The Devil

Are you The Devil’s Advocate or just The Devil?

Couldn’t even wait for the flames to settle

Got your trident aimed at my throat

Tips are on fire, let’s see a little smoke

You’re not the fun kind of devil like in heavy metal

You’re Adam Cole’s kind: an underwhelming level

Couldn’t scream your way out of a wet paper bag

The only words you know are “whore” and “fag”

 

Tell me about every grievance you’ve got

Don’t bother with the tissues for your tears and snot

Yell me down until your throat goes raw

Because nothing you say is against the law

Neither is carrying a pair of 45’s

Use them on poor people in order to “survive”

Tuck them in your pockets when a CEO

Comes around the corner, says “Cheerio!”

 

I guess being The Devil is a pretty sweet gig

Got enough privilege to own all the libs

Own every politician in a thousand mile radius

Still a mystery when you ask, “Why they hating us?”

Self-awareness is not one of your strong suits

Self-reflection isn’t deep enough to get at the root

Live life on easy mode, low-hanging fruit

You got the real-life version of block and mute

 

You get life advice from a fantasy novel

Two millenniums ago, Jesus was the role model

Just imagine if it was a whole different book

That Moms of Liberty didn’t already cook

Dragons and elves on all of the shelves

Orcs and ogres until the final page is over

Kingdoms modeled after communism

Personal stories about kids with autism

 

But why should we take those at face value

When they can be an excuse to disembowel you

When they can be a reason to take the Red Pill

When they can be weapons, not pulp at the paper mill

The Devil’s Advocate can steal all the stories

Turn a gay bar into a bloodbath so gory

Put the powerful in power and call them Tories

Pose in front of the flag that we call Old Glory

 

What a day to be alive in 2025

Where human rights come with fistfights

Where hospital bills break all of our wills

“Let’s have a conversation across the whole nation”

Clown Grinder

Does this cheeseburger taste funny to you?

It’s ground-up clowns, the whole circus crew

There aren’t enough bottles of Pepto Bismol

To wash down the taste of Bozo’s big balls

There’s a blood-soaked war in your intestines

Bacteria and viruses with automatic weapons

Vomit your carcass inside the fuck out

Or they can exit through the Hershey Highway route

Hellfire fever immolating your soul

Acid trip dreams about your blistered asshole

Stay away from your bottle of Advil

Lest you want to drop a load heavier than an anvil

Get on the phone with the CDC

Clowns’ Decaying Corpses, eat lean beef

I hope someone sends you a Get Well card

“May your anal casualties again become hard”

Who’s in charge of the menu today?

They’ve got a billion in lawsuits to finally pay

Now you’ve got your check, so what’s for dinner?

The mind is strong, but food addiction is the winner

Get the clown grinder ready for another serving

Diarrhea Armageddon is never too unnerving

A weight loss strategy for the new age

In history books, you’re thin enough to be a page

The Chehalis Video Store Incident

 A few years ago, I got rid of my VHS copy of Pink Floyd the Wall in a bout of spring cleaning. It’s currently sitting in a thrift shop somewhere waiting to be bought if it hasn’t already been. If you asked me about this back in the mid-90’s, I wouldn’t have thought that the movie would end up being one of my favorites of all time. Never mind the fact that I was a pre-teen in the mid-90’s and The Wall is an R-rated movie (for good reason). Then again, I never cared about age limits and neither did my parents. But this isn’t a story about being too young to watch an R-rated movie, no, no, no. After all, there are certain movies that disturb the shit out of the audience regardless of how old they are, examples of which include The Human Centipede, Hostel, Saw, and of course, Pink Floyd the Wall.

Papier-mâché masks with two holes for the eyes and one hole for the mouth. If you were a character from The Wall and you wore one of these, it meant you lost your individuality and were successfully bent to the will of your corporate masters. It also meant you were going to eventually be ground into hamburger meat so that you’ll look even LESS distinguishable from your conformist peers. The masks alone could make you question your love for cheese. The hamburger scene will make you into a permanent vegetarian. And that’s just one music video! The Union Jack morphing into a bloody cross will make you question what kind of sauce is covering your meatball sub. A crudely-drawn monster morphing into a literal and figurative giant asshole? If that happened in 2020, the toilet paper would be gone long before the pandemic.

But long before the movie even starts, your formerly untainted eyes will feast upon the artwork on the cover: a screaming face with an excessively wide mouth, a bloody chin, a bloody shoulder, hideous dental work, and a blue background that will make you question your need to ever drink water again. I dare you to find this artwork and give it a big old smooch. Go on! I dare you! Chicken! Wait a minute…did I say chicken? Was I being a hypocrite just now? I would have been if it was the mid-90’s. Pink Floyd the Wall and its artwork terrified the shit out of me during that time. My limbs would shake. The color would drain from my face. My blood would go cold at the mere suggestion of watching that movie. One time my leg shook while I was resting my foot on the bed and tying my shoe.

Every time my mom and dad took me and my brother to Sight and Sound Video Store in Chehalis, Washington, there was always the looming threat of somebody wanting to rent Pink Floyd the Wall and subjecting me to the horrors within. But why would I want to admit to being scared of it when Pink Floyd was one of my favorite bands at the time? Sure, I grew up in a progressive family, but that didn’t mean I didn’t feel at least some obligation to hide my fear from those around me. Besides, my family wasn’t the only influence in my life. My classmates at Chehalis Middle School would have caught wind of it if I let the cat out of the bag. My family is progressive, Chehalis is not. Macho conservatism was the norm in this god forsaken town. Any weakness on display was mocked and ridiculed until the end of time, giving way for even more weaknesses to be revealed by proxy.

One day at Sight and Sound, the secret came within razor-thin closeness of being out. It didn’t help matters that on the back wall of the video store, there was a big fucking Pink Floyd the Wall poster with that disgusting, hideous face looking down upon everybody who dared enter the store. I kept my head tucked low and hurried to the kids section where my eyes could be averted. What would I rent that wasn’t the world’s scariest rock opera? The Three Stooges? Donald Duck? Mickey Mouse? Dick Tracy? Before I could make my official decision, my parents come up to me and tell me that Sight and Sound is selling CD’s and T-shirts in the back of the store, which was in direct eye-contact with the vomit-inducing face.

My mother read my emotions like a book despite my best efforts to hide them. The color draining from my face, the sad expression, the dewy eyes, the beating cold sweat, they all prompted my mom to finally ask…“What’s wrong?” This was my opportunity to bear my soul and to “break down the walls” so to speak. This was the friendlier version of Gerald Scarfe’s judge telling me to expose my feelings to the world. But instead, the conversation went like this:

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You look sad.”

“I’m fine.”

“You look like you’re about to cry.”

“I’M FINE!”

The conversation kept going on and on with “I’m fine” and “what’s wrong?” responses until I reluctantly agreed to go with dad to the back of the store to check out their CD’s and T-shirts. I stared that Pink Floyd poster right in the face and was ready to melt into a puddle…until I didn’t. The nasty-looking face no longer had control over me. But why? Why the sudden loss of fear? Was I exposed to it so many times that it became meaningless? Was this truly the Law of Diminishing Returns? Whatever it was, I looked at Pink Floyd CD’s and T-shirts with Dad regardless. Surprise, surprise, my dad wanted a T-shirt with the screaming face on it and it still didn’t melt me like a snowflake. Would I eventually feel this kind of courage towards the putty-faced masks in the actual movie? I wasn’t about to press my luck, so we didn’t rent it.

I thought that would have been the end of that. We’d get our movies, CD’s, and T-shirts and then get the fuck out of there. But then the four of us ate at a Chinese restaurant across the street from Sight and Sound. It’s amazing that I still had an appetite for Chinese food considering everything I just went through. We were sipping on our drinks waiting for the food to arrive when my mom asked…

“What happened to you in the video store?”

“Nothing.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“I’m fine.”

“You were walking with your head down when we went into the store. Was somebody picking on you?”

“No.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“NOTHING IS WRONG! I’M FINE!”

She seemed intent on asking me over and over again until I spilled the beans. At this point it wasn’t a mother asking about the welfare of her son. It felt more like an interrogation. We even had the hot lamp above our table to complete the effect. But I kept on denying that anything was wrong until the conversation ran its course. She even shushed me when I got too loud, but I stood my ground. “Nothing is wrong! I’m fine! I’m not sad! Nobody was picking on me!”

In a town full of gun control opponents, I dodged the biggest bullet of them all. But what would have happened if I admitted to being afraid of Pink Floyd the Wall and its movie artwork? Would I have been forbidden from going to see Roger Waters in 2000? Would I have been labeled a wuss by everyone around me? Would the bullying I experienced in my freshman year of high school have been worse than it already was? The latter might have been true since I solved all of my disputes at the time with violence and screaming. Wusses and violence don’t exactly go hand-in-hand, after all.

