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.

3o something

'just look at it this way: it took my brother 8 years to figure things out. 8 years! he's almost 30.'
i looked away, then i looked back. 'no he's not.'
'yeah he is. he's 26. well, he's gonna be 26.'
'that's nowhere near 30.'
'yes it is.'
'well what does that make us then? 25?'
'yeah.' pause. [retrospective for the not-so-distant statement.] 'we're almost 30.'

Glass Jaws

i stopped at a green light today.
hey, don't honk at me, asshole...

...oh.

Aliens

we're young.
we hop borders, we abuse our health.
(hey, i'll drink to that!)

Coffee And Corpses

'have you ever held cremated human remains? i think they're called 'cremains.' '
'i have not!'
'well, let me say this: they're a lot heavier than you'd think!'

(i love coffee.)

Sewerage

and it's not done,
but the song is.
(your song?)

Passive

passive, feet stuck in the mud/sand.

true story: last week at this time, i sat at the end of a driveway in south carolina with my best friend. the kind of best friend that not everyone has, the kind of best friend that everyone wants, the kind of best friend that loves you and tells you you're a good person no matter how many one-night stands you pretend you didn't have, no matter how many married men you've kissed, no matter anything. that kind of best friend. this is all arbitrary, but she's my best friend.

cheap bottles of wine, i saw a shooting star. we talked louder than the alcohol warranted just to see if he'd come out of his house. we thought about flipping the four-wheeler earlier that day: she says i'm not good at playing the damsel in distress. i say: i'm living it.
maybe he'll come out, maybe we'll get high in the woods, maybe we'll have some fun, the atlantic isn't enough and we need some more secrets. hey man, we're here, we're vulnerable.

then i tell this guy over coffee that i have a problem or two, and he changes my life. it's not the action or event, it's your opinion of it. love's not real, only the way you see it. change your opinion, change everything.

all at once, we're in complete control.

mahmoud and i played this game once: as a final goodbye, let's tell each other how we really feel.
what i said wasn't important, because nothing ever is.
his: "you are too passive, you're all talk. you won't amount to anything."

while 85% of that may be true,
i must say that the sand feels really good between my toes.

Pull One Excuse From Another

i don't have the heart to tell my mother that i don't like her chili.
[now, in the deep and down.]


i remember meeting you that night, in your car.
i remember seeing your face for the first time since...
and thinking, you are still beautiful.
you tasted the same. (can we change our taste? how's that for table talk?)

the grass was wet. the dirt was dry. i remember seeing your face for the first time since...

i don't mean to undermine all that i stand for,
but i fear i was doomed to write teenage epics.

(thank you. you're welcome.)

'are we pretending to be unhappy?'
'no. it's real. but i really, really liked that movie.'

'music is my worst enemy. songs about drugs, sex, and alcohol warrant all of my actions.'
'we. are. not. having. this. conversation.'

i'm sorry; i had a feeling you were right.

Owned

literally, OWNED.
BURNED. DENIED.
REJECTED, FROM DOWNNNNTOWNNNNN.

but that's life. you move move move on,
move move move.

'who does this song remind you of?'
'who do you think?'

pause, in the driveway, in the snow.
the window is down, in the snow, because you have to smoke.

'do you think we'll ever get over them?'
'do you think we're supposed to?'

yes, i'll end with a preposition,
don't mind if i do.

forgive me guys, it's been awhile. but i'm back.

Longer Pleas

i've been cleaning my room (for a change, for a change, in preparation, for a change).
i came across a brown portfolio, and in it was my past, condensed, epitomized, how sad.
i cringed, really.
'the younger years: memories are an inevitable curse'
'the longer stuff: nothing more than a longer plea'
and
'words, call it prose, call it nothing'

being eighteen must have been really, really rough.
wholly broken, incessant anger.

i fold the paper in half, laugh, tear it, and it falls to a pile next to my bed. my laugh wakes asia from her sleep and she rolls her eyes. i laugh, and it falls. the pain that dripped from that pen back then was so ridiculous. too much music, too much compulsion.

now, it's the same music, but more of it, and louder. it's more compulsion, it's sought after. and it's a fuckton of more subtlety.

good night, and good luck. :]

Two Guys Walk Into A Bar

'I heard a riddle once that I never understood.'

'Hit me.'

'So you have a lamb, a fox, and some cabbage, right? You have to get them across the river, but you can only take two at a time.’

Pause.

'That’s quite a conundrum, I guess.’

