Hadag Nahash X Sigmund Freud: Unwanted, But Necessary Relationship Advice

 

Dr. Jody Iron, Principal of Paiten's High School from "My Favorite Magazine"

 

Movie Review: Redemption (SPOILERS and TW for Child Abuse)

MOVIE TITLE: Redemption

RELEASE DATE: 2007

DIRECTOR: Michael Bryson

GENRE: Short Film (22 minutes)

SUBGENRE: Psychological Drama

RATING: Unrated, but contains emotional and physical child abuse

GRADE: A

 

Because the run time is only 22 minutes, it’s impossible to discuss the plot points without crossing into spoiler territory, so if you don’t want spoilers, leave now and read something else.

 

And because this is a short film made by a low-budget indie company, it really does show when they film within their means. The camera work, the editing, the sound quality, yes, it all screams low-budget indie film. Don’t let that factor into your enjoyment when watching this movie. Enjoyment might not be the right word because of how triggering some of the content is, but if you’ve been spoiled by Hollywood movie effects, it’ll be jarring to see something of this quality. The acting, the storyline, and the psychology behind this film more than make up for it.

 

Every actor who played a part in Redemption did their job and did it convincingly. When the mother beats the little girl after a bedwetting accident, you feel the daughter’s pain through her visceral screams and heart-wrenching cries. You feel it all over again when the mother forces her daughter to go outside in public with a diaper on so that everyone can scrutinize her shame. The daughter’s body language, her pouting, her head tucked in her lap, you know she’s going through abuse even without seeing the violence yourself, though including the violence on screen was necessary to drive the point home. You understand that the mother mourns the death of her husband. She’s lost without him, but instead of being there for her daughter, who also lost a father, the mother beats and humiliates her with forced infantilization. Yes, the daughter accidentally distracted her dad and caused him to crash the car and die, but she was a kid being playful, not malicious. The guilt of causing her father’s death compounded with the vengeful abuse from her mother create a cocktail of trauma for her to grow up with. The traumatic events are different for all of us in this life, but nobody makes it out unscathed. The daughter is relatable on some level. That’s why we don’t shame her when she finds a pistol in her mother’s nightstand drawer and shoots her.

 

I have one nitpick about the plot going forward from this point, but it’s not enough to lower my grade. After shooting her abusive mother, the daughter grows up and gets married without any mention of her serving jail time for what she did. Yes, she was in the right, but this movie was filmed in Texas, so I’m assuming the story takes place there, too. The right-wing Texas government doesn’t give a damn about women and girls and will go to any lengths to subjugate them. If the daughter did serve time in jail, it was awfully short and a surprisingly gentle experience that didn’t make her worse. But at the end of the day, there’s a story to tell and it has nothing to do with the Texas prison system. The movie is called Redemption and by God, that’s what we’re going to get.

 

Another nitpick, but it’s one some other audience members might have: the narrator’s voice. Obviously, the story is narrated by the abused girl who grows up into a psychotically traumatized adult. Her voice is nasally, whiny, and subdued. Some audience members might be put off by her voice, but not me. That’s the voice of someone who’s been forced to endure infantilization against her will. That’s the voice of a child who never had the chance to grow up and experience life. And yes, when you experience a significant amount of childhood trauma, it changes your voice. There’s actual science behind that. I’m glad the director chose to tell the story that way, because it makes perfect sense.

 

And then there’s a nitpick that certain members of the diaper community have voiced on the internet that I can’t take seriously: “Uh, why didn’t she just marry a guy with a diaper fetish?” Because that’s not the point of the story! She’s not wearing diapers as an adult to entice her husband. She’s wearing them because they feel familiar, even if that place of familiarity was dark and terrifying. A familiar trauma will always gain favor over the scariness of the unknown. We like familiarity, because it cuts down on anxiety, ironically enough. You could argue that it’s not a man’s job to fix broken women in the same way that it’s not a woman’s job to fix broken men. But her husband loves her for who she is. He married her for a reason. He didn’t get in the relationship specifically to fix her. But when he sees her wearing a diaper and laying on a bed full of crime scene photos, he doesn’t want to judge or laugh. He wants to heal her. He wants to be supportive and help her move on.

 

The movie ends when he tears up a crime scene photo and embraces her, allowing her to shed tears on his strong shoulders. The fact that she was able to maintain a relationship for as long as she did is nothing short of a miracle. That alone is a strong thing for a traumatized woman to do. Now it’s her turn to be taken care of, by someone who actually loves her and won’t punish her for simple mistakes no matter how deadly they turn out to be. The little girl started off in a happy family, then tragedy struck, then she survived abuse, and now she found love again. It’s a psychologically sound story to tell.

 

I wish that all survivors of abuse find their way back to love, in whatever form that may take. It doesn’t have to be through marriage. It could be platonic love. It could be found family rather than blood family. It could be through taking care of a furry friend like a dog or a cat. We do have to break the cycle eventually, but we don’t have to do it alone nor should we. It takes a village to raise a traumatized child. It takes love in all of its forms to get us back on the right path. The daughter could have continued down a violent path. But she didn’t. She broke the cycle. I love stories about breaking the cycle. They’re relatable, they’re hard-hitting, and they remind us over and over again that we’re not alone in this world. Even if you come from a loving family, you can suffer abuse from other people outside of your home. Your parents are not your only influence in life. Whoever influences you the most, for better or worse, may you one day find your redemption and healing. This movie gets an A grade for the acting and story alone. If you want special effects, go to a WWE show, if you can afford it. You might have to dig into your college trust fund to pay for tickets, or sell one of your kidneys. Redemption, on the other hand, is easy to find online if you look hard enough for it. Am I talking about the movie or actual redemption? Yes, I am.

Brett Markoff, Father of the Year from "My Favorite Magazine"

 

I Want My Hobbies Back

VERSE 1

Laying in bed staring into outer space

No life in my eyes, ‘cause the life went to waste

Lips are too heavy to lift for a smile

Haven’t left the bed for a long-ass while

Arm is too weak to give the cat pettings

Only reason to get up is to avoid bedwetting

This would be a hell of a time for a hobby

But my brain is soup, primordial and sloppy

 

VERSE 2

Every song I listen to has an extra singer

One blasting the lyrics, one pointing the fingers

Call me every slur that’s ever been used

By every abuser who was once abused

Every story I write has an extra villain

That genocides my joy, laughs at the killing

Every videogame that I’ve tried to beat

Hit the Game Over screen looped on repeat

 

CHORUS

I want my hobbies back

I feel like I’m on crack

An LSD flashback

A poisoned bottle of Jack

I never touched the drugs

My brain don’t give a fuck

I’m high as hell anyway

Pretty much every day

 

VERSE 3

My dopamine supply is always running dry

Yet I couldn’t get a tear to drop from my eyes

Porn addiction is my only prescription

To medicate myself in this world called hell

Refraction periods are overrated

When a million orgasms leave you sedated

Couldn’t get real sex with my personality

It drained away with my social battery

 

CHORUS X2

I want my hobbies back

I feel like I’m on crack

An LSD flashback

A poisoned bottle of Jack

I never touched the drugs

My brain don’t give a fuck

I’m high as hell anyway

Pretty much every day

 

OUTRO

You couldn’t call it highway robbery

Too fucked up to drive, mental sodomy

All my potential stolen without a reason

Food for thought rotted before it was eaten

I was too threatening to the new world order

Because how dare my heart break for kids dead at the border?!

