I Love Her To Death...

April 24, 2011

            Wow ... I feel like a giddy schoolgirl even writing this down, but going so long without human contact is making me a little stir-crazy. And what else am I supposed to do? It’s not like I have any friends anymore that I can tell about this girl ...

            Where do I even start? How can I describe this feeling to a piece of paper? I mean ... I like her. Yeah. That pretty much sums it up. All this love-at-first sight nonsense is bullshit, but you can LIKE someone at first sight, right? Easy. I saw her today ... And I just knew. She had that look ... The only look that could give a 28-year-old loner like me the butterflies. So obviously it was like-at-first-sight. When you see someone, and you immediately start thinking of all the cheesy things you could say to them, a perfect stranger, to make them laugh and break the ice, all the ways you could throw all your cares and obligations and worries to the wind and just say, “Let’s go grab a bite to eat.” ... It’s pretty obvious that you like them. Either that, or you’re really horny. And considering how long it’s been since I got laid, I guess that’s a definite possibility, but I grew out of that shit years ago. I just really, REALLY like her.

            Damn. I’m writing this furiously fast; my hand already hurts, but my mind is still racing faster than my heart, which, notably, hasn’t slowed since I saw her from the window.

            But then I recognized her ... Alisha Perkins ... I remember her all the way back from middle school ... I guess she developed fast, so she was pretty popular around school, especially with the guys. But why the hell would she have any interest in me? She didn’t then, she wouldn’t now. I need to just get this shit out of my system and get back to work. But that’s just the thing! I can’t concentrate on my work when I’m glancing out the window every five minutes trying to catch a glimpse of her wandering around the neighborhood. She probably doesn’t even know this is my house. She can’t know! She probably wouldn’t even remember me if she saw me ... But it’s a crazy world these days ... You never know.

            Even still, what could a girl like Alisha possibly want with someone like me? A scrawny little nerd who realized far too late in his shitty life that keeping his nose buried in the books wasn’t getting him anywhere he wanted to be. I dropped out of the medical school I had tried so hard for so long to get into. And not because I couldn’t handle it, either, I had top grades! I just realized one day that I didn’t want to be stuck in this scholastic Hell anymore. I traded my life-long dream for a fucking shitty biotech job that I hated and a life of belligerent drinking and rambunctious partying. Now look where it got me. Locked away in this empty house crying on the shoulder of an apathetic piece of paper.

            Oh well ... Not like I would’ve been any better off if I’d stayed.

            This is becoming self-loathing. Thanks for listening.

April 25, 2011

            SHE CAME BACK!

            I had yet another miserable, lonely, sleepless night last night, and when I woke up in the late morning, she was outside my house again! It’s like she was waiting for me ... But how could she even know where I live? I don’t even know if she recognizes me. Maybe she just saw me over here one day ... She probably doesn’t recognize me. There’s no way! But maybe she liked what she saw. Won’t she be in for a surprise when she finds out who I am! She’ll probably lose interest altogether! Haha! The sound of my own laughter is amazing me right now! I am filling this empty, desolate home with laughter! Oh, do you know how long it’s been since I laughed? Since I genuinely chuckled or even smiled? I’m absolutely gushing over here. Every emotion that I’ve been unable to experience for the past God-knows-how-many weeks is pouring out of me right now! I can’t sit still or even keep a coherent string of thoughts in my new stupid journal!

            4:58 PM

            Well apparently I had a psychotic break earlier. I can’t even read that without getting a knot in my stomach. I know stuff like that isn’t important anymore. Maybe it never was. It’s good that I’m finally keeping a journal in times like these, though. But I need to write something of substance in it. I’ve been squirming around my living room all day, cycling through phases of trying to focus on my work and then staring intently out the window watching for any movement, hoping ...

            It just doesn’t make any sense. I simply cannot believe that she would want to see me ... But there she was. And the look on her face was hard to ignore. But I’m just too pathetic.

