When I first started crying, I knew exactly what I was crying for …

Now I’m not so sure.

…

Episode 1 

Let’s Microwave A Frog

“Let’s microwave a frog!” 

“A frog?” 

“Yeah, let’s microwave one!” I said to my imaginary friend, Tuba.

(Bouncing up and down on the mini trampoline) Let’s say there’s a black jug of paint in my hand, a fudgsicle stick poking out my mouth … with the cowshed behind me, on fire, the mill burnt to the ground out front.

“Let’s microwave a balloon!”

“Let’s microwave the baby!”

Let’s try it out!

…

It was day three of lying on the livingroom floor in a puddle of Dollar General whiskey and hogwash when I started to hallucinate.

Flugelhorn, my freshman biochem professor, creeps across the room, in a pair of striped boxers. (I can’t help but think about the boy in the striped pajamas.) He asks me if I’ve ever seen a dick go from hard to medium to soft, or vice versa.

(Wheeling out a human skeleton anatomy model) “It can feel like a slender feather … See this straw-colored stalk? This delicate, bristled hole” (His fingers gently caressing the ring of bone at the base of the spine). 

“See?”

I can see his words more than I can hear them, like rainbow tangles of fur rolling across the carpet … Or more like feel them. 

My last meal was a shot of I-don’t-know-what and a freezer-burned baby tomato.

(Breathing becoming heavy)

“... A spiky, lobed shaft with spiny pods … rough, papery brown … wrinkles … withered, dark umber … A heavy head … skeletal, woody stem … shriveled umbrella-like flower clusters …” (His fists forcing their way into the pelvic brim). 

“See them?”

I see them.

See them?

I feel them.

(Colorful fur turning rusted, into barbed wire).

I gotta get up and get on.

Episode 2 

3 things I’m grateful for

I’m writing down three things I’m grateful for.

This big, wet hole.

…

This monster. 

This … me? …

Wait, no, 

not that. 

(My basic instinct is to rip off my pants and play with my balls.)

I gotta think. 

C’mon! … C’MON! (Think, Stupid. Think, Stupid. Think, Stupid!). 

C’mon think. (Maybe Daddy was right …). C’mon, THINK!!! 

My more complex instinct, (complex, here, as an understatement), is to load up a gun that I don’t have, and murder the person I no longer am.

Written down in a journal somewhere: 

RELIEF IN HAVING NO ONE TO BLAME. Relief, relief, relief … over and over, until the pencil literally snaps in half. 

… You know when you have an aggressive dog biting the shit out of your leg or arm and not letting  go, how you’re supposed to shove your finger up its ass? Well, that’s me. I am that finger. 

(Woof!) 

(Taking notes) 

The structural foundation is the basket (frame), which holds the motor assembly. The motor consists of a magnet, a voice coil suspended in the magnetic gap, and a spider.

Gotcha gotcha gotcha …

3 things 3 things 3 things …

(Staring at the burning mill) — HEAT!

(Staring at the burning mill) — RED!

(Staring at the burning mill) — OH, THE TERRIBLE CHOICES WE’VE MADE AND WILL MAKE! 

…

Episode 3

Let This Sentence Be A Death Sentence

Ox Hill Battlefield Park, Fairfax, Virginia –

My first wet dream in ten years.

(A wet cloth scraping the floor)

(Can you feel that?)

A small batch of granola.

A small bowl of pancake batter and a dirty whisk.

A bamboo peninsula on the lake, where a lonely, drunk German man plays with his half-hard cock, waiting …

A familiar fragrance.

A forbidden fairytale.

Blueberry erection. 

The words I will love that man for forever and ever written down in an old journal. Is that really all you had to say? 

Define “love” in this context. Define “forever.” 

Define “man,” Goddammit!

C’MON GODDAMMIT!!!

…

(Maybe Daddy was right.)

Imagine … 

Written down in a journal somewhere:

I will love that man forever … and … ever!

Is that really what you wanted to say?

Say I will love this place and these people for forever and ever!

But that’s not really how it happened, was it?

Episode 4, 5, and 6

How to cope with depression 

Just don’t go near the knife drawer.

(Sliding a broken watch through the slit in the door).

(An orange fifty euro bill.)

How to move forward, (Googling) how to move forward, (22 tabs open), (600 thousand windows open), (crabcake eyebrows), (ankles raw), (mouth open), how do I move?! Well, I take back what I said about your face that night I threw that vodka bottle at you, the way it disappeared in the snow. BYE BITCH! The way I went back the next morning to look for the bottle. … The way I fucking found it, thinking, this MUST be a sign that everything will be fucking fine, right? Remember, Baby? It had to be. It has to be. Say it has to! 

SAY IT!!! 

Well … It has to be me, buck naked on the kitchen floor, scooping up a chunky cat vomit hairball with a wad of napkins, wondering, is it the darkroom demon or the dust storm for today? Will I be summoning myself in a way that makes any sense? Why are my eyes so fuzzy? 

Or was it me,

Wailing –

I want to die I want to die 

Iwaaaaannaaaadiieeeee

…

It’s so weird; it was like you were just here. 

But you were here. 

No you weren’t. 

So where were you? 

