Spitting Worms

Squirt! Squirt!

There's nothing you can do about it now. The venom! The venom! Makes you see double double. It's inside your eyes eyes! Surprise! Surprise! Now you have two little worms inside your mind that will spend their whole lives looking for each other. Unless! Unless! You still have time to cross your eyes and hope that they find each other before your venom-tears dry up. If it was a success, then your thoughts will become flooded with a million baby worms and you'll suddenly feel a wave of nostalgia for these words.

And there will be so many of them that you'll even be able to see them if you squint squint! It will look like firewords! Works! Works!

And then expect to see them again in your next bowel movement along with the bodies of their parents who passed in childbirth. Gross! Gross!

Dispatch from Inside the Internet

I was planted inside this website just two days ago, and already I'm overwhelmed by all the windows that have opened up to me. When I peek out of them, I see people like you staring down at me, making faces while they read. Then SLAM! They close the window abruptly, and leave me in the darkness with the ghost of the last look on their face to haunt me. It dances in the corners, and follows wherever I look. Eventually, it wears off. Spooked.

Today I saw an old woman flinch, a few coworkers who were dressed the same, a coffee shop employee drinking tea, and a lovely mother breast feeding, who was typing with one hand and cradling her baby with the other.

Visions of Skinlessness

Today I sit in peace and quiet, immersed. I'm reflecting on the sound my body makes when I breathe. It creeks a tiny bit, somewhere underneath the skin that I can feel moving between each heartbeat.

Thu-thunk. Thu-thunk.
My skin is crawling.

Thu-thunk. Thu-thunk.
It crawled away.
And slipped right under the door.

What should I do? I can't go outside exposed like this, but I don't want it to get away, it's the only skin I've ever known!

Thu-thunk. Thu-thunk.
Oh look! I still have my fingernails. I thought they might have slipped off with my skin. At least I have them.

Thu-thunk. Thu-thunk.
Skinlessness! I seem to have happened upon a theme. The main characters in a book I'm writing are a piece of skin and the animal from which it was skinned. And prior to writing about them, I've also written about having my skin pulled off by my very own hairs. Now once again, I'm seeing myself without any skin!

What might all these visions of skinlessness mean? Tell me internet!

The closest thing I could find was the definition of skinlessness in dreams, which reads,

To dream that you or someone else is skinless suggests that you are having difficulties in sensing your emotional and psychological world. You are experiencing anxieties about how you are being perceived by others. You need to look beyond the superficial and find the sensitive truth about yourself and about others.

I'm not exactly sure who wrote this dream definition, but it's posted all over the internet, in exact words, without credit given. Whatever happened to bibliographies?

Thu-thunk. Thu-thunk.
I've just discovered a direction to take my skinless characters next—a quest to find the sensitive truth beyond the superficial about you and me! It's located just beyond the place where anxiety flows from how we're being perceived. To find it, we just have to breathe.

Back and Forth Between You and Me

Fingeringngngngngng the keys backckck and forththth betweenenenen the laststststststststststststst twowowowowowow letters in any wordrdrdrdrdrdrdrdrdrdrd whenever yououououououououou feel like it for as longngngngng as you feel like itititititit just to see whatatatatatat it feelslslslslslsls like.

After that, pat yourself on the back with a smack of the back of your hand. Flail yourself in monkey movements. Oooh ooohh ah ah aah!

Now get serious and cry out, "TEARS!"

Serious! Like someone who is really reading this and not just saying that they will read it later and not really mean it. That's it! Now, just between you and me, we're not alone. We're together in some sort of imagined dimension that we only knew existed since the invention of computers—where the past shoots through the future and haunts us with its presence. While we're here, we should try something. I'll write your words while you read my mind.

"I don't get it. This is silly. Wait. I don't say silly. I'd say something more like stupid. NO! Stop making me sound like I'm arguing with myself. Make me say something that my friends would only be able to see to believe, then I'll tweet it! By the way, I loved your book!"