            This beautiful, flawless woman from the days of my youth is literally standing longingly outside my house like a crazy woman. But I’m the crazy one! I can’t even bring myself to open the door and talk to her. Can’t even bring myself to let her inside, to rescue her from the insane, deadly world that it is out there. But I guess you could say I’ve developed some pretty serious agoraphobia of late ... In fact, I feel like my mind is completely tearing apart from the inside out. I’ll never finish my work if I keep up like this ...

            And yet the the sun’s reflection off her eyes from the end of my drive makes everything else seem utterly insignificant. Maybe I’ll see her again tomorrow ...

April 26, 2011

            5:17 AM

            Another sleepless night spent thrashing about in my sweat-soaked sheets ... My anxiety levels are through the roof, and my hopes are probably even higher. I spent most of the night irrationally getting out of bed to check the window. I’m actually deluded enough to believe this girl could show up desperately at my house in the dead of night and plead with me to let her come in, confess to me that she too has been miserable and lonely and secluded these past several weeks ... But that’s the kind of useless thinking only desperate infatuation can incite.

            What besides terrible dementia would make a grown woman stand longingly outside the house of a stranger? She can’t possibly know that I’m in here. No one can. That’s the whole reason I’ve been able to STAY here undisturbed all this time ...

            On that note, my research has come to an almost complete stand-still these past two days. I’ve almost entirely lost interest in my legacy. My destiny.

            11:29 AM

           

            Just like clockwork, she showed up outside my window not two hours after sunrise! And just like clockwork my attention disorder went from debilitating to absolutely paralyzing. Pacing around the living room and staring out the window, waiting and hoping that she really DOES have some sort of agenda with me, that she really WILL show up here yet again ... It makes it all but impossible to focus on my work.

            Have I really lost touch with reality to this extent? To give up on what could almost definitely be the most important endeavor of my short life so whimsically? ... It must say something about my mental health. And don’t think for a second I haven’t considered the possibility that my overtaxed, dried out, crumbling excuse for a brain hasn’t just hallucinated this whole thing ...

            I’ve considered killing this project the way only a desperate, angst-filled teenager can consider suicide after his first breakup. What’s the use in living like this, anyway? Won’t everything just be that much simpler when it’s dead and gone? And all on some insane notion of love based upon the fact that this strange, beautiful, magnificent woman approaches my house alone each day! In my prime I would have killed for a lone woman to approach me and give me the chance to make a move ... But things have changed now.

            Should my memoirs be found in the not-so-near future, what will they say about me? That the bulk of my notes and observations are here, on this plain printer paper, detailing my obsessions with a stranger who stares awkwardly in my direction each morning, that this account which may some day chronicle my entire existence―ALL our existences―takes place not in a notebook of equations and formulas and observations, but in a stack of disheveled loose-leaf paper scrawled upon in frantic, girly handwriting ... The notion is morbid and somehow laughable.

            And yet ... I can’t stop glancing in her direction.

            7:02 PM

            Well, the day is gone, the overhead lights no longer function, and, yet again, no progress has been made. I wasted the entire day staring strangely out the window, watching the poor girl wander hopelessly through my lawn. But I never once could consider opening the door and confronting her. Oh, sure, I fantasized all the billions of heroic, romantic, witty things I could say, all the quirky, lovely interactions that could follow my simply opening the door and letting her in, but that doesn’t mean I really considered DOING it. What if she thinks it’s someone else’s home? In times like these, at my most lonesome and vulnerable, I cannot fathom the long-term humiliation and mental trauma that could follow an exchange like that in my current state. Best to just stick here in my fantasies and leave everyone else out of them ...

            If only I could balance those fantasies with productivity ...

April 27, 2011

            I’ve moved the couch over by the window so that I can sit and stare at her for hours at a time ... Does that mean I’m in love? Or is it something worse ... 

            Love. What the fuck do I know about love? What the fuck did anyone know about love? Love goes against every law of nature, rationality, and physics. We shouldn’t be falling in love again and again. We should be out finding food, digging holes, and competing to fuck every member of the opposite sex that we stumble across so our species can flourish and become even more out-of-control than it already is. That’s what animals do. And we are, after all, animals. Feral, barbarous, unruly animals. Why else would I come to be locked away in here? A prisoner against my own love for a fucking stranger. My heart defies every brain cell I have left. They’re my two most vital organs, and they’re tearing each other to shreds.

