Angela (Yellow Dress & Locked Knees)

Angela, I hate being the one to tell you this . . . your mother has cancer. I was standing in the aisle screaming when she approached me with the news. I had a loaded .45 in one hand, and a melting polaroid of a guilty heart in the other. She approached with a brochure discussing cancer treatment options.

Such a sympathetic lover - do you really think I wanted your mother to pity me? For fuck's sake, she is the one who is dying here, not me.


Stephen: "The difference between finding what you love - and loving what you've found - is killing us right now."

Angela: "Then it will always be true - living as one beats dying as two. We both know this can't go on."


I have never told this to anyone, but my life story is split into two parts: before you, and after you. That is how royally fucked up this little situation of ours has become. It is quite amazing, you know, how one person can completely and utterly fuck you up for the rest of your life.

Now all of this history between us is beginning to make sense . . . such a profound and disgusting clarity. About how every relationship since ours has devolved into a state of self-destruction and communication breakdown: It's a desperate attempt at self-fucking-preservation. "My flesh is forming teeth, and I was so fucking close to finally getting things right."

I guess what I am trying to say is this: I know you and me don't have the best history, Angela, and now it seems you are going to hate me even more for what I am about to tell you . . .


Stephen: "The bad news is, I can't hate you any more than I do right now. The good news is you have nothing left to lose."

Angela: "Trust me, I intended to annihilate you in the nicest possible sense of the word."


Your mother made me promise not to tell you - and this is just some bullshit excuse that I am trying to sell you. Eventually you will find out about your mother, and someone will confide in you the simple fact that I knew all along and never said a word. Because as much as I may (have) love(d) you, there is a part of me that wants nothing more than to see the look on your face when you find out the truth. And I can't help but laugh a little to myself at the thought.

In my defense, I was not always the person that I am today. I lay blame on this false heart, and on the words of theives: "The love you withhold will forever be the pain that you carry," they told me.

Liars. I will never fucking speak again.

And yet, even with all of this said, the occasion feels strangely appropriate, given it was a year ago today that . . . well, you know. God and life? No, waitress: It was me there, writhing in someone elses blood and choking on the fingerprints of God.

Goodnight my lady, and a forever farewell. I only hope you never read this.

First And Delilah

This is reality, as desperate as it gets: Rows of houses on a cold summer night. Fogged glass as the city lights blur. Getting lost down the sidestreets of foreign neighbourhoods. Two pairs of eyes, wide-eyed and gleaming, peering through curtains of darkness.

Sitting outside of my apartment, making fun of the neighbours: "See that crinkly? That's Kevin - rusty as fuck, and I don't mean in a good way. The kinda guy you never wanna grow up to be. And that, that's Old Lady Axl, a.k.a. 'The Bitch Next Door.' A real chopsy, the fuckin' dingbat. She has about a millions cats, and her flat smells like a bloody vivisection lab. And on and on . . . "

This is about the hours we spent just talking, too excited and too enamored with the circumstances to take each other's clothes off. This is about trying to find you a pair of pajamas and a toothbruth at 2:30 in the morning. Sitting in the car on a cold summer night, because watching the world go by is so much better than sleeping.

"The city looks so different at night, in the shadow of invisible monsters, the slim and dark phantoms crawling out of our skin."

This is clarity, as passionate as it gets: Listening to bad radio, singing bad songs, writing bad poetry, our laughter fogging the windows even more.

I waited all night, you waited all night, but you left before sunrise, and I just wanted to tell you . . . the sunrise was beautiful. You and me, love, we grew up the same: in the shadows of parking lots, bookstores, and late-night coffee chains. Dancing to bad music, driving bad cars, watching bad T.V.

And for the briefest of moments, it didn't matter where we were from, or why everything was falling apart. It still doesn't, we are all better than the circumstance.

The Little Deaths

Nana's kitchen.
Jackie, Adam, Julia and Stephen.

The cookies on the stove were on fire.
Toxic smoke filling the kitchen.

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones were seeping from my father's old headphones. I was singing along to an old Rise Against song.

(I'm pretty sure the house was on fire at this point.)

I turned my head and Jackie leaned in and kissed me.
I wasn't expecting it and it felt awkward standing there.