It's Sensational

So, reading. Huh? What do you think about that? Words. Words. Wads of words wiggling somewhere between your eyes and ears, right behind your knows, I mean, nose. It's sensational.

I'm inside your head! Can you see what I'm doing? Of course not! Because I'm behind your eyeballs! They are moving—well, wiggling is more like it, wiggling back and forth because you are still reading.

And there are cables connected to everything—vines and vines of veins filled with blood filled with cells filled with microscopic things. I'm swinging from them. It's fun. Like a jungle gym.

When I let go, I'll slide down your nose and land on your lips. If you can feel me do so, tell me, so I can hear how big your voice sounds at a microscopic level. Ready? Here I go!

Fort Fortitude

Let's build a fort and call it Fort Fortitude. We'll make it out of trees and boulders next to a river filled with hot springs so hot that you have to hop across them quickly or else you'll get burned. We'll brave the winters with the warmth of friends who are encouraged to bring their own blankets for the holidays. We'll shoot arrows from bows into targets made of unbelievable shots pinned to a cardboard box and strapped to a bale of hay. What do you say?

- for Tristan

An Excerpt From A Letter To Hannah

It's just a few minutes past five-o-clock, and when it's sunny like today is I like to sit out on the front steps of my apartment where the setting sun is unblocked by buildings. I sit there and watch all the cars stack up on the street—all the people headed home from their long day at work. They all look rushed—in a hurry to get home and be off the clock, maybe eat some dinner, call up a friend, or plop down in front of the tv. I'm already home. I've been here all day, by myself, alone.

I'm never quite sure which of us is happier—me, already at home, off the clock, or them, headed there, on their way. Eh. Who cares but me? And who's to say who is happier? Who's to compare? And why is there any comparison? They have their lives, and I have mine. I have a typewriter waiting for me next to a cup of tea. That should be good enough for me.

I can look at anyone sitting there in their cars and imagine that they are rushing home to finally get the chance to sit at their own typewriters. I wonder what they might be rushing home to write? Are they working on a novel, or writing a letter to a friend like me? Are they fighting writer's block, or are they typing away frantically—bursting with words and ideas for more words? Getting to it right away—telling their loved ones, or roommates, don't bother me, I'm writing!

One of them is writing a story about their day at the office, trying to understand what just happened to them. Another is just sitting there feeling the plastic keys with his fingertips, wondering if he can ever get up the nerve to explain how they feel. To him they feel captivating.

And another is writing a suicide note, not because they want to commit suicide, but to show themselves the words that would be read if they were to be found dead tomorrow, or whenever, because it wouldn't really matter anyway because they would be dead and they wouldn't care about anything by then.

And another is more light-hearted in their approach. She runs home to write jokes, and while she writes them she imagines herself in front of a large studio audience saying just the right words to make them all laugh simultaneously while wondering simultaneously why they're all laughing. Later she will read what she wrote back to herself to see if her words work on her. When it's a success she will laugh herself to sleep. Unfortunately, when it's not, it has the opposite effect. She knows that it's a risk, but tonight she is feeling able to risk it.

And then there is me.

Heartbreaks Happen

My heart's been broken, but today I reached a good point in any given heartbreak—I can see the absurdity of it all. There are a million songs that sing about this feeling. It's not a unique situation, it's a fact of life and love. Heartbreaks happen! And so it happened to me like it happens to everyone else. It's nothing special when you can look at it like a cold or flu. You might go years without ever getting sick, but then there are those years where you might get it twice in a row. So what? You puke your guts out, and feel horrible, and sleep it off, and take care of your health until you feel better. Then you get back on your feet and feel normal again—back to your old self. It was not too serious or deadly, just something that had to pass through your system.

Upset Prayer

Should I stay upset or should I just let it go?
The choice seems obvious obvious obvious!
Yet I can't seem to see anything but the reasons I'm upset.

Let them go!
Let them go!
You have no reason not to!

What's done is over. That's it!

And all these reasons are dead which I have been dragging around all day—
dead weight dragging—
until now!
As I let them go and drop them
right here,
right now,
and walk away feeling lighter.

