Dead Labor
I’ve been writing a lot. In between stories when I felt stuck I sometimes wrote a short piece to get my mind onto to another topic and let it stretch. This piece is the outcome of one of those mental exercises. I revamped it for this post, while also taking inspiration from the political happenings in the U.S. and the larger world I share with the rest of you. Its theme is similar to the novel I’m currently writing, which will make me rich and famous maybe. Hope you enjoy this little bit of philosophical and/or/nor political prose.
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I leaned against a display of computer towers and computer printed price tags, while on my fifth day in a row at that place that I didn’t want to be in. A bank was holding me hostage. If I left they would kill me; they would starve me; they would let disease consume me; they would have me freeze under a bridge; they would turn me into food for vultures with bad habits.
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Happy 2012 everybody (my blog’s 2011 stats in review)
Happy 2012 to everybody who’s concerned about that. For those who aren’t, happy wonderful day to you in general. This is unimportant, but just in case some of you wanted to know who else is looking at my posts you can check the 2011 stats that Wordpress prepared for me. The link is below. One thing that surprised me: Some one from Nigeria visited (and hopefully read) my blog. One thing that didn’t surprise me: people who found me through search engines “came searching mostly for Korean Sex.” Maybe it was the Nigerian, or the guy from Brazil…
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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 3,900 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 3 trips to carry that many people.
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Something Missing
I always practiced writing, even when I sucked (an arguable point in time that may still exist). When I wasn’t practicing with fiction, which was too often, I made a point of turning everything else into a writing project.
Years ago I wrote an email to a loved one who was far away. I liked it a lot and a year after writing it I made it into this prose poem. I go to it every so often and change this word or that word. It’s finished now so here it is. If you feel so inclined please share it using the social media tools below.
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Took the subway this Thursday instead of driving. Wanted to avoid the traffic and nasty weather outside (the day’s snowstorm would’ve blinded me on the road). Got there, and I saw this obnoxiously loud group on my uptown ride on the E train. They got on at Continental Avenue, and were talking in that language/code that I could never decipher.
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Korean Quickie – “Venus” – Sex, Smiles, And Dating In Korea (Vol. 3)
I fell in love in Korea. It turned to shit, as love affairs tend to do. I wrote about the painful thing a few months ago specifically for a publication that later rejected it, so I thought this would be a good place for it. This is the last volume in Sex, Smiles, and Dating in Korea. I hope you like it better than some unnamed editor did. Please comment if you do.
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“Venus”
We fucked the first night we met, and it was pretty good.
Neither of us were looking for anything serious. What it boiled down to was that everyone has needs, and it’s hard to get those needs met in a foreign country where men perm their hair and women want to get married before they’re twenty-two.
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Small Story published by 5×5 Fiction
Though they took me thirty minutes to write I love four out of five of the little short stories I submitted to “5×5 Fiction.” I ran into their site (5x5fiction) during a late night search for journals to submit a short story to, and though it is very independent with a very small audience, the criteria looked like fun:
“Complete stories… must be exactly 25 words long, told in exactly 5 sentences, with each sentence comprised of exactly 5 words.”
I wrote them quickly enough, submitted them, watched “Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths,” then went to sleep. Below are all five:
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“Sex is Not Love”
She wanted it to last. Forever would have been nice. She wanted to be loved. To know she wasn’t alone. Eventually he came, then left.
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Catching Butterflies
There is a story behind my writing this short story, but I won’t share it unless you ask me in person. What I will say is that this was the first short story in my life that I wrote with ease. It broke some mental barrier that I had put up and I was able to write without feeling an awkward and anxious agony, like I was trying to paint with my feet. This story did it. I thank it, and I thank you for reading it.
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I knew it was the wrong decision when I saw the butterfly.
It was dirt brown and amber, and fluttered an inch away from my face. If I had grabbed the thing I imagine it would have fit neatly in my palm. Instead I simply let it fly past, passively observing it as it flew from my left to my right, then into the bushes where it disappeared.
