INMATE NO. 18 - 04 - 1978

The Halley Comet was crossing the sky but I didn't notice it, being too absorbed by the dogshit I had just gotten on my shoe.  All I had was the excuse of my blindness. But I ain't blind, other than metaphorically which doesn't really count since my life is far from being a poem. 

"Cut the shit!" the Officer barked at me and slapped me hard, so hard I could hear my own brains ringing a ding-dong like a cash machine. "Im sick of you assholes, getting caught with blood on your hands and putting the blame on some metaphysical entities. "

"You've got blood on your hands... " wasn't that a tune she used to hum?

"Where were you last night? You'd better have an alibi, dick, or you'll rot in jail. You'll only get a break when other inmates visit you for romantic purposes. Then you can practice your poetry."

He had a laugh like a machine gun.

"What do you mean? I was home last night. Thinking about my future."

"Can you prove it?" he yelled.

 I could smell his breath. It smelled like fear. My fear.

"How? It's not tangible or anything."

He wrote down something.

I panicked.

"What are you writing there?"

"Oh, nothing. My wife asked me to buy some groceries and I forgot the broccolis. "

He must have seen my puzzlement.

"Life goes on, boyo. You go down. I go to the grocery store."

And he strides to the door.

"Wait a fuckin minute! Am I supposed to get imprisoned without knowing the charges?"

He turned.

"Murder. Is it good enough for you, genius?"

"Murder? Whom... What... did I kill?"

"A smile. The mood. The future. You'll get 20 to life."

I scoffed. 

"What the fuck is this? The soap opera police? "

He winked and left.

I fell asleep and when I woke up all I could see was the darkness of my cell. And only then, as I was staring at the obscured ceiling  I noticed the Halley Comet crossing the sky. 

THE EMOTIONAL SERPICO

I've seen corruption. 

Soul train wrecks. Tears made out of alchohol when hearts were dry as a martini. I've been fooled and stripped naked of my own bones. My rizorius muscle crept paralized on my face, like a spider shot in all of his legs.

I smelled the skin of another woman and I felt like a crocodile waiting to turn into a Gucci purse. Got rid of verbs to make room for the light. What I got was light as opposed to heavy, significant and worthwhile. My trip to the moon turned to a stroll to the grocery store.

Don't sell me a Greek tragedy when all I want is the popcorn that goes hand in hand with a fine romcom to be seen on a mild Sunday afternoon. Don't shout at me for I am a lips reader and some of the lips have been just so thin that cut me like a razorblade.

And then I pleaded.

I tried my esperanto on people who weren't ready to leave the caves. I commited soul robberies but found no gold. Just pieces of haikus that ended in me, me, me. 

I was lost like the last piece of a puzzle that fell from the table, got stuck on a shoe, was carried outside, fell in a puddle, got swallowed by a straydog who was shot seconds later by an angry mobster.

And as I write I realize that writing is such a foolish deed. Blogging? A succedaneum for life.

Live, boyo.

Try yahoo messenger.

And then She walked majestically, like a beautifully crafted sentence that left me mouth agape with desire for more.

To be continued ?

ARE YOU GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE MAN WHO'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU?

Do you feel lucky?

Do you think you're beautiful enough to make heads turn? 

Is that beauty rich enough to save some layers for my eyes only?

Are you smart? Not book smart, not street smart, not emotionally smart nor mathematician type of smart, but the smart that fits my smart ass punkish smile?

Do you know how to steal a car? I mean, I might be suffering from porphyria and one night when we come back from a bar, I might have to dig my fangs in your neck and some stupid ass vigilantes might take me for a vampire and chase me and wish they could pierce my beautiful white wide chest with some spike and I might have to flee, so a car might be needed. So. Do you?

Do you make love? Not as in "parental advisory" kind'o'programme, nor Barry White on pinkish silkish sheets, but as in creating. Can you really surround me with loving energy that make seeds grow and babies stop crying?

Do you laugh? Not at stupid comedies or my mystiphying jokes turned to blunders, but when the whole world is at stake and the apocalypse lies in wait.

Do you love yourself? Just as much as I would if you were the woman I hoped you would be and I guessed you would become?

Are you somewhere between an angel and a whore, being neither of them, but resembling both well enough to make me ask the above question?

Do you love lying naked in my consciousness, stripped of your defense mechanisms and still feeling on the top of your game?

Do you?

PS:

All the "NO"-s, you can go to hell and stop wasting my time.

All the "YES"-es, you can go to hell and stop wasting my time.

The position has been filled.

And the successful candidate is getting a raise as we speak.

PARANOIA COCKTAIL

Every sunrise I wake up with the sheer feeling that that would be the day when everything stops: when ideas would cease to creep into my skull, when figures of speech would dull myself to death, when facial palsy would contort my face with anger and my hand would lie down like a dying penis.

Just the same, everyday I wake up imagining that that would be the day when my penis won't move - just like my already dead hand, when my eyelids would stop flopping, when my smile would freeze like a skinmade tattoo, when my tongue would be buried in my gluey saliva and never rise again to feel the air that it used to breathe.

Every night the filthiest of the filthiest diseases rot my skin, my teeth and gums, my lungs my brains, they rot my hope and dreams.

