For My Next Trick...

I would like to thank everyone who came out to my birthday party. It was really fun. Of course, my memories of it are a little fuzzy around the edges. Or maybe burned around the edges, like an old Poloroid. It's like that NIN video where that title card: SCENE MISSING keeps showing up. Oh, look, more people are arriving, SCENE MISSING, oh, look, someone has a monkey strapped to a chair, SCENE MISSING, oh, look, I'm crying from sheer joy and Anna's sitting on my lap, SCENE MISSING, who invited that Chinese woman in the Kato mask, SCENE MISSING, Bateman's here and now Michael Jackson is playing on the stereo, SCENE MISSING, why is that pig head inpaled on that machine and why is it spinning around so much, SCENE MISSING, wasn't Marcie and Kevin's birthday card funny as hell, SCENE MISSING, it feels soooo good on the floor of my bathroom, SCENE MISSING, there were three in the bed and the little one said, roll over, roll over.....

And now I'm 27.

The Secret War

It's like Invasion Of The Body-Snatchers, sometimes. You're all alone, shouting in the street -- a paranoid freak. You know that they're Pod People -- and no one will believe you. You WANT to shout, to throw out barbs, to be cruel and sharp. But you can't. You've picked up the vibe - the sinister bit of static - the chemical spray, the undercurrent, the challenge...and it's under the table. To freak out about it - just makes you look foolish and stupid and weak. You can't let anybody know that 'They're Here Already!!' -- you've just gotta move rooks and bishops and knights...and jokes and smiles and handshakes....and that tiniest pulse of 'fuck you'...that shine behind your eyes that says, 'I know you, douche-bag'...it's weird and strange and I never expected to feel this way....I'm as shocked as anyone....we'll just have to see how this whole thing plays out...

This Is Why Mom Would Occasionally Go Off Her Meds.

Screw the pooch. Spread your legs and think of England. Blood is pumping through my swiss cheesed brain - thousand miles a hour. Glam-rock to the bone. Crushing ants, burning bridges -- God, it feels good to burn a few bridges -- even an old, moot bridge. I should do it more often. It's like three elephant lines of coke - it fills one up with a sort of useless energy and adrenaline - a little fight or fly. Fly-fly-fly. You can feel your teeth grind and your knuckles pop and the cartilage in your nose snap...your heart beats beats-beats-beats a little faster....but it's just cause you know you don't have anything to lose...not really...if only I could go into every confrontation like the suicide bomber who knows how this whole thing is going to play out.....a push, a nudge...and then...there you are....easy as setting down a load of bricks. Done. Eyes forward. Dogs have been kicked. Exchanges made. Up-up-up. Stop caring...you work quite well when you're cold, detached, icy. All your little memories boxed up and burned away. Yes. Yes, I think I should do this sort of thing more often. Who needs weak, watered down awkwardness - when you could just have showdowns...when you could say those things that can't be Unsaid. Cross lines. Sherman-through-Georgia kinda sentences...kinda thoughts. There's a box of them, waiting to be burned up...little floating musical notes....jazzy little ideas...jagged....sharp little things...you could cut your tongue off on any one of them.....you could carve off your own face...one of them.....you could slit your wrists, jab out your eyes....anally rape yourself with all these menacing little thoughts...hooks and the delicate stems of wine glasses...glass flowers....some of them are so pretty, these kill switches...garottes, barbs, bon mots, slang, theories, shivs, histories, codes, hot as heat lamps....or secrets....or hypocrisy. Finger pointing. You are a slave. You are my kind of liar. You are a weeper. And I smile and smile and smile like an idiot when I think about such silly little titles and betrayals and timelines and gaps in histories and what strange/illict fun it was. Mostly because it wasn't the right thing to do and it wasn't healthy and it was sort of fucked up and familiar. Soothing - the way church is for some people...sit back and let the sermon wash over you. The phrases and the games and the hush-hush...and the fact that it didn't mean anything...gave it an isolated freedom. Short lived and nice. And then you put that madness in the same room with the pathetic yelpings of these stupid puppy-like dramas...and they just don't rate. They don't count. The outcome is known. And that makes it easy to burn...to fish with dynamite...easy to screw the pooch...pull the tooth, say, 'Fuck it and fuck you. Thank you for playing.' So...crushing ants...check....but my blood is up....time to work my way up the food chain....the next person to fuck with me....I'm going to sink my teeth into his cheek minutes before I roast and eat his pets and children....I have replaced my tongue with a pit viper....my soul, if you want to call it that, has been shaped into a boot....I'm going to stomp on your face....but here I am getting all rosy and poetic with the process....