"Um, what was that for?"
"No reason."

There was so much I didn't know about you then and I couldn't think of anything else to say. You ended the conversation with a playful shove, a lingering and inviting stare.

I should have considered the implications but the smoke had grown so thick. There was just so much turmoil - we were young, violent and numb, all at once.

And none of it ever amounted up to anything at all.

We were all late for the concert so we quickly collected our things. Nana and Stephen were already standing in the hallway by the door.

Me and Jackie watched silently as they sifted through the ashes, searching for their keys and petticoats. With skin burned thin, eyes charred black, skeletons lay exposed.

"Hello?"
"Hey there pretty boy."
"Who is this?"
"Tegan."
"I was just thinking about you . . . "

And then I woke up.

Hey Donna, I'd love to stay and chat, but all of my worst fears have now come true.

You: "My life is like the worst fucking movie I've ever seen."

I knew you in the way that I knew not to speak, but eventually I felt the need to break the silence.

Me: "Maybe the director's turned on us . . . "

I should really go home and wash my face now, it's completely covered in blood.

I'm Totally Not Down with Rob's Alien

I kept a diary while in eighth grade middle school. I couldn't tell you why really, since I've never considered myself the journal-type: they are way too incriminating if (and when) your enemies manage to get their hands on them. Regardless, there was a time when a younger version of myself jotted down random ideas, short-story plots and philisophical musings on middle-school survivalism.

I specifically remember a short story involving doomsday robots and a semi-automatic colony of retro anthropomorphic goldfish. Another narrative explored the concept of zombie dinosaurs building a time machine and teleporting themselves to present-day Los Angeles, wrecking mad tasty havok upon our sleepy modern-day metropolis. Sweet, I know.

It was also during this time period that I began archiving chemical compounds necessary for the development of pipe bombs and other exotic explosives. This bit of extracurricular chronicling would eventually get me into a world of trouble. That, and an incident involving me, Arturo and a locker full of napalm, but more on that later.

Talking To You And The Intake Of Glass (A.K.A. Hell Is For Heroes Part I)

I saw Lydia riding her bike down the hill this morning on her way to school. In that split second I would have given anything to make myself disappear into thin air.

To be honest I don't remember much of our impending conversation outside of how each syllable burst into flames as it left her pretty pink lips. All I can remember thinking was, "We could build a mansion with our million dollar words."

Words aren't even real. They are simply a man-made conception proven worthless.

She led me by the hand to the gates of our old school, and everyone was already waiting. Into the arms of our comrades, the human wreckage we were once proud to know and love as our best friends. A halo of grinning mouths and azure skies, our words barely audible over the laughter and the screams.

(For the sake of anonymity, I shall list no names. In reference to your own reality, however, you will know exactly who these people are.)

The years did pass, and so did we, but this moment . . . it's not quite right.

"You never meet the same person twice," I warned her, once we had broken away from our audience. "It is physically impossible: The only constant is change."

Lydia reached for a notepad and pulled out a pen from her purse. After a moment of scribbles, she slid me the notepad from across the room. I picked the pad up and opened it, curious as to what it might say.

"It would be safer to converse in writing. Everyone is watching"

Something was not right, and it took me a second to pick up on it: The eyes - they were fucking everywhere. Like thieves peeking through windows, or the way a deaf man can hear a sound in darkness.

Something was definitely wrong. I rewrote my previous sentiment and quickly passed the notepad back to her. After several minutes of frantic writing, Lydia passed me the notepad.

"This is the part where the hopes and dreams that once kept us alive begin to slowly tear us apart. We built these dreams out of splinters and a fistful of scars, armed with the intention of them taking us anywhere but here . . . but this isn't a boat, it's a coffin. The end is coming like a flood, and I don't want to be all alone when these oceans begins to rise."

Words are bastards, in every sense of the word. A part of me wanted to stand up and deny everything Lydia had told me thus far: To call her out as a liar, a condescender, in front of this room full of murderers and queens.

But at the very root of me, I knew she was right.

So instead I remained anchored in my seat, upright and motionless, choking on my tongue.

After a moment of quiet contemplation, I calmly wrote her a response:

"In this part of the story we are the ones who die . . . the only ones."