Disemboweled in the shopping mall
All of almost spilled out today
After I handed my inked up job application paper
Filled with references and former employers names and proof of my citizenship
To the girl behind the starbucks counter
And she said through a mouthful of braces
“We’re not hiring right now but I’ll give this to the manager”
Everything nearly spilled out
All the rage which has built up inside me like plaque on unbrushed teeth
I imagined
(And I could see it too, like a drive in theater just above my nose)
Leaning my head over the tile counter
As if to give her a kiss
And biting her head off in one scissor motion chomp
And saying to one of her shocked coworkers as her spurting headless corpse collapsed on the cash register
“Now I KNOW there’s a job opening
Who else do I have to kiss to get it?”
Instead of even saying something witty or mean
I shoved it back down
Like a disemboweled person pushing their intestines back in
To buy more time
All my experience with violence comes from Hollywood
Tom Hanks firing at that german tank with a handgun at the end of saving private ryan
Even in fiction everybody wants to buy more time
And even though my eyesight occasionally tints red
I’ve never even been in a fight and know no pain beyond my own melodramatics
No pain no gain or maybe just no gain and plenty of pain
Clichés expand popcornish in my lard-streaked imagination
The coffee junkies behind me tapped their feet and scratched their arms waiting for me to move out of the way
I meekly said, “Thank you”
The espresso machine gurgled like a laugh track on an unfunny sitcom
I walked out into the rest of the 2 story shopping mall
Where a poster of a woman in a bra stared at me like a 30 foot tall big brother from a wall
Had the words
HELLO BOMBSHELL
Emblazoned across her chest in red letters
I hear them in head real sexy over the sound of crashing planes
HELLO BOMBSHELL
And from inside fudruckers I could hear a shamanistic chant proclaiming the bird is the word
A bald man dragged two shrieking mucous leaking children inside with him
One on each hand
And the mothers in public, they pull their children close to them if I walk within ten feet
Like I’m an unmuzzled dog without a metal leash around my finger
A fairy tale monster under the bed only around as reason to keep the kids in school
Is that all I’m good for now?
At the foodcourt the workers pop out like invisible robots to sweep away the trash
And then go back backstage or somewhere where nobody can see them
The hooks in deep kid either be gutted or go to sleep
And you aren’t gonna be able to push it out by eating potato chips and playing xbox
When I turned 13 years old
My mother sat me down and told me that now that I was a teenager
I was on my way to becoming a sex crazed immoral monster and how much of a shame it was that I wasn’t a girl
And now at the ripe old useless age of 20
I can’t look anyone in the eye and I step aside on the sidewalk to let anyone coming walk by
So yeah I’M the monster alright!
I wonder as I watch the plastic Christmas trees twinkle like fishhooks
If I’m alone in this
Or if everyone walks around pretending they aren’t disemboweled?
The postal service is letting kids send letters to santa claus in the north pole this year again
And the president is gonna give more money to the banks
So who’s propagating a bigger lie?
I hope I am
Alone in my loneliness because it’s nice to have at least one original idea going for you
The strapless plastic watch in my pocket reminds me that I have nowhere I need to go
Without me the wheels will continue to turn but while I’m here there isn’t anything left to burn
And while today feels thin and malnourished and the future remains incomprehensible
The past just keeps chewing and slobbering and getting fatter
I sometimes worry that eventually it will catch me in it’s flytrap teeth and every day will be yesterday
I hum a warped snatch of a beatles tune and look at chocolate truffles behind glass display cases longingly
“yesterday all my trouble seemed so far away, now I need to get some decongestant nasal spray”
And yesterday a homeless old person and I crossed the street at the same time
In between the painted white lines that say where it’s ok to walk but only when the white flashing sign says when
I couldn’t tell what gender he or she was
He or she wore a tattered muddy tarp for a coat and had dull tarnished eyes like beaten silver
And the edge of the tarp-cape flapped in the dioxide breeze and touched me briefly on the knee
Giving me a gypsy curse for sure
I could see myself mutating into a hag creature leering from the dumpsters
HELLO BOMBSHELL
But for now I’m young and broke my wallet has consumption
And the shopping mall’s display windows are tugging at it’s lungs
I’m young and useless except as a bedtime story so none of the children grow up to be me
Let me remind you that the bird IS the word but I’m not a bird just sickly and absurd
And I spent six out of my last 20 dollars on cheap hamburgers and fries
I sucked down their grease and realized I’ll never be close to the best
HELLO BOMBSHELL
All of it nearly spilled out today
But I shoved it back down the way a lazy person like myself will do with a small trashcan full of candy wrappers
HELLOBOMBSHELL
Airplanes are leaving streaks in the sky over the cities like skidmarks on grey underwear
On tables all over the civilized world
The cigarette butts sit cold and lonely in ashtrays until a genderless bony hand picks one up for a feeble fireless drag
And I can hear the sound of chewing
HELLO BOMBSHELL