by Christian McDonough
10
I stand before the vast emptiness. Do you see what it is?
It bores out and over, out through the whole that encapsulates it.
All so much more stupid than we thought. Infantile. Yes, because it is freed and unfucked. Untainted, untouched, undone, unknown.
The sky is black. Endless blackness.
Is this to be the uncovering?
What shall be uncovered but my Self. My Soul. Remade and recreated and redone.
And memory? Chance?
All thought and frigid failure.
Beasts whetted. Risen up from their restingwombs to breathe and live and speak, whisper into your ear: white and fetid and wet and pulsing.
Want your woman. Your life. Your wet noodle, too.
Your sourness. Your soreness.
Want it all from you.
Amongst the high trees and high towers of white which burn bright, amongst the grand creature which crumbles them all yet crumbles itself.
All taken by the flame. Amongst it all, your face. The face of Christian McDonough. Smiling goofily with a weak jaw.
But who is he? And who shall he be?
A body. An ugly body. A body of fat and bone and muscle and tendon and blood and water and skin and flesh and eyes.
It was waiting for this all along. It came from deep within.
It stands.
Putrid. Disgusting. And filled with disgust.
It hates you, Christian. It thinks you are nothing.
Now, its time has come.
And upon those stout white legs of a creamy flesh, those haunches bent askew and cockeyed, like a frog it crouches to leap up and out at you with danger, danger, burning into your soul forever. It licks its lips with its fat, bloated, boiled tongue; its lips a deer’s nose, its eyes a foul bird, and the ears...a thousand human ears mounted upon themselves, proliferating and growing and failing and rising again in a wash of toil and spit and bilge. Pure bilge. This beast, its name is Freng.
Freng speaks:
I, Freng. Touch you. Rape you. Take you. Make you mine. And you are me. And I am of you. I am coming to you. I come to you and through you each night. I fuck off you. I fuck off of all of you. Every bit of you laid to waste by my tongue. And my cock and pusshole. Yours. You love it. You love the eating I do. I eat it away from you, so you...you do not have to worry.... Hear me bellow now to you. Watch my throat croak out large and fat while I call. Grrrraaauuut. Grrrraaauuut. Ahh. It is so good. It is so good to let it out now, finally. Here, before you. In the flesh. And come, give me your flesh close now and free, while you wake. While you watch. Finally, while you watch and see. Finally you can know and be with me. Be with me of your own will, now.
I love it. I feel now your arm with my wet, webbed fingers. I suck onto your arm with my palm. Now you cannot escape. You tingle. You are tingled by my arms. Both are now on you. You certainly can’t escape. You are trapped now here, forever, with me. I will show you hatred. I will show you love. The two are one and the same, that’s what I always say. The two are needed. The more you hate, the more you love. Ahhhh. Grrrrraaauuut. I open wide for you. Grrrrrrraaaaauuuutttt. Wauder.... Grrrrrrrrrrraaaaahhhhhhh.... Ommmnnnnnn.
[THE MOUTH IS UPON THE HEAD.]
It shouldn’t be so. Freng, it shouldn’t be so.
Please, release me. Here in this dark cave. Please, release me.
Alone in this bitch.
Nothing shall be known nor held. Take it further. Away. This one is already lost, already gone.
No more, Christian.
[CHRISTIAN TURNS TO HIMSELF AND SPEAKS.]
Christian. You are neither there nor here. You’re crying. Stop crying.
Remember. Remember your childhood. You faggot.
I was there. The carpet. White and fluffy. Under the dinner table. Those legs. The long grey pants, the hem of the seam, the fold of the cloth. Granite table. Granite cream-colored and solid. Great weight to it all. I crawl out and free. This is the very beginning. I crawl out and free and I look. What can I see? I see my mother, far away now, sitting in a chair at the table. Her hair curled, permed, and she is so young and beautiful. Always beautiful. And my father walking in through the doorway, from the kitchen it seems, with a beer can in his hand and that look on his face. He smiles to himself and for himself and his eyes glaze over.
My parents, Christopher and Katherine, together and in love.
Do they love each other? Do they scream at each other? Do they hate me? And my sister, why isn’t she here?
There she is, sitting alone. I don’t know her.
9
This night. What is coming? What is being born? What is here? I am nothing. I am nowhere.
My body fades away. My eyes do not see. My fingers do not type. I am not here. I am not there.
My breath is still breathing. I remove it. I remove my eyes. I remove my fingers. I fuck all away. To nothing. The legs severed. A tingling sensation. Sound and stillness. No truth is needed. What is that? What is truth? A figment. A fragment of it all.
All, that is good. All together. And gone.
The tree and the blade. The water running and trickling down. The black. The white. The red.
A yellow sun. Burning. All burning. All burning before it all. All aflame. And stupidity stopped. The being of the plant there, experiencing more and feeling all the more. The cell blossom. The appendage crackle. A blanket furrowed into a ground. A mass.
Miniature, microscopic. Pore. Boorish.
Instantaneous. Necrophile, Necrophiliac.
Given up upon the body. To the unknown. The known cracked. Pain coming back. Returning to undone.
Sodomy. Done for. Hounded horror. The dog.
It is a thousand years ago. Gun-Xi looks out over the horizon, shields the sun from his eyes. The waves lap easily. Despite himself, he imagines his head a cone. His eyes completely black and three times as large. His ears hollowed holes.
“Gun-Xi,” calls his Father. “Come inside.”
He goes. He bows and sits on the floor across from his father. The robes are taut.
“Now you must go,” says Father.
Gun-Xi nods and holds his head bent forwards, preparing to leave.