How dare my soul hurt for children raped by priests?!

How dare I ask for fairness and justice for the weak?!

George Carlin vs. Phil McGraw

 

Mosquitos

You’re buzzing all around me like a mosquito

Feasting on flesh like a microwave burrito

Puking your poison over everything I love

Amythest colors drowned in shit from above

Every insult against me is a secret confession

Yet you yak your ass off like it’s your profession

If you buzz and bite for a long enough time

You buy space in my head for pennies on the dime

Just when I’m ready to stare into the void

Here come more mosquitos to keep me annoyed

There’s not enough bug spray on the planet

To make the army of bastards suddenly vanish

There’s not enough fire to match all my anger

To turn this epic war into an apocalyptic banger

I sleep for the night, no buzzing in my dreams

Then I awaken to see them swarming in teams

Being fucked up in the head is a lifelong job

No vacation days, those are only for slobs

No lunch breaks when I want to eat the rich

No free healthcare, pay for every single stitch

If fighting mental mosquitos is a real vocation

I’m the regional manager of every location

I ain’t the CEO, because I have no control

I ain’t the president, just look at the poll

I’d ask for my flowers, but the bugs like plants

Just keep kicking my ass, I’ll drop my pants

They don’t call it an insect infestation

They call it schizophrenia and call me a patient

The Schizophrenic's Creed

I am a schizophrenic

I didn’t ask to be one

I didn’t choose this life for myself

This life chose me

There are others like me who suffer as I do

But I am more than a statistic

I am a dreamer

I am a survivor

I am a warrior fighting against my past

My traumas are not my fault

I deserve better treatment from the world

Despite knowing this, my schizophrenia is still a part of me

It cannot be gaslit away

It cannot be prayed away

It is a disease just like any other

It’s no different from a fever

It’s a psychological cancer

The reason it exists is to destroy me from within

It has no other purpose

It is a curse I carry until the day I die

Hopefully, that day will come slowly

I have so much to do in this world despite my mind ghosts

I have people to love

I have art to create and consume

I have minds to change and hearts to care for

I do not know this yet and I may never know until it’s too late

But this world is a colder place without me and people like me

The world doesn’t love me, but I love the world

I’ll stay for as long as I can, even when my voices tell me lies

Amen!

I Left My Spoons in Kitsap County

CHORUS

I left my heart in San Francisco

I left my wallet in El Segundo

I left my spoons in Kitsap County

Goddamn, I’m all over the place

VERSE 1

I can trim your hedges, wash your dishes

Do your laundry, cook your fishes

But the minute I turn on my computer

I get back in bed to be a snoozer

They call it Spoon Theory, I believe it

My silverware drawer makes me want to sleep in

More forks and knives in my sensitive skin

Than a sewing cushion that’s covered in pins

CHORUS

I left my heart in San Francisco

I left my wallet in El Segundo

I left my spoons in Kitsap County

Goddamn, I’m all over the place

VERSE 2

Going to war inside my fucked up head

Leaves me wanting the comfort of my bed

Ain’t no peace treaty being signed today

So I take my forks and knives every which way

I went to a rock concert looking like hell

Zoning in and out, but no one could tell

Yet it feels like I’m under a magnifying glass

Eat a bag of popcorn to fatten my ass

CHORUS

I left my heart in San Francisco

I left my wallet in El Segundo

I left my spoons in Kitsap County

Goddamn, I’m all over the place

VERSE 3

I left the venue feeling like Superman

Alive with zeal just like an uber fan

But the real world smacked me in the balls

It was back to the grind and the faceplant fall

I left my spoons in Kitsap County

Every bigot and troll wants to collect my bounty

My own cutlery drawer wants to cut me to pieces

Until the day my heartbeat finally ceases

EXTENDED CHORUS

I left my heart in San Francisco

I left my wallet in El Segundo

I left my spoons in Kitsap County

Goddamn, I’m all over the place

I left my money in Seattle

I left my body somewhere in Tacoma

I left my spoons in Kitsap County

Where the fuck did they go?

Held Down

The dying candlelight in the sky shone through Duane Root’s barred window and sizzled his eyes like bacon and eggs. The tighter he closed them, the more green and purple clouds swirled in his dark vision. The C clamp on his head seemed to crack his skull with how tightly it pushed his brains together. The hairy demonic arms that held him down in his quicksand bed squeezed every last breath of air out of his already exhausted body. What was the point of fighting his self-imposed bondage? What was the point of getting out of bed for a day that was going to end as quickly as it began?

Using what little freedom he had left in his arm, Duane shielded his eyes with his hand and tried to read his obnoxious grandfather clock with blurry vision. He knew he slept long enough to justify a coffin instead of a bed. But when he saw the time read five o’clock at night, he cursed to himself and slumped defeated into his crushing, yet strangely comfortable bed. “I have to go to work tomorrow…I hate work…I should just sleep in again…”

Surrendering to the tightening arms and the bone-snapping head vice would have been the easy way out. Easy was how Duane liked things. What wasn’t easy was the rumbling in his tummy that seemed to drum against his barely visible ribcage. “Jesus Christ…” he muttered into an uncaring universe. “I’d kill for a pizza right now.” With the weakness paralyzing his body, he wished he was the target of his would-be pizza murder. In a way, hunger was a murderer of its own, but its methods were slow and torturous. “What a shitty way to die…”

Duane fought and struggled to free himself from the demonic arms, but it was like losing a wrestling match to a dormant elephant sitting on his already inflamed ribs. He struggled some more, not out of love for life, but out of love for whatever was rotting in his fridge and needed to be eaten. His strength diminished with every tug against the arms. His brains liquefied against the vice grip. It would have been easy to just to give up and only allow his corporate masters to free him for a twelve-hour day of even more torture.

But after a few more squeezes and squirms, Duane freed himself from the monstrous arms, which subsequently crawled by their bladed fingers underneath his box-spring. Duane even managed to rip the vice off of his greasy, partially-bloody hair. Winning that championship wrestling match from hell didn’t take nearly as much out of him as sitting up on his butt. His head swirled like a tornado ripping his synapses apart. He was sure he was about to have a stroke. His stomach even rebelled against him despite not having anything to puke up in the first place.

After a few deep breaths, Duane Root’s equilibrium returned to him and his stomach calmed down. The green and purple eye fog blew away in these mini-breezes from his lungs. He could see again. But what he saw drained all hope from his already sloppy brain. The sun was descending underneath the horizon. The cobwebs in the corners of his room accumulated. The sticky floor clung to his naked feet with every step he took. His pajama pants and dirt-covered Pearl Jam shirt could have put him back to sleep with how musty they smelled.

The way Duane walked across his bedroom floor reflected how exhausted he was by everything around him. It was a zombie crawl on two legs. It was death being propped up with skinny twigs. It was an act of self-mutilation just to take another step out into the kitchen. But step into the kitchen he did. In case climbing one mountain of filth wasn’t enough, the mountain got even taller when he saw how many dishes were piled up in his sink. The demonic worms crawled across them, eating away at crusted egg stains and snickering at him with rancid food between their bladed teeth.

