Sorry kids, no fiction today.
I am a vegan.
I am pansexual.
I am American.
I am a human.
I am a red wolf.
I am mentally ill.
I am a fish keeper.
I am straight edge.
I am a woman.
I am a writer.
Bullshit. Identity does not come down to labels.
This is what I am:
I live with over a dozen snakes, and like myself and other captives, they require nourishment. This nourishment comes in the form of rodents, which I raise in large gray plastic bins in a rack in my basement. I care for them daily, give them paper towel rolls and little toys so they do not grow bored, and periodically gass them to death with CO2 before feeding them to hungry constrictors.
This morning, an older mouse who is "spent" in terms of litter productivity - which is a way I hate to think of any animal - was ill. She developed a neurological condition which I believe to be so because "I am a wildlife rehabilitator" and know enough about animal medicine to confirm that this isn't the result of a simple ear infection. The constant twitch and bob of her head has caused her to be out-competed by her healthier cagemates for food and water, and I found her thin and pathetic in her nest this morning.
I put the frail mouse down my shirt, where I could feel her shiver against my flesh, to keep her warm. Her whiskers tickled my skin as I prepared a hot meal of kitten milk replacer and oatmeal - protocol for a thin, sick mouse for those of you inexperienced in rodent triage. I balled up one of my cowprint bandanas in a small plastic carrier, placed her inside, then brought her tiny muzzle to the edge of a bottle cap filled with the mixture. She ate heartily before curling up and falling to sleep.
I then walked into the kitchen and began thawing one of the baby mice I have in my freezer so that I could feed a gray rat snake hatchling. As it thawed, I went downstairs to set up a nice cage with a hiding box filled with fleece bedding for the sick old mouse to spend her last days in. Then I came back upstairs, gently placed my skinny, wobbling charge in her "hospice" quarters, then picked up the pinky mouse on a pair of tongs and wiggled it in front of the young snake until he struck and consumed it.
This is Me.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Ok, I admit it.
I will start by saying that this isn't very good. However, I joked in passing the other day that I missed the japanese pornbots that used to spam my blog with links to smut sites, because at least it made it look like I had readers. And when I thought about that remark, it was absurd even as a joke. Hence... this. And yes, I am fully aware that it is an unreasonable orgy of alliteration.
Ok, I admit it. I miss the porn-bots, and I'm sure to many this is an odd sentiment. I don't mean that the average person can't appreciate pornography; I defy you to find me a single sole who doesn't get something out of a bouncing pair of sweat-slicked breasts, be it a stiffening in their loins or a smug air of moral superiority - Oh no, I would never be so base as to partake.
Rather, I find a funny sort of comfort in the fact that somewhere out there, a program shuffled through the billions of bytes, the cornucopia of content, wormed its way through the web and bestowed its blessing upon my site. Erotica encrypted in tiny tidbits of text, familiar blue and underlined, donning the description of something less scandalous: want to play?
Truth is, the porn-bots give you the illusion that you're never ignored, never unimportant, never alone. Someone's out there, someone cares. Somewhere there's a panting, moaning audience that will never stop loyally replying to your banal blog entries, your pedestrian posts, your trite tweets. It's an appeal to the world's oldest fetish: narcissism.
Self love at its finest.
Ok, I admit it. I miss the porn-bots, and I'm sure to many this is an odd sentiment. I don't mean that the average person can't appreciate pornography; I defy you to find me a single sole who doesn't get something out of a bouncing pair of sweat-slicked breasts, be it a stiffening in their loins or a smug air of moral superiority - Oh no, I would never be so base as to partake.
Rather, I find a funny sort of comfort in the fact that somewhere out there, a program shuffled through the billions of bytes, the cornucopia of content, wormed its way through the web and bestowed its blessing upon my site. Erotica encrypted in tiny tidbits of text, familiar blue and underlined, donning the description of something less scandalous: want to play?
Truth is, the porn-bots give you the illusion that you're never ignored, never unimportant, never alone. Someone's out there, someone cares. Somewhere there's a panting, moaning audience that will never stop loyally replying to your banal blog entries, your pedestrian posts, your trite tweets. It's an appeal to the world's oldest fetish: narcissism.
Self love at its finest.
The After Math
The title is very deliberately NOT called "the aftermath." Mark that.
