Polyrub

Silent, stretched upwards, outwards, the sky opened up and let forth the floods,
Spilling forth, drowning the cold barren remembrance of things past, things that
Can not be forgotten. There is a rhythm to the cries this time, with each thundering
Lightning strike trying to imagine muffled moans packed in the pillow cases you
Forgot last Tuesday – I hate to interrupt, but they really don't belong – and you
Seem to not feel concern for their explainable disappearance, a slight hint of,
“Oh, I would like to rest my still body here again,” a slight hint of how this is
Already falling apart at the seams, falling apart at the jeans, falling apart, falling.

Do you think there is any safety in suicide?
Will they still give me my reward when I arrive?

/
I don't want to disappear, for it still brings to mind this notion of knowing.
I do not want to be remembered for anything, nostalgia brings a certain hurt.
I am calling for rain, a rain to wash away whatever semblance of myself holds
dear in that tired old heart of yrs
\

“My passion is fading light, like a cigarette left at its butt, burning down bright, a cataclysmic finale to something so beautiful – but, as always... jealousy gets the best of the best of the best of us.”

A Story of Worn Friends - A Play in One Act

Characters:
Theodore – Nondescript middle-aged man, thin.
Noise – Unseen character, offstage, triggering the sounds, the audience of Theodore's monologue.

Stage Directions:
The stage is to be obstructed by a matte-black wall, with all front-stage light bulbs removed, creating an unpierceable wall of darkness save for one 10x5 (width x depth) cut-out, which should contain: a claw-foot, curtainless, white bathtub with shower, preferably with seemingly antiquated features (head, faucet, etc.). 'Noise' should be positioned stage-left, behind the wall and eight feet from the cutout. All house lights must be killed and with the addition of no stage lights, should create a stifling darkness in the theater, all except one dimmed (a grease-covered dim) spotlight angled from the audience onto the bathtub.
-

Act I

(Bring up the light on the bathtub. Theodore is sitting on his bent legs, naked, in warm water. He is facing stage-left, should be smoking a cigarette, hair damp but not too wet. Directly in front of him comes a soft creaking sound, not unlike a person walking on old, hardwood floors)

Theodore – (visibly shaken) Ah, here we are again: a bleak, black, evening – on a Tuesday, I suppose – and I haven't got a thing to wear. I can hear you out there, I know you're growing impatient, but that isn't my problem, now is it? (to still silence) You think I don't understand what you're doing? What kind of game you think you're playing? This is a fucking joke, and you know it.
I've been drinking for the past six days; I've been home for seven. There have been 240 ounces
of malt liquor, three bottles and a box of wine, six grams of marijuana, and starvation. (to self)
Who knew that after a few days of not eating I would start to look this good. (to the silence)
You know, it really isn't that hard to maintain: a cigarette when you're hungry, a glass of wine
when the thirst begins to set in. You start to shake after a day, but it isn't too bad.

(Theodore accidentally drops his cigarette in the water. As he thrashes the water, frustrated,
another creaking can be heard from the same location)

Theodore – (louder and annoyed) Will you calm down? (to self) Sonofafuckingbitch... (to the silence)
Yes, yes, yes, trust me, I am coming. It's just that I've dropped my...

(at this, Theodore begins to cough, which begins as a mild clearing-of-the-throat, and quickly leads a massive coughing fit. This should transpire over the course of about twenty seconds
and, upon conclusion, should climax with drying-heaving)

Theodore – (shaking) It's going to take more than that, you know. Yesterday, for instance, I vomited
nothing but wine and bile, it's no wonder I haven't needed to suck in my abdomen any longer
today. Now, you know that I am not exactly certain where this all came from originally; why every glass in my room is an ashtray and how striking it is with its musk of smoke and evaporated alcohol. You know what's truly funny about all of this, though? I've decided to be open about these moments, this time around; however, I've been using a great deal of discretion when deciding what details I should be obfuscating. See, don't you understand that you have to do that some of the time? That you must deny your dearest darlings the truth of your experience? It really is rather awful.