“Okay, Duane, you can do this…right?” There may have been a microsecond when he was capable, but when he turned on the faucet and saw that green slime poured out, he sighed and hunched over as though nothing he did had a point to it. He languidly nudged the faucet while the demon worms bathed and chugged at the viscous goo.

“I don’t need dishes anyways. I’ll just eat with my hands, I don’t give a shit.” He opened the fridge and gazed at the options with despair and anguish. There was a bucket of Kentucky Fried Tarantulas that needed to be finished. There was a McBlowfish sandwich that started to grow mushrooms. There was a Snickers bar that looked like it was birthed out of an ogre’s ass. And to drink he had a bottle of beer that looked like a dragon pissed in it or a jug of milk that deserved its own funeral.

“Fuck!” screamed Duane with a scratchy throat as he slammed the refrigerator door shut and slumped down to his butt. He tucked his head in his hands and allowed them to collect his greasy tears. “I just…I just…I just want life to be fun again…I want to actually want to live…I want my friends back…I want my mom back…I don’t want to live here anymore…I hate this place…”

“There, there, now,” said a ghostly voice, following up with a pat on Duane’s shoulder. He didn’t bother looking up to see who it was, but like everyone told him before, it was all in his head, right? “How can I put this in a way that even you can understand? I know!” The ghostly voice coughed less like it was clearing its throat and more like it was trying to vomit himself inside out. Duane still didn’t pick his head up. “If it makes you feel any better…other people have it worse than you do.”

“Fuck you…”

“It’s true, Duane. At least you have food in your fridge. A child in Africa can’t say the same. Neither can any woman in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. There’s more to life than just your sadness. There’s more to the world than the little microcosm you’ve fashioned for yourself. Just pick your head up and smile for a change. Nobody ever got anything done by frowning all the time and being miserable.”

Duane finally picked his head up and saw nobody there. He shrugged his aching shoulders and took the advice to smile…but his headache from the earlier vice grip made that a painful task. Smiling wasn’t the only thing that was painful. So was contrasting his plight to children in Africa or women in the Middle East. Everything was painful to Duane. Every twitch of his finger. Every step across the sticky floor. Every breath he took just sucked the wind out of him some more. “I…I want life to be fun again…” The gulf couldn’t be wider between what he wanted and what he would get.

He took a few more agonized breaths, but this time with anger shielding him from stomach pain. He grabbed the refrigerator door handle to pull himself to his wobbly legs. He looked at the world around him and hated everything in it. His fists clenched painfully as he wanted to destroy everything in his sight. He wanted to smash the worms. He wanted to throw the faucet slime against his windows. He wanted to tip the refrigerator over and stomp on his disgusting food. But just imagining these things sent more shockwaves of pain through his body…and just like that his rage devolved into more tears.

“Why does everything have to suck so much?” he asked the apathetic void. “I want life to be fun again!” But if it couldn’t be, he would rip open his silverware drawer and look for any weapon he could find. A knife? A fork? An even bigger knife that had demon worms crawling all over it? A wooden soup spoon that had its edges eaten off, probably by the aforementioned demon worms?

Duane shuffled his hand through the drawer and pulled out anything and everything that could help him. The sharpest objects he could find were not sharp enough. He needed something strong. He needed something that could cut through misery as through it were butter. He needed…a secret key?

He pulled the key out and stared at it with confusion. Was it supposed to start his car? Was it supposed to lock his house? It was too small to be either of those things. He then rushed to the bathroom, sticky floor pounding against his heels like war drums. He ignored the demon worms crawling on his walls and unlocked the medicine cabinet. Surely, these pills would be more effective than a sharp knife. Less blood, that was for sure. He rifled through the pills. Immodium? Asprin? Tylenol? No. An orange bottle with a barely readable label.

Duane opened it with shaky hands and poured a few tablets onto the sink. He turned on the faucet and more green slime poured out, but he didn’t care. He filled his coffee-stained glass with it and used it to swallow the pills he laid out. Strangely enough, the green slime…tasted like regular water. The demon worms were just mediocre wall paper designs. The floor was just sticky because he spilled food on it days prior.

“I did it…I remembered to take them…” In a microcosm full of darkness and horror, these pills couldn’t be confused for Hocus Pocus or black magic. They were antidepressants. He forgot to take them over the past few days. He was so wrapped up thinking his microcosm was the shittiest place on earth that taking his medicine just…slipped his mind. It was a mind that was no longer sloshing around in his head like moldy Jello. And when he returned to his bedroom, the hairy demonic arms were just an afghan that his mother gave him. The quicksand was just broken foam.

Upon clearing out his fucked up head, he remembered another phrase that no ghostly voice would ever tell him: “One day at a time.” It made perfect sense. He didn’t have to do everything at once. The cobwebs could wait another day. The dirty dishes weren’t going anywhere. Tomorrow was a work day, one that would likely be stressful enough to make him forget to take his pills again. But then again…”One day at a time.” And then Duane plopped down on his mother’s afghan, breathing sighs of relief that didn’t feel like punches to his gut.

“You got this, Duane...just go to work tomorrow…and figure out everything later…You can do this…”

“No, you can’t!” said the ghostly voice, which was greeted with a middle finger from the man it tormented.

Fun Guy

VERSE 1

I dance like I’m in a pool that someone dropped a toaster in

I can’t do keg stands or I’ll throw up in the garbage bin

I can’t do the things that will make you confess your sins

To the preacher man when your Sunday morning begins

I haven’t smiled a day since the Reagan administration

I haven’t made love since computer masturbation

The only songs that play for me would bring tears to others’ eyes

And wouldn’t you know it, it’s been so long since I’ve cried

CHORUS 1

I can’t be a fun guy

When serotonin runs dry

Can’t be a party animal

When I sink like a cannonball

Can’t be a fun guy

Can’t be a fun guy

Fun guy, fun guy

Fun guy, fun guy

VERSE 2

You say you’re leaving my side because I bring you down so much

You say I’m on the edge of giving myself the finishing touch

You say you need a guy who has a million in change and isn’t so strange

You say you need a guy who doesn’t come off as sad and deranged

I say don’t let the door hit you on the ass when you leave

A half-hour friendship was a lifetime filled with being deceived

I wish you well and let me tell you one thing right before you go

My depression and rejection are less than one percent of what you know

CHORUS 1

I can’t be a fun guy

When serotonin runs dry

Can’t be a party animal

When I sink like a cannonball

Can’t be a fun guy

Can’t be a fun guy

Fun guy, fun guy

Fun guy, fun guy

BRIDGE X2

I didn’t choose the darkness

The darkness chose me

I could have been a fun guy

If not for fucked up brain chemistry

CHORUS 2

I can’t be a fun guy

When serotonin runs dry

Can’t be a party animal

When I sink like a cannonball

It ain’t fun for me either

When someone else is the leader

Grabbing me by the throat

Use my blood to write a special note

Can’t be a fun guy

Can’t be a fun guy

Fun guy, fun guy

Fun guy! Fun guy!

Make It Stop

It seemed like the world’s cruelest April Fools joke to live every day in a place like Meat Grinder City…except April Fools wasn’t just limited to one day of the year. At least the flames around the buildings and streets weren’t as tall as they once were. At least the sausage puppets walked normally down the sidewalks instead of jiggling around like lynched corpses. 

