The Night Thief

You'd come and
Dig your hands into my chest

You'd crack and pull and mangle so
The path to my heart would be open

You'd reach inside and
Fit your fist in a fist-sized hole

You'd cry because you'd know that
Someone got there first

The Courtier

     One day, as I was walking from court, I noticed a young courtier standing.  He had been standing for several hours, and though there were several chairs in front of him he did not take one.
     I asked him, "My friend, why do you stand?"
     "So that one day I may be allowed to sit."
     "Why not simply sit down then?"
     "Because while I am able to stand, I will."
     "It seems you are at somewhat of an impasse, no?  That you do one thing while you can in anticipation of the time you won't have to any longer?"
     When I said this the man's Lord walked by and kicked his feet from under him and the courtier fell.  He sat on the ground, as placid as he was when he stood.  After several moments I asked him, "My friend, why do you sit?"
     He replied, "So that one day, I might be allowed to stand."

Hey Baby...

          Hey baby, he says. Why don’t you come over here for a second. No, he ain’t gonna rape her. Of course not. His gold tooth glowers out of his mouth more impish than that shit-eating grin that’s smeared all over it. It’s a pomade smile to accompany that pomade hairdo and disgusting sport coat.
It’s 2012, she thinks, This fucker shops at thrift stores.
No, he says, I ain’t even lookin for sex. He says not even if her ass told Brazilian tales of her snatch. He does, however, want to pay her for a service.
The street corner is busy. Suspiciously absent is the car lot he should be commissioning from. The name of every restaurant on one side of the street is two kind of food divided by “y”, and the other doesn’t have a speck of cultural dust on it corporatized, porcelain face.
Here baby, you see this? He’s starting to sweat.

Pretty fuckin hot for wool dumbass. She sizes him up and her mind commentates. There’s a little book peeking out of his hand.

Look, he says. He’s a little desperate. I done a lotta things you wouldn’t have no kinda admiration for. I done shit that would make you puke. I ain’t never killed nobody, don’t get me wrong. I just spent my life fuckin with people’s souls an shit.

He sighs, throws his breath at the concrete. A dying dandelion contemplates the breeze.

Broads like you, he goes on, eyes on his putrid breath, You’re all just little fuckin bitches to me. Toys an shit. But I don’t want that anymore. I don’ want that to be the way I sees the world. No more. So here. Take this. Pay it forward an shit. You are now a victim of a random act of kindness.

He puts the book in her hands and she looks at him suspicious.

Really, that’s all I got left in this world. Just this little book with all my dreams. Beside the clothes I’m wearing and my life. The only thing I’ve ever had in this world is pain and it’s all my fault. You may not understand, but you gotta know that it doesn’t matter who you are. You could be that guy over there.

A guy on the other side is watching them. His dog choking itself on the leash. He jumps when he’s noticed and hurries on his way. The sun setting is a halo above the shopping center.

I gotsta go now. Downtrodden and with sickening sublime, he walks away.

The fuck…she says to herself. No one around. The dandelion looks like it might be doing a little better. There’s the itty black book weighing heavy in her hand.

Pay it forward?

She slips the elastic off its cover and leafs through the pages. Indiscriminate pictures of genitalia, male and female, some definitely mixed together; vaginas leaking seed and men gagged and bent over electrical boxes, eyes half closed. Drugged. And there’s the guy’s face in every goddamn one, thumbs up and smiling. Like a fucking tourist at the Giza pyramids of a tranny’s tits or some blonde’s hair.

Then there’s a wet rag over her face that smells a little like sweet acetone. She fights back for several minutes, and right before the world gets fuzzy she hears, That’s right. You’re page 154.