Living off Mannheim parking at the streetcurb parkway lined with old trees palegreen alien-looking
fruit hanging
I am curious but I havent taken the time to figure out its genus species red fire
hydrants are spaced dogs a public sidewalk a long front lawn runs up to manicured shrubbery my
place a corner apartment second floor in a vintage building looks into leaves then fall an winter looks through
naked limbs into apartments across Mannheim for naked limbs while smokin a joint listenin to music or I look around the corner
onto Ellis a residential street overlookin rooftops chimneys an backyards theyre quiet if I had a backyard Id be busy in it
traffic noise bleeds in sycophants colored moving illuminations of its own an broadstroked lighted storefronts worrying vandals robberies
I stood at the foot of my bed jerkin
my thumb at the end of my fist makin like an umpire callin Out
Up ya lazy bum Yer widme
couldnt blame him
he looked
pathetic comfortable
he looked tired
he was lightly strokin my girls shadow her dark
two-dimensional curves an sweet hollows
Lets go yamook
he didnt answernever answered
tossed off the overlap of the flatsheet bindin im an glared at me for troublin
im puttin im through middle of the nite calisthenics for no discernible benefit to
his skinny ass
did he really think I wanted to
crawl out of a warmed bed from beside Hallie into the cool night air to take a
leak
I was a slave to my bladder an
bowels Hallie wouldnt be cool widme soilin the bed in the middle of the nite
I figured he was draggin his ass
up the hall behind me bitchin he didnt have to take a leak
I looked over my shoulder
takin his sweet time still at the
threshold of the bedroom
I waited on him at the bathroom
he came down the hall bouncin
side to side wall to wall makin a production of it a sneermaybe on his miserable pallid face
Christ I hoped I didnt look like that he was scaryI nearly pissed in the hall
nah I didnt
hyperbole
yah wouldnt think in the dead of
night Id be playin hyperbole in the hall with
if he had a voice a grumbling
bitchin blackface
just tryin to humor him
the fuckin stick in the mud
I figured Id best let him enter
the toilet first
flickerin colored lights
spattered bokeh came through the glass window mottled his darkened puss exaggerated his configured sneer
a sneer goin smirk
he turned his head to the
claw-foot bathtub to his left my right
I took a look nada
looking back to im he jerked my
thumb at the end of my fist makin like an umpire callin Out mockin me from when I stood at the end
of the bed waitin on im
I thought yeah(didnt think) I could almost make out a mouth
a deliberate shadow on a shadow
Take a look
I missed it
Take a look
thought I made out take
he continued agitatin in
direction of the tub
I glanced nada
Take a look
Take take
takealook
a nod exasperated
grim
I looked
a ghostly image of myself
appeared between him an me
I was lookin at the back of my
head
suddenly this sheer glass-image
of me went down hard to my right crackin our skull on the lip of the porcelain
tub
within my glass skull I could
see the crown of it internally decapitated sheared off spectacular shards
of ghostwhite bone penetratin my brain lancets then the bowl of my skull
scootin choppin into my grey meat an break into pieces
pearl shrapnel brilliant blue petals erupting in
my misshapen head
my right eye displaced
when my whitesilver skin split
the petals escaped steamin ruby red
rivulets paintin the side of the tub the tiled grouted floor splashed on the prone
bent pale manikin that was me
my mouth hung open
slowly turnin my head back to my
shadow it stood there facin me its mouth open
mirror-images
then against the wall an glass
window where the medicine light cast my shadow he turned an mocked my stance when
I urinated
into the hallway on the hall wall he cloned himself where the subtle outdoor
lighting cast him when I urinated
I was surrounded
I stepped over my twitchin whitesilver legs an before the toilet bowl I urinated hard animatin its water to convince me
I was
animate alive
not dyin on the floor
finished I washed my hands with
warm water an chased away my last conscious bit of unfounded fear
I looked neither left nor right to
inform my detail my cops my shadows
turnin into the hall I faced me
facin me my shadow my shadow
I stood facin im
no face
Yathink yer funny
nothin not that I was expectin anythin
Fuckin pokerface
Awright Its cold here Lets get back in bed widda girls
he beat me back into bed
0615, Twosday,
8 12. 15
0322, Day-between-Two-Ts, 9 12.
15