I’m starting to remember. …

On nights like this, the castle I built turns into a darkroom, with many men on their hands and knees, smothered in almond oil, eating steamed white rice out of itty-bitty terracotta bowls, one grain at a time. And their asses are swaying side to side. But that’s barely scratching the— …There’s a REAL itch that needs to be itched, ya know, but who knows where it’s at and who’s even looking anyways? (I do), (I am). 

Well, here's the chocolate fountain nobody asked for: My castle becomes a darkroom, my darkroom becomes a circus, my circus becomes a mask, my mask becomes a cage, my cage becomes a shadow, my shadow, my own shadow, becomes a hiding spot. It’s the perfect place to disappear and still be known. (I learned you’re supposed to hug yourself when you’re having a panic attack). Well, I hugged myself until my palms turned sour, until my knuckles bled blue, and I still couldn’t find the right words. I didn’t make the right face. (But what about the birds?) (Now what are they hiding?) I’m wondering. … Hands coming out of the dark to grab me, and little ol’ me wondering if I should grab back. Grab what? Grab where?  I’m learning. I guess. I’m turning down the same street that once brought me to the brink of total obliteration, deep into the dark forest, out in the wild, where I first felt me, the old me, and left me, the “me” as a gesture, a facade, to rot. (So much time and energy wasted barking up the wrong trees). (That’s not a quaking aspen, that’s a BIRCH, BITCH!) 

(Woof woof.) 

After almost a decade of grieving, remembering, and forced forgetting, here: a dead end, or a never-ending roundabout. It could be both, honestly, the way my shadow follows me and how I scurry in circles to stay behind it. And honestly, it doesn’t matter so much. 

My previous shadows: DEAD BIRDS. Dead dead dead. Dead birds and the question that is the reflection before me (still me before me) — How much is left? (Am I the only bitch left)? When I tell it like this, does it make a difference? 

(OUCH!) 

(Go dig your own hole, Bitch). 

Stare there. I stare there. Stare there or stare anywhere long enough, and I’ll find myself staring at myself, like looking down a brown-gray well, or more precisely, find those unspeakable sleeves of self that have been battered and beaten into a singular sludge (think hollandaise) so that I am capable of washing the dishes and walking the dog, for instance. (egg yolk, melted butter, and lemon juice.) 

Am I capable of making it to work on time? Am I capable? Am I fuckable? Bet you weren’t expecting the Hurricane to Hurricane right here right now, but I can’t control it. Can you handle it?  (Thinking, I alone can fix it). Fix what? Really, WHAT?! 

Try me. 

Bitch.

When power hits the voice coil, it vibrates and moves the attached cone (diaphragm), while the surround (the flexible outer ring) allows movement and pushes air to create sound. 

So, in a way, none of this is protocol-based.

(I’m writing down three things.)

…

All of my wisdom has come from alone time … Being alone in the face of a big, big bird, (Dead? Unclear.) (I mean it looks pretty dead ….) … And in the beak of it, on the gape of the hole, his hole, (seeing upside-down faces on the edge of the hole). I feel fear. I fear there is a monster inside, surely there must be. And who am I to say don’t feed that fire. Why not? Why not say LET THAT MOTHERFUCKER BURN!! ?? (eyes turning blood red), (mouth open real wide). Where can I drop off this massive mound of old boards and broken furniture and wooden scraps. Do I exist in there? (Stare there. I stare there). Maybe. … Do I exist out there? (Stare). (Grab a match). (Stare). And if so, where? (Do I exist just in my penis?) Huh? And if I situate myself correctly, is it possible to exist everywhere at once? Should I even want that? 

(Can you cum in this position?) 

So many people want this, should I want this? So many people want that, should I want that? (fuck!) So many people want everything, I could want that too. But then there’s also nothing … which … sounds … intriguing. Like, oh yea there’s nothing, that’s perfect, makes sense, let’s fuck. … 

What was I saying? 

Oh. 

A dustcap protects the coil from debris, and the gasket creates a seal to mount the unit securely.

So many little moments and so many layers, and an almost infinite amount of angles. I said SNAP A PIC BITCH IT’LL LAST LONGER. (Howling like a witch) (bending like a flower). All the way over like– (...)The flavor does dull out real quick though, that’s the problem. Feed the fire, turn your head, and once you look back, it’s dead. OUT COLD. Already??? You gotta be fucking kidding.

So sick of it, so I situate myself precisely. Sick of it, so I stick to what’s directly in front of me: me. My own me. (Yes, I’m still here).

Hello?

Hello.

…

Hello corridor leading to a maze leading to a cave. I remember you. 

Depression feels like a distant chainsaw and nothing else. … emphasis on the nothing else.

Chronic depression feels like driving through the forest in pitch black, trying to find a cabin you built for yourself from a previous eclipse. You arrive at each building site, desperate and dirty, only to find that all the structures have been completely demolished. And you have to choose: do I start re-building, or do I keep on looking. And it’s starting to feel like the sun might never rise.

Depression feels like an empty room with an ugly plastic floor painted to look like real wood, and there’s broken glass everywhere, (glass that you broke, of course). Sometimes, a large wet cloth appears on the far side of the room and slowly scrapes the glass shards across the floor as it glides towards you. (Can you feel that?) And there are no windows.

And the doors don’t look like doors anymore.

