a lake of shells, the grandeur of its Waterloo

I am a tattered man.

I rode the escalator to a rift

in the open country and

whispered down into the

smoldering charcoal:

we were born this way, right?

and held baleful the response:

get off my property, or you’ll be shot.

my self-loathing materialized into a rat,

one the size of a German Shepherd.

It destroyed my apartment, rending

fabric with teeth and lashing objects

with tail. I stood idly, unaffected,

witnessing the Rat of Self-Loathing

slash my cat to ribbons. When the

carnage ended, the Rat leapt into my

body, and I disintegrated. I pulled

myself together (somewhat) as strands

of cirrus cloud over a campsite. You

and Tom stood below, and you said:

I could never have loved him. Tom said:

He didn’t want that. Fuck him.

And you both walked away arm in arm

as I laryngospasmed to wake

and found Harvey Keitel’s penis on

my television. Imagine my surprise.

I spray Windex on the screen, ranting

about being unable to stop the word

frantic from excessive appearances in

my writing, and I clumsily chip a

ceramic sea anemone. I am not nice people,

I condemn myself, as I plastic spoon

Metamucil into tepid Powerade like

middle-aged crystal meth and contemplate

hands-free harikari by limbless gadflies

and my need for paper towels.