Mirtazapine

The other night, I saw a pineapple crawling up the walls

Slicing the eyes and testicles of a treasure troll

Dangling a sausage in front of my snout

And pouring hot grease all over my childhood blanket.

I saw a drill sergeant barking orders at a lobster trapped in the body of a duck.

I drank mouthwash while tied to the mast of a sinking relationship.

I made deathwishes at the bottom of a well with pillbugs crawling out of a stripper’s eyes.

I popped my canker sores and their juices tickled the foreskins of white nationalists standing in line to vote for Kyle Rittenhouse for president in 2052.

I also ate a puppy. At least I thought it was a puppy. It could have been the umbilical cord tethering me to the ten pound tick on my taint, but it had fur. So I’m going with puppy.

Did you know that Satan can read your fortune by watching the movements of your throat?

Were you aware that you are just one thought away from becoming a goose?

The universe is an abacus constructed from the wood and nails of Jesus’ cross. The beads are his teeth.

The portal beneath my toilet leads to an alternate reality where they sutured his scrotum to his forehead instead of crucifying him.

My mom was the one who told me that.

Just kidding! It was the ghost of Mr. Rogers

That was during that one party where the cast of Golden Girls put fentanyl in his drink.

Now that Betty White is back in the fold, Mr. Rogers should sleep with one eye open. If ghosts even have eyes…or if they even sleep.

Aberrations Part II

Aberrations, the means to vocalize your pain

Sitting in a chair in a waiting room

The lights bleed cold smells into the fabric of your clothes

Your soul is soaked with frustration

You yearn for a spoon to pierce the clouds

And slip medicine between your lips

To trigger the gag reflex of a woman who has never known touch

A woman who kills thoughts before they hatch

And copulate in the dusty dark between the couch cushions.

A ghost trapped in buzzing fluorescent lights sings to you

Particles of calm float in on convection currents and preach the gospel of oxygen

Your voice is powerful, but it can’t negate the tension of tapping feet

It trips the microphones nested in the walls like strings of code

The walls record you without your consent

The walls know what they’re doing is unethical

The walls don’t care.

Meaning

No one knows

How long I’ve been laying here

With the crows

Staring

At the hole between my eighth and ninth vertebrae

A crack in the vessel

God had built

To contain Meaning.

The Outside is now flooded with it.

It circles the event horizon

Of each obsidian eye

Ten thousand times

Before it realizes

The last keyholder died in the Fire.

His charred skull grins eternally

As if saying “you are nothing.”

A Symphony for the Void

The cavity in your head

Has been laced with sky

A glass shatters beneath the full moon

Vibrating strings in your brain

A symphony for the void

Tumbling down a staircase

Into to the ocean

Where thoughts turn to salt

20 Questions With Brett Petersen Volume 1: Charlene Elsby

This is the first edition of a new blog series in which I interview writers and ask them no more or less than twenty questions. Some of the questions are about their books and careers, but others…well, you’ll just have to read the interview and lose yourself in the insanity.

My first guest, Charlene Elsby, is a philosophy doctor and former professor working for the Canadian Government. She is the author of Hexis, Affect, and Psychros (forthcoming from CLASH Books.) Follow her on Twitter at @ElsbyCharlene

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Brett Petersen:

Ok, so first question: What is Hexis? Can you explain the concept a little bit for those who might not know?

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Charlene Elsby:

Hexis is my novel in which the narrator kills the same man ten times, once per chapter, in different spaces and in different times, and by different methods. It’s recursive, obsessive violence–credit to Lindsay Lerman for using those words.

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BP:

That’s good info, but what I meant was, what does the term “Hexis” mean? (This is still part of the first question.)

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CE:

Aha, I gotcha. “Hexis” is an ancient Greek term that Aristotle used to describe a state, disposition or habit. “Habit” is the best translation. It’s what you acquire by performing an action repeatedly. It comes up in the context of ethics, because Aristotle’s idea is that you can develop a virtuous character by performing virtuous actions repeatedly. But he recognizes it’s also possible to form a bad character by doing the wrong things. That’s where my girl is at.

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BP:

Would you consider murder, violence and serial killers to be “punk rock?” Or is that taking the concept of punk too far?

