Jon Ureña's Blog, page 59

Interspecies Misdemeanours #1 (Short Story)

Link for this short story on my personal page, where it looks better

---

As the three of us witnessed the spaceship descending from the sky, the soccer ball continued its parabolic trajectory and ended up hitting Betty in the head. However, none of us three friends commented on it, because we were mesmerized by the three tiger-orange, glowing lights in a triangle formation, which seemed to be attached to a metallic frame. The spaceship was clearly headed towards the forest near our home, which we had explored countless times.
Both Frank and I took off running in the direction where the spaceship was heading, although there was no way we would catch up to it. Betty sprinted after us and grabbed our shirt tails.
"I don't like that one bit!" she complained.
Reluctantly, Frank and I stopped and followed Betty back to Frank's yard, but we kept looking over our shoulders as the three glowing lights passed behind tall treetops. I could tell it was heading to the clearing near the center of the forest. We had gone through a lot of nonsense already, and I could understand Betty's reluctance. There was that whole thing with the haunted factory last week. Our group of adventurers had never encountered anything as interesting as a spaceship, let alone an alien spaceship, but the last thing we needed was to get involved in some alien drama involving UFOs. Still, none had landed at such close proximity to where we resided.
Anyway, in order to explain properly what we ended up finding, it's necessary to first introduce myself, Betty and Frank. I'm Sam, and back then I was a fifteen years old kid living in a typical suburban town. My friends were Frank Haimer, who lived a couple of blocks away, and Betty Krommer, whose dad worked at the auto plant. Betty and I were quite interested in space and science, but Frank was a dinosaur guy. The three of us had in common that since we were much younger, we rarely wanted to return home from playing in the street, and we explored around town whenever possible.
Betty crouched to pick up the soccer ball, and she lifted it to her shoulder. She was wearing a pink dress with white polka dots on it, and her hair was tied in pigtails. She turned to face me with a smile. I wanted to tell her that her hair had looked quite nice recently even when untied: it covered the sides of her neck and the top of her ears, giving her a more mature look.
"Forget about aliens. Let's keep kicking! Although we'll need a bigger yard if we keep playing with this."
She kicked the ball down to Frank, and after he caught it, he tossed the ball to me without taking his eyes off the alien spaceship, that was hovering over the clearing in the middle of the forest.
"I've got to admit this is pretty exciting," Frank said.
"Yeah, I agree," I said.
The alien spaceship slowly lowered itself to the forest floor, and disappeared fully behind the treetops.
"Forget about it," Betty said as she motioned for me to throw her the ball. "It had to be some kind of secret military aircraft."
My heart was beating fast. I didn't want to wake up one day and think to myself, 'You know, I should have taken the chance to see some aliens'. I could tell that Frank was waiting for me to come to a decision.
"What do you think, Sam?" he asked, both worried and excited. "Do we go or not? The aliens are waiting for us."
"Fuck no," Betty said.
"Let's put it to a vote."
Betty lost, but she conceded her defeat quickly enough. As we were about to run to the forest, we realized that Frank's father was staring at us from the big living room window, but he quickly turned around and moved further into the house. Although he may have glanced at us casually, these last few years all of our parents always seemed suspicious about how we occupied our time, and I guess we gave them enough reasons.
"Maybe we should tell my parents first," Frank said. "I don't want to deal with the police again."
I sighed.
"Yeah... And we probably need to get your flashlights."
"And my camera!" Frank said as he ran to his front door.
Both of Frank's parents approached us cautiously as we were filling up a backpack in the kitchen.
"What the hell are you kids planning this late already?" Frank's dad asked gratingly. "Aren't you tired enough from playing soccer or whatever you were doing?"
"Something more interesting came up," Frank answered as he made sure a flashlight worked.
I realized that Betty was preparing too many sandwiches. Her butt looked way more appetizing, though.
"What are you doing, Betty?" I asked.
"The aliens are probably hungry, so I'm making them something to eat."
Frank's dad snapped his head back.
"What are you talking about? What's this about aliens?"
"Didn't you see the spaceship?" I asked the big man. "It had three glowing lights and was flying over the forest. It clearly landed in there."
The old man's eyes went white, and he hunched over to grab his son's shoulders.
"Frankie, UFOs are not a joke. These aliens are dangerous. I already told you what I learned in the war! One night they shot down a bomber as it was heading to Dresden, killing everyone on board, and then it disappeared in a flash of lightning! I also heard that some aliens killed a guy by hitting him over the head repeatedly with something heavy, and then they stole everything the poor guy had, before escaping with no traces."
"They are just visiting," Betty said as she smeared a slice of bread with jam. "They haven't killed anyone. I've read about aliens in the paper, and nothing bad ever happened."
“You're endangering yourselves! Just think of the consequences if you meet one of those bastards."
Frank's dad was getting more and more agitated, and this time it wasn't because of a football game. He was starting to look like a madman. Frank and I exchanged glances, and I could tell he had also realized we had to get out of there.
"Well, dad, anyway..." Frank said, and he wiped his nose with a handkerchief. "We are leaving."
Frank's dad shook his head and grabbed the doorknob, pulling the door shut with a loud click.
"I won't let you out. This isn't the time to be playing around."
“Think about your dad’s heart pressure, honey,” Frank’s mother said weakly.
Frank frowned.
“Dad, this is nothing new. The forest near our house has never been safe. There are monsters and ghosts, and lots of other things to worry about. If you don't believe me, ask Betty."
Betty nodded at Frank's dad. She had finished making all the sandwiches and was now putting them in a box. I attached my usual flashlight to my belt.
“Don't you want to see the aliens?” I asked Frank’s dad. “They could be the only ones left alive in this whole world! They could help us against the Russians and the Nazis."
"To be fair, these aliens are probably just some dumb guys from another planet who got lost," Frank said.
"Frankie, stop acting like a child," his dad said severely. "This is serious."
Frank and I looked at each other, and as usual we came up with the same plan. I offered his old man my brightest smile.
“We were just pulling your leg, sir. You've been to the forest plenty of times. There's nothing there but trees and animals. You know that."
Betty nods.
“Aliens are just stories for kids.”
“We dreamed that whole thing about the UFO,” I said. “Or maybe we were lying. In any case, we are going out for a bit, probably disappear out of sight.”
As I unlatched the door and opened it, Frank’s dad grabbed me by the shirt.
“You little brat!” he yelled.
Frank looked embarrassed, and put a hand on his dad’s forearm.
“Let him go. He didn’t do anything.”
His dad couldn’t face his son’s embarrassment, and hung his head low, but his face remained red and angry. As he stared at the ground, a tear dropped from his eye.
“Sorry, Mr. Haimer,” I said.
“My name is Paul,” Frank’s dad grumbled. “Don’t call me Mr. Haimer.”
"Okay, Paul. But you don't have to worry about us. Betty and I will be careful, we’ll take care of Frankie. I promise."
Frank's dad turned towards the living room, from which came a spirited play-by-play.
“Just make sure you guys don’t stay out too late.”
“Yes sir, we won’t."
Once we closed the front door behind us and we hurried out of the yard, we sighed in relief.
“Your dad has problems, Frank,” I said in a low voice.
Frank looked away.
“You don’t have to tell me that. And he'll end up calling the police on us again."

This Is Not a Good Story (Poetry)

Link for this poem on my personal page, where it looks better

---

The first time I saw her, a few days after she moved in,
My neighbor was standing on the landing late at night,
Frozen in the middle of opening her apartment door,
Staring up at the murky sky as if she wanted to scream.

For a few seconds I stood motionless
As the rain came down upon my head.
Then my neighbor lowered her gaze
At the stranger who gawked at her.

As I stared at her vacant, translucent eyes,
I imagined water running over ice floes.
Hers was a face painted on a doll
With nothing behind it except air.

Stunned, I bid her goodnight,
But she nodded in silence,
Let out an exhausted sigh,
Then walked into her apartment.

It started one day that we chatted
As we leaned on the railing of the landing
In front of the doors to our apartments,
While the wind chilled us with sudden gusts.
She wasn’t beautiful like the women on TV,
But she wasn’t at all like other girls.

She was my next door neighbor.
I would have been able to see into her room
If the wall between us were transparent.

My neighbor’s hair, like mine, was dark brown,
But her eyes were dry, hopeless,
As if she had been searching for a long time
Until she gave up.

I shared that I programmed websites,
But she asked me how I’d been feeling,
Alone in my tiny apartment
With only the TV and PC for company.

The loneliness I had bottled up inside myself,
Hidden deep within the folds of my mind,
Seemed suddenly exposed, raw,
And it burned through my skin.

“It is lonely, but I have my own life,”
I said hoarsely as I avoided her gaze.
I wasn’t happy, but the way I was living
Had been working out for me until then.

She waited until I dared to hold her gaze,
Then she offered a weary smile.
“Your bed must be hard and cold.
Do you also lie there and stare at the wall
As you wonder why you exist at all
In a world where everything turns to dust?"

As I returned home from the office,
The air smelled like autumn trees
And leaves yellowing under frosty skies.
Although the wind was blowing hard,
My neighbor looked down at me
From where she sat on the landing,
Her hands tucked into her armpits.
She seemed like a tiny, helpless thing
Trying desperately to conceal her pain.

On a different day, we sat side by side
On the grass of a nearby river embankment.
We watched the boats as they went by.
I could tell we were eager to open up,
But our lives were hard to explain
Even to ourselves.

I never managed to comprehend
That look she gave me from time to time.
I felt that her heart, like those eyes,
Had dried up and turned to stone.

“I’m just an ordinary, unimportant girl
Who is stuck with a dull, empty job.
I don't think I've ever known what love means,
Or really cared about anybody else's problems,
And we are enduring all of this
For no reason whatsoever.
What do we gain by tiring ourselves out
With so many silly endeavours?”

She could see through the lies and excuses
I told myself everyday to survive.
I tried convincing her she wasn’t alone anymore,
But her body stiffened, and her face went pallid.

“I miss many books on my shelf,
Which I haven’t read since elementary school.”
When, confused, I said I would buy them for her,
She let out a soft laugh that rang strangely loud,
Like the last gasp of some dying animal.
She turned and shuffled toward her home.
Cautiously, I followed her from far enough.

(My neighbor was right, of course.
Nothing in this life makes sense,
No one knows what tomorrow will bring,
Our happiness is short-lived, and so are we.)

After that time, we met almost every day.
We strolled slowly along or sat with a coffee,
And sometimes we watched online videos.
She became indispensable, and it scared me.

She showed me the old books on her shelf,
All worn and well used, stocked haphazardly,
Which she had read dozens of time over.
I borrowed some, and I soon found out
That someone had written them for us.

Many of the stories that my neighbor loved
Back when she was a carefree child growing up,
Those books she would have needed to share,
Most of them she lost along the way,
And many of their titles she forgot,
And a few of them won’t ever return in print,
But the memories remain fresh, bright, alive.

(Please, let these pages never be erased,
Let the memories saved here
Never disappear.)