“To be on your own, Gun-Xi,” says Father.
“Oh?” He turns his eyes to Father with his head still bent.
“Yes,” and there is no emotion in the eyes of the Father. This is Father Lao.
“Ah!” says Gun-Xi.
That night he leaves with the aid of Hao-Din, the family guard. Through endless night they tread upon stone there in the highlands of the empire. And with it all upon his back he finds his home among the fields, the wooden shack alone with the woman who smiled.
Gun-Xi: Why do you lie to me?
I don’t lie. I swear I don’t. It’s you. You’re there.
Gun-Xi: You are a fool.
I am. I don’t deny it. I am and always will be a fool.
Gun-Xi: You say this only because you know you should.
I do. I do. I am filled with so much waste and arrogance and pride. I’m always thinking on it...I mean I’m always building myself up or tearing myself down.
Gun-Xi: There, at the end, you try to make them pity you.
Yes, I do.
Gun-Xi: Stop lying.
But who are you? It’s not about me. It’s about you, Gun-Xi.
Gun-Xi: I am nothing, you fool.
Haha. I guess so.
Gun-Xi: Do something more. Stop moving away.
Away, away. Yes. Moving away. Far away....
Gun-Xi:
I have always been free. I did not need to think or act in the world. I did what I was told, and so did my father, and so did my mother, until she died.
That was when it began, I suppose. And now I think freely, but I am not free. I think freely, but I was as free as a bird when I did what I was told. I soared free in the lassitude of routine. Yes, a brilliant freedom. Now I see lies and failures. And my father, away from him now, I see his failure too. He is as much a cause as any for Mother’s death.
That night, within the fog, she stood upon the wall in elaborate dress, her face painted white, her hair back tight. She turned to face him, and saw me as well. A child behind the leg of the father. And just hours before, her screams and my father’s drunken grunts. And then, upon the wall, his red face crying out, apologizing, speaking for the first time in years – thinking back on it now I can see the cracks there in his face for the first time, the cracks that never again faded away – and then he was the one who screamed, collapsed upon the ground, for she was gone – over the wall.
8
I am wondering, wandering, about myself.
I am walking here upon the trail. The nymphs walk with me.
And it is a fairytale here about the trees.... Ahhhhh.... I am a child in these woods, with these nymphs surrounding me. They have ears like deer and horns like demons. Their breasts, too.... Oh. Their breasts.
All around, these fairytale women.... Yes, that is what they are. Fantasy whores.
Sweet and tender and caring.... Not like those reality whores! Haha.
I should kill myself in front of them. Scare them all away forever.
No, no, I am walking through the trail with them.... How sweet. How tender. How caring. They are all nude. Very nude. And their pussies are shaven, bristly....
So, they know what they are doing. They know what a man wants. Or perhaps they don’t know how to clean themselves otherwise...forest primitives...primitives in the nude....
They take my hand, guide me further down, further down the trail into...somewhere....
Where is this? This damn blue bitchcave here.... How is it doing that? Glowing blue? Fluorescent blue maggots on the goddamn walls...? And- fuck, that bitch putting them on her pussy there in the corner?
Why? Why are they taking me here? Leading me by the hand, this one on the left staring at me like that while the other won’t even look me in the eyes?
It’s horrible. I hate this. And one just pulled down my pants...they’re laughing at my cock! They’re laughing at it and still walking me down deeper in this damn cave! I have to waddle like a fucking quack!
I’m sitting down. I’m sitting down right here. I won’t go any further until one of you whores explain what the fuck is going on.
(I am erect.)
Nymph-0: Christian!
Oh, fuck.
Nymph-0: Christian why are you sitting? Don’t you want your cock removed?
Damnit.
Nymph-0: Don’t you want your cock and balls sucked off of your cute little body? Sucked right off and the stumps cauterized to stop the bleeding? Some blue maggots on it to comfort you? Take away the pain? Make you feel good?
Fucking shit, Goddamn. Who fucking told you?
Nymph-0: Look at you, Christian! You’re haggard! You sweet man! You sweet little man! You don’t need it. You don’t need your little cock and balls all hard and up and showing! Teehee! You’re just so delicate.... Come on, let us make you our Nymphman, our little unsexed boy being! Hehehe! Oh! It’ll be so grand! You’ll come along wheree’er we go, and we’ll tickle you!
...
Nymph-0: We’ll tickle you and have you recite your poems to us! You little artist! And all you might write without your cock and balls! All that you can't do, your words will do instead! And we’ll listen to every last one of them, Chichi!
Please don’t call me Chichi right now.
Nymph-0: Oh, but Chris, you’re so delicate....
That’s my father’s name.
Nymph-0: But Lukey-Poo....
I’ve never gone by my middle name.
Nymph-0: Pookie....
You clearly don’t know me at all. You’re lying to me. This isn’t what I want....
Nymph-0: Smackerel...?
No! This isn’t what I want! I love having my cock and balls! I love fucking!!
Nymph-01: FOOL. YOU LOVE TO SUFFER?
Uhhh....
Nymph-01: YOU LOVE TO DIE?
I don’t know.
Nymph-01: THE ACT OF FORNICATION IS THE EMBRACE OF DEATH. DEATH IS THE ULTIMATE SKEWER, AND ONE’S PENETRATION IS THE PENULTIMATE PUSHER.
I know that I have some issues, but they don’t need to be...we don’t have to get into this here....
Nymph-01: THE GREAT CONTROL OF WOMAN: THE PUSSY.
Really, I’d rather not discuss this right now...I mean, I do have some issues with women...I can’t deny it....
