Wednesday, March 30, 2016

ARBEIT MACHT FREI

Dear Sylvia Plath,

I am sorry that you are dead and I am still alive.
I, too, may be a bit of a Jew.
In 1996 I contacted a Jewish attorney in Beverly Hills.
I wanted to give my unborn child to a Jewish couple
who resided in Manhattan Beach.
My mother and stepfather bullied me into finding
a Christian couple instead.
"I won't know my grandchild in this lifetime.
But I want to know my grandchild in the next."
My Gemini mother said that.
"They're gonna take your baby then drop you
like a hot potato. And I won't pay for you
to fly back to Texas."
My Virgo stepfather said that.
I have wanted to die more than a few times, Sylvia.
Once in 1999 I drank some vodka and washed down
some pills with cheap wine.
I looked for my stepfather's gun.
I couldn't find it.
I blasted Billie Holiday songs in the dark
and screamed at God.
I assumed he was hard of hearing.
I picked up my mother's ceramic musical angel.
I wanted to hear something pretty.
I dropped the angel and somehow cut myself.
I remember sitting on the toilet bleeding and blubbering.
Judy Blume got me through my adolescence.
Margaret was so glamorous.
I had a Jewish friend when I was nine.
I went to temple with her once.
I liked it much better than the Southern Baptist church
I attended with my mother and siblings.
Every Sunday was DIE WORM DIE.
And someday you will see an angel in the sky and
you better have Jesus in your heart
or else you will burn in HELL.
I saw my first dead body when I was nine.
My cousin Daryl.
"He looks like he's sleeping," my mother said.
No. He looked like he was fucking DEAD.
I dreamed of Daryl trying to climb out of the
Bottomless Pit.
You knew much more in thirty years
than I know now in my fourth decade.
But did you really know to your fucking marrow
that work would set you free?
Work did set you free and flying
higher than I will ever reach
even on my tippy toes.
I'm far from brilliant.
I no longer possess a uterus
but I am still bleeding.
I'm common, Sylvia.
You would have dismissed me
as so much Texas trash.
What do I have?
I have Saturn in the tenth.
I have a busy fifth house
with an exalted Mars.
Virgo rising.
Virgo moon.
Sun and Venus so chilly in the sixth.
I'm dismissed by many.
Invisible, even.
Sylvia I'm more ancient than the bees
that swarmed inside your head.
I'm more terrible than Ariel.
I'm denser than a bar of soap.
But it was a neat trick you pulled.
Carving all those words in stone.
Damning.
Cursing.
Not taking
a single
fucking
syllable
back.
I'm black like that, too
but unlike you
I have survived
the oven.
There's some small freedom
in being so much ash.
Would you laugh to see such sport?
It's a grim business
but yes.
I think somehow
you would.

PLUTO IN THE SECOND

I wish I could be the kind of person who says,"I'm sorry. That painting is not for sale." Everything is for sale. I cannot afford to be sentimental. I have left my one of a kind framed collages all over San Antonio. I have donated paintings and collages to the Dumpster. I have donated paintings and collages to art galleries. I left a bag filled with framed collages in my ex fuck buddy's truck. I told him he can trash them. That's how much I never want to see him again. I do not get attached to material possessions. I get attached to people.

Yesterday I sold a bag of books to Half-Price for $25. Now I can pay my electricity bill. I'm still dreaming of this house I will never possess. It's Mediterranean. There is a library downstairs with stained glass windows. There is a marble garden tub in the master bath. You know damn well there's a pool with a waterfall in the backyard. There aren't a bunch of knick knacks. There's no piano. No porcelain angels. No cute heartwarming cross-stitched bullshit sayings framed and hanging on the kitchen wall. "Home Is Where The Heart Is." Bull fucking shit! You won't find any cats, dogs, fish, salamanders, monkeys or gerbils in my dream home. You won't find any shitty art unless it's mine. No Thomas Kinkade. No Christian Riese Lassen. No Twilight posters. No Ricky Martin posters. No posters of any kind.