When their cyclopean eyes popping out of their mouths gazed harshly into Joel Upton’s soul, the sensation was only mildly chilling across his already sour stomach. He pulled the hood up on his thick rain jacket and tried not to draw too much attention to himself. Then again, he was already under this unforgiving city’s microscope as someone with no permanent residence outside of a garbage dumpster here and there. The smell wouldn’t come off no matter how hard it rained.

It wasn’t the sausage puppets walking past him that set Joel Upton’s brain on fire. It wasn’t the smaller-by-comparison fires that jolted his brain like a paper clip in a light socket. It was that laugh. That deep, throaty, horny laugh from behind that caused his heart to pump intolerably fast. The only breaths Joel could muster reeked of dumpster residue and rancid ashes. He slowly turned around and his worst tormenter towered over him as though Joel was dog shit underneath somebody’s shoe.

He almost snapped his own neck in half just to gaze upwards into the heartless eyes of Chainsaw Fist, a bulky, piss-stinking ogre with a metal jaw, an apron covered in blood, a necklace pieced together with skulls and intestines, and of course, a chainsaw/drill combination that just had to constantly be on fire in order to solidify the overkill of Meat Grinder City.

“Make it stop,” Joel whimpered. “Somebody please make it stop…”

Chainsaw Fist bellowed so hard that his garbage breath almost bowled his victim over. “Nobody’s going to make it stop, you weak little piss stain! Your writing career was a joke from the start! Nobody loves you, not even your own family! Why don’t you just quit like a little bitch!” He revved his flaming chainsaw. “I will make you tap out one way or another, you slimy sack of whale shit!”

Joel didn’t even have time to react before Chainsaw Fist tackled him to the ground and drilled his weapon into his victim’s gut, releasing a tidal wave of blood and spiritual energy. The sausage puppets drank the vile fluids like dogs lapping up garden hose water. The volcano of blood just wouldn’t stop. It kept exploding and destroying everything in its path. The spirits flying out of that festering wound laughed at Joel the entire time. And then…

“You’re weird,” said a little girl holding onto her father’s hand. The father mildly reprimanded her before the two of them left a writhing and screaming Joel to his devices. And just like that, Meat Grinder City was Seattle. Ordinary, urban Seattle with rainy weather, urban sprawl, and non-sausage puppet citizens wondering what the hell was wrong with Joel.

Having snapped back to reality, Joel rolled over onto his knees and frantically searched his raincoat, pulling a broken needle out of his breast pocket. “No…no, no, no…” he whined to himself. “I need more…where is that goddamn pharmacy?” He searched his coat again, this time for money, but all he could muster up were a few pennies and some broken lug nuts. “Make it stop…just someone please make it stop…”

The rain came down so hard upon Joel’s back that he flinched in pain. And there was his answer: they weren’t rain drops. They were scorpion tails. “Not again.” Scorpion tails continued to pound and stab him before he was thrust right back into Meat Grinder City, the flames around the buildings bursting sky high while the cutest of cute kids jiggled around like the sausage puppets they really were.

A familiar beefy hand pulled back Joel’s hood and slashed his skull open, laughing like a demonic pervert yet again. Once his brain was exposed for the whole world to see, the scorpion tails morphed into little gray kobolds with blade-like fingernails and childish cackles. They laughed and hee-hawed as they jumped into Joel’s head wound and started bouncing around behind his face. The headache was so intense that he covered his eyes out of fear of them popping out. They did anyways, but not without snake tentacles holding them in their mouths.

“Give up your career, you waste of shit and piss!” Chainsaw Fist roared. “This world hates you! Hell doesn’t want you! Heaven is disgusted by you! You’re a fuck-up of the very worst kind! You deserve to die like the pile of diarrhea that you are!”

“STOP IT! LEAVE ME ALONE! MAKE IT STOP!” Joel screeched, holding his aching head while the snakes and kobolds partied in his brain.

“You want to quit, you little bastard! Do you want to quit! Then quit like the little bitch baby you are! Tap out!”

The kobolds, sausage puppets, snakes, and Chainsaw Fist himself formed a circle around Joel and chanted for him to quit. The flames of Meat Grinder City grew to their maximum limit and caused Joel to suffocate on the ashes. Chainsaw Fist continued to slash and murder his lone victim. The kobolds made incoherent jokes about his suffering and laughed like hyenas on crack.

“…I quit…”

“I’m sorry, what was that? What did you say, you little cum guzzler?!”

“I QUIT! I QUIT, I QUIT, I QUIT!”

Joel’s broken body could finally relax even though he ached literally everywhere, even in places outside of his flesh suit.

“Wow…you really are pathetic, Joel. You really are the weakest bastard I’ve ever met. Let’s go, quitter!” Chainsaw Fist wrapped his intestinal necklace around Joel’s throat and dragged his exhaustively bloody body across the ashen cement. He was too destroyed to care. He had lived in Meat Grinder City for far too long. There were several moments during his homelessness where he could have quit. He wanted to believe there was still life left in him. But if there was, he’d put up at least a little bit of a struggle against his worst critic.

“You can’t quit mental illness, Mr. Upton,” said a throaty, yet gentle voice that belonged to a hairy demon with spikes all over his body. The room Joel found himself in was still covered in flames. But these were warm flames that glowed like an outdoor campfire. They hurt like hell. They burned down the last of his brain cells. But even in Meat Grinder City’s loneliest prison cell, Joel knew he could relax.

Then again, he had no choice since he was chained to a wooden table. He also had his head shaved and a metal helmet strapped to his naked scalp. The furry demon used his talon to jot down a few notes in his wizard’s spell book. “You probably don’t believe me right now, but this is the safest place you can be. The streets should be nobody’s home.”

Entering the prison cell were three porcelain mannequins, all of which had snakes growing out of their heads. One of them had muscles etched into his torso, another had the feminine features of a Greek goddess, and the third was a child no taller than an average human’s waist. The woman’s sweet voice struck a familiar chord with Joel. “Everything will be okay, honey. We still love you.”

Tears welled up in Joel’s already bloodshot and battered eyes. “Wendy? Is that you?” The face of the woman he fell in love with all those years ago formed behind her gorgon façade. And then the face of his daughter broke free from porcelain permanence. But who was this strange man who accompanied them?

Wendy held Joel’s hand while the snakes in her hair smiled at him. “You’ve been gone for so long ever since you had your breakdown. We never forgot about you. Yes, I have remarried, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you anymore. I was so worried about you. Our daughter had nightmares.” The snakes wrapped around Joel for a hug. And then the daughter’s snakes wrapped around his legs. And the new husband’s snakes gave him the warmest grins.

“Wendy…I’m so sorry I didn’t seek help earlier. I didn’t want to quit what I poured my heart into for so long. I was so obsessed that it drove me insane…All I had to do was quit…”

“You don’t have to be strong anymore,” said Wendy with tears in her own eyes. “It’s okay to quit when you’re feeling overwhelmed. Nobody’s ashamed of you.”

“But what about those jerks on the street who laughed at me?” asked Joel through a stuffy nose.

“Fuck ‘em” said the new husband, which earned a round of laughter from everybody in the room.

Wendy and the daughter broke their embraces. The gorgon mother of his child said, “We’ll visit you for as long as we need to. If you need anything, we’re always a skip and a hop away.” She kissed her palm and waved goodbye, the daughter waving as well while the husband gave a thumbs up.