But an even bigger consequence to admitting my crippling fear was that Pink Floyd the Wall wouldn’t go on to become my favorite movie of all time. I wouldn’t have received that message of protecting my individuality at all costs. I would have blindly believed anybody who told me my creativity was no good. I would have stumbled into mediocrity and not given two shits about it. Think of all the TV shows, movies, and books I would have missed out on if I admitted to being afraid all the time and allowed authority figures and bullies to tell me how to think. I might not even have a writing career if that was the case. I could have received the “be yourself” message from any piece of media, but where else was I going to get it from that had “Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2” playing in the background? The music spoke to me and so did the movie.

I’m not saying that everyone should keep their fears a secret all the time. That’s just what I did and I may have done some serious damage to my psyche by doing that. Not admitting fear is the same as not admitting other things in life such as being bullied, being abused, being mentally ill, being in pain, or god knows what else. Silence is your worst enemy in a world where everyone wants to tell you what to believe and how to think. If you don’t think for yourself, there are plenty of Hitlers out there who are willing to tell you what life is all about. If you don’t stand up for what you believe, there are plenty of drunken spouses out there who will beat it into your brain, literally and figuratively. Stand for something…or you’ll fall for anything…right into a sausage grinder!

It Drops the Key

Throwing turnips at Shy Guys and Ninjis left Princess Peach’s arms limper than spaghetti. Pulling vegetables out of the ground was never her forte and it showed with the aching pulses in her muscles and the kinks in her back. Why couldn’t she just jump on the enemies and flatten them like any other Mushroom Kingdom hero? Because this wasn’t the Mushroom Kingdom. This was Subcon. This was a world of grassy fields, stone temples, bees with lances, birds on flying rugs, and Shy Guys. Lots and lots of Shy Guys, whether the little red-robed, creepily-masked goblins appeared out of nowhere or filed one by one out of a magic jar.

Sweat glistened down from Princess Peach’s forehead, her long blond hair sticky and stale. Her royal pink dress had some dampness here and there, though it still served its purpose of allowing her to float through the air during a long jump. Her skinny bones flared up with pain after so much heavy lifting. Gardening was not her strong suit, nor should it have been. She hunched over and noticed the locked door in the side of a grass mountain. She had a vague idea of the next lifting job required of her, but didn’t want to entertain it too much lest there be even more sweat and aching. And anxiety. And chills. Lots and lots of chills. She gulped a wad of acidic saliva as she leapt down one of the tube-like vases.

Peach descended to the sandy surface at the bottom of the pit with grace and poise. The magical pink dress came in handy yet again, otherwise she’d be doing her heavy lifting with a broken ankle, soft sand aside. And in the middle of this pit was the ultimate test of strength, not only of her arms and chest, but of her intestinal fortitude. The massive golden key shined brightly enough to illuminate the dark pit. Plenty of rocks jutting out for Peach to make her escape. Dexterity wasn’t the issue. Evilly grinning golden masks were what caused Peach to tremble and sweat the most. They surrounded her in a half-circle, motionless, yet menacing. Their dark, curvy eyes gazed upon her with judgment and sadism, daring her to take the key.

She swallowed yet another lump of cold, salty saliva and inched her convulsing hand towards the golden key, yanking her hand away and flinching in anticipation. After some more futile attempts, she forced herself to grow a backbone and snatched the key from its resting place. On cue, one of the Phanto masks’ eyes glowed bright red and a deep-voice laugh echoed throughout the sand pit, causing some dirt to sprinkle below. The mask said, “It drops the key…IT DROPS THE KEY!”

Princess Peach shrieked in terror at the dehumanizing pronoun and leapt from stone to stone on her way out of the vase. She couldn’t believe her own speed. More importantly, she couldn’t believe her own strength. She had the balance of an athlete and the endurance of one as well. Sweat flew off of her face, but there would be a better time to wipe it away. She needed this key. She needed victory. And then…Phanto rammed his face into the back of her head and knocked her off one of the stones. The sand pit cushioned her rapid descent, but Peach held her skull and moaned in pain.

“It drops the key…IT DROPS THE KEY!”

As soon as Peach regained her vision, Phanto’s hideous face came into focus and she screamed in a high pitch death howl once again. She scurried into the corner of the pit with the golden key still in hand and curled into the fetal position, shaking, whining, whimpering, and doing her best to avert her ocean blue eyes from the monstrosity floating in front of her. She covered her face in her arms, but felt the warm air of Phanto breathing in her ear. The longer she held onto the key, the deeper the breaths became. Some of these breaths were accompanied by growling sounds. And then…Phanto spoke again…

“Rape vans…if they were called surprise vans, more women would get into them, because everybody loves a surprise…”

Peach screamed yet again and crab-walked towards another corner, the key still in her possession. Her heart thumped in her chest loudly, threatening to explode like a hand grenade. It slowed down just enough for her to ask a question. “Wait a minute…you…how can you…you know?”

“I can still use my mouth!”

Peach yelled.

“And my eye sockets!”

She yelled again and tried to escape by scratching and clawing the dirt walls. She got a few feet at best, but slid down on her royal pampered butt every single time. Giving up was her best option as she sat down and allowed tears to pour from her eyes.

Phanto floated over to her and started breathing in her ear again. That air. That warm, thick, horny air. “If it makes you feel any better…I would have chased you even if you didn’t have my key! Ooooooohhhhh, my!”

Peach sniffed in between ellipses. “You’re…you’re disgusting…you’re so gross!”

“I’m not the one who’s shagging a fat plumber in shit-covered overalls!”

As Phanto laughed at his own remark, Peach’s face boiled red with anger, her arms trembling for different reasons than physical labor and traumatic fear. With the ease of a bodybuilder, she chucked the key at Phanto in hopes of smacking him between his frightening eyes. The key passed right through him like the ghost he was and he laughed some more. “Was that supposed to hurt? You really shouldn’t have let that key go. It doesn’t vibrate…but it can still keep you company for when the fat man can’t save you…”

“Eww, yuck!” Peach dry-heaved on the sandy floor while Phanto continued to chuckle at her. Once all the bile was cleared from her throat and the snot drained from her nose, she scowled at her nemesis, folded her arms, and said, “You know what? I’d rather get killed than listen to another one of your bad jokes! Are you going to kill me off or are you just going to laugh at me like a moron?!”

“What do you think?”

“You know what?! Forget Subcon! Forget King Wart! I don’t need this key anymore! I wouldn’t go inside that grass mountain if there was a blizzard outside and my melons fell off from frostbite!” She marched over to the key and wielded it like a club.

Phanto snickered again. “Young lady, you already tried that and I’m still here. I’ll always be here. I’ll always be in your darkest dreams. I’ll always whisper in your ear and tell you how lovely you are. I’ll always give you kisses that don’t smell like fire flowers and mushrooms. I’ll always…”

“Screw this key!” Peach tried to break it across her knee, but to no avail. Instead she danced around holding her bruised knee in pain while Phanto laughed at her some more. She then threw the key on the ground and tried to break it with various rocks she picked up.

“Young lady, what are you doing? Stop!”

Peach didn’t listen. She pounded the key with stones larger than the last. The golden key flashed and flickered, but wouldn’t break. Instead of seeing the brilliant golden colors, Peach saw dark red. She smashed more rocks…and more…and more….Muscles bulged from her arms, her strength further encouraged by Phanto’s pleas for mercy. The key illuminated and deluminated over and over again…until it cracked and the brilliant light was no more. A deep-voiced death wail echoed across the sandpit and Phanto dropped to his doom, smiling no more, glaring no more, and shining brightly no more.

Princess Peach wiped the sweat off of her forehead with her white gloved arms and plopped backwards against the wall, breathing a heavy sigh of relief. Her heart slowed down. Her skin cooled off. Her sweat dried up and formed a sticky residue. “You know…” she whispered to nobody in particular. “Maybe there’s a way I can pick the lock. Or maybe I’ll just kick the door down. Or maybe I’ll throw some more vegetables at it.”

“Or maybe you can work out a deal with me!” Phanto glowed back to life and grew bigger in size, laughing louder, laughing longer, and laughing powerfully enough to create a cyclone around him, kicking up sand and dirt everywhere. Peach screamed once more as she held onto a jutting stone, her high heeled shoes flying off and into Phanto’s growing mouth, which now had a snake’s tongue and vampire fangs protruding from it. He grew larger…and larger…and his eyes burned with red neon. He opened his mouth in an attempt to chow down on his victim.

Phanto’s gigantic fangs clamped down over Peach’s hips, causing her to sit up in bed and gasp for air. Even after finding out this was all a nightmare, her heart wouldn’t stop thumping and her sweat made her feel like she was being water-boarded. Nonetheless, she plopped on her back and breathed a sigh of relief, provided she could catch her breath in the first place.

She turned her head and smiled at the man laying next to her: a chubby Italian plumber who would never hurt her, who always rescued her when she needed it, and who loved her unconditionally through thick and thin. She patted Mario on the shoulder and kissed the back of his head. “Goodnight, sweetheart.”