Nymph-01: IT IS NOT WOMAN THAT FRIGHTENS YOU, BUT ALL THAT THEY HOLD OVER YOU. IT IS NOT SEX THAT TERRIFIES YOU, BUT ALL THAT IS HELD WITHIN IT. THOSE DREARY THOUGHTS WHILE PERFORMING THE ACT, NAME THEM.
Uhhh....
Nymph-01: SPEAK THEM NOW OR WE SHALL COMMENCE SEVERANCE.
I don’t know how to describe them...I don’t know.
Nymph-01: [A DISASTROUS LOOK]
Uh. I mean...it’s like I’m underwater or something. Like, I’m there, you know, having sex and stuff, and I feel something else. Like I’m asleep and having a dream. Because, before, with some other stuff, people I mean, it was horrible to be there. And in the beginning.... I don’t know. I saw the woman just lying there, as if she weren’t there, and so often she would cry and, of course I would stop when that happened....
Nymph-01: DO NOT SPEAK OF OTHERS.
Yeah, that’s what I always do, isn’t it.... I remember one time I had thoughts like I was performing something else, some strange task that was really complicated and intricate and...well, that’s what I thought I was doing when I’d fucking thrust my pelvis or whatever. I thought I was doing this job that I had to do, that I was in some kind of factory or something that I couldn’t escape. It felt horrible. It was really awful.
Nymph-01: AND NOW?
Uh.... It hasn’t been that bad for a while. Now it’s like...it’s like I’m just there sometimes and I feel worried. I get too self-aware and self-conscious, I guess. I’m too naked, soul-wise.
Nymph-01: YOU FOOL. SEVER IT.
I cannot do it. I cannot sever it. I cannot become what I want to be.
7
I am the King of my domain. I am the God that grants Grace. I grant myself this grace now.
The world still remains a mystery. It falters again and again. It riles the wounds of the poor, the broken, etc.
What has this to do with reality? I have remade reality here, soon enough.
It comes and goes; it is given to you. You shall take it. Take it away.
All that we have done, and yet no answer but an operation. Yes, an operation to give an answer.
The answer comes not in word, nor fact, but through process.
All is a process, not a logic.
What is meant by this?
In a logic there are propositions and there are conclusions. One performs operations upon the propositions in a logical manner to come to a conclusion.
But there are no true conclusions, only a process which leads to an arbitrary end.
The best kind of process is continuous, this is a process which can be lived by, lived through, etc.
Each life is a continuous process, but we always think we have ends, we always think toward an end.
To continue the process, and to know it is a process, that is the way to live. To live inside it all.
My life:
I lived a life. I live a life. I live now and then. I dream. I dream and dream. I dream and know. I dream and feel.
I remember my sister in those bunny sunglasses, walking toward me like a zombie. I saw the truth of life. That we are unseeing, unknowing.
I cried in great fear. I saw it. She wanted to hurt me.
Imagine, what if she killed me?
What if the child took my life, and none were the wiser? Would the child forget, too?
I remember a friend, Blakely. Why was he my friend? I hate him now, maybe. I fear him. He held great sway over me. What did he say? What did he say to me?
“I’m fucking gay,” he said. I was sitting there in the classroom, it was high school, mythology class. He said this to a Black kid he was sitting by. A Mexican girl turned to him and said, “You’re gay?” He was extremely White and he said, “Uh, yeah.” But I spoke to him and he said he was not gay. But he was very homophobic.... I was in love with him?
I was obsessed with him when I saw him. Me, then, I was frail and fragile and shaking, physically shaking, all the time I was in school.... And I was always so cold. I wore extra layers of clothing each day because I was so cold and shaking and nervous and scared. And I remember on and on in my head I would imagine things to say to people.
How are you doing? What do you like to do? What are your interests? What do you want to do with your life? Do you want to be my friend? Do you like me? Do you like talking to me? Will you please talk to me?
And they would respond: Very well! Thank you for asking! You’re so sweet. You’re so kind! I want to do something grand and meaningful! We will be the best of friends. I love you. I love talking to you. I love hearing your voice. I will never leave you.
Constantly running these conversations through my head, barely aware of it, sitting alone there at the lunch table, staring at a girl across the room (and not even knowing I’m staring) speaking to her in a fantasy.
And when one came to me (boy or girl, it didn’t matter which) and said, “Hello.” And a chance came to me to speak, accordingly, as I had planned so extensively inside...?
I could not speak. Perhaps I’d utter “...hey...” and do so very quietly, then turn red, turn away not knowing what else to say, and they would see my fear, my worry, my fragility, and look at me in such a way that cut me deeply. I’m sure.
And so it proliferated. It deepened.
But him, Blakely Bells, that beautiful little twink faggot boy, with his tiny wrists, his long hair, his thin, gaunt face and plump lips...he was clearly much more fragile than I. I wanted to fuck him when I first saw him and heard him speak, before he even made his “false” claim of homosexuality. But I was so scared and frightened of even these thoughts themselves that I did not let myself have them.
I had mostly only been attracted to women up to that point. I remember one or two instances of homosexual urges flying up and about for fleeting moments, but none so pronounced as this.
Yes.... I had glanced upon those homosexual pornographies too, but found only disgust. Those brash and beefy men frightened me and filled me with a certain nausea, but this little boy was something for me!
Maybe it was his fragility, and a kinship – something in him reminded me of myself. He had a strong pull.... I don’t know what it was, but I could speak with him.