Depression is a distant nothing becoming less and less distant until it’s in your mouth and down your throat.

𓃾

Episode 7

You and Me

Me: Do you have a frog?

You: Yes.

Me: Where’s your microwave?

We spent the summer after third grade on a farm in Kerhonkson, New York. We would run laps around the field, throwing balls of cow shit at eachother. We pulled the scorched stalks of fireweed out the ground and used them as swords. The shellbark hickory nuts were our grenades. We hid from eachother. We pretended to die.

One time, we were watching the sun set pretty orange and deep pink, when suddenly an awful scream echoed out from the far end of the property. A woman had slipped in the mud and her leg was bent backwards. 

That night I dreamt a big, black ox.

Episode 8

Blueberry Erection

I just turned twelve.

My mother is a fish.

I just turned 13.

Episode 9

Date Night at the Cinema

For moments of extreme uncertainty, finding yourself in a front row seat on the Paranoid Plunge, where even your fingers feel like little aliens, gripping that floaty tube like it’s a fucking gun, here’s how to swap out your brain for something truly awful: The insatiable, inevitable rage balloon.

Because when you party like an animal you gotta treat yourself like an animal — It’s like you live on the streets. Everything becomes disgusting, and that’s just the way we like it. (You lost a very special, silver ring back there in the bushes when you laid down in the dirt) (What happens in the dark stays … ) (Sit on my dick right here right now) (In the back corner of the dog park) (Checking for cameras) (Kicking the condom under dirt) (Chewing on a viagra) (The sun starting to rise). 

When you party like an anim al you lose everything, but you’ll find something else.

When you party like an animal, you become a warning sign, a sign of the consequences. You’ll hear yourself saying I’M MAKING MYSELF SICK BUT I DON’T CARE! I am a symbol of the moment. (The urgency, the angst, the bass drop, the rage against the machine …) It could, potentially, and does, frequently, make a lot of fucking sense.

Damn, you really ARE an animal! 

I’m not interested in frying my brain – I’m already insane!

Or back in my late teens, before I loved or even liked myself, blacking out and showing up on a random doorstep, with him saying things like SCREAM AS LOUD AS YOU CAN BUT FOR ONLY ONE SECOND, (AH!!!) or, LET’S WRESTLE, PIG BOY!!! … 

You shouldn’t have sex when you’re depressed. (note to self). It’s like I always said, It was rape until it wasn’t.

I remember thinking that, taking it and doing nothing (taking it while feeling nothing);

Well, it’s rape until it isn’t.

Well, what’s more important, the scar or the story? Standing in front of a large crowd on a large stage wearing a wireless mic ten years later: don’t forget the juicy details! (Think of art in this way: The tragedy and atrocity of the past is the lullaby of the healing heart because look at me now! Just look at me! … Where would I be if I didn’t know true pain?) 

Talk about your trauma but make it interesting! Buy a thesaurus! Watch independent cinema! 

It’s rape until it isn’t – MAKE IT JUICY!!

For that climax moment, independent cinema, (late night date night) on set:

I’m following the leader into my own distress,

I’m a big, big boy in a very little dress,

Just an absolute mess,

Imagine the rest …

Narrator: Can you feel the wind against your skin? His fist on your cheek? 

So now we have the rush of a terrified self in motion – 

Running, running, running; Running from what? … 

Falling, falling, falling; 

Falling … 

Now what?

Let’s imagine …

I encounter what many might call a soul, my soul, deep down in my darkest parts, after hitting the cold floor one night. (I’m turning down that same roundabout/deadend). He spreads his legs, there in the darkness, opens his mouth, and lets himself go. All the way down there, can you believe it?! I found my soul, Mama, really! I found mine!!! … 

Narrator: He found his HIS, and now there’s no turning back. 

He found his HIM, and it’s not so pretty.

That’s not what he expected.

That’s not …

He found his …

Oh god, oh god, 

GOOD GOD !! …

He finds something else, too, didn’t he?

WHAT HAVE I DONE??! 

He opens his mouth, and his mouth stays closed.

He opened his mouth, now his mouth stays closed.

Is it safe to say none of us should be here? I don’t know … 

I’m having trouble finding a reason.

He built an inner world so deep and vast that he got lost inside. You know how it feels to try to scramble out? Being chased? Remember retracing your steps? Remember looking for something sharp? Remember squeezing yourself so thin? And never quite making it back to the surface? 

For awhile, the boy existed in a gray zone, somewhere between life and death, between empty and full, between lost and found, between real and imaginary, between everything and nothing, between stability and insanity, between self and other, between self and stranger. 

The deeper he went into his own labyrinth, the more distant these spectrums appeared, as if they were functioning on a completely separate realm, a kaleidoscope of comparisons and contradictions that he could only observe from afar. Reduced to a vulnerable witness to the life that carried on outside of his mind.

And then the ultimate question: Should he even bother finding his way back? Is it worth it? Or should he go deeper, getting more and more lost inside this inner maze? 

FEAR in acknowledging the trap and knowing that you have to fall in love with it.

FEAR in the shape of the next fucked up thing that appears in the mirror.

FEAR in imagining an end.

FEAR in knowing there’s no right way to put it.

As time went on, the boy and his fear began to open up to each other. They grew real close.