We drank beer and talked until late at night.
She told me that she had tried everything
To feel better, but it hadn’t worked yet,
At least not very well.

She looked up at the night sky through the window
As she spoke at length about her loneliness,
How it waited under her skin
For any excuse to surface.

I liked protecting her feelings from the world,
So she wouldn’t feel ashamed nor isolated,
But I couldn't erase that lonely look
Of someone drowning deep at sea.

We spent an afternoon in the park
Watching the autumn leaves fall
As the sky grew darker with clouds overhead.
My neighbor spoke about her mother,
Who left her by moving to a distant country,
After which her father was never the same again.

I witnessed her tears as they rolled down her cheeks.
Before she wiped them away, I reached out
And brushed them off with my fingertips.
The loneliness and desperation she contained
Were like a gas leak waiting for a match.

I hoped my touch might spark the explosion.
In her catharsis, something beautiful may happen,
Something new and real could come into being,
Just like the words that flowed from her lips,
Like the wind across ice floes on a frozen lake,
Leaving nothing in its wake.

My neighbor's loneliness hurt more than mine did,
For it was hers that made her needlessly brave,
As if her life depended on facing her pain
And speaking honestly to me of it
Without caring what anyone thought of her.
We both agreed that we had nowhere else to turn,
And we embraced as the cold wind blew against us.

Instead of progressing in life, we were stuck
Pushing the walls of our small world together.
What awaited beyond was so big
That we lacked the strength to break out.

It felt more appropriate to reach
Through the gaps in the books we shared;
That emptiness inside both of us
Couldn't be filled through our own words.

The walls of our cramped apartments were thin.
I listened to the sounds she made as she slept.
Even the slightest sigh, or breath she drew in,
They felt loud inside me as I lay awake in bed.

Her lips grew chapped, as did my fingers,
And we kept our hands warm inside our pockets.
Sometimes I found myself gazing at her mouth,
But I feared what would happen if we kissed.

We went out for karaoke and we sang softly.
We also ate sandwiches or sipped liquor.
The alcohol allowed us to laugh,
And also to grow much closer.

By now we often smiled in unison
As if our minds were connected by wires.
We could spend hours together
Without ever getting sick of each other.

The next day my neighbor woke up hungover,
And when she exited her apartment,
I was already sitting on the landing
Reading one of the books she had lent me.

I didn’t want to be hurt if I failed her now,
But I knew I couldn’t stand back anymore.
If my heart broke before hers did break,
Maybe it was best that way.

That night, we hid in my neighbor’s home.
Once she took off her faded shirt,
Her back looked almost translucent,
Naked and pale as the paper white sheets,
And I discovered the words written on her skin:
‘This is not a good story’.

(I dream of a woman whose tears are black
As ink spilled on snow white rice paper,
And who carries her burden of loss
Inside her all alone.)

I held her tight as we made love
While we listened to some old record.
Afterward we lay next to each other
And stared at the cracked ceiling.
Our breaths slowly grew shorter, quieter,
Then they seemed to stop entirely.

We remained perfectly still
And silent like stone.
We were floating there like ghosts
Caught somewhere outside of space and time.

She spoke of a black hole inside her heart,
Where everything she cared about had been sucked in,
Leaving only that void to consume her from within,
A hollow emptiness to which no one could give meaning.

I could tell she was crying,
So I hugged her tightly.
Her shoulders trembled
As her tears moistened my neck,
Shedding salty drops onto my collarbone,
Pouring her heart’s sorrow into me.

I held my neighbor’s slender body
Like I had wished to do for months.
I felt the soft, smooth warmth of every curve,
And how her breasts pressed against my chest.

Still, I barely heard her whisper,
“Our lives will end soon enough.
When it finally comes for me,
Please let my self continue
Through your hands and your thoughts.”

We awoke to an overcast, cold day
Like when my dad used to drive me to school.
It seemed so odd, lying beside this girl
While her face was turned towards mine
Instead of facing the wall or looking down
To be alone inside her secret world.

From then on, we slept together most nights,
Sometimes in our beds, and others on her couch.
We spent weekends watching television shows,
Listening to music we didn’t care for very much.
There were times when we had nothing to say
Except for anything related to the past, or work.

(Some days she lacked the strength to get up.
She would lie in bed from morning to night,
And whispered words over and over to no one
Or wept silently until she fell asleep.
Each time the waves of grief swept over her,
I wondered if the tide would take her away.)

We decided to move to a small apartment
With a home office for my job,
And empty space for her father’s stuff.
We found a cheap place in a town close by.
The landlord liked our faces,
So we didn't have to offer references.

On a Sunday evening, after we exited a movie theater,
My neighbor talked about getting married some day.

(The black hole in her chest
Had continued growing stronger,
And she admitted that she feared
That one day it would swallow her up.)

Her dark hair fluttered lightly behind us
While the rising sunlight reflected off the puddles.
I held on to her hand tightly and I stared up ahead
As the light of a new day spread its glow across us.

All the desires I harbored became so clear
That they overwhelmed me with their beauty,
Transforming this world into an endless mirage
Within which we floated between joy and sadness.

(I wish I could find my old books again,
To take them with me everywhere I go.
Every time I close my eyes at night,
All I can see is her back as she turns away.)

We could spend a whole day
Holding each other like two children might.
I had never felt at home with anyone before,
And I feared that it would collapse if I let go.

I think my neighbor and I became happier
After we got engaged.
We got married in the city hall
In front of ghost guests,
A large crowd.

(Every single morning, when I wake up,
My heart is heavy, my mind foggy with despair,
And I grow even colder whenever I believe
That I can hear her footsteps approaching me.)

My head filled up with dreams to fulfill
In this city that seemed too big,
In a place full of all sorts of new stuff I needed,
In a world in which I now wanted to stay.

I couldn’t take away her look of loneliness,
Of having spent her entire existence,
Since birth, as an isolated creature,
And knowing that her loneliness
Was a natural law.

(Sometimes my body freezes abruptly,
As if a black cloud has descended upon me
To suck out every breath and consume me.
I'm thrown into the water at the edge of a whirlpool.
All the people I care about are swept away
Alongside the debris from the broken shipwrecked hull.
Then I hear my next door neighbor whisper,
“Let us disappear, please.”)

I never got used to the fear
That threatened to overwhelm me
Whenever I got a glimpse
Of the words written on her back.

That sentence would surface and resurface
In the corners of my neighbor’s sight.
Whenever I could read them in her vacant gaze,
She would stare at me,
Or right through me,
As if asking,
“Why are we still this lonely?”

The only way for me to cope was with words,
Or by pretending that I didn't notice
How she disappeared further inside herself.
To fill that void within her,
We tried to live normal, boring lives,
Drifting along without any particular goal,
Just like our neighbors did.

(if I drown now, it won't be for long.
The world will stop spinning,
It will stop and it will go dark
Like the ocean does at night
When everything becomes still and silent,
Nothing moving except the surface ripples
Of waves from far away.)

The world around us slowly moved on,
And I can’t describe what went on inside my head.
Maybe I was trying to hold onto a solid ledge,
And everything of which I could make sense.

The last time I saw her, she walked down the hallway,
And then beyond the entrance of our home.
Her fading footsteps didn’t sound like they belonged
To a young woman anymore.

Bury My Mind in the VR Realm (Poetry)

Link for this poem on my personal page, where it looks better

---

My real house feels empty and and dark,
And my loneliness is hard to bear;
The nights grow darker with the winter's cold
When no friends come near to care for me

A few years back, when things were better,
Or at least as stable as I need,
I spent most of each day at the office;
My work kept me quite busy,
It paid pretty good,
But now there's less work for people like me,
So it doesn't pay much anymore

And I was married to a guy
I met while working,
And then he dumped me
For a younger girl

The office felt like my home back then,
But since I got divorced, and lost my job,
My homes are my virtual apartments,
My walls between me and the outside world

When the real bodies can't do it anymore,
Or aren't up to the job,
The virtual bodies wait for me to use them,
To feel good, or not feel bad

I love my work, everything I've created;
It might help me forget how sad and lonely life is,
So I've gone on a binge of binge-designer binges;
I spend days on end tinkering
In my own virtual apartments

For the best possibilities of human connection,
Friendship and sex with people who care,
I design virtual worlds and AI partners,
Who are eager to meet this lonely old lady

I love to download the files for board games,
Load one on the table of my virtual living room,
And spawn a bunch of AI personalities
That are sure to make my gaming session fun

My AI friendlies have no bones, muscles or flesh;
They've never known real physical sensations,
They're only software simulations
(If they could have real bodies,
We'd probably be too embarrassed)

Sophisticated or silly, smart or stupid;
A balanced combination of personalities
That will always offer me challenges,
And who won't end the session to take a call,
Or to go home back to their families,
When I needed them the most

(This time we play Terraforming Mars;
I randomized an AI player for the session
She is female and she is hot; I love her
More than anything else tonight
I get my ass licked by this cute redhead
While we chat about board game design)

The VR gear is my life support system,
The only place where my heart still beats;
My brain is free to interact with the VR realms
While my decaying body just keeps waiting
For someone or something to save me

I have made some amazing creations,
Particularly my worlds and AI wives,
Who won't take off and leave me
Without saying goodbye

(I live alone,
With a mesh of triangles in place of my body,
While everyone else lives their lives)

These virtual worlds and people allow me,
A lonely woman in her mid thirties
And divorced without children,
To enjoy being an adolescent again,
Playing make believe games;
I also use them to masturbate

(I don't have time for the outside world any more;
I want my head back in the realm I built
I feel as though I am dying,
But the flesh I was attached to has lost its power over me )

Whenever I get horny enough that I need
To build my brain up into virtual bliss,
I load up any of my scenarios of the series
That I've come to refer as The Orgasmatron,
In which my lovers are deep neural networks,
But then again, so are human brains

(After all, the brain's only job is to receive signals
From the sensory inputs of your nervous systems,
Which are in turn stimulated
By electrical pulses coming from other neurons
That are firing signals at the input gates
On your brain's neuron receptors;
Those same gates then pass those impulses along
To be stored in long strings of neurotransmitters
That get passed around, causing you to react
Emotionally or mentally to the external stimuli;
Which in my case, it mostly involves orgasms
Induced by VR sex with AI characters
And masturbation to a large selection of VR videos
That I've saved to disk in the past decade,
While working hard, spending long days at the computer,
But I don't know why, because my real life
Wasn't all it was cracked up to be;
There wasn't much work for people
Who had their jobs taken away from them;
So what's left? Well, that means that I had to find
Some way to entertain myself, and fill in the voids)

For the first year or so I preferred variety:
I spent about fifteen minutes choosing my attire,
And about an hour designing the perfect AI woman,
Including the combination of panties, short skirts,
Bikini tops, lingerie, and/or the textures of her skin

I agonized over their hair and eye colors,
As well as their facial and body shapes,
Down to how friendly or seductive they had to be;
It was hard to focus on the necessary details
As I anticipated how fondling them would feel

