Transitional Paranoia.

And, once again, I find myself entering the Heart of Darkness...

I Will Never Love Anyone Again.

There I was, curled up in a ball, with my arms wrapped tightly around my knees, breathing slow, and heavy. The kind of breath you breathe after sex, when it’s good, and your bones are full of this weak kind of overwhelming satisfaction, as you bite your bottom lip and grin. But I was far from grinning. He’d left me with no assurance that he’d ever return, with not one slap that forced my head all the way to the right, as I buried my face into my shoulder. He gave me silence, accompanied by a dead stare. A stare I didn’t understand how to read. Did he not love me anymore? Did he hate me? Worse, did he no longer give a fuck? Nothing. I pushed and shoved him, screamed until my voice was swallowed into the walls; he wasn’t listening, he wasn’t responding to anything. Just silence, and a dead stare. I could feel myself trying to hold back my tears, he showed me no emotion, so why the hell should I? Yet I couldn’t help it. My eyes were a stormy night, cloudy with confusion, rainy with a warm sorrow I only wished he could feel against his fingertips as he wiped my tears away, veins vivid like a scarlet lightning full of a rage that only showed my passion, pupils dilated, I wanted him. I wanted him to shove me harder than I’d shoved him. I wanted him to have me pressed up against the wall by his forearm as I pointed my toes and tried to reach the ground, breathless from an anger that promised me a tomorrow. I wanted to feel his fists pound against my thigh as he left me a big purple bruise. I wanted him to bite me, sink his teeth into my shoulder, where his lips would eventually make their way to my neck, and his chest against mine, and his fingers on my cock yanking wildly. I wanted to feel his love and his lust and his rage and his hatred for me and anything else in the world, and I swear I would’ve absorbed it like water to a sponge. I wanted to feel his fingers wrapped up in my hair as he arched my back up and into him as we fucked away our troubles and reminded ourselves why we’d always be together. I lost myself for a moment, in all my wishes and wants, thinking they were actually happening. Still I had silence, and a dead stare. His face began to sculpt into something, rather someone, which I had no recognition of. It looked hard, but exquisite, like a fine marble. I just wanted to lick his lips and slither my tongue right in between them, hoping that if he weren’t listening to my words, perhaps somehow I can wear them at the very tip of my tongue just enough so he could taste them, and swallow them deep into his gut the way he did my cum. It was useless though, his jaw was clenched too tight, his teeth were like a tall and beautiful, freshly painted, white picket fence I didn’t want to break entry to. His silence, and his dead stare, his tough embodiment, his numbness, was all too much for me to bare. I’d given up on the idea of fixing something I’d ruined. I don’t know how I ruined it but I did, I know I did. He turned around finally, walked down the stairs and stood by the door. I followed. He paused and cracked his marble as he leaned in for a very light kiss, and whispered “I love you.” I said it back, because I did, but I couldn’t tell if this was goodbye or see you later. I slammed the door, pissed off at not knowing what had just happened, walked upstairs and into my room, slammed that door too. I licked my lips thoroughly, because that might have been the last time I’d ever get to taste him. And there I was, curled up in a ball, with my arms wrapped tightly around my knees, breathing slow, and heavy. The kind of breath you breathe after sex, when it’s good, and your bones are full of this weak kind of overwhelming satisfaction, as you bite your bottom lip and grin. But I was far from grinning.

You're a Drunktard Lost in these Tijuana Nights

I fall on my ass and I’m outside, sitting next to Saul and a pond and we’re having some sort of picnic. It’s sunny out and the air is clear, and his black hair waves about in the tranquil breeze. He’s all smiles and bumble-bees and he looks good in his black denim jacket. I try to smile but there’s blood and broken teeth. Saul puts his thin, brown hand out towards my face, says something, but it gets lost in the mirage.

And then a white flash. Back to reality. Raucous noise of hollering Mexicans:

The queers behind me move away from the bar and I get some blood on their Abercrombie & Fitch shirts and their designer jeans. He grabs the back of my collar and throws me to the floor. The air gets knocked out of me and my vision begins wobbling. He kicks and my ribs, get a burn. Someone yells to let me up and he laughs and steps back. I get to my knees and someone helps me to my feet, pushes me in. I put my hands up and try to wrap my head ‘round things. I throw a punch and he dodges, follows with a body shot and I cringe. He steps back and laughs some more, takes a hit off a joint making the rounds. The fags begin screaming and the pretty boys start hollering and I catch my composure and put my hands back up.