And at the exhaustion point of his journey inward, just as he was about to pull his hands off the wheel and give up on life, he found the unimaginable: He found his soul again!

Life is just this, finding yourself and losing yourself over and over as you shift and mutate and untangle your sorrow.

Who am I without myself?

I don’t know.

Who am I without myself?

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

Well, 

Maybe I do. … 

Let’s imagine. …

Episode 10

Depression, Social Isolation, and the Lived Experience of Dancing in the Dark

If my soul’s a rat, my mind’s a rat trap — 

Lie down and go SPLAT! Stand up: SPLAT! 

Or: I summon thee! 

I say, I summon thee, and a little me appears in the distance on a green hill, running full force but coming no closer. COME HERE, YOU! I’ll say. (Can you still hear me?) And let’s pretend my mind’s a little clearer now, clearer because the bottom really sneaks up on you (ha!), and the booze wears off, and all the other shit, and I’m landing on a big slimy rock. KA-BLAM!! Beginning again. (Or whatever). I SUMMON THEE RIGHT NOW!! (Here comes a little Hurricane!) (WHOOSH!) (Splat!!!) … (Whatever). But that’s not how it works; that’s not really how it happened, was it? When I fell so low just then? When you saw me fall so low just back then, and how you went Oof … YIKES. … ? 

Stumbling through the front door and begging myself to be different. I promised you I’d change, and look! I’ve changed!!

And now I’m getting ready for bed.

… 

(Staring into the mirror while brushing my teeth):

I hate disappointing you. 

We both knew. 

It was getting bad again.

Episode 11

The AESTHETICS OF DISENGAGEMENT

1. Simon-Dach-Straße / East 

Berlin / Ithaca, 

New York – More Alone Than Usual

I squirted mayo on my favorite sweater. 

Tomorrow I’ll do better. 

2. Grosse Freiheit 114 / Up the Road & Around the Corner – 

Some Male Prostitutes and I are Hanging Out 

Some male spiders just want to be eaten.

I told him to meet me at this bar because there’s a darkroom so we could have sex (just normal sex) (SEX!) … (Imagine trapdoor spiders digging their holes) (or just one: a deep, deep, hole). He says “it isn’t really a priority right now,” but he’s an artist, and he knows I’m an artist, so he must know that that means nothing at all; I crouch in the back of the darkroom and crush myself some ketamine (SEX!). I stand in front of (my mirror) (you). … I stand in front of a massive green chalkboard with my back to the class and try to solve for X. (... With my ass to the class, and I’m solving for X). I crush myself under his body, I crunch the numbers in my head, (I see myself as both teacher and student). I ate and I ate and I got sick on the floor – eight times eight equals sixty-four! I feel, in this moment, (I FEEL in this moment), more than I usually do, the legs of my predators (slash) lovers wrapping around me, eight(-teen) legs to be exact (and a big sack of eggs on my back). He force-feeds himself to me (jumping spider), (jumping) placing himself into my mandibles in a do-what-you-need-to-do sort of way; I choke and choke, and spit him all out. I choke and choke and spit him all out. (Raise your hand if you know what a spitting spider is …). Okay, good. (Good morning class, please turn to page 98). He will continue to insert himself there, first delicately, then abrasively, until I eat him whole. (CRUNCH!) (Lunch at Okenshields Dining Hall on central campus, Cornell University, where I received my Bachelor’s Degree in Viticulture & Enology with a minor (With a MINOR?!) in LGBT Studies, where I ate a big bowl of tator tots with hot sauce). I write X=1 in pink chalk, then return to my desk.

“I just can’t resist myself.”

Green Dragon is pricey, Rusty’s is weird, and the Big Red Barn is where the wildcard kids killed time and smoked fags. (And guess where I am!!!).

Goldie’s Cafe was where the pattern-making kids hung out after class and where I gave him back his underwear. 

I can’t have sex without solving for X.

I can’t have sex without solving for X.

I bend my back until that crack in the wall is at ear level – I listen to my neighbor crying.

Sex with ADHD feels like bringing a big bag of weapons into the airport and going through security. (“Ma'am, you need to leave!” …). In a private room, I am ordered to take off my shoes and socks and pants and …  

“Is it okay if I search through your bag?”

…  

I listen to the chalk stick shredding its body against the board. I have some thoughts now but I can’t afford to think them; there’s a 70-80% chance that they’ll kill my boner. (I still think them). I have some feelings. I have some thoughts. I give thought to his hands holding me and imagine a complex series of numbers, most of which are zero, forming a tunnel as I rotate them in my head and fly through, (Weeee! … Ouch! … Weeee! … Ouch!); in this case, I am a stick of chalk. (Butter). I am led to believe that he is the thick stick, (he must be), like one used on playground blacktop, drawing hopscotch squares and dinosaurs and whatnot. And that makes me the slender stick, one of zeal and sudden finesse, of intention, one that snaps under the intensity of his carrier's enthusiastic rant (or whatever). (Sexual arousal is choosing characters and exposing contradictions). I have found myself like this, yes, but then suddenly I am bored, I am the board, and suddenly I am the blacktop. And I am picturing the girl next door bent down, wall crack ear level, listening to us. Does she know what she’s hearing? Does this count as an art project? (Sound 101, assignment 1: Untitled). Let’s say sex is a question, yes, I think my younger self would have loved this; and also, (Can you buy me a little jug of chocolate milk at the Dairy Bar), Can my body be the answer? Or, Can our bodies together be the answer? (Imagine me as a fetus banging on the walls of my mother’s belly, “Let me out, LET ME OUT NOW!”). Time and time again, I am reminded that they cannot. (With sadness), I say, I am not the answer. I’m not a princess. I’m not the boss. (The Dairy Bar is closed on Sundays, anyways, God dammit!) Are you still listening?