In the last e-mail I sent my ex fuck buddy I told him I don't give a shit how good his art is. I called him a pendejo. I shouldn't have been so harsh. Pluto in Libra in the second tightly squares my Mars in Capricorn in the fifth. That's no excuse. I should be nicer. I fucking hate the word "nice." It's so meaningless. I should be more meaningless in my communication. I strive for bland neutrality. I don't burn bridges. I burn villages. I would like very much to make a trek in the Andes and overcome such tendencies. If I have to be brutal I should be brutal only with myself. Is that wisdom? I hope so. Knowing is one thing...executing is something else. God. I want to get it right.

This is just to say I struggle. Mightily. Not with possessions. With myself.

FINISHED


Wednesday, March 23, 2016

MAGIC REALISM SET IN ALBUQUERQUE

"Once again, Nova was constipated." So begins my first novel. Nova's Gone Potty is not the first novel I ever wrote. I wrote a novel in 1996 while pregnant with my daughter. I wrote my first novel in a spiral notebook. I do not recall the title or the characters or the plot or any other damn thing. "You're a writer. You should remember every damn thing." Please. My brain is Swiss cheese. I have no idea what the word count was because I didn't count the damn words. I just wrote them down with a black or blue pen (probably black). I finished writing the novel shortly after giving birth to my daughter. To celebrate I drank a bottle of wine then threw the novel in a Dumpster somewhere in Midland, Texas.

So if you want to interview me and ask me about my first novel I will say,"Nova's Gone Potty was my first novel. I'm damn proud of it. As far as I know I am the only person on the planet who has ever written a novel featuring a toilet that speaks in Ozzy Osbourne's voice."

The Nova character is much like me. She struggles with constipation and social anxiety. She ain't too cool. She's just your average fucktard. But people who have read the novel tend to fall in love with Nova. One person who read the novel fell in love with Sage, Nova's friend and the drummer in Nova's band, Mr. Customer. Sage is who I imagine myself to be on my better days or when I am drunk off my ass but not so drunk that I am crying and scaring a vice cop.

I have to haul ass to the park and ride now. The moon is in Libra and I'll celebrate by finishing my oil painting of two criss-crossed lollipops.

ASSHOLE MONITOR

The aliens from outer space were not aliens from outer space but pseudo scientists from Beverly Hills. They looked really fucking pretty in any available light. So when Shasta was abducted she thought,"Cool. Maybe they'll lick my asshole." But they did not lick Shasta's asshole. They sedated her with disco biscuits then stuck a monitor up her ass. A year or so later when Shasta was called in for questioning the head pseudo scientist from Beverly Hills, Dr. Everything'll Be Alright, said in a neutral tone:

SHASTA. WE NOTICED YOU DID NOT GIVE A SHIT WHEN JOAN RIVERS DIED. YOU DID NOT RETWEET. YOU DID NOT MENTION JOAN RIVERS IN A FACEBOOK POST. YOU DID NOT EXPRESS, FINALLY, VIA SOCIAL MEDIA THAT YOUR HEART WENT OUT TO THE SURVIVORS OF JOAN RIVERS. YOU DID NOT REMEMBER JOAN RIVERS WITH FOND BITTERSWEET NOSTALGIA. JOAN RIVERS DIED, SHASTA, AND YOU DID NOT GIVE A SHIT.

Shasta was accustomed to being sedated, brainwashed, scared, bullied, threatened, questioned. Bitch was from Bridgeport, Texas. Still, she was a bit perturbed by the ominous judgment delivered by the head pseudo scientist from Beverly Hills in a deceptively detached tone. So she said,"Uh. I'm consistently constipated. Does that pose some kind of problem?"

Later when Shasta was strapped to the table and injected with harmony serum she knew she was fucked beyond fucked which was something she had always suspected. It was nice, finally, to receive confirmation.

ADVERTISEMENT

Tad was gorgeous as hell per fucking usual in his ELEVENPARIS Basquiat t-shirt, True Religion jeans with the tasteful rips near the crotch and American Rebel cowboy boots. Oh. Yeah, motherfucker. He was rocking a pair of Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses. And you know it, bitch. He was smelling to kill thanks to that AXE Anarchy shower gel he scrubbed his dick, balls, asshole and every damn thing else with in his Simple Luxe shower.

