#c mantis

i wrote this live on twitter from 9:32pm to 10:35 pm on 28 July 2014

half the lights went out in the diner. a flat, warm sound covered the building, the parking lot. the soups glowed. my ears hummed.

elsa dragged her nails over the formica table while the vinyl booth beneath her groaned in sharp crashes of the bathroom mirrors shattering

the bus boy cowered in the dark corner as lightning struck, breaking out a soft rain. he doubled over.

he clawed at his apron, shook his head, moaned. the dirty dishes on the tray before him clinked and winked electricity

the middle aged woman in the grey pantsuit kept both hands on her table, harkening the divination of spiritualism. her tongue was sandpaper.

she glanced with two watery-nothing blue eyes toward the bus boy whose internal organs were pushing a putrid foam from his mouth

it dripped on the floor.

steadily.

a drip.

a drip.

a drip.

she had the compulsion to tap once upon his forehead, to make the irises crawl back to the front of his eyes, to make the lightning stop

she looked at her soup instead, in a peach bowl. and the torn corner of package of saltines. one large crumb trembling among many others.

elsa still scratched the table. it sounded like the slow unwinding of metal wire,-[SHEDDING THE MORTAL COIL, I'M SHEDDING THE]-except no one actually said it. only elsa looked at myself, rigid on the linoleum pathway between blocks of peach-coloured booths

the lights flickered fully out when the bus boy began vomiting up his own internal organs

still he managed to moan, attempting to wipe the dribbling stuff from his face with the soft cotton of his apron

his eyes shut once or twice, i saw, with great pleasure, as if he were only a small boy nestling against sun-warmed linen

the middle aged woman's mouth began to flatten out. to key to coy to twist to bitter to tack and stick.

"I feel like sand paper" she wanted to whisper to the UV light mass in the shape of a human sitting across the booth from her

"you're a splendid, splendid colour" she wanted to say to the place where it would've had eyes

and she wanted-

she blocked out the sounds of the bus boy regurgitating himself on business grade carpet

-to reach for that light's hand

and, i had to admit, it was a splendid colour. the bluest black of a purple gold i had ever seen.

elsa rose. her limbs, each one, were missing links between us and the insects, the reptiles. she was going to glass them off, she said

7 rains followed while she was on the floor of the bathroom:

- freezing 

- ice 

- bullet holes

- gaslighting

- masking

- isolating

- fever

i heard a trumpet sound for each

i heard elsa, in the bathroom, turning half-snake, losing her face, grating on the glass, flashing white hot and coal black in tides

i heard the UV shape. it had an intention of making a new home in the belly of the bus boy, who had ceased moving

we watched helplessly as the UV light licked seeped spread itself over the booths like lava, heading towards the carcass 

"i feel like sand paper" the woman kept wanting to say. if she could say it!--the UV light reflected against her eyes beautifully--

if she could just say it, maybe it would all stop. 

I FEEL LIKE SAND PAPER, as if it was the demon giving up its name, as if power was in the meat of muscle pushing out words in an empty diner 

as if cowering, as if stretching, as if magnificent flashes of light would follow, ending the humming drone, the lack of electricity

the UV light entered the bus boy

he glowed--it was marvellous. i have seen many marvellous things but nothing truly compares to this sort of possession--and began to move

up he came from his knees to his feet

up his spine rolled, vertebrae by vertebrae 

and when the glow of him passed through his face, he opened his eyes, and then his mouth. and he asked for his mother.

the white snake that had once been elsa slithered from the bathroom door

she glistened in chips of mirror, smearing cold blood upon the ground from her wounds

she came to the feet of the boy

"where is my mother?"

and she rose up

"where is my mother?"

and she opened her jaws

the boy, who was now the mass of UV light of the most beautiful colour i had ever seen, screamed inside the belly of the snake that had once been elsa for its mother

there was an elbow, and then a knee, and then the stretch of bulbous head against the stomach of the snake that had once been elsa

every stretch

every holler 

made a piece of shattered mirror upon the body of the snake that was once elsa shine, wink, explode

soon the struggling would stop. the white snake that had once been elsa looked at me, and then the woman, who was trying not to cry

soon she would be able to leave this place. soon she would be able to say--"the funniest thing happened at the diner today

is there snow

there

or 

not

there's

there are, there are 

ferns and soft rocks and dirt and poison and very bright scrubs of green moss growing on certain sides of the trees and all of it is large and horrible and pressing and you are always in the middle of it. you are always sniffing things up your nose and blowing out different colours than you do at home. you are always in the middle of it. i'd talk about escape but what you need is a partner or plan which is a partner, a partner with a plan, a [partner in crime?] who fits you, who isn't 

ninety 

percent 

good

and ten 

ruinous 

percent 

bad. 

he had a trickle of blood in him, he was a bowl of cool milk saved from the first milking of the day

i licked it up and he all--

the 90%

ruined by the 10%

--tasted like metal

so you are in a forest

so you are back in the forest

aries: today you will have the chance to hover over any body of water you encounter. hover with caution! you do not know who may be watching.

taurus: whatever you cradle in your hands today will turn on you. you will have to sink your teeth into it. you will have to sink your teeth into it.

gemini: Old Age will slip her hand deftly between the softness of your butt cheeks, murmuring about a path to utopia, about bruises in heaven

cancer: do not be too loud today with your needs. your nature may be monetized to the department. wait to share it with the moon instead.

leo: do everything alone today as to not risk plot twists. do not laugh. do not strangle your ex boyfriend, though he deserves it.

virgo: you will behave badly in traffic today. the police officer may be very large, but chase him anyway

libra: touch yourself as though you have never cried. find a lover made of many 0s. load slowly; restore blisses.

scorpio: gaze at plants until they are fixed in cubism. down an entire ocean cave until time echoes back at you. avoid help.

sagittarius: eat whatever you can today, but only the front half. the back, whatever is farthest away from you, understands you too much.

capricorn: today, above all other days, you must understand your life is an excerpt from a large, glowing, dripping fruit, slowly rotting.

aquarius: fuck someone. (hint: not everyone is stuck in the same forest as you.)