the snail fucks the shell

Somewhere along the line, the way he looked at Sora started to change. When he wiped bits of dirt off the boy’s face, Badou would let his hand linger a little too long, and he’d sit on the bathroom floor as Sora bathed - and Sora asked him to, that’s true, but Sora didn’t understand the flush that would seep through Badou’s cheeks when he saw the child’s limbs, long and thin and creamy white and bare. On an evening during the indian summer of the year Sora was twelve, Badou sat out on the back porch and caught fireflies in a jar and gave them to Sora, and Sora looked up at him with eyes like glaciers or like robin’s eggs, and he leaned forward and touched their lips together just once.Somewhere along the line, the way he looked at Sora started to change. When he wiped bits of dirt off the boy’s face, Badou would let his hand linger a little too long, and he’d sit on the bathroom floor as Sora bathed - and Sora asked him to, that’s true, but Sora didn’t understand the flush that would seep through Badou’s cheeks when he saw the child’s limbs, long and thin and creamy white and bare. On an evening during the indian summer of the year Sora was twelve, Badou sat out on the back porch and caught fireflies in a jar and gave them to Sora, and Sora looked up at him with eyes like glaciers or like robin’s eggs, and he leaned forward and touched their lips together just once.

Somewhere along the line, the way he looked at Sora started to change. When he wiped bits of dirt off the boy’s face, Badou would let his hand linger a little too long, and he’d sit on the bathroom floor as Sora bathed - and Sora asked him to, that’s true, but Sora didn’t understand the flush that would seep through Badou’s cheeks when he saw the child’s limbs, long and thin and creamy white and bare. On an evening during the indian summer of the year Sora was twelve, Badou sat out on the back porch and caught fireflies in a jar and gave them to Sora, and Sora looked up at him with eyes like glaciers or like robin’s eggs, and he leaned forward and touched their lips together just once.

It’s around November when blood starts showing up on his sheets, around the drain in the shower, on his clothes. His nose bleeds more often and when it does, the front of his shirt soaks through with red. The average person has ten pints of blood in their body. He loses one each month - cuts and scratches and vomiting and coughing - and it’s like a little ticker above his head: ten pints, nine pints, eight pints (i’ll never hurt-) seven pints six pints (-you again please-) five pints four three (won’t you?) two ([i won’t]) one. After September comes October; after one comes zero.It’s around November when blood starts showing up on his sheets, around the drain in the shower, on his clothes. His nose bleeds more often and when it does, the front of his shirt soaks through with red. The average person has ten pints of blood in their body. He loses one each month - cuts and scratches and vomiting and coughing - and it’s like a little ticker above his head: ten pints, nine pints, eight pints (i’ll never hurt-) seven pints six pints (-you again please-) five pints four three (won’t you?) two ([i won’t]) one. After September comes October; after one comes zero.

It’s around November when blood starts showing up on his sheets, around the drain in the shower, on his clothes. His nose bleeds more often and when it does, the front of his shirt soaks through with red. The average person has ten pints of blood in their body. He loses one each month - cuts and scratches and vomiting and coughing - and it’s like a little ticker above his head: ten pints, nine pints, eight pints (i’ll never hurt-) seven pints six pints (-you again please-) five pints four three (won’t you?) two ([i won’t]) one. After September comes October; after one comes zero.

These days, he doesn’t sleep much. His nights are spent drinking shitty beer and smoking out his eleventh-story window. The city’s still alive at night, lit by lamps that cast a piss-yellow layer over everything below them; people travel in clumps, hopping from bar to club to bar to convenience store and then sometimes to home. It’s interesting, watching them - at one point he might have wanted to be among them, but not now.Where does he want to be? He doesn’t know, so he’s content to stay put. Something better’ll come along someday.These days, he doesn’t sleep much. His nights are spent drinking shitty beer and smoking out his eleventh-story window. The city’s still alive at night, lit by lamps that cast a piss-yellow layer over everything below them; people travel in clumps, hopping from bar to club to bar to convenience store and then sometimes to home. It’s interesting, watching them - at one point he might have wanted to be among them, but not now.Where does he want to be? He doesn’t know, so he’s content to stay put. Something better’ll come along someday.