Kammi was equally fucktabulous in her Kate Spade pleated shirtdress, Giuseppe Zanotti sandals and Chanel sunglasses. She exuded that ever alluring Guilty by Gucci perfume cloud. Her naturally appealing face (no plastic yet...don't hate...don't hate) was naked except for Urban Decay Deep Berry Wine matte lipstick. She was carrying a Granny Smith apple green Yves Saint Laurent clutch. Stop hating. Kammi's mother died when she was three months old and her dad's a raging sex addict currently consuming Wife #6 and the nine or ten Playboy Bunnies he keeps on the side.

Tad and Kammi were enjoying the vibes and the sushi at Mastro's Penthouse. They just got it like that, boo. You must content yourself with Cracker Barrel and sometimes Chili's. Lo siento.

"And I was, like, literally loving it. I mean...full body massage? You know what I mean? It was, like, so...soothing? You know? How does life, like, get any better?" Tad said in between sips of lemon water. Kammi nodded. She knew the feeling pretty fucking well.
"Yeah, totally," Kammi said.

A hair band (Poison, Motley Crue, Warrant...Ratt, maybe) drummer's ex-wife walked by with her matching poodle. An US Weekly photographer snapped a shot from the bushes.

Then a Kardashian entered the restaurant with her latest accessory, a retired child star with fabulous fingers. Everyone waved, smiled, pretended to care.

Paradise Kitty would be performing at The Viper Room in two hours. Anybody who was anybody was going. It was, like, going to be sick. Literally.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

SEXY TIME

Most motherfuckers who write sexy Facebook sexy
slur sexy into Skype mic AIN'T SEXY.
I'm just sayin'...as they say.
Sex at Twitter.
Sex at Instagram.
Sex joke.
Sex mock.
Sex herd.
Sex flock.
Sex in Seeking.
Sex in Strictly Platonic.
Sex in stupid.
Sex in moronic.
Dr. Seuss was sexy.
Robert L. Trivers is sexy as fucking hell.
Evan Stone is sexy.
Not because he does porn.
Because he's goofy and makes me laugh my ass off.
Sex farm.
Sex harm.
Sex charm.
Sex karma.
Sex pharma.
Once...in Mexico...the shop owner told my
buddy (for lack of a better word)
that he would hook him up with some Viagra.
My buddy is sixty-one years old
and I can tell you straight
and for a motherfucking fact:
he don't need no stinkin' Viagra.
Sex wrecks.
Sex checks.
I'm putting a purple hex
on people who pretend to be sexy
when actually they are not
because they are addicted to meth
and have bad breath
and don't know how to
nurture a kitten
write a book
make a pot of green chile stew
paint an ironic penis on a melancholy rodeo clown.
You get the gist.
I get the jism.
Gee whiz.
What to do with all this JIZ
in my life?
I don't know.
Guess I'll write
a book
about it.

1999

Are you partying like it's 1999? If so that's pretty damn retro of you.
Applause, applause.
I just Googled "Prince's natal chart."
Just as I suspected.
He wouldn't dig me.
This isn't a poem but I'm writing it like it's a poem
to trick people into thinking anything
can be a poem.
Anything cannot be a poem.
This cannot be a poem.
Not even with Raspberry Beret lipstick.
"The Beautiful Ones" is my favorite Prince song.
"Purple Rain" is one of my favorite love stories
even though Prince slaps Apollonia
and that shit ain't too cool.
I dig the music and the motorcycle
and the puppets and the crazy chemistry
between the two crazy kids.
In 1999 I had a strange relationship
with a Taurus man who had a Libra moon
and Capricorn rising.
He was still stuck on his ex-wife.
He didn't dig me but he tolerated me
to get to my pussy.
After the relationship ended
I licked my wounds online.
A Sagittarian named Andy
turned me onto "Blood on The Tracks,"
Ed Abbey and Charles Bukowski.
Wait. No.
The triple Libra I met online in 2000
and later married on a mountain in Austin
turned me onto Charles Bukowski.
Right now I'm going through something similar.
I'm thinking if a motherfucker has any amount
of Taurus in his natal chart
he is not
the motherfucker
for me.
Taurus moon.
Taurus sun.
Taurus rising.
Taurus Venus.
Taurus Mars.
Stay away. Please. I implore you.
I like
being
dug.