Mario rolled over to face Peach and said, “Goodnight, babe!” in a familiar deep voice. And then came the familiar glowing red eyes. And the familiar golden mask. And the familiar evil smile. Mario was wearing Phanto’s face like the Halloween costume it was and Peach’s heart finally couldn’t take it anymore. She rolled off the bed and went into cardiac arrest. As her vision faded to black, Phanto floated over her and said, “What was that you said about killing you instead of making jokes? Oh yeah…I remember…” He gave her a “goodnight” make-out kiss just as she passed into the abyss.

"They Called Us Enemy" by George Takei

BOOK TITLE: They Called Us Enemy

AUTHOR: George Takei

YEAR: 2019

GENRE: Graphic Novel

SUBGENRE: Political Memoir

GRADE: Extra Credit

In 1942, over 120,000 Japanese-Americans were taken away from their homes and placed into dingy prison camps all over the US. They did nothing wrong, but had none of the legal means to prove it to the racist authorities. They were paying for the sins of their home country after the Pearl Harbor bombing. Classic ignorant thinking at its worst: because a small minority of the group committed the crime, the entire group is guilty. George Takei spent most of his tender childhood living under this kind of oppression as he and his family were among the Japanese-American families locked up in internment camps. Reading about this shameful experience through his eyes makes everything that much more heartbreaking. His young mind couldn’t comprehend the ignorance of those in charge. He tried to make sense of the barbed wire enclosures, deplorable conditions, and abusive army guards. Fast forward into adulthood and George Takei does everything in his power as an equal rights activist and Hollywood actor to make sure this terrifying history doesn’t happen again.

This graphic novel is nothing short of a brutally honest look into the politics of fear. Powerful politicians will use their influence and charisma to rile up their supporters into believing that the less fortunate are what’s wrong with this country. We saw it with the Japanese internment in George Takei’s book and we’re seeing it today with the Muslim ban, the family separation policy at the Mexican border, and black people getting harsher treatment from law enforcement than whites. The one thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. But it doesn’t have to be this way. This book has the power to educate its readers. When you familiarize yourself with your fellow world citizens, you’re less likely to judge them. That’s what “They Called Us Enemy” means to me and that’s one of the reasons it’s getting a perfect five out of five stars. The more educated we are, the better off we’ll be. That means leaving behind comfortable bigotry and thinking about what it’s like to be the other guy, which is often a horrifying reality.

But of course, there will always be those contrarians out there who say, “It wasn’t all that bad!” These same people say it about black slavery, they call Mexican border detention centers “Summer Camp”, and they’ll no doubt say it about Japanese internment camps. Having guaranteed living conditions doesn’t mean those conditions are necessarily good. Did I mention the barbed wire fencing around the camps? Did I mention the abusive treatment from the soldiers? What about the fact that George Takei’s family had to live in a horse stall that smelled like rancid feces? What about the infighting among Japanese prisoners who joined the military to prove their patriotism and the prisoners who stayed in the camps to protest? Had enough harsh reality? But wait, there’s one more juicy detail: institutionalization. Some prisoners were so familiar with the routine life of the camps that they couldn’t imagine getting back on their feet in a normal society. Now imagine a child as young as George Takei feeling that way upon leaving the camp. You get to see all of this through the author’s eyes whether you want to or not. It won’t be pleasant, but it’ll be a necessary kick in the butt for the apathetic and fearful.

Despite the shortness and quick pacing of the book, you will feel as though you’ve taken an entire US history course in one sitting. Let this be a message to you all. Treat your neighbors with kindness and respect. Treat your inferiors with the same level of understanding and love. If you see an injustice happening, don’t stay quiet. Be the activist you were meant to become. Be a passionate enough voice in this battle for equality that those in power will have no choice but to listen. Let your words haunt them like schizophrenic ghosts. Will this change anything? Let me put it this way: we don’t have a choice but to activate our activism. The world can’t survive without making progressive leaps and bounds. That is the nature of time. Any questions?

Two-Sentence Horror Stories: Third Strike

Bart Simpson laughed his ass off when he spray painted a penis and testicles on the side of Mr. Burns’s mansion. He screamed in terror when Burns caught him in the act, to which the Nuclear Power Plant tycoon unzipped his own fly and said, “You’re the perfect height for what I’m about to make you do, little boy!”

Travis texted his European girlfriend with grinning and heart emojis while calling her a “Beautiful Bulgarian”. He had a kiwi-sized lump in his throat when his phone auto-corrected his message to “Beautiful Bulge Area” before sending it.

Sammy drove cautiously on a winding mountain road with no guard rails while his wife and baby son snoozed in the back together. For some reason, he thought it would be a good idea to start texting on his smart phone.

A hulking ogress with rotting flesh, maggot-infested fingernails, and drill bit fangs burst through Grayson’s front door with a leonine belch and a paternity test in her hands. While Grayson cowered and shivered behind the easy chair, the ogress tossed the test results in his lap and said, “Congratulations, asshole!”

A stacked WWE Wrestlemania pay-per-view featured the main event of “The Monster Among Men” Braun Strowman vs. “The Modern Day Maharaja” Jinder Mahal for the latter’s WWE Championship in a first blood match. The match ended in five seconds when Jinder poked Braun with a sewing needle and drew a tiny drop of blood, causing the ripped-off fans to destroy the arena in a fiery riot.

Middle school sex ed was off to a rowdy start when the children screamed like banshees and threw paper airplanes at each other. They grew silent, shaky, and wide-eyed when the evilly-grinning professor wrote his name on the chalkboard, which was Mr. Ray Pugh.

Melissa clutched her chest and fought for oxygen when she saw that somebody on Face Book with a Pepe the Frog icon posted a countdown clock for her newborn baby’s eighteenth birthday. She nearly had a conniption when somebody else posted underneath it, “Why wait?”

Colton squirmed and ached in his bent over position while Dr. Smith performed a colonoscopy on him. Colton jumped out of his skin when the doctor said in a jolly voice, “Hey look, we’ve got half a million hits on You Tube!”

Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader engaged in an epic light saber battle that saw Vader slice off Luke’s arm. As young Skywalker doubled over in pain, Vader breathed deeply in his ear and said, “Luke…I am your husband!”

Paul logged onto his Porn Hub account in hopes of finding a live teen webcam feed. He nearly lost both his erection and his sanity when he heard a familiar comedian’s voice on the other end of the feed yell, “Hey, hey, hey, come try my king sized pudding pop!”

Shane couldn’t wait to start his new job at Analytical Weaponry, Inc. That was, until he drove up to his workplace and saw the company name on a neon sign, which had all of the letters after the first L in the word Analytical blown out.

George opened his email and found a message demanding fourteen thousand dollars in exchange for keeping quiet about his porn viewing habits. To show there was no playing around, the extortionist put George’s password in the title of the email.

Anderson took a few puffs of his cigarette before coughing up black pudding all over the floor. His stomach ached and his throat soured when he saw that the tar blob had teeth and feces attached to it.

Stacy approached a hotdog cart and asked for a six-inch Polish sausage. Pee-Wee Herman emerged from his crouched position laughing like a madman with his penis sandwiched in a hotdog bun, complete with “mustard, ketchup, and relish” dripping from the tip.

Mary Poppins floated into London with a grimy man on her arm. As she arrived for her babysitting job, she introduced him to the children as Peter File.

“I’m lost without you, my love,” said Prince Charming. He gave his girlfriend a passionate tongue kiss before closing the casket one last time.

“I’d really like to give you a hand job right now,” said Sedona before licking her rosy red lips. Her lover nearly had a heart attack when she pulled off her arm glove and revealed bladed monster fingers underneath.

It is the middle ground between whiny and angry, between involuntary celibacy and a mass shooting, between a toxic romance and full-blown hostility. This is the dimension of pornographic imagination, an area which we call…The Friend Zone!

After Glenn refused to answer the phone, a robotic voice on the answering machine said, “Please return the call to Charles Dahmer at 1-800-666-5150. This is an attempt to collect your blood and any information obtained will be used for that purpose.”

Chase entered his massive pickup truck and blew into the ignition interlock device. After registering a blood alcohol level of 0.87, he was able to start his vehicle and speed off into the busy night.

Marcus shivered in a cold sweat as he paced around his room for hours waiting for his girlfriend to text him back. His tongue and throat dried when she finally sent him a text saying, “We need to talk.”

“Introducing his opponent fighting out of the red corner: a serial killer and totalitarian dictator who holds a spotless record of thirty-two victims, I mean, wins and no losses, stands at 7’3”, weighs in at 500 lbs., and fights out of Charlottesville, Virginia by way of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia with a pit stop in North Korea…Bone Saw…McGraw! And when the action begins, our referee in charge of the octagon is Steve Mazzigatti.”

On the morning of Valentine’s Day, a grinning Britney excitedly opened a heart-shaped box from her secret admirer. She screamed and dropped it because instead of chocolates, the box contained the bloody remnants of her aborted son.

