December 1, 2020
Drugs are so great, they almost killed me
(hold my hand - I am slipping into a coma (I think), wait:
Am I Dead?
I am new now - old and broken: I am new. All movements labored like mercury filled fingers and toes. And the people in this home do people things. I go to my assigned room and take a nap. This is complicated: my body contorts in search of solace (whatever that means). A distant memory migraine ache, and all I wanted was nothing but to not tell myself that lie. Nowhere is this body: a sandblasted crystal meth shard mistake, porous commitments, idyllic backfilled saccharine stuffed tachyons. A blanket of suicided birds pave the road to Tucson and their flamed feathers leave nothing but their hollow bones. Mountaintop removal programs flatten the earth, but Leonard Cohen fills the void and airways with Death’s soothing soundtrack. Humankind reverts to the barter system, and everyone except the goddamn squirrels are fresh out of nuts. I recall an Elliott Smith song I have never heard and return to my broken toothed rock chewing dream about waking from a dream about hating myself and tossing broken coins in a broken wishing well. Two and three part harmonies bow like broken cricket legs as Seraphim and Cherubim hum D’s Ionian scale: the Principalities lurk behind a crumbling wall as it tickles their noses. Rose petals fall; a murder of murderous crows yank flesh and vicera from cournuconpious dead flesh mound. New Year's Eve LSD drips like window licking erect cocks dancing on the ceiling, and all of your limitations realized on your most confident night.
And how many times can you tell your story? It is one trick. But I don’t know what else there is, yet remain unconvinced I am not ‘make believe’. Sing out of key; tell them you love them; agree when they swear you are not a burden; tell the woman you love, “Any day now soon my dear...any day now - soon.” Everyone knows this lie, but it doesn’t matter cause they haven’t figured out a better way either. Just various ways of hanging on and self-deception: I never want the pandemic to end. Just sit here and watch this most heartfelt Lucky Bamboo grow through my chest as I “accidentally” fall on its sturdy nascent shoots. And do it all again and again and again, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow: everyone is judging your every movement, but no one is paying attention. Look into the needle of death with a vigorous eye (they always knew you knew, those sad dead eyes of yours). How many people know that cold does not exist? I wonder what they would think if they did? And you now what: Fuck the dead!
Throat dripping like oozing STD soars, and all anyone can think about is more: views, hits, likes, thumbs up, fingers in, face down, ass up, and blah, blah, blah: smiley face backslash feltchers ‘r’ everyone dot cumcumber melon water in my favorite hotel lobby...This is everyday...Like an infinite tapeworm devouring infinitely - and going fucking nowhere. Empty ideas, incomplete, shaved thoughts, severed brain matter and stem, and a story that will never be told about a wound that will never heal because no one will ever listen: print is dead, and in 20 years ¾ of the population will be illiterate. Blustering self-deceptive wind-drift crescendos inverse snowy bell-curved roof tops like a crumbling soul at Satan’s bar mitzvah: I have always wanted to move North - way North. But when fear is god, try to convince yourself, everyday, that god will be in - first thing in the morning: and that ubiquitous entity will help you solve your problems tomorrow. And, “Thank God!” you say. “I am sleepy.”
Essay and most other words by Ryan Stout
Music and Video by Matthew Bailey
Artwork by Wade Asa
*Film footage taken from "Wolfman vs Baragon"