I'm about to pass out; a breath retreats and burrows deep into an open sky. I cripple a little because of the intense pain in my lungs but otherwise take no notice. I am a king. I can rule like a fat insect larvae for the rest of this breath. Don't count me out, I'll live forever.
I cannot stop speaking. I have been vomiting dissonance for several years now [like a washing machine through the plaster wall that keeps her awake at night in her apartment building] but find the impulses from my brain demanding that my body stop speaking are distorted. They are arrested for public lewdness and sent to prison. I excrete my language like sweat. Meanwhile she cannot sleep. The loud ones pair off with the silent ones and everybody gets married. Couplets that do not rhyme.
Off with his head. Please just shut him up.
She broke the television. She was throwing iron pots and pans and one flew through the screen like a grenade. The television has never moved, however. Dust has settled on its intestines. It was not buried. The programming is coming through clear like a showerhead pissing cold water into the tub. She's getting sick.
She shouldn't take cold showers so much. It makes me worried. If she gets sick then she is no better than a derelict on the street. These people are beyond help and do not deserve to be treated like human beings. They have sacrificed their rights. They dirty up my streets.
Off with their heads. Throw them in the ocean and maybe they will be forgiven. Not by me though.
It is a good thing I'm still talking. If I wasn't who knows what would happen? I don't. I can't even change my clothing. Sometimes I wish I could be assassinated. Leaders are always more loved after they have been shot in the head. Something about having my blood spit out of my head might make me more popular. Maybe dying would be more honest than if I kept talking. I'm not willing to take that risk.
I throw a piece of meat to the dog. He is a small dog, cute and silky. Nonetheless he enjoys meat. Perhaps as I throw him the slab of muscle I found behind the butcher shop this evening he will imagine that he is hunting me, chewing on a piece of my leg or gnawing heartily on my stomach and inside pieces. Perhaps this will be the glory of my death. They will come and find me with a dog chewing the remaining half of my carcass, peppered with the flavor of good meat. It would be nice to be good meat.
She still cannot sleep. I have had men go to her apartment to help her sleep but they only come back with their haircuts muddled and their eyes white and pink, like rabbit's eyes. It's funny because I am terrified of rabbits. I also hate her. I don't care if she sleeps or not. If she bothers me again, I will have her head cut off. She's always using the washing machine. I need my clothes to be cleaned.
The streets are long and never go anywhere. I took a walk one day [several years ago] and slid all the way down. For some reason the city streets slant downward towards the water. I am afraid that one day I will fall deep into the ocean and it will kiss me with its infected water and shove its tongue in my mouth, pressing hard against me like a rapist. I will become intensely aroused, but unfortunately this will not have any grounds in reality because I will be dying. Maybe I am sexually aroused by the idea of dying. I don't think so, though. I never get aroused thinking about feeding the dog with my body.
I was sliding down like a fallen ice skater. There were mannequins from a clothing store lying in a dumpster. They looked like fallen Gods, white like a rabbit's skin. I took one home. I was talking the whole time because as I said I cannot stop talking or I will probably die.
The mannequin I took had several stains on it. There was a black mark like tires on the street across her face. Her hair was sticky as if she had used too much hair spray or perhaps something sweet had spilled on her head. She is in my bed now. I think I am in love with her. She is quiet and never wakes up.
I want to be like her. Yesterday when nobody was looking I smeared honey in my hair while I was saying many boring words. I felt I could lie down. But the sound of a washing machine kept me awake. And she was still complaining. She screams when the television plays static; she is very skilled at matching its pitch and tone. I don't know if I'm hearing static or her scream anymore.
The breath I mentioned [the one that is keeping words broadcasting out of my mouth] is dying. My breath smells like oil and honey and garbage. I am sliding down the street towards the ocean.
The ocean is full of piss and dribbling seagull shit. However, it tastes like my lover's mouth.
Damn you headless mannequins that distracted me. You kept me awake. Where did you go? Nobody ever told me what happened to those I had executed. Maybe they are all asleep now. Dying would be the most selfish thing.
The sky is raining pieces of the ocean. The streets, the whole world smells like the apartment building where I live.
Nobody wants to hear me talk, anyway.
This is where he tries to sleep sometimes. The bed is oily and he does not seem to enjoy my company. He always smells bad though so I do not mind when he leaves me alone. I love him for it. It shows a great deal of mercy on his part that he leaves our apartment when he talks. Unfortunately he is always talking so he never comes back.
He has never heard me speak and it is better that way. I think perhaps one day if he keeps on talking the way he is, it is possible that he could discover a way out of this.
But he always says the same things, so I suppose it is unlikely.
Did I say that I have never spoken? I was standing silently when I first saw him. He was marching down the sidewalk in the rain which does not stop and I saw him moving his lower jaw like a Doberman pinscher which frightened me so I hid in a dumpster. Actually that is a lie I tell people so they will think that I am normal. Actually that is a lie too because I have never told anyone anything.
I was in the dumpster to start with. And I have never seen him, either. It logically follows that if I do not speak I should not see. I am told that my skin is white although it feels to me as if it is truthfully quite grey. Perhaps I am not actually alive. That would explain to me why I can never sleep and why the washing machine terrifies me.
He is outside always. The absence of his stink in our apartment milks the need to survive from my pattern of instincts. There is only the bed. The bed is oily and sounds keep me awake.
Beds are only for people who don't need them anyway. There is sea water in this one. Perhaps I should wash the sheets. I would have to wake up to do that, however: it is out of the question.
I wish there were a television here. There is a dead man in the corner who screams sometimes but he does not entertain me. He should clean himself because he is quite dirty. He never makes me talk. Neither does the cold water. That is why I love it.
Where is my lover? Oh yes I forgot. He is outside on the sidewalk, still sliding down probably. I hope he stops himself before he falls into the ocean because they all hate him there. Also then he would never come back.
I know it is odious of me to think about him so much. If there were something else to think about I would change my patterns but there is nothing else. If I think of something other than him it must be this apartment which smells like urine and makes too much noise and has a screaming deadman in the corner.
I don't remember how any of this happened. I was probably never born because if I was I am certain I would remember it. My parents would have told me about it. But I do not have parents or even another person who exists so I must assume that the man in the corner is a television and the man I think is my lover is in actuality a figment of my imagination. The problem with that course of thinking is that I have no imagination, so he would have to not exist at all and that is unacceptable.
The chance has occurred to me that I could get up. I could even say something if I really wanted to, or decided to. But there is blood spilling from my crotch onto the bed and I'm fairly certain that I have been painted with honey.
I imagine that my taste is sweet. That is why he loves me. He licks my skin and the thick filth comes off like butter. His tongue is a black snake hissing, threatening to strike. Poison coursing through it's mouth, alive and sentient. It is exciting; I feel sometimes as if I could move. But I haven't moved in so long it seems like the mistake of an ancient civilization. I could crumble like a Roman pillar.
My lover is still not here.
I don't remember his name. Jesus God, what is my lover's name? I wish the scream from the corner would tell me. It fills my mind like silky cocaine, white and chalky. I feel a warm cream flow out of me into the world. But it sinks into the mattress instead, souring in this sinner's heaven. There is a pillow over my face and honey in my lungs. When I die I want to be thrown in the ocean. It's beautiful there, and deep.
I hope he hasn't drowned.
My neck could bleed and scream like a distorted broadcast forever. My head would roll to the floor like dirty laundry and the pieces would be clean. Dry. And I am still lying here, listening to the walls shriek and the television preach, and the rain has crept in through the window and the horizon smells like moldy heaven.
Take me away.
Back.