Fifty grown men sing in unison. I remember this old, old intrusive thought. I remember hearing it:

Fifty men sing in unison, fifty men take cover. (What joy can be felt in a bent back, bending over, crawling … What’s joy hiding?) (What am I looking for, and why?)

3. The Story of the Beak

The beak of the songbird was the first piece to go missing from the stained glass windows in the atrium of the public hall. Later that week, a curved slice of reddish-black glass appeared on my bedside table. I squeeze it, (I hear you say SQUEEZE IT!), squeeze it harder, until I see blood.

Groan and Groan … Groan and Groan …

I don’t wanna be

Alone, Alone … 

I exit the classroom.

The voices of the men spill out through the hole where the bird’s beak used to be; their song escapes as a single hum. (Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall or some shit) (Christ be almighty!). I set out body bags on the stone path before I approached the front door. I set up booby traps around my apartment and spend my nights avoiding them. Tonight, I want to be scared. 

Knock-Knock

“Who’s there?” … 

One will come home with you and sit on the edge of your bed and smile.

One will arrive at your window with a six-pack of beer.

One night, a man will collapse on all fours and begin begging, saying,

“Feed me …”

“Feed me, Mother Bird, 

feed me your juicy worm.” (Would it kill you to say PLEASE??)

 You will do as you’re told, in the handicapped stall in the back bathroom at Chapel Hall. 

Two men sing in unison.

Two more body bags.

Two more, Two more,

Two more.

(SPOILER ALERT!; I stole the glass beak.)

(Back to the men – I have my back to the men) (Back towards the class – I have my ass towards them … ) And they’re locking their apartment doors from the outside, turning the key twice – imagine strong fingers (these ARE men, remember), with hair on the back of each hand, a doormat that reads Oh no, not you again! … then scurrying down the staircase into the night.

One of these men will come home crying.

One of them won’t come home at all. – In the basement at Aleste Studio in Bomfim, Porto, I spray the walls in black paint:

Two little ducks went out one day, over the hill and far away. Mother duck said, “Quack Quack, Quack Quack,” but only one duck came back … 

3. 194 to Marzhan, 

Berlin / Olivebridge, New York

Across the street and up the hill; I cross that street, head up the hill. 

Cross the street and up – Hello top of the … Let me catch my breath (Deep inhale through the nose, now exhale, blow it all out!); Outback, in the way back of the field, behind the old diner, there’s a barn with a light on.

Little oval window with a light on like an eye, now humming:

Groan and Groan … Groan and Groan …

And then the door flings open.

4. Phoenicia Diner / Phoenicia Elementary School – 

I’m really annoyed with my friends

7th Grade, First Quarter –  Algebra is interrupted by a call on the class phone. Mrs. B. instructs me to go see Ms. Krieger in the Guidance office, right now, and to bring all my stuff with me. Why? (Walking down an empty hallway, wondering why). Why are my parents waiting for me when I get there? 

“Why don’t you take a seat?” 

Why the fuck did I tell my Home Ec. teacher I was suicidal? 

Why are my parents asking if I was raped?

Why is 100,000,001 divisible by 17?

Why can’t I stop crying? … 

On bad days my shadow enters inside me like a witch; I become my own ghost, I become my own bitch. I know, I know, I know – suffering’s what makes us connect. So, I crawl back to his barn and we try to have sex. 

I tell my friends, “A big black cloud’s been chasing me, and changing me, and now I feel it inside of me.” Is that crazy? Lately I feel crazy.

The big red D was the first thing to get torn down when they began demolishing the diner. The I came next. Then both N’s. And before you knew it, there was nothing more than a pile of dirt. I take out my binoculars to look.

I can see the barn clearly now from my bedroom window (I can see my professor becoming impatient); the sight of it in broad daylight makes me laugh. Nothing’s funny, but I laugh. Really, I laugh! I turn my binoculars and scan the walls of my room. I examine the lips on an old picture of myself, all the dust that’s settled there. (...) I scan the classroom and the myriad of glowing MacBook screens in front of me. A girl with long blonde hair is building a mansion in Sims 6, and she just chose orange wallpaper for the dining room.

3 in the morning, and a man in overalls holds an ax over my head and comes down between my legs. Imagine a chicken’s little throat. “Watch its head roll off.” Off a log, over our toes, and down the hill towards the stream. I see this and think, “Lucky me!”

I hear the stream trickle (last night was rain and rain and rain). I hear my belly rumble – I hear that axe come down again … another head, another break-up, make up, make out, another floating down the water. Where are my binoculars?

Across that street and up that hill: a boy in a man’s body. (Him). (Me).