            How much longer must I be forced to sit in here and helplessly watch as the unlikely love of my life strolls up to my drive each morning to look for me? How much longer will I be forced to mediate between my hungry heart and my stubborn brain? Not much longer, I can tell you that. This terrible tug-of-war is wreaking havoc on what’s left of my life, and soon something’s got to give. I can no longer think about my work or even eat without going to the window every couple minutes. I get out of bed ten, sometimes twenty times, in the dead of night to see if she’s still here, even though I know she won’t be. It’s a terrible, uncontrollable compulsion. I know it’s unhealthy, I know it’s driving me mad, but, God, it feels so good when I finally come to the window again and she’s there. Seeing her irresistible face after checking a hundred or even two-hundred times over the night ... It stimulates the pleasure centers of my brain the way seeing a text-message from a new crush would. And that’s more than I can say for anything in my life for as long as I can remember now ... It’s getting harder to remember anything at all before Alisha showed up ...

            I no longer have any doubts that she is searching for me. Deep down she must know I’m in here, and, just as my uncontrollable desire to look upon her draws me to the window on a minute-to-minute basis, her will to find me is so powerful that it draws her daily to my yard. It’s reached a point where I truly don’t care anymore. If opening that front door means the end of my research or even the end of my life, so be it. Any outcome is preferable to this neurological dissonance. Just so long as she’s a part of it ...

            But what if she can’t be trusted after all? What if I’m wrong to disregard my doubts? What if she’s unsafe? Then again, what if I am her only hope of refuge? Wouldn’t that be a treat! To share the company of Alisha Perkins for the rest of our lives ... But after all I’ve witnessed, all I’ve been though, all I’ve done to get myself where I am today ... I find it nearly impossible to risk unbolting this damn door. To do so could be suicide ...

            Of course, there’s still the very real possibility that she’s out of my league. See? I can’t make up my mind about any of this. I can literally feel my brain deteriorating ... The way everyone else’s brain has. I can FEEL myself developing mental illness, and somehow I think that’s worse than unwittingly developing one ...

            But girls like Alisha are apt to say, “I wouldn’t give you a chance if you were the last guy on Earth!” ... Maybe if she comes back tomorrow I’ll see if that’s still true.

April 28, 2011

            I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to talk to her today. She could be my last chance at happiness, my last chance at salvation ... And I could be hers.

            Frankly I’m disappointed in myself that it’s taken me this long to decide to do this. She must be alone and dying out there. I like to think that her unyielding obsession with me is driving her to come here every day, to forfeit food and shelter and safety and just stand out in the open out there waiting for me to come to her. She’ll embrace death if she can’t embrace me. Honestly I’m probably just projecting. But I can think of no other explanation. For two humans in a world as dangerous as this to stare longingly at each other all day, separated by a pane of glass and mere meters ... I must be crazy already.

            I can’t even recall the most fundamental aspects of my research. I can no longer think of the most key features of this project that once may have saved what’s left of humanity. I know I’m letting down my entire species, but I feel no shame or remorse or sense of duty or purpose at all anymore. I’m just overwhelmed by her presence, and all I can think about are all the reasons I should have let her in already.

            11:56 AM

            I can’t do it. I stood at the door just staring out the small glass panel at her for nearly an hour, hardly moving, hardly thinking. Finally, when I started to feel faint and my legs gave out, I realized that I didn’t have the will-power to open the door.

            There is nothing left on this earth but her, for all I know. There is nothing left in my brain but her. Our love could literally be the sole coherent notion left on the planet, and all I have to do is let her in ...

            But at a time when the undead roam the streets and scavenge the forests, it’s almost impossible to do something that used to be as simple as opening the front door ...

April 29, 2011

            6:22 AM

            I’m doing it. I’m going out. I finally have enough sunlight to write by, and I’ve been up all night psyching myself out for this. When she arrives here again, probably as usual just around 8:00, I’m going to open the door. I’ve already removed half the dead-bolts so that I don’t have as much time to hesitate when she’s finally there staring at me ...