One plus one equals two, our two bodies pressed together so tight in our provisory passion that even your insincerity couldn't fit in the space between us. Two plus two equals four, as in my two legs straddling yours, your two lips grappling mine, and each pair eyes averted from the other's all the while. Five plus five equals ten, the way our fingers twisted together - fixedly, like they forgot for a moment what this actually was. I learned addition when I was just a child, so it comes as no surprise: One plus one equals two - two alone, not me and you. And that ryme isn't half as bad as the joke of my hope of being that perfect one when our bedroom arithmatic was over. Two minus one equals me sitting alone in my bedroom while the sheets cool, feeling a hell of a lot like zero.
One plus one equals two, our two bodies pressed together so tight in our provisory passion that even your insincerity couldn't fit in the space between us. Two plus two equals four, as in my two legs straddling yours, your two lips grappling mine, and each pair eyes averted from the other's all the while. Five plus five equals ten, the way our fingers twisted together - fixedly, like they forgot for a moment what this actually was. I learned addition when I was just a child, so it comes as no surprise: One plus one equals two - two alone, not me and you. And that ryme isn't half as bad as the joke of my hope of being that perfect one when our bedroom arithmatic was over. Two minus one equals me sitting alone in my bedroom while the sheets cool, feeling a hell of a lot like zero.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Good Behavior
Oooh lookie. I wrote something that ISN'T Raze for once. What it is, I'm not sure. Nothing particularly good. But its uh, a post?
Twelve years. Twelve years I've patiently paced this cage, carefully studied the definition of "good behavior," learned to swallow my pride and perfectly mimic a lamb's gentle nature while watching the world through a lion's eyes. Tomorrow, I return to the wild, where the world makes sense, where there's predators and prey and no bars between them. Freedom.
I'm so much more open minded than these compassionate liberals who manage to stare down their nose at me while saying they're proud of how "reformed" I am. Their hollow pontifications about killers still being people, people they've arrogantly deemed "sick" and needing "help," would be so much more convincing if they could look at me without their face twisting up like they just smelled shit. Me? Well if you told me that you were going to go out and beat a father of two to death with his son's own baseball bat, I'd smile and tell you to send me a postcard. I'd love to come but I'm elbows deep in entrails.
Poor you, so very sick. No. Cancer is a sickness. This? This is just me. His daddy must have hit him, his mommy must not have hugged him. Is that easier for you to swallow than the possibility that some of us are just like this? That it doesn't take a tragic backstory? That two parents held and kissed and loved a murderer the same way you do your kids? Or is that a little too close for comfort?
I don't need your pity. When I split a person open like the Red Sea, all you can see is the mud and the worms on the ocean floor. I let those beautiful red waves wash over me, feel the salty spray in my face, and walk through that moment with all the confidence of Moses. I pity you.
I've spent the last twelve years sharpening my fangs on these bars, and when they set me free, I'm going to feast on this city's underbelly until the starved beast they've kept caged is sated.
Twelve years. Twelve years I've patiently paced this cage, carefully studied the definition of "good behavior," learned to swallow my pride and perfectly mimic a lamb's gentle nature while watching the world through a lion's eyes. Tomorrow, I return to the wild, where the world makes sense, where there's predators and prey and no bars between them. Freedom.
I'm so much more open minded than these compassionate liberals who manage to stare down their nose at me while saying they're proud of how "reformed" I am. Their hollow pontifications about killers still being people, people they've arrogantly deemed "sick" and needing "help," would be so much more convincing if they could look at me without their face twisting up like they just smelled shit. Me? Well if you told me that you were going to go out and beat a father of two to death with his son's own baseball bat, I'd smile and tell you to send me a postcard. I'd love to come but I'm elbows deep in entrails.
Poor you, so very sick. No. Cancer is a sickness. This? This is just me. His daddy must have hit him, his mommy must not have hugged him. Is that easier for you to swallow than the possibility that some of us are just like this? That it doesn't take a tragic backstory? That two parents held and kissed and loved a murderer the same way you do your kids? Or is that a little too close for comfort?
I don't need your pity. When I split a person open like the Red Sea, all you can see is the mud and the worms on the ocean floor. I let those beautiful red waves wash over me, feel the salty spray in my face, and walk through that moment with all the confidence of Moses. I pity you.
I've spent the last twelve years sharpening my fangs on these bars, and when they set me free, I'm going to feast on this city's underbelly until the starved beast they've kept caged is sated.
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