(Another, subtly louder, creak can be heard from offstage. Theodore grabs, and lights, another cigarette, smoking quite consistently)

Theodore – (all of a sudden very sullen) I can see how it is all being wasted now; I can see where the
structure is cracking and failing, where it has been decomposing for years. It starts off in that
tiniest sort of way, kind of in the sense of a tear in a pair of jeans. (abruptly stops, grabs a
tumbler from behind the tub, and sips whiskey deeply from the glass) It really is getting exciting
now, isn't it? Slow progressions, slow degradation, slow comfort, and slow collapse. It's all part
of the same game if you want my honest opinion.

(Theodore brandishes a straight-razor, but not one of cartoonish aesthetic, and starts to lather his
his face with cream from the side of the tub. He begins shaving. Another creak, audibly
identical, is heard)

Theodore – I can really start to feel the hunger setting in. Perhaps it is almost time to eat again. Maybe
that's what will stop the shaking, maybe if I can just stop the shaking. I think then that I might
be able to brush my teeth, which have become stained from the barrage of wine and smoke. I
think I may call my father when I get out of here and grab this meal. I hope that the shaking
might stop at that point.

I am curious how much a body can take, all-in-all? I can feel myself swaying and growing weak
in a matter-of-fact sort of way that I'm not to sure if I am supportive of. I suppose, at first, that
this was an attempt at the same sort of emaciation that I was feeling, but I am beginning to not
be able to rationalize it. Hypothesis doesn't also lead to success. And that is tonight's barren fact.

(To silence) I can tell that you are still out there, sulking, stalking, ruining. What is it with you
and your sullen attempts at rumination? Just regurgitating your same, tired opinions, over-and- over. I can feel them just sitting there... Telling me these lies, impossible facts, I don't even care
to understand anymore. There is chicken rotting in the refrigerator, you should probably check
that. I am not too sure if I care to take this any longer. It's getting rather difficult to breath in
unison and I just want some honest sleep. I can hear you creaking, (rhythmically) day-in-and- day-out, waiting for some kind of grand gesture. I gave it to you three nights ago, don't you even remember?

(Theodore cuts himself shaving. There is a thin slice and dripping blood in the water coming
from the left of his face. Instead of reacting, he just sits in silence. There is another creaking, this time louder, and a lighter thud soon follows)

Theodore – Why is the effect that water has on thicker, colored liquids so much more interesting than,
say, a moment of anybody else's time? I think that it is safe to say, let alone abundantly clear,
that I am growing tired of falling into your company. I appreciate how you try to scrub the filth
from under my nails, but it still doesn't exorcise what has really grown, festered, and when you
always come back, just like you do, and you always do, it always just hurts, tighter and harder.

There are blisters on these lips from cigarettes. This is a new one. I think I might be dying right
now. It is still really all up in the air.