'Solve it.’

'What’s there to solve?'

'What do you mean what’s there to solve? How do you get them across the river?'

Longer pause.

'I'm...I’m sorry, I …I don’t really get the point of the riddle. Can you at least tell me why I'm even in this situation in the first place?'

'Solve the damn riddle, Kendall.'

'But wait, like, what, is it even a riddle? I mean really, there’s no twist here. And honestly, this is not that pressing of an issue for me. Let the lamb eat the cabbage, let the fox eat the lamb, who gives a shit? Let nature take its course for crying out loud. Plus, what if the fox attacks me when I’m taking it across the river? Is that what foxes do, they attack? Or what if the lamb bites me? I don't want to be interacting with this hypothetical livestock, contract some mad-hoof disease and never be able to give blood ever again. And how deep is the river, and how wide? Oregon trail style, forging the river, is my life at stake? Will Sally get bit by a snake afterwards and I’ll have to leave her behind on the dusty trail with a pathetic cartoon headstone? Are we to assume the Oregon trailers took the time to carve those headstones themselves like the game depicts? It’s just, I don’t know, I just don’t know. The more I think about it, the more it bothers me.'

'You ruin everything. Really, everything.'

'Is that another riddle?'

[i shouldn't feel this way, but i do.

i should mind, but i don't.]

i'd hate to think this is all for nothing,

'cause i kinda sorda want you endlessly.

Wrong-O

a rat-tat-tat, a rat-tat-tat,
where's this house?
you passed it.
(you never gave me gas money.

okay, you did once,
but it still wasn't enough.)

here's to the pieces never fitting,
here's to bending the edges to sleep better at night.
to the wrinkled cardboard, we raise our glasses.

cheers, mistakes. cheers.

jimmy eat world softly whimpers through the speakers, and from your drunken slump against the passenger window you say, 'i love the smashing pumpkins.'
'this isn't the smashing pumpkins.'
'well, i still love them.'

i didn't say it then, but i should have. 'fuck you.'

always count the pieces of a puzzle before you buy it, and if it doesn't feel right when you're coercing the corner pieces to sit in the epicenter of the montage, burn it.

Anthems

my best friend cups my face in her hands, and we cry. my best friend cups my face in her hands and my tears roll over her knuckles. (i'm here instead of home, and no, i don't want to talk about that, either.) she says, you're back, you're finally back, my kendall is finally back.

even if for a moment, i was back.
(don't take hope away from a person; it may be all they have.)

I dug my elbows into my knees and let my face rest in my palms, staring intently at my shoes. I pressed my left foot into the snow then raised it, having it hover while I analyzed the zigzag pattern imprinted in the snow.

We used to do that on the playground all the time. Press a foot in, pull it out slowly, delicately, look at my print. No no, look at mine. Mine is better; my daddy has an office job and can afford me these intricate soles. No no, look at mine: my daddy owns your daddy’s office.

Our own innocence overrode that of the virgin snow; we were branding nature for the sake of our enjoyment.

i have a nasty habit of documenting every single conversation i have and fixing it later on paper.
i have a nasty habit of reinventing my own history.
i make it more distant, more disconnected...or less?


i tell people the story, and they ask, why kendall? why do it at all?
because, i say. because. oh, and,
anyone who doesn't know how good it feels to be needed has obviously never been.


(update: currently unable to register how i feel/felt/will feel, but i'll keep the faith. haven't felt that good in awhile and i would very much like to feel that good sometime again.)
[park that car // drop that phone // sleep on the floor // dream about me]

Subterfuge

found some old poems; found some old memories; found someone to read them.
(some are newer than others.)
(the poems, i mean.)

the snow:
driving no longer procures any sort of rapture, driving becomes a task.
the snow:
attire must be planned in advance, getting dressed becomes a task.
the snow:
i take it i won't be seeing you anymore?
(breathing becomes a task.)

she chopped up a centipede in her basement.
she put the pieces in a ziploc bag and we watched them wiggle.
later that day, i chopped up an earwig with a sega cartridge.
the pieces didn't move.
now that i think about it, that's probably where all of this began.

let's get reacquainted.
i learned a new word, and it sounds like ...
i digress.

at the end of the day, i need to know that you're thinking about me.
that's not really a question you can or should evade; yes, no, never have, never will?
(regardless, i'm calling affirmative. i need that.)

meander, depart.
if i could focus on much of anything,
i'd be more of a something.