In Due Course

She asked Me what I did for a living, a smug smirk fermenting underneath her bloated self-importance. To which I replied:

"If you were to pick out a piece of scrap wood from a lumber yard and bring it home, grow out your fingernails, and claw at it for a devoted length of time each day, eventually, you'll penetrate its hardness–leaving behind the visible marks of your knuckled-down strain. That's what I do–basically."

"What do you do?" I retorted.

"I'm a real estate agent," she replied.

Although she had accrued a comfortable living, it had become clear to the both of us that her entire life up to that point had been an undisclosed letdown. People spend their lives chasing wealth, status, security like a dog chasing its tail, but in their futile pursuit they lose sight of the truck barreling down the street toward them, apathetic in its course.

Corridors

He.

He's a hunter without His prey.

His lips are parched and His stomach is barren. Afflicted with a biting hunger, He paces the tight corridors toward a brighter tomorrow, but tonight, tonight He's run-down, sick, and alone.

Slivers of memory whet His appetite with adrenaline, and the instinct to chase, to pursue, run wild within His pulse. His veins are highways under starlit night skies, and they carry the lifeblood that reinvigorates Her.

She.

She's a crushed starlet without a night's sky as Her theater.

Her past is fogged with anonymous faces, and befouled with the slandering stupidity of dirty erections. Afflicted with desensitized senses, She stares through the tight corridors toward a brighter tomorrow, but tonight, tonight She's bruised, numb, and alone.

Her heartbeat pitapats disharmony that lure the depraved, but Her fists are clenched. She has a thirst for vengeance, but resigns herself to the shadows that crowd around Her.

Their gazes interlock–She and He–and for a moment, even the moon loses sight of Who is preying upon Who.

2nd Kings 2:23-24

From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you baldhead!" they said. "Go on up, you baldhead!" He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.

2nd Kings 2:23-24

The Divine Right of the Creep Kings

Think what you will, but We are aristocrats sitting on your thrones. You see, We've conquered the inner maelstrom, and quelled the discriminating gaze that never blinks. Our unapologetic compulsions open doors, of which we infiltrate, without shame, and therein lie Our virtue. Everyone else? Merely plebs, mucking about in their hypocrisy and self-consciousness.

I'd rather be a creep king living in exile, than a groveling peasant living the rest of their days under the unbending rule of social politeness.

The Dancing Monkey Who Was No Dancing Monkey

"I wanna dance," she texted.

"Then dance," I fired back.

It had been over a month since we last talked, and I could smell the stench of her selfish intentions from across town.

"No silly, I mean I want to go out dancing–with you. Lol." 

"You can do that from where you're at–I do, every night as a matter of fact, while everyone sleeps." I responded.

"Lol. Yeah. You're a good dancer too," she replied.

Her blatant lie was enough to send Me over the edge–I had had enough. It was clear what she was doing. Who did she think I was? Her little dancing Monkey? Here to jig and crash My symbols together to entertain her while her insatiable lesbian lover was out fishing for her next fisting?

My time is valuable, and I have no interest wasting it on SIMP collectors looking to fluff up their scraggly self-worth.

I proceeded to melodramatically initiate a cruel argument, of which I'll omit here–there's children present.

I didn't care that she blocked My number. What they can never understand is that I don't need them–I can be entirely content alone. But they, they're a different beast altogether: validation mosquitos who hover over exposed ears, seeking and hunting, hunting and seeking for sleeping victims, and if you're careless, they'll suck the lifeblood out of you.

Fuck that. I'll dance by Myself. 

The Fish from the Tinder Cesspool Taste Like Stinking Excrement

An excerpt from a recent Tinder exchange:

I would encourage you to reread my actual words, and distance yourself emotionally from the presuppositions you have toward me. This cookie cutter narrative of what you think I'm all about is not only inaccurate, it illustrates your lack of creativity.

I never said I'm looking for sexual favors. On the contrary, from our first exchange I made it clear I have no real expectations from anyone...except my abounding curiosity into their psyche.

I'm sorry if you're getting upset Amber, but you're reacting rather than digesting. Nothing in life is ever as it seems. Sadly, as humans we have the flawed tendency to over-simplify that which is difficult to decipher. Rather than exert mental effort and struggle with the nuanced complexities that interlaces any given situation or individual, people seek reprieve from those psychological knots.