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CE:

This reminds me of Autumn Christian’s newsletter today on edgelords. The thing about being punk rock and edge lords is that if you go too far out of the establishment, you’re no longer definable in its terms. Transgression is only transgressive within the system that defines the spectrum. I might argue like Autumn did that actual murderers are just outside the system. But I have trouble maintaining that premise along with the recognition that actually, violence happens a lot, people die all the time, and it’s weird to me that we all walk around pretending that they don’t.

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BP:

What’s the craziest live concert you’ve ever attended? Any stories?

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CE:

I wish live concerts were crazy, but I can’t recall any I’ve attended that have ever gotten out of hand. There are always safeguards in place. Like in high school I was dating a singer, and his band got kicked off stage once for speaking to aggressively to the audience. Live music is pretty tame. [The] best concert [I’ve attended] was Neko Case and Nick Cave the year after 9/11.

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BP:

If you were at a live concert and the singer took a dump onstage, what would you do?

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CE:

I would just go; I roll my eyes at those sorts of shenanigans. I wouldn’t buy the merch.

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BP:

Fair enough. If a butterfly the size of a 747 aircraft landed in your driveway, what would you do?

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CE:

My first thought is to see if I can pet it. They say you’re not supposed to pet the butterflies because they’re covered in some sort of powder that helps them or the environment live, or something, but I think if one were that big, it could afford to have some of its powder jostled. I hope it’s really colourful.

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BP:

Is there some sort of sci-fi time loop shenanigans going on in Hexis? Because that’s sort of how I read it.

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CE:

If you want it there, then yes. When I wrote it, I didn’t have any particular theory in mind to explain the time disruptions. It’s just that my grasp on linear time is so tenuous that the timeline of Hexis seems plausible. Revisiting trauma is a sort of involuntary time travel.

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BP:

If you could go back in time to any era and fix something in history, what time period would you travel to and what would you fix?

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CE:

There’s a lot of theory behind this question and it assumes mechanical determinism, which I don’t endorse. My concept of time is more fatalistic; I could go back and change something, but then everything would still work out the same. Sometimes it just feels like the universe is pushing you into something that’s inevitable. That is to say, I’m not sure my time travel would have any effect on the future (present). A lot of my present actions are also ineffectual.

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BP:

If you had the option to become a goose, would you? If so, what would you do in your new goose body?

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CE:

This is an argument I used to have with my husband. He would maintain that humanity has an infinite potential to become whatever it wants, and I would argue that I will never be a goose. If I did have the option, I would want it to be temporary. I’m so used to being a human. If it weren’t temporary, I’d skip it.

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BP:

If spiders produced milk and all other milk-producing species went extinct, would you drink spider milk?

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CE:

Are almonds extinct? Because I’d drink their milk over spider milk any day.

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BP:

No, but this segues perfectly into my next question: would your world be turned upside-down if you discovered that almonds had mammary glands?

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CE:

Maybe, although with the philosophy I’m into, it’s assumed that the standard divisions between plant-animal-human aren’t as clean as people would like them to be. The question about almond mammary glands is, where would they put them, and would they ruin the texture of the almond as a whole? I’d get used to it pretty quickly.

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BP:

Why do you think it is that humans are so fussy regarding what animals should and shouldn’t be milked? (Including humans.) Why not just bottle and sell all forms of milk? #allmilkmatters

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CE:

This is nothing but habit. It was probably started just because someone at some point was thinking “milk” and looked for whatever animal was nearby. I assume the process was refined through economics, trying to get the most milk with the least effort. There’s no inherent reason you can’t milk all the animals.

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BP:

What is the most exotic form of milk you’d be willing to try?

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CE:

I would try lots of milks. I can’t predict what kinds of milk I’ll be offered in this life. Let’s go with shark. Aw fuck, they don’t even make milk. Maybe they will.

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BP:

Evolution baby! Have you ever encountered a human child with more than the average amount of teeth in their mouth. If you did, what would be your reaction?

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CE:

I was a human child with more than the average amount of teeth in my mouth. They knocked me out when I was six and pulled four of them. I still have extra teeth (I had two sets of wisdom teeth.) My reaction was to pass out and let the dentist do his work. But to get to the heart of the question, I think it’s creepy as fuck that we as humans have evolved to be severely creeped out by things that resemble humans but aren’t quite. What did that to us?