Crazy mambo jazz be-bop blares from the rockola. A bottle half-empty with Fundador is alone at the bar littered with wadded napkins and beer nut husks.

Something puts weight in my boots and I stand up and stare at him. Things make sense and I let him strut about high-fiving his lackeys. My nose is clear and my fists are tight. He looks back and seems a bit surprised that I’m still standing, still staring. When he comes forward I fake another takedown and get his shoulders to dip. With his face coming down I bring my fist back up and force my middle knuckle into his nose. I feel it break and I feel the ring rip into his skull. He steps back dazed, and I put a left into his kidney, and a knee to his open jaw when he buckles. There are bones broken in him and I pounce. The heel of my boot breaks into his ribs and the glittery fags on the bar stop dancing. A beating happens and I lose myself again. The white becomes red and the strong becomes the shattered, bruised, and bottom. They all stop yelling. Smoke lingers - grey and acidic - about us and lets me catch my breath.

“Check him,” someone in the back says.

A thin, Mexican man runs up and checks the guy’s pulse. We wait like tension and sweat and I could really go for a fucking drink.

The man looks up at me and announces to the room he’s out. They all start whispering and murmuring in Spanish and it all grows to be a mob of chatter until that voice speaks out again.

“Bring him up.”

The Mexicans part and a kid pushes up a man in a wheelchair, old and hooked up to a tank of air. The kid locks the wheels and gets back in the crowd. The old man waits ‘til it’s silent and then he coughs and hacks. He pulls out a tissue from under his plaid blanket and wipes away some blood, puts it back under.

I’m sweating and bleeding and only came in to make a phone call, but all I fucking want is a shot of fucking tequila.

“Anything to say, Americano?”

I shrug, wipe my nose.

“What do you want?” the old man gargles up.

“Uh, Fundador.”

“Admirable.”  And he nods to someone behind me.

I look back and the flash hits me before the bang.

I fall back and I’m outside again. Saul’s lying next to me and it’s night out. The stars come in clear and I point a few out to him, the ones I’ve heard about. He curls up and we bundle up in the soft, Mexican blanket, the engine of his father’s junker purring beneath us, warm and soothing. I kiss his smooth, copper cheeks and he asks me what I think space smells like.

“Like bubblegum.”

Because...

Easy To Be a Drunk

Everyone thinks it's easy to be a drunk

everyone thinks they can

be a drunk or an alcoholic,

but my friend,

my enemy,

and the ones in-between

you simply do not understand

what it takes

to break yourself apart

night after night

with a shot of this

and a shot of that

you think you are capable

of doing anything

but this

I assure you

is a fallacy

so keep drinking your

pretentious glass of

100 proof lies

the river

separates us

for a reason

until you figure out

that reason

you’ll never cross

the bridge

you can’t find

Even Rentboys Get The Blues.

Once upon a time there lay the most beautiful young man, lost in a deep slumber. His jet-black hair glinted in the sunlight, his rosebud lips were parted in peace. On, he slept, as the town jostled to life outside his window. Oblivious to the world, deep in an enchanted dream. On, he slept, until the sun had slid beneath the horizon. The spell was broken. He opened his eyes.

He awoke in the dark with a jolt, swore, and immediately fumbled for his cigarettes. After many deep drags, he swore again, and slid out of bed, his oily hair stubbornly clinging to semen and sweat stained sheets. Cigarette in mouth, he staggered towards the bathroom, last night’s underwear still trailing miserably around his ankles. I shouldn’t drink so much, he decides. Gives him the most fucked up nightmares. His eyes are glued shut with mucus but the harsh fluorescent bathroom light still made him shudder and squint. He ignored the dirty, holey socks drying over the bath, the torn, bloodied boxers lying in the sink, and reached for his makeup bag.

