Prose Pt 1

At least she keeps the place clean. And looks so pretty preening herself, for me. And sometimes even by artificial means that go wasted on me. My taste was never so pervasive. I tell her I need that unbearable reality. That beauty requires no paraphernalia. And I've told her before, but I still suspect she doesn't believe me.

She looks down on me from her stool scowling as she brushes her perfect hair. She is still angry that I set her, very expensive, hair extensions on fire and then tried to flush them down the toilet.

She says, "You ought to think more of how people define you. You reject the most natural vanities out of some absurd spite. Yours is the greater depravity in nonsense...and pretense against any obvious social cadence. And from you, who scowls presumption with the gumption of pure justice."

I tell her the make-up that she just finished painting on makes her look like a whore--then we make love. Later, as she rest her head in my lap, she plays with my hair and chest and pressed her other hand under my thighs. The while she's been staring intently at me, cooing intamately something I don't bother to hear.

Looking at the oak tree out the window as the sun is setting I speak, "I might not go to that party tonight. No. I am in the mood for wine and the brooding seclusion of the waterfront."

"But everyone is going to be there!" She persisted.

Mendocino Ave

The pavement is damp but it is not raining. I pass a lit cigarette between my fingers, dropping ashes. The air thickens with springtime. It is difficult to move.

My beer is cold in my hand and the sun is so nice, I don't hear the crescendo-ing drone next to me. He does not distract me from the girls passing by; darkly dressed, and looking like shadows against the green horizon. They are like a younger variation of the three drinking wine, sitting two tables down. The trees here remind me of a room I used to rent.

There is a mound of manure on the south side of town that is 30 yards tall and can be smelled for miles.

I turn to my new friend to catch him spitting in the face of a psychology student as he shouts louder, gesticulating wildly between a textbook and his head.

"No kraut can read my thoughts!"

He returned my gaze as I replied, "...smells like shit, man."