of
A Tale of Why We Are So Fucked—As a Species by Lisa Douglass.
Before the Baby Salty Jesus birthed us and we became our non-human selves—it is written that we had once been human. We were real live human beings that liked to kiss and tell and do the Holiest of the holies in front of the video. But that was before the spider incident which later conflates into the Satan incident, which follows:
Once upon a time, in the middle of winter, one winter when we were really fucking cold in our beds and wearing our see-through hot pink number without panties, somebody came to visit us in our rooms. It was the first night after the brand new white sheets and the first night of the spider who stared at us with his beady eyes on our bedspread—wherein we went—what the fuck?—why is that spider’s legs spread out like he is about to run the 100 yard dash and why do I feel like he is conscious and wants to talk to me about something quite important?
We were all ears.
On this night of the spider, we looked again and there was a man, this man was Satan.
Remember: Before this happened—We had known how to love one another without fear and we had understood that one text does not make or break any relationship of value and we had been unafraid to do what we liked because there was no fear to do the Happy.
But, what happened was we wanted to be cool, more than we wanted our hearts deepest desires and Satan knew that on some level when he came to us in the nighttime while we were fast asleep in our angelic poses in our beds without wrappers or crumbs but still in a cute outfit. On that night that Satan came, we opened up our beautiful orphan eyes and said to the Bad son of God because he was more competitive than Jesus and corrupted souls through deviant means:
“hi.”
Satan the Lord of Darkness had a little contract with him and he was charming and good looking.
and Satan goes: “hi.”
We felt our wholeness right then and there. We were no longer ordinary—we were visited by Satan and that fed our enormous but undeservedly so’s ego.
It was terrifying how like a human Satan seemed and how handsome and how we hoped he would text us the next day. (We smoothed our hair in the face of it).
But we weren’t scared of new things at that point, we were still innocent with pure hearts.
What Satan said was hey, you seem cool and I’ve been watching how everyone else kind of looks to you as the model of cool and how you have a hard time with commitment and significant others, so I was thinking you might want to join a club:
The Club of Not Feeling or Caring and Impure Hearts but Look Cooler Than Everyone Else Club.
We thought we might.
He made it sound so fancy.
So, Satan the Lord of Darkness made us sign a commitment to not feeling human emotions at the expense of our inbred coolness. So, we were like: “OK, what do we have to lose anyway, we are always trying to avoid feelings and stuff by eating too much or too little or buying shoes and obsessing on how to wear our hair in order to be neat and different.” But, really we just said, “OK.”
Because we want to be considered cool and like we aren’t over-thinking this shit.
And we signed.
The contract basically said, anyone who loves you from here on our will be seen as the enemy and Lo and Behold it motherfucking was.
After that our hearts were closed off. God and the Baby Salty Jesus were disturbed and kept sending us people who wanted to love us, but we only saw them as suspects in a larger scheme of our newfound paranoia of all things cute and adorable and we read into everything with the one thought: What can this person possibly want from me? Fear Fear Fear Fear Fear Fear Fear Fear Fear Fear Fear I’m Scared, Etc.
Only to be cured with copious amounts of anonymous sex and vast amounts of designer shoes for the girls or car stuff for the boys.
And that is how we became non-human and unable to love.
Please send $200 to Lisa Douglass at her PO Box
PO BOX 48342
Los Angeles, CA 90048
For this most important fact that is unchangeable and why we are all so fucked.
The end.
Lisa Douglass spent her summer watching a stalker through her window and wondered if she could go outside via the roof. Only, whenever she tried there were sheets of chocolate lining the stairs and it seemed so messy. Lisa became tired and unclean. She hoped the stalker was eating well and that he had a change of clothes, adult diapers and all. Lisa Douglass was trapped, and that meant eating copious amounts of Nutella and sleeping all day under her makeshift indoor rain device. Sometimes she had visitors and they got wet, but no one knows what she did with them after. Just that during the visitations they learned to talk in baby dinosaur language and how to fashion a trap for a medium sized human being.
Robert Porazinski
THE WEEK/WEEKEND: APRIL.
Legend Tripping at Masters & Pelavin
Reception April 18, 2013; 6-9PM
Masters & Pelavin invites you to join us for a group exhibition with works by Karl Klingbiel, Timothy Paul Myers, Cecilia Vissers, Peter Buechler, Steven Katzman, Norman Mooney, Vincent Valdez, Jeremy Harris, Tara Fracalossi, Jon Rappleye, Julia Randall, Ruth Hardinger, RAE, Cooper Holoweski and Charles Wilkin.
Smashed at Here (Arts Center): Apr 4-6 @ 7pm
Opera on Tap premieres SMASHED: The Carrie Nation Story, an absurd opera about drinking booze (and the people who don’t drink booze).
VILLA DELIRIUM @Barbes: April 26th
“Disturbed Songs for Disturbed Times” Villa Delirium combines eerie traditional folk songs of Germany, Ireland and the Balkans with murder ballads of the American South and heir own startling compositions. With Tine Kindermann – Voice, saw and violin; John Kruth – Voice, guitar, mandolin, banjo and flutes; Kenny Margolis – Accordion and keyboards; Steve Bear – Pots, pans and boxes and Doug Wieselman – clarinets and bass harmonica.
Portrait of a Woman as Her Purse by A.J. Huffman
Red enameled alligator encases three
cloth sacks of unified survival. Beneath zipper
#1 waits five nickels, bottle of glittered nail
polish, miniature journal, handful of pens, only
one still wearing cap. Skip #2, it is stuck
shut and whatever is in there has been labeled
unnecessary and forgotten. #3 never closes,
most-used, most-important, must remain
accessible, always. Checkbook teeters
against tightly-capped Crazy
Glue, shades sunglasses from potential scuffs
from engraved silver cardholder, coupon folder, ring
of 37 keys, only 3 having known locks or ignitions
to turn. Ringing requires perimeter check. Pockets
bulge, aspirin and birth control semi-hidden
in tightly-snapped front pocket, portable
hard drive and note cards on Roman Architecture
threaten to spill out of left side pouch. Right
must be the never-ending musical bleeping,
incessant blipping of latest high-tech, supposedly
miniaturized, iPhone, trying to pass itself
off as both computer and lifeline when it is really
more crutch and anvil. Last stop, strap with photo
keyring dangling attachment. Favorite snapshot
of herself smiling at the world, makes everyone wonder
who or what was making her laugh that hard.
A.J. Huffman is a poet and freelance writer in Daytona Beach, Florida. She has previously published six collections of poetry all available on Amazon.com. She has also published her work in numerous national and international literary journals. She has is the editor for six online poetry journals for Kind of a Hurricane Press . Find more about A.J. Huffman, including additional information and links to her work at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000191382454 and https://twitter.com/#!/poetess222.