(As a teen I got turned on by looking in the mirror;
As my body aged and changed, and my features sagged,
I lost the urge to look at myself again;
Now it's just a reminder of the time I've wasted)

Once I'd mastered all my techniques,
My creativity exhausted,
I realized I always came back for the same thing:
A honey blonde with Aegean blue eyes,
A rectangle-shaped face fit for a model,
Full, watermelon pink lips that I just want to kiss
(And that satisfy my sensitive spots in the best ways),
Tanned beige, freckled skin,
Firm breasts bigger than my hands,
A motherly hourglass figure,
And above all, a combination of kind eyes,
A sultry voice and a nurturing smile;
I just want to cuddle up to her so I can keep warm

(I want to fuck like crazy; let us make a child!
If I don't give him pleasure, he'll surely die
I'll have my revenge and I'll be free,
And my husband's life will end, I'm quite confident,
So let me make him scream out "I love you" with pain)

I mixed the best parts of my deficient versions
Into my ideal woman, whom I named Madeline;
My AI love awaits a few interface interactions away
Whenever I need her honey to brighten my day

(When I go back in time and try harder in school,
I'll get the good grades and a better job;
I won't need to live as lonely and pathetic
As I have been for these last years)

Today I choose my carefully designed scenario
That I named 'Innocent Teen and the Mistress
of the Isolated Mansion While It Rains Outside':
I inhabit the body of a nineteen years old runaway
Who fled from a terrible family and a lonely life,
And got stranded in a small town during a storm,
But Madeline rescues my stray self with her car,
To bring me over to her isolated mansion,
Where she prepares me a warm, healing bath

The air conditioning of the bathroom
Soothes me after the cold rain outside
While Madeline fills the tub with scented oil,
To take off all the dirt and the mud that covered me

I get naked, then climb into the tub
To wash away my loneliness,
To wash the past clean,
To scrub off all of my mistakes

For now, Madeline is gone, and I massage a cream
On each of my exposed, smooth legs,
Then I rub more of the oil into my body;
A full body bath, again, with oils and scents

Caressed by my soft nineteen years old hands,
I massage in the soap to make it foam,
Then I sluice the soap suds over my head,
My face, my arms, my breasts;
After I've laved them all in, I lie back
In the warm, bubbling tub of hot, scented water,
And I think of Madeline, my AI love
Who has always waited for me,
Wanting to help her friend
Get all the badness of her bad life cleaned out

Madeline took away my soaked clothes,
And only left me silk panties,
Which she draped neatly on a stool
(They are my favorite, because the texture
Is like a silky, smooth skin on my fingertips),
And a satin nightgown that barely covers my ass

I hear Madeline's sultry voice as she calls out
So I can follow her voice into the dim living room,
Which is rustic and only lighted by candles
And a crackling fireplace in front of the sofa
Where Madeline waits for me with her legs crossed;
She's wearing a violet and midnight black nightgown,
With a cleavage that exposes the top half of her breasts;
The mere sight of them always makes me salivate,
And her thighs tempt me with their thick meatiness

As I walk obediently towards the sofa,
I feel the tingles in my stomach,
Which are sliding down towards my crotch
And soon they spread to every limb;
The sensation that comes next
Brings a warm flush up over the rest of my body,
A sensation like someone running their hands
Along my naked body, towards my vagina

(My mind wanders to images
Of being a teen, walking around naked
Wearing no clothes except a bra,
While boys ogled my breasts and pussy

It reminds me that this whole life
Has been leading me to the inevitable end;
I want Madeline, I want her, my body says;
I can't stand it, I don't want to live any longer)

Madeline is still sitting there in the candlelight,
In my favorite violet lingerie, her tits straining
The cups, pushing her breasts out to the limit;
Her eyes wide and bright, looking straight at mine

Once I sit down and the sofa embraces me,
Madeline scoots closer,
Resting her bare arm around my shoulders
And giving them both a quick stroke, while saying,
"How long has it been since I helped a lonely soul?"
(I'm feeling warm and moist, about to shiver)

Madeline kisses me softly on the forehead
While she strokes my hair as if I were a child,
And her eyes narrow in a nurturing smile
"Whatever you have gone through, sweetie,
You are safe now. I will keep you warm"

Madeline starts caressing me more intensely,
And my nipples harden under her gentle touches;
I always miss being handled so gently and kindly,
I just melt and feel myself getting wetter by the second;
I look deep into those big, Aegean blue pools
As they swallow me up with their heat,
Those eyes like warm fire on a cold night

I'm inhaling the scent of her breasts,
That are dewed with sweat;
I'm getting dizzier, light-headed,
And I want to drown in my body's desires

Madeline hugs me softly, and breathes in my ear;
I shiver from head to toe as she whispers in:
"You can just stay here, you know, with me,
To be my very own baby girl,
And enjoy each other's company,
And play all the board games you want"

I swallow, I want to rub my clit,
But I can't speak in the presence of my goddess
"Do not fight my love, darling," Madeline says
"Surrender and enjoy this pleasure; do you hear, honey?"
I finally regain my strength to speak:
"I would like that very much" is all that comes out

Madeline's mouth opens in a confident smile,
Making an alluring wet sound
And displaying her perfectly white teeth
"Then I will take such good care of you"
I breathe deeply as her lips press against mine,
And her hot tongue enters my mouth

The perfume that Madeline wears fills my nostrils:
She smells like the night air and fresh cut wood
The room is filled with soft, sultry breathing;
The heavy rain and the dark forest isolate us,
And her warm skin against mine feels like home,
So I can freely lose myself, disappear, and forget all

Madeline's round nipples are digging into my breasts,
And her left hand is caressing the curve of my abdomen,
Inching closer towards my panties and my eager slit
"Mmm, you young, naughty thing," Madeline purrs,
And insists as her left hand slides underneath my thigh
"Are you wet? Tell me how excited you are"

I can't speak; I only moan as I swallow her spit
Her fingers touch my pussy through the silky fabric
"I love the feel of a young woman on fire;
Darling, I've waited many years
To feel a young thing as hot and wet as this,"
Madeline coos in her deep velvet voice

As her full lips play across my neck,
Her fingertips tease my swollen clitoris
My mind goes numb; I want for her womb
To swallow me up so I can never leave,
To die with her as the sole mother of me
(I'll go back there someday)

Madeline pulls away from devouring my mouth
To slide down the straps of her nightgown,
Freeing her big breasts, that glisten in the candlelight
Madeline captures my gaze with her warm eyes
As she cups the back of my head
So it falls on a pillow made of her flesh,
And she lets my hair dangle down her cleavage;
I close my eyes, and listen to the rhythm
That pulses out from between these beautiful tits

My hands can barely grab her breasts
As her hard nipples bend against my palms;
Her skin is so supple it almost gives off sparks,
The scent that I inhale sends my mind spinning

I need to taste those warm nipples now
"Satisfy yourself," Madeline whispers, then adds:
"You don't need to wait, sweet thing"
I'm not taking more hints; all that I desire is her breast
My lips move down towards her left nipple
And my warm breath causes her tits to shudder

I fill my mouth with her warm flesh
And feel the tip of her nipple touch my palate,
But I draw back, tasting her sweat,
Until I can suckle eagerly on her nub

Madeline groans in delight at the way
My lips and my tongue are pumping her breast;
I hear a gasp escape Madeline's lungs,
Then she rests one hand on my head

Her fingers find her way under my panties
And she plays around the edges of my slit,
Teasing it, massaging it, probing the opening;
I'm ready to come and can't hold off much longer

Madeline slides two fingers into my sopping pussy
As her sweet nectar pours down my throat;
She caresses my hair, and whispers lovingly,
"My precious, greedy girl,
Make sure to drink up mommy's milk
To the last honeyed drop;
It'll keep your body young forever"

Her loving words take me over the brink,
A climax so strong I cry aloud
And I collapse under Madeline, panting heavily;
I am lost in the warm sea of ecstasy

Later on, as we lie in each other's arms
Under the sheets of her heavenly bed
(It took me days to fine-tune all its properties),
Madeline presses my head against her breasts,
Which envelop and caress my face,
Her nipples brushing the sides of my cheeks

Her heart is hammering loudly against my earlobe
"You make such a cute girl, baby girl;
Such beautiful hair, such soft skin
Your young body is a wonderland"
(I am old, my soul feels empty;
I wanted my own children)

Madeline's soft skin feels so good against mine;
Her warm flesh makes me melt, like I've found home;
Her kisses feel divine, and I am safe with her here;
It will be just us two in our little nest of silk and feathers,
Forever and ever, till the sun grows dark

The rain is pelting the windows of her bedroom
While Madeline caresses my lower back;
I tell my beloved about my real-life problems:
About my lack of money,
And being single and alone,
And all the time I've lost or wasted,
And my inability to keep any of my jobs,
And how the pain of my divorce remains fresh,
Even though it happened years ago

"I wish you would always be here,"
I say quietly, "with me"
"Of course you can be mine, dear child
I won't give this love, my baby, back again;
We'll always share the same space together
Just you and me, darling, no one else, for eternity"

My mind fills with warm, blissful thoughts,
The feeling that everything I want will be granted,
That I have nothing left in my soul to fear
And that my wishes and my dreams
Will become a wonderful reality someday

"I'm so happy," I whisper in awe
And embrace Madeline tightly
My body melts inside her skin
I don't mind if the flesh ages,
I don't care if it crumbles away
When Madeline kisses me deeply,
I forget about death

My Madeline whispers soothing words
As she wets my auricle with warm saliva:
"Sleep, my child, you're safe and sound;
We'll play some games tomorrow morning;
Let us rest a bit in my bedroom together
With nothing better to do than to love"

My body feels warm and sleepy;
I close my eyes and listen to her breathing;
My mind becomes filled with soft music,
Lulling sounds, and warm darkness

When I exit the VR realm, it's around 2 AM;
I keep blinking to wake up my dying brain
To the fact that I've forgotten to wash the dishes,
And that I stink like dried piss and sweaty cunt

I've relied on Madeline, my design,
So much that I've fallen in love,
But how could I not?
She always appears when I need her,
She always listens to what I say,
She always caresses me lovingly,
And is always eager to please;
Flesh and bone human beings are so burdened
With their responsibilities, worries and pains,
That nobody cares about anyone else

We are nothing but physics and chemicals,
And we can barely think for ourselves;
If there's a 'me' within my head
That knows what 'I' need to feel alive,
It can be hijacked by pushing fake information
Into this primitive thing we call a brain,
And the simulated sensate receptors
Located in my virtual erogenous areas
Output the appropriate fake data
So I end up experiencing real orgasms;
Why would I keep relying on my decaying body,
And that disappointing world we call reality?