And your assumption that I've been abused as a child, well, that's just a generic hypothesis that unimaginative types use to conveniently define and articulate those whose behavior and actions are nebulous and irregular.

I don't blame you though. Our society brainwashes us to believe in these overarching labels/categories/definitions. God forbid people like me delve into the abyss, and gleefully play in its sandbox.

Tagged:

Why Abuela Hates Cats

I called a chat line last night, and had phone sex with a woman suffering from a brain tumor.

In My defense, I was unaware of her mental disability, but as the phone seduction wore on it became apparent that I had unknowingly entered into a precarious moral dilemma. Frankly, it was unsettling, and there was a heavy sense of shame as I gently lead the call to its vulgar culmination, finishing inside the efficient toy My friend Blaire had brought Me back from her recent trip to Japan.

As I laid there in the dark, a pool of ejaculate congealing in the crater of My bellybutton, I contemplated what had just happened and rationalized My selfishness so that I could sleep easy. Sure I was a degenerate, but the guilt festered, like lingering mouth ulcers scattered across My bleeding gums–I had told her I needed to do something really quick and would be calling her back, knowing full well that I had no intention in ever doing so.

I set My phone on silent, and went to bed. In the morning, there were 27 missed calls, and 9 voicemails. I blocked her number, made My bed, and went to the kitchen to brew some coffee.

I ate breakfast with My Abuela, and she told Me a funny story about why she can't stand cats. When she was a little girl in El Salvador, a feral cat once snatched up her supper and made off with it–a chicken breast her mother had fixed especially for her, and 82 years later she's still griping over it–it was a cute story.

Reflecting on My Mortality

On this day last year, I coughed up some blood while shampooing my head in the shower. I remember chuckling to myself as I remembered Sweet Brown's timeless lines, "...I got BRONCHITIS. Ain't nobody got time for that!"

I wasn't too concerned on the drive to the ER–I even remember being mildly annoyed at the inconvenience of having to go to a county hospital on a weekend night and wait among the cockroach people, a result of my shitty insurance, and poverty of my own. I figured I had acquired bronchitis or pneumonia over the past few months, after all, I usually washed my darkroom prints outside following my all-night printing sessions, sometimes in the rain.

"Fuck, I knew I should've worn a jacket more often," I grumbled to myself.

To my surprise, I didn't have to wait too long, and at 9:19 pm an ER nurse called my name and escorted me inside to be assessed (apparently breathing problems are taken serious, so if you ever want to game the system and be seen ahead of everybody else at the ER, just tell them you can't breathe).

At 5:23 am, the following morning, I walked out of there, not with bronchitis or pneumonia, but with cancer. In the following days to come I would return to that building, be placed in the ICU as the aggressive tumor that housed my chest cavity threatened to send me into cardiac arrest, and started emergency chemotherapy.

A year later, and I'm grateful to say I'm alive, living with a dead tumor spooning my heart and lungs, but alive nonetheless. Thank you to all the Filipino nurses, online strangers who sent me words of encouragement on here, and IRL friends who brought me food during my week-long chemo sessions, I appreciate you all.

A Swing Set for My Batibat

One afternoon, I ventured out to My favorite papaya tree to pick some fleshy gems. On the climb down, I clumsily slipped and sprained My ankle on the landing. As I writhed, squirmed, and agonized about pitifully, I heard a taunting chuckle emanate from the mango tree beside Me.

"You stupid boy," she muttered.

Apparently, the Batibat that resided among it had awakened during the cacophony. It actually surprised Me, since she always ignored My existence–nevertheless, My anger seethed.

The following evening, I returned, not with an axe, but with a wooden board and some rope.

Many had tried to cut into her impenetrable exterior, but their efforts were in vain–I had other plans though.

She looked at Me with apathy, as she always had, while I got to work. Half an hour later I was swinging joyfully from her branches. You see, rather than inflict My vengeance in a direct, yet predictable blow, mine was more insidious, like a formless vapor that filled a confined space.

My retribution wouldn't be seen, only felt. I would use her for My own personal pleasure from now on, and there was nothing she could do about it.

A Secreted Smile From Overhead

"Get off the stage!" yelled the crowd.

"Let someone younger entertain us!" they demanded.

She was 20, and her presence over the years had become intolerable. I couldn't help but to secrete an oblique smile, as I watched the spectacle from the rafters, concealed in shadow.

Their fickleness and stupidity became the night's entertainment, and those of Us who chose not to sit among them relished in it.