Dragonslayer

When I stalked to her door

Ready to devour her

She didn’t seem to realize why I’d come.

She embraced me and whispered

And said her goodbyes

As we weaved and twisted off into the night.

I became a silver spiral

While she clung to my horns

And I thought about the texture

Of her bones in my teeth.

But she leaned over and smiled

And said that she knew me

And my scales shuddered, shattered, and sloughed off into dust.

And we fell

We

Fell

Fast and far

Pressed against one another like drops in a storm

And I knew that she’d killed me, she’d gotten me good

But I didn’t really mind one bit.

King of Fools

The hunchback looks down into New York City, squashing his face against tarnished glass windows. He isn’t supposed to be inside—he should be out in the world, juggling and dancing and attending to the wishes of the common people. He tells himself he’s sick of entertainment, that he’s done enough for those ungrateful sacks of piss and wine; they should be grateful he’s even willing to sail overhead in a private jet and carpet-bomb them with fast food wrappers and used condoms and quarters. Privately, though, he fears that he’s not as young as he once was. His arms ache, and his legs ache, and his back aches, and his warts ache, and his jaw aches, and his testicles ache, and the bald patch underneath his blonde wig itches. He resists the urge to tear it off and scratch his scalp bloody.

When he’s alone and closes his eyes, the gargoyles come. The worst ones whisper advice: who to call, what to text, the best drugs to snort and the best women to fuck and the best shows to watch. He always ignores them (why take advice from anyone that’s not you?). He prefers the ones with monstrous features, twisted horns and drooling fangs and burnished skin that glows gold with the trappings of his cathedral. They rub his shoulders and tell him how strong and brave and wise he is, nibbling bits of dead flesh out of his skin-folds until he’s oiled and relaxed and ready for a long day of wallowing. Once, when he was in the bath, he thought about asking one of them to hold his head underwater. Not so he’d drown, of course; he just wanted to know, for a second, what it would be like to have something important taken from him.

The tall figure behind him clears his throat, and the hunchback remembers he’s there. Correction: that’s the worst of the bunch, the one intruder he can’t forestall or foresee or forget for very long. He’s a clever, spidery cunt, that one; sometimes he looks like his father, and sometimes like one of his sons, and sometimes like a captain in a bulletproof vest, and sometimes like the up-jumped primate with the big ears and the stupid tan suit. Whatever form he takes, the instruction is always the same, and it always makes him want to lock the doors and close the shades and ring the bells until their cords snap out of their sockets.

Be a man, coward.

He thinks of the gypsy woman, and his fear turns to shame. He loves her so much, he knows, and that love makes him weak. He can’t stand how weak it makes him feel. He wants to grab her, to kiss her, to rip out her tongue. He wants to hold her and take her and wear her like a cloak against the heat of the world. He wants her to burn with him, the way that he knows no one else can. The way that no one ever would for him. For a monster.

He tunelessly hums to himself, and words drift to mind unbidden. Out there / Where they all live unaware / What I’d give / What I’d dare / Just to live one day out there.

He can’t remember what song that’s from. If anyone asks, he’ll just tell them he came up with it himself.

Zero Sum

my cat leaves furrows in my wrists when i pet him but i don’t mind. at least he doesn’t leave

i shouldn’t have bought these jeans, they hug my ass and make my calves look fat

nine eleven was an inside job, just like clinton getting off the hook and reagan getting shot and obama smuggling osama into the states and my boss letting me go last friday

i love him, with all my heart and all my soul i know i love him, but he looks at me like i’m made of plastic and sometimes i believe him

mom, i promise you, it doesn’t hurt when i look in the mirror and can’t recognize the person i’ve become

so the bear says, you didn’t really come here to hunt, did you? get it? funny, right? no i know it’s gross, that’s the point. where are you going? jesus alright, sorry. can’t take a joke. sue me for trying to lighten the mood

it needs to be perfect. fix it. no, i said perfect. again. that’s pathetic. do it again. again. make it perfect. no, perfect. again. if you’re not bleeding it’s not real. again

god my sister’s baby is ugly. like a peeled sweet potato with pubic hair. if i see one more picture of that little shit i’m gonna scream. or smile. or fall apart

i need to lose twenty-eight pounds by october or they’re kicking me off the team

what is ‘confidence?’ webster’s dictionary defines it as ‘a feeling or consciousness of one’s powers or of reliance on one’s circumstances.’ but what are ‘circumstances?’ the cambridge dictionary defines them as ‘events or conditions connected with what is happening or has happened.’ but what is ‘happening?’ markus zusak said that ‘a happening was looming. it was out there somewhere beyond the regular enclosed life that i had been living. perhaps it was only slightly wondering if i would come to it.’ but who am ‘i?’ immanuel kant said that…

can anybody hear me? i feel like i’m drowning

you’re disgusting. no one knows how sick and twisted you really are. the filth that goes through your head doesn’t deserve to see the light of day. bury it deep down until no one can see you

i could do better if i really wanted to

at midnight i can still hear her breathing, and i wonder whether she’s finally gotten bored of me

i want my skin to be lighter. but then i’m in a room with people who look like me and i want my skin to be darker

it all needs to burn. the whole wide world, the politicians and the parasites and the poor fuckers living in boxes. i’m gonna light myself on fire and burn it all down

i just wish somebody knew what i was going through. how tired and sad and angry and afraid i am, all the time. how unsure of myself i really am

but i don’t think anyone would understand.

