on the cement, his tendons are still exposed. we were in a hurry, i mumbled, words not coming out of my mouth as i'm intending, but they're only half-listening, and joe was really skinny so he slipped in behind a desk to lift a box. he had to lift the box over a chair, and i couldn't see what was going on. the lights outside are making me dizzy, put over, man, put over now i say. whatever i just melted my debit card with wants back out, pronto, and joe asked me to move this chair towards me so he could drop a box behind it, so i did. the box fell, he did too, the top of his right hand made sweet love to the metal column holding the goddamn unit up. he turned to me, pale, quiet, and i said, you okay? we both looked at his hand, and it was open. wide open. we stared at the purple, the white, the lines crossing and weaving and all the gray, then the lava came. it started pouring out black and brown and thick and the viscosity, JESUS PULL OVER MAN, there was blood everywhere. i was certified in first aid so logically i passed out, leaving him to take off his jeans and rip them and try to make a tourniquet, and i think he made one. i don't remember much. i blacked out and then woke up and was alone on the road. there was vomit everywhere. i heard voices. kendall, get back in the car. you're cut off, and no more stories, they say, but i'm only half-listening.

In The Manner Of Dogs

'yeah, he knocked up his sister. tried to do his mom too.'
'dogs do that?'
'uhh, yeah?'
[looks down at puppy]
'i suppose that was a stupid question. i suppose people do that, too.'

He Slept Like...

you lack the arresting sort of development we'd like to see, they say.

(proceed back to the drawing board, tail between legs.)

how good am i? you'd turn the car back around and you know it.

things are getting in my way, namely, life.
phone taps, countries splitting, species gone gone gone.

how good am i? dude slept like roadkill.