Putting My Chickens In Order

I was staring at a bush – it was a green bush – and the sun was beating down bright on it, with a thudthudthud in the background of a neighboring child and his mandatory thirty minutes of tornmuscleecstasy. Yes, I was staring at this bush trying to find a rhythm in the cold sounds, and I was staring at this bush, right? And I was staring and there was nothing. Everything was a shade of gray – all of it – and I knew then why wide-eyed deer tend to slice themselves open on the tiles of my floors, all pearls of red swirling somewhere deep and away with those fears of this plague that you lay with and those tears that can't be wiped away. This bush I was staring at, it didn't stare or speak back, mere stillness in the thudthudthud, but that stops and all is silent: every star in the sky has gone dull, the whimpering of the caged animals cease to exist, and it's back to staring at the bush. So, I am staring at this bush – it's green as I have mentioned before, and the sun really is beating down on it – but it is still appearing gray, as if my vision has regressed to that of my beagle, and my stomach is churning from mid morning burnings, but I have switched back to water, water exclusively, and unfortunately it doesn't burn when it goes down (no more mid afternoon burnings anymore), but (like everything, I suppose) I want it to; burn when it goes down, of course. And the beat picks back up and the sounds come rushing back, but the tinnitus kicks in, and C# is tearing through my left ear, shredding away at my cochlea, I really just need to sleep. The thing about it, really, this bush, it should have been green, it was green, I saw it, okay? But see, it didn't appear as such, still gray, and everything was gray, and so I went back inside – stopped staring at the bush – and decided to enter back into the dimly-lit papier-mâché of the skull, all sickeningly translucent and seductive. It's calling me back into my subconscious where you all leave, overandoverandover again, out this way, out that way, “Do not touch me,” here are your records that you left at my place, yes I will grab your shirt, I didn't see it in the bottom shelf where our pajamas went, and it's all running like silver-screen exploitation, an explosive cacophony of my existential ambiguity, and I still can't understand why I see gray while staring at a green bush with the sun's illumination burning out my retinas (which I would gladly take seeing as disease will steal them eventually and everything is already gray and not green, so yeah, there, what is the point?). I dread the sound of every passing vehicle, I just need sleep, please god, just let me sleep, and no, thank you kindly for the offer, but I still don't want to see her leaving anymore, I've played it out dozens of times already, with the face and the tears, and they taste like sweat so you know, like blood minus the burning sensation it causes later on. I can feel my body's shifts now, as I giggle and cry while Barbados slithers across a stage, I can feel it as the bottom of my stomach slips out from under me and my wrists begin to throb. Then I can feel as the current begins to carry me outoutandaway and the graynotgreen begins to overwhelm all ofhowithinkiloveyou and is replacing my memories with my nightmares, all leaving and still, “Don't fucking touch me,” and ireallyneedyoutositdownandlisten because really there is too much to ever explain and even if I could I dontknowifit would evermattermuchmore than a cheap symbolic card from the same places that sells me my suicidalliquidcourageinabottle and I'm beginning to run mad, and it is driving me to loose ends, and I really need to see that green bush, and I want to stop fixating on the cold gray, and I am really starting to have a hard time coping, and I am starting to realize that people no longer sleep, and I notice that there is moreandmore blood now that I am here, and I am taking note of thesenightwhereisnapinasinisterkindofwayandcantcalmthewatersbecausethetumultisbeginngtobetoomuchtotakeallinstrideandpleasepleaseknowthatitsnotaguiltthingijustreallyneedthissilencethatdoesntstopwhereiamnolongeraplagueandinolongertakemarathonjabsatyouandeveryonesleepsagainandwalletsstayfatandnobodyworriesthatohnothisisthatonethatweveallbeenwaitingforbutno
I think that will happen elsewhere.

Song For A Friend I Rarely See, Yet Always Find Time For When The Sky Goes Blank And All Is Silent

Silly smoke slithering through the air; how many today? I don't know, I guess it is something like hisssssslickpop and I'm done. We talked for awhile, it was like old times. Driving through the jingle-infested-where-are-we-now-and-where-is-the-flame morning/afternoon/tomorrow, we opened up and said, “ahhhh, glorious today, where is your new overcoat?” We would poke fun at Plath, Proust, and perilous rules and laugh out loud at the women who wouldn't have what the baker's called “love in the sense of photographic angels with come in their hair.” Nothing matters now I suppose, and it is all for the better besides the distance. But that is merely small talk, the way they all say “Hello, what is your name? Will you buy me a drink and slip off my locks of hair down the body of my father's Catholicism and woe?” That is what we deal with now instead of the poetic and lustful words of Conrad and whatever kind of jabber ghastly old spice we could come up with at the time.

Snowy nights of smokey bumbling happened once. My father was sick with society and had to have the operation which would apparently save his soul if only he would repent and give on with the good lord and savior, George Washington Reagan. You came then as a fully lit disciple of Miller and contributed to my romanticism in the sense of Kerouacian alcoholism; it was all bangers and disasters on cold nights. But we got sick, and that sickness was something that we could all hold dear and close like that of a mother and stillborn; sadsadsadsadsadjackalwaysaloneanddrinking. But he wasn't alone, and somehow that made it all the better. Jesus Christ where are you tonight with your beard and your cane walking down an alleyway singing along to the words of Walt and dynasty going “I left her down in Reno, the woman had it coming, she died alone last Saturday, she never stopped that running.”