He’s been in this hotel room before. He remembers the distinct stain on the ceiling - if he squints and turns his head it almost looks like spider, stretching out long grotesque limbs to catch him and gobble him up. He suppresses a sigh and instead forces out a theatrical moan which ignites a flashbulb of sordid images, he moans to spur on the stranger on top of him. It works, and the stranger thrusts and lunges harder, (Distinct mixed stench of cheap cologne and halitosis) mumbling that he’s the fucking best, baby. He pushes away the stranger’s slobbering mouth and twists his watch around; the stranger has three minutes left to use him and take him back on his corner. His Handsome Prince for three minutes; after all, the stranger’s taking care of him, crying out that he loves him. He moans a little louder, and decides he’ll need alcohol to sleep again tonight.

Romantic Interludes.

We were eating raspberries in bed. I had a candle lit in the corner of my room, which was burning hazily and without conviction because one of my windows had a kink and didn’t shut all the way. I’d been meaning to fix it for a long time but it was just one of those things which never seem important enough during the day.

Anyway, the effect of the candle was rather prehistoric. With all that flickering, it was impossible to tell where light ceased and shadows began. The walls and the ceiling throbbed and pulsed like the insides of some living thing. I fancied that this was how Adam and Eve might have felt, huddled together inside a cave and trying to keep a fire alive, realizing for the first time the precariousness which comes with being simply human. I turned and asked if you thought we might be the only two people still awake in the city. You said you didn’t think so, since my roommate was still watching the TV in the living room.

We were winding down from one of those well-intentioned but intimately inadequate conversations about love, how it makes us so insecure, how it makes us so happy and miserable at the same time, and how irreconcilable being loved seems with our perceptions of self. As we split the last of the raspberries between us and began fondling each other, I said I didn’t want you sleeping with others. You said you’d stop, all you wanted was me, but by then my cock was already inside you, and I wasn’t sure if you meant it.

At some point during sex, you asked me to choke you. I obliged, and felt the rush of blood to my cock as your breathing became sparse. I was hard as fuck and my head was spinning. You wrapped your legs around my waist and whispered you were sorry. I asked you if this was how you liked to be fucked. You said yes, yes, you loved being fuck like this, this is how you wanted to be fucked all the time. Then you came. Your ass was sucking and pushing my cock as though its life depended on it and as I came, too, inside, I called you a bitch and a whore.

I was so ashamed, heartbroken. As you lay there catching your breath, I got up and left the room and locked myself in the bathroom. I was crying. I felt bitter. The tears stung.

When you came out of the room to get me I could hear my roommate ask if something was wrong. There was more curiosity than concern in his voice. You said no, nothing’s wrong, we just had a little argument. He pried further but instead of answering you knocked on the door and asked if you could be let in. I let you in.

I was sitting on the toilet with the seat down and wordlessly you pressed my face against your chest, stroking my hair. Your heartbeat was steady and soft. You smelled like sweat and sex under my shirt. You said it was okay, you were unhurt by what I’d said, I shouldn’t feel guilty. I told you I had meant those things, that I had been angry inside you, and that I didn’t like it. You said that was fine too, you said that you’ve been selfish and that was why you’d said sorry.

Once back in bed, we kissed and cuddled, fell asleep, touching each other. I had a strange dream about caves filled with vermilion glow and prehistoric paintings of all things now extinct.

By the time we woke up, there was a distinct hand-shaped bruise around your neck. You winced when I placed my hand on it, gingerly, like a tourist on Hollywood Boulevard. Can you choke me gentler next time, you said, and we both laughed.

“I’ve never understood why straight fiction is supposed to be for everyone, but anything with a gay character or that includes gay experience is only for queers.”

- Jeanette Winterson

Done.

Spent all afternoon in a coffee shop today (how hip am I) to escape the misery of the rain. Sure this has been deliberated on before but it’s so interesting that 90% of the conversations that you hear are inane, whereas everyone else’s silence is far, far more engrossing. My house mate has ventured out so I’ve got the house to myself, which is a rarity, enjoying the tranquility (and the frozen yoghurts I bought fuck they are nice). About to watch Blue Velvet as I’ve been wanting to for so long (if it’s as good as Mulholland. I’m in for a treat) then stay up reading Naked Lunch all night until my eyes give up on life.

Writer's Cock Block.

Fuck me.

The cursor flashed at me. It taunted me and almost dared me to write something. I rapped my fingers gently against the sides of my laptop, praying to every god I could think of and even made up a few for good measure.

I waited, swiveling back and forth in the chair I found at a garage sale that smelled faintly of cat pee.

Anything, I thought. It didn’t have to be a noun. A verb would have made me happy, even a flowery adjective would be welcome.