            12:10 PM

           

            I can’t fucking do it! I stood at the door yet again until I lost track of time ... Then I finally opened it, and when she looked at me standing there with those terrible, beautiful relieved eyes and that sickening, desperate smile, I lost all nerve. I soiled myself.

            I haven’t seen a human in I don’t even know how many weeks now, and the last time I did, I watched as three-quarters of his trachea was violently pulled from a gaping hole in his throat and then swallowed like calamari by a corpse. I watched as his lifeless body stood back up as if nothing had happened, and his diaphragm must have relaxed, because at that moment his blood-filled lungs, probably both squeezed unnaturally together at the mediastinum, expelled what seemed like gallons of black, thickening blood through his nonexistent neck. I’ll never forget that sound, that image ... Even the smell. Like the jets turning on in a death- and pus-filled jacuzzi for the first time in centuries. And with half his postural neck muscles gnawed through and ripped to shreds, his head lolled backward on the barely intact spine until I could no longer see the skull at all from where I stood directly in front of him. I couldn’t help thinking that this must have caused him great discomfort, but that did not stop him as he joined his former assailant in approaching my paralyzed figure ...

            I think maybe I can go to sleep now ...

April 30, 2011

            I was able to sleep through most of the night finally ... But I awoke numerous times covered in sweat and tears and piss and whatever else. The lucidity of my nightmares was unfathomable, and, for last night, I hope I never sleep soundly again.

            I awoke to the choked sounds of my own sobs and desperate calls for Alisha to hold me. And when I ran to the window before sun-up, she wasn’t there. Of course she’s never here when it’s dark, but that didn’t stop me from holding the single bullet that I’ve saved all this time, squeezing it and sobbing until my shaking fist started to bleed and I fell back asleep in the floor ...

            I’m certain I can no longer do this alone ... Today I may be saving two lives.

            8:22 AM

            She’s here. I’m going out. God be with me.

            5:45 PM

            Pathetic. I’m a fucking useless pathetic waste of a survivor. I’ve abandoned her again. And all that I can do is sit in here alone and cry and feel sorry for MYSELF. Because I’m so fucked in the head. I’m so far gone that I can’t even face a fellow human being and offer my help, my resources. I can’t even do that for the one I love ...

            She’s far skinnier than I had thought. But that detracts absolutely nothing from her stunning beauty. Set against a backdrop of apocalyptic death, destruction, horror, and nightmare, her tiny, withering, beautiful figure could never be more visually stunning. She ran to me as soon as I stepped out, and of course I could think of nothing to say. I just stood there stupidly as she stumbled forward and seized my arm, probably so overwhelmed with gratitude and relief that she could think of nothing to say either. She just stared into my eyes with her own sultry sunken set and smiled that winning smile that showed half of her gleaming teeth, which have managed to remain as pearly as ever throughout this whole ordeal. She looked at me with what could have been a mixture of any number of hundreds of emotions. Hope. Love. Relief. Longing.

            But did I follow my heart and sweep her weightless body into my arms? Did I press my stubbly half-beard against her milky smooth face and let our tongues express the things that ears could never process? Did I rush her back inside and make the most glorious love of our lives right here on this very couch, rejoicing in finally being free and safe and, most of all, together for the rest of our short lives? No. I stood there like a mongoloid while she squeezed my arm with a superhuman strength that could be a product only of terror, love, and desperate anxiety. We stood that way, me just staring into her hauntingly lovely eyes, until I finally broke. I cried, and the only words I could think to say to her were, “I’m sorry.” I wept and just repeated I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry until her desperate grip began to draw blood and I had to push her away. I screamed it then! I’M SORRY! I’M SO FUCKING USELESS AND SORRY! I can’t help you Alisha. I’m lost and confused. I pushed her away and turned and ran back inside. I’m so sorry, Alisha ...

