"Two-thousand-seventy bottles of beer on the wall, two-thousand and seventy bottles of beeeeeer. Take one down, pass it around, two-thousand-and-sixty-nine bottles of beer on the waaaaaaaaaaaaaaall."
Johnny steps down from the stage to thunderous, silent applause. A few faces are comically stunned. Most are arranged in various expressions of disgust.
I'm sure the patrons of the Poet's Society were hoping for better lyrics from the Frontman of the Year. I walk hurriedly to the publicist to begin my explanation. Should I go for the cancer, the break-up, the drugs, or the booze option? I'm sure that's what everyone's thinking anyway....
"Why the rush?"
A hand grazes the back of my neck, pulling my hair away. Warm breath sticks to the back of my ear and the skin of my neck. I stiffen. That voice is so familiar. I hear a shift to my right and then feel a hand wrap around mine. I jerk it to my side.
"What's the matter?"
I barely hear the words when my body shudders it's disgust. My eyes squeeze shut and I take a step forward. Then two steps. Then three. I don't stop at the door or at the road or anything. I...
Gene loved the smell of leather. He loved the smell of Heather wearing leather. He loved Heather in leather and the smell and the idea of the smell and the smell of the smell always left him crazed and wanting. He couldn't help himself. He didn't know how.
Heather hated Gene. She hated the idea of Gene and the smell of Gene and the smell of the smell of the leather Gene always wore. She had hated him forever. She always would. She could never forgive him for that one thing, years ago. She couldn't even remember anymore. She knew...
Despite the obvious instructions, the young boy turned from the class prompt and began scribbling furiously on the sheet of lined, college-ruled paper. First an eye, then another. Two ears — no, wait, make it three — and a cruel mouth. Fangs and something like a tongue, long and sharp and forked. A ferrety neck protrudes awkwardly into shoulders and a pair of thin, hairy arms extend from these.
He squints with intention, his hand begins hurting from gripping the number two pencil so hard. A messy hand and another goes onto the page. Four fingers on one, three on...
The pool was larger than any that I had ever seen. When my parents told us that we were going to Sea World, I never thought that I would get to swim with the dolphins. But here I was, in a body suit, surrounded by squeaking dolphins. I smiled as one came up to me, and squeaked impatiently at me. It turned around, and sat still.
"She wants you to grab on!" The trainer yelled to me, so I did. The dolphin jumped into the air, with me trailing behind it. I screamed joyfully, and we smashed into the water....
I jumped. She jumped. My heart jumped. My soul jumped. My shadow jumped. My vision jumped. My brain jumped. My arm jumped. All of me was jumped. My foot are the last to jumped. Jumped. Jumped. Jumped. There's nothing left. Nothing. Nothing.
But you!
I wait you to jump.
I never loved Jesus I just loved singing. The way my body filled with adrenaline at the sight of a choir of candles. The deep sadness of wailing chords and the fire of my brain's holy spirit. The serious intonations of a preacher speaking without thinking of anything other than leadership, speaking about ears to hear, speaking about the blind leading the blind.
Was he a good man? I suppose he tried to be and I doubt I would ever have directly murdered someone who was trying to be a good man. That's why I left him. That's why none...
That is one big rock. Or a whole buttload of really, really small rocks. If you jumped from the top of that rock, and I mean off of it, not just up and down in one place or like a little kangaroo or something, but really just ran and jumped from the top of that rock and into the air and then aimed yourself toward the edge and launched yourself off of the rock and began to plummet toward the ground way, way, way far below the rock, then you'd be falling a long time, like even longer than this...
I sprawl out across my book-strewn bed. The window is shut tight, the words on the page are swimming, and the beat of the neighborhood "get together" pounds at my scull. "William Shakespeare is by far the world's most widely known and appreciated playwright..." The textbook sits next to me, seeming to take up my entire bedroom. I can't focus on anything with all this stupid music. I reach for the mug of cold coffee sitting on my bedside table and pound it back. I grimace at the cold bitterness as it slides down my tongue. The clock reads 3:17am....
I thought it was true love then. I thought it would last forever. I was so in love. It scared me how much I loved him and wanted him all the time. Since then, I've forgotten what that feeling feels like. I try to remember but I can't. I can't replicate the butterflies I felt minutes before seeing him. The trust I thought I saw looking into his eyes. I imagined our lives together. I romanticized him and looked past things I shouldn't have. Its crazy to think at one time, he was my everything and now he's a stranger....