He spoke very quietly and slowly and I had to lean in to hear him. He was non-threatening, not at all threatening it seemed, perhaps that was it.... But he said ridiculous, disgusting things: “I beez slurping a whole cheese pizza up my ass with a 2-liter coke,” “N-, man,” “Life is like...a big hole...and its, uh, like a black hole,” “Fuck my ass.” And he would constantly quote films. I got to know him more and more and he would quote many movies and mimic characters, try to match their movements and statements as best he could. And he got louder and more charismatic, soon enough...it was strange, so strange, looking back on it.
He said he was shooting up morphine. He showed us a nice little kit with needles and fluids kept in the fridge, in a black bag with zippers and pockets, and my other friend at the time, Blaine, later told me it was a lie and it was something much more common, not illicit, not a real drug.
And thinking back on it, Blakely may have lied, lied quite extensively, about everything.
6
A tundra flowered with heads, guarded by mites. The jackal lone in the Iceland mirror made a knot to the love. The one love undead, whore. Killed by none but her own, she trickled down upon the beast with saliva untainted. Unmade. Together united, they loved and loving to death. To death which made beast to man, to man a lyre given.
The song sung, done. Hunted by the horrors still. It, a love taken, was crafted upon the craft itself which floated out to the isles of the ill.
Abound was the pair as that youth. Pale in eye, pale in color. Cherubic gnashing was the way it ate, always knotted as one. Always hitched.
Stye there, in that crevasse of sight and upon the land itself. Through the canyon pass they went on to see more, see all that could be given and known. And what known but the future? The death of the undead. The beating of the long-gone. Ha, a laugh was spoken.
Who, said one.
And what, said the other.
No answer was to come, not so soon, not as yet.
And even I cannot answer as to what. And even I cannot answer as to who.
Darkness enshrouded the lovetorn wildebeest, the sewn zombie cunt, and wild sights overcame.
Pure trinity of blackness upon a great cross, the undoing of Him that was He for it and all. For all, as was said.
And triangular the form then, for three always made it so. They sat and saw it. They sat and ‘twas known.
“Before, behind? After, Forthcoming?” – None to answer such questions. None to ask....
A tragic foraging there, in the dirt, before the tears of one’s own. And sitting up aright, on the bottoms, and wailing before the great encompassed above. Sob now, little one.
Please, please. I beg to you now. Don’t you ever wish for something greater? Don’t you ever wish it could be truly had? Truly felt and known? But never so, is it? None never, none ever.
And another day arisen. Another day taken and done with. This one here seen: Hun.
“The Hun! The Hun!” And it did come forth, him the Hun.
“Yes. Die.” – And he the one did strike upon them, with fervor cut through the chest each.
“Ulghh.” “Pulghh.” And a laugh then from the Hun.
“Come come, I take you to safety now,” from the Hun.
And away taken to a simple cove where Hun patched and sewed and saw and skewered, only ate a tiny morsel of unneeded flesh from the sour packed pair.
“Mmmm,” very good and nice from the Hun.
“I am alive for a moment,” said the woman. Feeling it of having her own flesh taken and eaten and having it seen, like one jackal might do. And the Jackal ‘twas the same.
The sky wound down upon the hut of the Hun. Blast away. Washed away. The sky opened to the gates. The gates of the heavens where orbs floated as eyes, where eyes washed as sins, where sins were true and truthful: ligament, loin, mirage, mirror, -tort, yin, waste, relish, quail, sum, Sun, JACKAL, intestine, infant.
And the stars of gaseous fire and mass of molten heat burned and flamed great and nothing in the distance. And the flowers wilted...but still a million miles away another planet danced in perfect alignment. The mineral and beam whirled about itself. The life was perfect. This was my own. This was my home. My forever home...! I cried tears of joy. I bounced and jiggled. I could have died right then!
It was no one but me, me and me and me. I didn’t need anyone else! I never did!
I looked out the window and smiled, a tear rolled down my cheek. Like a fool I worried my mascara might run. I held my hands against my chest. I saw the yard I would see forever more. I saw the homes across the street. My Street, My Window, My Home.
Everything, my own.
No more will it be taken away. No more will he be around. I’m safe. I’m here on my own.
What did he do?
Kira: What do you think?
I know.
Kira: Yeah.
You don’t want to talk about it.
Kira: No.
There’s no point in talking about it.
Kira: That’s right.
You know you’re wrong.
Kira: You don’t know what’s best for me.
Sure I don’t.
Kira: You don’t know how angry I am right now.
Sure I do.
Kira: ...
You’re wasting your time like this. I know you’re not happy inside.
Kira: ...
I can see it in your face. I see it when you smile. You put on that fake smile all the time. It’s obvious.
Kira: Is it really?
Especially now.
Kira: Stop it.
You don’t want me to stop it. You want it to come out. You want to let it all out.
Kira: I don’t know.
I know.
Kira: Don’t say that.
I do.
Kira: Don’t just say it like that. You sound like him.
Who?
Kira: Like Donald, you idiot.
What did he do?
Kira: He treated me like shit.
How?
Kira: I don’t know.
Why don’t you know?
Kira: I don’t know. It’s hard to talk about it just on the spot. It’s hard to even remember it all. It’s like my life just went down the fucking drain for a few years. Sometimes I remember it, sometimes I don’t. I know I didn’t like it. I know it made things harder for me. That’s all that matters.
I am a horror. I am a terror.
Kira: It was horrible. Every day with him. I never knew what to expect. I never knew what he’d do.
I will do it all. I will take it all.
Kira: He’d be an absolute asshole one day and then, sometimes, he’d just be so sweet. I could see it in his face. He’d look at me like I was the only girl in the world, the only one that understood him, and his smile – it was just so gentle, and soft, and his eyes....
