A lot can happen in ten minutes:

We can run from the bar – drunk – across the busy street and order an obscene amount of chicken sandwiches from Wendy’s.  I always have to take a piss in Wendy’s – visit the bathroom.  Blame Joe Wenderoth.  Every time I enter the room I expect to find him on his haunches – dick in a Frosty.

I just want to give him a highfive.

We can stand outside – freezing – talk loud, drink and smoke cigarettes.  We drink so much that we can not stop pissing so we just piss all over the ground.  It is cool, though, because the waitress walks over – piss dribbling down her legs – and says it is cool if we just piss right here.  So we stand in piss and laugh and throw our phones because there is only 10% battery left.

The bathroom is far away.

I can drive home with gloves on – driving gloves.  They make me feel so fucking cool that I turn up the volume and pound the steering wheel along with the beat – watch the light bounce off the flexing leather.  I scream.  I accelerate.

I park in my driveway.

Gloves off.

We can notice that this strange guy has been staring at Mike – challenging us.  The guy is not drinking or pissing so we are suspect.  So, Mike does that nod thing and asks the guy:

“Do I know you?”

The guy puts his hand up to his ear as if he can not hear but is trying and Mike fucking screams:

“DO I KNOW YOU?”

The guy says “no,” and Mike is like “Then why the fuck are you staring at me?”

And we all start laughing which makes us piss more and the strange dude that was staring at Mike walks away making slosh sounds with his shoes.

___

Originally Appeared on Trick with a Knife on 12.16.10

Edited on 02.08.11

The highway has everything I need but do not want.

“Hell, I forgot about that place.”

The grunge station played music that was clearly not grunge – Blink 182.  We were dissatisfied with the inclusion of pop-punk into our chosen genre – resented it.

We stopped for lunch – burgers.

“There is a Five Guys back here; I can smell it.”

I believe in the existence of Five Guys when I want it.

We ate.

We drove.

The indicator illuminated.

A gas station should appear the second my low-gas light comes on.

The gas station was a step back to 1990.  Pump and then pay inside – no cards at the pumps.  I could not understand the girls who jocked the registers.  Their drawl was so fucking heavy that it spilled out of their mouths up to my waist.  It was not language; it was vomit.

We waded through undecipherable vomit.

We drove more.

We talked about Kurt Cobain and his contribution to music.

“Doll Parts” started playing on the radio.

“God, I fucking hate her.  Just imagine her naked.”

I laughed and said “It was good enough for Kurt Cobain.”

“Obviously it wasn’t.”

Somewhere, Courtney Love needs cream for that burn.

“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” -God

I imagined the womb to be like Cafe Risque; God and I.  Our rigs were outside and we were showered – trucker showered.  There were shots, highfives, burgers and funny pictures with backwards hats – tits everywhere.

We drove further.

“It is thirty nine degrees outside; it is getting colder and we are going to fucking die.”

“When you die, you will meet God.”

We did not die, though; we arrived.

The house was in the throes of melodic Christmas music and we consumed together.

Driving through, or by, is not conducive to understanding.

Taste it.

Coat yourself in burger grease, smoke.

Fry yourself in oil.

Serve pieces to passers by.

My palm smacked him perfectly – all needle extremities spread with cocked wings.  I should have cleaned him off the glass with Windex, Isopropyl Alcohol or generic, tint-safe window cleaner.  I had all of these cleaners readily available – stocked.  I was so fucking stocked with cleaners yet I did not use any of them.

The truth is, when the morning moon is mid-sky, I like to close one eye and position my mosquito – center him in the circle.  He is the symbol in the spotlight – calling for help.  None will come.

But, they will come.

They will crowd around the flat-screen – white knuckles grasping knives and forks.  The largest will slice into the liquid black and serve – digital Tryptophan.

Their future selves appear on the shattered screen; they will be slack-jawed and slow moving with outstretched arms – drenched in Lithium Ion.

Zombies are born.

Thank you, Mother.  Thank you for sending me an Applebees gift card for my birthday.  I would like to relay my experience to you – if that is okay.  I took the family.  We crowded into my coupe and nodded our heads in unison – to the bleating death metal.  We read the menu while waiting to be seated and ordered our meals along with our drinks.

The kids howled and ruined as many crayons as they possibly could while waiting for their meal; I used the dull steak knife to carve all our names into a heart on the perfect, freshly lacquered table.

Our impatient scrawling was rewarded with chosen food.