Mitchell’s stomach gurgled and growled after eating twenty Carolina Reaper hot wings in a row without even a sip of milk. Fifteen minutes of sweating and tearing up later, when it was his turn to use the toilet, he pulled his pants down and his intestines fell out.

Lexi opened a package hoping it was diapers for her children’s charity drive. Her jaw hit the floor when she found out they were adult diapers with a semen-soaked note saying, “These would look really hot on you, Sexy-Lexi!”

Little Debbie skipped up to a cobweb-covered house dressed as a princess and said, “Trick or Treat!” to the wolf man, who had a pot of candy on his lap. She reached inside and cried buckets when she touched the werewolf’s warm and greasy Snickers bar, which was poking through a hole he cut in the bottom of the pot.

Leonard awakened in the middle of the night to find hundreds of hairy tarantulas crawling all over his naked body and sinking their fangs into his flesh. He tried to scream for help, but one of them crawled inside his mouth and clogged his throat.

Helgor the Barbarian wrapped his massive hands around the goblin’s throat and watched his eyeballs bulge and his face turn bright blue. Helgor whispered seductively into his victim’s ear, “This would be a good time for Autoerotic Asphyxiation!”

After hours of body-shredding labor, Wendy pushed one last time and gave birth to her baby boy. The doctor wrapped the bloody mess in a blanket and said, “Congratulations, it’s a porcupine!”

Bethany and her husband laid naked in bed next to each other while attempting to catch their breath. She smiled at him, licked her fingers, and said, “I haven’t creamed that hard in a long time, Uncle Cletus!”

Tucker browsed through the doggies and kitties at the animal shelter and had a cutesy-wutesy smile on his face the entire time. The adoption agent approached him with a clipboard and said, “Let me know which animal you want and I’ll be sure to send you home with a package of condoms.”

Nobody Cares

VERSE 1

The world is on fire, dictators are liars

Nobody left on our planet to admire

We go through the motions every year

Drown our sorrows in drugs and beer

The other side wants to mock our tears

And divide us with their angry fears

Nobody cares that this is happening

The apathetic have become champions

CHORUS 1

And nobody cares

Nobody cares

Another rainstorm of bullets

Godly rhetoric is bullshit

VERSE 2

We could burn an orphanage tonight

Leave a beacon like a searchlight

Everyone would look the other way

Carry on like it’s just another day

We could steamroll our own young

When they grow a silver tongue

And nobody would give a damn

Despite performances of a ham

CHORUS 2

And nobody cares

Nobody cares

Another war with ourselves

Creating our own version of hell

BRIDGE

Sex is used as a weapon

The rapists go to heaven

The victims are crucified

Accused of spewing lies

And nobody cares

Nobody cares

VERSE 3

If one person could do enough

Then life wouldn’t be so tough

If one person’s voice truly mattered

We could put an end to the splatters

I wanted to believe that this was true

But there’s nothing I can do

Except play the role of the helpless

Call me lazy or call me selfish

CHORUS 3

And nobody cares

Nobody cares

Another day in paradise

Why can’t we all play nice?

And nobody cares

Nobody cares

Another day in the shitter

Leaves us cold and bitter

Another day in this winter

Is worth becoming a quitter

And nobody cares

Nobody cares

Cuddle Therapy

“I’m too ugly for this shit,” grumbled Fergal McQueen as he glared at himself in the bathroom mirror, his hands flat against the sink with his fingers tapping impatiently. His scaly green orcish skin, his thinning black mullet, his brown fangs, his ill-fitting Sepultura T-shirt and blue jeans, they came together to give him more than enough reason to want to punch the mirror. The shattered glass in his knuckles wouldn’t be worth it, so he refrained.

Fergal gazed around the bathroom with sandy yellow eyes and became jealous of the decorations he believed were more beautiful than him. The black marble sink, the red glass butterflies hanging over the mirror, the green paper lanterns with runic symbols on them, they made him shake his head and then face-palm for a while. He sighed through his pierced nostrils and said, “Here goes jack shit.”

He stormed out of the bathroom and stood at the lobby desk with his beefy arms folded, waiting impatiently for the owner of this establishment to show herself. A few long minutes later, she finally did. Flapping her butterfly wings and flipping her silken brown hair, she descended into her seat gracefully, but nearly shot up like a fountain at the sight of her latest customer.

“Um…uh…” said the owner with wide eyes and quivering lips. She fidgeted with her white halter top and black yoga pants to stall for extra time. “Um…welcome to Galatea’s Cuddle Sanctuary. I’m Galatea Lyon. How can I, um…help you?”

Being as socially awkward as he was, Fergal slammed a bag of money on the counter and had Galatea huddling on the floor. Once she slowly lifted her head, Fergal said, “I didn’t come here to be ridiculed. I came here to cuddle. Do you have an opening or not?”

With shaking legs, Galatea returned to her upright position and stumbled through her words some more. “Um…sure, I have an opening right now if you’re ready. Uh…follow me, if you will…” Her flapping and flying became more disoriented as she guided her customer down the hallway. “So, uh…what do you do for a living, Mister…?”

“McQueen. Fergal McQueen,” he grunted. “I’m a soldier in the Dragon Rider’s Army.”

“Oh, uh…that’s…cool…”

“What do YOU do for a living: pretend to speak perfect English?”

Galatea giggled nervously, still struggling to keep it together. “You’re funny, Mr. McQueen. Uh…yeah…here we are.” She pulled back the bamboo curtain and revealed a room with a red velvet bed and white crystalline walls, which meant more decorations for Fergal to be jealous of for their comparative beauty. “Have a seat on the bed, if you don’t mind.”

He did just that, not at the plush pillows, but at the foot, keeping a comfortable distance from a woman who clearly was anything but comfortable. She said, “Um…so since you’re obviously new here, I’ll explain to you how this works. This is a cuddle therapy session. This is a non-sexual service, so everything we do here is strictly G-rated. If you’re uncomfortable with what I’m doing to you, say so and we’ll try something else. Any questions before we begin?”

“Yeah, I have a question…so you’re all about unconditional love and being accepting of everyone just like your ad says, yet you can’t even put together a sentence around me. How does it feel to be a hypocrite, Miss Lyon?”

“What? No, no, no, it’s not like that at all.” She scooted across the bed and reluctantly placed her hand on her client’s shoulders, squeezing them as gently as she could without getting her hands too dirty. “To be honest, this is all new for me. You know, the, uh…uh…”

“Look, if you don’t want to get your perfectly manicured nails dirty from touching my disgusting orc body, then say so and I’ll go somewhere else. You didn’t even have to complete your sentence. I’d know that look anywhere. You’re a racist.”

“Mr. McQueen, it’s not like that at all.”

“Of course it is!” he snapped, causing his cuddle therapist to scoot back in fear. “Everywhere I go, people look at me like I’m a six-foot tall horse turd walking by. They back away like I’ve got the plague. They think just because I’m ugly as fuck that it’s okay to walk faster down the street to avoid me. I seriously thought this place would be different. But no, not you. You’re about unconditional love as long as your clients are a bunch of sexy princes with more abs than hairs on my ball sack.”

Galatea gulped. “Um…Fergal, please listen to me. This has nothing to do with you looking a certain way. It’s just that…um…how do I say this without sounding insensitive? Um….you…don’t look like you’ve washed today.” Her voice became squeakier as she finished her sentence and shrugged her shoulders.

Fergal took a whiff of his arm pits and said, “That’s not BO. That’s just me looking like a giant green turd.”

“Please, stop saying those things…”

“Look at you!” he shouted as he stood up. He pointed an accusatory finger at the trembling Galatea and yelled at her some more. “You can’t even look me in the eyes! You can’t even stand up straight when you’re around me! Sure, I don’t have the best social skills in the world and I don’t look like a fucking supermodel, but I still need this service, damn it!”

Unwrapping her hands from her head, Galatea shakily stared into her client’s yellow eyes and tried her damnedest to keep it together. “You…you need this service? Why?”

“Because I can’t get it anywhere else, that’s why!” snapped Fergal while throwing back the red blanket. “Nobody wants to be around me! Hell, I don’t want to be around me half of the time! And don’t give me crap about how it’s because I’m yelling all the time! If a sexy supermodel was yelling at you, you’d think it was some kind of BDSM fantasy or some shit!

Who else am I supposed to cuddle with? A wife I never had? My fellow soldiers? Yeah, good luck with that! I’m not so sure even a human or a pixie like you would ever want to snuggle up to a bunch of rowdy ass soldiers who make fun of everything and call everyone fags! So what am I supposed to do, Galatea, if that is your real fucking name and you didn’t just steal it from a poetry book?!”

Fergal’s heavy breath filled the air and intensified the silence between himself and the shivering pixie before him. The more he stared down at her, the angrier he became as visions of racist bullies and loudmouthed politicians swarmed his mind like a war flashback. Rocks thrown at him, laughing, pointing, running away, and every racial slur in the book pelted his brain.