These days, he doesn’t sleep much. His nights are spent drinking shitty beer and smoking out his eleventh-story window. The city’s still alive at night, lit by lamps that cast a piss-yellow layer over everything below them; people travel in clumps, hopping from bar to club to bar to convenience store and then sometimes to home. It’s interesting, watching them - at one point he might have wanted to be among them, but not now.Where does he want to be? He doesn’t know, so he’s content to stay put. Something better’ll come along someday.

Afterwards, the ghost plays piano for him. The boy lays naked on the bed, eyes half-closed, sprawled out with legs and arms boneless and free; he listens to the keys, rising octaves and pedals pushed, and the ghost looks towards the boy as he manipulates the keys. His skin is sunlight in shadow, radiating pink flush; from across the room, the ghost slides fingers up his spine and buries them into his vertebrae, slipping smooth over bone and nerve and muscle. The boy sighs, smiles, and the ghost tells him: I like you.Afterwards, the ghost plays piano for him. The boy lays naked on the bed, eyes half-closed, sprawled out with legs and arms boneless and free; he listens to the keys, rising octaves and pedals pushed, and the ghost looks towards the boy as he manipulates the keys. His skin is sunlight in shadow, radiating pink flush; from across the room, the ghost slides fingers up his spine and buries them into his vertebrae, slipping smooth over bone and nerve and muscle. The boy sighs, smiles, and the ghost tells him: I like you.

Afterwards, the ghost plays piano for him. The boy lays naked on the bed, eyes half-closed, sprawled out with legs and arms boneless and free; he listens to the keys, rising octaves and pedals pushed, and the ghost looks towards the boy as he manipulates the keys. His skin is sunlight in shadow, radiating pink flush; from across the room, the ghost slides fingers up his spine and buries them into his vertebrae, slipping smooth over bone and nerve and muscle. The boy sighs, smiles, and the ghost tells him: I like you.

Tripping over stars, swinging galaxy-to-galaxy hooked to a sway line, eyes blind purple tracked across the yellow and blue, imprints and faces and eye-socket hollows. Dreaming sky city above spires and spotlights, fly and crash and scrabble up. Aagain, aagain, aagain.Tripping over stars, swinging galaxy-to-galaxy hooked to a sway line, eyes blind purple tracked across the yellow and blue, imprints and faces and eye-socket hollows. Dreaming sky city above spires and spotlights, fly and crash and scrabble up. Aagain, aagain, aagain.

Tripping over stars, swinging galaxy-to-galaxy hooked to a sway line, eyes blind purple tracked across the yellow and blue, imprints and faces and eye-socket hollows. Dreaming sky city above spires and spotlights, fly and crash and scrabble up. Aagain, aagain, aagain.

It was foggy, rainy; his boots slapped in the puddles as he walked. The streets were dark. At his side he carried a black Gladstone bag; inside it was a sketchbook and charcoal pencils and train ticket stubs and a dagger, and a uterus wrapped in newspaper and tied up with string. ‘Evening,’ he’d say, and tip his hat to passerby. They smiled at him. ‘What a nice young man,’ they’d think.

“You’ll die early if you keep smoking like that,” she says. He laughs and lights a cigarette. “I don’t have plans of living past thirty.” “You’re twenty-nine.” “I know.”“You’ll die early if you keep smoking like that,” she says. He laughs and lights a cigarette. “I don’t have plans of living past thirty.” “You’re twenty-nine.” “I know.”

“You’ll die early if you keep smoking like that,” she says.

He laughs and lights a cigarette. “I don’t have plans of living past thirty.”

“You’re twenty-nine.”

“I know.”

the pros and cons of a photographic memory

Sometimes, in the middle of the night when nobody’s awake but him, he presses his face to the window and closes his eyes. It cools him down. He’ll shed his clothes and leave himself in only a blanket. The things he remembers will flicker in and out: pieces of words Leader’s said and ghost-touches on his skin, invisible fingers trailing down his chest, across his hipbones, between his thighs. At those, he’ll shut his eyes and bite down on his fingers so that he’ll stop thinking. ‘You don’t sleep much,’ Leader’s assistant occasionally comments, and the child looks down at his toes. When the door opens, the color filters out of his face ‘til there’s just white, just shades of light blue. Leader ties his thin wrists up with silk and spreads his legs, and he turns his head away. Tears wet his eyelashes and he whimpers just a tiny bit, just enough that Leader will hear it. That is what he’ll remember for the rest of his life. (And it’s only just a few years, now, isn’t it?) He’ll remember fingers rough with calluses rubbing across his chest, his collarbone and then his lips, parting them and forcing inside. Leader would say, ‘Lick them’ and so the child does. And sometimes, during the cold-hot winter-summer nights that he remembers, he’ll pull the blanket tight around his shoulders and then press his fingers into himself, and his throat will pull taut and he’ll bite his lip open, and he’ll choke out quiet sobs and lift his hips up slowfastslowfast until he can’t think. If he can’t think, he can’t remember. (And he doesn’t want to remember.)

