Tension and Resistance

Tension and Resistance
Mark Coleman

I can’t jump, cause I’m gyved. Tied down. Pilloried. Overwhelmed by directionless grief. Laid bare with skin taut, and eyes sunk from half a year of insect sleep. I try to move but I’m stuck on a piece of fly paper. The slightest stretch breaks my legs off. I watch the careless frolicking of others. Mandibles twitching, mustache dripping bile. The sunlight in my eyes carrying the daggers to my heart. Stabbing out the signs of life.
The fish hook of depression pierces every segment of my body. I stare at the images flickering out from the television. The idiot parade that composes the soundtrack to this sedentary life. A drop of sweat sitting in the end of the trough cleft of my nose. The skylights pouring vats of molten lead on my head. Burning through the cigarette paper, and dashing the ash across the floor.
The ashtray and highball glass prisms dancing at my side. I shut my eyes, and sink into such a nauseating nose dive that when I surface again; I’m dry heaving. The smoke choked air breathed in gasps. I’m on the brink of hyperventilation. Fingernails dug into the armchair. Every muscle tightening, face red and head throbbing. Every hair on my body like a dew covered blade of grass. My teeth clenched so hard that I’m afraid they’ll shatter.
Then as soon as it comes, it goes. All that remains is the moisture. I sit back, and my hands loosen with the splinters beneath the nails drawing a minutiae of blood. The television making indistinguishable sounds. Someone rolling around in a semi-epileptic fit on the floor with a contraption between their legs. Absurdity overriding any sexual innuendo. The labia rendered moot in the weight loss voodoo rite.
Pouring myself half a glass of scotch, I try to relax. But my episode, and its counter part on the screen, keeps my body tense. I down the scotch, and a bit of cumulus cloud briefly floats over my eyes. My mind swells, impregnated by a few unhealthy thoughts, then retreats and hides in the corner. Refusing to ruminate after the brief storm of suicide apparatus. Unwilling to process the contours of the anti-sex flooding into my living room.
My eyelids flutter, and I reach for the bottle. On auto-pilot now. Everything devoid of any deeper meaning than what’s immediately perceptible on the surface. The illusion of space on the television not even coming through. Just stickmen running around with slices cut out of their pie chart heads. Babbling what one would assume is infomercial speak despite the half day roman numeral that the clock hands rest on. The lock latch clicking away.
I turn my head towards a snapping sound. Staring into the loll tongued eyes of a mouse with its neck broke in the trap that I set a week ago. My mind snaps back into action, overflowing with sights of gibbets and collapsing floors. Fleshing out the room with track mark pores from which nooses dangle and accusing fingers point. The leathery tail hitting the floor in one last death throe. Protesting certainty and pre-determination.
With a sudden lurch I’m out of my chair, over the trap, and at the knife block. I remove the varying lengths and widths buried in its heart. Laying them across the cutting board. Lifting one, then another. Examining each with a pseudo jeweler’s eye. Running my index along the blades to the tip. I feel out the handles, until I find a fit. I take a few deep breaths. Inhaling through dilated nostrils, exhaling through slightly parted lips. I lift it up in the way that I imagine samurais do before committing hara-kiri.
I plunge it to the hilt in my chest. It takes more strength than I’ve exerted in my entire life to break through the sternum. Both hands slip from the bloodied wooden handle as I fall back against the lip of the sink. My knees give out beneath me, and I collapse onto the kitchen floor.
The puddle begins to form about my frame. Rivulets of red branching out between the tiles. Meeting resistance at the trap, it forms a sort of halo that sends out little diamonds of light that are the twinkling of stars here. The only sound that remains is a revving engine in the street. The cable just went out leaving noiseless static in its wake. An ocean of electric mote, blotting out the barren stolidity of a few unconcerned faces.

Xenophobia

Xenophobia
Mark Coleman

She raises and lowers the plunger. Unclogs the syringe over the laundry cluttered back seat of my car. The light goes out of her eyes, and the lids descend. A smile of content just lifting the extreme corners of her lips. I take a swig from my bottle, put it in reverse and then drive. Out across the desert. Lauded by tumble weeds and side winders. Sit out by the drive-in that is just a screen, and a few old stands sauntering up to within fifty feet of it.
Roll down the window, and motion a coyote closer. Hoping that he will except the invitation so I can wring his fucking neck. Wanted nothing more than to not be watched. Besides, there’s a show on. Not some humbug monster movie; it’s more Delmore Schwartz than Ray Harryhausen. I’m a wallflower at a party, just wanting to chain smoke in peace. Found in the back alone, but lost in the hustle and bustle of the crowd.
Someone always wants to drag me into their self indulgent shit. I figure that if I clench my eyes tight enough, maybe I can be left on the waterfront, just once. Let them eddy and tide beyond me. Me spinning soul-ward in a washer that you don’t have to check every other minute. Welcome to crash, but never forced to remain standing, or, worse yet, converse.
I fall down, and my head makes quite a dint in the wall. But I’m up, immediately, protesting against the assaults of the worrisome. Bee-lining for the bathroom. Creating a bandanna out of hard-to-tie toilet paper. Find some hair dye in the cabinet, and try to make it look like some horse shit, artistic, fashion statement. Then with blood running from under my makeshift bandage, try to relocate the bar.
She finds me with a margarita, and the promise of more liquor in her Volvo. I follow her out after downing the drink in T minus. Sit there being nursed on a pint of whiskey, and gagged on the smell of stale perfume. She’s not the crowd type either, so we head back to her place. I walk in expecting nothing. Imagine my surprise than when I’m greeted by a fully stocked bar. It’s like a homecoming party: Jager, Jim, Marie, and Night are the first to greet me. My three beloved brothers, and nurturing, but never smothering, sister. Mother coming over and giving me a suck on her tit.
I can see in her eyes that she needs love. But never having been shown it myself, I’m at a loss. I try to focus on the orgasm on her face, but it’s the best that I can do. Afterwards, I return to the bar, where we drink her offerings sweaty and naked, but unconnected. An unspoken sadness between us. Holding hands, knowing that the other’s as foreign as aboriginal customs.
She makes me feel her heart, but all I know is that her beat is a bit sex exhilarated, otherwise completely normal. She kisses me, but I turn my head so that it’s only on the cheek. Tell her that I have to leave. Makes me promise that I’ll call the number that she’s written on my palm. Dismisses me with a bottle of her best whiskey, and her need to see me again.
I locate my car, run into an old flame that’s wasting away beneath the needle. We hit her connection, and I wait anxiously for her return. I guess maybe the dealer wanted more than a sweaty fistful of short change. When, she comes out with a black and a mean fuck smell to her; I’m sure of it. I peak at her legs, and have to look away.
As we pull out, I find myself wishing there were still dressed to the fives drive-in shows worth necking to. And ratty ones worth hollering at, when you’re all coked out and drunk, with like minded cronies. There’s always that partition between yesterday and today. Grass and all that jazz. Automobiles that could kill you, but lookouts that could make you...believe. It or not, there are a few miracles up life’s sleeves. Even if they’re way, way up there.