To him Galatea was no different despite her pretty disguise. If anything her prettiness made her casual racism even worse because she clearly hid something from him while others were at least honest about it. But maybe the thing she was hiding wasn’t an agenda after all…

“I think we can come to a compromise, Mr. McQueen,” she said with her hands raised defensively. “If you promise to calm down and take deep breaths…we will continue our cuddle therapy session…in a bathtub. Of course, you’d have to change into a pair of swim trunks, but…it’d be the answer to both of our problems. Clients are encouraged to show up to these sessions clean and spotless, because…well…it’s my job to hold you and touch you and…”

Fergal held up his hand and cut her off, taking even more intense breaths, but not out of anger. He was actually trying to calm himself down long enough to listen to reason. He wanted to give this a shot. It was his only chance at getting the affectionate touches he needed. “Okay…I give up. Let’s do this.”

“Great!” said Galatea with a little more pep in her voice. “There’s a pair of swimming shorts in the drawer over there. I’ll leave the room for a while and give you some privacy while you change. Okay?” She smiled with a lingering hint of nervousness and tiptoed her way out of the room.

Once she closed the door behind her, Fergal went to work in stripping down and changing into a pair of red shorts. They were a little tight around his waist, so he walked like a penguin in an attempt not to rip them. From there he followed Galatea down the hall and into the bath spa.

Sure enough, there was a black marble bathtub in the center of a white crystalline room. Red paper lanterns gave the room a dimmed lighting affect that did its job in soothing Fergal’s nerves. Galatea flew to the tub and filled it up with warm water before dropping a bath bomb inside and creating a mountain of suds and trippy colors. Holding a sponge in one hand, she waved Fergal over with her opposite finger and patted the rim of the tub. “Come on in,” she said in her cutesy-wutesy voice, giving a light shade of red to Fergal’s green scaly complexion.

He dipped his foot in the water and hissed at the warmth, slowly lowering himself in and accidentally letting out a bubbly fart upon parking his ass in the tub. “Sorry about that. You probably don’t want to…”

“Nah, don’t worry about that,” interrupted Galatea with a smile. Without hesitation or nervousness, she gently ran the sponge across Fergal’s arms, chest, and shoulders while resting her head on top of his. The warm water, the massaging touches, the extra affection, and even the potent lavender smell was enough to make him want to squeeze his legs together so that he didn’t accidentally become…you know…

“What happened to your chest? You’ve got some nasty cuts and bruises there. Is that from your job?” she asked.

“No, those aren’t war wounds…unless you’re talking about my war with the racist assholes who pummeled me with stones all my fucking life. Sharp stones, big stones, little stones, they all feel the same to me. I was actually kind of hoping one of those stones would be powerful enough to kill me, but as it is…”

“Oh my god…Mr. McQueen, that’s terrible! I truly do feel awful for my reluctance around you. I didn’t realize…I mean…Look, I’ll tell you what. For what I did tonight, your first cuddle session here is free.”

“You…you don’t have to do that, Miss Lyon,” said Fergal as a singular tear ran down his face, a face he still believed was the ugliest thing on the planet. “Sorry, I don’t normally cry like this…”

“It’s okay to cry here, Mr. McQueen. I’m not one of your fellow soldiers. I won’t call you horrible homophobic slurs. Let the waterworks out. You’re not the first to cry under my care and you won’t be the last. You are loved, Mr. McQueen, whether you realize it or not.”

Fergal let the waterworks flow indeed as Galatea continued to gently scrub and massage him into relaxation. No more droughts tonight. Not now. Not ever. The tears had been a long time coming. They were greasy. They were oily. But they were less messy than any drop of blood he spilled on the battlefield, be it with the racist mobs or the enemy he fought in the army. Crying sucked and felt good at the same time.

Building My Life Around Mental Health

***BEFORE I BEGIN***

I know in the last blog entry I told you all that this current one was going to be about the Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards for 2018, particularly their Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic category. That was a lie. Truth is, I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that I’m on an island with that one, so I’m not going to write it. Spoiler alert: the big winner of that award was WWE’s business relationship with Saudi Arabia. If you followed the news around the time Jamal Khashoggi was murdered, you’ll know why this promotional tactic was pretty fucking bad. Plus, there’s that whole thing about human rights abuses and suppressing women’s freedom.

***BUILDING MY LIFE AROUND MENTAL HEALTH***

If I wanted to, I could elevate my career to newfound levels of fame. I can take certain Skillshare classes on marketing, I can hook up with the right people, I can make an Author Tube platform, I can do all of these things that any sane independent author would do. But the truth is, if I do all of those things and achieve my highest level of fame and fortune, it might come at a steep price. For years now, I’ve built my entire life around two things: staying mentally healthy and knowing when I’m too tired to carry on. Stressing myself out will derail both of those plans.

Taking good care of my mind is the biggest reason why I don’t do a lot of things normal adults should be doing. I don’t apply for fast-paced jobs, I don’t drive a car, I don’t put myself out there socially, because if I do any of these things, my mind is toast. I’ve probably talked about this subject before, so excuse me if any of this sounds familiar to you. Stress plays a huge role in how a mentally ill mind can function. Too much of it can lead to long-lasting damage. Playing it safe sounds like a cowardly strategy, but I’ve been in those stressful situations before and I don’t need another schizophrenic episode. In a way I’ve learned to fear them. I had a lot of schizophrenic episodes during my WWU days. It might have had more to do with my caffeine intake and isolation than actual schoolwork, but I’m still weary about going back to college for any reason.

I know full well that taking risks is the key to success. But what does success look like and what is it worth when the cost is paid? Does it mean being famous? If that’s the case, then it’ll mean I’ll be looked at under a microscope by the entire world. Every review and every criticism will be felt on a magnified level. Escaping fame and getting out from under the microscope is damned near impossible. One bad criticism could result in a firestorm of public shaming. If that’s what fame and fortune will lead to, then I want no part of it. I’ve been publicly shamed before and with a schizophrenic mind it hurt like a motherfucker.

But what else does success look like? Having a shit ton of money? Okay, great, but what am I going to do with all of this money? People give billionaires a hard time for not being able to spend all of their money in their lifetime and rightfully so. I don’t need things like yachts and summer mansions. I don’t need an island in the Caribbean. To be honest, I don’t really know what I’d like to spend copious amounts of money on. Travel? Great, but where to and for how long? Books and CD’s? Perfect, but I do that enough already. Donations? Again, I do that enough already. Concerts? Well, you know where this is heading.

So basically in order to be successful in my line of work, I have to sacrifice my mental health for rewards I have no idea what to do with. Maybe I can use all of my earned income to repair my mental health. I could go down to California and visit Cuddle Sanctuary for platonic spooning. I could go to Las Vegas and buy real sex. I could go on a “Secret Journey” like the Police song says and become a holy man. But wait a minute…I sacrifice my mental health just so I can have enough money to repair it. You talk about a catch-22. Holy shit!

I’m not at all saying that I’m against the idea of fame and fortune. But if I’m going to achieve it, I’m going to have to be careful and realistic about what I want and how I get it. I need to do a lot of soul-searching and a lot of online research. This isn’t something I’m going to take lightly and if I need encouragement from others, I’m going to take it. But until then, I’ll just keep chugging along and satisfying the demons in my head for yet another year. Maybe when I earn enough money, I can buy a cure for schizophrenia! Heh, we all know one doesn’t exist.

In the end, I’m not ashamed of building my life around mental illness. It gets boring sometimes, but it’s better to be bored than in constant psychological torment. At least with boredom I can relax and let my mind wander to lighthearted places instead of dark ones. Apparently, I’m not alone in thinking this. I’ve met people on the Face Book group Writing About Writing who also don’t see fame and fortune as their end game and they too struggle with mental illness. Don’t take this as a sign that I’m completely giving up. Take it as a sign that I’ll be more cautious in my climb to the top. I’m Garrison Kelly! Even when you feel like dying…actually, this would be a good time to slow down and take a breather.

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“Upon a secret journey, I met a holy man. His blindness was his wisdom. I’m such a lonely man. And as the world was turning, it rolled itself in pain. This does not seem to touch you. He pointed to the rain. And on the days that followed, I listened to his words. I strained to understand him. I chased his thoughts like birds. You will see light in the darkness. You will make some sense of this. You will see joy in this sadness. You will find this love you missed. And when you’ve made your secret journey, you will be a holy man.”

-The Police singing “Secret Journey”-

***POST-SCRIPT***

On a high note, I only have one more chapter of Emilio and the Scratching Post to write and then it’s off to critiqueville. I might write it tomorrow. I might write it the day after. Or the day after. Or the day after. Either way, I’ll be thankful to see my story in yet another Hollow Hills publication. Wish me luck!

