YBFJ
Chapter 8: Don’t Be Late
I snuff, cough, choke—breathe—through rings of smoke and feathers of peacock lore. Mischief hangs in the air like perfume, and as if I needed another whore, I opened the door.
He came in speaking hexes—syphilis and other heinous crimes against the sacred body. And I—just a young tailor boy, mischievous in all rights—was forged in leather. I rode a white horse everywhere, until I dyed her black. Painted her hooves red. And her toes, too.
I wore red lipstick—nothing more, nothing less.
The fable, as it goes: when the man came in, I was still the boy. Recently bestowed an estate by my dead and decadent relatives. Rich now, swollen with gold and squires, though not long ago I was nothing but a piss boy. A plunder boy. Wetting myself in my sleep, drunk as a lark on every misty mountaintop and sooty cooking cranny, noting—always noting—how quickly the bartender serves you a drink.
Don’t. Be. Late.
🜏 WHERE THE HELL IS MY GOD DAMN PHONE, NATE?
(To Cleanse, To Wash Free)
2020 – No Edit
💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀
⸻
Where the hell is my god damn phone, Nate?
Hours go by.
No response.
Where the helll is my phone?
I haven’t checked a single location
But man I bet you stole it!
You little fickle fucker —
Pecked lover!
I don’t trust a single word you say!
Did I shoot it up the arm?
I’d never throw it down the drain!
You stupid lyin’-ass motherfucker,
Little boi.
Hell — shit — I don’t care.
Who needs a phone?
Shit. Fuck.
I’ll just buy another.
“One for the plug! One for the doe! Bambino habubalo orcalce mistakes!”
LOL.
Energy’s you, energy’s —
All fake.
You fake little fuckers.
“I know not what is of the law!”
You are not love.
You stole it.
I’ll steal you.
⸻
Where the hell is my god damn phone?
I’ve never been without it.
Finally left alone.
How crazy can I be?
I don’t ever give a chance
for whom to speak.
You little man cutie pie
I’ll tie you up.
Yeah, yeah — tie you up.
Ball gag and chains.
That’s what you want, right?
On a boat in broad daylight?
⸻
“Il ne cherche le vrai que pour faire le bien”
—I bet he finds nothing.
“O Voltaire! O humaneness! O nonsense!
There is something about ‘truth’…
and when a human being is too human about it…”
⸻
Hitherto!
Hitched!
Hurry!
I’m starving.
Can I help the next on number 9?
Follow CDC guidelines — you’ll be fine,
Says the phone.
Listen, and the truth will never come.
Breathe, and it draws near.
Do you dare stare into the labyrinthine of our beautiful world?
It’s cold.
Restricted.
A virus conflicted.
Tyranny today by dogmatic dogs,
Barking up the streets
Snarling to master the meek!
⸻
Where is my telephone, Nate?
Have you checked the frigid morning?
Outside — frozen solid
By the media.
Just the idea
of what is to come.
⸻
God damn it —
You all stole it from me:
My youth.
My sanity.
My name is Lavender LaVarious,
Speedier. Nefarious.
Is my blood sick with the moon of lust?
Or does the sun only burn
A hole in my image?
I want to fly home alone again.
Flying down the street again.
In a hotel,
Sick as a whore in church.
It’s like wearing a mask in public
With a face that doesn’t match.
No one matches anymore.
⸻
“The gift is your soul — fuck your phone.”
Your house is a motel.
Motel 6.
And that 3 is not equivalent.
Mute is the man who follows his eyes
Bestowed with the curse of competition.
Where is your God?
Where are your brightest stars?
Now we hide in the dark.
Stealing phones and cars.
Coauthors or strangers
Whose faith leaves scars.
⸻
They caught the virus of togetherness.
And lost the way of divine earthquakes,
Marriage and drunkenness.
⸻
“Next customer please!”
I feel like I should wear a mask in my sleep
Just in case Rona lives under my bed.
Gnashing teeth.