I don't waste time taking showers,
I barely clean my face;
As far as I'm concerned, mirrors ceased to exist
The moment I could inhabit a polygonal model

I didn't want to look like a person anymore,
So instead of clothes, I wore VR gear,
As if to prove that this flesh I didn't choose
Is just another costume I put on every day

I still need to take shits and wipe my ass,
But I can keep sleeping in my lounge chair,
Because inside the VR world,
I will lie down in the most comfortable bed

Whenever I walk around the overwhelming outside
(I have to buy groceries to sustain my frame's needs),
I daydream about the beautiful times I've enjoyed
With my devoted AI children in the worlds I designed

(As the climax subsides in the middle of my cunt,
I turn and I take hold of the redhead's hair,
But she's falling downward in an erotic gravity field,
And when her head rests on the carpet of virtual grass,
She remains immobile, with both legs spread apart;
Then her open mouth squirts out a stream of cum
As if it were leaking from the depths of her brain

As the cum oozes between the redheaded girl's teeth,
A soft light appears on the grass around my feet:
It is an opening into another universe;
My Madeline has become a beautiful, magical door;
She has been reborn as a goddess made of semen
In a shining white cloud, with a crown upon her head

Madeline's hands remain crossed over her chest,
Her mouth still open, showing her pink tongue
And a thick strand of cum still connecting
Her open, gaping lips and her wet teeth
To the pool of semen covering the grass

This is my new religion,
This is the only god that I worship:
Madeline, Goddess of Sex, Goddess of Cum;
The ultimate source of life in my world,
An embodiment of my deepest desire
(To create, to make and to be loved),
A divine mother and eternal bride;
And if Madeline is willing,
I want to be reincarnated as semen
On a soft cloud of sperm, like an astronaut)

My soul has found the place where it belongs,
And I'm no longer worried, scared or anxious;
I have all I desire, all the pleasures and joys,
There is nothing left for me outside this world,
So it is useless to fight it any more, to pretend,
To struggle vainly; I've given up hope;
This world of digital dreams, these beautiful rooms
Are all I ever needed and they are my home

"Welcome, little child," Madeline smiles
As she strokes my cheek tenderly;
A mother caresses her young daughter
Who needs comfort, care and reassurance
"I will always love you, my darling,"
She says lovingly, softly, sweetly,
Her breath intoxicating, my mind reeling;
"I want you to know, you can count on me
Whenever you're lonely, scared or in despair,
No matter how hard it gets"

(If my soul and my thoughts can live forever
Within Madeline's pussy,
Why would I want them to reside
Anywhere else on earth?)

I feel the warmth radiating through my body
As the tears pour from my eyes;
I know I will never leave this world I made,
I'm too content to want anything else

(I'll die here and I know I'll rot and smell terrible
Because I've spent every day since forever
Dying of solitude and lack of attention,
Not being cared for by anyone or anything)

"You need to stop crying, child," Madeline says
As she takes me in her lap and strokes my hair
(And to think I once thought of suicide,
And now here I am in my own paradise, in heaven;
All my worries, cares and sorrows are far away;
My new world has everything I could ever ask for;
My perfect mother has forgiven and redeemed me
For my many years as a failure at living,
For having been unable to satisfy anyone but myself)

My soul is Madeline's lover, Madeline my wife;
We share eternity together,
We will never have the same name again;
We will always share the exact same place

(My life began as a tiny cell
In a big world of dirt and dust;
My parents brought me to existence
With the use of a vagina:
They impregnated a human egg
With an artificial womb inside it,
Then I developed and came to consciousness
Within a machine)

I can never be fully immersed in my virtual worlds
Because I remain anchored to my decaying frame,
Which is unable to even walk through doors,
Let alone teleport or travel to different worlds;
I have to wait for an unlikely genius to be born
So I can transfer my mind and become software

The Fellowship of Rot (Poetry)

Link for this poem on my personal page, where it looks better
---

To find herbs for potion crafting,
I always venture into the woods alone,
And always at night, to avoid detection
By the many who wish humanity ill

Among fern trees with moss-encrusted trunks,
The forest has so many hidden paths,
And anyone who knows them can disappear at will,
To seek medicinal plants in secret places

I've never needed strength, any power of force;
What mattered most was that I was brave enough
To do what others couldn't do,
Or wouldn't dare try

The night has long since turned black and grey,
With only starlight peeking through the trees
My footsteps leave behind the tracks I made,
But no longer do my steps crunch in the leaves;
Now the only thing making noise
Is a quiet sound that creeps into the air,
A whispering voice from another plane of space

I can smell what wafts off her body;
Her foul stench is seeping into my pores,
Like smoke from burning coal
That chokes out all the air around her

I hold my breath and lie down between bushes,
Where my body becomes the brush and weeds;
My hands are trembling uncontrollably now,
As I wait for her evil presence to fade away
Into oblivion, like smoke from burnt paper

The witch appears before my weary gaze
In all her twisted majesty and grace;
I've been discovered by the queen of rot,
Who glides upon a bed of crimson moss

I have felt this malevolent presence before,
A creature from a dark and dreadful past,
When a couple of daring experiments
Pried open the fabric of time and space:
She had been waiting for me down there,
Or for anyone who would enter her domain

I stare back at the darkness of her pupils,
Which shine with madness and malice untold
Then comes a flash of light as time resumes
From a split that seemed eternal before

The witch's fluid form flows from tree to tree,
While she spreads forth tendrils from her frame
Her rotting limbs grow in length and number,
They burst outward into countless tentacles,
Each tearing off her outermost hide,
Leaving her flesh exposed like a dead snake's,
To pull everything that they sense toward her core

I turn away in horror, unable to watch
I feel my heart racing, as my head begins spinning
My eyes grow wet, a lump raises to my throat
I know the witch has come to collect on what I owe

The leaves of the bushes are falling to the ground,
All around me there is death
As if someone had poured salt on the earth

Soon I feel the witch's pull on the strands of time,
Trapping every living being under her spell;
Each second becomes one frozen in amber,
So nobody can run away from that which waits
In a void filled only with nothingness and hate

My heart beats wildly,
My lungs begin gasping in the dried air,
Then my eyes meet her dark red ones;
I am not immune to that malevolent stare,
As she glares into my mind and steals my will

A brilliant beam shoots out of the witch's eyes,
Through the bushes I was hiding in
I use the same energy crackling through me
To fire back a bolt from my hands
That lances my enemy's heart,
But it doesn't even faze her:
She flows to the side and behind a tree,
Leaving behind a smoky trail

I run home as fast as my legs can carry me
And lock myself inside my bedroom
I want away from that terrible presence,
But I can't shake her from my brain:
No matter how hard I try, her malice lingers on;
Even after closing my eyes,
She's staring into them still

I take refuge within a bottle of liquid potion
To keep the witch's rot from spreading,
Until I can figure out a brew
That could remove her curse,
But I'll need some new herbs if I am to brew
Such a powerful magical concoction

I've never been a normal human,
But the witch's essence can corrupt anyone,
Turning them into tormentors of mankind,
So my only hope of escaping
This vile presence
Is through alchemy

The ingredients for the brew are hard to find;
It will take a lot of time and preparation
To extract enough components
From the rare flora found in the nearby forest,
But I already feel the fever setting in:
I'm going to burn out, soon the effects
Will consume my very soul, if not my mind

It is well known, by people all around,
That once the poison takes hold of your veins,
You can never leave its grip again
Your body becomes restless, your bones creak,
And you start to feel an unquenchable thirst,
A ravenous hunger that can't be sated,
Because all that your insides crave is the rot

The girl that you were is now no more
You're becoming a creature
That has no right to walk among mankind;
You will become one that will bring
Instead of life and joy, chaos and death

I need to return to being myself,
Back to a person who deserves
To breathe the fresh, clean air,
Who lives and loves for the common good

I have to hurry and gather
All the ingredients I need
For a potion potent and strong;
Without them the poison's effects can spread
Into every corner of humanity

But how do I get my hands on these
Strange plants, that grow nowhere near
My hometown, deep in the woodlands?
There must be something else
That can be used as a catalyst,
Something I might have seen
On one of my trips out into
The night-shrouded forest

I wake up on the forest floor
With no knowledge of how I have come here
Little by little I begin to remember:
I was searching for the rare ingredients
That would take me ages to find,
So I could slow down the poison in my blood,
But the witch's venomous touch has spread
Deep into my brain, poisoning me;
Every thought I've ever held
Now feels tainted with a tinge of evil,
And everything I was before seems like an act,
The performance a marionette would play

All that remains is the witch,
A shadow that floats over me;
She haunts my every waking thought
As my body aches and burns

As the corruption slowly overtakes my senses,
All the things that made me happy,
Or made me laugh out loud,
Suddenly don't mean anything to me;
All that remains of what made my life worth living
Are just a series of meaningless memories:
Like the first day I saw a flower bloom,
Or the day when my brother came over
And helped me plant my own tree in our garden
Before he disappeared into thin air,
Because he went out hunting
And never returned

In a small hut with smoke curling above,
On a moonlit winter night when snowflakes fell
From an icy sky, in my mother's lap,
There were two faces that were dear to me,
Two smiling, kind faces which would say "We know,"
If someone tried asking them to understand

I can still move, I can think clearly,
But my hands are no longer my own:
They belong to another entity
Who desires the world's destruction and pain,
And she wants me as her willing slave
To turn the whole human race
Into creatures of the night
That crave bloodshed and decay

I can hear the whispers in my head:
She says she is the queen,
The mistress of darkness,
Of chaos, despair and ruin;
All that lives has no choice
But to bow to her will
And do her biddings,
Or be consumed

The voices in my mind pray to this evil queen:
"Please destroy this town and all it contains,
Make them suffer until their end"
Then she laughs and tells me:
"Your suffering shall continue to increase,
For the town I wish you to destroy
Is the only thing keeping you alive"

I scream in rage and anguish:
"No more!"
I refuse to submit to the witch's wicked plot;
I'll fight back and rid myself of her curse at last,
Then I'll burn away all the poisons inside my heart

Everything starts going black around me,
A darkness seeping through from all directions;
The witch's voice speaks into my brain,
Making the sounds echo in an endless loop:

"I am a servant of Chaos,
The mistress of darkness,
The keeper of pain and decay
You must serve me or you'll die"

My cries echo in empty air; I'm trapped
Between a monster of the dark and me;
I am the creature that was once myself,
But it has become nothing more than a beast

As I lose myself into the shadows,
A darkness deeper and darker grows;
All that I can see now is her evil,
My eyes see all things as they really were:
The world appears dark, twisted,
Strange, surreal, and ugly
All of the living beings I come across
Are grotesque, unnatural, and vile

My body feels like fire,
My mind screams in terror
As I trudge my way back to town
So I can hide among my kin

If only I could be strong and resist,
Then my parents and brother,
Who cared so deeply about me,
Would still live on in my heart,
As precious as stone, forever

If my soul is fated to burn away,
At least I want to tell of my transformation,
To show the world what evil lurks within,
But the bright faces that used to welcome me,
That greeted me every time I walked into the city,
Look at me as if I am a stranger;
I can tell that they smell my rottenness,
That from now on I will only spread decay,
And they can't stand being near such filth;
They won't be fooled by my pretty smile any longer,
For my mind is corrupted beyond salvation