It's Only Offensive When I Do It

It’s only offensive when I have a crush

I’m the only one with a reverse Midas touch

It’s only offensive when I crack a joke

It’s only funny when my dreams go up in smoke

It’s only offensive when I seek out friends

Rejection and turmoil never seem to end

It’s only offensive when I write my lines

I’m the only one worthy of a hundred dollar fine

Nothing about my lonely life is ordinary

The blood on my hands is not sanitary

I don’t look like you, I don’t talk like you

I’m the only one with a shit-load to prove

It’s only offensive when I take a stand

My painful screams echo across the land

It doesn’t matter anyways, nobody hears me

Everybody in this world fucking fears me

I’m a walking weapon of mass destruction

Who’s in desperate need of liposuction

Never once mastered the art of seduction

Never once needed a proper introduction

I sold my soul to the devil, the underworld level

My favorite escape is hard rock and heavy metal

I don’t need to contribute to your society

I’ll keep building my dreams ever so quietly

It’s only offensive when I’m the one who does it

So offensive it brings the world to destruction

Socially awkward is the name of my game

Everything else would be too fucking tame

It's Okay to Be Single

***IT’S OKAY TO BE SINGLE***

Valentine’s Day is on the horizon, a horizon covered by about ten inches of falling snow, by the way. For those who are single, Valentine’s Day is the hardest holiday to get through because it seems as though your non-existent relationship status is being rubbed in your face. I know this, because I too am single and I hated this holiday for the longest time. I wish someone had told me back in those romantically lonely days that…it’s okay to be single. I know it’s hard for some people to believe that the world won’t judge you if you are, but if it’s a comfort to you at all, I’m the very last person in this world who will judge you for being single. I won’t even judge you for being a virgin. Involuntarily celibate is an entirely different story, but still, you get my drift.

When you learn to let go of this idea that romance is a necessity, you’ll feel as though the weight of the world is finally off of your shoulders. That doesn’t mean you can’t get into a relationship somewhere down the line, but if you obsess over it all the time, then it’ll hurt you emotionally. A lot of the pain from my university days stemmed from being single and wanting someone I could never have. I crushed on Tarja Turunen, the ex-lead singer from Nightwish, and it hurt me constantly that I couldn’t have her. Even when I crushed on women within my location and economic means, I was too shy to approach them because I didn’t want them to be offended by my presence. I carried this pain for a long time, long after I graduated from college.

The idea of letting go of my obsession was insane to me, which I now realize is an ironic thing for a schizophrenic like me to say, but oh well. Why was I so obsessed? Was it a combination of teenaged hormones and having my first slow dance at 15? Was it a long-distance relationship I had in 2002 and 2003 where I desperately wanted to close that gap? Was it my first kiss in 2014? Was it being seduced by random women at rock concerts in 2016 and 2018? Those brain chemicals are addictive as hell, I agree. Any addiction makes letting go a difficult thing.

But when I finally let go earlier this year, I asked myself a series of questions that had “duh” answers all along. Would being in a relationship truly make me happy? Would having sex for the first time be as magical as books and movies make it out to be? What exactly are the consequences supposed to be for staying single? When the time finally comes to be in a relationship, will I be prepared or will anxiety take over my senses? Truth is, not everyone who’s in a relationship is happy, as evidenced by divorce rates, abusive situations, and constant fighting even when things are going great. First time sex ends too quickly, or so I’ve heard. There are no consequences for being single. I’ve done nothing to prepare myself for a relationship, so my anxiety and nervousness around women won’t dissipate.

None of this means that I don’t believe in romance. It doesn’t mean that if a woman asked me on a date, I would automatically reject her. It simply means that I won’t form unhealthy crushes or obsess over something unattainable. My emotional health means everything to me. It’s the reason why I’m able to sustain a writing career and an overall peaceful life. If I’m constantly in a state of unhappiness, then I don’t care how many poems and stories I write, because I can never satiate those obsessive desires. I wrote three first draft novels this year, all of them centering on my obsession with romance. While I’m grateful for the creative exercises, I can get the same result and probably more work done if I’m happy about life instead of miserable.

It’s particularly bad when you’re in love with a celebrity, especially one that’s been around since your teenaged years. You spend all of this time pining over and dreaming of them. Even when you realize it could never be, you obsess more and more until it ruins your state of mind. You carry this unhappiness with you into adulthood and by that time your celebrity crush is much older than you are. Everybody ages, everybody moves on, and you must do so too.

If you’re single this Valentine’s Day and you don’t know what to do, just treat it like any other day of the week. Do some creative work. Get some reading done. Draw a picture. Order a pizza. Watch a movie. Do something other than give into your unrealistic obsessions. You’re responsible for your own happiness. Treat yourself kindly. Don’t beat yourself up. Take good care of your mind. You only get one in this lifetime, so be good to it and don’t drive yourself insane. If you must get into a relationship, keep it healthy and happy and don’t be codependent. I’m Garrison Kelly! Even when you feel like dying, keep climbing the mountain!

***BEAUTIFUL MONSTER***

Rewriting this story has been a slow process with many gap days in between the work days. You can thank my constant sleepiness for that. But fear not, because before 2019 is over, I will have this novel finished and published. The next chapter to be written will be number twelve, where Windham and Tarja deliver the blueprints to Shelly’s castle to their boss, Orpheus Rinehart. Will the boss man be grateful or will he reward his employees with a year-long membership in the Jelly of the Month Club? It’s the gift that keeps on giving the whole year. You get a cookie if you know what movie that’s from.

***PHILOSOPHICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“You will find that if you get with reality, all thoughts of delusions disappear. But you must remember that the secret to all of this is not to be afraid of fear. When you can really allow yourself to be afraid, and you don't resist the experience of fear, you are truly beginning to master fear. But when you refuse to be afraid, you are resisting fear, and that simply sets up a vicious circle of being afraid of fear of being afraid of being afraid of fear. If then you try to obliterate fear, you're working in the wrong way. To attack at fear is to strengthen it. As if you were God, that is to say, you don't trust anybody and you're the dictator and you have to keep everybody in line, you lose the divine then. 'Cause what you're doing is simply defending yourself. So then the principle is the more you give it away, the more it comes back. The meaning of the fact we see that everything is dissolving constantly, we're all falling apart. We're all in a process of constant death. Then you truly understand that you don't have to let go because there's nothing to hold on to.”

-Alan Watts-

Panic Attack

Like stage fright, except on the city streets

Hyper aware of the death-marching feet

Hyper aware of your own perspiration

Hyper aware of your own condensation

You wish your heart would slow down

As you blindly navigate this neon-lit town

Where’s your car? Did you walk too far?

Did you park too close to the rowdy bar?

Deep breaths in and out, you’ve got this

And then insanity takes off like a rocket

Too many people with judgmental voices

Too many cars with horn-honking noises

A dark alley is better than any of this

A fast food restaurant would be bliss

A hotel lobby to stay for this one night

Until you overcome this crippling fright

Float in the pool, let the water calm you

Watch TV, whatever show you choose

Do you feel safe to go back outside?

Feel comfortable to lock up and hide?

A working day is around the corner

No days off, it’s what the boss orders

Pulling yourself together yet again

Is hard when comfort is easier to defend

Where are your pills? Back at your house?

Only one way to truly find the fuck out

Trapped in a cage like a common thief

Trapped in a mind with paranoid beliefs

Do you need a visit to the emergency room?

Or are you forever trapped in your own doom?

The phone is right there, pull it off the cradle

Put an end to this medieval Grim Dark fable

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

“I’m dying inside! It’s of utmost urgency!”

“I’m sending an ambulance to your location”

“Thank you for being good at your vocation”

Counting down the minutes and hours

Until you one day recharge your power

You never know when you’re coming back

Remember the name: it’s called a panic attack

You Don't Scare Me

CHORUS

I’m naked and fearless!

Undisputed and peerless!

You don’t scare me!

You don’t scare me!

VERSE 1

Your Hocus Pocus and necromancy

Your bag of tricks so fucking fancy

Your head games and creepy songs

Were never meant to last so long

Are you some kind of mythical god?

To me you’re just a flashy fraud

Are you gigantic in everyone’s eyes?

Those on their backs are the same size

CHORUS

I’m naked and fearless!

Undisputed and peerless!

You don’t scare me!

You don’t scare me!

VERSE 2

Make a move or get out of my way

I’ve got better things to do today

Than shake and quiver in front of you

Than to cry pointless tears of ocean blue

I’ve got mountains to climb, hills to conquer

For you I will never have to defend my honor

You’re not the devil or the boogeyman

Just a reality TV diva, a Snookie fan

BRIDGE

Jump into the lake of fire

Swim some laps until I tire

Cannonballs in the waterfalls

Of lava, ashes, and sinful passion

EXTENDED CHORUS

I’m naked and fearless!

Undisputed and peerless!

You don’t scare me!

You don’t scare me!

Walk like a giant, talk like a king

When everyone else can only scream

You can’t kill me!

You can’t control me!

You don’t scare me!

You don’t scare me!

