ALKA-SELTZER
wormhole to the floor, witch-lifted.
split inchoate rum & coke
pressed to throat enough
finds me glorious.
feed him my body little pieced,
washed & wrapped in gilt eye
-liner & alka-seltzer. sweet
twitch of pansy petals from my
hair our mouths the only un-
pronounced hulk in the room (more…)
1.
It was red through and through. I reached my hand deep in the inner leaves. An ant crawled across my knuckles dragging a broken leg. I tried to help by pulling the leg off, but I broke the ant in half and its two pieces went round and round trying to find each other. Red ones are the sweetest. This one was a little soft in the middle and the sweet was almost rot. I fed a piece to the dead ant.
2.
White at the top below the green. A few hard green growths. I asked Mother to slice them off because I didn’t like their look. She slid the thin knife quick and quick and quick again. She didn’t cut her fingers like the time she peeled the squash and shook spots of blood on the wall. The hard green growths stared at me like poked-out eyes. They tasted sour at first, then ice or cucumber, then sour again. A sour end.
The Avalanche Effect
The story of the suitcase was true, but the painting wasn’t in it. Oh, well. Things progress when there’s a mistake. The next 48 hours are going to be crucial. Don’t mess with women who are into gore. I haven’t the slightest doubt that my own relatives planned to kill me. It’s too awful here. Yesterday we heard something that sounded like rocks being unloaded from a dump truck. Those were gunshots. I stepped outside to take a look and saw descendants of Marcel Duchamp selling snowballs on the street. (more…)
Teresa, you have one new match on Tinder.
For all the fucking good that’ll do, says you. You’ve one new match on Tinder, your screen blinking under the glare of too-bright sunlight as you expire alone in the foothills of the San Jacinto, midsummer Californian heat haze melting you into nothing. What a world, indeed. Dying of dehydration is among the worst ways to go out, up there with drowning, (which’s ironic, really). When they find you, you’ll still be yourself, just without the water weight. Skin clinging to the bone underneath it, thin, almost transparent. “Withered”, Teresa, is the word you’re looking for.
Teresa who cares what word you’re looking for when you’re as good as dead. And worse, unable to meet your new Tinder match. She’s an Irish ex-pat, too, you two would have so much in common already. Well, maybe she’ll come to your funeral. She can spend the rest of her J1 holiday mentioning how she matched on Tinder with the girl who got lost in the desert, and sure Jesus isn’t it awful altogether. That’s how you’ll be remembered, Teresa.
(more…)
Who’s there?
It’s me.
Oh right.
It’s dark.
I know.
What time is it?
I don’t know.
It must be late.
Or early.
True.
They sat in the living room and the clocks didn’t think it was any time at all. She leaned back in the dusty armchair, he pressed against the painted doorframe. (more…)
Digital TV Killed the Big Bang
It started with the
clarity rabbit ears cut and buried in boxes.
Sunday green the light off helmets and teeth.
Do we always look this way?
Curdled milk and red cheeks.
We didn’t even notice the absence
of the radio crackle.
One percent of static is the background light from the Big Bang.
Our feet caught on pole’s uneven
precession broken from the bear’s tail.
It is only one percent.
But the universe didn’t care about
the size of the tear in the static.
The sun throwing itself against our wounds beating
aurora shrieks on our fingernails. (more…)
I wanna be Daisy Duke
Skinny legs and apple-round the rest of me
I wanna be Lynda Carter
pit you against my truth lasso
Be Jewel; kiss crooked-tooth
Jewel; be a folk singer
be adorable.
In the subway panhandling the coins
knowing I get paid in pennies
for doing what I love –
Kicking Lex Luthor’s ass
Fucking Hal and Flash,
pitting them against each other
and the devil in my brass tits.
I wanna be Dolly Parton, skinny legs
Shock and Awe
apple-round the rest of me
Islands in the stream
O Kenny darlin.
What we are is Boss Hog Bait –
I wanna be cutoff shorts n corsets
I want a gun. (more…)
Eldritch Capitalism
cry wildfire in glass floats that glitter like blood snowflakes. can’t hide from the drowning spiral, bottle the river’s song to the sea. fence and trade the last glowing wildfire, picking scraps of gold survival off the edge of their knife. lock up the most forbidden moon. (more…)
David Joez Villaverde has recently been published in Wigleaf, 100 Word Short Story, Adbusters, After the Pause, Cheap Pop, and Hoot. He lives in Pittsburgh as an editor for the After Happy Hour Review. He can be found at schadenfreudeanslip.com or on twitter @academicjuggalo
Demon Hate
You clamp my head and say, “Demon, be gone.” You shake me and scream, “Come back, princess.” You flap your arms and dance madly. Your face flames; your eyes steam. My demon is sticky. How you must hate me. When my demon finally leaves, I leave with him. (more…)
Occulum 