I lie down in the smelly brothels of my imagination and sleep with the sluttiest whores one could ever hope for. Our offsprings are nothing but mere degenerates - human derelicts.

My breath smells like deah. Hell, my death smells better than myself. 

I sweat blood, I spit cum, I bleed piss and I cum limonade. I'm the surogate of the man I could have been if only I hadn't had my head filled with paranoid cyber punk nightmares that mock my reality and fuck up my visions.

I don't want to be your boyfriend so that we could walk hand in hand till we get cramps, watch romcoms I would hate and action movies you'd despise. 

Don't take it personally but I think some of your friends, most of your friends, all of your friends are smug assholes with egos bigger than their IQ's. But look at the bright side: their IQ's are bigger than their dicks.

I don't want to make plans for the future not because I'm being pesimistic, not commited, not visionary or an apocalypse-freak, but I just don't know if I'm still in love with you once I have finished writing this post.

Sorry babe, I didn't come with a warranty.

I don't want to be your husband, not because I don't want to have little you-and-me with you, bearing your looks and my smartass smile, your arrogance and my discipline, your glance and my glance (you remember that night don't you?) but because I don't want to enter a paradigm the benchmarks of which are notions such as cheating, divorce, prenup, custody. 

I dont want to have to but I want to want to.

I don't want to be your soul mate in an over-romanticized world where people say what they feel by quoting lines from Casablanca and even then not very accurately.

We'll always have Barcelona and Amsterdam and Prague - you dont need Paris. You don't have to be Ilsa and I've always been so un-Rick-y.

I'm not your god.

You're not my muse.

We're not names carved in an old sequoia about to be chainsawed by time and cheap intrigues.

I don't want you to fall in love with me. Rape the words and rise in love. But not with me. I'm a mere reflection of yourself, so do it accordingly.

Don't ask me nothin'.

I got no answers.

Don't tell me nothin'.

I got no questions.

And the beauty of it is that we both know all there is to know.

 

  

THE BELIEFS OF AN EX-ADVERTISING MAN

No to advertising. Yes to making children laugh. Yes to making housewives chic. No to buying products. Yes to sharing experiences. No to fake blondes. Yes to dyed hair. No to expensive cars. Yes to cars that match your desire. No to slow motion. No to golden retrievers. No to inhumanly beautiful people. Yes to a limping bulldog. Yes to words. Yes to spaces. Yes to silence. No to full stops. Yes to well shaped bodies. No to hours spent in the gym. Yes to love. No to talking about it. Yes to Jesus. No to The Passion of the Christ. Yes to wasted nights. No to wasted talent. Yes to her. Yes to you. Yes to me. No to everybody. Yes to faith. No to arrogance. Yes to movies. Yes to books. No to post-modern bullshit. Yes to trees. No to chainsaws. Yes to Marilyn. No to Pam. Yes to giving a chance. Yes to giving a second chance. No to political correctness. Yes to fresh breath. No to taking showers after making love. Yes to comfy Sunday afternoons. No to laziness. Yes to exploring. No to invading. Yes to friendship. No to networking. Yes to working. No to coming to work. Yes to drugs. No to OD-ing. Yes to glances. No to staring. Yes to yes. No to no. Yes to playing piano drunk in a hotel in Marocco. No to being a joker. Yes to the original The Italian Job. No to stupid puns. Yes to lateral thinking. No to thinking about lateral thinking. Yes to ponies. No to horse races. Yes to memories. No to obsessions. Yes to loving mums. No to Oedipus. Yes to very short songs. No to jingles. Yes to flowers. No to bouquets. Yes to crying. No to lamenting. Yes to improvising. No to lying. No to calling in the middle of the night. Yes to sending short messages. Yes to short copy. No to long copy. Yes to writing long copy that reads like a short one.

WELCOME TO BUDAPEST

I'm the poster boy for numb.

I get a phone call from my potential employer. What about meeting this week she says. 

And I stare at the phone. It's black and old. It used to be reliable but not anymore. I can't hear the people I'm talking to anymore. Maybe it loves me. It knows that there's no point in listening to all these people so it sabotages me. 

White noise. Dark humour. Grey life.

Same ol' same ol'.

Well? she goes. I still dont know what to say. Friday? This Friday? This week? By the way... are you talking to me? How do you know I'm not some guy living in another dimension who pretends to be me but he's not? Same smile, same words and even the same silence.

The Capgras syndrome bitch. Choke on it. Google it, you fucking ignorant.

I'm staring at a white graffiti drawn on a white wall.

I know it's there, I almost feel its originators, but it's impossible to see it. 

Just like my love for the girl I used to love.

Don't be fooled. I nod and smile and fuck your ass like a horde of Moors. Your kids will bear my faulty features and look like zebras.

Half past midnight and I get pulled over by the pigs. Licence and registration one of them goes blankly. I give it to him, even blankier.

You should have had your technical revision done, he goes. A year ago. I'll suspend your registration and give you 9 to 20 points.

I stare at him and he stares back at me, making me see my own stare in his eyes. Sure, okay, I go. 

You don't understand what I'm saying, do you? the copper says.

I smile dumbly I presume. Not really, I say.

And he was right.

I don't have a clue what the fuck is going on.