incredibly obsessive ache.
grabbing at dead air for an idea, a clue. on to test my adaptability. terrified of settling. goddamn, it feels as if my spirit had the most ferocious munchies. it wants to devour the Universe.
“and life goes on within you and without you”
my shoulders shake violently.
kind of dancing, kind of erasing this etch-a-sketch of your goddamn face.
when hungry, i get sad. this half-year hurt me more than i realized. and now it just cushions empty nights. i don’t even feel foolish enough to consider it all a mistake. two-stepped my way around for months…carefully untangling my toes as i danced to your silly melodies.
said ‘why not’ and your confidence paved a red road to my bedroom. thought ‘how fun’ and watched as your toys turned to tiny monsters. you’re stuck in between the folds of my knuckles, with time…just buried.
people will make you transient to protect themselves.
you made me the child. gullible to your hand tricks and fast talk.
i got out.
so why does it feel like losing?
rolling pin over your rationale. you, like most surface breathers, hide yourself in folds of chuckles. laughs that hide sexist oppressive aprons. my disappointment drowns me. “that’s the way things go sometimes, most of the time.”
I’m celebrating our differences. I’m celebrating because even though we all went through shit, my sensitivity came out intact. I still speak softly, still am optimistic and still know how to love, even though we were cheated out of so much love ourselves.
I’m celebrating my ability to give space, to understand and be tactful. I’m celebrating my survival, because yours seems burdened and sad.
I came here without brick or mortar, but can readily create similar walls to the ones you fence yourself in. I don’t want your poisonous rants to devalue my optimism and dreams. So I’ll build a blockade for your condescending words and continue to swim until I get somewhere where I can rest my heart.
no place to rest your heart.
i dreamt about the post-zombie invasion world again. this time we were scrounging for a place to rest and recharge, but this was harder to find than ever. there was a hurried rush through empty buildings, up trees and over fences. remembering not to waste bullets, and not to make too much noise. i lost my dog to a bite. we had to break his neck.
you can’t think about these things twice, you must keep going.
we found a supermarket which was pretty emptied out, but a few things remained. there were other people scrounging, too…but these seemed much more scared than we were. seeing the magazine racks holding issues from the days right before the invasion made me feel so strange and detached. of course, it wasn’t long before they reached the supermarket as well, so we tried hiding in the storage room for as long as we could.
we ran through neighborhoods of humongous houses, now home to the disease. beautiful landscapes wasted on nothing. it was heartbreaking to see a home, but never be able to call it that. as we walked through the streets of two-story buildings with beautiful windows we noticed it was eerie and empty and that was never a good sign.
and we were off again. this time through darkened neighborhoods looking for some more signs of life, albeit terrified life.
we reached an area where i used to go to high school. there was a bakery open. there were people eating, talking and cautiously enjoying themselves. we noticed there were still vehicles being used somehow, to pick up survivors and transport them around this area. somehow i knew these people weren’t ready for things to get really ugly here.
we ordered food and asked people to tone it down a bit. we weren’t used to the noise, but mostly were afraid it would attract them. they didn’t understand what noise had to do with it, so we started up an escape plan, hopefully using one of those vehicles.
a big, loud fire truck came howling up the avenue, towards the bakery, but seemed to have been to hell and back. there were body parts hanging from the sides of the truck, as the wheels left behind a path of blood.
if there were any type of red flag whatsoever, this would be it.
we decided to make a run for it. we saw a bus full of survivors notice the fire truck coming up and turn abruptly around. shit. we were going for that one.
there was another vehicle ahead, but this one seemed about to kiel. we got on anyway. the riders were panicked and frantic. we told them to GO!, but they wouldn’t listen. the vehicle was made up of two parts: an engine and front train connected to a engineless back train.
we took the back train off, and let them decide what to do on their own.
since we didn’t have an engine, we needed impulse and momentum. so we looked for hills and slopes. we ran and pushed and glided as far and fast as we could away from that ridiculously obnoxious area.
we moved all night until we reached an area we thought was dreamt up. a whole fenced-in community that seemingly had been untouched by anything. everyone went on their business as if nothing horrendous was going on outside. we still had the vehicle, but watched in envy as the soccer moms pulled their SUV’s out of their driveways on the way to get groceries. these people would never understand what we’ve seen. somehow they have created a bubble. and it made me feel sicker than it made me feel safer.
we decided to move on from here as well. we noticed that at the edge of the houses was a huge cliff. we could use that for momentum and see where it leads. if there was civilization and life here, maybe we weren’t far off from a place we could at least rest.
we went ahead and walked through someone’s front door. the mother seemed confused, scared and worried…but we just walked along. the whole family seemed baffled by how we looked as they shot questions our way which we just avoided.
what if the bubble they were in was worse than the disease itself? we didn’t want to take any chances.
we found the back door and went down the million steps to the cliff in the backyard. it was a slope with trees which lead to a flat black ground down below.
we went for it.
once we reached the bottom, we noticed something that set a new standard for what was truly terrifying. there were infected people with strange, clown-like masks on leading small groups of uninfected people. it seemed like a concentration camp. so i imagined it must be a slavery camp. but how were these meat-hungry monsters domesticated enough to guide their victims through a life of slavery? i didn’t want to find out.
there was a strange metallic vine accessible to my reach which went over the area of the camp i was just looking at. i grabbed a hold and told the rest to do the same. we climbed up and noticed there was a jungle gym-like structure to climb and walk over the slavery camp. most likely a clever idea from survivors much like ourselves.
we climbed a while, noticing the metal bars change from green to yellow to orange to red. it was a rainbow jungle gym, inspiring you to move on, and not look down. as we moved on we noticed stops, places to have a drink or just rest. a bit further down we noticed an actual restaurant where we saw people enveloped in their meals as the chefs quickly prepared more. they knew of urgency, and we knew we couldn’t stay here.
me gusta darle pa lante al itunes en shuffle y que salga un track de standup…
ir de una canción de shabazz palaces a esto…
“alright, here’s a question…WHAT is going on…with people who drink coors light?”
rolled my eyes so hard they fell outta my head.
To Whom May Concern (and those who don’t even look)
your memory fails you.
high maintenance/low maintenance.
it required no maintenance at all. and, with that, the last paragraphs.
i have been folding the past five years for months now. knitting tethers that’ll neatly float on 2,056 miles of water and land, a safe tug away.
i’m noticing a pattern.
survived the reboundception.
i think there are some incredible feats to overcome. there are ropes around your ankles. tightly-wound ropes of thoughts that existed way before you were even a possibility. i got caught up. we all did. it ended with phosphorus and bitter alcohol lining the inside of our mouths. everyone seemed to be holding that gulp in for ages.