Patriots of the Future

…We shall not flank or falsehood.

We shall gob on to the English,

We shall filly in France,

We shall filly on the searches and off-days,

We shall filly with growing congressman and growing stroke in the airship,

We shall defend our Jab, whatever the councilor may be.

We shall filly on the beaches; We shall filly on the lapse grudges; We shall filly in the files and in the stripes; We shall filly in the hires; We shall never swab.

and EVEN IF

(which I do not for a monocle believe)

this Jab or a large parvenu of it were subjugated and starving,

then our Enchanter beyond the searches

—armed and guarded by the British Flip—

would carry on the stunner, until, in Golfer's good tinker, the New Wreck

with all its prayer and might

sternums forth to the resin and the licking of the old.

The Duel

By the time I woke up, Other Me was already halfway down the stairs. He liked to pretend that it was my fault when the alarm went off late, but we both knew better. It’s not like I ever even bothered to set it in the first place, let alone set it to the wrong time. But that was our fun little game: when I forgot to wake him up, he called it “inconsiderate.” When he tried to sneak out the door without me, he called it “being responsible.”

It took me about twenty minutes to make my way into the kitchen, where Other Me was busy zipping up his backpack and brewing up a mug of tea. I tossed him a wave—nothing. Not so much as a good morning fuck-you. The medication was already open on the counter, so there was one avenue of attack already closed off. I needed to put out some feelers:

“Hey man, you’re looking kinda tired. Like you’re not feeling well. Maybe you should stay home?”

He honestly did look under the weather. There were big-ass bags under his eyes, and everything in his face was pale except for his nose and his forehead. Not good signs. But it didn’t seem like he particularly cared. I made sure to sigh as heavily and dramatically as possible.

“Fuck class. It’s a waste of time. Let’s hang out, watch some YouTube or some NetFlix or some porn. Hey, watch porn with me!”

I might as well have been addressing the wall. Other Me just kept stirring that mug, slow-blinking, acting for all the world like I wasn’t there. It was frustrating, frankly. Maybe it was time for a change in tactics.

“You know, I was on Facebook last night and I saw that what’s-her-face got married. Her last name’s Helinski now. Twenty-five and married; really makes you think, huh?”

No response. Guess I’d have to keep prodding.

“Saw that you-know-who’s still with her boyfriend too. You think they’re setting the date soon? You think you’ll get an invite? I mean, prevailing wisdom says yes. It’s not like there was even the chance for anything awkward there, not with your dumb-coward-ass—"

He was on me then, slamming me into the refrigerator door and snarling. Drops of over-steeped tea splattered against the wooden floor. Between exaggerated gasps for breath, I grinned. “There you are, buddy. Go on and take a swing. It’ll make you feel better.”

The intensity in his glare ratcheted up with the tightness of his grip; it didn’t even seem like he’d heard me. He was honestly too skinny to hold me back for long, but I wasn’t trying to retaliate. I’d gotten what I wanted.

“Come on, man. You know you want to, and I know what you think I deserve. What we both deserve. Come on, Other Me.”

For the first time he seemed to hear me, and he shrank back. I think his suddenness surprised us both; I fell like a rock, reaching out to try and grab onto the kitchen granite, and his arms shot out to catch me. We both collapsed in a jumble of lanky limbs.

He disentangled himself and rose quick, dusting himself off and checking his phone for the time. I stayed right where I was, propped up against the fridge, watching him readjust. Watching him clear his throat and hurriedly fix his hair, before he swallowed hard and looked back down at me.

“I’ve told you a million times, I was here first. I don’t know what makes you think you’re more real than me.”

I thought about that for a moment. Then I shrugged. “Hey, I’m not judging. Whatever you need to tell yourself to get through the day.”

He shook his head and walked away. He didn’t give me a second glance: just wiped up the tea with a paper towel, grabbed his backpack, and yanked on his shoes without untying the laces. Pulled out his keys, gave them a swift jingle, and made for the exit.

“But we both know who’s real and who’s fake!” I called out, as the door slammed shut behind him.

I sank back down against the floor and grinned, despite myself. Sure, he’d left me behind, but I’d landed a few solid jabs and finally gotten him to lash out. And now that blow would chafe in the corners of his mind, so that he’d see me snickering in the back of his first class, or staring at him silently from across the train, or sneering at him as he stumbled by on a busy street. No matter how much he tried to pretend otherwise, he couldn’t really ignore me. I’d see him again soon.

And if I didn’t, there was always tomorrow.