I remember that Port, and that meal that never happened. Oh, how the imaginary pancakes were something of a lustful approach to dealing with the cockroach infested waters of my brand new twin-sized bed and how with every creak and crack I felt more alone. You were near the windy city at this point, yet that cold wind blew you in colder directions. You took her down that night, as I could only hope of; I am good at propositions, just nothing else. Until later months that is, and she said that only the good die young when inside of the serpent. But you did it, and you beat the men with their stiletto-induced-masks made of papier-mâché, semen and celery and you told her lies and it worked! Oh how it worked! But that morning after coffee induced madness stemmed from a deepfearofsucidalfighting set afire my best intentions. Aha tralala laladdy nownot where is the sugar?

Now you are gone again, and I am alone. Oh alone alone alone down a hole I a-go, drift away away away down again another day. The spiders came out and implanted in my head millions of tiny slimy seeds that never again would do the same things to me that you once did. Where had the intellect gone? Probably away with my brain when it ran way afar with the tea and tar and everyone exclaimed, “Hey come here and part from your soul and experience the outerlimits of what everyone claims is love!” LIESLIESLIES! But we will talk, and you will save me from all of the things that plague me, and then, oh how then, the door will be opened to my darling creativity and my spontaneous mumblings of sex and how nobody will have it but I deduce it to my lack of dapper imagination.

Sit down shut up, you will never understand what it is that I speak of. You who claims that love comes in the pronunciation of proofs and declarations. That commitment means something sexual and meaningful and magical and whybother and whereisshe and whoishe and whathappenedthatnightwhenyousaideverythingwouldworkoutsomeotherway? When the screen blocks out the flies and their maggots and everything falls into a deep silence the same way the wind goes when we all die. Want a glass of tea? I want the tea that makes me asleepanddreaming. I want the love I always thought was all alone and personal and you-know-the-way-she-makes-you-feel/drink/distrust. But mostly, all I really want back is driving and poems and triviality and that one day when everything goes black and we have to leave and we do nothing but the same: sit alone and talk.

Firecracker Mornings In Mid-July With Windows Boarded Up And Death Glistening Through

Blues start on monday. Holy rider, ghost on the horizon, why is there so much bubbled brew? Couldn't sleep without twelve, the road gets blurry. Rode the road straight down the line. The grease settles atop the stomachs of fifteen fourteen thirteen year-olds, and I'll have no part of this. Feedback is welcome, the louder the better. You leave around that time, sorry to have you go, but these women think they rule it all. A touch is too much commitment, why bother? No answer? Fair enough. Click, bang, pop, klackity-klack-klack: bull's eye. The blood wouldn't stop. You were looking pretty good then, but I don't mind (Burrrrzurp the cattle died). They dance along the floor like heated little babies in tight gowns, strung together like the tops of soda cans on a hot summer day. My belly was on fire. What is the male figure supposed to look like? Toned muscle and tight skin for whatever the beasts have underneath.

I can't take this anymore, my throat decays at the rate of a million burning suns, and the wind that blows through can't even penetrate my lungs through the gallons of flesh that are supposed to be coursing through my veins. “Lies!” I claim, “lies!” Why are we are separating at the rate which we came together? Experimentalist trash in an Anarchist fashion sets lines in the sand which she won't cross. I am done with it all. I feel better when I have that book. Holy text for a man living in sin. Nine circles, and Virgil is done with; the Beast encapsulates Brutus. Skronk the keys and forget the ceremony where one is drawn-and-quartered like a balloon in the Haight district park. Doo-Da-Doo-Da, free at the very least. Doo-Da-Doo-Da, my fair woman could I perchance borrow said yeast? The answer doesn't matter, we talked of gowns and foot-coverings. Don't let that time slip away though, I can still afford a decent meal. Oh how that body glistens, why can't that be me? Oh how I try and try, but that outcome I can never reach.

I explained this all to my mother, I refer to her differently in person (icannotbesoformal). She sang to me, “My dear, darling boy: do not worry, you have the opportunities to change your ways and make us all proud.” I wanted to cry then and there, “What have I been doing? What happened to the bliss and wonder? Why is it that everything must be in such excess? Why do they come in six? Why do I need thirteen to survive? Why don't they care for my ways? What is happening?” Four hours later my mind shut off of the conceptual and turned to mush. I babbled my brain through understated understanding and burnt up in the sun: two to go. Two too much to take a tally of my tick-tock turntables. I want to make sense, and I want to be clear: I do not love you.

