Today You Eat Mine
"I could not go to work tonight because I could not stop living."
−"Nature Poem", Charles Bukowski
These women must think me creepy, but I cannot help but stare into their golden eyes. Never seen anything like that. RONK RONK RONK RONK RONK RONK RONK RON thwack!That goddamn alarm-clock already. Think of leaves falling while screaming, "too soon!/too soon!" Screw off alarm clock, today I'm leaving all of you behind. Do not try to follow, especially in my memory.
I usually don't look half bad in the morning. I mean, if it weren't for the hair. The heat of the shower makes my skin red and blotchy until I sleep. In the morning though, I look okay if it weren't for my lack of topical hair or abundance of facial hair. No matter.Today I will not shower, will not shave. Not today baby. Later baby. Smoke a grit and put it out with my shoe. I am hitting the road like a ten ton sledge, baby.
Feel real as a child. Feel the goddamn Sun and feel the sweat. Sweat more pure than any hard day's work. Open space. Open space and all of it mine.
I am moving my feet down this sidewalk, at the corner I may turn right or left. MIGHTY: I AM a thousand mighty lions roaring at the Sun. Won, winner, victorious. Simple as recognizing the fight, simple as staring the fight square in the eye. A man has to fight to earn his own time back. I mean, you can go your whole life, go your whole life with a boss. Someone more powerful. Someone who has taken your power. Someone whose shit you eat. And you cannot say it doesn't change you. You cannot say you can eat that for so long and still really like yourself all the way. Later baby.
Today you eat mine.
Ryan Robert Mullen has been published in Minima, DIAGRAM, Retort, Word Riot, Outsider Ink, and other print and digital mags. Published "Rhapsodic Quadraphonic" at www.pulpbits.com.Writes weekly column at www.getunderground.com.
Naughty Sweet Boy now available for pre-order at Word Riot Press www.wordriot.org/press