Skin On Skin

VERSE 1

A squeeze of her shoulder, a ruffle of her hair

Let her know that you’ll always be there

A scratch of her back, a hold of her hand

Comfort your lover any way that you can

A kiss of her face, the gentlest of hugs

Gets her high like the strongest of drugs

It’s better than spending another minute alone

No such connection can be found on your phone

CHORUS

Skin on skin is never a sin

Her heart is yours to win

Skin on skin is never a sin

Her heart is yours to win

VERSE 2

I know you’re scared, somewhat unprepared

I know it’s not fair when it’s truth or dare

I know you think what you touch turns to ash

I know that mirror is all but yours to smash

What do you do when she calls your name?

Walk away? It’s just like more of the same?

What do you do when she wants your touch?

Can you find it within you to love and trust?

CHORUS

Skin on skin is never a sin

Her heart is yours to win

Skin on skin is never a sin

Her heart is yours to win

VERSE 3

Take a walk together on the beach’s dockside

Lose track of the time as it passes clockwise

You can talk for hours on what love truly is

Sooner or later, she’ll want to sneak a kiss

Will you curl on the ground as your heart pounds?

Or will you listen to her voice’s sweet sounds?

Make the right call, your back’s against the wall

When it comes to love, how hard will you fall?

CHORUS

Skin on skin is never a sin

Her heart is yours to win

Skin on skin is never a sin

Her heart is yours to win

Cracking Under Pressure

VERSE 1

You dragged me out of my comfort zone

And left me there to breakdown alone

You wanted it to go wrong from the start

All I’ve got now is a broken fucking heart

It’s never about creating strong citizens

It was always just an over-hyped idiom

You won’t lose a second of sleep over this

While my dreams are full of vinegar and piss

VERSE 2

I cracked like a shell underneath the pressure

All for your ego and sadistic little pleasure

I’m not the diamond you’ve always wanted

I’m the ghost that leaves the world haunted

Next time when you throw me in the deep end

Give me some oxygen on which I can depend

Don’t tie a cinder block around my ankle

And send me to live with the fucking angels

VERSE 3

Is that what you call opportunity right there?

This is what I call too much to fucking bear

A nervous wreck with a noose on my neck

You put it there to keep my ass in check

I can’t calm down with you hovering over me

Singling me out like I’m the weakest link

I’m sending you my two weeks notice today

Maybe I’ll choose right now to fuck away

FINAL VERSE

You can call it coasting while proudly boasting

That I’m the only one you’re fucking roasting

Thanks for the life experience, you jackass

Not like you’ll experience any of the backlash

Wrestling With My Mind

***WRESTLING WITH MY MIND***

One day of creative inactivity is unacceptable to me, let alone four. Creating blueprints for my next novel idea doesn’t count, because that shit was too easy. I’m so close to putting the finishing touches on Silent Warrior. Only four more chapters to go and my racecar ran out of gas. I know I originally said three more chapters, but I’ve decided to add another one to make sure all of my loose ends are tied up. You want to know what I’ve been doing during those four days of inactivity aside from creating blueprints? Wrestling with my mind. It wasn’t a schizophrenic attack, but rather a creative struggle within my soul.

Wrestling with your creativity can be good for coming up with story ideas, but when it takes the place of actual work, that’s not a good thing. I used to do this all the time when I was a teenager. I’d wrestle with my mind and never get around to writing something that would amount to a Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex fan fiction. Back then I wanted to do a self-insert fic where I was the subject of unrequited love for Makoto Kusanagi. I ran a bunch of different scenarios through my head and eventually popped something tangible out. Looking back now, it’s not very good, but at least some good came from the constant inner turmoil.

In the case of my most recent four days of nothingness, this running of the gauntlet was a long time coming. It began in mid-February when I researched an episode of Millennium called “A Room with No View” due to nostalgic curiosity. I’ve beaten this topic to death with a lead pipe, so to give you the Cliff’s Notes version of why that episode was upsetting to me, it was a unique version of the kidnapping trope, this time a beautiful woman kidnapping a handsome high school boy and giving him lovey-dovey treatment while in captivity. I saw the Wikipedia article for this episode and figured, I want to do a story like that too, though with my own spin on it. Thus a novel synopsis for “Beautiful Monster” was born. But blueprints aren’t anywhere near as valuable as an actual novel, so it’ll have to be shelved for now.

Less than a week later, I went to see Pop Evil at El Corazon, a nightclub in Seattle. The music was good and dancing to it was a lot of fun. Here’s what I didn’t tell you guys. While Black Map (one of the opening acts) was performing onstage, a cute stocky black chick tried dancing with me. She had her hand in mine. She had her hand on my shoulder. She was twirling around. For all intents and purposes, since I’m apparently so lovesick, I should be making moves on her too. But no. I was terrified. I just stood there frozen like Walt Disney while this chick was giving me sugar and love. It didn’t help matters that she shoved another woman with her elbow and got herself ejected from the building, but that’s beside the point.

I spent the next two days wrestling with the awkwardness and then the following Wednesday I saw Starset at the same venue without incident. But think about this for a minute: an episode of Millennium, an embarrassing moment at a concert, and a childhood of rejecting girls as a reaction to my father’s divorce troubles. Bad timing aside, don’t you think this makes for some emotionally raw creative fuel? You’re damn right it does. The creative fuel helped get me through ten more chapters of Silent Warrior, which is a story about an unconfident high schooler named Scott George getting into an unfamiliar romance with a younger woman. Pay attention to the theme of lacking confidence around women, because that’ll come into play multiple times during my creative journey.

Because of this creative fuel swirling in my brain, I became obsessed with certain songs in my music library. You all know about “Beautiful Monster” by Otherwise, but I also listened to a lot of “This Love” by Pantera. I also listened to a lot of heavy metal songs to bring me back down into bathos territory. And then I start watching Final Fantasy videos on You Tube and finding even more vicarious romances to set my mind on fire. Squall Leonhart and Cloud Strife are both emotionally distant characters who are colder than Walt Disney (man, I’m really laying that shit on thick!). When they went on dates with their respective love interests, I felt the terror building up in my stomach yet again.

And then the scenarios swirled in my head once more. I actually imagined Squall, Cloud, and Landon Bryce (Millennium) joining a group therapy session to get in touch with their feelings, y’all (as Dr. Phil would oftentimes say). And then I imagined myself in a college class introducing myself as someone who doesn’t open up easily. And then I imagined having a schizophrenic episode in the middle of a WWE ring with the girls of Absolution screaming for paramedics.

And while all of this nonstop nonsense is going on, I still have two novel ideas floating around in my head. One of them is Beautiful Monster as I’ve mentioned before. The other is Booger the Clown. Let’s compare and contrast the main characters of both stories. Windham Xavier is an elf paladin who gets kidnapped by a beautiful vampire named Shelly Atwood so that the two of them can have a black wedding together. Booger the Clown (real name Private Andrew Gale) is a depressed birthday performer who picks fights with orcs because he secretly wants to die. Both main characters are snarky. They’re both emotionally fucked up for life. They’re both being pursued by beautiful women. And whatever happy ending they achieve, they’re going to have to earn it through fire and fury.

Keep in mind that these ideas and dream scenarios are all invading my mind right when I’m ready to pull the trigger on Silent Warrior. Four chapters left. Four fucking chapters left, all of which I’ve played out in my mind many times before and therefore have a solid foundation for how I’m going to write them. Two chapters are going to be told through Tom Simpson’s point of view, one chapter is going to be told through Scott George’s POV, and the other one goes to Alan Young. You won’t get many spoilers beyond that, so cool your jets, as my mother once told me.

But let’s go back to this theme of being unconfident and afraid around beautiful women. This is a curse that has followed me for pretty much all of my life. Even when I was dating a Bremerton woman named Brianna, I could never bring myself out of the shadows for fear of offending the other person. I’ve been offended by women in the past and I don’t want to put anybody else through that. So in order to keep the peace between us, I give them a shield from my lovey-dovey behavior. Even if they don’t give me a shield, I give them a shield. Though the peace treaty is intact, our hearts are not. Careless overconfidence can lead to awkwardness. Nobody needs that. Shyness, on the other hand, is the greatest defense I’ll ever have.

But instead of rolling over and playing dead for a cold world, I use sexual inadequacy as creative fuel for my emotionally rawest stories. William Butler Yeats was once told by his crush that if they got together, he’d have nothing to write about. That doesn’t mean I don’t intend to date again when the opportunity presents itself. It just means I’m going to focus my broken heart on getting things done rather than being a perpetual angsty mope. Like I said, Silent Warrior is four chapters away from completion. I may write the twenty-fifth chapter today, depending on whether or not my brain wants to cooperate. I think it will. It’s cooperated with me long enough to get this blog entry out, so I think I’m good to go for Silent Warrior’s twenty-fifth chapter. I’m Garrison Kelly and I’ll see you next time!