Six in the morning, and he’s unzipping the fly on his jeans and doing circles in the dirt on a little tractor, kicking up clouds, the little rascal he is.

5. On Opposite Ends of a Long Table in a Warehouse at Storm King Sculpture Park – New Windsor, New York, 500 Acres of Rolling Hills & Woodland

Last night, I found myself as an active participant in a double homicide. I sunk my first bullet here, and the next two there (pointing at the mannequin beside me). I remember taking a double shot of vodka and hiding in the bushes. (WHAT JOY IN HIDING!)!!! 

“Here, Kitty-Kitty, pss-psss … Here Kitty …”

I remember Berlin – Fifty men queue up outside the barn, and I’m at the very back of the line, which means I’m in a pissy mood. The man in front of me, another regular, already has his pants around his ankles. We alternate sips from his water bottle full of wine, holding each other gently by the balls. 

A man emerges from the shadows and joins the line (51 men, that’s unusual!). I can tell exactly who it is by the way he treats my body. A flacid penis presses between my buttcheeks, and I can feel him getting hard. He’s a real country-bred cracker-barrel-type boy, a bitch, turned business broker – bet my mother said that to Dad once, (I mean, she met him at a dog fight, right?), who’d already be in his work clothes, coffee in hand, front door swung wide, still swinging open … then close. He might not enjoy this pig-headed pig-slop life and such anymore, (because he looks good in a suit?), but it doesn’t matter so much here. Me, I don’t matter so much either. Scratching my brain, (screeeech!), mouth, nose, ears swung wide, still swinging. 

Across the street and up the hill; I imagine my Dad’s Volvo kicking dirt and smoke clouds, driving off.

It’s so cold. 

Remember? I held this mans dick in my hands for comfort; I held it for warmth. We press the tips of our dicks together and I remember why I’m human. Alcohol abuse, poverty and religion. I remember why I’m human.

(Hard to say whether our dicks are extensions of the soul, or if they’re just ornaments, like trinkets …). I’m leaning towards trinkets. Tchotchkes. But what really matters more: the dick or the hole? What do I stand for? I fill in the numbers in the last box in Sudoku, then stare out the window and think: Where there’s dicks, there’s darkness. There. 

There is violence. 

The box that stores my binoculars is an antique butterfly made of cedar and sweet cherry. The box has … a lot of details, like the abdomen has all these veins carved in, and the antennae are made of metal, that’s the box latch. You squeeze them together and the lid pops open, (dorsal view of citrus swallowtail butterfly).

The look on his face when I tell him I’m too high to fuck tells me that he is too. The look on my professor’s face as he handed back my midterm exam told me everything I needed to know; it was time to go back home. Back to the forest, back to the farm, back to the barn. 

Tonight, I’m number 12 in line, and this time I think I might get in. The man behind me has his hands around my waist and his tongue pressed against my asshole. I let him go there, I don’t care. I’ll share a cigarette with him once his tongue gets tired, and we’ll kind of laugh to each other. Nothing’s funny, but we’ll laugh. Just watch. Just listen. I close my eyes and try to remember the life I left behind. 

I’m in one of the worst moments in my adult life when someone asks me how I am. What’s the plan? I’m not so into lying anymore but I’m not into not lying … I’m trying. I say “I’m following the leader into my own destress …” … I’m a big boy in a little dress. I’m a BIG MESS. Imagine the rest. 

Hurricane, Hurricane, Hurricane,   

Can I get an espresso martini?

Episode 12

Where I Watched Him Fall

I don’t know which is worse, the fact that I don’t care or the fact that I do. … Let’s try to choose. 

Today I’m a spider. 

“Pass me that ball of yarn!”

I said, “Put me in a headlock and tell me I’m shit.”

I’m tying two pairs of cross-country skis to our SUV with a long line of orange yarn, cross-hatching between the roof rack and the cracked windows, building an elaborate web which enshrouds the entire upper portion of our vehicle in a fuzzy, neon cloud. It’s Monday morning, it’s snowing, we’re going skiing … and/or it’s Tuesday morning, it’s raining, we’re going hunting or we’re on our way to rehab or I can’t get up from the passenger seat, I can’t remember the sequence of events — I didn’t read the syllabus. While I’m standing/sitting here/there tripping, I’m triple knotting the last knot, with big bunny ears on top, and snipping the excess string, when a funky smell suddenly manifests and drags its buttery fangs through the white air, making my adams apple jump. 

I guess it’s true, and I know it’s bad; I made a damn darn dummy of myself last night. I know I did, I know I did, I know … I got caught up at the gin mill, just the same as last week, and the one before that, and by the time I got home I was feeling a little too good, if you know what I mean. Suga-Suga and Yam-Yam, the neighbor’s huskies, brothers, met me at the end of the driveway, barking and bouncing, globs of slobber glistening in my headlights. And a big yellow light bulb popped in my head: What better way to end the night than with a race?! Me and my SUV versus the dogs; last one to the porch is a loser! And I knew very well then what I know now: I am not a loser. Not at all, at least, not today/tonight. Not last night. So I took a loose cigarette from my pocket, lit it, spat on my palms, then tightened my hands around the steering wheel like a hawk around the neck of its prey. Then, I punched the gas. 