Positively reinforced-

So we ate with our hands and the children only used their mouths to – dip chicken into ketchup – avoid the soggy pile of vegetables that we insisted they eat but knew they never would.  We collectively inhaled a single desert – four spoons – and headed home to be content in the pursuit of something.

____

Originally Appeared on Trick with a Knife on 11.23.10

Eat as much as you want and pay what you think the meal was worth.

So I ate a meatball sub which I valued at two dollars and fifty cents, but I was still hungry.  So, I had another meatball sub for three dollars (extra meatball), a brownie for fifty cents and a piece of lasagna for four dollars.

Then I took another brownie without paying the additional fifty cents.

Wait.

This is the moment

I realized my desire for excess – my affinity for more; gigahertz, gigabytes and gasoline.  God, do I love gasoline – they way it smells and tastes.  Bigger motors guzzle more which is why I will be buying a sport utility vehicle at my earliest convenience.

Convenience is why I have my groceries double bagged in plastic – Honeycrisp apples that cost two dollars a pound; I eat them like pussy and let the juices drip down my chin.

Chin high, on my way home, I grin-fucked the shifter into third at a buck ten and watched smoke rise from the hood like chalk dust from my lungs.  On the side of the road is peace – being shaken by the cars flying by at eighty miles per hour.  No.  This is the moment.

I am completely out of control.

Control is what heightened my senses on the median.

The past doesn’t matter anymore.

I roll on the ground until my joints are bloody and absorb pebbles into my wounds.  I fuck every facet in the asphalt and watch traffic swerve, skid and mash me into the road.

____

Originally Appeared on Trick with a Knife on 11.17.10

This isn’t basic anymore; this is a war zone.

If the pen is mightier than the sword, your keyboard is a fucking assault rifle. Look down the sites and unload your literary magazine. Pull a pseudo-intellectual smirk across your face and pull the fucking trigger. Rattle it off at sixty words a minute. Those aren’t your friends following you on Twitter. That’s the enemy. Teach them a lesson; show them something new. Riddle them with holes.

Leave them maimed.

I want to smell their brain matter frying on the pavement – sizzling in the afternoon sun.

Be the better shot – practice. Practice until you smell the plastic keys burning beneath your fingers. Use your head to hit the space bar. Pound that shit with your fists. Keep spares. When you get hungry, eat the “s” key – fuck pluralizing. Chew on the cable.

I want to know where you live by the number of broken keyboards I see outside of your house. Use them to fertilize your lawn. Stack them up like a monument to your literary genius. Autograph them as your throw their gnarled remains at passing cars – like a monkey flinging its own shit. Cram the half eaten USB cables down their throats. Make them lick the finger-goop off the “t.” The potential is there – your potential. All you have to do is work for it.

Or, you can watch Dancing with the Stars again – which contributes nothing to society other than making you complacently idolize intellectually inferior morons that couldn’t spell the word restaurant if they tried.

____

Originally Appeared on Trick with a Knife on 05.10.10

I like your hibiscus and butterfly medley tramp-stamp. It goes really well with the dragon wrapped around your arm and angel wings on your back. The peace symbol on your left ankle, however, is ideologically flawed in comparison to the yin yang on your right ankle.

Getting it removed might be a good idea.

You don’t have to obey logical boundaries or obvious signs of danger. Climb the fence and play on the track.

Put your head on the rail.

Eat the mystery meat.

The next time you find yourself on a bus, try to imagine how many people sat there before you. Imagine that they hadn’t showered in a few days.

They were sweating and wearing shorts.

Your khakis aren’t even clean anymore.

Get comfortable.

Sit back in your favorite easy chair and crack open a cold one. Throw your neck back and – bottle vertical – just keep drinking.

Don’t stop.

I hope you have a forty.

__

Update 05.14.10: Burst Fiction’s site is down, so I have posted The Ominous Existence of Disdain below.

__

The Ominous Existence of Disdain

On Tuesday evening, Michelle abandoned her children, Chance and Hope. In a poorly lit alley, she discarded them amongst the stinking refuse and festering, green slime which breeds behind thriving, frenzied commerce.

Their cries faded as she walked away.

These no longer have equity; this is the model.

Wednesday night, she took her place behind the podium and looked down on the audience. As she began to speak, their eyes glazed starry with the innocence of a child – wide-eyed and hopeful.

They have been enlightened.

Applaud the example, praise the direction and worship the guide.

There is no turning back.