Joel’s tears accumulated as he watched his old family walk away, leaving the hair-covered demon doctor to do his duty. He pulled a snake fang out of his fur and attached it to a miniature spinning chainsaw. “You desperately need a vacation from your mind, Mr. Upton. And when you awaken, we can try some cognitive behavioral therapy. But for now…relax…and enjoy the darkness…”

Joel didn’t even try to fight the injection into his arm despite the fact that the needle resembled Chainsaw Fist’s favorite toy. Fire and poison flowed through his body, but they were just formalities to a much-needed vacation from a schizophrenic mind. He switched between Meat Grinder City and the psychiatric ward of the Seattle hospital while simultaneously drifting off into sleep. The furry monster became a friendly old man before morphing back into his nightmarish form. 

Back…and forth…back…and forth…the transformations resembled the motion of a baby in his mother’s arms…back…and forth…back…and forth…until darkness and snoring were all that remained of Meat Grinder City. Joel’s snoring did sound like a revving chainsaw, but that nasty ogre was nowhere to be found in such a black void of relaxation. No dreams. No hallucinations. Just hours of nothing. Getting lost in the nothing was a better vacation than Hawaiian beaches or Canadian architecture, both of which would have burst into flames anyways.

A Brief History of Honey Valley

“Honey Valley isn’t known for its bee population.”

Throughout the history of the former dwarven lands, that joke had been beaten to death almost as badly as the soldiers who fought over control of said lands. The younger inhabitants see the word honey and instantly think of elven sex slavery, which in a perverse way had become Honey Valley’s national product. But the bloody roots of the dwarven island run much deeper than a shallow night of adult fun time. Conquest is the word of the day, and the many days after that if history seemed intent on repeating itself.

In the early days of its inception, five hundred years ago to be exact, Honey Valley didn’t even have a name. If it did, it wasn’t kept in any public records. It was simply referred to as the home island of the dwarven culture. The dwarves were labeled as savages by anybody with no knowledge of tribal culture. The dwarves made ends meet by farming and hunting for food, not generally bothering anybody. One of their favorite crops to farm was coffee beans, which they would combine with caramel to make the perfect caffeinated drink, enjoyed by mostly chiefs and other warriors higher on the pecking order.

During the course of this farming for coffee, a poisonous plant was accidentally mixed in with the ground beans and the drink was subsequently consumed by one tribal chief in particular. Instead of killing him outright, the poisonous plant turned him into a psychotic monster capable of ravaging large numbers of his own population. His skin turned bright red, his muscles bulged to the size of cannonballs, his fangs and fingernails grew into sword-like weapons, but it was his aggression that became synonymous with his genocidal tendencies.

As the poisoned chief slaughtered his own kind, more dwarves became infected with his brain-altering disease. This went on for several years until the entire dwarven population was cannibalizing each other. When they got too feral for each other, they swam across the sea to the mainland looking for victims to dine on. The dwarves were so powerful that they couldn’t be fought off by ordinary soldiers and civilians; they could only be negotiated with once the poison tapered off.

In exchange for the dwarves not invading their lands, several kingdoms offered to donate prisoners to the island whether they were deserving of a death sentence or not. This arrangement continued for several years until the prison population exceeded the rabid dwarves’ appetites. Among those imprisoned on the island was a green-skinned woman named Ryoka, who is believed to be the first “elf” in the history of the world.

The greenish hue, pointy ears, and funky-colored eyes were believed to be part of a rare auto-immune disease Ryoka had. As a result of her strange appearance, she was bullied by her peers to the point where she couldn’t find work and ultimately lived on the streets. Her official imprisonment came when she appeared to conjure magic and set one of her tormentors on fire. Ryoka went on a killing spree against those who wronged her until she was caught and sent to the dwarven island along with several other dangerous prisoners.

In addition to Ryoka, an elite human warrior known as Thomas Xavier joined the roster that would be known for driving the dwarven population underground, never to be seen again. The kingdoms got greedy with their prison exiles and sent too many fighters over to the island. Now that the humans and Ryoka were the supreme masters of what would later be called Honey Valley, they started forging their own alliances and building their own towns and kingdoms. The northern territory belonged to the Atwood lineage, Atwood being a literal name for living near the forest. The central territory was home to the Shadow Asylum mercenary guild, a longstanding organization headed by the ultra-rich Rinehart family.

Ryoka and Thomas Xavier found their own paradise in the southern portion of the island, a forested area with a lovely beach at the tip. Because of the threat of the infection keeping the northern, central, and southern territories isolated from each other, Ryoka and Thomas had enough alone time together to forge a romantic relationship and begin the Xavier bloodline. Several generations of isolation has led to a growth period of the elven race, to the point where their magic usage was becoming too much of a threat to the northern and middle territories.

The official start of human racism towards elves began when an elven boy accidentally set Morgan Town on fire with too little control over his own magical powers. An overabundance of magical energy swirling around wasn’t uncommon in those days and ultimately the Morgan Town government and Atwood monarchy teamed up together to keep the elves under control. Generations of brainwashing, beatings, and enslavement of elves were done to ensure no more accidents would happen and that magic would be completely erased from the elven culture. The xenophobia was bad enough, but when the disenfranchisement of elves became a business, that would be how the new generation of prisoners would negotiate with the mainland.

The newly minted Honey Valley was now in good standing with the mainland kingdoms with elven slave trade becoming lucrative. Slavery was even used to rebuild Morgan Town and refurnish the northern and middle territories with technology unheard of at the time. As traumatizing as the slave trade was for elves, they would get their well-deserved reprieve from their nightmares in the form of a “lion god” they dubbed Mageta.

To this day, the elves don’t know if Mageta was an actual lion who succumbed to the dwarves’ infection or if it was a powerful elf who wore the skin of a lion. Either way, this lion god would prove instrumental in keeping the elves safe for a long enough time that they could get back on their feet again. By the time Mageta was hunted and killed by slave trading warriors, the elves were powerful enough that they could forge their own empire with the recuperation time they were given.

The elves were so grateful for Mageta’s help that they built an entire religion around him, which is still practiced to this day. Because actual history was lost in the elven/human conflict, most of the mythology surrounding this religion was crafted by creative minds. Storytellers, artists, and poets came together to give the elven race their epic Magetan tale, which is why many elves are regarded as being creative types. But with this creative prowess, there was still a need for the elves to defend themselves against the humans that hated them so much. Many Magetan zealots became soldiers hardened by combat and rigorous training. While elves are seen as being overly sensitive, the trauma they hold deep is just waiting to be unleashed on a xenophobic human waiting to strike.

Just as the southern elves began a quest to find their missing brethren who were lost to the slave exchange, another force emerged in the form of a mobile castle run by the Stonewall Kingdom. The knights were sent to investigate the happenings of Honey Valley, but they were short on manpower due to some of their own soldiers and citizens being caught up in the slave trade despite not being elves. Without the support of their superiors, the Stonewall Kingdom had no choice but to throw money at Shadow Asylum since they had no loyalty to any crown.

The current Queen of the Xavier bloodline, Llewellyn, wants to secure a trade deal with the current Stonewall King, Lars, since his mobile castle brought so much technology with it that the elves could use for farming and rebuilding. While Lars and Llewellyn have the same goal in mind of eliminating the slave trade forever, they are two different rulers with a lack of real communication between them.