            6:51 PM

            I’ve sat here throughout the day, and one would think my body would run out of fluid, but the tears just keep coming. I don’t even know who I’m crying for anymore. Myself. My love. Or maybe all the billions of people who left this realm in the blink of an eye. I stare at the blood trickling out of four puncture wounds on my arm, and I cannot even bring myself to wipe it clean. I deserve to let it bleed. I hope it never clots and I just bleed out and fade away. And with my dying breath, I’ll unlock the door for my love. Something I cannot bring myself to do in life. Maybe I can find the courage in death.

            What if she’s given up on me? I couldn’t even bring myself to look out the window at her anymore. She just approached the door and stood with one hand on the glass for God only knows how long. What if she never comes back? What if I ruined my only chance?

            These wounds aren’t near deep enough to bleed me out ... Good thing I saved this bullet ...

May 1, 2011

            3:27 AM

           

            I can’t sleep. Not surprisingly. What is surprising is that I can see tonight. I guess my eyes are adjusting after staying awake all night. For an instant I was ecstatic when I thought some sort of light source had been turned on outside ... But it’s still as dark as ever.

            My arm hurts too. It hurts to write, and it’s turning black around the wounds. They must be infected. I’m not surprised. Her nails must have been filthy ... I hope she comes back today. My stomach has growled all night, but I can’t remember the last time I had a true appetite, and I can’t help thinking that seeing her that close, touching her, helped boost my libido for the first time in months.

            I can’t shake the feeling it isn’t really food I’m hungry for ...

            3:13 PM

           

            I guess she didn’t give up after all.

            I watched her for over two hours this morning. And finally I made up my mind. I went outside with almost no fear at all and grabbed her without saying a word and sucked her face like a horny 16 yr old. I think I split both our lips in a couple places and I definitely shocked her into shocked silence. But when I turned away like a real dude and told her to come in she just stood and stared. Almost looked indifferent.

            I hope I didnt give her the wrong idea ... I felt her tongue in my mouth and she definitely wasn’t resisting. When I approached she looked eager but after it was over she just seemed ... like apathetic. I didn’t want to seem too desperate so I just let her be. She kept standing there though for the rest of the day. I hope I didn’t push my luck but she’s so damn irresistible. I guess I’ll know if she comes back tomorrow ...

            This is actually starting to be kind of fun ...

            May 2, 2011

            1:54 AM

            I am starving. I cant sleep I’m so hungry. And burning up too.

            3:12 AM

            Raging hardon right now. I cant sleep. I think of how the skin of her lips is decaying and drawn back a little more on the right side. Adorable crooked smile there permanently. I love you Alisha.

            ...

            alisha i love you

            I called you all nite you cant hear me?

            ...

            it raining today. if i see u in the wind i hope yur litle legs not get blow away. let grab a bite to eat n see a movie in dry

            ...

            my lov is hear we can get food a bite to eat n walk around town i hop u let i swere i hold ur hand 4evr

            alisha lov u 2 death

Falling

Should I fall from a ledge, may it be from on high

So I tumble and twirl as I cut through the sky.

May my vessels dilate and my heart rate increase

And my norepinephrine release never cease.

When my pupils enlarge so I see with great clarity

The encroaching earth, an observational rarity,

I will be well aware what I’ve done to myself,

Still a young man of respective good health.

So why’d I subject my own self to this flight,

Its inevitable end and ephem’ral delight?

Does even an addict in the clutches of jones

Go so far as this just to get himself stoned?

Does still he partake, knowing well the effects?

Does he garnish the noose to tie ‘round his own neck?

Well I’ll fall for a bit, hoping never to land,

With no obligations, impulsive, unplanned,

And I won’t have a care, not a worry or woe.

But how will it end? Well, we already know.

If we have just one day, may it be on the longest,

The solstice of summer when Sun’s rays are strongest,

And the hours that pass, like the clouds rushing by,

Are each slightly longer like we’re falling from high.

May we fumble and flail with the words that we share

But still both understand and still smile and not care.

May our hearts pound in sync with our naiveté

And our minds meld with ease with no burdens to weigh.

When my eyes open wide, so I take in the scene,

I’ll know no future or past, only this, in between.

