kick the city of green in the dick: working on arlington and massillon road at the same time is a brilliant idea, really. if nothing else, i have, for once, a legitimate excuse to navigate those back roads like i was born to. 'how do you even know where to go?' time, practice, patience, and a lot of really bad fucking nights. these roads out here give you the sense of security no man or book ever could. turn the music up, scream out the wrong words, you're alone and it feels right. sometimes it's more than north and south. it's more what feels right and what feels wrong. 'do you ever look at the stars?' no, not anymore. i look at this bench here, this pond --my dad's midlife crisis manifested into an object of productivity -- and that is all. i don't like looking up. after an entire semester of facts and figures on a blackboard, i see no point. i'm nothing, you're nothing, and what is happening here? it's whatever. accept it: it's whatever, nothing more, nothing less.
the roads. my sentiments, or lack thereof. the way i feel, or don't. the numbness, the tingling, the constant inebriated state i'm stuck in, it's all whatever.
the trails and blankets make twists and turns. what if you're lost, and you're okay with that? i don't want anyone to follow me. maybe i like being sad. maybe i like being the victim.
a magnet on the fridge has little bo peep, alone, all alone, on the back roads. it reads 'life has been so much easier since i've given up hope.' behind her trail the sheep, so i'm right there with her.
we're bored. we can only tolerate so much. we sit, waiting, for what? look at him, look at me. bored. tired of waiting. sitting still has never been so exhausting.
but maybe the real limit's placed on the amount of excitement we can handle. something happens: you see his truck a few houses down, you see a pointless text from her on your phone, the stupid crap that gives you butterflies and plasters a shit-eating grin on your face for a week.
because when that happens -- something so stupid and so small -- something to keep you going, you have to wonder: what would i be doing right now without this? what would be turning my stomach into knots without that glance? that text? that wave?
if i didn't have this, what else would be launching me into this adolescent state of nirvana?
maybe life is a cruel pulley system. someone knows how much we can tolerate, on both ends. our breaking points concerning both happiness and pain. when we wholly exert ourselves on either end, they pull us back. but that's shit, too, and i don't like it.
i don't like it and it makes me sleepy to think about. after i drive you around in my car and make you listen to every single song that i've now attached to your existence, will you tuck me in?
but don't say anything too sentimental. there's only so much bullshit i can tolerate.
warning: neither term will be employed correctly here. the phrase i wanted to use doesn't make much sense at all. 'visceral impact.' it's about the guts. i wanted ears. tonight, it's all about the noises.
we went back to the playground at young. i can barely fit in the doors of my elementary school. like alice, but not. like: kendall. give me some magic potion so i can shrink, keep shrinking, shrink until there is nothing left.
i swung. swang? i leaned back, i let the night sky swallow me, i kicked the shit out of the stars. and i bled on the woodchips. and she listened.
just give it one more day, she said. a day at a time.
a ball. was this here when we got here? yes. oh.
a little too less air, the sound of the bounce was off, but i sunk it. the chain-link net raped the rubber and i think i came. what a beautiful, beautiful fucking sound.
i have to pee. so? go pee.
i found a shadow that was dark enough, leaned back against the rusty fence, and pissed a good piss. i stared at the parking lot, painted orange by the lights, a hissing in the background coupled with a relieving sensation, and i thought, i don't do this nearly enough.
intonations, modulations. the sounds: a ball getting sucked into a mitt. whack. the first heartbeat radiating from a computer. woopwoopwoopwoopwoop. the blood pumping in your ears when you know what you're doing won't make sense in the morning. inflections to die for.
uplifting, for once. soon to be disheartening, for sure, but for now? smylez. for now. for you, for now.
journey's right. everybody wants a thrill. sometimes, i turn the thinking switch off. and i just go. go, go, go. thrill.
but what about when they're so hard to read? retinal failures? man, screw it. read with your hands, braille the shit outta that boy.
i hate the people i'm not.
[what finds you is not yours,
what leaves you is not stolen]
i'm jumping all over here, and i'm embarrassed. not a single coherent thought today. at all. every single day has the potential to be the greatest day of your life.
or the worst.
contents under pressure.
avoid contact with eyes.
i'm the description on the back of a bottle of raid.
