Kyle Muntz - Voices

your soul.”

“You're one to talk,” I said. “You can't even speak straight.” (in straight lines)

He straightened.

“W

h

a

t

does that matter?”

“I never said it did.” I laughed and said:

“I don't apologize very often.” “You

aren't

doing a very good job

right now.”

“Why not?”

“You made me d

a n

c

e

” he said. “You can NEVER

apologize

for that.”

I shrugged. “Well at least I tried,” I said. “And what can I say?

I thought you looked like a dancer.”

He wretched, picking

his nose.

“At least I think I understand you now,” I said.

“You're like an artist, just not a very good one.”

::::::::::::::::::::

I led, with James leading, (along) a concrete stream, glass fish swimming, electric animals eating (shitting repeating)(blood shit tufts of fur) in the groves at either side, looking at us as we led, out innocent, opalescent eyes. He skipped, fluting, and I played a game of catch with myself. The idea had something phallic about it, as long as it was still tied to language. Up above: flat clouds in a soft fading sky, around a nub of color in the center, dull pink folded to a pastel painted clitoris. Evening paved the city in dusk. Fire fell when the sun shut its eye.

"The city's sick," I said.

James, beside, walked with his head down.

"Yeah," he said, "I know."

"Seriously," I said, "we're so sick. Every day, it's all I can do to keep from

sacrificing babies. I hate these people so much they're going to make my eyes fall out. We're so sick.

Seriously."

"It's always been this way," James said.

"Of all people,

I would

probably know."

::::::::::::::::::::

Markus sat with me by the edge of the sea. We sat out. We were. We would drink the waves; we would split the horizon. That's not right. Really. For being rock, centuries broken into a million dirty fragments, baked, split open, mauled, cut into by rain and weather, beating incessant for a million years, in packs, in stretching planes, the sand was surprisingly gentle. I remembered.

"The sea's hungry," I said. "It wants to swallow us whole."

"No," Markus said, "it hungers for the shore."

"Same thing."

"It doesn't care about us."

"Whatever," I said. "The ocean doesn't do so well with barriers. It's breaking

through the water. These things

go both

<--

directions

---->

"

::::::::::::::::::::

"Jesus," he said. "Your neighbor. She's dead."

"It's fine," I said. "It's what she wanted."

Laying

there

bent over, white with maggots in her skin, uglier than in life almost; flabbing

slab and breasts together; her neck bent to an impossible angle by death, chin

coated in what might be drool: she had the breath of a corpse, still coming, as stagnancy swept through her, slowly, with the time she gave it; splayed hands on the couch; she had a thread of yarn in one hand, claws in either direction extended, and by the fire a trail of fire burned slowly up the length to what might have been a (blazing) sweater, mass produced, one and one, and imbued by her with a whole lifetime's worth of resentment, not to mention deceptively poor insulation. In time,

the flame would get to her. She was a burner of witches.

"Lets get out of here," I said. "I have no idea why we came."

::::::::::::::::::::

"I don't know if you'll believe me,"

I said

"but there

are 2

(two)

of me

…and

she wasn't there

alone.

"

I walked with James. Maybe that was just because I didn't care where we were going. These days I have trouble keeping aware of time. There were so many people here and so many of them were exactly the same. No surprises. We fed our inner animal things the bacteria hadn't gotten to yet- very little. Disorientation, a sense of spreading, gives off ripples of motion.

"I'm hungry," I said.

"Do you have any money."

I said I didn't.

"Then shut up."

We kept walking. He turned into an alley. I knew this place. The sights, sounds,

smells, were little pieces of sickness. It didn't smell right. Puddles of oil, black as month old shit, infested; trash, old papers, cups with nothing in them, missing a side. It was foul here, as death. James brought me here too often. He was turning into an arbiter of destruction.

I stopped him with one hand.

"We can't go back here," I said. "You know that."

"Are you afraid?"

"You owe me."

"He's your fault."

"I wont, you know. Never."

"I know."

"I've gone back too many times already," I said. "I've gone back there before." "I know."

I turned around. James played dangerous games. This would never be a good

place to write poetry.

:::::::::::::::::::: I knocked on the door. Fly patches flew, zapping in the lantern. Late nights take life and defeat it. He opened fat and bald, ugliness, drenched in ugliness, grease all over his upper lip, long twining hairs beneath his shirt. He chewed rudely. Somewhere within, I felt mildly offended. He smelled like grated cheese.

"Hello," I said.

"Who are you?" He chewed.

"I just wanted you to know," I said, "I'm the guy who broke your mailbox. And I

like to write big, colorful poems. The offensive kind. That no one understands." He looked at me blankly. He chewed. Any second he was sure to give me fury. "You're that kid that came by with the video camera."

"I am."

"I let you meet my daughter."

"I have."

Gunk bespectacled him. Thick bushels of hair sprouted dualistic, one from each

nostril. Fat must be slapping to deafness.

Just a minute ago, I'd broken his new mailbox.

Quakes of anger rumbled in him. He glared.

"Why did you come back?" he demanded.

"Because last time," I said, "you didn't understand."

::::::::::::::::::::

The alley smelled strange. No wind blew here, where it smelled like shit, where the spiders were. By the wall: a carcass leering. On some level I felt overwhelmingly evil, if I could call myself things. I longed to see the sky, not so much for peace, but a reminder of longing. Humidity is an obstacle to passing. This was not a pleasant place to possess a nose.

"Jacob?" I wondered, mocking myself.

But he was there.

Overrun,

grotesque, a nest of spiders. They crawled through tunnels in his ears, fucking

with eight legs the depths of his intestines. Arachnid colonies swarmed in him,

licking crusted remnants of blood, nibbling at veins. They'd chewed away his eyes,

along the stems leading back (narcoleptic), not the mention the spongy mass of his

brain. He had no kidneys, no lung and liver. He shat a steady stream of spiders, legs

coalescing at a symmetry point, slowly through the very pores in his skin, still

gleaming whatever epidermic remnants, liquid leavings to sick weaving muscle. At the very center, in his chest, a wicked, hairy beast with sixteen legs and fifty eyes worked appendages all throughout him, poking at soft things. It fed off cycles of

venom, recycling.

"Jacob?" sat by the dumpster, against it; sack and skin, slimed to the metal.

Unseeing, he stared. His sockets were pits of spiders. They'd eaten away his clothes,

shot venom in his soul. Working diligently, they laced him in webbing, tying down

limbs. Most probably, he ached: of vultures and sin.

He moaned.

You,

did

this to me.

If I could think of him as making a sound. With one arm barely raising, he pulled