april chaps;
// seven-eleven the harsh, fluorescent lightbulb distorts my image, and for a second i think my face has lost all definition— that i’ve blurred into the dirty floorboards, lost all shape and color—an insect on the wall of this beat-down, run-down, broken-down seven-eleven. i grab a twinkie off the shelf, and go to the register. the cashier doesn’t smile when ringing up my order, and i shove a five dollar bill into his hands— fucking inflation. outside, i smell the faint scent of gasoline, and tar. and suddenly, i’m seven years old, playing on the railroad tracks, the toxic fumes a loving memory of a childhood far, far away. the night air bites at my nose, my eyes, my ears, and i know it will sting if i don’t hurry and get inside. the neon lights glow in the darkness, the faint, buzzing sound of the only convenience store, a lost sort of paradise. and like moths to cheap fluorescent lamps, we flicker to the flame. i rip open the plastic and shove the twinkie into my mouth. the cream is lewd and vulgar. choking, i cough, but keep shoving the rancid, filthy sugar down my throat. the tar smell is long gone. all i smell is chemically engineered sugar, wantonly filling my nostrils until my eyes water. the seven-eleven illuminates the path forward, the buzz of the shoddy, red and green neon sign the only sound i hear for miles. except maybe a car engine, farther off. i swallow, the sugar biting my tongue like acid. and, smiling, start the trek home.
// snakes and lilies spiked lilies drape over the armchair, a love letter neatly forgotten you brush a shaking finger to my ribs, charred and ruined, and desperate to feel something—anything— i bite a kiss into your mouth and pretend the small, sharp sound of surprise is enough to get me there. you tangle your hands into my nerve-endings, searching for that pure, undistorted bliss unmarred, [unruined] i let you think you find it let the high take you to the edge and back, and now, smiling, one hand draped over your face, so boyish. i stare and imagine a snake; devouring your head whole.
// in my mouth; light slivers of hope ; taste bitter {in my mouth} stargazing, my belly full of {light}; hope alchemizing into particles the sun eats the moon, the blood distilling into constellations and full ; my belly splitting open, the light escapes and turns into a flash of shooting stars
// i want to write beautiful verses about the sun and the stars, but dread eats away at anything meaningful. it feeds on my sadness, [ my ] loneliness and, in a hopeless stupor, i only write these few, short lines. // i keep a blade sharp, at the tip of my tongue, i dilute myself, become more palatable easier to swallow. the blade rips through my mouth coating my teeth vermillion; accusing me of living a lie. // a storm in a teacup; a tempest in a glass. maybe it’s my nature to be wild and brimming with life. maybe, storms shouldn't be contained. // sunflowers blue lungs; blue in the face the stems green and splitting, tighter tighter; hung by the very sunflowers i once prayed for. inside the ugliness, inside the grayed out static buzzing between the neurons; writing from within the inside of myabuse.the sunflowers are weeping; their petals long-lost lullabies ; tightening tightening and i am numb dazed, out & disillusioned too far gone [from this world] yet so far from the next.
// the revenant i rather chew glass than ever reach my hand towards you again. my body knows better; yet, still, my heart seeks its latest thrill. when visions of deluded memories swarm the space between sleep and waking i stare at my bathroom tile, and wonder, how many morefuckingyears before your spirit finally separates from mine. am i the ghost haunting us? or is this the final debt to be paid between us. sometimes, i can’t help but wish your chains were still tethered (to me) on the other side.







These are great.
We don't really have Twinkies here in Australia. But I once had one. It was treated like a rare delicacy. It shouldn't have been.
All of these were so good in their own ways and paint pictures of moments in time so many memorable lines in here i very much enjoyed reading your writing