7-10 Skull Splitter

I remember when my sister came home. My parents didn’t seem to notice the everlasting change morphing the household, but I do. I remember that they no longer interrupted my sleep, no longer interfering with my dreams. I was always a quiet child, never giving them reason to assert their authority over me. Yet, two years later, there she was, crawling into the midst of the hallway, the young tiny treasure that eclipsed the older large ruin.

Her chubby hands emphatically slapped the worn wooden floor as if she was trying to launch herself into sprint with every progressing crawl, and there I stood, looking at her thirstily absorb her surroundings while I cupped dad’s bowling ball with both of my arms without anyone aware of my intentions, not even myself; I just knew that one object was heavier than the other.

Death on the Brain

I think about my death at least twice an hour. How will it happen? I’m not caught up so much as on the when because I could die before finishing this bloody piece. But still – I often think about:


• How will it happen?

• Will it be painful or subtle?

• Will I linger or will it be quick?

And most important of all:

• What song/album will I be listening to when it does finally happen?

I was exiting the expressway one evening on my way home from the university. I crossed the underpass where a truck chose to ignore the Stop sign and nearly plowed into me, but I – an actual driver and not a simple car steering oaf – was able to swerve out of the way and speed my way ahead of the fool.

During the incident I was listening to Our Lady Peace’s album “Healthy in Paranoid Times,” which was already one of my favorite albums from any band. Through the rest of the drive home all I could think about was that if that truck had hit me and I died, I would’ve died listening to this particular album.

That’s fucking awesome.

I think about all of the different forms of suicide I could perform. I have no intentions of killing myself, so I don’t mind thinking about all of the different methods; and, no, I’m not going to describe any of them either because they are all pure genius and reserved only for me or my characters.

Usually, I try to outdo myself with each new deadly episode. I don’t think it really matters how I go, just as long as the music is right.

Silent Sirens

The sky was as enlightened as the introduction to the Big Bang. Fireworks erupted everywhere and she kept her best known associates closely by.


The daughter didn’t want to speak to the mother – the uncle was too amused by the facts of it all to even really care about any of it, and everyone knew a cake was being delivered on Monday.

The sirens sounded but remained silent until there was someone appropriate enough to hear them – to interpret them – and inevitably, to damn them.

Every sentence begins with an idea and ends as a statement. Death makes a statement. Death remains an idea.

Flesh Finicky Feline Furies

Meandering the city streets during their prime nocturnal heartbeats is a dangerous thing. Linkward knew this quite well, but his most solemn conscientious moments occurred only during these ruthless hours.  

The hint of danger and human waste irked his senses throughout every block. To escape the sense-provoking swill, he would glance at the moon – the only celestial entity capable of being observed from the street floor. The city’s streetlights and blinking, neon temptation messengers were obliterated any chance of undisturbed, natural night sky.

The cats could see it though. They could see the sky better than any human ever hoped they could. The other things cats could sense, smell, see, and taste were the downtrodden souls in Linkward’s unkempt community.

During the previous week at the apartment complex, Linkward’s downstairs neighbor – Mr. Edgerow, the man with urine stains trickling down his front shirt that he attempted to pass off as careless coffee splashes had lost his job at the insurance agency, probably for frequently extending his lunch periods in order to get the elderly Yemen prostitute on Montrose avenue to piss on his chest while he chewed on his necktie and strangled his dick with dental floss.

Those nutritious facts made their way to the forefront of his social notoriety after he was found dead. Rather, when what was left of him was found, confirming his death. His former boss feigned concern for his mental well-being, but really hoped to ensure that Mr. Edgerow wasn’t planning any form of legal or illegal and violent retribution towards his office or remaining employees and potential clients.

When the police rigorously entered his home, dozens of cats fled from the apartment leaving behind only scraps of soggy flesh consumed up to the upper torso. His head was completely intact, aside from traces of cat fur draped across his thoughtless face.

The police found a suicide note in the kitchen, but he had planned to sexually asphyxiate himself to death. The cats sensed his despair – they got to him first.

Like everyone else, Linkward didn’t believe any of the stories about the man-eating cats, but after the scene witnessed by dozens of onlookers at the fate of Mr. Edgerow, now and again during his nightly perambulations through his industrial lover, Linkward would now look to the moon and then into the alleys, and occasionally he would find cats lingering within; sometimes feeding on something behind the cluttered mass of malodorous darkness, and Linkward knew that nothing in life was worth losing faith in yourself over because he had no interest in being consumed by soul-sniffing, moon-gazing cats.

Creating Shadows

I work. I'm not sure what it is I do exactly, but I know I get a paycheck for it. Sometimes I'm called to the forefront, but usually they need me in the background, behind the darkness; creating the shadows while quickening the pace.

Even the shadow-mover has off-days.

They found a used shell. Apparently, it had my fingerprints on it.

I tried recalling the night I loaded the cartridge but that was useful for only about forty-five seconds. The weather was supposed to be clear all night, meaning I should not have heard anything less than ten pounds scrawling over my rooftops. The spooky bastards they sent after me were at least one-hundred-and-fifty-plus.

They were all dead weight once me and mother nature were through with them.

Craving Ghosts

It's 3 a.m. in the cold.

I lost the bid and watched your breath get sold.

I tore up my written notes, scattering them into the fire

To keep warm our running joke.

Time makes me miss your sighs,

Time enough to have been a long time;

Long enough for me to miss even your lies.

Your windows have begun

To lose their reflection

While a haunting breath still stains the pane,

Yet I'm allowed to see you only when it rains. 

Concrete Heartbeat

Prancing across powerlines,
Listening to the signs of the times; forward is forward
Even when progress incidentally declines.
Losing velocity and devaluating property,
Hearing the heartbeat; feeling the pulse
Of My City...
My sweet city.