STRESS EATING

I just don't give a fuck. Sabroso fucks me in the dark. When we're at his casa I light the Jesus candles. When we're at my cave I turn on the Dia de Los Muertos skull lights that are strung behind my bed. Last night I ate a can of Pringles and a king size Snickers. That was dinner. Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck every god and goddess that can hear. Maybe I'm thirty pounds overweight...according to WHOM? I'm fine with my body. I'm not trying to make any amount of money with it. Do you have to have abs of steel to make money with your body? Fake tits? A big (but not too big) ass? I just don't give a fuck. I'm trying to climb a mountain called Surviving San Antonio at The Poverty Level. I've got six credit cards and they're all maxed out. La la fucking wheeeeee. Look at me just not giving a fuck. I'm a vampire. I hide from the sun. I'm still having fun all summer long. Somehow. Despite evidence to the contrary.

SAN ANTONIO ARTIST


Don't bother me with the small stuff.


WAITING ON SABROSO


CUPCAKE


The main quality is a gravity.

How are you? I write the message in hope, that you will answer. And if you can send your photos? I would be glad to see and I try to send a photo me. I at all do not know what to write in this message. And when there is an acquaintance of this type. Also I think that you will help me to develop conversation. My friends and say I'm friendly, kind and a nice person to be around with and I'm a kind of lady that would give the shirt of my back to give to someone. But that a judgment you will have to make. I was born in Azerbaijan also I live here even now. If you know something about this country? Looking for a man that like to cuddle, have fun, going places. But I think that the main quality is a gravity. I think that you will be interested. Also I wish to ask if you have the woman? Have a great time and I wish you all most the best this day.

Here Akliin

Monday, March 21, 2016

The only way to make it in America.

I'm assuming you're a little bit crazy.
You survive on less than $800 a month.
You have six credit cards.
Your dad is a Taurus.
Your mom is a Gemini.
You're a sixth house Aquarian.
You nail yourself to your grand mutable cross
on a regular fucking basis.
You haven't been on meds since 2011.
You want to love your second ex-husband
but you cannot because of television
because of clouds
because of bad reception
and worse chili.
You love most people at least a little bit.
You try.
Bitch.
You try.
You take people out of your phone
and tell yourself,"Fuck them all. Fiji."
You have no friends.
You have a few friends.
You're another weirdo waiting for the 100 Primo
at the park and ride.
You enjoy your purple elephant vibrator.
You haven't been fucked to cigarette smoking satisfaction
since 2007.
Serenade yourself with this song.
Imagine yourself the kind of woman
who inspires such rapture.
There's this.
There's this.
Fuck me bowlegged. THIS.
And this.
And this.
I'm assuming when you were twelve years old
you danced around the garage
your stepdad turned into your bedroom
in Monahans, Texas
watching yourself in the mirrored closet doors
(you were wearing a striped bathing suit)
(you had braces and skinny legs)
to Chicago and Van Halen
and when you were done
you would walk into
the kitchen dripping sweat
and gulp cold water
from a Tupperware tumbler.
You told yourself you were a goddess of some kind
and someday some man would love you
as deep
and hard
and true
as John loved Yoko.
Poor you.
You cried over the original Rapunzel.
The Brothers Grimm.
Not Disney Pixar.
Someday some man would love you enough
to brave the troubled climb.
You wanted to die.
You want to die daily.
The only way to stay alive in San Antonio
is to keep one person in your phone.
If someone new calls
it will be quite
the surprise.
Don't send letters.
Don't lipstick another SOS.
Stamps are a luxury.
Save your dimes for ramen and acrylic paint.
Paint your way out of hell.
Stay in hell with sheets on the window.
When you see a blue orb on the ceiling
it will be a friendly ghost.
Good news.
You'll be a ghost someday, too.
And you can wave at John Berryman and Henry
and if they see you
at last
you'll know
you have become
a real
live girl.