And now here we are in the year 500 PM (Post-Mageta). The table is set for all out war among the different kingdoms and territories. The Atwood monarchy seems intent on expanding its power and not giving up any sliver of it to the other territories. Shadow Asylum wants to maximize profit and grow fat together off of their earnings. The Xavier and Stonewall monarchies want to put an end to generations of torment and anguish, which all began with the bullying of a green-skinned woman with pointy ears. Who will survive?

Somewhere beneath the surface are the dwarves who have not been heard from since the takeover of the mainland prisoners. Will they rise again? Will they take back their island and erase the Honey Valley name forever? If the threat is not real, then the paranoia is.

Love Me Back

CHORUS

I could fall in love with life

Life won’t love me back

It’s not a girlfriend or a wife

There’s way too much to unpack

VERSE 1

I could put everything I’ve got

Into this passion that I call mine

But passionate is what I’m not

I guess I’ll settle for just fine

Not enough energy to carry on

Life is better under the blanket

The social contract is just a con

Lowest of lows if you want to rank it

CHORUS

I could fall in love with life

Life won’t love me back

It’s not a girlfriend or a wife

There’s way too much to unpack

VERSE 2

I used to believe in meritocracy

Until they slammed the door in my face

I used to think life was a democracy

Until my vote was stuck in last place

And now I ask myself what’s the point

When the world has forgotten about me

Always been destined to disappoint

The machine pumps along without me

BRIDGE

You could call it a case of apathy

You could call it laziness if that’s better

I don’t know why you’re asking me

Take it up with the real trendsetters

EXTENDED CHORUS

I could fall in love with life

Life won’t love me back

It’s not a girlfriend or a wife

There’s way too much to unpack

I could fall in love with nothing at all

But the abyss won’t love me in return

It’s not a shelter with a roof and walls

It’s an underworld in which I burn

Stop

Holiday season

A good reason to sleep in

Fever dream demons

STOP!

Tell me I’m no good

In case it’s misunderstood

Quit because I should

STOP!

Play the same damn song

Like it’s ninety minutes long

Hangover’s so strong

STOP!

“What’s the matter, dude?

Don’t be such a little prude

Have some more fast food”

STOP!

“We ain’t stopping soon

We can do this until June

Happy Birthday, loon”

STOP!

I have no more words

For the ones who give me burns

None of your concern

…Stop…

It’s called thought-stopping

My blood pressure is dropping

Brain isn’t popping

…

I can breathe again

No longer have to defend

Round came to an end

…

Until the next time

When you mock my little rhymes

Tell me I should die

…Stop…

Never-ending war

Everything becomes a chore

No choice but to snore

…Stop…

Limerence

“…”

Do you hear that? That is the sound of absolutely nobody being shocked by the news that I experience limerence on a daily basis. It is a condition defined as obsessively imagining romance with someone I have a crush on. Cigarettes taste like shit. Alcohol tastes like an entire outhouse. Heroin and cocaine are even worse for the brain than those two things put together. Limerence is my drug of choice because it costs nothing and it helps me cope with the stresses of life, whether it’s the pandemic blues or schizophrenia eating me alive long before that. Instead of traumatic memories, limerence gives me lovey-dovey scenarios to think about. One of these things is not like the other. A night of laying my head in a woman’s lap while she strokes my hair is very much preferable over reliving every insult that’s ever been said to me.

Who am I currently experiencing limerence for? A lot of women, not just one or two. I feel much more comfortable saying the names of super-famous celebrities than I do of You Tubers and people I know online. Celebrities don’t have time to read my social media posts whereas a You Tuber will know exactly who I am and will hit that block button with cat-like reflexes. To be fair to the You Tubers, how would you feel if you learned that a three hundred pound man who lives with his parents and is currently unemployed thought of you in an obsessively romantic way? While beauty is always in the eye of the beholder, I have a feeling it would be creepy no matter who I was. I could have flowing blond locks and abs that would make a great bulletproof vest. I could be a billionaire who cheats on my taxes, but never on my limerent object. It would still be creepy as fuck.

But what about the celebrities who have no time for me? What about the fictional characters who will never be offended by my romantic thoughts because they’re not even real? Well, that depends on what time period you’re talking about. In the late 90’s, it was Cammy White from Super Street Fighter II. In the mid 2000’s, it was Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. For the rest of the 2000’s, it was Tarja Turunen, the ex-lead singer from Nightwish. In 2018, it was Sarah-Jane Redmond, the actress who played Lucy Butler from Millennium. In the present day, it’s a bunch of lovely You Tubers whose names will go unchecked due to the fact that they might be reading this.

I’m sure none of you want to Google the names I did mentioned. After all, I’m supposed to be showing instead of telling when I write these nonfiction pieces. But there are many common threads among the women I’ve named and haven’t named. They’re beautiful, of course, but not just physically. They have something about them that keeps my limerent mind coming back for more. It could be the intelligence of political discourse, giving safe spaces and love in equal measures. It could be the wisdom of passionate fairytale storytelling, the paladin conquering the ogre and the dragons protecting the elven kingdoms. It could be the talent of singing like an angel from heaven itself, turning the phone book into sensual lyrics. It could be the strength of a warrior who will protect and mother any man she falls in love with. It could be the uncanny knack of seducing men just by being themselves, declaring love and giving kisses to calm the most nervous of men.

Anybody can be physically attractive. Anybody can have ruby red lips that taste like cherry pie, skin that’s soft and arousing to the touch, and hair that when stroked would leave both of your scalps tingling with pleasure. But if someone is physically attractive whilst being a shallow jerk, then that’s a huge turn-off. Nicole Arbour is physically attractive, but because of her fat-shaming rhetoric (“sweating Crisco” and “being unhealthy”), abusive behavior towards past boyfriends (punching faces and isolation from friends and family), and right-wing ignorance (white victimhood and minority bashing), she angers instead of seduces.

Another common thread among my limerent women is that none of my romantic fantasies about them have ever turned sexual. I would never want to taint them in that way. So instead, I imagine them squeezing my shoulders in a relaxing massage, sending tingles throughout my body. I imagine laying my head in their lap while they play with my hair, sending even more tingles throughout my body. I would do the same for them occasionally and earn a few swooning moans. I imagine giving them foot massages that make them close their eyes and drift off into dreamland, probably dreaming about being fed strawberries and cream like a goddess. I imagine laying in bed next to them, not for sex, but for the warmth of cuddling and the peacefulness of sleep. We could even have “A Pillow of Winds” by Pink Floyd playing in the background to accentuate this moment of love. 

These fantasies are especially important to me during moments of sadness and schizophrenic torment. Who wouldn’t want Chun Li from Street Fighter II squeezing their shoulders and lifting them up from a pit of despair? Mild, inoffensive touching at its finest. We could even hold hands together while walking through the desolate streets of either Port Orchard or Seattle. The warmth of her hand and the softness of her fingers would definitely feel good to me when I’m nervous at night. Of course, I would still be nervous about this beautiful lady wanting anything to do with me, but it’s not the same as feeling the danger of Seattle’s cyberpunk atmosphere.