***NOVEL QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“I know it isn’t fair. I know how hard you try. But if you want love and affection in this world, you have to earn it by being a good person, not by throwing a fit.”

-Windham Xavier to Shelly Atwood-

Anyone But You

VERSE 1

We could have had a friendly debate

One without judgment or even hate

But you attacked everything about me

You’re a predator with an ego to feed

Build yourself up, knock me down

Like you’re wearing a fucking crown

I’ll spread my wings, fly into the blue

Anyone but you, jerk, anyone but you!

VERSE 2

We could have had a nice dinner date

Ice cream and sex after finishing our plates

But you made me fear for my own safety

That’s why I haven’t been flirty lately

Your soft touch makes my blood go cold

You believe my body is yours to hold

Your so-called love was never even true

Anyone but you, babe, anyone but you!

VERSE 3

You could have taught me a new skill

I wouldn’t have minded the tuition bill

But you marked me with C’s, D’s, and F’s

The midterms hadn’t even started yet

Convince me that I’m mediocre at best

All because I couldn’t pass your test

Class dismissed, nothing more to prove

Anyone but you, prof, anyone but you!

VERSE 4

Dirty bastards come from all walks of life

They don’t always carry a gun or a knife

All they need is just a little bit of power

To turn good people into screaming cowards

Playing with your brain and with your heart

Until you want to rip your fucking skin apart

Whenever she tells you that love is blue

All you have to say is, “Anyone but you!”

VERSE 5

A dead cockroach would be just as friendly

As any role model who plays a better enemy

As any stranger who lacks true empathy

As any troll who laughs at you with anonymity

As any friend who stabs you in the front and back

As any lover who leaves you with eyes so black

As any preacher who thinks his bullshit is true

Anyone but you, fucker, anyone but you!

Silent Warrior, Chapter 15

The fact that Mr. Simpson didn’t get a speeding ticket or a smashed up car on the drive to his daughter’s house was nothing short of miraculous. His hands squeezed the steering wheel like it was the throat of Scott George. His eyes burned brightly like a fiery orphanage. His veins bulged and pulsated while his teeth were so tightly clamped that he could easily max out his dental insurance. When he finally pulled up to Adrienne’s house, he slammed on the brakes and nearly smashed his forehead against the windshield (another miracle that he didn’t).

The history teacher huffed and wheezed in an attempt to reason with himself. He didn’t want to go in there guns blazing (because he still loved his daughter), but that message scrawled across his blackboard did no favors for his boiling rage. It played over and over in his head like a scratchy record of cacophonic screaming. He got out of the car and slammed the driver’s door shut before marching with authority to the front door of Adrienne’s house.

Taking a few more deep breaths to steady his pulsating nerves, he noticed his ex-wife’s car wasn’t in the driveway. Adrienne must have been home alone. Or maybe not. Maybe he was with someone a little more familiar to her. Mr. Simpson clutched his agonized face and scraped his fingernails across his cheeks in a raw attempt to push that thought to the back of his mind. He opened the door without knocking and bolted straight for Adrienne’s room. A few more whirlwinds of anxiety-crushing breaths later, he barged into his daughter’s room and caught her painting her toenails bright pink.

Adrienne crab walked across her bed and allowed her nail polish to spill all over her carpeted floor. “D…Dad? What are you doing here? Don’t you know how to knock?” she stuttered.

With a sinister visage and clenched fists, Mr. Simpson took a few more hard breaths before stating his business in the house that was once his. “Your mother and I may be divorced. It may have been one of the worst experiences in the Simpson family history. But I am still your father, Adrienne. I still love you very much. That’s why I must insist that you stay away from Scott George.”

Her jaw quivering, Adrienne said, “W…why? I love him, Dad. He loves me too.”

“That’s not love!” belted Mr. Simpson, causing his daughter to jump out of her skin. “Scott George doesn’t give a damn about anybody but himself. He’s dating you to get back at me. I may be a rotten bastard at times, but at least I’d never hurt you the way he’s going to.”

Sobbing and breathing heavily at the same time, Adrienne said, “Bullshit! You’ve done nothing but hurt me and my mom ever since you married her! All the yelling, all the rules, all the arguments…I remember everything, Dad. I’ll always remember those no matter how many times I see my therapist. Yeah, Dad: you put me in therapy. That must be a proud moment in your life. So much yelling. I can still hear it in my head!”

Crossing his arms, Mr. Simpson said, “I didn’t yell at you and your mom because I wanted to cause you pain. I did it because I wanted order. That was something this household was lacking for a long time. Your grades weren’t always the best and your mother was complacent at her job. Sometimes yelling is the best way to get through to someone. You’ll understand one day when you’re a mother, hopefully not with Scott’s child.”

“Order?” cried Adrienne as she shot up from her bed and shoved her father. “I call bullshit! I had you figured out a long time ago, Dad! In fact, I want to show you something that you’ll never be able to deny.” She reached in her underwear drawer and pulled out a stack of magazines before slamming them on her computer desk for Mr. Simpson’s perusal.

The teacher’s heart thumped deafeningly in his chest as he thumbed through the magazines and saw pictures of athletically gifted men with chiseled frames. “Heh…your porn collection? Does your mom know you have this?”

“They’re not my magazines, Dad. They’re yours.”

Mr. Simpson’s blood froze into a solid block of anxiety. His nerves tingled as he took one more look at these “beautiful” men. “Where did you find these?”

“Under your bed, Dad. I’ve known about them for a long time now, but I didn’t want to say anything because I was too interested in keeping this family together,” confessed Adrienne, who held her father’s hands in hers with a tender loving touch. “Dad…” she sobbed. “I don’t care that you’re gay. I would have loved you anyways. You didn’t have to keep it locked inside you this whole time. Hell, I would have helped you find a nice boyfriend. You’re angry at everyone because you don’t feel accepted. You didn’t have to take it out on your own family. You don’t have to take it out on your students either. Dad…let me help you! Please!”

Mr. Simpson pulled his hands out of his daughter’s loving grasp and angrily whispered, “I’m beyond help, Adrienne. There’s no turning back for me or this family. And there’s certainly no turning back for Scott George. It’s like I said to him in detention this morning: I’m definitely going to hell for all of the disgusting things I’ve done. But if I’m going to hell, I’m taking the whole world with me. Every homophobe, every bigot, and everybody in between…they’re all going down in flames. I don’t know how I’m going to get back at Scott, but it’s going to happen. Detention isn’t good enough for him. I need something a little extra!”

Adrienne dropped to her knees and begged her father, “Please! Don’t hurt my boyfriend! I love him!”

Petting his daughter’s hair with fake comfort, Mr. Simpson said, “Don’t worry, my darling. I’m not going to get physical with him. I can’t even afford a pistol on my teacher’s salary. Like I said, I don’t know what I’m going to do to him yet, but when I do…I’m going to make it hurt!”

“No…no…NO!” wept Adrienne while pounding her father’s chest with clenched fists. “Don’t do it! Leave him alone! He’s mine, goddamn it! He’s mine!”

To end the assault, Mr. Simpson shoved Adrienne on her ass and caused her to bawl even louder than before. Realizing what he just did, he clutched his scalp and sighed in embarrassment. “I’m sorry, Adrienne. I didn’t mean to do that. Here, let me help you up.”

He offered his hand for Adrienne to grab, but instead of accepting it, she screamed, “Get out! Get out of my house and don’t come back! You’re not a father! You’re a glorified sperm donor! I hate you, Dad! I fucking hate you! Get out of my house before I call the police! Move it!”

Holding up his hands defensively, Mr. Simpson backed off and silently said, “Okay, I’m leaving. It’s okay, dear. It’s okay.”

As the teacher turned around to leave, he overheard Adrienne screaming at him some more. “No! It’s not okay! It’ll never be okay again! Get the fuck out of my house, you pig! You wanted this divorce! Now you’ve got it!” That last sentence was punctuated by Adrienne throwing a hardcover book at her dad and nailing him in the back of the neck, to which the teacher just flinched and shrugged it off. He ran out of the house and back into the driver’s seat of his car.

Mr. Simpson clutched the steering wheel tightly while tears poured from his eyes. Adrienne’s words stung him like a thousand scorpion tails. He almost considered backing off from Scott just out of respect for her. He still wanted to love his daughter. He still wanted to make things right. But she wouldn’t let him. Nobody would. He even damned his own sexual chemistry for getting in the way of what could have been a beautiful family love.

He screamed like a gorilla and wailed on the steering wheel with closed fists. His assault could have easily disabled his own vehicle if it hadn’t been for one lingering thought interrupting his moment of rage. He still had one more person to talk to that morning. There was somebody out there who could make things right even though they were on less agreeable terms than him and Adrienne.

Mr. Simpson smiled maniacally and breathed heavily as he said to himself, “Miss Williams…guess who’s coming to breakfast!” He laughed like a loony toon as he started his car and peeled out onto the empty suburban street, once again evading a speeding ticket through the kindness and mercy of the universe.