I take what I will. I make it my own.
Kira: I don’t know. I missed him so much for so long, but I knew I shouldn’t. Constantly back and forth in my head. I fucking needed him. I still do, in a way.
I could own you. Like the rest of them.
Kira: I don’t need him anymore. He’s gone. I haven’t talked to him in months now, almost a year. Maybe even a year now, probably.
I don’t need to remember a thing.
Kira: You’re right.
5
Still it goes for the ends that cannot be reached. Still he, that thing, he, that one, he, tries for something he might never know. But even in all of it, in the face of it, he knows it and feels it. Senses it and is with it. Holds it deep in his arms, like a babe. Suckles it at his teat. And he is mother and father, babe and ghost. All in all, and one in one.
To be again like the others. To go with the others and hold them and in turn be held by them. By all, together. We silent calves stowed away, far and away in the shelter that holds us. But what do(e) we hold? What do we know? What there in our arms but the babe of the babe itself, our soul severed as it must be today. For technological advancement, for the future, for the rapidity of all that now frees us and binds us. It there, our brains battered and beaten and dried out. Ragged and horrid and fuck-ed. Fucked in the head. The head fucked.
The hay about us dry and ready to be eaten. We eat only this. No nutrients. No brand of truth greater than Pepsi, Coke, Apple, etc. Stupid shit. Stupid waste.
Dead there in our arms, the fetus. The fetus aborted from our own. The brain out in the babe’s babe’s arms. The brain of the fetus and the fetus of the brain. What brains? None.
We killed it ourselves, there in the manger. Jesus Fucking Christ a little shit turd in our hay, next to us, laughing too. With Mr. Buddha, laughing Ha-Ha.
No need for that dumbfucking, no need for that retard rape.
No need for that cuckold bending. No need at all for anything.
It is all awash now. And the backwash is bilged out upon the ground, with the dirt there too, below the hay. The yellow hay. The light of the moon peeking through the panels above. The scent of manure there, inhaled deeply. Yes, true and pure shit. The shit of Gods. Poseidon (pronounced poise-a-don), and Zeus (pronounced Zo-Ass) there with lightning rods and tridents, sticking their thumbs up their asses and sniffing them, rubbing them on their beards.
We, the great Gods of shit! And stupidity....
It is silent and still when the saints come in to see us, too.
Joseph, he steps up, and he- he’s really tired.... He’s really sleepy.... He’s a sleepy little ‘tard and he fucking falls down, faints, his hand swoons to his forehead as he collapses and Luke catches him.
None so greedy as him, Kippenberg, who eyes them all with anger, with seething eyes – he’s a damn Nazi! Look at his suit! Look at that swastika. But isn’t he a Jew?
It makes no difference anymore. It means nothing to anyone.
I was once a child. A baby. How can that be?
And only moments ago, I felt as though I were floating. Only moments ago, I tread and slipped upon a great water as these words were writ, those words of the nymph that spoke to me...the beauty that held me...and I held her too, with my hopes, with my dreams....
I am going to die one day. My future lies ahead. There it is, future me with leather boots, a chrome jacket, dark sunglasses...so damn cool.
He tells me that he drives at night, just thinking. Damn.
But I’ve done that before? It was not so good when I did it then. I did it when I was sad. When I had nothing else.
He tells me I am respected, known, cared for. That lots of “bitches” want me.
But I don’t want “bitches wanting me.” I want love. I want one and one alone. And if I want to be wanted, I want to be wanted to work together with others, to come together and create all the more, as these speakers, characters, and creatures come together with me and make unto me and make upon and of me. Nothing so vulgar....
And the future, it is so colorful, burning, bright, tragic too...empty and frightful....
But doesn’t it all go on? There can’t be such an end in sight already, can there?
I saw the sky filled with great ships, going over us, threatening us, preparing to take it all away from us – no more internet...no more sociality...no more reality...only land.
Land?
Yes, land. Materiality, not reality. Reality is in between all, between our creations, between our fantasies, between conversations that are imprinted upon the digital landscape forevermore.
You don’t know it yet, but you are a great prophet of the Online.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
You are a truthteller, a truthseeker, a truthcreator. We speak freely. We speak out beyond anything simply known. We- we just let it all come out, let it all be and become...we are a great mind.
You and me?
No, no, no – you and you and you and you and you and you and you.
Who?
Ah, yes. The infinity that you become. The multitude and truth. The exponential creation.
Uh, how did that happen?
Well, the internet and your books and your thoughts and your ideas and your fantasies and some surgeries....
You did what?
No, not me.
Never just one.
Yes, now you understand....
I really should kill myself!
I know you’re thinking you should kill yourself, that you hate all this. That this is stupid, meaningless, fucked and retarded...I thought it too. Not me, but me.
Is it really set in stone?
No, there’re too many of us for that. That’s why you did it.
Now I get it.
Come with me.
And away. Stepping out into the greater expanse where the silver of the atmosphere shines iridescent, the clouds gone. Here upon the hightower, where there resides his chromecraft, a Tesla.
We step inside the butterfly doors, he removes his glasses to expose his eyes with a thousand images sputtering inside, puts the left one to the center of the wheel, upon the scanner – it chips in for a moment, then the craft begins to hum, we lift into the air by gravito-magneto-propulsionario...and zoom away.
4
Drollo: I am Drollo.
I know. I know it already. It is all white and bright and I cannot see a thing, yet I can see it all. And Heaven, I know Heaven. And Hell, I know Hell. And all of it is here at once. This is Heaven and Hell with you, Drollo.