I held off on talking about this topic as long as I could. I’ve already mentioned not wanting to gross anybody out with my lovey-dovey thoughts. But more importantly than that, I didn’t want to be written off as a whiny incel. For all intents and purposes, someone like me would fit in nicely with that clique. I’m overweight, a shy virgin, unemployed, and a lifelong tenant with my parents. I check all the boxes except for one: I’m not a misogynist who believes I’m entitled to free sex. Women owe me absolutely nothing. If they like me, fine. If not, then there’s nothing I can do about it. I certainly would never go on a shooting spree at a lingerie store or yoga studio. I wouldn’t run over random pedestrians with a van over my inability to be attractive. That’s just a LITTLE extreme, in my opinion.

Sometimes limerence is only a fantasy that will never come true. Sometimes we have to accept that we’re not right for everyone. Not everybody deserves a lifetime of cuddling and hot sex with Wonder Woman. Not everybody deserves a shoulder massage and passionate kisses from Tifa Lockhart. And you know what? That’s okay. If we got whatever we wanted all day every day, life would be boring as hell. There’d be no excitement or realism. If everybody is sexy, nobody is sexy. If everything is romantic, nothing is romantic. All the good things in life will come in moderation, which seems cliché to say until you do take it to the extreme and completely fuck up your life because of it. You hear that, Jake Davison? Of course you don’t, because you’re dead.

So why do I have limerent fantasies about people I don’t stand a chance with? Wouldn’t it be easier just for me to go out and meet somebody, pandemic aside? Well, that’s where the shyness and lack of confidence comes in. I don’t enjoy being creepy and I can see if me flirting with a woman would be perceived that way, no matter how mild or harmless it may seem. Being rejected by someone who thinks I’m creepy sounds like the worst kind of pain there is. It’s actually been scientifically proven that romantic rejection activates the same receptors of the brain as physical pain. It’s not as easy as moving onto the next one. It hurts. It can hurt for weeks, months, even years, especially if you’re like me and you’re neurodivergent. Autistic people generally feel pain at a higher capacity than neurotypicals. Criticism and rejection are both necessary parts of life, but goddamn, do they hurt worse than getting kicked in the testicles.

So what do I do about this? Stay in the shadows and partake in the drug known as limerence, of course. What else would I do? Why bother with someone who’s guaranteed to hate me when I’ve got Anette Olzon scratching her nails down my back and setting off my ASMR triggers? Why put myself through unnecessary pain when I’ve got Amy Lee slow-dancing with me at the prom, whispering sweetness in my ear and kissing my cheeks while doing so? Not a tough decision, as you can see. While loneliness may suck and limerence will always be fake, it beats the emotional trauma of rejection any day of the week. This makes me sound like an incel, I’m sure, but mark my words: I despise that ideology and want nothing to do with people who conform to that label. Maybe I’m not that creepy after all? Nah! Of course I am! Lzzy Hale, here I come! What flavor of ice cream sandwich do you want: vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, or all three at once?

Mass Transit

 The idea of chowing down on a Hawaiian pizza and BBQ chicken wings made Reese Lee’s mouth water. But in this Peter Pan bus station, it was only an idea and nothing more. It was something that would have to wait until she made it back to her college town. Considering that breathing air in this bus station was worse for the mouth and nose than giving a rim job to someone with a stomach virus, even the idea of getting potato chips from the vending machine was a taboo.

All she could do was sit cross-legged in a chair (preferably one without bubblegum stuck to it) and study for her final exams. Burying her nose in her text book was more appealing than allowing body odor and cigarette smoke to melt her face off like acid. It was even more appealing with new age music blasting in her headphones while she kept her hoodie up. Everything about her screamed “Do Not Disturb”. But who was listening? Certainly not the other patrons.

There they were milling all around the station waiting for their respective buses to take them to their destinations. Some of them had long greasy hair that hadn’t been washed since the Obama administration. Some of them burped loudly enough to jolt Reese out of her studying trance. A scraggly old man in a trench coat puked on the floor, the puddle resembling a prehistoric tar pit. A weary-eyed mother sat on the floor and attempted to rock her crying baby to sleep. A man in overalls and a MAGA hat lit up a cigarette and puffed like a diesel train.

This isn’t worth it…none of this is worth it, Reese thought to herself as she tightened the draw string on her hoodie. No matter how many times she pored over various psychological terms in her textbook like Gestalt and Jungian, they wouldn’t stick in her overcrowded mind. Her brain felt as though it had Novocain smeared all over it. Her eyes watered from the intense smells. Her jaw clamped down so tightly that she was getting a headache. She could just as easily step outside for fresh air, but that would mean potentially missing her bus back to college.

Then again, it might not have been a bad outcome considering that a man a greasy leather jacket marched up to her reeking of alcohol and trash. “Ten-HUT!” he shouted. “The purple monkeys are coming to take our brains! STOP THE STEAL! Blar-blah-BLAR!” He marched to the bathroom, but not without leaving Reese a quivering mess in her seat. Her eyes watered once again, but not from the pungent miasma.

It’s not worth it…it’s not worth it….none of this is worth it…

As Reese tried to steady her nerves with deep breathing exercises (the ones she learned from her psychology classes), the mother from earlier approached her, the baby in her arms fast asleep. With yellow teeth and chapped lips, she asked Reese, “Do you have a cigarette?”

“No, I don’t. Sorry.”

“Come on, just one cigarette! I’m stressed out!”

“I told you, I don’t have any.”

“I’ll kiss your feet if you give me one!”

Bile rose up from Reese’s throat. She threw her textbook to the ground and rushed for the ladies’ room. Unfortunately, time was not her best friend as she vomited on the ground before she could make it. Her stomach contents burned her throat while her eyes watered some more. A few droplets of nose pudding mixed with her biological swamp brew on the ground. Nobody said a word when the motor-oil substance from the old man hit the floor. But once Reese’s acids flew from her lips…

“Fucking gross, lady!” yelled the guy in the MAGA cap. “Is that what they teach you in that lib-tard school of yours?”

Reese wiped the sewage off of her face with the back of her hand before unnecessarily apologizing. The heavy breaths she took wouldn’t do much for cooling down her throat considering the air was thicker than that of a burning building. But heavy breaths she took anyways.

She took even more of them when an obese man in an American flag T-shirt grabbed her butt and squeezed as hard as he could. “Ow! Ow! Let go! You’re hurting me!”

“I bet that shit hurts real’ good, little lady!” said the pervert before hacking and laughing at the same time. Reese was able to pry his fingers off before dashing for the exit. The pervert laughed at her some more when she slipped on the black puddle from earlier. Her back collided with the cement ground and knocked the wind out of her lungs (not that it was good air to begin with). Her MP3 player and headsets broke on the way down, but not nearly as badly as her spirit.

She used the nearby arcade cabinet to pick herself up before (successfully) dashing out of the bus station and into the clean night air. The breeze gently blew against her white-hot face. Every shaky breath she took was pure heaven to her throat and lungs. In fact, it was the only thing about this night that could be described as being remotely close to heaven. She rested her sore back against a graffiti-splattered wall and sunk down to her butt, bursting into a full-on crying session.

The whole reason she went to college in the first place was to study psychology and become a licensed therapist. But even with this wealth of knowledge, she knew the people in that bus station were beyond help. The healthcare system failed them. The world failed them. But she had zero interest in helping them now. 