Trouble at The Texas T

He only had money enough for four beers. Two draft beers each. She didn't ask for money for the jukebox so she had to suffer through "Hotel California" two times in a fucking row and all the weak ass top forty rap bullshit the vatos in backward baseball caps were throwing up fake ass gang signs to.

"Everyone's a fucking piece of shit poser," she said. He didn't hear her. He was watching the Drama Queen Latina at the next table. She was skinny with skinny black eyebrows skinny tattooed arms skinny brown legs high heels fake tits in a tight black dress. All the men at the table were eating out of her hand. The white hayseed in the plaid shirt and jeans with the Roman gladiator haircut reminded her of Buck Owens from "Hee Haw."

"I had a crush on Roy Clark. I bet you money that son of a bitch was a Cancer. Round moon face. Congenial as hell. But man. I'd hate to get on his bad side," she said to the man. What was the man? The  man was a Latino Scorpio. He was an artist. He had Mars in Aquarius, Venus in Scorpio, Mercury in Libra, Leo rising. He kept his sad little boat stocked with Budweiser and saltine crackers. What was the woman? The woman was a cracker from the North Texas sticks. Aquarius. Venus in Aquarius. Mars in Capricorn. Mercury in Pisces. Virgo rising. She kept her sad little boat afloat with a purple elephant vibrator and a Gary Stewart record. Everyone knows at least one sad song by heart. We are all sad boats doing the best we can in a sea of shit while another goddamn Eagles song tells us what's true on the generic heartache side of the street. There's always a new kid in town at the Texas T pub in San Antonio, Texas. Everybody wants to touch somebody, even if it takes all night. Stevie Nicks is a Gemini. Many men have touched Stevie Nicks in the privacy of their own delusions. Stevie Nicks snorted a lot of coke back in the day but she never touched cigarettes so she's still smoking hot.

Roy Clark is actually an Aries. He's probably had a lot of pussy. Banjo picking moon face grinning motherfucker.

"Look at Howdy Doody. He ain't got no game. He's never had brown pussy in his life," the Scorpio said. He seemed resentful, jealous. The Aquarius thought,"Well, he wishes he was Howdy Doody, I guess. The hayseed with his white hand on the Drama Queen Latina's brown thigh. God I suck. I'm sitting here drinking draft beer with a man who will fuck me as long as I let him but will never love or cherish me because I'm just a goofy gringa who doesn't know pendejo from mojado."

The art show had been a success, though. The Scorpio sat beside the Aquarius at her table, spoke to the curious browsers, told her to take a picture of the pretty Latina model in the award winning dress. Then in the abandoned lot next door to the art gallery the Scorpio led the Aquarius aboard an old rusted cobwebbed retard bus. They made a porno with their clothes on. It was hot for amateur action shot with an Android.

The truth is, the Aquarius had lust in her heart for the Marlon Brando circa "A Streetcar Named Desire" lookalike Latino in the white shirt sitting on the other side of Drama Queen Latina. She was sandwiched at the table between Marlon Brando and Howdy Doody. It was Saturday night, you dig? Yeah, motherfucker. The moon was in Leo. Uranus? You know it, motherfucker...chili like Willie in Aries with our boy Roy Clark. Saturn? Bitch, you know that shit was and still is in Sagittarius with our boy Frank Sinatra.

No "Fly Me To The Moon" in the Texas T. No, the flavor there is pretty much .38 Special. Rock that bitch into the night but hold on loosely. If you hold too tightly you're gonna lose control!

He had to go to el bano. The Latino Scorpio. "You're gonna leave me in this midst?" Cracker Aquarius asked. She told him she was feeling nervous because the guy in the hoodie kept looking at her and reaching into his pockets.

