rants n raves

by tom miller

 

 

i hate you. let's make that clear. i hate you like everyone, so don't think you're special. i hate my friends, my life, my writing, and the bible. in fact, there's a great quote in the bible by god. here it is:

 

"i hate you."

god

 

i love that quote.

 

 

*****

 

now let's get something straight right off the bat. this ain't your mamma's writing class. this ain't no piece of legendary prose. this ain't no butterfly poem. this is life as i see it for my own amusement. if you like it, good for you. go out and buy a pretty bow and tie it in your hair. if you hate it, all the better. you can skip the bow and go fuck yourself. i won't be editing this for mistakes in content, form, or grammar. i just don't have the time. i won't be changing any names or places. some of you might be in trouble. and most importantly, i won't be doing anything original. it's all been done before by better and more interesting. so now that it's said and done, here's to it. drink up the last of your cheap wine and smoke your rags of pot or your discount cigarettes. this ride has no safety bar.

 

*****

 

11/01/98 - Time Unknown

 

where are your friends when you need them? it's funny how they scatter like roaches in the light when you come in the kitchen. they've eaten your scraps and dirtied your house, but there's no accountability. just noises in the walls. take jim valvis for example. i haven't heard from him in months, except for a few e-mails with about three words: "write you soon."

 

yeah, well i'm waiting. i got to tell you, jim. if you don't write your friend, i'm going to stop praising you as my personal literary hero. i'll stop rereading your poems. i'll tell the world you're a hypochondriac.

 

you sure know how to make a hardass monkeyman feel alone.

 

*****

 

have to say a few words about john glenn in space. i guess it's good to have a hero. i guess it's good for the american way of life. i have to admit i breathed a sigh of relief when his shuttle didn't blow up like the challenger, but i half expected it to. seems like every disaster is set to go just at the cusp of reaching our highest ideals, before the bullet or the bomb or the drug overdose or the ax in the forehead or the heart attack or the rope around the neck.

 

isn't that right, elvis. isn't that right kennedy. isn't that right-- the other kennedy. isn't that right, diana. isn't that right, warhol. isn't that right, bukowski. isn't that right, river. isn't that right, martin luther. isn't that right, bob crane. isn't that right, kurt cobain. isn't that right, whatever that guy's name was from million vanilla; or whatever the fuck that band was called. isn't that right?

 

john, you better take a good hard look at the blue earth on your way back down.

 

*****

 

i have a crush on everyone. i keep looking at them, never talking to them except in small doses. they have boundless energy. dancing, smiling, such ambition.

 

i'm drinking my face away. the lines are setting in. it takes some careful lighting and a good bit of work with the hair to make myself look half as attractive as i wish i were. these guys don't want me, not as a lover. not as a friend. hardly as an acquaintance.

 

it's the smoking, too. that's gotta take years off. so they say. i don't suppose i smoke enough to earn an iron lung at sixty. i doubt i'll even get an oxygen canister. but it's all there in the face. that big eyed, fair skinned, puck nose, walrus tusk-teeth-looking face.

 

i keep telling myself that maybe i should work out. spend some time in the gym moving metal back and forth and gazing at myself in the mirror. i don't know about you, but i guess i don't like laying in other people's sweat. i'm just funny that way.

 

okay, tom. why not do some pushups at home. maybe jog around the block. get another job so you can afford some good dental work and surgery. well, i would do all those things, except that they might interfere with the drinking and the smoking. i might not think as highly of my chemicals and self abuse. then where would my writing be? that's right. i'd be writing butterfly poetry instead of this, and you would drop off the page like george burns in the shower.

 

o god. i lament so. i pity myself so. i am such a forlorn and wretched soul. la la ladee da. ho hum. woe is me.

 

yeah, and if you believe that, i've got some swamp gas on venus to sell you.

 

i'm happy being angry. i'm happy spitting bile and sucking in the smoke and drink. writing my twisted little stories and poems, and then reading them to people. i love that. i like to watch their faces crack a smile. or the other half take offense and walk out; i like that too.

 

and i love those young men, so handsome and playful and unattainable. and girls so smooth and alluring and mysterious and fucked up and maniacal. i have a crush on them all. i admit it.

 

but since they won't have me and i won't have them, i'll take them to bed in my mind. cock in hand, they'll all be mine. anytime i want.

 

and maybe, just maybe...
i'll put them in this drivel and share them with the world.

 

come one and all. come and fuck my lovers!

 

(tune in next week for the continuing adventures of tom miller and his world of the forgotten.)

 

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