• Empathetic Emaciation

  I didn’t really care anymore. Love rejected, so I just kept drinking like Bukowski. I shared his sentiment. Sometimes life was better goggled up; most of the time. I was on top of the world. King, or some shit. Made her happy, but she wouldn’t fuck you. She was into hobbits or whatever. What kind of a friend didn’t express physically? The shitty kind I speculated.

  You see, whenever you have feelings for a girl and you share it, she just takes it and spits it right in your face. You can’t dwell on your feelings. Just got to let them fade past and wash over you. Take what you can get, but no one is truly happy.

  Is this what the stock of life boils down to? A myriad of unsatisfied yokels kissing each other off in hopes of avoiding the inner divine equating to insanity? But no one can define. What is insane is what is not sane, but what is sanity? How can we know the innards of the mind? The soul? The anima…patiently waits in the depths of time, but the here and now is relentless. Never seizing. But we seem to have it all backwards. Fucking idiots. God damn sheep. Dumb, blind, covered in our own filth. Our own shit. Fuck. Fucking Ernest dead by his own hands, runs in the family; genes I heard someone say. To Valhalla and ever onward. Infinitely benign. Shit. Peer into my soul and take me away from myself.

  One beer, two beers, four beers down. Stop. Being. My Mother. I’m not, I’m your wife! Well you’re being a bitchy mother and I hate it, you barren bitch-I don’t mean it, but whatever. You can’t comprehend. Don’t understand. It’s like my heart has sank deep within the folds of my being. An overwhelming amor. I long to express. A courtly torture, more like, my fair lady. To embrace her form. To witness the mystery locked within. She is a poetry unto me, but she is also absolved from me. A fine wine coupled with her charm.

  And so, I regret to feel, because my expression goes unreceived. There is never any reciprocity and when I do feel I am tormented. The suicidal muse arises from the depths, calling me home to the sea. Teary eyed. I take up my rifle and send her away, far, far, away from me. I can’t take it. I can’t shake it. No, no, no. I cannot escape the feelings overbearing on me. Shredding what remains of me with each passing day.

  But love always came late-after obligation had took to stand fast. If it was anyone but you she said. Whatever that means. She made me feel, forced me to see and to breathe. Ignited my passion to live and to be-with her. But she was forever out of reach. My tragedy. Always the same. Repeating itself like the rerun of a terrible sitcom with me at the helm of a rudderless ship lost at sea, forgotten by all. I was always too afraid. Too noivous to reach out and offer my expressions. How I truly felt. I was afraid of feeling. Fearful of what that might mean. Maybe that’s why I suffered the ire of reason and logic so very long. Attempting to hide from my humanity.

  It still stands. I loved that girl. Just wanted to hold her close. I wish I had found her sooner in life. That I might never be alone. But she was dying and I was obliged to a prior engagement, or so I felt. The Parade. Alas. Love always came late for me. Long after obligations took root, and it killed me, tortured me. I just longed to embrace her—the siren upon the sea. And yet, it was all a lie.

• Coffins

  The thing about vampires is that it takes quite some time in observation and reflection to realize that your vitality, your energy, your emotional prowess is being drained. Being sucked dry by this soul sucking beast. No, it is not the blood suckers of which i speak, but the traditional metaphor; prior to Bram’s vision of the Dracula. The vampire darkens your mood, leads you into a catatonic place where the seed of depression germinates and takes root. At first the despair is selfish. The parasite forces you to suffer the burden only aware of your own misery, completely oblivious to the vampire’s fangs and the pangs left behind. However, once aware of the defilement ongoing, a bitter distaste for the vampire develops. Even a pity may form, but do not be swayed by the tears shed upon confronting the vampire, for they are a manipulative folk.

  I myself was once under the vampire’s spell, along with my consort, so sweetly entwined. We first came in contact with the vampire while living in a historically run down shanty, a stone’s throw from the market, centrum. The community partook in weekly gatherings of a social sort, forced though. This is where we became acquainted with the beast named after a bush. It soon became clear that her morality was quite bent you see, but Lee said “Don’t mind me,” as he meandered out the hall where the meeting was held. While we attended these meetings fairly regularly, we were the sort who enjoyed our privacy, so we didn’t venture out socially too terribly often. However, at some point we did befriend a young girl from down the hall. She was quite endowed in the nethers and a borderline dwarf at that. A traumatic specimen of the human condition, but certainly not the worst.

  She was in hiding. Had changed her name, dyed her hair in an attempt to escape an abusive home situation. Unfortunately, she had jumped ship into a bay of pigs. The pig in question, a manipulative fool of the Christian variety, absolved of adultery apparently, so long as the battered wife continued to turn a blind eye. She was afraid of him, so she’d drink and drink then drink some more and once she’d black out he’d have a go at her. However, some might just deem it irresponsibility, since she didn’t ever ’say’ no. Eventually he’d force her to move to the city of music, but that’s a tale for a different time.

  One night my companion and I entertained a visit from this troubled lass. She had befriended the vampire, who accompanied her this eve. An invitation was presented to return to the vampire’s lair for drinks. We were happy to oblige our new found friends. Upon arrival we were greeted by a mongrel and a tramp, although I scarcely recall their existence this eve. Drink after drink were downed well into the night until our dwarf friend became rather randy. With minimal coaxing she dropped her drawers and after prancing about the room promptly seated herself upon my lap. While her amor was fixated upon my being the vampire and my companion looked on. Our drunken debauchery danced its way about the vampire’s abode.

  Entangled in the sheets of the room’s lonely bed the dwarf confessed her desires for my companion’s fiery lips. While I remained unopposed, my companion was not compliant with the evening’s turns and twists. Upon professing her disappointment, the host of the evening sided with uncomfortability, although she still stole a kiss from my love on the way out the door. The pleasantries of the evening faded to despair as the feminists conspired against my drunken state. I had let myself became enraptured in the confusion of emotion. Shortly after this evening had passed, the dwarf callously faded from view, not to be seen by me in the future near or far. A disappointment supplanted by the misery brought on by the misandry espoused by the vampiric succubus out for the soul of my companion. Over the course of the next year, the vampire embedded herself into our lives, before we rid ourselves of her poison forevermore.