Drawn onto a dimly lit surface in some public restroom somewhere, I am being pissed on and vandalized.

I realize my worth is worth more than this, but I am stuck like dog shit in the tread of some angry man’s boot, being mostly scraped off on the step of his mother-in-law’s house but still hiding, waiting to rub off on the carpet.

I am like jealousy inherent in every teenage boy attending high school, exposed at his disposal, misused and manipulated by people who do not understand and who do not matter.

I am the worm infesting the sick dog’s asshole, feeding on shit and thriving in disease.

I am the disease plaguing a sick boy somewhere, causing him to writhe in pain and eventually die not knowing who his friends were or who he was. I am that boy’s lost faith in God and his wasted potential. I am his anger at the world and at those who live on beyond him, lost but lingering in his final functions of mind. Finally, I am the urine and feces spewed from his freshly deceased body, contaminating his bedding, waiting to spray down the drain on some mortician’s table; I am the last remnants of one person washed down the drain.

. Narcotics passing through her system dropped her body; limp, shaking, and irresistible. I severed her from every limb, bleeding her into a stainless steel bowl placed on the table to her left side. She was still alive. She cried in agony with every incision, though she could not feel. I drained her. It took nearly four odd hours, but I extracted her dry. Without fluids to support her body, it lay wrinkled and dilapidated, her skin paling through every minute passing. Her lips had gone cold blue moments before she took a final breath. She spoke several words, unclear and slurred, and made one final gesture to dignify her love for life and the agony that she faced in death. She cried out for her mother, whom had birthed her, raised her, and brought her to become a gentle and loving person. She is now a being of study: another statistic written on a sheet of recycled paper and faxed to some remote office waiting processing. Her death was untimely, yes, but unavoidable under the circumstances that she so easily put herself. Surely, she did not miss a moment of it.

Damn it, and I was going to try something cheery! Maybe next time.