With it gone I had to focus again on my dad and his friends as they played basketball at our local park. No, that’s not true at all. I wasn’t really focused on their game, but my anxiety about being next up to play. I didn’t play sports – I still don’t – but my father brought me along. In his words, “I just think you need to move your body a little more.” There was no meanness in his words, but they hurt nonetheless. I was standing on the sidelines of our local park’s basketball court out of guilt for being a quiet boy who watched life from his bedroom window and drew pictures of trees and hummingbirds. I was standing there because I told my dad I would play, but when I saw that butterfly I knew I made the wrong decision.
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13
This is a piece of prose poetry that I wrote after spending time with a woman I liked a lot. The night ended in me being frustrated with myself and the beginning of a writing spree that continues today. Thank you my muse. Muah! Right on the left check.
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At thirteen years old I had my first date…
I can’t tell you the exact age when the mechanical genius of the penis and vagina clicked in my mind, but I would guess it to be around nine. By nine I had an eye for the penthouse my cousin kept under his mattress; I was fast forwarding R rated movies to the sex scenes; I leered at all women, homely and beautiful, and imagined them naked and lying on top of me. A Playboy got me a call to my parents in the fourth grade.
… At thirteen years old I was a virgin and not at all happy about it. My older brother knew some of the cool kids my age that lived in the neighborhood and found out what girl my age was fucking the cool kids, in and out of my neighborhood. He arranged for us to meet up, as we did, on a cloudy weekday…
I decided to start seeing women seriously when I was nineteen. I convinced myself that I liked a co-worker whom I had nothing in common with. As a consequence we went on a miserable date. The film we saw changed my life, but I couldn’t talk to her about it because I didn’t think she would understand.
Letter to a Stranger
Dear Person I Don’t Know,
As a kid I tried my best to stay away from mirrors.
My reflection stared back at me one day, and I realized that I was not very attractive: pimples, an overbite, twenty extra pounds. Made uncomfortable in my own skin, I smile when I remember my first attempt at love with a skinny brown girl I cared for, but didn’t know very well.
In her basement we each held the other and I forgot to feel nervous about my own nakedness – that feeling of having the eyes of the world on me.
Though you would know, if you knew me, that those years are still not completely gone. I still look in the mirror. I’m still not happy.
You would know too, if you knew me, that I saw in that girl an unreal perfection based on her real imperfections. Her gangly arms and legs held me tight and rubbed themselves against my skin with all the care I had assumed there would be from one who was supposed to love you.
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My Eulogy
Wrote this during a writing workshop prompt earlier this week. Thought is was pretty good, that it was pretty sad, and unfortunately, that it’s probably pretty true.
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What can I say about Alex Clermont that everybody here doesn’t already know. He was 5 feet 7 inches. He was brown. He loved comic books, shrimp, and any joke that could convincingly fit the word penetration into it.
Alex was also a sucker for love. He loved the idea of love, and shared himself mind, body and soul with several of us crying here today. Love with Alex, however was never permanent, with every relationship of his having in it a fatal flaw. He never found what he was looking for either in love, or in life in general, but I think he was okay with that.
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Life Inc.
I wrote this piece as an exercise in writing in the second person. I had to think for a while about a subject. Something that I knew so well that I could walk you through it and point out details that bring out the point I wanted to make about consumerism in America. I have a bit of experience in retail so that did it for me. I hope this does it for you. If it does please let me know.
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In the middle of Main Street stands City Center Mall. It’s a relatively new mall, only having been around for a year, but business is constant, and its stores are always filled with shoppers. You walk pass the mall’s entrance and notice the huge banners hung on the front of the box shaped building. Words written in steel blue ask you to “Find What Defines You.” Along with the inviting words are images of happy and pretty people holding cheap and pretty solutions to their life’s problems. You take the invitation and walk in.
By far the mall’s most popular store is Widgets, an electronics franchise that prides itself on being the place where “shopping is fun again.” Entering the mall you head for Widgets by way of elevator. The first thing to catch your eye once you’ve reached the top floor is a huge display of the company’s logo. Positioned above the entrance the sign violently grabs your attention, and for a few seconds your stare is fixed.
The Widgets logo is a yellow star burst set against a navy blue background and containing bold black letters that spell out “WIDGETS.” According to consumer psychologists three is the optimal number of elements for a memorable logo – in this case a star burst, black letters and a blue background. It’s a conscious attempt by Widgets to invade your unconscious and stamp themselves into the consumer’s brain. After being stamped you snap out of the gaze and continue walking towards the automatically opening doors.
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