I leaned back in my chair, reached for my bottle of Fundador and poured myself a generous amount into the glass beside me. I brought the glass to my lips and took a swig. I grunted, gritting my teeth and let the slow, warming burn engulf me. I slid out a Lucky Strike from its pack and tapped it a few times on my desk. I lit the cigarette and took a long, steady drag then blew the smoke at the computer screen, where the cursor still pointed and snickered at me.

I felt like David facing down Goliath, a version of David who had forgotten his slingshot and stones at home. That’s it. I have nothing left to say. I’ve written all of the words out of me. I mourned and then poured myself another glass of tequila. A word flashed bright in my mind’s eye.

I smirked. The word burned like blue fire, searing my brain. I excitedly chewed on the butt of my cigarette. The smirk grew into a wide, silly smile. I reached for my Fundador and took a delicate, lapping sip for courage. My lucky had gone out and my mouth was full of fibrous shreds of filter, but I didn’t care. I still had a few words left, a couple of more stories to tell.

The silly smile grew into a goofy grin.  It was the perfect opening line. I placed my fingers onto the home keys and hammered out…

F-U-C-K.

Saul.

I wiped the cum I just sprayed onto Saul’s ass with the palm of my hand until it was nothing more than a clammy patch of copper-colored skin and then collapsed on top of his back. He told me I had to pull out. I kept thinking I should really wear a condom, but it’s so hard to go back once you’ve fucked without one. I couldn’t imagine being attached to Saul for the rest of my life should we both contract something. I’d already cum inside him once while we were drunk, and he went into a spiel afterwards about genital warts and STD’s. A real mood killer.

It was funny. There was a time when I couldn’t imagine not spending the rest of my life with him. I've known him forever and felt utterly comfortable around him. Now, I spent most of my days fretting over how to get away from him. I knew this wasn’t healthy. Fucking my ex-boyfriend. And not just any ex-boyfriend, the one who broke my heart the first time. The one who fucked Alfredo, my best friend from the first days of living in Tijuana. The one who sent me on the whole downward spiral of drug and alcohol abuse in the first place.

Despite all the guilt and shame over letting Saul back into my life, I still felt like I needed him right now. He took care of me in a motherly sort of way that no real boyfriend would ever put up with. He carried me home when I got too drunk, took my shoes off before he put me to bed, poured me a glass of water if I wasn’t unconscious already, and a lot of times he’d even blow my flaccid whiskey dick even when I knew there was no way I’d be able to hop on top of him in that condition. And I was still so lonely from losing Hector, I just, well, I needed Saul even if most of the time we spent together, aside from the sex, felt like my brain was being scrubbed with a piece of steel wool.

I knew the routine though. I’d wrap my arms underneath him and cradled him as I kissed his cheek. He’d turn his neck towards me and between heaves of breath said, “I love you.”

He’d said it every time we’d fucked since we’d ran into each other again on the patio at Bar Ranchero. It had been a couple of years since I’d last seen him, and he was drunk, and this time for whatever reason, I didn’t get up and walk away when he sat down. He gave me what I felt was a fairly heartfelt apology, and then offered me a no strings attached session of fucking after the bar. It had been six months since I had gotten laid, since Hector and I had fucked the last time on a drunken night a couple months after we broke up in El Paso. The loneliness was killing me. I didn’t even have a stupid crush to fantasize about, and I was so desperate for a man. I went back home with Saul, and I didn’t remember much of that night after the bar, but I remembered him saying, “I love you.”

I said it back the first time. I’d said it back a few times actually, but he said it every time. It had been two months since we had hooked up again. We’d spent almost every night together even though this was supposed to be a strictly fuckbuddies type of arrangement, and every fucking time, except for the one’s on drunken blackout nights I couldn’t remember, I was sure he said it at least once. Most of the time, I just smiled or pretended not to hear him. When it was really great sex, I’d get caught off-guard and reciprocate. For whatever reason, this time I asked about it, “Why do you have to say that?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I do.”

“It’s weird is all.”

“I think I’m still in love with everyone I’ve ever been in love with. I don’t think it goes away.”