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BP:

Speaking of the uncanny valley effect, what if one morning, you woke up and your husband’s face resembled an anime character but with realistic flesh and features? Would you still try to love him or would it be time to get a divorce?

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CE:

I’d have to feel out the situation. People grow into their faces. Is he going to change? Probably. Will it prove to be a good change or a bad change? I at least have to give anime Rob a chance.

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BP:

What if he started speaking Japanese and doing ultimate attack poses?

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CE:

That would certainly reduce our common ground. My attack poses are sweet, but I can’t speak Japanese for fuck.

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BP:

What are some of your attack poses?

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CE:

“Robot giant” is when you put your arms in the air, lock your elbows, and do a sort of Frankenstein walk. Sometimes I just like to move as smoothly as possible. Mostly I just dance and sing songs about cats.

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BP:

If Biblically accurate angels were attacking the Earth and the only way to stop them was to pilot a giant robot made from the flesh of your deceased mother (with her soul trapped inside,) would you get in the robot?

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CE:

Of course. I’m not a monster.

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BP:

Which of your cats is your best boy/girl?

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CE:

Scully is a very underappreciated cat, and it’s because she’s not as friendly or entertaining as some others, but she’s the smallest and sweetest.

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BP:

If you were permanently transformed into a cat, would you accept your fate or try to find a way to reverse it?

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CE:

I’d be pretty upset. I’d first try to find a way to reverse it. But I would apparently fail if it’s permanent. So I’d have to accept my fate eventually. I hope I have a good situation.

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BP:

I’m excited to read your upcoming book Psychros. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about it?

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CE:

I’m excited about that one too. It’s like a Hexis that I wrote on purpose. The narrator’s boyfriend kills himself and she gets stuck in this expectation that she should be grieving but isn’t really. I don’t know if you’ve ever dated a suicidal person, but it’s not fun. By the time he dies, she’s pretty fucked off, and when he’s gone, she runs about town fucking everyone and getting more violent. There’s a lot about death and the intersection of grief and rage, but also just bloody horror and despair.

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BP:

Sounds like a bloody good time. Well, thank you for doing this, I really appreciate you taking the time.

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CE:

Thanks for having me!

I Fear My Tomb Will Be Too Shallow

Unlike you, I fear my tomb will be too shallow.

When I die, lay me to rest in the center of the Earth.

Let the mantle cook my marrow

As my soul sinks into the core

Where I will sleep for a thousand years

And generate a new body.

Then I will burst through the crust

Spew my brood into the atmosphere

And annihilate the world with fire

And tendrils dripping with black death.

I want to carbonize the bodies

Of those who thought me incapable

Of doing anything worthwhile

With the life I had been given.

I will become the evil

They always assumed I was.

Their tears, their blood, their charred remains

Will be the sacrament I imbibe

In the name of One greater than I

To whom the souls of Earth are food

One whose appetite will never be fulfilled.

I will join him on his hunt among the stars

For worlds of life on which to feed.

I will not stop at just the place where I was born

My wrath, like His, is insatiable: all living things must die.

And when the universe is cleansed of all its life

My Master will absorb me into Himself

And I will see the true colors of space and time.

Vast flowers of death will germinate inside my mind

And I will be given dominion over the Black Force

That resides in the fourth dimension.