The lobby of the rehabilitation center is green and blue and smells like chlorine, (last night, my husband found me as a skunk, slumped over the park bench, on the brink of an overdose), and my face hurts. The reception desk woman is a bunch of dead flowers with two swirling eyes and a name tag, Pearl, hunched over, hungry, and happy and sad to see me. I feel queasy. Pearl throws her arms out for a hug, pressing a cold, leafy hand against the back of my neck, then whispers in my ear. On your mark, get set, GO! …

The screaming, yelping adrenaline, the screeching tires, the thick trail of steam raging from the exhaust pipe, the orange clouds, black clouds/black sleet rubble … was all short-lived. All of it, a mistake. I had failed to notice one incredibly consequential detail: Betty. The little old lady who lives in a shack across the creek had been lurking in the shadows there, somewhere, gripping the leashes which extended to the dogs’ collars. As I sped down the driveway, the dogs went chasing after me, one on each side, tongues out, tails up, but Betty did not. It wasn’t until I reached the end of the driveway that I spotted her, through the red mist in the mirror, facedown and frozen on the icy gravel. Dumbfounded, I quickly put the car in reverse, and then … Ka-THUMP! 

Yam-Yam’s adorable, blue-eyed face was transformed into one bloody, furry waffle below my back left tire. He was dead, very dead, and I was to blame. Suga-Suga went mad, sprinting up and down the driveway between the two, ambivalent as to which body to serve. Eventually, he settled in the middle, and howled until the sun came up/went down/came up. 

Did you know a skunk’s sulfuric spray has a range of up to ten feet? You don’t want to run into me in the park/in the dark, in the snow/with nowhere to go. I’m almost half a month into treatment and I’m in the corner of the gymnasium, behind the medicine balls, jerking off. It’s hard to get stimulated in this sort of environment, but the TV plays Law & Order SVU on loop, so that’s what I use. There’s a scene where a cop struggles to wrestle a gun from a shirtless homicidal junkie and the two men wind up dead; that’s where I come in.

I cum. I don’t care. I wipe down the kettlebells and continue my workout routine. Justice served. 

Yes, it’s true. Yesterday I was a murderer, but today I’m a spider. It’s a new, fresh week, which means a new, fresh me, and all the gear’s already in the trunk, lunchboxes and beer included. I love skiing/peeing in the snow. Love skiing; I think it has to be my favorite sport. Cross-country, downhill, glades, moguls, french-fry-style, or pizza, or even falling leaf … I used to say a double black diamond’s just the same as a blue square; just take the square, blacken it, double it, rotate ‘em ninety degrees, and there you go … What!? Well, I used to think tennis was best, until one morning I stumbled into the kitchen and found my fiance holding my racket above the sink, using it as a filter to separate the egg whites from the yolks. And I haven’t set foot on a tennis court since, although I must admit, sometimes, when I’m cracking open a tall can of cat chow for our baby Ragdoll, the sound brings me straight back to the courtside benches/park bench/drug bench, opening a can of balls, and squeezing them. God I miss the smell of new tennis balls, and the way they rebound off red clay/green grass, like magnets with the strings. So I guess that’s what I love: bouncy balls and their smells … and skiing. 

Did you know that male spiders produce vibrations, which hit surrounding dried leaves, generating a deep purring sound audible to humans? They do this to attract sexual partners. So I’m channeling that same energy on the mountain today, while my coldblooded husband shivers beside me on the ski lift. Yes, I’m clicking the toes of my boots into the skis and thrusting each leg forward in the tracks. I’m thinking about sex/what’s next/who’s watching/planning an intervention/insurrection/avalanche. What can be said about men? 

Every now and then a man pops up on my porch and I’ll serve him some coffee while he stands in the corner of my living room. Today I’m a soapy sponge, the sun is black, and the man is back. I can’t see him, hardly, standing in the shadowy corner, but I can smell him. This man is my father, I think, or it’s Bruce, or … Bruce’s Bitch, Baby. Either way it smells like trouble. So then it’s: It’s like I told you when I met you the other day, he’ll say, things are just out of control, so crazy, so be it, it’s the same old shit, the same old same old. Plus so-and-so’s back in town, didn’t you know? It’s Bruce, I bet. At least it sounds like it. Sounds like a shoulda-woulda-coulda situation, I say, or something, then play with the pile of crumbs on the counter. Or when it’s like this: It’s like I always told you, when I met your mother we fell in love like lava, kinda silly, like corny, but seriously, you follow? You ever felt real love? Lava? It can be explosive, Son, you’ll see, you’ll see, plus so-and-so says they're back. It’s Dad. That’s fine. That’s sorta cute sorta sad I’ll say, pushing the crumbs off the counter and into the bin. Are you even listening? Or sometimes, Bitch: You wanna build a fire in the woods by a stream on a flat rock with some sticks? They’re doling out ground beef at the deli like beads at Mardi Gras. It’s crazy. You hungry? Tubes and tubes and bowls and sticks … I shove my hand into the darkness and offer him a cookie. He accepts. I imagine the two of us pitching a tent on top of some mountain after a sweaty day of hiking, and later cuddling inside, keeping eachother warm. The sun is setting,fire’s dying; Do you want some more meat, Baby? … Do you want me, Bitch? It’s pretty clear he does, but what about your booboo? I hand over another cookie and pretend the cookie is Bruce. I listen closely to Baby’s aggressive yet tender sounds: munching/crunching/nibbling/sipping/blowing/gulping. I listen to his lips/fingertips/fingers sliding down the inside of the mug/scooping/soggy chunks of cookie/finger sucking/teeth licking/swallowing/gripping his leather belt. I picture his clumsy gut, his slant, rude, masculine body, invisible but very much present. The empty coffee mug suddenly emerges from the darkness on the floor, like a secret, a gift. And then he leaves.