I gritted my teeth a little bit when I heard him. Because getting back together with him had stirred some of these same emotions in me. It had been years since he’d broken my heart, and staring at him when he said that made me feel that time when I thought he was the most perfect specimen of human male I’d ever laid eyes upon. I decided to say it back again, “I love you too, I guess. It’s just weird, you know?”

“Why?”

“Well, I don’t know, well, I mean…”

“Because of Alfredo?”

As he said his name, I felt something vile enter my stomach through my esophagus. It was the hatred. He was one of only two people I could ever say he truly hated. Apparently, the hatred didn’t go away either. I wanted to forgive him. I’d guessed I had, but this whole situation just didn’t feel appropriate. I felt as if it was the perfect opportunity to tell him I didn’t want to do this anymore, but then again, where else would I be able to find someone I was so sexually compatible with who would put up with my drinking? I decided to just say, “Yeah.”

“Look, what we did to you was awful, and a part of me will always feel like a terrible human being, but it doesn’t mean I didn’t love you. Even when I was doing it.”

“I know. I know. And I’m over it. Mostly. It’s just, well, it’s just weird. I don’t know what else to say.”

“Let’s not talk about this right now. Will you just hold me?”

We rolled over and Saul pressed his back into my stomach as I put his right arm around his stomach and cupped his left chest with my right arm. I thought again about maybe it would be time to get my shit together. I wondered if I’d try to get back with him for real if it happened. Maybe he was the best I could do. Maybe the mistake that he made had altered the course of our destiny together. Maybe this was a second chance. After a few minutes of silence, I whispered into Saul’s ear, “What are we doing here?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, this, us, what are we doing?”

“We’re just fucking and hanging out.”

“We’ve spent every day together.”

“Yeah, I wonder about that too, but I’m having fun and I don’t know. I don’t really want to stop.”

“I know. I don’t either.”

“So let’s just leave it at that.”

“I just want to make sure you don’t want it to be more or anything.”

“I’ve already been your boyfriend. I’d really like someone new, but that doesn’t seem to happen for me, and you’re great for in the meantime.”

“So, I’m just some fucking replacement then?”

“Don’t get mad. That’s not what I’m saying. Look, you know we wouldn’t work together.”

“And I don’t want to get back together.”

“So, why are you acting all offended?”

I breathed a sigh. I wasn’t sure why I was either. I felt the same way. Maybe that was why. Our connection at this stage in my life felt so strong. Like we were on the same page in so many ways, and yet, all the wrong ways. It seemed like the last two years of my life had been spent suffering from all the shit that comes from loving the wrong people, and I just wanted someone new, but I didn’t want to be lonely anymore. Insert Saul. I looked back at him as his face stared inquisitively and intently at me waiting for a response.

I shrugged my shoulders before saying, “I don’t know.”

We laid there for a few more minutes without talking again before I looked at the clock and noticed it was ten-thirty. My friends would be showing up to the bar soon. I heard Saul’s heavy breaths, and whispered, “You awake?”

“Yeah.”

“Look, I gotta go.”

“Are you pissed off?”

“No, I gotta go meet Jose Luis at the bar.”

“Can I come?”

“Come on. Put some clothes on, and hurry up. I need a drink.”

Tequila Bottle.

Lip stick stains his shot glass.

The transvestite sat at table 7, his lucky number. His lucky night.

Shaking hands reach for the near empty bottle, desperate to consume the dreams he drowned years ago in clear poison. Skinny wasn’t the word for his fragile frame, bones stretch the translucent skin of his shoulder blades, his cheeks are hollow caves of malnourishment, stringy muscle are the only remnant of arms. He sits in his dirty, silken dress which barely covers his sunken thighs, bones jut out at his shoulders, and the tattered strap of his bra rests in the crook of an elbow. Stubble peeks out from kabuki make-up. His face - once pretty - is now worn and sallow, eyeliner carelessly applied, highlights the dark bags sleeping under his eyes. Once the amber color of the eyes held a small spark of hope, now they are sunken, watered down from years of wear.

Thin lips open to reveal a black hole, ready to consume the seventh glass of the night, cradled in the bony claw of his hand. As the hour darkens, the bottle empties, and his eyes grow more dull, his face more shallow, his lips less red. One bottle down, he reaches for more, but his money stretches less than his dress.