A smile you’ll beg to forget.
A nostalgic app
With a nice view from space —
A map to nothing
But a fatal case.
⸻
Sick, sick, sick.
Disease is all attractive.
Some people just really need Cauthen on.
⸻
They took my air.
Who gave it the power?
To insist on such nonsense
Without thought.
Where are the horse keys?
Where is the Android of the Year?
⸻
A security guard said
St. Andrews gleams early
With flames and hysteria.
Tabloids and Pomarioa,
Home-blown sea,
Deadly flowers of waste.
⸻
I can comity.
Flowering my mom’s house backwards.
I can finally take a break —
A felony’s time
With a single sneeze.
“May your god bless you for goodness’ sake.”
⸻
I whistle alongside the snake
On the road of time.
My little friends
Form a raid — ants and caves.
A toad came to speak.
He sat with me
In a tree.
I hold my Merlinite.
God damn gorgeous,
But always irate.
⸻
Teenage sluts pass around
White germs of pleasure and pain.
It’s all the same, babe.
The youth shall never change.
⸻
At the Get-n-Go.
At the place we meet.
They do declare:
“The call to fall to the knees
Is pressing to appease.”
⸻
Your phone is nothing but an
Atlantis Midnight Poison Tea Party.
Oozing negativity like a fountain.
⸻
Do you hear it?
A stampede is coming.
The trumpets are peeking.
Your phone can’t see?
They’re creeping.
They’ve crept.
They’re in the creek.
They’re in your mom’s house.
⸻
My name is the one
You can get Super Bowler
If you choose.
Nirvana and Mercury seem ever close.
A 9 is the start-up
Between you and your phone.
⸻
Sapphire at Buffalo Wild Wild Wings
Buffalo Creek
Wild Buffalo
Buffalo Lake House.
Same number.
Cracked first, the heroine.
Soapy water.
Scumbag indigents
Concert crime and slaughter.
⸻
They crept.
They ate.
Lest you set them free.
As a result of the trumpets.
⸻
Strife is the dinosaur’s compass.
Blow your face off — then come back.
The focus of vivid illness
Is this app of a great beast.
⸻
They crept.
They creaked.
⸻
A stampede is coming.
Can’t you hear?
Do you taste the dark waters?
Do they give you a spark?
A stampede is coming.
They creep and sleigh.
They creep and sled.
President of presiding forloomers.
Beggars howling at food.
⸻
Nate — where in the fuck is my god damn telephone?
It’s a brownie. A look. An allude.
A makeup box of calories
Less than welcome.
⸻
They crept.
They creeked.
They trumpet.
They sleigh.
And the phone is
Lost, but not found.
Here.
Near.
Clever as the air.
I have fifteen backdrops set up.
I decided to take my own shirt off
and use it as a tablecloth.
The table stands still the same.
It stands tall enough
where I don’t have to break my back.
I’ve been yakking all day
about things that keep my mind occupied.
I read in a book about getting rich
that the rich are okay with being silent.
And silence, in general,
is solace.
I just don’t see that possibility.
Dr. Bob?
No, I haven’t spoken to him in a very long time.
He’s kind of an asshole anyway.
He wouldn’t prescribe me anything I wanted—
only like, you know,
things that mom will give you.
⸻
And there’s a lion at my door.
And a dove.
And quite a peculiar sun
that I can’t quite put my hand on.
I’ve cleared out three drawers now,
made an altar on one.
So now
I have to clear the altar.
But you know what?
That’s probably why my back hurts.
⸻
I’ll blow trumpets,
speak to gargoyles,
and flash with feathers
of feathery, fathom, flaking flesh.
An oracle of Delphi.
A mistress of the pyramids of Giza.
Where is my love?
Aphrodite,
can my love come to keep me sane?
Or—not sane—
but for not crying?
⸻
The truth is:
Whatever today is,
is the beginning of the story.
And I begin the story
like any other story,
with a bang.
⸻
So let’s get there, darling.