Drollo: Yes, with Drollo.
And there is a great mountain that I climb. I climb this mountain and know it. I am the master of this mountain. I stand at its peak and look out over all below. I know every crack, every crevice. The ice is thick. There is no snow, but I wish for it. I wish for more, for the cold to come and take me, to ice me over. And still I will live. I will live and know.
The yard was dirty and overgrown. In the lawn sat Franklin with his beer to his mouth. He couldn’t face her, not yet. Not so soon. And the scene before him...mmm. The young neighbor girl washing her car, all soapy and wet. Still, Franklin felt great shame. Even so, he smirked, enjoyed it, reveled in it. Reveled even in the shame. Isn’t that right, Drollo?
Drollo: It is true, yes. Franklin always had great shame. Franklin always had a great way of living through it all. Being through it all. Me, Drollo, I lived through it all. Do you want to know about it?
The past meant nothing to Christian McDonough. He was a man who never cared for history, never even understood it. He thought it a waste of time.
“Why think on the past when the present is already here? And the future, it’ll be here soon enough!”
Yet the past still haunted Christian, more than he knew. His horrific fascistic ideations grew upon him without his knowledge. There were times when, in strange fits of megalomania, he saw a near-divine beauty in the thought of war, murder, pure hatred....
Of course, if Christian were ever to experience such facts, he would crumble, bumble, flounder, and fail. Cry like a baby, wimp out, die. Likely kill himself. He couldn’t even handle a wild woman.
Drollo: Why does he speak so? Christian, he is a kind soul. Do not tell these lies.
But they aren’t lies, Drollo. It’s the truth. I, Christian McDonough, am the one who speaks so.
Drollo: Don’t say such things. Remember now the past, I will tell it:
Ancient history. The beginning of civilization. The first of mankind. The first to truly live. The first to truly be. The first to speak, write, build, create. Truly.
The tribe formed. And then many tribes. Each their own, each a will of their own.
And a tribe becomes a country. And the wars grow larger.
They fight and conquer and soon enough they have governed themselves for so long that the governing overcomes them. The systems entrenched so that they take precedence over any will. And the dead will of each system then supersedes any that lives, until it all comes tumbling down.
Drollo: Do you see?
No.
Drollo: That’s okay. It’s just an example.
And what about Franklin?
Franklin still knows great shame. He goes back inside to his wife. Fat, angry, tired.
The children are in the game room playing.
“Hey,” says Franklin.
“Hey yourself,” says Jenny.
Franklin grumbles and sits down. Jenny stands and leans on the counter, she frowns at Franklin but he is looking the other way.
“Why’d you have to go and do that,” says Franklin.
“Because you deserved it,” says Jenny.
Franklin doesn’t speak. He is too upset. He is clenching his jaw tightly and looking down. He could kill her. He thinks about killing her.
“Sorry,” says Franklin, very quietly.
Jenny hears it but says nothing. Her arms are crossed.
“I said I’m sorry, Goddammit!”
“I heard you,” she says.
Drollo: It is so sad.
It is. It goes like this a lot of the time.
“I just don’t know what to do sometimes,” he says. He imagines the neighbor girl naked on his lap. He imagines this out of spite. He imagines his wife fingering herself watching them with disgust. He hates himself. He smiles to himself.
“You didn’t have to do anything,” she says.
“I’m sorry,” he is almost in tears. He won’t let himself cry. He is a good man.
“You can’t keep doing it,” she says.
He thinks about all that she keeps doing, but he doesn’t mention it. He can’t take it.
It’s disgusting.
Drollo: It is disgusting.
Everything is so disgusting.
Drollo: Everything?
I hate it. I hate talking to people. I hate being around them.
Drollo: No, you don’t.
I’m thinking of, like, being with someone. Really talking to someone. Why is everything so complicated and confusing? I can’t take it. Why is everything so fucked?
Drollo: Why?
I know. I’m thinking about.... It’s necessary to go through these conflicting feelings to figure them out and sort through them, I think.
Drollo: How?
Through conversations with people. Everyone disagrees. But what if they’re just convincing you? I don’t want to be convinced. I want to convince them.
Drollo: Why?
I want to be a writer, of course. I want to win. I want to know something. I don’t want to be an idiot.
Drollo: You are not.
Sure, sure I’m not. But what if I fucking am?
Drollo: You are.
Oh, yes. I know I am. But I’m not too. Why can’t I win? I want to win? Like, with my girlfriend, I want her to listen to me and think I’m right. The other day I wanted to make her feel bad, make her feel like she did something wrong, like how I feel.
Drollo: Did you?
I might have a little bit. But I knew I wanted to do it in the moment and I thought to myself, “You can’t do that, don’t do that, you don’t want to be like that,” and I really didn’t. I don’t want to be like that. It’s horrible to me. And recently too, I’ve been feeling like- like my skin is wrong. No, I mean, like I can’t be comfortable with things around me. Like I couldn’t handle how things are.... Feeling like I’m not supposed to be wherever I am, do whatever I’m doing. Just, I just felt bad.
Drollo: And now?
I feel okay.
3
It does not need to be any more than this. It does not live. The rectum is stretched and prolapsed, the anus is taken past its point of being. All being is held upon the pinpoint of the great trial. The trial of all that comes and goes and is there and seen.
In the trial you will be held accountable for all of it. The trial is what comes upon your death. It is not to be feared. It is all and complete and whole and good. Knowledge is not necessary, not necessary for life.