In the black of night he makes his trade, more money to pay for his memories to be wiped clean, to fly free in a bottle. Strangers approach and use his body how they like, no use caring for a broken toy. He stopped crying long ago - never while in public or when performing. He had attended to more important problems, like how to cover bruises in the daylight. He wasn’t much good at school, couldn’t read, couldn’t add or subtract, couldn’t even smile, no sympathy for the hollow boy. Back then he was a sad, confused, spat upon boy, anyway. Shunned. Ridiculed.

So, in this roach infested, forgotten Tijuana dive, as a sad ranchero love ballad warbles from an equally sad jukebox, he leaves his empty bottle and his empty glass to seek payment in some dark alley way. A man, tall, dark, dangerous guides him to the shadow of choice.

He didn’t notice the knife.

Scream.

Snap.

Silence.

No one cares about a joto prostituto dying in the dead of night.

They find him fucked up, beat up, cut up in the sunshine. Dank wig glittering red, eyes as glassy and dull in death as in life, neck smiling at the sky. Bones stick out at odd angles, blindingly white in the litter strewn alleyway. His silk dress lies in tatters, dripping with blood.

Seven birds take flight, free at last.

Snapshot Poetics

It was the end of May and of course, the infamous showers had come hailing down and hadn’t showed any sign of stopping. I was curled up on the sagging, musty couch in the living room of my tiny Tijuana flat – grey, cinderblock walls, red and dusty tiled floor, used furniture slung sparsely about, situated slap bang in the middle of skid row. But today was different. Instead of sighing despairingly at the weather and wishing it to go away, I gazed out of the grimy window suddenly wishing I could stand it in. Letting it fall down my shoulders and soak my hair right through. After a couple of minutes, the strong desire slipped and I shook my head, passing it off as simply boredom - and maybe a moment of insanity. I shuffled to the kitchen and began making a cup of coffee of which I then took a sip and promptly spat out. I’d been to the mercado (market to you ding-a-lings that don't speak the lingo) but there was no sign of my usual brand, so absent-mindedly, I had picked up whatever they had. Clearly that was a big mistake.

“Oh my God,” I coughed slightly. “That’s vile.” Now I was, even though I ashamed to say it, somewhat pretentious when it came to coffee. Even though I didn’t always have the time to make filter coffee, I always made sure I had the best instant. It was this incident which was the tip of the ice-berg.

“Right,” I slapped my hand on the counter. “Coffee shop it is!” I pulled off my large ‘comfy’ pajamas, pulled on a coat and some khaki Dickies pants and flung myself out of the doorway, grabbing my umbrella on the way and got lost in the gray, wet haze of the labyrinthine streets...


Fat electrical wires criss-cross in the air between terraces of dead, potted plants and hissing gas tanks, steam billows from Chinese restaurants and temale vendors as water rages down from a million corrugated roofs. A multitude of neon signs blink and blare in vain - everything is grey, dull, lifeless. The rain is cascading so hard, the narrow streets are lost in a thick, shimmering haze.

Smoke.

I shot it onto his thighs and gave him the cash. He pulled his jeans up and left me in the men’s room to wash up. Hair wet and slicked back, I walked out feeling a little better. He finished up his cigarette and we left the bar to wander the streets. Tacos sounded good. Mexican hot dogs sounded better, so we used technology to find our way there. Some wandering later, the wooden doors swung open and we ate. Cum came up in the conversation and how a fag must absolutely love it and it on him or else there’s really no point in continuing any relationship. I agreed with him and mixed my crimson hot sauce with the puke green guacamole. A group of black fags all stared at him and for the first time in my life I felt the envy of men with bigger penises than I. But I don’t fuck Saul - I cuddle with Saul. I wander with Saul. And when a fucking piece of shit walked up to him and asked him for prices, I put my fist in his jaw. My hands pushed his throat against the wall and I fed him a neon light, cutting his face and putting electricity in his veins. When the lights went out he put his hand on my shoulder and whispered, “You gotta stop doing that.”

“You’re better than that.”

He took me outside and we caught some fresh air, smoked a joint to mix. “Look,” he said. “Let’s get your fortune read.” And he pointed across the street at a little shanty boasting three questions answered for ten pesos.

“I don’t have three questions.”

“Just ask about love, money, and death.”

“Love, money, and death. Alright.”