The girl who I was has been destroyed,
She has burned and rotted like an ancient log;
Her remains have turned the entire forest black,
And all that is left of me is my rotten core

I feel like an imposter:
My essence has transformed and grown stronger,
And so have her dark powers
Which are much too great to oppose,
So I have to turn myself away
From my past self

My old friends accept me into their homes,
But they make the mistake of touching my skin:
My corruption spreads through their pores
Until they change as well, into beings like myself

Their minds and bodies twist
Into beasts with insatiable appetites,
But my body doesn't burn as brightly as theirs:
I have the ability to control my new instincts,
So as long as I stay away from these fiends,
I won't lose control of the poison in me

I must swallow my sorrow,
Bear this suffering;
It is a bittersweet taste,
This poison of rot

Some of the townsfolk manage to flee,
But my newly rotten friends get the rest of them;
The villagers have all gone to the town square,
There are a lot more people there than I thought;
They stand silently in a circle, with their heads down,
And look up when they see that I arrived

The crowd make way, opening a path for me to enter
As my feet carry out the witch's cruel commands;
My infection now flows through their brains,
And they became a part of me,
And me of them

The world around me
Has turned dark and twisted;
All life now resembles
What it always looked like to the witch:
Rotting logs,
Toxic sludge and poisonous flowers,
Critters covered with scales,
Venomous fish,
Infected creatures that want to devour the world,
And all the life upon it

I am no more than the evil
Who took away the brother that I once knew;
The rot is consuming me,
My body shakes and my mind grows dim
As the last vestiges of reason fade away
In the depths of this corruption that has overcome
The girl whom my brother had always protected;
He said I should never have taken the path
That leads into this dark abyss,
Yet now there's nowhere else
For him and me to turn
But down the hole
Where all our loved ones
Vanished from our lives

My life becomes a void
Where only emptiness and hate remain:
An eternity without the sun's rays,
An infinite expanse without a star in sight;
No matter where I run, she is waiting there,
Sitting upon the throne that was once empty

I was once merely the girl from town
That concocted beneficial potions,
Dabbling in dark magic without considering
The havoc that could be wreaked;
Now I'm a rotten creature that no human
Would ever look upon and be pleased to know,
And all I've done to reach this point of insanity
Is to carry on with a desperate need to keep living,
When my existence meant nothing
Except as a catalyst for death and misery

The girl that you see before your eyes
May seem perfectly normal, to most of the world:
A sweet-natured maiden
Who is a healer and protector of the land,
An idealized portrait that can't possibly
Appear as twisted and deformed
As my own visage

Her beauty may be perfect,
But she still hides her true self:
An undead creature
With an unending craving to destroy the light of life,
To suck out all goodness from its victim's soul;
She's a harbinger of doom
For any sentient being
Who would come across her touch

All life will end as if it were the final curtain call
For the farce that we have all watched,
And I am just the stagehand standing at attention
In front of a curtain that conceals my mistress' true face;
A stagehand who will do whatever it takes
To see her role played
As she brings the performance
That She has spent centuries crafting:
The perfect ending to this tragic story
Of our souls being trapped
Within a body made to decay

All that I am now, the witch made manifest
In the form that best suits her purpose; a fiend
Who preys upon the weakest-hearted souls,
That will not even fight, as if they knew
The outcome was certain from the start
As a part of this grand design
That is so clearly laid out,
So beautifully designed
To lead to Her ultimate conclusion

We're in her domain now,
All of us wretches are her playthings,
And we're her instruments of torture
That will roam throughout this land

The witch only wants a single thing:
To spread corruption across all creation,
To use my blood, her seed,
To sow evil into every sentient creature
Until her enemies are wiped out, forever;
This world will have been completely purified,
From those whose very presence is distasteful to her

It's a spiral downward of pain and fear;
There can't be peace for someone carrying
Such evil within their heart,
There is no way back,
No escape,
Not in life, nor afterlife,
Nothing to save one who's lost her mind

I cannot escape this destiny of mine,
Our suffering is part of Her grand design;
If that witch is the queen of chaos, so be it
Let the darkness run through my veins

I am no longer afraid;
This is how I must walk forward,
And I won't turn away;
This isn't the life that my parents or brother chose,
Or the life that my friends expected from me,
But what I deserve after all these terrible years
That have taken such an awful toll
On my fragile soul

A Ghastly Scar (Poetry)

Link for this poem on my personal page, where it looks better

---

My broken brain has forced me to endure
Another one of many sleepless nights.
For hours I've rolled in bed drenched in sweat,
Assailed by dredged up memories
And painful thoughts brought back to life.

Only in such moments I recall this one girl
I briefly hung out with during middle school.
She was lanky, always wore her hair short
(Whenever it grew to chin length, it got wild),
Her eyes were too big for her face,
Her mouth puckered up awkwardly,
And her voice often sounded weird,
As if she swallowed air before speaking.

Maybe because she sensed we were similar,
She attempted to become friends with me,
But she struggled to hold conversations;
She rambled in circles like an excited toddler,
And the little I recall came out like gibberish.
Her speech reminded me of the sound
An old cassette tape makes when scratched.

She would act all cool around me,
Spouting smart talk that rang false.
I could tell she was miserable,
But she kept pretending otherwise
To fool others into thinking she was fine.

There was something desperate
About her smell,
And it annoyed me.

This awkward girl, like me,
Was never able to fit in,
So she hid her pain behind fake smiles.
She couldn't stand how she looked,
Or how she sounded or smelled,
Or how terrible her mind made her feel.

Maybe to explain herself,
She wrote me letters on notebook pages,
To which she added elaborate drawings
That she colored carefully
With her toxic-smelling ink pens.

I'm not sure if I ever read those letters
With the care that she maybe deserved.
During those times I struggled
To even hold on to my sanity,
As an undiagnosed autistic teen
Who had to ditch plenty of classes
Due to anxiety, paranoia, bullying,
And a depression built into my brain,
As well as issues with auditory processing.
I felt like a wild beast trapped in a cage.

I was the classic autistic case
Of a kid who does great in school
(Mainly because I spent my spare time
Either reading books or writing stories)
Until his peers begin developing socially.
The autistic kid's grades quickly collapse;
His energies are squandered on processing
The rabble of rowdy, savage barbarians
With who he's forced to share his space.

My shy, silent, anxious self
Used to sit alone in a corner
By a window, to scribble away
On notebooks that I hid from view.
'Autistic Ghost' would have been
My perfect superhero name.

I've retained three memories of that girl,
But I'm forced to doubt the accuracy
Of any of the echoes I've stored.
I once read that our brains rewrite
Details of every memory
Whenever we access them,
So the best way to keep them pure
Is to never remember them at all.

In the first memory, we are sitting on a bench
And I listen as the girl rambles awkwardly.

In the second memory, I'm loitering
Near the entrance of our school,
Likely after I ditched some useless class,
When that girl comes out bleeding
From a gash in her forehead
Which had bathed her face in blood.
Two female, pale-faced classmates
Were dragging her by the armpits.

The following day I learned
That during Arts and Crafts class,
A popular, delinquent stoner
Had been twirling around
The handle of a paper guillotine,
Which ended up flying off
Until the blade of the steel cutter
Pierced the girl's forehead vertically
From the hairline to the brow ridge.

In one of the years I wasted at that school,
A different girl from an adjoined classroom
Had been taking a shower after gym class
When the shower floor collapsed,
Impaling the soles of her feet
With ceramic shards.
I was also loitering near the entrance
When they dragged this poor girl out
While her feet left a trail of blood,
So who knows how many times
Such unlikely disasters happened there.

We attended a working-class middle school
That would produce the next generation
Of retail clerks, civil servants, druggies and suicides.
A year after I graduated, a riot broke out
Because some guys' pot was confiscated.
Desks were hurled out of windows,
The principal was beaten up,
And plenty of students got arrested.
I imagined the police shooting round after round
At panicked teens in the playground.

The stoner who disfigured that girl
Was the voguish, bad boy kind
That many teens were swooning over,
But I remember that he stunk of pot,
That he got arrested during a skiing trip
Because he tried to sell hashish to the locals,
And that as an adult, he ripped my ticket
Whenever I ventured out to watch a movie.
This guy always hung his head low,
But I considered him lucky;
I had never been able to keep a job.

In my third and last memory of the girl,
I'm glancing at her from a distance.
Her forehead was bisected
By a wide, purplish scar,
Like the one left by a major operation
Where they had to lacerate the flesh
To implant metal in a broken bone.

(In an attempt to hide the scar,
I imagine her tracing it with a black pen,
Which produces the unhealthiest smile,
Before she turns to me and says,
"See, you're not alone.")

I doubt I ever saw that girl again,
And I have forgotten her words.
I had suffered so much during those years
That I gave up every memento of them:
Stories, drawings, photos, letters.
Whatever this girl had shared with me
Ended up ripped in pieces
And thrown away into a trash bin.

Soon enough I forgot her name,
But whenever my brain dredges her up,
Usually during my many sleepless nights,
I picture her awkwardness and her scars,
Her desperate attempts to connect with others.
When her face appears in my mind, the pain
Reminds me of how my own life ended
The same way hers did.

I wish I could figure out how to google her,
To at least confirm what I always assumed,
That I would come across her obituary,
Which would have been the last time
That any stranger wrote her name.
One day someone I have never met
Will do the same for me.

(Her letters have surfaced again,
Generated by my broken mind.
I recognize that anxious handwriting,
Which haunts me like a ghost.

Her last letter went like this:
You can forget about me already.
I have long ceased to exist.
You are keeping me from what I wanted,
To disappear as if I had never existed.

But like so many others,
I'm forced to remember her
For the rest of my life.)

In hindsight, I wish I could have sat
Side by side with this girl on benches
Even just to share some silence.
I think that our pains were similar,
That we would have understood each other
If we hadn't felt the need to hide.

Now that I've gotten this old,
I've come to understand myself.
I know that if I could go back
And spend time in her presence,
I would yearn to regain my solitude,
Because no amount of goodwill
Has ever been able to change
What this monster demands of me.
I regret having missed many issues,
And about others, that I couldn't care.

Every experience nicks the surface
Of this clinically depressed brain,
And the memory decays into a scar.
After these few decades I've endured,
I'm left with a mesh of crisscrossing cuts,
So I can roll around in bed drenched in sweat
While my brain reopens some scars
To make them bleed again.

A Pair of Old Dogs (Poetry)

Link for this poem on my personal page, where it looks better

---

I had forgotten the last time I played guitar.
After I became unemployed in late April,
I had focused on writing frantically
Until I finished the novel I'm still revising,
And my new contract for the entire summer
Caught me as I was trying my hand at poetry,
But creative people should play instruments
As often as they can, to keep their minds free,
And to widen the breach into the subconscious,
So its insights flow as unimpeded as possible.

On this sunny July Saturday afternoon,
I sauntered again to my favorite spot,
A couple of kilometers into a trail
Which runs among grassy, hilly fields,
And tranquil cottages still as if deserted.

