Friday, 16 August 2013

Wednesday, 14 August 2013

notarize the thighs -vi)

Sex continued to sell in a recession-proof kinda way. A woman could turn a profit, with only a fuck-all mentality pushing her envelope. Boys and girls on the streets, of course, could reap whatever they chose to sow. They had youth behind them. They could do very well. So long as they did not allow the reaping to be turned over to any of a thousand common sneaker-pimp, grim-reapers, sizing them for pawned Fred Perry tracksuits and enticing them with Baby Phat faux leather. On top of spaghetti, all covered in cheese. In return for a personal attendant pickpocket leech motherfucker who will make a misery out of anyone, with some coke and a smile.

Sex continued to sell in the USA, despite any casualties on the streets. Despite rampant victimization. What was the attraction? Who knows. Sex continued to sell despite all opinion polls against it. Both predators and victims alike, took advantage of the resources offered by the county coffers and non-profits. Wolves in sheep clothing were abundantly known but rarely snitched on. They might try and make it worth your while. Though they had nothing of value to offer. Smart girls on the street, inevitably found it better to notarize the thighs. Become self-employed. Make her own bed. Awash in entrepreneurial spirit.

Sex continued to sell at all times, and in all conditions. Meanwhile, the grande eras of upswing stock markets easily navigated any overhang of massive U.S. debt, like Kelly Slater coming through a Fiji wave tunnel; one million salty tears a second rolling over his beautiful aquarian-californian head. Awash in passionate, competitive, entrepreneurial spirit.

Meanwhile, even the mention of legalities could not exorcise the dollar signs from the retina of the corporate maelstrom surfing the jetstream libre, por favor. Freedom on the backs of tax incentives and lobby concessions. Though many an executive took a personal interest in getting bound and whipped by a dominatrix of choice, in a dungeon of his choosing, there would be little interest in remaining bound or tethered to any law that impeded clear and present profit for his corporate entity holdings.

The corporate executive. There at the top of the food chain, on the hill overlooking the streets of skid row. Far, far below, the seemingly effortless give-and-take on the streets. The corporate exec. Even this karmic nightmare of a lifestyle, could be somehow justified and embraced. Casual, episodic subservience appeared to help balance out his power-tripping and episodic fisting of mom and pop cottage industries. Domino's to be lined up and knocked down, mercilessly, so to make ample room for his twenty to thirty-thousand square-foot monstrosities, to capture mass consumption in the crux of commercial real estate purchased up in the aftermath of heavy rotation roadshows to drum up institutional investment, internationally.

Katya Mills, 08/13

Monday, 12 August 2013

zen hen

Before they found her...

They were looking for a pleaser like me, or like you. Carefully. Like a mental health evaluator, after monthly quota of eligibles has been met and just exceeded. In the fullness of our lives, on the dark end of a half-moon feather cut of a night. On the cornish line. They were looking for the special chosen one. The ten out of ten eggs are good, hen. Initial results were disappointing. That was before they found her.

Now the inspectors flashed their zirconian smiles. Delighted. Soon the cheap rock would be scraped off and replaced. A different tune would play. Thanks to our totally realistic, alert post its inertia, cluck or duck, fix-whats-broken, walk-on-eggshells, notorious to be, substitute teacher, future-minded zen hen... there she is! In the wheat corner, the favorite, the oddsmaker, the two to one super-standard! Our saving grace! There she is. Rearing a thousand chicks...

Future numbers girls? Only time will tell.

Saturday, 10 August 2013

credit is good (at the food bank)

She did her day like any day before it, squeezed the juice out of the whole orange. She was a benevolent juicer. And a clear and present danger to rinds, husks, sheaths, shells, and exoskeletons. Snakes slithered away from her grasping hands, in the tall grasses of her her unmowed back summer yard. Turtles sped away. Turtles!

She had done her day. She had chased the sun over the horizon. It started like any day before it. A dark room. Predawn. A box fan sucking cool air, and spitting it, into her face. A goosedown blanket, tossing feathers into the breeze. Like some retentive golfer, worried any ever slight change in the direction of the wind might add a hook to his drive, and a stroke to his score. One of those night lights you can buy for five bucks at Rite Aid, splashing a spotlight image of fish in water, on the ceiling.

Featuring prominently: the awful sound of her prana, facedown in her pillow, half-suffocated by the weight of her own head. And by virtue of relentless dreams in which she was being chased by a clock with great arms and long legs. As the arms windmilled around the face of this clock chasing her, the time seemed to age her, in this recurring nightmare, and before she woke, breathless from her mouth in the pillow, she was an old woman losing ground to the malevolent clock behind her.

So she cried out, startled, then, upon realizing she was in a soft bed with a soft light of fish splashed above her, and a boxfan of fresh air blowing into her face; she snarled and grunted, and turned to her side. So to Live! my friends So to Live! She was and is and will always be a survivor, like that. Saves herself, from herself, every predawn morning. Wow.

Near dawn, she hunted down the tv and chose a special treat from among a sparse channel universe. There would be extra-special commercials with former NFL legends touting catheters for men. Former talk show hosts touting blenders. The Fonze, touting reverse mortgages. Alex Trebeck, hawking life insurance. Wow.

In between the deafening roar of former TV-icons gone dollar signs, she got drool relief from the wonderful world of cold cases, put in the DNA microwave and come out piping hot. She was only one of denizens of global tv junkies and insomniacs who had fallen completely head over heels for the soothing voice of Mr. Bill Kurtis from Chicago.

