Consent

He couldn't write properly anymore. Not in this lifetime. Everything had become fragmented. Digitized like hid mind. There were no more commas. No more pauses only breaks.

She left him once and he never thought about her again. But she took him with her. The real part of him. What was left was this shell of robotic flesh. A mechanical consumer. Working. Buying. Fucking.

Sometimes he found willing partners. Other times he had to lie. Whatever the audience he could win their attention. Or he could visit the whores. They were like his sisters in away. Incest isn't so bad.

One muddy day he found a beautiful paragraph in a pulp novel he bought for a dollar at the thrift shop. It was a metaphor or something. A guy was pulling a woman out of a bar in the middle of the night. She was half-willing. The paragraph made them seem like animals. Soulless eyes and only basic desires. He was the predator and she was the parasite disguised as prey. He was going to end up severing his own limb to get rid of her like cancer. He liked it because it was honest. And because it only cost a rusty dollar. Never would he ever find such literary satisfaction in relation to cost.

So empty promises continued to fill the void in his head. Empty promises to himself. From the marketers but in his own voice. He agreed with them. So they won.

In a past life he was a giant. His name was in lights. Or was that the future? Didn't matter. He was.

They took his life away because he lived it too well. All the atoms were in the right place. They were doing too much stuff. This time they scrambled him. Maybe not on purpose but the x-rays or satellite waves scrambled him in utero. He remembers coming out and being blinded. He remembers being laughed at. He remembers being the butt of the joke. Photographed. Tagged. Given away to selfish animals.

She pretended to understand him. He made her understand. She had no choice because she liked his hands around her neck. So she had to listen to him. She had to love him. Her mind was digitized too. She also believed in empty promises. There was a place for that in both of them. But she was younger, prettier, in higher demand. A better liar came along. With bigger hands. Probably a better back story. He probably swore at her too. She liked that. If he hits me he loves me or at least I feel. Some shit like that. Probably.

When winter came along the Montreal streets became tombstones. The graveyard was the whole island. Every street had a corpse underneath it somewhere. The dates were right there on the front of the doors. The salt on the streets were the awkward tears of the plows and the taxis.

As cold as it got he felt like he was in the right place. He curled up against grates and felt the comfort of the bitter end blanketing him mercilessly. Violently. He didn't smile. He cried. Joy.

He chose to sleep out there. They found out he was pretty wealthy. A crook but decent means. No skeletons in the closet. A collection of vinyl. ‘Fucking hipster’ one guy said.

He wasn't. Except when he wanted to fuck a hipster. He had diseases too. He gave as good as he got. They all followed him around because he seemed to have the answers. And that was the answer. Seeming like he had the answers was the answer. That was the only answer he ever needed.
Now he rots underground. In a casket. Or burned up and in a vase. Or maybe he just left town. Maybe he’s still fucking his sisters somewhere. His hipster sisters. His whores. They liked it. He knew they did.

The only time he smiled is when they found out. And they smiled thru contagion, just for a second. That’s how he knew. Cause the yelling or the crying or the silent treatment that was their turn to perform for him. They got to bring the curtain down and it was cathartic for them. He loved it. He jerked off as soon as he could afterwards. Sometime during. That got them to dig even deeper. That got them playing to the back row. The cheap seats. His little actresses. Deserving of one last standing O.

Their daddies never knew. Sometimes they never told anyone. They would clam up for a few days and tell their imaginary diary. (Diaries are so fucking lame, right?).

Sometimes they even ignored what the doctors told them. They’d just play the same game with others. This time they got to be the winners though. This time they fueled the fire that burned down the opera house. Or the auditorium. Or the community theater. They could do 4 or 5 shows at the same time. Sisters and brothers. Holes in drywall. Screams. Angry texts and voice mail. Pathetic.
And he kept rotting.

But now he wasn't rotting alone. He wasn't fucking them though. Too bad. Nah he was bored of their stink anyways. What do you fuck when you’re bored of fucking?