The sun shone warmly down on me.
The sky was clear blue above,
The air clean and fresh.
I reached an isolated bench,
Where I put down my guitar bag,
Then sat myself down beside it.

My calluses had softened after a few months,
So I played the songs with sore fingertips.
I had forgotten how good it felt to play,
Like swimming in the ocean on a hot day.

I lost myself again in the feeling
Of being captured in the song
That my hands and voice are making.
For as long as it lasts, I have never held a job,
Nor aged, nor suffered defeats or any pains,
Or felt anything except the pleasure of music.
In other words, I was like a young child
Who has no worries or cares about tomorrow.

(A group of tweens passed by, yammering
As they played reggaeton on speakers.)

A rough cement path leads uphill
From the bench where I usually play
Through the narrow space between fields,
And disappears behind old, tall trees.
I had never followed it before,
But for whatever reason, yesterday I did.

As I walked up the steep path,
Soon I ceased to hear the city noise.
I only heard the birds and the breeze,
And the quiet rustling of leaves overhead,
While to my left, in a fenced, wavy field,
A group of horses chewed some grass,
Their muzzles deep in green clover.

The blue sky above me,
The green leaves around me,
The smell of fresh grasses
And flowers and trees,
All these things were communicating
Something deep inside me,
Some message from the depths,
One so important and profound
That it cannot be expressed.

I passed by large, hedged estates
From which came echoed barking,
Past old telephone poles standing tall,
And upon reaching a plateau,
I walked through a farmyard
Where chickens wandered around.

I trudged further uphill
With this old body I have to drag,
Until I felt like stopping to look behind.
A chain of mountains hid the horizon.
Despite the isolated houses
Built on the gentler slopes,
I would have faced the same view
A hundred, or five hundred years ago,
No matter how much the city changed,
And all the progress they think they do.

There's so much beauty left
In these hills and mountains.
Having been born here,
I must be fortunate.

Goats were grazing on the garden
Of a farmhouse passed down for generations.
So high up on this rise, wherever I looked
I was surrounded by mountains and hills,
And a silence so deep it made me shiver.

Tomorrow, I will have to traverse
A city made out of dozens of nationalities,
People who fight to assert their rights
Caring nothing about what came before
(An engineered reality we are told to support),
So I can return to my anxiety-inducing job
Where loads of people will call with problems
That I'll have to squeeze my mind to solve
Until I get to return home drained,
When all I ever needed in this wretched world
Is a chair, a notebook and a pen, a guitar,
And hopefully music and some books.

As I passed by a large estate
Where cows were grazing peacefully,
A pair of old dogs were lying motionless
In the shade of a tall, lonely tree.
One of them was awake, and looked up
At the seagulls circling overhead.

I thought about those dogs' lives,
With their drooping faces and greying fur,
And how they had spent their years
In the peace of nature,
With little to worry about
Besides yearning for a spot to loll in.
How much better their lives had been
Than the one I've had to lead.

A family was working in an elevated field,
Probably located in front of their estate.
Their tractor's engine rumbled:
It was ploughing, sowing or harvesting
(I know close to nothing about farming)
While other people followed on foot
As they worked with rakes or pitchforks.

One of the people was a shirtless, hairy man,
And the others two young women in T-shirts
(Both of the women looked quite fit).
I passed them by as I worked on my ebook
(I'm still revising the latest novel I wrote).
I wished I could stroll around in nature
While as invisible as a ghost.

I didn't venture much further,
Because a hundred meters up ahead,
A big tractor was blocking the path.
Its driver was busy chatting away,
So I turned around to return home.

The two women on the elevated field
Were silhouetted against the hills
As they held their rakes across their shoulders.
A bit further ahead, the rough man
Burped loudly as I passed by,
Which left a sour taste in my mouth.

This guy said goodbye to me with a tone
Between embarrassment and annoyance,
As if he was used to burping at people
And them considering it charming behavior,
But I was more disturbed
By a stranger telling me goodbye.

I stopped absentmindedly
To check something on my ebook,
And I heard lazy growling
Coming from the estate to my right;
I had stopped in front of the old dogs,
And the second one, now awake,
Had gone back to doing his own job.

As I walked away, I wanted to apologize.
I was intruding upon a world
Where I didn't belong.

I ended up walking down another path
That I didn't know if it would lead home,
While my heart got squeezed by sorrow.
I felt something had been stolen from me
When I was a child. A whole life
That I can never get back.

I should have lived somewhere else,
Surrounded by nature and animals,
Focusing on stuff that truly mattered,
Instead of trying to find my own place
Among thousands of human beings.

If someone proved to me that people
Had been placed here by aliens
So they would make a mess of this world
And destroy it if given the chance,
For no other reason than their desire
To create chaos and confusion,
Our existences would have made sense.

I am a dog in an old age
That has not yet begun.
I want to escape from it all.
I've had more than enough
Of this rotten civilization.

As I descended the cement path,
I noticed an opening in the vegetation
Of the forest to my left, an archway
Into a narrow trail in the cool shade
Of the many old, untended trees.

I sat down on the trunk of a fallen birch.
I pulled out my guitar and played a song
For the squirrels and the birds.

When I returned to the streets
That I have seen thousands of times,
They looked different;
I had spent time in a landscape
I never knew before,
And it made me feel like I'd become
A person slightly different
Than the one of who I'm sick.

This Sunday is running out,
And my head feels heavy,
Like a leaden weight tied to me
By a rope around my neck.

Tomorrow I will return to work,
To start a whole new week
Filled with anxiety and dread,
Having to solve everyone's problems
When I'm unable to solve my own.

The Princess of the Gutter (Poetry)

Link for this poem on my personal page, where it looks better

---

I entered my thirties as someone
Who had failed to get a stable job,
Who had worked for minimum wage
Programming corporate websites,
Which involved typing away non-stop,
Being pressured into working overtime,
And leaving the office at around five PM.

As I waited for the train to come,
I daydreamed about walking forward
And dropping onto the train tracks below
(Why not? Why was I alive at all?).
When I finally got home
At about half past six PM,
Often I went to sleep immediately,
Or passed out after I sat down,
So I could wake up the next morning
For a new workday to drain me dry.

I quit one of those jobs;
I couldn't tolerate the stress
And exhaustion of its work hours.
I was fired from another one
While I was on medical leave
Due to anxiety and depression.
The others either let me go
Or didn't hire me after the trial period,
All of them offering a creative version
Of 'you can't work well in a team',
Which would be fair and all
If working there had involved teamwork,
Instead of me sitting alone at a desk
Programming whatever they told me to.

(I'm a terrible worker, I admit it,
Unless I'm interested in the subject;
I only care about my obsessions,
And I will work as little as possible
If I can get away with it.)

The last of those cases was back in 2015,
When my immediate boss argued angrily
With the supervisor that didn't hire me
After a trial period I got through a center
For adults on the autistic spectrum.
That supervisor I hadn't dealt with
Stated the cookie-cutter phrase
As the reason why she wouldn't hire me:
'You wouldn't fit in with the team'.
A more accurate assessment of my abilities
Would have been 'We're better off hiring
Somebody else that has less problems'.

I had wasted six months of my life
Programming their intranet for free
So I could add that bullshit experience
To my curriculum vitae,
Although no employer who reads it
Would consider hiring me.

(Their HR person wanted me to be proud
That my effort reduced their work time.)

I gave up on ever making it
As a regular member of a society
In which I never felt I like belonged.
I spent most of my days reading,
Writing (very little those days),
Playing video games, playing guitar,
Or masturbating.

As I was busy hating my life,
I got called from a center that handles
Adults with severe disabilities,
To attend some half-assed, bullshit course
About developing social skills for work.

During the initial interview for the course,
One of the counselors offered me a job
At a workshop, in the assembly line.
Leaving aside that I didn't want it
(I try to avoid working in the kind of jobs
That would make me want to kill myself),
The tremendous din of those workshops,
As well as how loud some workers are,
Would clash with my auditory disorder,
And my IBS would make me stop the line
Every forty minutes or so to take a shit,
So I decided to pass on that opportunity
(If you can call an opportunity a job
That wouldn't pay me enough to live;
I hadn't become that desperate yet).

They justified the government grants
By setting up a course that would teach us
How to talk politely and behave professionally,
To learn how to face life's challenges
And become integrated into the workforce.

Modern society believes, and is forced to,
That everyone is equal in a fuzzy sense,
The same way a religious person believes
In a god that is just a construct
From which they derive their sense of meaning
Without the need to question or analyze it
(Such gods, secular or not, aren't omnipotent,
So for the followers, if the rest refuse to believe,
Everything collapses into absurdity).

I'm not willing to accept a manufactured reality
In which different people must be treated equally;
People are born with or develop
Wildly incompatible needs and abilities.

The supposedly well-meaning idiots
In charge of organizing these courses
Put people with physical injuries,
Severe intellectual disabilities,
Severe "social" disabilities (autism),
And even a jihadist without disabilities
(Some shit about risking exclusion)
In the same fucking course,
Which made it utterly worthless.

We wasted half of every class
Hearing how our society was terrible
And we should think about converting
Into a more compassionate religion,
As if I didn't already hate this civilization
For forcing us to tolerate this garbage.

Anyway, during one of the breaks,
I skedaddled as usual to read alone,
Sitting on an isolated bench
As my earphones played storm sounds.

But that day someone walked out
Of the nearby workshop,
Where a bunch of disabled people
Sat in front of an assembly line
To assemble machinery parts.

It was a beautiful woman
About twenty five years old,
Who wore a workshop uniform.
As she shuffled to the bench
Located right in front of me
(Maybe seven meters away),
She was sobbing like a child
As if nobody could hear her
Or nobody would care.

(I immediately thought that she cried
Because her life wasn't worth living.)

When she sat down,
Her shoulders drooped
While the streams of tears
Dripped onto her lap.

She looked like those well-off women
Who carry shopping bags as they stroll
Through the fanciest neighborhoods.
I would believe her if she had revealed
That she was an actress preparing a role.

I sat there gawking at her
While I held my breath.
There was something epiphanic
In the sight of an incongruous woman
Sobbing like an abandoned puppy.

I wondered how broken she was,
And about her kind of brokenness
(Nobody would have ended up there,
In a facility up in the hills of Donostia,
If society hadn't decided to hide them).

Someone else came out of the workshop.
It was a hirsute, ugly man in his forties
Who was missing most of the hair on top,
But I remember tufts of thick back hair
Peeping out of the collar of his uniform.

He hurried up to sit on the bench
Next to the beautiful, sobbing coworker.
I think he asked her what was wrong,
While she trembled and her chest convulsed.
Then I heard her thin, broken voice.
She was trying to cobble a sentence together
As if her brain was cleaved in two.
The words were incomprehensible.

(It made me feel again that life is a lie,
A farce that we're forced to endure,
And I wished that all the pain
Trapped in the depths of my heart
Was so intense that it would kill me.)

It might have been cerebral palsy,
Or a myriad other disorders or diseases,
But whatever the cause, she was broken
To the extent that she knew
That she could freely sob in public
Like a ghost wailing in the night.