We finished the joint and went in, black-clad in leather and looking all sorts of smoke. A woman came out from a set of curtains and asked who had the questions and I began to say something along the lines of ‘some fucking psychic’ but Saul threw me a look telling me to behave. I bit my tongue and smiled that I was the one. She sat me at her table and put Saul to the side. A couple of orbs sat on both sides of her and it smelled like cat shit in the cramped room. The tarot cards were shuffled and spread and she asked me for my first question.

“What’s the name of my life partner?”

She told me to pick a card and I go for the one I was eyeing. She flipped it over and it was the card of The Devil. The room stammered and the woman sunk her shoulders a little, hesitant. Her eyes looked up at me, looked around me. “There’s darkness in you.” I chuckled. “They are around you,” she said, softer.

“What are?”

“Dragging spirits. You’re imbalanced and they’re waiting for you to fall.”

“I’m possessed?”

“They are not in you, they are only around you. But if you invite them in - if you conjure or open yourself - they will answer you.”

Part of me liked The Devil being so close to me and part of me wanted to pull my cock out and fuck Saul on the spot. Fuck him on her table and have her tell me when I’m going to come and where I’m going to put it. But, The Devil card was there and I had two more questions.

I looked at her again and she started choking. She stood up and gagged, tears welling up. Cum came to the brim of her mouth and began dripping out. The cum turned to blood, and blood to spiders and when the spiders were through there was fire. She burned down and from her scorched corpse rose The Devil, all red and smoking.

He took a seat across from me.

Saul took out a cigarette and He tossed him a flame. He winked a smirk.

“How was the drinks?” He asked.

“Not bad.”

“I saw you killed a man.”

“I did.”

“And enjoyed the company of a prostitute just before that.”

“He ain’t a prostitute.”

“I’m not talking about Saul.”

I shrugged sorta, asked Him what He wanted.

“You’re dead, pal, and I’m here to collect.”

I looked at Saul and he blew some smoke out, crossed his legs, and told me not to look so surprised.

“Look at him! He doesn’t even know!” The Devil leaned forward. “Buddy, you electrocute a guy you’re holding onto and you’re gonna get shocked just as much. But, that fuck went one way and you, my friend, went south.”

The Devil opened a walkway to Hell and I saw glowing in the cracks in the floor.

Saul slinked up slowly behind me and put his lips near my ear, “Come up and see me again. There’s only Hell and forty minutes between us.”

When the door chimed on Saul's way out The Devil stood up and a fire and black smoke consumed me.

Emotions Are Messy.

It was surprisingly easy not waking him up. As he lay there, curled up on the sagging, old bed with his head comfortably nested between the safety of his arms and his shiny, ebony hair curtaining a calm face, slumbering despite the ongoing alarm which reverberated through the rented room. The room was dark and reeked with the mixed, pungent aroma of dust, musty clothes, and dried semen. The snoozed noise reminded me of what I needed to do, and I broke my lingering gaze from him as I turned the alarm off and got out of bed. The young man remained unmoving, drawing deep breaths from the air around him, and I studied him again as I pulled on some of the few clothes which weren't packed down in bags. ‘Why had he come?’ The question came naturally to me as I looked at him turning around in his sleep and reaching for a person which was no longer there. The emptiness of the vacant body didn’t stir him to wake up — instead he withdrew his arm back towards his chest and hugged it with his other. It wasn’t like I didn't want to be there with him, quite the opposite, but I needed to go, and yet I didn’t want to pull away from the sight of him, didn’t want to turn around and leave him there. So vulnerable and so pure. Yet I had to, so eventually I did, tearing my gaze away and unwillingly stepping out in the cold morning.

I walked over wet, cracked sidewalk to a corner café. Ordered a coffee Americano from a grimacing Indian woman behind the cluttered counter. The sky was as grey and bland as I felt that somber moment. I looked out onto the cobblestone plaza which stretched in front of the silent cathedral across the street. The smell of piss and wet dog hung in the air. Several city workers slowly made their way across the plaza with fire hoses attached to a tank on wheels washing away the filth from the previous night. They moved slowly as if in a dream.

I watched as I sipped my bitter coffee. The heat scorching my lower lip. I thought about him. Should I go back? Why am I so afraid to follow up on the pursuit of a relationship? Emotionally, I am so lonely, but the walls I have built around me are far too high and far too thick. I am truly lost.

