2 Minutes. Go!

It’s the tearing. You think cuts hurt, but you’re wrong. Cuts sting. They itch almost. They are a clean, neat feeling. Tearing feels like a scream inside your central nervous system. The pain is insanity; it is sky-rending. It changes the topography of your existence. It is an outrage, animalistic and antiquated. Yet, here it is. 

Your teeth will gnash and, were you thinking more clearly, you would realize that you finally understand that phrase. It is apt. It sings. 

Yes, flesh tears, and skin tears. Bones snap like carrots, wet and thick. 

It is an indignity, this sort of death. It reduces. 

Horror is an albatross, big and ungainly. It lives in the air and rarely touches down. Horror is a fat boy who knocks you down just to sit on your chest. You thrash and claw, but the window of your eyes begins to close as your breath goes. You hear him laughing. You can feel it in your bones. 

There is a sexual charge to it. The kind of resignation that feels like redemption. This is everything, you think. This is the meaning of it all. This fear, this sensation will blot out the misery of banality. It will help you cast off that life of quiet desperation. You will be better for it. 

At the edge of death is peace. It is a warm, cozy place. You will peep through the window, but not open the door. Not now. The door will stay shut until it opens against your will. This is your curse. 

This is agony.

2 Minutes. Go!

Sun pours out of the window, lighting the small courtyard in dimpled light. There are trees stretching their arms, and bushes hugging the earth like desperate toddlers. There is a bird bath that birds are scared to visit. They are scared because there is also a black cat who bores easily. He isn't hungry. He doesn't need blood; he needs the chase, and he will find it. Feline magnetism. Magic. 

There is a reflecting pond where koi should swim, and there is a stump that is covered in ivy. Hidden in the folds of the ivy, there are civilizations and worlds. Same can be said for the grass, the mulch, the fallen wooden fence which is so old and weathered that it looks as if it was placed there by God himself. 

Underneath the grass, there are tiny bodies and bigger ones. Seven hamsters, two cats who preceded the black. One was hell on birds, one wasn't. There is a beagle puppy that died young, breaking a young boy's heart, and there is one rabbit who barely lived past Easter. Some more scattered and random. Big enough to be a cow, horse, something with longer legs. 

There is a crumbling shed that is held up by a rusted, red bike. The rubber is rotten, and the spokes twisted. The bike hasn't moved in many, many years. It never moved much when it was new. 

I wish we could say that there is joy in the garden, but the garden is a tableau of lost joy. It is the antithesis of Eden, this garden of despair. Someday, it will be discovered, and people will wonder. They will make assumptions about what they find. Some will be right; some will be wrong. 

Bones tell twisted tales. 

2 Minutes. Go!

I made a mistake, and I'm gonna kick my ass for it. I mean a real ass-kicking. Not the kind that is over in one punch, but the kind where you curl up into the fetal position to take kicks and bricks to the head. I'm gonna give myself a beating I won't forget. Shame of it is, I will forget. And I will probably make the same mistake again, brick or no bricks. 

If you want to get a few hits in, I understand. I usually do my own ass-kicking, but it's important not to get too locked in your ways. This self-flagellation gets boring sometimes. Maybe you can include something I won't see coming. A kick to the balls. Maybe a thumb in the eye.

Here's the thing. I'm bucking trends. I know we're supposed to be focused on wellness and self-love, but fuck that. I'll have plenty of time for that when I'm dead. 

This is the way I teach myself. This is the way I was taught. This is way I hurt myself. Not for fun, for sport. This is the way I keep myself taut, waiting for my memories to rot. This is the way I make myself fit. 

This is the truth I sought.