This Door was locked by David Berkowitz
The pig tooth hangs from a vintage nail
the scissors cut and paste Tempe, Arizona
job for a cubicle cowboy
makes one detestable,
numbers never dialed
written on stained Post-It notes
she called me an asshole
and I call her dead
no cigarettes
plenty of blue pills
sweep the memories
under the bed
the sand warps under midnight pressure
unpaid bills
by the
people under the stairs
stare at a spider
watch a meteorite shower at 5 a.m.
don’t have a drink
you can’t afford it
go anyways
charge it
pay later
who fucking cares
do I have anything to live for anymore…
while contemplating,
I can’t answer that dad,
I can’t answer that mom,
I can’t answer that stranger in the gas station.
Me and the Darkness and 40oz’s of Freedom
I was walking home drunk down Moreland Avenue around five in the morning. I didn’t have any money for a cab and I had no one to call. I heard footsteps behind me for quite a while and looked back occasionally and saw someone walking behind me. I finally got paranoid enough that when I saw a small brick wall next to the sidewalk I was walking down I casually sat down and lit a cigarette hoping that the person behind me would walk past me and leave me the hell alone so I could walk in drunken inspired peace. An older black man approached me as I sat there on the small brick wall. He asked me how I was doing. I said “pretty good, but this fucking walk is killing me.” He didn’t say anything and just reached into his jacket and pulled out a scratched and faded gold wristwatch. He asked if I would give him five bucks for it. I said “what the fuck” and reached into my pants and pulled out a crisp five dollar bill and handed it to him. He said “hell yeah buddy, now I can get a drink” He handed me the watch and I put the scratched and faded gold watch on my right hand and finished stumbling home. I noticed the next day that it didn’t even work and it smelled funny.
Clean Bugs, Dirty Carpet
Me and the wife were sitting around the living room after we finished our TV dinners. It was the usual Hungry Man roast beef with mashed potatoes and corn with a brownie for desert. The wife was flipping through endless channels when she stopped upon the local cable access channel. They were flashing pictures of recent guys arrested for soliciting prostitutes in the county, trying to embarrass them or some shit. I had a mouth full of a potatoes and corn when I saw my drunken mug shot from last week flash across the TV screen.
Brett Stout is a 33-year-old writer and artist. He is a high school dropout and former construction worker turned college graduate and Paramedic. He writes while mainly hung-over on white lined paper in a small cramped apartment in Myrtle Beach, SC. He published his first novel of prose and poetry entitled “Lab Rat Manifesto” in 2007.