He speaks enough for the two of them. Days and days of words, voice harsh from cigarettes, telling tangential stories about Older Brother and the lower strata. The time he lost his right eye, the time he lost Dave, the time he lost his clean lungs. It’s always the past and never the future. What she wonders about, though, is the future. Where will they end up? She’ll touch her hands to the sides of his face, push back his carrot-tomato hair and pull away the eye patch. The scar and the empty socket, they don’t scare her. What does scare her is how much he smokes, how often he gets himself in trouble, how reckless he is. Every night that he comes home sweaty and out of breath from being chased, she wraps her thin little arms around his waist and buries her face in his chest. She doesn’t speak; she can’t speak. But she can touch him, and she can kiss him, and if she can’t stop him from leaving, she can at least give him enough motivation to come back alive.He speaks enough for the two of them. Days and days of words, voice harsh from cigarettes, telling tangential stories about Older Brother and the lower strata. The time he lost his right eye, the time he lost Dave, the time he lost his clean lungs. It’s always the past and never the future. What she wonders about, though, is the future. Where will they end up? She’ll touch her hands to the sides of his face, push back his carrot-tomato hair and pull away the eye patch. The scar and the empty socket, they don’t scare her. What does scare her is how much he smokes, how often he gets himself in trouble, how reckless he is. Every night that he comes home sweaty and out of breath from being chased, she wraps her thin little arms around his waist and buries her face in his chest. She doesn’t speak; she can’t speak. But she can touch him, and she can kiss him, and if she can’t stop him from leaving, she can at least give him enough motivation to come back alive.

He speaks enough for the two of them. Days and days of words, voice harsh from cigarettes, telling tangential stories about Older Brother and the lower strata. The time he lost his right eye, the time he lost Dave, the time he lost his clean lungs. It’s always the past and never the future. What she wonders about, though, is the future. Where will they end up? She’ll touch her hands to the sides of his face, push back his carrot-tomato hair and pull away the eye patch. The scar and the empty socket, they don’t scare her. What does scare her is how much he smokes, how often he gets himself in trouble, how reckless he is. Every night that he comes home sweaty and out of breath from being chased, she wraps her thin little arms around his waist and buries her face in his chest. She doesn’t speak; she can’t speak. But she can touch him, and she can kiss him, and if she can’t stop him from leaving, she can at least give him enough motivation to come back alive.

The doctors, the nurses, the janitors and candy-stripers - they crowded around his hospital bed, their shoulders rubbing up against each other, and shaved away his skin and sewed pins through his neck, and they broke his bones into forty pieces and split his face with paperweights. They wrapped the boy in clean sheets and flowers and dropped him at the side of the road in the rain, and he washed away through the pavement and dribbled through the drains and into the ocean. ‘Good luck,’ they said. ‘Good night.’The doctors, the nurses, the janitors and candy-stripers - they crowded around his hospital bed, their shoulders rubbing up against each other, and shaved away his skin and sewed pins through his neck, and they broke his bones into forty pieces and split his face with paperweights. They wrapped the boy in clean sheets and flowers and dropped him at the side of the road in the rain, and he washed away through the pavement and dribbled through the drains and into the ocean. ‘Good luck,’ they said. ‘Good night.’

The doctors, the nurses, the janitors and candy-stripers - they crowded around his hospital bed, their shoulders rubbing up against each other, and shaved away his skin and sewed pins through his neck, and they broke his bones into forty pieces and split his face with paperweights. They wrapped the boy in clean sheets and flowers and dropped him at the side of the road in the rain, and he washed away through the pavement and dribbled through the drains and into the ocean. ‘Good luck,’ they said. ‘Good night.’