"He ain't dangerous. That's the one you need to watch out for," Scorpio said, nodding to the vato in the Spurs jersey who waltzed through the door like he owned the goddamn place. Aquarius shivered. Scorpio walked away.

A lot of shit transpired. It all became a Tecate flavored blur. A lonely schizophrenic started talking sex at the Drama Queen and she bobbed her head around and snapped her fingers like she was telling mentally ill motherfucker what needed to be told. Marlon Brando was a lion advancing on the schizophrenic sleazebag, protecting his lioness, his pussy, his queen. Howdy Doody was dancing dirty all up in a heifer's business at the bar. She was a heifer of the Latina with badly bleached blonde hair badly drawn on lipliner variety. Oh yeah. He'd be pumping that pussy in thirty minutes or less at the La Quinta down the street. New characters arrived like cuckoo clockwork. The haggard woman and the young peppy man who looked young enough to be her son, grabbing her left tit and giving her a lap dance beneath the neon Coors sign. The baby faced Latina crying into her sleeve because her man seemed to be feeling another chick's chocolate flavor. A new blonde Latina but this one was skinny and she seemed fine fifteen minutes ago but now she's all shitfaced, dawg, and the old Latina barmaid in the black cowboy hat tells her to get the hell out of the bar so she runs out into the street and almost gets hit by a truck and a Mickey Dolenz lookalike rescues her and she throws her skinny arms around his neck and it's all good in the hood and the beer keeps flowing and the moon keeps knowing and this can't end well but somehow it does.

DONKEY LADY BRIDGE

Thanks, Rusty Barnes, for publishing this piece.

I encourage y'all to submit to Rusty's damn fine journal.

Oh yes. I've been called White Trash but I prefer Basura Blanca.

I know I look white but I'm actually a Mexican.
I'm an Aztec warrior.
I did NOT ask to be born in Texas in 1973.
Shit is all fucked up.
But sometimes I eat at Dairy Queen.
You know what I love?
Chicken strips and Texas toast with white cream gravy.

When I was a little girl I spent quite a lot of time in my
great-grandmother's brown trailer house
on what was once Cuba Road
in Bridgeport, Texas.
She would smoke cigarettes, drink Coors
in the 1970s then Coca-Cola in the 1980s
and tell me about going from house to house
with a cardboard suitcase in her hands
asking strangers if she could live with them
when she was a little girl in the 1920s.
The television was always on.
You know it, motherfucker.
The Price is Right.
People's Court.
Love Connection.
All My Children.
The reading material: The National Enquirer.
And books like this and this.

Mamaw Crenshaw didn't like me much.
She thought I lacked fire.
Proof that astrology is fucking real.
She was a Sagittarius (fire)
and I'm an Aquarius with Virgo rising
and a Virgo moon.
Fire is the element most lacking
in my natal chart.

But in the progressed chart I've got an Aries sun and Aries Venus.
I've gone to Mexico three times in the past year.
Maybe she would be proud.
Takes cojones to brave the border in 2016
with only a toddler's grasp of Spanish
and twenty measly American dollars.
Also. I'm still trying to learn
how to fry chicken.
And I drink my coffee black
the way Jesus
intended.

NAILED

If you had nailed my feet
to your linoleum
I'd be dripping blood
and lantana petals
all over those immaculate squares
while outside the birds
and the barrio
and you working
the grill
then filling me
the Water Bearer
with your goat god
cum.

Collaborative Collage With First Husband


Friday, March 4, 2016

LET'S ARGUE ART

I don't have time for this bullshit. I've got to haul ass to intro to mathematics. In two months I may or may not graduate from UTSA. I may or may not get a job in a dog food factory. Who can say? Who knows? The Shadow knows and he ain't talkin'.

Art. Not art. That ain't art. That's a selfie with moody lighting. That ain't art. That's a couple of nipples. That ain't art. That's a roll of toilet paper. THIS IS ART right here, this ironic painting of Darth Vader fucking Chewbaca with an Astro Pop. Remember those? I sucked so hard on an Astro Pop when I was eight years old that I pulled a filling from my tooth!

