The Strangest Thing Just Happened

I wanted to work on my novel. Typically, I forgot which of my seventy-x folders it's in, so I clicked on something called "writings".



In the folder was a file called "030604". That's definitely mine; I name my stuff by date, mostly, or with some variant thereof. So it was written on March 6th.



I opened the file.



I can say this: I have not been drunk nor high in the past year--not even remotely close. Certainly not to the level I used to be when this sort of thing would happen:



I have absolutely no recollection of writing this. None.



*****************

the fuck-you department is open for business

i only dress this way to piss her off

but this is nothing—

i walk down the street and no one knows me

no one knows that flames are shooting out my ears

no one sees that blood is running from my eyes

no one knows that I would take it down with me

burn it all

but flying under the anarchist radar

i hear them laugh at me

i hear them laugh

“lookit the loser” they say

“lookit the dyke”

the dyke walks past in her big green coat

on her way to her man

the dyke walks past in her baggy t-shirt

drunk on the memory of cum

the dyke walks past with her hair pulled back

dreaming of his dick



I know you think i am crazy.

The name of the game is “side-view mirror”

and i am the object:

closer,

farther,

larger,

smaller,

anything

other than

what i appear.

I think convex thoughts.

My reality is swollen in the middle, a bulging eye,

fading at the edges to a daydream

distorted by your flawed and careless sight.



You cannot see me

and it is better that way.

I build a vast hypocrite transparency,

just-hatched naivete

to conceal things I’ve always known;

my wide eyes

lashes batting

so you cannot see me seeing.