Phlegm World

Unladen mother wielding children hung in heaven for being aliens on a day of full

and reasonable rest. They stick their thumbs into their noses as they bite their

lizard tongues, scale in full glory of the sun and the moon and calypso the moon

beast who eats fungus for breakfast that she grows on her own ankles. Who

gives a fuck about the stomach pains it causes? Who cares about the scraping of

nails on the inside of the belly and the mother who replays over and over in your

mind yelling to the ceiling, to the ancient filth sitting in the crown molding, that her

lover is dead dead dead, if she do or if she don’t? Who cares? You don’t. She

told you so. She told you you didn’t give a fuck or you wouldn’t leave her there on

her knees her hands buried in her hair. But you left her there on her knees,

hands buried in her hair, pathetically sob sob sobbing. You left with the sherry,

the whiskey, the sweet vermouth sloshing in your pocket and onto the train steps,

onto the seat so it soaked the butt of your train neighbor. The neighbor gets

large, and squares up, and their eyebrows are piercing, telling you to stop

soaking them in alcohol and to have some self respect. Same old mantras, have

some self respect, have some confidence, pull up your pants—your ass crack is

showing, know who you are. Know what you want and grab it as if a cherry off a

cherry tree. And your mouth opens suddenly, demandingly, in a loud and wailing

‘O’. I do I do I do have self respect. I am am am am trying and I do do do care. I

do do do care. I dodododo every day regularly. Every morning. That’s the effect

of a plant based diet as the fungus eats you from the inside carving a new path

for all back up to the hanging high heaven of yesterday. The place of full rest, the

place where everyone blacks out and no one remembers, and no one blames

you for not remembering.