Look at THIS shit. This ain't shit. THIS IS ART. This painting of a glowing cottage. See the curl of smoke? That shit takes SKILL. NO. This is art. It makes you laugh. This painting of Michael Bolton naked, staring at the camera with aching need in his soulful eyes. His limp dick makes it art. If his dick were erect that would be something else.

No. Fuck you. THIS IS ART. This is my menstrual blood (got rid of my uterus in 2011) smeared all over a can of creamed corn. Dig? If you do not dig it is not art. If you puke then it's definitely art.

YOU'RE IMAGINING THINGS


TOILET PAPER: A PORTRAIT


They love me in Germany.

German visitors top the Chupacabra Disco stats. Danke schon. I will never visit Germany. It doesn't top my list. A friend asked me if I could go anywhere in the world where would I go. I said,"Paris. Wait. Can I change my mind? Mexico City." But now I'm thinking of Lima, Peru. I bought a bag of ginger roots last night. On the back I saw MADE IN PERU. I sighed.

Portugal comes in a close second. I considered moving to Lisbon in 2012. I moved to San Francisco instead. I love the idea of Portugal. I love the idea of Spain. I love the idea of Norway. I love the idea of Finland. And I'm all about Mexico. And Peru.

I do not love the idea of Germany. I do not love the idea of Italy.

Lo siento, babies.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

HULK DIG CANDY


HASHTAG SUCKERS


CREAMED CORN

Donald Trump was eating creamed corn out of Melania Trump's asshole. A Barry Manilow song was playing. Candles were glowing. The usual bullshit. No one was going to interrupt the fuck fiesta. Donald Trump paid various peons to hold down the fort while he got his goddamn fuck on.

"Booboo...I'm not feeling anything," Melania said.
"I know, Petunia. I'm not feeling anything, either. It's this goddamn alien invasion. It's pretzeling my brain. Pummeling my penis cloud. Pestering my pussyscape. Pebbling my Edenic beach. Let's try some coke."
"I gave the rest to Rosie."

Rosie was one of the maids. She needed something special to take her mind off shit. She also needed a raise.

"I'm so sorry, Rosie. We can't give you a raise right now but here's some coke," Melania said.
"Coke? Looks like sugar," Rosie said.
"It's cocaine, Rosie. You snort it. It will make you tingle all over and make you feel like you can conquer what's left of the planet."
"Groovy."

"Here, babe. Put this on. Maybe this will help," Donald Trump said to Melania Trump. They were married. Donald Trump handed his wife, Melania Trump, a gorilla mask.
"How are my boobs? Are my boobs okay in this light?" Melania asked. The gorilla mask made Melania's voice sexier than Demi Moore's.
"Your boobs are perfect in this light. Here. Fuck me up the ass with this chrome dildo. Show me who's boss, babe. I mean really jam it in there for I have sinned and fallen way short of the glory of God."
"Are you sure? Want me to coat it in coconut oil first?"
"Fuck that shit. Give it to me. Now."

Later Donald Trump snored and Melanie Trump, his wife, sat in a tub of mud. She loved the way it oozed inside her.

