Dead Inside

by Chandler Morrison

Self-awareness really doesn’t mean shit, though. It is, in fact, little more than psychological masturbation, and has about the same net worth as a wad of semen in a handful of crumpled tissues. No cockroach ever desired not to be a cockroach, just because it knew it was a cockroach.

I’m really not a violent creature by nature, but there’s nothing like a wailing infant to drive me to the brink of contemplating homicide.

I’ve never been any kind of athlete or anything, but am I seriously the only person who realizes that infants are the perfect punting shape? If we replaced footballs with babies, I would have been far more successful in high school gym class.

Okay, before I go on, I should warn you that this next part is what most people would consider to be gross or appalling. If you were expecting fifty shades of softcore mommy porn, you’re going to be disappointed. Consider this your goddamn trigger warning.

“Why are you naked.” That’s the only question I’m able to force past my lips, despite the existence of other, more obvious, inquiries. Like, “Why are you eating that dead baby,” or “What the fuck is going on here,” or “Don’t you at least want some sauce to dip that in, or something.”

Cannibalism really isn’t my thing, but there’s nothing wrong with getting a little kinky now and again.

“If you like Bukowski, read some Will Self. Start with My Idea of Fun.”

“I think you’re a good guy, you know,” she tells me softly. “You don’t see it, or want to see it, but you are.” “I . . . have sex with dead girls.” “And I eat babies.” “I never said you were a good person.”

We just need to be who we are. We just need to fuck dead girls and eat babies and feel good about it.

When she answers the door, I look at her and it occurs to me that now is the part where my knees are supposed to go weak, and my breath is expected to catch in my throat, but as much as it pains me to disappoint all you bleeding-heart romantics out there, my knees are fine and the rate of my breathing is undisturbed.

“It’s realistic thinking. No matter how much of an individual you are, no matter how unique and different and nonconformist and antiestablishment, you can’t deny the inescapable effects that society has on everyone, including you and me.”

I am now fucking a headless dead baby, thank you very much.

I want death neither behind, nor ahead, of me, but around me and within me.