I hate the ocean towns. Everyone is tan and thin and pretty, and I had a beard then. I don't belong anywhere I don't think. I want to be everywhere and everything at once. I have one friend like this. I have one other friend who thinks like this. I have another who can talk about all the sorrowful poetic beauty that nobody can see. We don't casually take drugs and I can not stress this enough. I haven't vomited in months, I am not proud of this; I am becoming too good. I wear a shirt that was given to me as a gift and I feel like I should be upset about this, but I am not. It is now Wednesday, and that is a good day for a wedding I am told. I do not love you.

Just finished my last, (boyhowitwentsofast) I want to be happy about this. Why do wondrous things make me glum? Why is fruit so hard to come by? Why do people try to fill up so desperately? What is wrong with sparse empty spaces? Why can't you accept this? What is wrong with your flesh? Why is it blue all over? Why am I always so tired? Why is the day too short? Why can't we all call it quits? Why can't I go to green-rolling-hills? Why can't I hear the songs of my time? Why is my bank account a miserable whore? Why is everyone so content with taking advantage? Why can't people ask questions and be answered? I want to pull my hair out of its seams and dance upon a bed made of feathers teetering away at some old song, “Alor si mosse, e io li tenni dietro,” I need that guide, I need that guidance, I need some guiding. AHA! I'll catch you there, and I will catch up when you least expect it, and I will show you my true face and you will swoon and I will repeat: I do not love you.

Robots In Disguise

I’ve had a headache for about three weeks. It’s really starting to get to me and all the cigarettes in the world won’t fix it. I can attribute this to one of three options: (A) the constant barrage of Jack Johnson on the radio, (B) a brain tumor, or (C) the fact that three weeks ago I saw the new Transformers movie. I am setting my sights on option C due to the fact that all my dreams are haunted with explosions, trite quips, and a half-naked Megan Fox stuck in some sort of slow motion Purgatory. We all know how bad the movie is (every critic that has every been hypothetically conceived hates it), so I don’t need to be the bearer of redundant news; however what no critics are pointing out is the social importance of Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen (AKA: the most abusive piece of art you’ll ever see).

As I was sitting inside the theater before this new Michael Bay film I could only think of what seeing this movie really meant: intellectual suicide. However, I didn’t realize what was really about to happen to the audience: a brutal raping of the senses for two and a half hours. The interesting thing about these happenings was that I was the only one in my group (and perhaps the whole complex) that recognized the film in this manner. The theater was full of bright-eyed children, teenagers, and, inexplicably, a large collection of grown men who were just way too into this movie to be taken seriously as important members of society (I mean, they cheered at the sight of new robo-characters). Now the part of this whole part of the movie that got to me was not the burning sensation that G.I. Joe would be a hit or that the type of grown men that are into Transformers are just straight creepy, but that in no, way, shape, or form have I ever seen a film that so perfectly represents the American Zeitgeist. Now, this may sound like a stretch but think about it: the studios gave Michael Bay ten bagillion dollars to make this movie, and it’s on a successful track to make about ninety gazillion dollars (I hope these numbers make sense), which means that in basic terms: this movie is a big deal.

Remember that first time you heard Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and how you felt this warm sensation of meaning and community? Now do you recollect other moments where people try to convey this same sense of importance from some sort of garbled nonsense? (Jack Johnson always reminds me of this situation) Well, this feeling hit me like a five hundred pound Ravens’ linebacker about an hour into the movie. At this point I had failed to recognize any form of a plot, witnessed three thousand deaths, and had imagined sleeping with Megan Fox about fifteen times. Every other scene contained ten explosions, impossibly attractive women, and jokes based around the concept of housewives smoking pot. All of this began to get to me and I almost instantly stopped noticing the film as a form of entertainment; I was now watching the CGI-ed version of society’s ever-present id. Every twist and turn was chock full of terrible humour, meaningless explosions, and enough dead bodies to make Normandy look like a fun Sunday trip to the beach. Now, the part I didn’t understand is why the audience chewed this up and allowed it to settle in their stomachs; it’s all foreign language to this young man. The more I tend to think about it, the easier it all becomes to grasp: society is obsessed with unadulterated sex and violence, while depth and meaning slowly becomes an old hat trick that is left for that “Oscar garbage” people keep bringing up in defense of Transformers.