SEEKING AGENT

Hi. I like to write. I like to spit at genre. I'm interested in making a billion dollars. If you can help me then I welcome your help."You're amazing" isn't much help. "You're probably tasty" is equally useless. Once an editor called me on the phone and I thought,"Fuck. I'll be on Oprah's couch within a year." Sadly, this didn't happen. I've been writing ever since. I'm writing right now. I've got five or six ideas. They can all be expounded and surrounded with Hello Kitty stickers. I do possess a King James bible. Several passages are underlined for emphasis. There are all kinds of notes in the margins. No, I don't have a computer. I drink green tea. I eat chicken noodle soup. The bitch next to me in the UTSA library is showing off with her loud fucking smelly ass bag of Chik Fil A. I fucking hate Chik Fil A. But I'm not a snob. Sometimes I love that chicken at Popeye's. I live in San Antonio where there is a Wal-Mart every three miles and a Bill Miller's every quarter of a mile. People like to eat in San Antonio. Yeah. They eat, drink, fuck, root for the home team, die of the usual bullshit around 55 or 60. Immortality ain't the goal for most. I was born in Bridgeport, Texas. People do the same shit in Bridgeport that they do in San Antonio but mostly they hang out in hair salons and gossip and get drunk in Dallas because that's the thing to do. I can't help it that I was born in Bridgeport, Texas to white parents. Last Sunday I was hanging out at El Mercado with a Latino artist. We're special friends. He told me he sees me as a Native American and a Mexican. That thrilled the shit outta me for obvious reasons. I don't have any Mexican blood but I have a Mexican mind. Is that politically incorrect? Is that cultural appropriation? Is that blatant aesthetic robbery? Is that self-loathing gringa snobbery? I drank so much cerveza on Sunday that I pissed in my black and hot pink lace thong. No worries. Left it hanging in a bathroom stall in the Asian buffet on Fredericksburg Road. I'm working on an oil painting of a couple of lollipops. I took two lollipops from a Chase bank. One was red. One was blue. I crisscrossed the suckers on the asphalt at University Park & Ride. I took a picture. I'm basing my oil painting on that photograph. The title of the piece is Free Lollipops. My imagination is unlike any other you have ever encountered. Hire me.

KIND OF LIKE ME BUT CRUNCHIER

The dream was of a textured cerulean, indigo, plum tornado. I was the only witness so even the animals thought I was crazy. There was slobber in the coleslaw. Everything was barbecue and football and misplaced integers. I was crazier than a heat deprived iguana but still even so you know it was only a dream induced by Benadryl and Froot Loops.

I awoke in a familiar space. This was my bed. That was my ceiling. I could still smell the corn on the cob. I could still feel the ice cubes. The blue pulsating orb smeared its glow across the ceiling and told me some worthless information. Was it Aileen Wuornos? Maybe. Yes. The ghost of Aileen Wuornos didn't have anything didactic to impart so I didn't listen. This is more news I cannot use. I have to make it to Donut Ghetto by noon.

On the bus the drunk man grinned at me like it was Halloween and he was handing out free apples with special surprises inside. I sent him a mental telepathy postcard. I DON'T EAT RAZOR BLADES, BITCH. But soon we were at Strip Mall #777 (because we're all totally lucky). Bingo Hall. Taco Town. Soccer Balls R Us. Pretty Nails For Not Much Money. Pesos For Plasma. Sexy Time Shop. Dick Sucked To Satisfaction in Hour Or Less. Candy City. Donut Ghetto. My stop.

Cougar and Sally were smoking weed and the donuts were fresh from the oven, eager for glaze. That's where I came in. I snorted a few lines of sour apple Kool-Aid then put on my apron.

"Your hair is so dangerous. I mean...damn," Sally said. She thought she was cute in her dinosaur pajamas. Cougar dug her but no one else did. I didn't tell Sally to go fuck a Coca-Cola bottle (Mexican Coca-Cola is my favorite) but I was thinking it pretty hard.

After work I walked to the ditch behind the tire shop. Plastic Wal-Mart bags decorated all the trees and the sky was pretty with toxins.

CULTURAL APPROPRIATION


PREDICTION

Trump will be elected Dictator. I will leave the sinking ship called America.

"This is AMERICA. If you don't like it, you can LEAVE."

The bumper stickers are scorching my eyeballs. You can HAVE America where it's all trash all the time. Strip malls. Celebrity worship. Cracker Barrel. Miley Cyrus. The Religious Always Right. The hatred saturated and the judgmental and the small-minded and the Pinterest approved minor royalty of suburbia.

Build a wall. Top it with barbed wire. Surround it with shark eyed soldiers programmed to destroy everyone and everything that doesn't belong. Dance your denial until you are dead.

Death smells the same regardless of where it happens regardless of who it happens to. Believe your beliefs buy your wreaths fall to your knees glorifying all that you deem holy.

I won't die among Trump worshipping Wal-Mart zombies, I can assure you that.