night of the living coward

“this is what happens”; i don’t want to say this is what happens, but this is what happens. this is what happens; maybe i’m afraid, maybe I’M afraid, it’s too early to say, isn’t it, it’s always too early, it’s never late enough, it never comes time, [because it’s always time], and you never get away, no one ever said “don’t explore too thickly”, what’s the implication…? that you’ll get ensnared…? that you’ll never get out, that you’ll never find the sun again, that you’ll leave with all you have, and eventually, when the collapse comes, when the collapse comes inevitable when the collapse comes, when it comes when it comes when it comes; it’s over. it’s already over. why don’t you quit? why can’t you? it’s already over, it’s already done, you’ve failed in every respect; with respect to him: he’s failed. in every respect. he inherited his past, forfeited his future, and now he’s done. now he’s done. now he’s done, it’s just echopraxis, idle-passive-echopraxia. it’s just rewritten. it’s Memory, it’s Memory dressing you down, it’s faint Memory’s hot breath in your ear, it’s the torque in your brain, letting the chill in. it’s what it did to you. it’s no one’s fault it’s what it did to you, it’s what it did to you to you to you to you; it’s just all over again it’s all over again it’s all over again! and no one why can’t stop and no one why can’t stop and no one why end it all up before over again, end it all up before over again; now you’ve done it, now you’ve done it. complete the path, end the story, put a nice finishing quote up on it, frame the situation, endure the climax, suffer the consequence oh: it’s over - ok: this monster of solitudes finally wilted and caught the bus downtown to procure a girl-boy, or a boy/girl, or whichever happened to be least convenient. the kid with the chemicals: K, x, E, crack or heroin, whatever. i’ll be the first to admit i was looking for a mother substitute. it was suck suck nursing-time in my ugly depths and i was willing to prostitute myself for even a breath of fresh air, without exaggerating, if that tells you anything. my hypothetical pick-up line was something along the lines of, are you obnoxiously drunk enough that you wouldn’t terribly mind if i kissed or held you for a few minutes? what a joke, i am a joke, hahaha. oh no. (parenthetically, i polished off a bottle of yellowtail chardonnay and a good third of stolichnaya vodka before i set out on my way, with a snack of leftover valium here and there.) i wound up in a Club, inexplicably, don’t ask me how; i dared myself to enter, against my better judgment. there i stood, more myself than i can ever remember being, practically inanimate, eyes tightly shut while everyone around me swayed, jived, gyrated, grooved and swooned. i stood absolutely still. took a shot of wild turkey. felt nothing. eventually i was accosted by some skinhead for finishing his beer; he threatened to have his burly partner pummel me into a pulp. screaming in my ear over the cacophony. to this i did not respond. I didn’t do what I normally would have done, which was laugh. I stared into his eyes, my default weapon. Red heat. He let me be. I loitered a little while longer, then left, without regret or a second thought, or even a first thought, truth be told. Security even inquired after my well-being, how charming–seeing my downcast countenance, carcass hunched against a wall, blank stare, barely standing unassisted, half-dead. Oh whatever. i got lost/drunk for four hours; crossed a street where civil servants were digging a ditch. a female police officer motioned me back, i ceded and walked up to her. bitching about “why did i cross the street when the light wasn’t green”. i replied, simply and honestly, that i hadn’t noticed. she sneered and shot back, well, maybe you’ll notice next time you’re smack against a windshield. the unbelievable temerity and unbridled arrogance of cops. i told her to fuck off. “pardon Me?” FUCK YOU. i screamed, and a third time, in case she didn’t get the message. to say the least it touched a nerve. we all have our limits. i almost wished i had brought my knife so i could tear out her throat. people don’t know when to leave well enough alone and this i cannot forgive, regardless; i don’t care what social station they occupy, who they might be–fuck them and their like to the ends of the earth. many a time the thought crossed my mind to capitulate, call it quits, throw up my hands and admit myself to the emergency room of the mental hospital… but the notion was dismissed as summarily as it was entertained. why submit myself to the probing and prodding of incompetent hired goons whose only concern is my immediate docility, the mere abeyance of complaint, complacency at heart; assimilation into the normative and thus Known categories? that is not my problem. enough of that. too drunk to conclude, good night and god damn. - worst nightmare of my life this morning. won’t recount the vulgar details, very mindfuck interruptus. i came to sitting in front of an end-table with a laptop on it, chatting with my ex-fiancee on AIM (not in a million years), before a towering landfill (outdoors). i nearly fall out of my seat, nonplussed, and a bum remarks, “you really shouldn’t be hanging around these parts at an hour like ours.” i pause, too stunned to find my tongue. i finally muster, what city is this? it’s all a slur. he says Detroit. i’m in a dissociative fugue and don’t know anything, or anybody. as if i’m not entitled to properly draw upon the faculty of memory; i can’t make my eyes or tongue work right either (no depth-perception / i can only utter forth labials or noncommittal monosyllables). the alpha male of a pack of junkies waves me on and offers me a line of coke, i kiss some freaked-out girls and take the night bus back to the valley in a … it feels like i haven’t been inside my body in years, that i’m still indefinitely removed, and i repeatedly fail to successfully execute even the most perfunctory of flexes and maneuvers… nothing is distinctly perceptible, it’s all incoherent argument and foreign hum grating on my addled nerves. underneath it all i’m somehow deeply traumatized, but i am not in a position to understand or accept this. i either have no mind or this mind is not mine; it is neither lucid nor obedient and communicates via elaborate hazards… concealed gestures i cannot divine the wherewithal of. i stagger back to my tiny apartment to discover there is a party in full swing, people fucking, people playing cards, etc. i open my fridge and it is full of hard liquor. i then realize i have been on a steady bender for two weeks. Published May 26th, 2020 by Cavity Magazine. Later appears in her book, Ruthless Little Things. “Elizabeth Victoria Aldrich made a twitter account in June 2019 to let people know her porn star girlfriend of seven years was dead after she had to ask someone on Facebook and got broken up with for being a bad influence (porn and coke binges were not her idea but let it be known she was a down-ass bitch) by her not-boyfriend who looks like the doomer meme dude. Now you’re reading something by her. Isn’t life weird?”