The Emperor And The Moon

Sara bent over the bucket of foaming suds and dipped the over sized sponge into the warm wetness. As she did so, the daisy dukes tightened and strained around her apple shaped ass. Her father, who had just come outside, blushed at the site of his 15 year old daughter’s figure poised so accidentally alluring. Immediately, a wall of words was raised between his forward consciousness, the “I” that he presented to the world, and the desire that had surged in the darkness of his heart and loins.
“Sara, telephone.” He called gruffly from behind his black beard and she started at the sound of his voice, then smiled and dropped the sponge into the bucket and hurried up the driveway. Her youthful breasts bobbed under the thin tank top as she lopped over to him, sandals click clacking on the concrete. He noticed that the white straps of her cotton bra were exposed over her bare shoulders.
“Who is it?” she asked breathily, chest heaving gently from the mild exertion.
“Somebody named AJ.” He told her, his voice still bear-like. Something in the tone made her feel guilty, although there was no spoken rule that had been broken. She reached for the phone, but he withheld it and said,
“You need to get inside and put something on. Those shorts are way too short.” The tone was accusing.
“All of my shorts are like these.” She protested in bewilderment.
“Well,” he said wagging his head, “You need to get in here and figure something out, because those are totally inappropriate.” And then he relinquished the phone and turning his back on her, he stomped back inside.
Sara clutched the phone in her hand and fought back hot tears. Guilt and rage and sorrow welled up in her chest and constricted her throat. Her mind howled with questions that danced around a central point: regret for having earned his disapproval. The intelligence in her struggled with the emotional storm of self loathing, reasoning that she had not done anything wrong, she was not trying to be “inappropriate”, which she knew really meant “sexual”, that others were defiling her with their inappropriate response to the sight of, what? Her bare legs? The parts of her body left exposed for comfort in the summer heat while she washed her father’s car?
The great excitement that had fluttered briefly through her belly upon hearing that a boy was calling for her had transformed entirely into a lead weight. This boy calling her also confirmed for her father her “inapropriatness”. Her overactive mind wrestling with her turbulent emotions churned out a suspicion that now that she had become the subject of this “inappropriate” attention. Her father no longer loved her and this in turn became a rage directed at herself, at her own body. At last she sniffed a constricted,
“Hello?” into the receiver.

The All Seeing Boy

The age of your son clouds my imagination. Why does a boy shorter than most doorknobs have gray hair? Under what stress have you put his body under? What has he seen between the cracks of doors? Is his reality colored by cartoon books and stuffed animals with squashed faces and missing eyes? Does he live in an imagined world of sorcerers and captains with missing teeth? Or does he fret about his missing breakfast cereal, long gone and another never coming. Does he worry about his cold hands that have cracked in the grooves where his fingers meet? Has he thought about soldiers dying in the field, their bloody mouths calling for Maria, the mother of all? Have you told him that lie too?
Take your head out from the foggy London streets. There are no virgins here. The signs are everywhere. It comes with every fifth thought. On the ground is a stick shaped like an aroused man. There, in the tree trunk, is a raised knot shaped like a pleading ass hole, forever teasing, forever waiting for a branch to plunge inside. This isn’t just the directing of a foul mind, it’s nature, screaming for death and finding renewal. Crying for release and creating another.
The Christian band cannot play another song. I refuse.
I have cut their plastic strings in my silver teeth and made men from their cocks. The cords are severed, their mics lay as dust beneath my bare feet. The verses from scripture have turned blond-headed flocks into pudding-headed dolls that deny the laws of matter. Logic lays lifeless in their hands. Science, beheaded long ago. Come to me dressed in purple satin and perhaps you may find the real mother of all. Her thighs are wet, her mouth smells of faint fish and sweat. Her torn garments hang from her neck like ribbons from a maypole, rainbow colored and spotted with red. Her loins are torn…and open.
Virgin!
Our need for death comes before our first word. There is no virgin. Purity is for those who shut their minds to our defiled nature. It comes as naturally as birth, and yet you hide it in underground caves. We can see it leaking! Your purity is black and red, coloring the clouds for miles with your subverted lust. I am a seed of their lust, a creation of two robots fucking for death.
And they did, yet…continued to breathe.
And I, before my first steps, sought for death as well. And though I have imagined better, though I have sometimes worked to elevate my knowledge beyond the first few words of the dictionary; I am still remedial, lacking vocabulary, lacking intention. My thoughts fade as another wave of music drowns my crumbling skull. And then, drifting…I remember.
Have you ever understood that the nights in London where nothing but a nightmare drenched in colorful glass and sequined lingerie that fell for the first customer? They poured a fifth of their liquor into the piss-stained streets and still, you were able to walk down the marble steps without losing your teeth. Without losing the rest of your heart. I saw you directing rats in the sewers. They came to us from underground tunnels coated in grease. They came from villages and attics clogged in dust and broken Christmas lights, from the baker down the street and the dream that still clings to my consciousness.
The band lies broken and used while rats feast on the remaining lyrics. Dressed in ancient clothes that smell of mildew and lavender, your boy sings a sad song, seeing it all, despite the window you have shut.