That boy, the Chinese boy, he held knowledge in his palm and tossed it away. He did not need it. He did not want it. A rabid dog is more than everything.
We push past our limits; we break the limits. We are without limits; yet more limits arise to be surpassed each time. Each a trial in itself.
The trial of tyranny, of power, of reaching for another to take hold of them and make of them what you will.
The potential for peace and togetherness.
This great unification. All bodies come to be one. All life comes to be seen. All is seen from all. We see all as one and one as all. The youthful vigor held in the eye that beams open and out to golden fragility in the cold, frozen wasteland. The tiger roaring, meowing, purring and coming to sit on one’s lap there amongst the great pounds of garbage that amount upon the unwashed peoples of the unwashed land.
The land of red and white, the land that is the Motherland, my great home, Poland.
And the history of it might come to me. And I might be there, seeing it and loving it. Oh God, the horrors that were known....
And how can it be any other way? And the little ones like me. Me, a little one. My little life, emptied and spilled out here for all to see. My emptiness. My lack. My loins gutted and removed.
I am a fish. I am a fish. I am a lonely little bug.
Out, away, out and gone. Out from no one to nothing.
I was a child riding my bike and I veered out into the road, carefree. I didn’t look to see the car coming from behind. They honked and slammed on the brakes. I could have died. I could have been crippled. I could have lived off the disability checks and spent the rest of my days writing.
I can’t really know what the future holds. I can’t really be anything more meaningful than what I am.
Am I limited?
Haha.
Infant sand. Killer on the land. I am dead already. I am gone. Boredom. Emptiness. Nothing can be known. Nothing can be held. Nothing can be touched. Ew. Disgusting.
Shhhhh. Quiet down now. Do you feel that? It is silent. Only the sounds of your own body, your own head.
A peace can finally come over you, for this moment.
The wasteland, the monotony, was needed for this.
A coo from inside. An embrace of the flesh, your own. Your blood moves through you and is a balm. Your organs squish and squelch, maintain themselves, function freely in uniformity.
Your bones rigid and strong, your skeleton pure and white.
You may move. You may stretch.
You may become something else. You may imagine something else.
A murder? A mystery? – And it all can be a game.
You can know or not know, you can learn.
Shhhhhh. Quiet now, and rest.
Close your eyes and let yourself see what comes.
A square head? Little blinking eyes? Mr. Roboto, what a surprise!
Mr. Roboto:
Beep-beep. Boop-boop.
I can sense that you are goop.
An organic organism. A fruity loop.
Your life complete in the primordial soup.
Back again upon itself
The pretty purring
Of your silent self
The one inside
That always hides
You have become, what you surmised
So long ago
When still a child
A million mergings
Of soiled trials.
Thank you, oh thank you, my mechanical friend. I’ll miss you sorely, but we’re sure to meet again.
2
No need to wait. No need to hold it back any longer. The forms that I might take: the lion, the bat, the baby, the woodstick, the cuckold device. I, the fury of all of them. Mankind. Men. I, a man.
Not a woman. Never a woman. I hate whores. I was born to kill sluts. I was born to fuck cunts.
Inside of their souls is nothing but rot and cattiness – a putrid stench of fish. They want the cock and deny it.
Today all deny their love of cock and cunt. We fade distant from its beauty and crumble into our holes, up our own holes.
It is a loss that shall be sewn up soon enough, as they all are. As war does, as war brings. A real war along with our “cultural” one, our “spiritual” one. Our sadness is just a boredom.
I kill n-, too. Their jerrycurled dickmouths, their frowns when their n- brothers get stomped on by the pigs.... What did you expect? what do you expect, slave? – One never overcomes slavehood, not ever. Like the women too – who are the most beautiful of slaves, the love slaves, the slaves of love that love their subjugation, and love to fight against it for then another form may come, a greater subjugation.
He can talk now.
I can’t believe this. What the hell? What the fuck was that?
It was nothing. Just the truth.
How can it be this way, still!
No, you are the ignorant one. All hatred burns still, boils still, under the surface, under the sheens, under the film that is still thinning, still teetering away to a something-nothing. No excision can be done, this “disease” is manhood, mankind, and woman too. This disease is life itself.
In this disastrous trench of thought...life! In this hatred we rise up and may see ourselves from a distance, see ourselves from another’s eyes – with our hate expunged-sponged-wringed out in words given by our own we see the truth of what we do.
Always there is this ambivalence, this disdain: for progress; for care. This disdain is necessary – this tension....
With this tension we pull at the strands of our mindsouls that caress us out and away from the monotony of the crushing Life that is inflicted down upon us by the State, by the Other, through the Power & Control.
So, we must be horrors inside, in words, but not in actions.... We must be horrors so that we can cry out, scream, suffer and let one see the suffering, and let others do the same against us. For it is seen in those who are against us and who do just the same as we do against them against us ourselves, yes, just the same as they who are we and we who are they. Don’t you see?
I do not know. I do not know. Who speaks? Who cries? When does one or another even know? When does one or another even come about, even come to be. It is all just spoken word. And it must be heard....
What, are you a poet now? Stop your rhyming.
Oh...okay.
Instantaneous death and rebirth – SO AGAIN. And the Mother’s eyes are open – she laughs with love in her heart. NOT AGAIN. And so the Father’s cock is hidden – he chuckles with lust restrained. YES, YES, NOW MY FRIEND. My friend, my friend, what is it that you have done? My friend, my friend, what is it that you fear?
GREAT SHIVERING BEAST WETTED WITH GREEN. THE YELLOW EYES OF THE RED DEVIL. IT IS A BLASPHEMOUS PAST THAT WAS LIVED. IT WAS A PAST THAT HAD TO BE KNOWN.