I throw the styrofoam cup into a trash can cascading in putrid garbage and briskly walk back to the rented room. I am going to show him love, compassion, respect. Everything he asked for  throughout the previous night. I stop. Light a cigarette, turn the other way, and return home…

I Think So. So?

I look out the window wistfully, pressing my face against the glass. I thought this to be a rather accurate representation of what my life had become. Watching life happen from behind a screen. Separated, but not completely cut off. It was in this moment that I realized just how sorry I felt for myself. Things never really had a way of working out for me, but it seemed now that Fate was just playing with me. The warmth emanating from the laptop that rested on my legs reminded me that I was up to something.  This was, of course, nothing new, as I was always up to something. I scroll the pages of my blog. How depressing I found it to be now. I closed the window, considering deleting it entirely. No one read it. When it was updated, it was always something sad. Actually, tragic is a better word. At least I thought so.

i heard he died.

Had I known that would be the last time we talked I would have never fallen silent. I would have looked you in the eyes and told you how I see the stars shine deep inside your soul; that light in your eyes, the kind you only see when you gaze off into the distance, deep in thought. I would have taken your hand, traced each and every line, scar, and flaw, only to tell you that you have the most impure yet perfect complexion. I would have put my hand on your heart and leaned my head into your chest, listening to the purity of your existence; just those two beats that make you human; the two sounds of life and love, like rhythm and rhyme, day and night. I would have pressed my lips against yours, the most gentlest parts of skin against one another, to remind you that no matter how rough your exterior may be, there is always the you that exists deep inside; the you that anyone rarely sees; the you that is shared with only those you trust most. I would have taken your head delicately in my arms, pressed it to my chest and whispered your name, cooing words of comfort, peace, and human desire. Had I known that would be the last time we talked I would have never fallen silent.

Memo Pascal Rodriquez 1983 - 2012 Rest In Peace

Down A Dark Hole.

So I almost wrote today. Outside my head. Not on my phone. With the possible intent to … show it to the public.

I used to do it a lot. Writing, that is. One time, I wrote about 99% of a story on a dirty Nordstrom’s bag, because I couldn’t find anything else, and I needed to write it, just to see if I could write something with no dialogue. Or something in X POV. Or something, just because I saw a word and desired to use it. And then I’d post the results, send the story to the winds, call it good or bad or what have you. It was written. It was out there. There was some sort of completed cycle.

And then there was anxiety.

It’s not like anxiety was a new thing. Far from it: I’ve apparently been depersonalizing since I was 12. It’s just that, well, for my teens and early 20s, the comorbidity that tended to cause me the most trouble was depression.

Depression may cause me not to write, crawl out of bed, do dishes, wash my hair, wear anything but a bathrobe, and it may cause me to do some incredibly stupid things that would probably rightfully earn a trigger warning for suicidal thoughts and self-harm, but it’s an entirely different blocker than anxiety. There’s nothing there, so nothing matters.

Anxiety is worse, because the words are there. Whole plots, at times. Researched and intricate and probably only of interest to me, but honestly, that never stopped me before, so why is it stopping me now?

It’s not rational, anxiety. I dislike things that aren’t rational.

I dislike that I can’t just say, “You are an irrational thing. Be gone!”

One of the things I dislike most about mental illness is that there’s always, always collateral damage. Even after the worst of it’s gone, there’s always (for me) something I can’t get back. In the case of depression, there are more things than I could list (some good, some bad). In the anxiety case, it’s largely been my writing. Hell, my creativity in general.

The last two years have been the least productive years on a creative level of my entire life. I’d work out the Percentage of Useful Lifetime Thus Far Lost to Anxiety, but that would be even less productive than me sitting here counting the threads of navel lint is going to be, and perhaps even counterproductive, because then I’ll have a number over which I can obsess.

And the real snag I’m going to hit here is, as long as I have to be a responsible adult, with adult responsibilities, no matter how much I medicate it, the anxiety, that unwanted byproduct of my coping mechanisms, of always having to be watching, thinking, considering my reactions to things in light of the fact that I’m dealing with a neurotypical’s world, is never going to go away. So now I need coping mechanisms for my coping mechanisms, to try to solve the issues caused my coping mechanisms.

At some point, it gets really recursive when I try to explain.

So I think my coping mechanism is going to be attempting to write something and actually put it out there. Could be fannish. Could be original. Could be something in between.