I am an angry
miserable mother fucker
when I look in the mirror
with only myself to blame
if I punched the reflection looking back at me Continue reading »
I would break through several sheets of glass
hearing the cacophony of laughter
from generations past
Suicide Note With Crayons
by s. joaquin rivera
If I knew you were going to kill yourself I might have pressed for a few more moments with you. No one gets what they want though. I carved the word ‘quitter’ into your mirror so you’d have to look it every time you made yourself up but I guess that didn’t matter much in the end did it? How ironic that you used the glass from that same mirror to bleed yourself out in warm water; must have made for a nice bath.
–
I punch the dead man but still he will not react
I don’t know what I expect as
he swings back and forth in the cold air
I punch him again, and once more
nothing, just the same stupid look on his face and
the sound of the hooks in his flesh, creaking
the dead do not fight back
instead they only stare at you with their comeuppance
that all knowing glare that says: hit me all you want, you stupid fuck
I’m dead
–
A dinner in hell
amidst the burning flesh
sipping our sour wine out of broken glasses
and serenaded by their screams
the sky is falling indeed
it is the way of all things
–
I almost want to call you on the telephone but
I suspect I would not have the courage to say anything and I
can almost hear you saying: hello? Who’s there? hello? who the fuck is this?
there is no sound, just silence as I clutch the cord and think
of how I never forgave you. I know that
one of these days I will write your obituary
I just wish I could watch as you
blow your brains all over the room
–
the internet holds many secrets but some
are easier to uncover than others
it is amusing on a certain level that
you take pride in your own humiliation
you look just so thoroughly used
whoever took the picture captured
your complete debasement
used really doesn’t even begin
to describe the look in your eyes,
whore of the year
–
there is blood in the streets tonight
flowing through the gutters
rushing down the drains and into refineries
only to be leaked into open seas
where it is consumed and spent once more
absorbed and evaporated
©2008 S. Joaquin Rivera/ Broken Sword Publications, All Rights Reserved
I have swallowed too much hard water. My lungs are about to burst in my chest. I gasp for air…Things are different now. Much different. Lines have been crossed. People have died. New people are on the way. It doesn’t matter though. I can only contemplate a few things at a time. It’s all very confusing.
I’m floating out in the middle of the black ocean and sucking in water and wind; waiting to fall to the bottom, waiting to fill my lungs with more water than they can handle. I’m far off the coast and miles away from anything even resembling civilization. I am surrounded by pieces of dead, burned and bloated flesh. The wreckage is long gone. My ship has long sunk to the depths of the water and there is no trace of it left to laugh at; just myself, floating there and waiting to die like the rest of them.
Waiting to die makes you think of strange things. I’ve been reflecting on obituaries that I have written. I am the epitaph man. I am the man who writes the last words – I put the final words to their lives in print. I wonder who will write mine? I suppose it doesn’t really matter though I’d like to read it just the same. What would they say? That I died a bitter man? A secretive old bastard who held onto foolish dreams? I don’t know.
The whole ordeal has made me consider the road home. I am floating and dying and I caught up in cryptic sayings. Things like: You can never go home again. That is a true statement. There is no road. No map. No such person to point the way.
You really can’t ever go home. No matter how hard you try the walls still close up. Brick by brick things are sealed off forever. As soon as you step foot off of your native soil the whole landscape changes behind you, enveloping bits and pieces of your former self. People forget your name. Your memory grows stale. You are forgotten.
You can never return home again, no, but you can certainly visit. You can try and retrace your steps sometimes. Sure, you can visit old places and seemingly familiar faces but you know better. Such visitation has the tendency to poison a person over time. Rather than relive the past you are given sips of poison to cloud your memory and remind you that it was never as good as you thought it was and that things are never, ever as good as you remember them to be.
I am thinking about the road back home as massive sheets of water crash down on me and make it hard to keep my breath for long. The wind is freezing and hard. Every bit of the salt from the water hurts my skin and burns my eyes.
I know, deep down, that all I have to do is give up. All I have to do is sink. I know that if I let go all of it will go away and I can watch the scenery from below as my lungs fill with salty and bitter water. I know that if I drown myself maybe I can go home again, maybe forever.
I can see the circling sharks beneath me. I can see a lot of things beneath me. Failures. Mistakes. Fuck ups. Wrong turns. Bitter family members. Broken promises. Everything I should have said. Lies. Faces in the murky water laughing at me and waiting for me to sink down to them so they can tear into me.
I can look down and see Hell waiting for me.
Maybe it’s always been here. Maybe it’s been waiting for me to come down for a long time. Maybe this is the final homecoming.
Flashes of lighting illuminate the water for just a second, long enough to watch the predators moving about and waiting for me, chewed flesh in their teeth, and their eyes without pupils or irises, just milky white scleras and bitter grins.
I think maybe I will sink.
I think I will travel that road.
Just to test the waters.
Just this once to see what happens.
I think I want to go home again.
I think…I’ve heard Hell is nice this time of the year.
©2008 S. Joaquin Rivera/Broken Sword Publications, Inc.
No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the expressed & written permission of the artist & publisher
12:29:07
Dear Lloyd,
Been a long time, Lloyd…what, a few months maybe? It’s hard to remember. Been getting harder to remember some things in my old age, you know how it goes. The memory is the first thing to go, Lloyd, old boy. Might as well toss a few back and to Hell with the rest. Yea, hair of the dog that bit me will be just fine. Only the best, Lloyd – you know that already though, you son of a bitch.
The year is almost over and I don’t know how to feel about that. I really don’t. A lot of shit has gone down this year, Lloyd. I’ve felt a lot of anger this year…fury, brimstone and hellfire. I’ve bottled so much of it up, oh, ever so cleverly, Lloyd. All that anger is sitting neatly on a shelf in the basement in tightly kept mason jars just waiting to be unleashed. They’re all waiting to be shattered with a baseball bat. I want to smash those jars, Lloyd – I want to cut myself on the glass and let the rage wash over me like a bloodbath.
I’ll just come out and say it, Lloyd…I’d like to spill some goddamn blood this year. I’d like to start off the New Year the right way for once. I’d like the opportunity to right some wrongs and maybe wrong a few rights along the way. I’m sure you understand where I’m coming from, Lloyd, you always do.
Lloyd, I gotta’ tell ya’, I feel like I just can’t fight it anymore. I have to correct those who need…yes, that’s right, correcting. And there are a lot of them…more every day. They are out there, wandering the streets, flooding the grocery stores, driving down the road, watching their televisions, sitting there, Lloyd…clucking their tongues and sucking in perfectly good air.
They’re dead, Lloyd, they just don’t know it yet. They need…someone to help them along the way. They need it like I need this here drink, my friend.
I’m going to leave a suicide note written in crayon. I’m going to save the last bullet. I wrote my name on it myself. I guess it’s finally time, Lloyd, stupid O’clock.
I have rivulets of hate streaming through these old veins, green like thick poison. It travels through my system down into my heart. Shit, if I spit at you, it’ll probably burn like acid. I feel like I’ve wasted my life up until now, Lloyd. I feel pretty goddamn low right now, that’s all.
You know, you should have killed me when you had the chance, Lloyd. You really should have, old man. You should have put the barrel in my mouth and pulled the trigger until the thing went ‘click’. Oh well. There’s always next year, right? Set me up again, Lloyd. Set me up again…
Signed,
- Me, 12:29:07
©2007 Broken Sword Publications, Inc.
No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the expressed & written permission of the artist & publisher
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