The most vicious cycle of life arrives in the midst of pimples and newly discovered hormones; between perky breasts and cracking voices, we learn to tear each other apart from the inside out. Extended, lanky limbs coupled with greasy foreheads allot the freedom for the destruction of others. Adolescence is a period on the timeline when we find out who we really are and—more specifically—who we would much rather be. A cruel, cruel segment of life, the cruelest of all, but not even that excuses us. When the blood dries and the bones stop stretching, we find that our behavior was hardly permissible. We find that it’s already too late.
Everyone was mean to Shawn.
I was mean to Shawn.
He was awkward, short and ugly, with crooked teeth that were confused by their own placement, running into one another, creating a chaotic scene behind his puffy lips. His eyes were set too far apart and his nostrils were too big for the nose they were on, which was spread across his face in a hurried fashion. His hair was short and greasy, matted to his small skull like a helmet, though random hairs fought desperately for freedom, dancing under the ceiling fan. An immense birthmark resided on his right cheek which everyone claimed was shit he must have forgotten to wipe off; it was large, right next to his eye, extending down his cheek, brown on white. They came up with some ingenious and innovative nickname, something to really leave them speechless: if I recall correctly, and I do, it was poo stain. Poo Stain Shawn. They couldn’t say it without laughing; red faces hot with blood twisted and contorted, the words exploding from perfect lips with spit and breakfast, followed by that silent laughter that rocked the bodies.
He ran like a crippled duck, and for some reason, this was funny. Boys would chase him down the hall to make the rest of us laugh, the yellow tile of the basement hallway mirroring and mocking his futile and gawky escapes.
And they all laughed. I laughed.
Our laughter bounced off the tan bricks and followed him up the stairs to his next class, where more laughter waited around each corner. Laughter followed him everywhere. My laughter.
One time he tripped down the steps in Graves’s classroom and he heard about it for weeks. (Have a nice trip, Poo Stain?) The steps were uneven and he didn’t just fall, he fell hard, papers running from their folders and air jumping from his lungs. A shin crashed painfully into the edge of the step and the binding of a book cracked like an egg. I remember tripping in the same spot not too long after, but only hearing mere acquaintances inquire about my well-being, genuinely concerned; someone picked up my papers for me.
His chest stuck out exceedingly far and everyone mimicked him, poking fun at it, at him, at the instrument of his imminent death.
Shawn got a nasty cold one Monday and died that Friday from an enlarged heart.
I went to his calling hours on a cold December night, my mom waiting patiently for me in the car. I crossed through the stream of exhaust expelled from the back of the Taurus with my Letterman’s jacket—a public announcement of both my academic and athletic achievements—wrapped tightly around me. The funeral home was trying to be comforting and inviting, but its doors were intimidating and its carpet too soft.
I remember standing over his dead body, dressed so nicely in a suit without wrinkles. My eyes traced the length of his corpse down to the shiny, spotless shoes, never walked in, never ran in, never used to run away. His hands were folded awkwardly at his waist, simultaneously unnatural and natural; fitting in a disheartening way. His hair was combed to the side, not a single one was trying to get away. Not a single one. His eyes were closed, but not tightly; not the way he closed his eyes when he was covering his ears, trying to make us disappear, painfully running away inside of himself, creating darkness so dark that it made light.
A teacher from school came up behind me and thanked me for coming. I returned a blank stare with crooked eyebrows. Scanning the room, I saw it was empty. A few relatives sobbed quietly in the corner, but the guestbook held only my name.
It stood there by itself, screaming infidelities and imploring urgently for forgiveness. It was shaky and small, not confidently sprawled across the page like it was on my jacket. It was timid and tiny, the hand behind the pen forever reliving the taunts and the apathy and the failure. It wanted to remove itself from the page and again join the ranks of the crowd, far away and distant, in a group, without a name and without guilt.
I looked back at the box that held Shawn. I had laughed too.
We kept his seat open in every class for the duration of that year. The empty desk stared at us with accusing eyes, a fear of retribution, the overbearing castigation. By leaving the seat untouched, we were beseeching the unseen, begging for vindication. It was as though we were trying to make up for what we had done, for what we didn’t stop, for what we caused and allowed to happen, because we all had laughed.
sounds like: apathetic while paying attention, a hippie wearing brand new nikes, dancing in public, the voice of god, anti-american coke-drinking son-of-a-bitch, your worst nightmare, your dream come true.