Now I can make these seemingly insane pretentious statements based solely on the fact that this new Bay production is blowing up big time in every theater in every town, in every city, in every state, in every country, on every planet, in every solar system; in other words: every single fucking person ever paid to see this movie. This is ideally why Michael “Can’t Make A Good Movie” Bay hit the nail on the head when he wrote (who allowed this man to do this?) Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. People are going out to see it because the film is an extremely concentrated version of society’s values and obsessions. We have been taught to accept mass violence and death as some sort of normality that occurs every day, despite the fact that it’s really just the media we consume like that heroin Slash enjoyed so much in the eighties. People try and explain that what makes Transformers so “fun” is that it is just a summer action flick; well so was Star Wars, but at least that had some depth to it. The fact that violence is able to penetrate our senses in a more enjoyable manner than a higher significant meaning is probably why Fox News, First-Person video games, and Slipknot are all as popular as ever. This makes me consider the idea that people don’t enjoy to think as much as they used to. This sounds strange, but there really is some other hard hitting evidence besides Michael Bay’s eye-rape being the biggest deal ever, and these reasons are as followed: (A) People constantly state that they “hate reading” (B) Major newspapers around the country are crumbling (C) The Hills has been confirmed to run through at least seven complete seasons. All of this is saddening to me, but still there are worse factors to the mess that is Transformers: the complete undermining of specific groups of people. I’ll start with the more obvious, popular, and attractive one which is simply Megan Fox’s existence in the film. From the first time we see her to the slow motion jogs through Egypt, everything Fox is directed to do just blatantly glorifies the objectification of women (which I assume has Margaret Sanger rolling in her grave). The introduction is nothing more than a cock-teasing shot of short-shorts bent over a motorcycle with some cleavage that just screams, “I don’t want to be respected! I just want sex!” I can honestly state that Megan Fox serves no purpose in the movie except to look good and keep young men interested when there are no explosions (which isn’t very often). If you need proof of this go on Facebook, look up Megan Fox, and see just how many women are “fans” of her’s; I’m going to just go ahead estimate about four (Perhaps fans of Sinead O'Connor). And it doesn’t stop there, no actress in the film makes any meaningful statements besides some of the greatest sexual innuendos ever, and once again, they just all look so good that the college party scene feels like a billboard reading: “All college girls need to look this hot, or they just don’t exist.” Ok, part two, and it is so much worse: The Twins… What is supposed to be viewed as comic relief is just the constant reminder that we are all still a bunch of a racists. White people will think it’s funny because of how stupid these robots are, but what they are laughing at is the fact that they subtly view Black people in this way which now makes African-Americans think that all White people look at the race in the fashion. Get the point? Yeah, it’s not good, it’s a vicious circle. This movie plays out the racism to such an extent that it almost becomes distilled and as a viewer, we stop looking at it as racist; it just kind of continually happens. And that is what can be said for the whole movie: all of this nonsense is apparent at first but then gets lost in its own murky representation of American culture.

Now you as a reader you probably think I am insane for writing such an essay on why I truly hated this film, and maybe I just way overanalyzed it which someone had to do, and now you probably despise me as a person. Perhaps this is all true and I am just a pretentious prick with too much time on his hands, and needs to lighten up a bit; but let’s assume I am right. Maybe you need to start overanalyzing these things in order to really understand what is happening to your brain and I promise that I won’t judge you. Maybe we all need to take a step back from the media as a form of entertainment and look at it in a way to understand how it represents us because guess what? It does. Every time you listen to a record, watch a television program, read about something, or pay to see a movie it says something about you and those around you; you enjoy this for a reason. So here is the fork in the road my friend, the difference between the red pill and the blue pill, light side and dark side. You can forever ruin your enjoyment of the “fun” media facets, or you and I can turn off, zone out and lineup at the box office for 2012. Maybe Michael Bay and Hollywood know more about us than we do, and all any of us really are just robots in disguise. Autobots! Roll out!