If that whole bus station burns to the ground with them inside…I’d never be depressed ever again…

While she couldn’t find a gas can and matches with her blurry eyes, she did see something that was almost as destructive: a lead pipe lying on the ground. A rusty lead pipe with a little bit of moss grown over it, because of course it was. She wiped her eyes dry and picked up the non-moss end of the pipe. She could bash a lot of brains in with this weapon. Not that they had brains to begin with, but it’d be a nice visual for her healing.

“I’ll kill them all…I’ll fucking kill them…” she sniffled.

“What did you say? Hello?”

That familiar voice came from her smart phone, which thankfully wasn’t damaged in the slip and fall thanks to the case she bought for it. She must have pocket dialed someone during the whole kafuffle. That someone was her mother. Hearing her voice again was another factor in cooling down her aching lungs and throat.

“Mom? Are you there?”

“Reese, are you okay? Did I just hear you say you’re going to kill someone?”

“Um…” she sniffled. “No, I was just…I mean…Mom?...I can’t go back inside the station. I hate it there!”

“What’s wrong, honey?”

Reese had a hard time forming words through her tears.

“Do you need me to come pick you up?”

“But…I have my final exam soon…”

“That’s not what I asked you. I asked you if you wanted me to pick you up and take you home.”

“…Yes! That’d be wonderful.”

“Okay, I’ll be there in thirty minutes. Hang in there.”

“I love you, Mom!”

“I love you too, Reese. Bye.”

In all this time of studying psychology, Reese had forgotten the most important lesson of all: self-care. Even the most hardworking minds needed to rest. Even straight A students weren’t immune to mental health crises. If her professors didn’t understand these things, they had no business teaching psychology. In that case, studying at this college wasn’t such a good idea after all.

As for the lead pipe, Reese gazed at it for a while, feeling the rusty metal grate against her sensitive skin. She had thirty minutes before her mother got her out of this hellhole. She still had ample time to smash heads and drop corpses. But if she went through with her violence against the mentally-ill bus station customers, she had no business being a therapist in the first place. And if that was true, then learning psychology from these uncaring professors was like a toxic relationship that would never end.

Reese dropped the pipe and allowed it to roll across the sidewalk. “I hate this place. But I hate the system more…” She pulled her knees to her chest and sobbed into her legs some more.

I Hate My Brain

CHORUS 1

I hate my brain, I hate my soul

I gave the ghosts too much control

I hate my heart, I hate my mind

Yet I carry on like everything’s fine

VERSE 1

The skies were blue, now they’re vomit green

The oceans were cool, now they’re boiling me

My pixies and gnomes turned to demon spiders

My love goddess has Bundy’s babe inside her

PRE-CHORUS 1

What happened to me?

Death pornography

Oh no!

The only cinema that I see

CHORUS 2

I hate my soul, I hate my brain

I fall asleep just to numb the pain

I hate my mind, I hate my heart

Too many beats will blow it apart

VERSE 2

My cats were soft, now their fur is barbed wire

My dogs loved life, now they’re graveyard tired

All of my favorite songs sound about the same

All of my heroes wallow in sewage and shame

PRE-CHORUS 2

What happened to me?

Warped psychology

Oh no!

Mourning loss of creativity

CHORUS 3

I hate my shell of my former self

All I love burns in schizophrenic hell

I hate the future, I hate the now

I broke my promise not to bow

BRIDGE

Don’t keep stringing me along

Don’t say nothing’s ever wrong

Don’t keep giving me false hope

Don’t make this torture slow

CHORUS 4

I hate my demons, the shit they say

Telling me to die and just fade away

I hate my monsters, they’re beautiful

Stockholm kisses and fucks are suitable

FINAL LINE

Don’t keep stringing me along

Born to Trauma Bond

VERSE 1

All my enemies are fighting with AK-47’s

And all I’ve ever had was a wet toothpick

Might as well raise my tattered white flag

Because anything else would just be useless

We sign the peace treaty at the break of dawn

They get to have all the gold and the silver

All I ever get is some scraps from the table

Asking for more means bringing out the killers

CHORUS 1

Stop telling me to man the fuck up

A thick skin doesn’t mean jack shit

To a kid who was born to trauma bond

Until the day I’m fitted for a casket

VERSE 2

Everyone and their uncle push my boundaries

Until there’s nothing left to knock over

Could fight them off with a bastard sword

Until they leave me punch-drunk, never sober

And when every broken bone is finally healed

I still come out of it looking like the villain

They controlled the narrative from the first word

It’s what they pass on to their budding children

CHORUS 2

Stop telling me to grow a set of balls

A heart of stone isn’t in my nature

I’m a kid who was born to trauma bond

With every lover and every little hater

BRIDGE

They say I’m too sensitive

It’s a hallmark of my generation

I just need some military instruction

To shake me from my comfy situation

They say if I can’t handle the heat

I should fuck off from the kitchen

I should cowboy up and lock and load

And most of all just quit my bitchin’

VERSE 3

Word of advice to the assholes of the day

Don’t teach me how to shoot a gun

One of these days, I just might use it

A bullet is something you can’t outrun

You’re cocky and arrogant, what else is new?

You also have some narcissistic tendencies

One of these days, I’ll catch you slipping

And spill the blood of my favorite enemy

CHORUS 3

Stop telling me that being brave is easy

When you’re blessed with your privileges

I’m a dude who was born to trauma bond

Just like a good model American citizen

Stop threatening to put me in prison

When you’re the one who deserves it

If it means I don’t have to trauma bond

I’ll pump you with lead like I’m in the service

FINAL VERSE

I’m free from the prison of my mind

But now I’ve got brand new confines

A hellhole with bars on all four sides

And some beatings if I dare even cry

The cycle of abuse begins yet again

Every orange suit is my new best friend

Every guard is my brand new mommy

Be sure to open wide for the salty salami

I'm Fine

CHORUS
I’m fine!
I’m fine!
Nothing is wrong!
I’m fine!

VERSE 1
You broke your oath to do no harm
When I waved you off with my charm
For more answers, you twisted my arm
Until the cows came home to the farm
Is it suicide or just a matter of pride?
Do I keep it all tucked away inside?
Are these the tears I’m trying to hide?
Nothing is wrong! I’m fucking fine!

CHORUS
I’m fine!
I’m fine!
Nothing is wrong!
I’m fine!

VERSE 2
When everything is stuck in past tense
From prehistory to way back when
A trauma drama from the middle ages
Or the bloodstains on my diary pages
I swear it’s all just an overreaction
No need to call the white coat faction
You can chalk it up to artistic passion
I’m doing fine! I’m gaining traction!

CHORUS
I’m fine!
I’m fine!
Nothing is wrong!
I’m fine!

VERSE 3
What goes on in my head and heart
Can be summed up as a work of art
There’s no need to come to my rescue
“I’m Superman here to defend you!”
“I’m Wonder Woman! I love your soul!
“I’m the Human Torch! Get out of the cold!”
“I’m Batman here for your fifty-one-fifty!”
I’m fucking fine! I’m not dying or sickly!

EXTENDED CHORUS
I’m fine!
I’m fine!
Nothing is wrong!
I’m fine!
I’m dandy!
I’m manly!
Everything’s fucked!
This sucks!

FINAL VERSE
Push me for answers? Are you the necromancer?
If I pass your test, can I get my Master’s?
If I confess the darkest parts of my mind
Is there a Hold Harmless form to be signed?