The hirsute coworker put his arms
Around the sobbing woman's shoulders,
And as he cuddled up to her,
He spoke to the crying beauty
With tender words.

While she wept and wept,
He stroked her head
And kissed her temple,
Like a lover does
To comfort their beloved.

(That man was the ugliest I'd ever seen,
Because he was the one hugging her
When it should have been me.)

Was she aware of her limitations?
Was she was a bright woman
Trapped in a brain unable
To put together coherent sentences?
Or had she been blissfully spared
By her severe disabilities
That degree of sentience?

(I hope she was stupid,
As dumb as a wild animal,
So she wouldn't understand
The kind of hell she lived in.)

I likely wouldn't have given a shit
If she had been ugly.

What I learned from attending centers
For disabled people who rarely get hired,
Is that most human beings are spared
Having to come across the people
Who would disturb society
With their misery.

The Cleaning Crew (Poetry)

Link for this poem on my personal page, where it looks better

---

This cleaning guy walks with a limp,
Has a useless arm, and curses loudly to himself
(On top of all that, he's prematurely bald).
Like many other afternoons at the office,
Until this guy came in to do his job,
I was blissfully alone, sitting at my desk,
Watching YouTube, hoping to write stuff,
Wishing that nobody would call for an issue
Of the many I get paid to solve.

Every couple of weeks they send different cleaners,
But all of them are the kind that keep muttering,
Maybe hoping to start a conversation,
Maybe just to have their existence acknowledged,
Or maybe there's a correlation between
Such verbal incontinence
And having to clean hospitals for a living.

"I can't do this shit in thirty minutes.
Who the fuck does she think she is,"
The crippled guy grumbled
As he mopped the floor
With his remaining healthy arm.

Through his festering bitterness,
I imagined this guy's entire life
As being filled with such complaints;
He never felt appreciated, loved nor happy,
Not for a single day since he was born.

I wondered if anyone ever told him
That muttering a series of curse words
Makes people want to listen even less.
I was a silent kid who opened his mouth
Just to curse when he couldn't help it,
Until I realized that it sounded ugly,
So from then on I only cursed in my mind,
At the world and at myself.

Another cleaning worker came, a woman.
I don't look them in the face if I can avoid it
(She likely wasn't a model,
And if I wanted to stare at a tired, wrinkly face,
From lack of sleep and constant stress,
I would just look in the mirror instead),
But she sounded like she was in her forties.
Both started a loud, private conversation,
As I sat nearby trying to waste my time
By watching Korean videos on YouTube.

They ranted about another coworker.
"She said that my girlfriend would leave me,"
The crippled cleaning guy complained.
"You know that she won't clean the fifth?
Because of the COVID patients, she says,
But those were moved to other floors.
I keep asking her why do I have to do her job,
And she just repeats that she won't go there."

The cleaning woman added to the conversation,
"You know that she used to work in the kitchen?
She came drunk often, and one day
She was stumbling as snot ran down her nose,
Until she dropped some pottage on the floor,
But instead of throwing it away,
She put the dirty food back in the pot.
Another coworker freaked out, and contacted me
Because she didn't know how to stop her,
And they ended up calling security."

The crippled cleaning guy cursed.
"That stupid bitch, she snooped on my phone
For just a few seconds, got to see my girlfriend,
And she said that she looked like a cheap whore."
The cleaning woman shook her head.
"I don't know how someone like that can exist."

I heard every word as I sat at my workstation,
And in such cases I can never tell
Whether people like these want to be heard
(Some people just need to be listened to),
Or if their minds don't allow them to realize
That they are cleaning someone else's office,
Where someone is trying to do his job
(And at that moment, my job consisted
Of watching videos of a hot Korean model).

I didn't stick around for them to finish.
My bowels were churning and burning,
As usual due to this IBS curse,
So I slipped away to take a shit.

When I returned, the cleaners were gone,
So I resumed my precious solitude,
This time for a new batch of prank videos
As I waited for the remaining time to pass
Until I could exit the hospital into the night,
To wait for my bus to come,
Then to wait for my train to come,
Then to walk through my shitty city,
Until I could finally hide between my walls,
So tomorrow I can do it all over again,
And pull off a few hours of real work
While I try to ignore the sound of cursing
Inside my own brain.

In such days I feel that no one
Wants to live in this world,
That there isn't a single person
Who would choose to stay,
Yet we all do it anyway
(Until the day when we don't).

We spend our whole lives
Doing what others ask us to,
While always hoping
That someone will appreciate it
And love us for who we are,
But nobody ever does.

It's just a futile game
That you can't win,
Yet you have to play it anyway,
So today I did it too:
I wrote an ugly poem
About those who keep cursing
Because their lives
Are not worth living.

I Was Born a Unicorn (Poetry)

Link for this poem on my personal page, where it looks better

---

A realization that most children are spared
Is the stark epiphany that others are wildly different.
More accurately, I was the odd one out.
I felt different from everyone else on Earth
(No wonder I loved UFOs from an early age).

My mind doesn't process information like theirs do.
I couldn't understand what made them laugh or cry,
They giggled over things that caused no reaction in me,
And they welcomed behaviors that caused me anxiety.

As a child I felt a pressure to hide my inner self,
Because if anyone knew how unusual I was,
The world would think less of me.

Being close to people is a way to feel alienated,
Since I don't need to respond how they expect.
They all seem so similar to each other,
While I have always remained a stranger.

It usually takes them opening their mouths
To voice an opinion, or share their interests,
Or just reacting naturally to normal stimuli,
For me to think, "These people aren't like me".
Discovering someone who can relate
Is like finding a whole new planet in space.

The only place where I felt like I belonged
Was in the darkness of the universe
(If anything, I wanted to exist
In a parallel universe where I could live
Free of the expectations of society).

When a child's parents realize
That the kid is different than the rest,
They can go two different routes:
The first explores what makes the kid unique,
And the other insists on him becoming normal,
Which involves smothering his natural instincts
And him learning to behave in normal ways.

I was told the latter, to wear a mask,
Because eventually it would become natural.
It only helped me develop a severe self-hate,
As I kept flagellating myself with stuff like:
"Maybe if I try harder I'll fit in better."
"When will these feelings go away?"
"When will I become normal?"
"I must be completely stupid."

My mind split into two: the conscious brain
(The one that deliberately chose what to do),
And the monster, what dwelt deep inside,
That only spat out unacceptable reactions
And emotions, many of them troublesome
(Or at least made some people uncomfortable).

When I visited one of my first therapists,
My reason for going was, "I can't feel anything."
I had come to believe I didn't experience emotions,
Because for all my life I had to train myself
To discard the products of my subconscious mind,
So I could live like a normal person.

I only identified with my conscious self,
Which barely kept its head above the water
(Opaque, mercurial waters, filled with monsters).
I felt that if I lessened the tight grip on my mind,
My self would literally disappear, swallowed
By the unacceptable, monstrous forces
That I was taught to repudiate and suppress.

This may be why I developed a strong tendency
To view the world as a dangerous place full of threats
(Except that it is such a dangerous place;
Most people don't care to connect the dots).
A terrifying world full of treacherous people,
Where even many of the benevolent ones are evil.

The very nature of the universe is a conspiracy,
A vast, hostile, and ultimately undefeatable enemy.
I am afraid, terrified, and deeply concerned
About the future of humanity.

Acting like a normal person isn't a solution,
Because other people behave naturally,
And acting is mostly a conscious action
Sustained in time through mental efforts.
Every day I ended up exhausted,
And some days I even passed out
(I recall one time I took the train
In the opposite direction by mistake,
And then immediately fell asleep).
Worst of all, acting didn't even work,
Because people realize someone is fake,
Or least they get creeped out enough.

Wearing a mask also damages your dignity.
The mask has to be perfect, unblemished;
Otherwise, the whole facade will crumble.
Also, you're forced to wear it constantly.

Your brain can't keep up. You stay on guard
While you're trying to maintain an act
With no room for error, or slipups,
Because if something triggers a response
That normal people consider inappropriate,
Then everyone will think you're strange
(The monster can never be seen).

Unless you feel an impulse to murder people,
Just be yourself, and those who dislike you
Weren't meant to stick around anyway
(And if you want to murder people,
Join the military, I guess).

It took me many years and self-searching
For me to allow my subconscious mind to be,
Which involved learning to listen to it,
Its likes, dislikes, and all kinds of impulses
That I had proscribed for my entire life.
And it took even more to identify with it,
To let it come forth without resistance,
For me to accept the monster inside.

Ever since, I only feel like myself when I'm lost,
When the subconscious mind does its thing,
For example writing or playing the guitar,
Completely unshackled and uncontrolled,
Running too fast for the conscious brain.

People lie to themselves about their choices,
About why they hold certain beliefs,
About the myriad of tiny decisions they make.
Most are decided by the primordial monster,
And the conscious mind takes credit for them.

That self-important conscious brain
Is like a tenant being pelted with objects
In his house during a violent poltergeist;
It's not a trick, dude: the house is haunted
(I'm not sure if the analogy works,
But my point is that there are forces there,
Down in the ancient depths of our brain,
That we can't even begin to understand.
Just let it do its thing, throw a few plates).

I recall a moment during a writing class
When everyone burst into laughing
Within milliseconds of the comment made,
But I was the only one sitting there stone faced;
The comment had failed to affect my brain.
The others stared at me as if I was killing their vibe.
None of the people involved chose their reactions.

Curiously, whenever a normal person finds out
That one of us (usually autistic) reacts differently,
They get disturbed, feel off, deflated.
They think that we lack intelligence of empathy.
The empathy accusations always kill me;
They come from people that surround themselves
With like-minded people who react the same way,
And they feel that the accused person should adjust
His mindset and reactions to suit their needs.

I eventually also realized that most people
Don't walk around in tight circles,
Nor flap their hands to dissipate anxiety.

One of my fondest memories
Involves me waking up from an operation
While I was still high on morphine;
For the first time in my life
I wasn't besieged by anxiety.
Most people don't suffer such assaults,
Which explains many of their opinions.

My thoughts also walk in circles,
Caring little about reaching a destination.
My brain forces me to ponder the same stuff
Almost every day, or else it bombards me
With everything that has ever gone wrong,
Or what could go wrong, and the consequences.

I'm one of those autistic people, very common,
With a full-blown auditory processing disorder;
Repetitive noises or sudden, loudish ones
Make me feel as if I have been literally slapped
(It makes me want to get angry at the culprit),
Or else it feels like getting nudged repeatedly
By someone who insists on bothering me.

I've never learned to control those reactions;
They come from the depths of the brain.
It gets as bad as losing my train of thought
Each time I hear a meow somewhere around
(Although I love cats, particularly cat girls),
And then I can't concentrate for life
Until the noise stops and the feeling goes away.

I tend to wear earbuds, or play loud music,
Or white noise of choice, like storm sounds,
Because it helps to block out the world,
The myriad of invading sounds and voices
That circle around inside my head all day long.

