It’s a nickname – a moniker, if you will – given to me by an ex-girlfriend’s older sister. I don’t know where it came from. As memory serves me, I never once wore mascara. I wore eyeliner on occasion – mostly for Halloween. The habit of having Miranda dress me up like her masochistic Barbie doll played a role, maybe. It’s nothing to think about, just something that popped into my mind.
[There is a message here, but the signal’s breaking up]
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This disease eats people from the outside in. That way, their souls are the last to go. Some travel to Shangri-La for cures, only to find the land barren – a waste zone of decay and boredom.
For centuries we looked to the skies in hopes to find our significance. When nothing happened, we started making up gods and fictions to explain our higher reason. To mark our dominance over the terrain and fauna. Created rules. Social norms bestowed upon the people.
We covered our histories in myths. Fabricated our origins. Created messiahs. Sacrificed them to feel closer to our fictional creators. Then huffed the opium in.
Sexuality
“C’mon, you telling me you’re asexual?”
“No. I just don’t prescribe to sexuality.”
“Which means, you’re asexual. No?”
“No. I like sex. I don’t like to limit myself.”
“So you’re bisexual?”
“No.”
Once I might have labeled myself. I suppose we all do at one time or another. If you deny this, you’re a bold-faced liar. Truth is, sexuality isn’t black, white or gray. It’s really not existent. It’s something we created.
I’m not sexually attracted to men. I’m not sexually attracted to women. I’m sexually attracted to humans, their minds. Their emotions.
Tonight
Please don’t make me drink it. The force of the syrup slips through my lips, fills my mouth and slithers down my throat. I’m intoxicated by the flavor. I’ve been off the junk for weeks. Months. It’s hard to remember. The days here just bleed into the next. The clocks on the wall are all broken. They’re all stuck on the sixth hour. Lined up in a roll like that. They say that it’s a fiction here. We come here to forget. Some of us don’t even remember why we came.
My memories aren’t so erased. Not yet. The junk spews from every faucet, on every street. A buck fifty will get you the better shit. You thinking that things like this ain’t a big deal.
At the disco, forty-year-old men consort with the eighteen-year-old dancers looking for a good time. Their money isn’t worth shit here. They’ll suck out their souls, leaving behind the husks they’ve allowed themselves to become.
In the corner, the redhead tosses her head back in laughter. She’s seducing. She’s venom. She’s the moon. She’s the sun. She’s young and fishing. I knock back my drink and leave, escaping to the streets. Feeling nothing for the others. Emotions aren’t here. They don’t exist. There is no guilt. Fuck it.
A couple of days longer and this will all be over, anyway. I won’t remember. I’ll be back on the train out of here. Memories erased.
Another Version of the Truth
Here I am. And yet, I’m not.
Chapin City Blues 