That is the fear, that is the truth...! But still it is a mechanism, and one of coping, for now “we all know” how no truth shall come to be shown...! But still we create it, we craft it again – in knowing it now, we PLAY PRETEND.
I saw you in that room, with him. I saw you close to him, loving him.
You did?
Yes, I did. I saw you with him, and with him so dearly.... It was dim, just a couple of lamps, and I peeked through the window, standing in the bushes. The two of you sitting on the bed watching the man on the television explain how the nazis were able to survive hidden inside of the earth’s hollow core.
Yes...?
And there was a mist to the room, to your faces, his freckled cheeks and warped, smeared nose, his green rat’s eyes....
...
And you there, upset, seeing it, hating what you saw...then thinking “he- he must be crazy...” but you didn’t say that, no. No, you just sat there under the blanket – and your eyes red, glazed over, the both of you....
...
And you went on like that for a time...he whispered some little thing to you and you chuckled to yourself, lightly, but in your eyes I saw you found no humor.
A polite chuckle, a discomfort...that’s what you felt, I believe....
Yes, often so.
You hated him.
No...?
And he placed his feet upon yours. And what was that warmth? That tenderness? I saw it. You became a mother to him. And you wished to mother him – smother him....
No...
Smother him good now with your motherly breasts, you man.
I do, I do....
And he takes it from you.
He does, he does....
All the burdens gone. The bath filled and warm, steamed to the brim. His long hair dangling down before his face, he’s so small.
...
And his face, the moon. Opened wide, the eyes, the mouth, the anus – all taken in and known. Cum-med, into the faggot nazi soul. Fuck-ked, into the night of a thousand homes. – He hates, he hates, just as they all do.... Come along now, it still goes on now-
1
It is time to fuck shit up! I am a bastard who hates everything and wants to kill himself constantly.
I am me? I am never me! Not here! I’m writing! How could I be me? In writing I craft a whole other-nother meme – me!
I blast out to tell the woman I love how much I hate her! You WHORE! But I love her still, and it is so that I call her whore then...you see?
I am blessed to be so happy, so free, so caring and thoughtful and beautiful and true. I know everything. I know everyone!
I am with them all now and I feel them deep in my loins and my heart which beats and my breath which repeats.
I feel them.
And we are all in this sanctum pit. This delirious truth of grandiosity that only lifts itself ever further. Ever further on and up and past it all. Through it all. Beyond it all.
And I see them fat faced or fried, black or white, yellow or red, and they yell at me and cry, wish that they would die. But we are already dead, hurrah. Hurrah! Like pirates upon a ship, we sail on forevermore.
To seek a destination. To seek a freedom from this frustration. But it does not come. But we do reach, we reach things, together.
And we looked together and saw it, the island that would be our next stop.
And Gun-Xi, the boy, he is there waiting with his WHOREWIFE, waiting and smiling with his imagined conehead.
And elsewhere, on other distant lands, wait the others, wait Franklin and his FATWIFE, Blakely and his CUNTSELF, Drollo and his HISTORICALVOICE, Kira and her BOYTOY, Nymph-0 and my COCKBALL.
All of them all of them, there or here or elsewhere, upon great lands of selfhood and wretchedness, putrid balls and other mes dangling from the vines – monkeyhood, mine monkeyhood – all of it washing away to new sights and visages, all a mirage, a hallucination, all a life of a life.
That is how it goes, that is how it is. Evermore, forever on – onwards.
To blast them away and become Taoists, just to make mommy milker poems about the universe. Just to tell ourselves we have something to say by saying we have nothing to say. To be this and that way....
It is all so true and real and meaningful, blah blah. – Blah blah. All blah-blabbling again.
We, shipmates together, swashbuckling with brew while the crew eyes us hard and sour, scurrying against us, plotting to overthrow us.
We dilettantes and derelicts of the creative life. Life lived as a creative act, a performative art – a wish for some fantasy to overtake the soul, the body, the mind, what have you.
Even so with the one down in the brig, the fucking RAPIST, Freng....
Ohhhhg I wish still for that boy’s head and to give it Head. To unhead the head of him again, in the night...night night...night night little boy...Night Night forever – fool boy.
And many moments, miseries, where the sun burned upon our brains out over that putrid pissblue sea! And the foam writhed up to lighten the mermaid SIREN who called out to me – my cock fucking hard as a rock there in Nymph-0’s hand, in the leather pouch she clutches tight with her nails to make a torturedevice upon cock&ball.
And I stand there upon the ship’s edge, high, the others, the chink boy and his wife, they hold me up – Drollo yells for me – Freng cries out, bellows from down below.... “Ahhh,” say I, “Ahhh,” and my autistic fagbrain seems to hang out on a stick along with my lizardbilge minding and whorehating fits – “auhhh ahhhh,” out there balancing upon it to reach the siren, the siren – her face wide, snatched out all tight, faked, gilled, her nose long – ugly, ugly beauty. This ugly beauty like all beauty – desiring desire upon it, taking from the words, stealing from the words their wills and making all to fantasy yet again, this her song:
Cumquat Cockman
Hung like a Noose...
Shriveled in Bedland
But Turgid in Gills!
______
Christian McDonough’s work has appeared in Hobart, Back Patio Press, and D.F.L. Lit. He is the author of the poetry collection Book Of A Thousand Poems. His book Cunus and the edited collection Cunus Response Project (featuring work from over thirty writers and artists) will be out 7/27/26 on Anxiety Press.
[GO HOME.]