Aside: She was no ordinary listener. She had once directed courier traffic to Mr. Kurtis' very office on the near north, arts-intensified, hollywood central of Chicago, Illinois. True! Thus was her tenuous, personal connection to that lullaby soft voice, which helped invigorate, relegated files from the eighties. She neither knew nor cared to know anything about his legend, how he exposed Agent Orange, among other things. In her mind, TV has bombed the hell out of Vietnam, and she was sick of it. She wasn't even born in the sixties, yet she had watched so many war stories, she felt like she had fought in Vietnam. She even considered naming her three cats, Ho, Chi, and Minh. 

Nudging the darkness back into some light. That's what made the difference in her days which were all almost the same. Being just like Bill Kurtis. Staring at death, with a benevolent kinda gaze. The kind she would have between her and her newborn, if she ever gave birth, again. The kids she had already created, were trying to destroy her happiness, she thought. She preferred to think on other things. Nudging the darkness into light. Having survived herself at dawn, facedown on the pillow, she could relate to the victims of darkness...in the most tenuous of fashions.

Aside: Not to mention her other glorified attribute: she was a hot-blooded, one part Irish, one part Icelandic, lightning rod for truth! Any personal description of her, risked undermining her exceptional aura. Only her television set cast a brighter light, than herself. Oh, and her credit was good (at the food bank).

Katya Mills, 08/13



Thursday, 8 August 2013

struck by her

He was struck by her. He had seen her in the grocery store, once. Then at the farmer's market, where she accepted the half of the walmart receipt on the back of which he wrote his digits in small, insecure handwriting. He was not insecure. He was an accountant, and wrote very small. She read the name, Tony, which was not a very attractive shortcut for Anthony. But his name was not Anthony. His birth name was Tony. His parents liked shortcuts and hated formalities. Well, not his mother. But she was subservient to his father, atleast when it came to naming her firstborn son. She was gonna name the boy, Marcus Aurelius, but deferred to her husband. Secretly she called the boy Marcus Aurelius, though he responded to Tony.

He invited himself over her house, Tony. That was after she called him. She called him to find out who this poorly named boy was. He was a man, but she preferred to think of him as a boy. Any man who slipped her half of a receipt from Walmart with his little digits inscribed on the back of it, was a boy in her mind. She did not necessarily want to get to know him. This Tony character.

So she called out of curiosity, and you know what they say about curiosity. He was so excited when he realized who was on the other line, that he broke a sweat. She was so anxious afterward, she ran to the bathroom and spoke to the porcelain. Both conversations would be brief and unpleasant.

He was struck by her. Before and after the phone call. Before and after the farmer's market. Somehow he got online and performed some queries, over google search. Whitepages.com was a nice way to find out basic information without breaking any bank. He felt a little guilty, but more curious than guilty. You know what they say about curiosity.

She regretted having called. She turned the half of a receipt from Walmart, over and over in her fingers, until the oil from her fingerprint rubbed the ink of the digits, half-off. You're not supposed to use paper that way. Like a touchstone.

He had hoped for more of a chance. The conversation had been so brief. About as brief as they come. There had been an awkward silence. He needed time to absorb the fact of her, on the other line. Her voice was not pretty. Pretty common, maybe.

She laughed at herself after speaking with the porcelain, after speaking with him. She laughed for a second, about the nature of the first conversation. So awkward. Like kids.

He felt himself getting younger. He felt like just a boy, again. Not many women made him feel this way. He wondered why. There was nothing special about her, really, except everything about her. Except the way he thought about her.

She was not prepared for his visit. Neither was he. Just a boy, visiting a neighbor girl, is the way he thought of it. His visit. She thought of it as a supreme offense to her entire being.

He was struck by her. By the flat palm of her hand.
Not very pretty. But pretty common.
The way he was struck by her.

-Katya Mills,  08/13

Saturday, 3 August 2013

notarize the thighs -v)

Now you are vulnerable. Now free. Now the nerve sheaths dissolve and leave you cold like feet on cold ground. Deprivation of woolen socks. Comfortable couch dissipates. Now may you lie on barren segregated place of great intentional discomfort to sweet awful induction into pain and panic. Flames and manic. Backed up in time. Given a ticket. A seat for you: on the Titanic. Iceberg headed. Frozen. Embedded. Your personalized matter you so evolved into? All gone. Shredded. Or so they want you to believe. An otherwise terrible terrifying time. All to get you back in line. True your wheel to the capitalist democracy owned and operated by taxless republic-loving, class-choreographer paradigm-administration-pleasing standard.

Now you are vulnerable. Well. good to take pause. Take a deep breath and remember:
Silence is not lifeless. You need not tune your vocal trax to nothing! You need not live or die by publishing house grammatical demands. You need not speak, not immediately anyway. You are young. They cannot empty you and fill you up with hay and corn. Nah! Carve your own avocado, in your own time, and self-nourish! Do not always speak when prompted. Not for free, anyway.

Not when you are so tender like you are. Silence is grace when nothing needs be said. Everyone can wait. After prayers. Before breakfast. Some time in there, maybe. Saying so does not induct talking into the reaper hall of disdain. This is only an opinion of a large and decided minority. Within a single species which is, as others before and around it, at this very same moment in time, thanatos self-anaesthesia beyond recognition... beyond birth... beyond pure and back to the pushing points of tension; the ones raw from pull and half stretched ten times any limits of graciously regarded doctor's relative overdosing ever was.