454 Words Written Without Caffeine

Babies eating breakfast silver spoon pissing match gone terribly wrong dimed and quartered on a Saturday eating chicken pot pie breathing salutations in taco time with sedition the right way down the slide whistle to the Mario Kingdom intestines down the drain life five years too soon in a plastic tape head cult graft pissing up the gambit ceiling fur baby tampon tirade eating mushrooms downloading Kris Kringle pesticide morning terrible in its affliction made for TV movie rat poison gone down too slow indignation fortitude the rail bleeds and I squeeze the lozenge for all the pretty bunnies down west 53^rd making whoopee in sane drag fishnet stocking honed working regular in sick fistula brain messaging coke bottle dawn sausage making breakfast a thing again for the rest of the lives scream dead nail stake the Kit-Kat bar mitzvah silencer on my pistol down to fuck in a hotel bar kitchen creaming bloody dick shit daft duck tape tip toe tacked evidence of spider rape gone sticker hunting lungs burst black swords dilate tick nugget raising bar fast and backgammon torque the undertow down night framed sorting hat lost among night cramps dangling forsook and bled under wrap contain mutate and suck the crisps porta-john tail wagging Strickland propane stuck waiting at the bus stop for Duck Woman to bite the tip of the needle sitting placid fortress grateful in its time wasting capable of none the rich cortisone horticulture zombie corn face fucking draft dodger waiting in the wings to clap hands stick bum will tickle Zen garden fake out naked in side weaning bottle feed nesting materials dope monkey off his zone phoning green manicure fast to the galleria normally reserved for blanket statements molesting my bare brain dry and non lethal factors ameliorated from free flow like caffeine soldier marshmallows swallowed forever stomach pain in puppet sailor crapshoot down cuff ting the time for sand to crate the diligent barrel of nostrum in tangible ideation zamboni cliff diversity test failed in a bucket of social justice mac & cheese bites chewing heart attack for safety insert scissors and call mom for a good time wait until the breadcrumbs fall from the sandwich of doubt and eat a pangolin for your breakfast will no longer tolerate lateness or any kind of marked fascist container fortunately I have my brain and it will not rain anymore in mating season toe facilities of trampoline dignitaries forcefully mating trash with pillow mice knowing only that their brains have been toothpaste in former lives unknown metropolis lost to oceans once ignited by computer sex crazed on her honeymoon in dreams naked sorrow a crate of wombats last offered to Josef Stalin’s testicle mustache gone forever.

My Words Burned a Hole in the Evening

I failed again.

Mistakes can’t unmake themselves.

My mistakes have undone the time I spent making them.

I failed to find a reason not to say the things I said.

I spoke, and my words burned a hole in the evening.

I can’t take them back in time to go to sleep.

Sleep won’t crawl up my optic nerves

Until the sun pokes over the horizon like a curious finger.

The wound in the sky through which the sun’s light shines

Is bigger and more painful than that which I inflicted on myself

An opinion better left smoldering at the bottom of an ashtray.

My voice was led astray by scabs on God’s heart.

Politics are a piece of meat left out in the sun

My body was a puppet for Demiurges.

I should have saved my voice

For singing to the child in my peripheral vision

Fathered by a drop of dew in someone else’s eye

A joyful tear stolen and saved for later.

Windex Manuscripts Outsourced to Countries Only Lice and Lizards Can Take Into Themselves

Calamine lotion bomb the shores of eagle eye lane down the killer monument for science is a harsh companion in the damned story of swords and time streams mutilated by thoughts echoing peaceful meadow sanguine opening down cross town bomb oblate make Christian the sanctity of sin in piss water fountains of pachyderm makeshift torque the sun in a box making love to a calendar fortunate enough not to need sedition it its steadfast blame the king and rape hate makings fast for Friday’s kiss in queen stucco boardroom malfunction down icing on cake rapture headache spoon fed the Gilligan taco sled mating call fast and blasting sedan complicate mass hwarfing dime licked and special spread gallons of temperate water coined scruff like pussy smell inhale the kicking sound of casket feet damned in a pencil box for the crate of old mushrooms galvanized by cream and magazines of rifle butts stormed beaches in 49 waffle house camp shock value opening rice cracker fortress evil smile in stillborn clitoris west wing glamour shot gone fishing in a pacemaker egalitarian in its suicide complaining only of a cufflink to solder his day to the edifice of tampered cranial spools gloom diced and castigated drawn in like breath molded cake said the thrall of the gimped morning wood heart massage chair backwards through the memories of a gored ox in his place nailed to a board of frost laden king fish tamed by sickness and monkey wrought upon taken standing rock sworn to protect the sun’s claim stuck in a tadpole eye cremated hardship crossed the line indifferent to the suffering of the green marble lodged in the eye of the fallacy straw men dancing on a tongue depressor diving into the past forsaken by algorithms lost to the streams of cancelled TV shows never wondering too far into the crass scheme bored to death sucking juice from a fruit cup down on Edelman street where eating focuses its crapshoot down west Cambridge the knowledge of cross bearers worn shawls wrongly bloody and bone dry facets of tickled pink in Sunday dress gowned oblivious to the torture of angels accused Earthbound dream sorcerers making the best of a sticky situation known facets of planned obsolescence made hard by porno cylinders ceiling wise and smelling of Windex manuscripts outsourced to countries only lice and lizards can take into themselves and breathe faceless tombs on crisp autumn leaves blowing lines of coke off the mirror for party city’s girl magnet watching her undress in a closet door blown open stitches ripped out and penis surgery delayed by the amount of time it takes for Santa Claus to rapture his foreskin into Satan’s coffers and dissect the dinette set offered wine and cheese binary stars couldn’t taken for granted now in fathoms divided interest set up to fail.

