me and my pumpkin

I ate a pumpkin seed whole without chewing and a pumpkin grew off of the vine that pushed out of my navel. I was very surprised but not shocked because of the season. The pumpkin turned orange and I had to drink a ton of water to get it that color. I really felt dehydrated and drained but my pumpkin looked grand so I felt better though I looked terrible. The people who used to be my friends wouldn't talk to me no more or go to the clubs with me looking like that, dragging my pumpkin behind me. Cars got really angry, well their drivers did, they made their cars honk at me and my pumpkin crossing the streets. We were in the crosswalk, okay, so exercise a little patience, people. Only the children seemed to really like me anymore, and they followed me and kicked it with my pumpkin. After Halloween my pumpkin and I sat sorrowful at the dinner table, as I prayed for guidance. My pumpkin spoke to me through the vine, I swear, it told me it was okay. I know you think I'm crazy but you all stopped coming by anyway, so what would I care what you thought anymore? And don't even try. When the kids circle round, we will celebrate the season and eat pumpkin pie. You won't be invited and that's why.

society has come to polish off the self

I need complete silence for as many hours of every day and as many minutes of every hour and as many seconds of every minute as I can get. There are big ideas circulating which will otherwise be lost to dark matter, casualties of the smart phone alert system. And if comprehension of these ideas are lost, I will be lost with them. Society has decided communal is the only way, at the expense of any self. Myself, yourself. Society has declared the individual no longer to be trusted, no longer significant. Society has come to the internet to polish off the self. There is a war being waged for control over the web, a war of individuals demanding free expression against the ever matriculating constituents of the giant dark formless blob. Hold on to your hats!

the trembling vine

We are in the thick of October and stab the pumpkins repeatedly with knives after pulling them from the trembling vine. We light candles in memoriam and place them inside the hollowed out heads. Now we can see in the darkness the grotesque faces we carve upon them and smile. We bake their insides and salt and devour. Then we smash them in the streets just to hear the sound. Or let them die another death turning black by thanksgiving, like the teeth in our head eroded by sugars. Halloween. what a blast.

depression weighs a ton

women marching and i was walking
the opposite direction and saw a man
who got an erection and everyone
stood tall

but just for a second

 dollar sign stores and lots of whores
boosting from the system
if you had a lot of change and it stayed
the same

got rolled when you swung
and missed them

waking up with a dream in yer head
and you don't know where you are
dizziness come from a
spinning earth

by the minute on an out of tune
secondhand
guitar

bosses looking at their wives
wonderin' who they are

before midnight come
take a stab at the sun
tear ducts gutter and the gentlemen
 shudder

the depression weighs a ton

Black Chasm and the zombie kids

Me, my friend Tom and his motorcycle were surrounded at Black Chasm in Volcano, California by a bunch of little kids. They wanted us to play zombies with them. Tom cautioned them not to touch the hot pipes. Eli was the littlest. His hair was cut adorably in an overgrown mohawk and he had very blue and wide open eyes. Adriana was like a little 4th grade Madonna, standing making poses, dark eyes and hair and very beautiful and she knew it. She announced to everybody, if anyone touches my hair, i will kill you. She was friends and schoolmates with Ariel, who had a devious look in her eyes so you knew she was not to be trusted. I was scared of her and refused to play zombies. She made it through an entire bag of doritos while sitting there on a log talking to us, and her tongue turned orange and the adult at her campsite called her away and scolded her for ruining her dinner. There was an older boy, maybe eleven, with wavy, dark hair, who assured us he had a girlfriend but wouldn't give any details. He had a lot of factual information and could be relied on for the truth. The others continued walking into fantasy. Adriana said she was getting married. Ariel was apparently already married. Eli had an adorable lisp and told me in words falling over themselves, he knew a man with wires for a leg whose head was in his chest and had an arm inside his arm and brains oozing out his neck. He seemed to believe everything he said. Anyway, I strapped my helmet with yellow flames back over my ears to encourage Tom we should get the hell out of there before something happened and the kids turned to zombies on us. I took some final swigs of my green apple gatorade and finished my elk jerky. Tom wasn't frightened whatsoever and ignored my body language completely. I kept breathing while Adriana arched her back and threw her hands forward like a mechanical doll. Ariel turned into a goblin and chewed a hole in Tom's boot. Blood was everywhere. Before I knew it, Eli's eyes turned dark and he grew claws and slashed my shirt open. Tom shouted for me to get on the bike and I did, goddam evil kids, get us the hell outta here! We fired up the bike and ascended up out of Black Chasm and the town of Volcano, known only for the first ever hanging in Amador County. There wasn't even a goddam volcano.

nightmare no.5

I was toward the top of a large apartment building coming out of a window grabbing hold of material cascading down to the ground, I was watching myself like a movie climbing down, it was dusk, I was many stories up when some husky woman threw her head of hair out a jaundiced square of light above me and I could not see her face, and began to cut away at the material with a large kitchen knife, vigorously, and then the whole scene shook and skipped like a film, and the next slide and the next, changing ever so slightly, keeping me alive for the film was no longer rolling. The tone was sepia and the mood was horror. I was hoping I would survive. The woman in the window turned into a jackal and beat it out of there; the moonlight fell over sepia, spilling blue and black into the monotony. The masonry was far from uniform. I was awakened by the  scene. So close to Halloween.

number 4

I thought i was pretty damn cool and i didnt have a cigarette hanging off my lip and i hadnt died by 27 like all the rock stars, no, the stars are bright the stars are light the stars come out tonight and its fresh after the rains and i think im pretty cool but i don't rock the latest iphone or anything, i don't even broadcast on Instagram, the night is here and these quiet hours are mine all mine, cause im feeling pretty righteous but i dont subscribe to no religion, no, i got my own apartment and im an independent woman and an independent author, i think im pretty cool but im not on any bestseller lists, i think im pretty sweet but you wouldnt wanna cross me, no, i dont own any guns im no Hunter S. Thompson but i do believe in civil rights, ya, i dont drink or carry a medical maryjane card, i light up pumpkin candles and let my cats run free, but ive learned im only as capable as i believe i can be,  ya, you and me can only make it if we give it our all, dripping wet with paint off the canvas in the hall, i think im pretty cool, but not because of anything i have or anybody you think i am, no, i like to keep my blood pumping and circulating through the web, call it an obsession and it might be in my head, but if the motivation is to shine a light for anyone in the darkness, the hope, and these long early hours of quiet and calm so the life i have lived which has by no means been nice can channel through me to the distant lands where life is something terrible and senseless, and someone needs some help or to know you're not alone, to find you and discover your story of survival- of dreaming- of reality- of you and me together through the thick layers of media glaze that keeps us groping in the haze, our heads held high, uncool, unfashionable, looking like losers getting old, feeling like freaks, impoverished on the streets sometimes, depressed for fuckin weeks, without a friend in the world, burnin through bridges and pages and pages, ceaseless in our inquiry, agnostic to the core, fighting for the mystery, in love with number 4.

k by k selfie at home