We’ll be feeling so high when we lie hand in hand;

We’ll both secretly wish we’d just fall and not land,

For we’ll fall for each other, and, both falling in sync,

We’ll have what seems like moments, not a chance to re-think,

So we’ll cling to each other, lock our lips in the wind

With no time for much else as we quickly descend,

And, us both in free-fall, there’ll be no one below

Who could catch us or save us or make our fall slow.

So if you wonder why it was simple to leap without needing a shove,

It’s because infatuation’s more unconditional than true love,

And when you finally hit bottom and forget all that passed you above,

You’ll find that falling was far less painful than landing in love.

Red Light

Hazy gray clouds churned overhead, obscuring what little light remained in the day. A dense mantle of mist hovered above the streets and coated Richard's windshield as he slowed to a stop at the traffic light on Amerson and Chance St. His wipers squeaked across the modestly wet glass and smeared the coat of dust into a smudge of wet mud. 

"Fuck," he muttered as he pulled the wiper knob toward himself to eject a spritz of futile blue water atop the mixture that was now clouding his view. His wipers dragged back and forth a few more times before slowing to their regular pace. Rich leaned forward and looked up at the dark sky. Even if the storms weren't passing through, there would scarcely be any light left in the day by this hour. The days were getting shorter, and pretty soon this mist would be white-out snow, and the sky would be completely dark when he left the office as late as he did today. He rolled his eyes and shook his head in annoyance at the approaching winter, and when he picked up his phone, his agitation led him to press the Home button far more forcefully than was necessary.

late again? im waitinnnnnnng! the text from Kristen read. Richard shook his head and scowled at his phone as if she could see his face. He was tense on a good day, but when he'd just spent the last hour staying late to listen to his boss bemoan the decline of their quarterly sales, he was liable to burst a vessel. 

"And now I have to put up with your shit?" he muttered at the phone before clicking off the screen. 

He glanced at the streetlight on the corner and noticed a young girl standing alone in the light rain. "Hey, baby, need a ride?" He grinned at the inappropriate line that he'd never have dared say where she could hear him. The girl couldn't be much older than his own daughter. 

Then he noticed the sign she was holding. Black marker on a piece of soggy cardboard.

"EVERY LITTLE BIT HELPS.
THANK YOU. GOD BLESS."

Rich rolled his eyes and groaned. These people had become a plague. When he was a kid, you may have had to steer clear of one walking around if you were visiting a big city or something, but now they had taken over even the small towns! You couldn't even drive through a stop-light anymore without having to keep your composure and focus on the road to avoid an accidental eye-contact.

He looked to her eyes, but they were not looking back at his. They were fixed motionless on the ground in front of her. Her dirty, wet hair dangled unflatteringly in her face.

"Jesus, honey, at least look like you wanna be here." 

Why would I want to be here? her eyes seemed to suggest in the silence.

"Well, at least fucking try." With that useless sign and the eye-contact of a fifteen-year-old behind the counter at her first job at McDonald's, Rich would have been willing to double her cash just to bet she hadn't gotten any. 

"You really don't want to be here, huh?" he mused, looking back at her face and noticing the dark ring of a bruise around her right eye. He couldn't see her teeth through her closed, expressionless lips, but he'd have put even more money on their being yellowed, chipped, and haggard. "Where's your pimp?" he asked the silent car. "Is that why you kids are all over the streets now? Some asshole pushing you all out here to beg for him?" 

You couldn't walk to get a cup of coffee without having to pass through some poor slut's aroma of piss and body odor anymore. Maybe if they spent more time at their desks and less times on their backs in the schools nowadays, this country wouldn't have this type of problem. 

"You think I want to give you what little cash is in my wallet?" He was already paying taxes to support these parasites, and if he dropped his dollar in her cup just because she showed a little more tit than the next girl, he'd be right back in the same position at the next light, staring into the next empty cup!

His phone lit up from his lap.

hurry up! when am I gonna get that dick, Dick?

He closed his eyes and sighed before opening them to look back at the light. Still red. And he was still 20 minutes away from Kristen's house. 