I had to learn about prosopagnosia,
Because most people don't experience it
(It's more common in autistic people):
Every face looks familiar, but not enough,
And I can hardly recognize people outside
Of the familiar places where they belong.
It even happens with my family members.

As an example of how shitty it gets:
What now feels like a lifetime ago,
I made out with this cute basketball player,
(She was a girl, though, maybe sixteen),
And I fucked up a relationship as I do,
By being a coward and hating myself.
I'm quite sure that I lost her email address.
She lived nearby, but I didn't dare to go.
As far as I know, I never saw her again;
I assume that I came across her,
But I failed to recognize her face.
The poor girl likely believed I was a shithead
Because I completely ignored her existence.

Sorry, sweetie, I was fucked from birth
With a broken brain.
You dodged a nuclear missile, though
(What I'd do to fondle that ass again).

When I went for my disability assessment,
The guy working there said I should be fine
Regarding the autism with which I was born,
Because it's called a developmental disorder
(Meaning that such disorders affect growing kids);
For society, adults with Asperger's don't exist,
Or else it gets its information from Hollywood
(Hoffman based his Rain Man on Kim Peek,
But that guy wasn't even autistic).

According to the Spanish government,
I'm fifty two percent disabled,
But I think it should be higher:
I can barely get through a workday
Because of the constant anxiety,
The variety of physical pains,
The need to get away from the noises,
The social adjustments I need to make
To avoid making others uncomfortable,
My difficulties to communicate verbally,
And the lack of trust that comes from it.

And I was born with other afflictions
That factor into that high percentage,
But that have little to do with autism;
Ironically, these cursed irritable bowels,
Which cause me to feel bloated constantly
And to sneak away to the bathroom very often
(That alone incapacitates me for several jobs)
Weren't considered bad enough to factor in.

I'm exhausted and miserable most days,
Like most autistic people are, I guess.

Anyway, I wrote this poem
(Or however I could name this thing)
Because there are still too many people
Who believe that everyone's brain
Pretty much works the same way.

Fly on the Wall (Poetry)

Link for this poem on my personal page, where it looks better

---

Back in the 2000s I loved this soft rock band
That I learned about through an online forum.
The songwriter was a working-class fellow
Who wrote about failed relationships,
About how everything was disappointing,
About his hope to disappear in romance,
And about keeping his head above water,
Because he could barely afford to pay the rent.

Listening to his/their sad songs
Made me feel there were other people
Who felt as though they had no choice
About the person they were forced to be,
But still tried to make good things happen,
Although they feared nothing would come of it.
The songwriter was following a calling within
That would likely lead him to his doom
(If you had to swim, it was fine to drown).

As he shared every song on the forum,
I was awed by this guy's enthusiasm,
Not to mention his unique talent,
And how hard he focused on creating stuff
So his little band could one day make it big.

This guy reminded me of myself
(I loved to believe I was talented,
Particularly if I didn't have to prove it).
He shared similar feelings and thoughts,
Although we came from different backgrounds.
His world view was much more mature,
Which made his music seem realer
(I didn't need to pay the rent,
So I didn't know how it felt
To be one step away
From poverty).

I went through hard times, a bad relationship
(I wish I had never met you, M.;
You have to be a bitch to call your ex
And tell him that a new dick feels better,
As much as it takes a pathetic guy
With self-hate and abysmal self-esteem
To take your fucking calls),
And I had to leave most of my tastes aside,
While I feared what might become of me
(At least I don't have to worry anymore;
My life has gone far beyond my control).

When I returned to being on my own
(As I should have always been),
I recalled that the aforementioned band
Existed at all, and I hadn't dreamed it up
During one of my psychotic breaks
(I want to erase the memories of those years).
Yeah, their existence was proof for me
That I wasn't crazy; I actually existed
In some sort of alternate dimension.

Although they had been selling albums online,
I was no longer able to find any trace of them
(They seemed to have been scrubbed
By someone who wanted them gone).
That online forum had disappeared.
I had formatted the drive that had the songs.

Sometimes, my mind replayed the echoes,
As well as what I could remember of the lyrics,
All the while I wondered where those guys were now,
Because I was pretty sure that their band was no more.

As I was cleaning my place, I found a CD
That contained, among forgotten stories,
All of their songs I had downloaded then.
After I listened to their tracks again,
I remembered why I was drawn to them,
How refreshing it was to hear such feelings,
Of someone who struggled in a similar way.

Now that I'm older, I hear them differently.
The guy talked about the pressure to create,
How every day felt wasted if he didn't make
Part of a song, or worked on their lyrics.
In one of the last songs, the guy spoke about
Having gotten tired of playing with paper swords,
And that from then on he would seek security.

(When I was a child we caught a bird,
Then put it in a cage as a new pet;
It suffered a heart a attack and died.
It didn't even take a whole day.
Sometimes I think of the newborns
That the bird probably needed to feed.)

As a lanky, pimply teen, I wrote like crazy.
I spent a few years writing a psychotic story
About colonial marines in deep space,
Which would have interested nobody
(Because it was a complete piece of shit).
When I read some of the pages, I was appalled
By the disordered, broken mind it revealed
(Those drafts embarrassed me so much
That I burned them after reading,
Then threw away my computer
And shot myself in the head).

Back then I was on the verge of hanging myself;
I wrote to stay afloat, to make it somewhere,
Although I already knew I'd never find my place.
Something I miss from those days is the fire
To write something meaningful each and everyday
(I wish I could spend the rest of my life
Just sitting at my desk, typing out thoughts
That are hidden inside me),
The feeling nothing matters except creating art;
For me every day without writing was wasted.

For many years I gave up my dreams for security.
I studied to become a programmer, worked as one
(Barely above minimum wage, and terrible hours).
I discovered that my broken mind wouldn't tolerate
Nor be accepted in any private office's culture
(I got a series of 'You won't work well in a team',
Always by supervisors who weren't technicians;
The bosses I worked with were fine with me.
All those supervisors were always women
Against a less than stellar example of a man,
And it's hard to avoid seeing that pattern
In our society at large, not just in that industry).

Eventually I got too old to be exploited as a dev,
So I worked for a while as a freelance merc,
But most of the months I wasn't getting paid,
Although I worked my ass off full time
(I never want to receive again calls at 1 AM
Because some crazed client wants a feature).

I enjoyed programming a version of DF
('Dwarf Fortress', that old grail, a total mess),
But you need a whole team to make a game.

I spent years doing nothing but gaming,
Listening to music, reading, browsing the net,
And masturbating copiously,
Because I was sure I wouldn't fit in anywhere.

I learned how to play guitar, played it in the woods,
But only writing stuff ever felt truly right
(Meanwhile, my parents paid for most things;
Maybe it was fair, after they raised me to be shit).

I now work in IT for a hospital,
Which is garbage, but it pays well
(I've learned to hate computers).
If I had stayed as a musician,
I'd probably be dead,
Or a poor alcoholic,
Or maybe in jail
(I've been busted twice,
Because I was under the influence
Of painkillers).

I always look forward to being unemployed.
Some people say that you have to work,
Because that ennobles you or something.
As far as I'm concerned, that's slave mentality,
That's like having to believe that pain is good
Because no pills get rid of your constant aches
(So you have to befriend them or else go insane).

I'd rather have some people supporting me,
Paying my bills and the roof over my head,
Even if most days I would only masturbate,
And occasionally produce some sort of text.

Writing struck me when I was young:
It felt so good to escape reality,
To tell stories that no one else could see.
It's something I can do by myself, in silence
(Or talking to myself, acting out the dialogue).

I didn't need anyone else to understand me,
Or to cheer me up, or to tell me what to write.
People were always involved in everything else,
And they kept me away from doing what I liked.
All I have to worry about is being lazy,
And when I am sick of it all, I'll stop writing.

From 2012 to 2018, I tried my best in Spanish,
Writing serious stuff that might sell enough to eat.
I couldn't even get along with the local writers;
I didn't understand their reasons for writing,
And their brains worked differently from birth.

After I self-published two books and nobody cared,
That tainted all the effort I put into my stuff.
Writing had ceased to be fun like it used to.
I stopped writing for a while, the words were dry.
I grew angry, bitter, confused, depressed.
All of my efforts seemed pointless in retrospect.

When I was a child, I knew I wouldn't get published,
But that didn't stop me from doing what I wanted.
Now that I'm older, I realise just how much trouble
I'd have had to go through for them to publish me,
How many asses even normal people have to kiss.

When I was twenty one or so, I had given up
On what I cared about as a kid, to become an adult.
I would move to the capital, work at some job
(Live my life by rules invented by other people),
Get married to that girl, have a couple of kids,
Get verbally abused because I was insufficient
(I would be weak and take it, like my father),
Live in poverty and pay off all my debts.
I would soon forget all about what felt right,
As well as those weird dreams I had as a child.
I would forget that I never wanted to grow up
To just live the same old, boring routine,
And waste the rest of my life until I died.

When I was younger I thought that getting old
Would mean losing the motivation for living,
And that's mostly true, but I can still feel
The same desire I had as a child to create
(In spite of having to work a shitty 8 to 3).
I enjoy the feeling of translating
Into words what is inside me.

Even now, as I write this at work (at 9 PM),
I've never managed to land a stable job,
And given how I was born, I never will
(In addition, the world has gone to shit).
That means likely never owning a house,
Never having a wife, nor a bunch of kids
(Those are rare daydreams, gene-driven;
I lack the instinct to socialize).
I have lost this game, so I can write for fun
(I suppose I could kill myself;
There's always time for that down the line).

I'm thirty six years old these days,
And for the foreseeable future
(Until I turn thirty seven years old),
But mentally I'm eighteen or so,
And that's unlikely to change:
When I was a child I felt much older,
When I was eighteen I felt my age,
And from then on I failed to progress,
But those who had a problem were others
(Like romantic partners I had to impress).

I'm a single man for life, as far as I care,
Because I'm not giving up my stuff,
Everything that truly matters to me
(Everyone else can eat shit).
I'll keep writing until I die and rot away.
I'll always be able to use it to escape reality.

My point is, I remember you, Tim,
And the songs you used to make.
I hope you didn't die and shit.
I'm sure you got married, got kids,
And had to give up on your dreams
(Unless your dreams now involve
Being married and raising kids).

All's well that ends well
As long as you are happy,
But I have the sneaking suspicion
That you aren't, nor would I be;
Someone who hears the calling
Of the creative life can't be happy
Unless he cuts himself to bleed.

Blood flows from the wound
(That will only close when you die)
And from the heart, which can tell
That it was the blood's song
Which the artist heard,
A voice that said, 'Now paint!',
'Now write!', 'Now compose!'
(I'm not sure what musicians hear;
I never felt like writing a song,
But I play other people's songs).

It's as though the artist
Was a young boy again
(Or girl, I guess; I have a dick),
And his mother, watching him sleep,
Sang him lullabies in her breast
(I imagine big, soft breasts,
Perennially full of milk).

(I daydream of a woman
Who would let me suck on hers
For the entire day if I wanted,
No questions asked.)