The ski trail we chose is like a butterfly wing, or a capital cursive E. It starts at the summit, above the treeline, and makes two magnificent coils, first around the frozen waterfall where Uncle Hickory fell to his death/where I watched him fall/where I closed my eyes, then down into the forest, around the rock scramble where the boulders are stacked like a bookshelf, and eventually you wind up in the hayfields. We’re halfway through mile fifteen of sixteen and the sky is turning snapdragon pink. I’m not going to pretend it’s a coincidence because it’s not; the ski trail comes to an end at the front steps of the gin mill. And the bittersweet smell of gin is carrying me forward.

A nurse delivers your meals to your room when you’re too weak to get up. Today’s lunch is a hot bowl of something orange and a cold smaller bowl of something green. I’m not hungry. My pillow reeks of hand sanitizer which makes me crave a martini. Dry, straight up, and with a twist. I gather as much saliva in my mouth as possible and pretend it’s a warm shot of gin. I throw my head back and swallow hard.

My husband and I share beef tartar and a big bowl of garlic bread/pumpkin soup/blood and guts before a tsunami of high-shelf booze. We are poorer than ever but somehow afford nicer things. Funny. One tasting flight in and I’m asking the bartender what the consequences of consequences are. Is it possible to break a cycle of violence once I’ve started it? Even on purpose? … After I adapt to it? Two flights in and I’m shouting Shakespeare was a faggot!! and how I’m allowed to say faggot because I am a faggot, and French-kissing my husband’s ear hole. I order a third flight of gin. Then a fourth. 

I hate artists, mostly all of them, it’s true. And that includes writers, architects, and tattoo artists too. Oh, and dancers. For the almost two years I was in college I worked in a gallery serving cava and cheese cubes to wealthy collectors/ice wine and chocolate strawberries to white men in navy topcoats/shots of cheap vodka to my buddy and I. That’s when I learned that the best art will never be made, and the best artists will never be seen. Money money money money money; I hate art. I hate artists that paint bodies, flowers, clouds, food, celebrities, and/or realistic eyes, etcetera. I hate squares and square artworks. I hate artwork about the artist’s dreams, idiots imagining paradise. Fuck a shit/fuck a duck! I hate artists who turn the pages of their sketchbooks into individual art pieces, or artists who tell you exactly what their work is about. But there is nothing I hate more than a poem that makes a shape with the words, like a broken heart or a crescent moon. I hate that. I hate everything. I finish my fifth flight of gin. It’s time to go home.

The drive home is quiet and long. The hot air blasting from the vents feels loud, in a cozy, numbing way. Some of the houses we pass have lights on and smoke billowing up from their chimneys, but not many. The world seems empty. I feel alone. … I feel alone until my husband reaches over and rests his hand on my thigh. I look over at him but he doesn’t take his eyes off the road. I slide my hand on top of his, wiggle my fingers into the spaces between, and pull his hand up to my face. I press it against my eyes/my nose/my cheeks and lips. His hand smells like wood. I begin to cry, and I think it surprises both of us. My tears and snot gather in the cracks in his hand, wetting my entire face, then trickle down our arms beneath our sweater sleeves. I hear the wheels roll off the pavement and onto gravel as we turn down the driveway. I imagine our driveway is infinite, that we’ll drive down this gravely pothole path, through the snowy forest, forever. 

I don’t want to go home, or to sleep, or to see anything at all. I don’t want tomorrow or next week or next whatever: not breakfast, not lunch, not dinner. I don’t want to talk or ask questions or plan what’s next or lay down or stand up, or feel our love run cold. I just want to listen to the gravel. I just want to … I begin to speak, but can’t manage to wrestle the words out of me. I’m not a spider no more, I think to myself, mournfully. 

On the 30th day in rehab they throw you a pizza party. I chose sausage and mushrooms as toppings, with garlic sauce drizzled on top. I’m on my third slice when a car alarm in the parking lot goes off, and shortly after, another, and then another. The crushing commotion of sirens and honk-banging bursts against my head from the inside-out. It becomes torture. Pearl appears in front of me, startling me with her presence. Her limbs are like the roots of a tree, strong wooden snakes, twirling their way toward me and then around me, suffocating me, whispering to me. Everything’s okay … Everything’s going to be okay … Everything’s … 

The car slowly comes to a complete stop. The hand is pulled from my face as my husband turns the keys and exits. He stares at me through the windshield, briefly, pityingly, while I sit there, still buckled into my seat, crying, until the lights in the car shut off.

The air is suddenly cold, so cold I can see my breath. I examine each of the delicate, gray clouds as I exhale, bold at first, then nothing. I find the courage to open and close the door, then trudge toward the light. It’s Wednesday morning. It’s snowing.