5:50 at the latest, he typed back. 

Before he pressed Send, a woman walked by his window. She was well-dressed and carrying an umbrella. Her rapid pace slowed as she approached the girl at the streetlight. 

"Don't do it!" Richard groaned. "There's another one at the next corner! You'll be bankrupt before you make it home!" 

But the woman didn't retrieve her wallet. She merely handed the girl her umbrella. Rich watched in disbelief as the woman patted the girl's hand and turned to walk back down the sidewalk. His eyes met hers, and he did not attempt to conceal the disdain he was feeling. 

Really? Your umbrella, you do-gooder? he thought. 

The woman stopped, looking into Richard's eyes. After a moment she turned and hurried back to the girl, this time taking out her wallet and handing over a bill. The girl merely nodded and continued staring at the concrete.

When the woman turned back, her eyes fell immediately upon Richard's. He squinted his face in disgust. "Whatever."

The woman walked by his car and did not remove her gaze from his own. Because everyone hits a shitty spot at some point in their lives, she seemed to say as she passed. Her voice was so vivid, Richard actually broke eye-contact to turn and look at his empty passenger seat. He turned back and craned his neck to follow her as she continued down the sidewalk and got into her own car. How or why she got here is of no consequence. She's still a person. 

The light turned green, and Richard's phone, which had dimmed, lit back up.

Jason gets home in 1 hour! R u cumming?!? ;)

He looked at the girl as he released his foot from the car's brake. She never lifted her gaze from the ground, but her mouth was working to remain void of expression. 

Who are you to judge? the woman's fictitious voice spoke in his head. He looked at his phone and then again at the green light. Someone gave two quick taps to their horn in the car behind him.

As he touched the gas pedal, he glanced at the girl on the corner one last time. The faintest smile touched one corner of her lips. 

Everyone hits a shitty spot at some point in their lives ...

Richard swung his steering wheel around without checking his mirror. He slipped into the empty right-hand lane and turned right at the light, rather than going straight toward Kristen's house. 

5:50 at the latest, he had typed out.

He erased his text without sending it. Jason would be home in an hour, and she wouldn't really miss him too much. 

Tonight he'd surprise his wife and daughter by getting home early and taking them out to dinner.

Hell

Perhaps I didn’t live my life as I’d ought;

When I should have maintained what my Sunday School taught,

I ignored and forgot it, lived my life for myself;
I suppose that’s how come I woke up dead in Hell.

I walked scared and alone down the halls made of fire
Into corridors and rooms decked with decadence and ire.
I regretted at first things that I’d done in my life,
That had led me to boundless, perpetual strife,

As I walked past the rapists and killers and thugs,
All the monsters and pagans and users of drugs.
I saw Jews and the Muslims and corrupt politicians,
Lawyers and athletes and a few statisticians.















When I entered the hall filled with tables alight,
I bestowed on myself the most fleeting of frights:
An old hillbilly farmer and a queer-looking man
Eating lunch with a black and the whole Ku Klux Klan.

Democrats with Republicans, Russians and Nazis,
All the actors and artists with the mad paparazzi,
Prostitutes and porn stars and school teachers too,
Eating deep-fried, grease-dripping meals of fast-food.

If these enemies of old could combine thus anew,
Then what strange coexistence could the Heavens accrue?
I was pondering this notion when I swiftly was struck
By an image divulging the most awesome luck:

Hell had been home from beginnings of time
To the swindlers and liars and masters of crime,
But it also held men with immense expertise,
Like the doctors, thinkers, firemen, police.

Scientists and philosophers of the highest regard
Were out courting fine women in Hell’s flaming backyard,
And the bubbling jacuzzi was overflowing with kids,
Who had sinned young, apparently, as all the rest did.

In the light of all this, you must conceive my surprise
When I turned to see Jesus right in front of my eyes.
He explained to me, though, why he frequents this site,
And I suppose it makes sense, thinking back with hindsight:

Brimming over with babies and fetuses’ souls,
It’d be hard to think or take leisurely strolls;
Jesus said Heaven’s way too crowded and loud,
With no one but the babies and that Westboro crowd.