Coronavirus Christmas

Coronavirus Christmas.

Damned if you so much as move a muscle.

Glued to your chair

You watch movies and play the games

You bought yourself to compensate

For Christmas joy lost years ago.

Now, it feels as if the last bit of good feeling

Clinging to a vestige of a burning ember

Has finally been snuffed out.

The fireplace is a cold abyss

Where nothing special exists

And all is gray, routine, static:

A wall of televisions advertizing

Products you won’t acknowledge you need.

Santa’s corpse animated by spiders

Plants wants in your head

None of which correspond to what’s really important.

You spend Christmas with a sore tailbone

Sitting for hours in the chair you managed to salvage

From the bedbug infestation of 2019.

There’s a Christmas tree in your apartment.

It’s been set up since last holiday

And hasn’t been turned on in all that time.

Your ex gave it to you.

You broke up with her in August

Because she stopped having sex with you.

Sometimes you miss her, but then you remind yourself

That she supports fascism like a good country girl.

The book she gave you still sits wrapped in plastic on your shelf

The stuffed monkey and the silver heart with the key

Are both somewhere, but you don’t pay them much mind.

Was she anything more to you than a cuddle toy?

You ponder this sometimes as you lie awake at night.

Christmas reminds you of the people in your life:

Some of them gone and some still here.

The ones who will join you for a night on the town

After one simple phone call are the ones you should keep.

But what remains of the town

Now that Coronavirus has blown everyone’s hopes to pieces?

Restaurants here and there feel like lifelines tossed

But Starbucks still refuses to bring back indoor dining

And that, for you, is the ultimate boon.

Your livelihood depended on working in public

Without that you’re nothing but a typical welfare case

Squandering your check on indulgent things

While giving nothing back and proving your aunt right.

“Your writing career is nothing but a personal interest

And no one will take you seriously until you get a real job.”

You could work from home, but it conflicts with your conditioning

Working at school and coming home to play was always the way you lived your life.

Now almost thirty-three, old habits are ingrained; much harder to kill than roaches and weeds

And that was okay before Coronavirus hit and your story collection sank like a boulder.

Then you tried to write a novel, and that failed too, but now you’re no longer on your own.

You’ve got friends in high places in the publishing world

Who can help you succeed in this rigged fucking game.

Coronavirus may have delayed some things, but it won’t be long before the tables turn

And you’ll be writing a new novel each and every year

With an agent and a sizeable publishing deal.

One day Coronavirus will die

And on that day you will sing and dance in the joyful light of the sun

Beaming down on a world cleansed of sickness.

Where conventions and rock concerts will happen once again.

This reality will be here before you know it

This reality exists right around the bend.

According to the mystics, it is here already,

But your mortal mind hasn’t realized it yet.

The promised existence where Coronavirus is dead

The holy time when we serve Coronavirus its own head

On a platter and dine at restaurants without masks

Walk the streets without masks

Go to the mall and sports stadiums and music venues without masks

And hug one another as freely as water flows and fills our cups

And be free to stand as close to one another as we want with no masks to fog up our glasses

And rejoice in a summer without death and distance

A summer with libraries open again

Where you can work on your novel from noon to nine

And reap the satisfaction that is rightfully yours

Which was taken from you and is soon to be restored

Praise be unto the day you leave your cave of boredom

Holy will be the time you can finally resume your pursuit of stardom

That time is not now, but it will be here soon

When it arrives, you will fall down and worship it like a child born of a virgin womb

You will kiss its head and stroke its cheek

You will admire the meekness of the sounds it makes

The television news broadcasting the end of Coronavirus

The television news saying masks are no longer a requirement

You’ll rip off your damned mask and throw it in a fire pit

And watch the flames consume the paranoia

And the smoke spiral into the starry sky.