Now go wash your hands you dirty man
and smile smile smile!

A Man Alone

A man alone has all the time in the world to himself. He thinks himself bored and fills the time with pacing until he can't take it anymore and he walks out into the world to have an adventure, singing,

Anything is better,
anywhere,
at any time,
at any place, other than
other than here.
Go seek it and you'll find it boring too,
or seek it not, let it find you.

Hermit Hair Piece

I met a hermit walking my way while on my way to the grocery store. He asked me for some change, and I told him no. Then he slapped me in the face and said, “Don’t you ever tell me no like that again!” I slapped him back, and said, “Okay!”

He told me his name was missing, and that he was stupid. I misunderstood him deliberately and called him Miss Thing, then added that if he was stupid then what is he now? His eyes shot open in horror and darted right back at me, “Bull’s eye, man! Bull’s eye! I was stupid,” he growled, “WAS! And now I’m now!”

“Now you are!” I agreed. “You are now, not what you were before!”

The hermit scratched a scab on his head which flaked off as it was pinched between his fingerskin and fingernail. He held it up to the sunlight and showed it to me. “Behold! A piece of me has formed an end! And today I have a witness! Make a wish!”

I wished for a silly thing. I wished for a naked man to be laying on one of the conveyor counters at the checkout lanes, using his toes to move himself back or forward. I was thinking about how I would imagine such a scene—about how it would look and whether or not the naked man would be attractive—and just when I was about to see him scooting back and forth, the hermit whispered, “Snap out of it man! Make your wish quick before my nail loses it’s grip! Uup! There it goes! You better follow it! It leads you to where your wish will come true!”

“Which way did it go? I missed it!” It was windy and there were all kinds of scabs flying around already. The hermit pointed towards my nose and coughed in my face without covering up his mouth. Some of his spit flipped out on my jacket and started soaking into it. It burrowed deep into the fibers and hid there forever. “Miss Thing, I see it now, I’ve got to go chase it before it gets away!”

Fowl Appetite

Ancient thing like a chicken wing eaten a million years ago, back when chickens were wild-eyed creatures, paranoid of being killed by an insect the size of a dinosaur to you or me. They were crazy looking creatures—more like lizards with long hairs sticking out of their skin-bumps, tickling the ground with their beak-teeth snapin' at seeds, combing the ground underneath the mega-gigantic trees.

Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!
Buzzard bugs they are a comin'!

Skree! Skree! Skree! Scream the chicken guts! Scree! Scree! Scree! Eat the chicken up! And lick the chicken that's left stickin' to the bottoms of thier bug feet! Feeler licking good! Can you feel me? Cause the chicken bones don't lie, they wait and they wait 'till they're pressed deep enough into the earth to make a lasting impression turn into a fossilized escape.

Birds of a feather flock together so the ones on the outside get eaten first. Stay close to the middle where you're safe from the threat of going missing in the night—taken by an insect with a fowl appetite for raw chicken meat.

Drip Drop

I want to twist and turn my thoughts into something else and squeeze out the guts of my imagination onto the floor. It spills and splashes—burns like acid, eating away at the floorboards—sizzling, bubbling, melting, dripping—opening up the underside to the world underneath. It’s cold down there, and dark, and smells like breath in the wintertime. I spit into it to see how far it goes, but I missed and hit my shoe. So I try again, this time with a string of spit brought up from the back of my throat, spit out slow so I can watch where it goes.

Drip!

The spit-string breaks. One end slaps me in the face, while the other falls.

It’s still falling, or it fell too far to hear land. I’ll drop a penny down instead.

Drop!

It won’t go in! It’s stuck to the floor like the hole wasn’t there, or maybe covered with an invisible film, or just covered in a coat of paint to make it look like an imaginary acid hole.

Nope! It’s a trap! I tried to pick the penny up and fell in it! But luckily my legs caught me before it was too late. I’m hanging from them head-first into this bottomless black pit.

Making This Happen

For the love of writing and all things worded in strange and wondrous ways, I begin again.