Little Limerick About a Lonely Lemur

Lenny the Lemur was filled with elation

As he sat with the object of his adoration,











But after several days,

She brought him only dismay;














He wished he'd just stuck with plain masturbation.

"Such A Shame ..."

“It’s really such a shame,” they all said.

Small gatherings of acquaintances shuffled by her bed.

Family and friends and classmates brushed by, some void of expression, some with tears in their eyes. Her face was a beautiful shade of white, like a fair-skinned, Victorian-age maiden. The mortician had done a fine job concealing the grisly bruises around her neck where the rope had cinched tighter and tighter, blocking off her airway until not a molecule could pass through.

“What a shame she couldn’t get the help she needed,” some muttered.

Her hands were folded neatly across her bosom, giving her a starkly dainty appearance. An appearance which—to those who saw her on a daily basis—was entirely out of place for this particular soul.

            Some took somber note of the irony—that such a tormented young girl should lie here in such elegant peace after all. That the last image they’d see of their troubled friend who always wore heavy eye-liner and covered her smiles with the sleeves of her too-long sweatshirts would be one of tranquility. A lovely, sleeping girl wearing her finest Sunday dress.

            “It’s such a shame she wasn’t better looked after. Especially after her first two attempts!” others whispered.

Her palm-down hands left the matrix of scars along her wrists and forearms to lie against her own body, out of sight to all of the guests. Those scars, which so many had fussed were mere cries for attention, would remain unseen by all who dared not desecrate the body that had been so determinedly set up. Those closest to her knew that she’d tried this before. She’d run razor after razor along her skin, but she’d never quite found the depth necessary to bring her to her current state.

“She’s in a better place,” many assured. But their minds knew exactly what their holy books said about what happens to those who commit that deadliest sin of all. No such place was in her future.

“Such a shame she didn’t call one of us first.”

In her last moments of ultimate woe, shouldn’t surely her mind have yearned for the warm solace of her dearest friends?

“May she rest in peace,” some wished.

After such a life of apparent agony, she deserved to finally find some peace.

“She’ll always be remembered.”

“Only the good die young.”

“May she be a lesson to hold your loved ones closer tonight.”

“Gone but not forgotten.”

An endless sea of insincere platitudes washed over the lifeless girl as her body awaited its final resting place. A boundless array of banal beliefs echoed across the Internet that evening. An immeasurable assortment of trite sentiments spread throughout social media, like a dense cloud of noxious gas in an overcrowded subway station. A million tiny lies and falsehoods were shared with watery eyes and heads nodding in emphatic agreement. Myriad mistruths were muttered to hands held high and heads turned to the sky in silent rejoice of the sick, temporary comfort brought by rhetoric and ill reason. Infinite speculations and stock phrases were tested in attempt to capture the tragedy that all had witnessed.

But none came close to capturing the untruths and self-deceptions that she’d held in her final moments.

Such a shame, she’d thought as she wiped the blood from her wrists.

It’s really such a shame that no one cares for me.

Quite a shame that no one will miss me when I’m gone. What a shame that my impact on this earth has been meaningless, that I have no worth, and that I’ll die alone, as I’ve ever been.

Her hands had shaken as she'd tied the knot to loop ‘round her neck.

Such a shame that I can never do the things I want to do, never accomplish any of my goals, never be as big as I want to be. Her brain had whispered false secrets to itself while she worked with the rope.

What a shame that no one will ever have the time to tell me I matter. That the people I love most will always care the least. That the only screams I hear are from those who aim to tear others down.

The lies she’d accepted for all of her life reverberated through her mind as she'd climbed onto the chair. The lies that no one would ever take the time to correct.

It’s such a shame that my worth is not limitless, she'd thought as the loop slipped on and relaxed atop her shoulders. Her shoulders which would never merit the comfort of a caring human embrace. Such a shame that I don’t bring joy to the lives of others. Such a shame that I am defined by the harsh, uncaring words of all who surround me …

It’s really such a shame …