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A Hollow Status Quo

Status: Stuck in Limbo’s waiting room

They follow me wherever I go; there is no escaping them. Glass green are those eyes that

are fixed on mine; eternally nagging with that mask-like gaze. Staring back at them, I see

nothing, nothing. Hollow is what they are; hollow as in empty, as in carved out, as in nothing,

nothing at all. Hollow like this crummy 24 x 25ft apartment; as hollow as shoes when there are

no dirty feet in them. Hollow when all the marrow in your bone is gone, completely gone.

Knocking your fist against thin dry walls, hearing the noise echo slightly in the other room,

hollow. Hollow, is what they are.

They creep up any place I go, in cracked windows, in shattered bottles, and burnt light

bulbs; in dust-caked mirrors, and murky water. In a metallic spoon spotted with sludge, in the

lenses of a never-working camera, in shoes that are too shiny, in glossy pictures of an ugly past;

they’re always there, always watching, never blinking, and never are they closed.

I’m not hopeless, am I? If I was I wouldn’t be striving for self-control. I can make it

through this. It’s only been seventeen hours in a seven-year stretch; it’s not all for nothing, right?

That idiotic, revolting lamp said it wasn’t worth anything, that nobody cares, nobody would

notice. I would care; I said to that repulsive lamp, I do care.

‘And what are you worth in this world?’ it retorted. ‘What are you worth to the person

next door; do they even know you exist? Did they notice you have never left this apartment for 2

years? That you talk and talk and talk, yet nobody answers? That nobody is here?’

Leave me alone, what do you know? You’re only a foolish, unsightly lamp, what do you

know?

‘I know your whole life.’

 That lamp will never say another word, not another word; nor that moldy, yellow fridge,

or that grubby spoon, not even the moth-eaten couch. They’ll never, ever say anything again.

Status: Off the charts

Those eyes, those eyes, those persistent, hollow, green eyes; go away, leave me be,

disappear from in front of me!

I smell. This whole place smells, but who wants to wash anyway? With a broken shower

there is nothing to do.

Eighteen hours on the clock, eighteen, eighteen, eighteen and a minute...eighteen and

two; time is driving into my head; I feel like a clock. Tick, tick, ticking; sixty seconds to a

minute, sixty minutes to an hour, 24 hours in a day, eighteen have passed, eighteen and five

minutes to be exact.

There doesn’t seem much to do. I’m being enveloped in pain, pain, pain; I itch, it’s like

my veins are on fire.

I’m pointless, there is no hope. Whom was I trying to fool? But maybe, maybe...there is

always time for a maybe.

My heart pounds, my head is splitting. I am becoming unfocused. I spiral away, trying

to escape the agony.

Those eyes, I want to scream, I want to shout, those perpetual eyes should burn in hell.

Shrivel and die, scorch and burn, make scarce, I don’t want you, I don’t need you, you disgust

me, go, vanish, leave, never appear again.

Forward and back, I rock trembling uncontrollably as a waterfall erupts from me.

Splashing down my cheeks, streaks of shimmering light; pelting down on my clasped hands,
scorching them with salty anger. Clenched shut, I strangle them one bye one.

Only time will tell how long I’ll last, that’s all it can do.

Status: Shake ’ n ’ Bake

A pound, a throb; it is what I have become. Still those eyes won’t waver, for so long

they’ve stayed, boring into my being.

I’m at my limit, I think. My breath is a gasp, my throat is parched. The world spins, I’m

tumbling in a dryer, a small, dirty dryer. Who cares, no one hears me, no one sees me, I am not

smelled, I am not felt, neither am I known, so am I here?

My hands shake uncontrollably, my stomach hurts; intense agony wracks my body, but

why–why? I give up, I don’t care anymore, I can’t take it, I can’t! I tried and failed, it’s the

purpose for which I was born.

I heave myself upward; I wobble forward towards my decrepit bedroom. I tumble slowly

downward, landing dully; my aches cancel out everything else.

I scramble for that loose board, my little secret, my glorious heaven. It is there, right

there; I shake too much. I am fueled by my want, by my need, by those green eyes; I slam my

fist into the thin floor, I am steady as a rock. I crash into pure Nirvana; my hand is a mess with

blood racing down the knuckles, and pooling at the creases; wooden slivers are staked into my

fingers. But who’s to know? I reach out my arms and seize my bliss.

Indian style, that’s how I’m sitting; gazing at a black case worn from use. Scratches cover

the hard, plastic sides; the opening is covered with duct tape, clean, and fresh. It’s 5 x 6in and it

has been with me for seven years, seven long, unrelenting years. I am overwhelmed for several

minutes; eighteen and a half hours can be such a long, agonizing time. Like a kid, I am eager,
and itching to open the worn case. Breathing deeply, I rip off the tape and relish in hearing the

pop of it open. Tears well up, I am so happy, so very, very happy at what is there. This is what I

find: a magical spoon, my first and only, along with the mystical lighter that bakes my bliss. The

beauty of all beauties honors me with her services, she is my first love, my one and only; tall and

proud she stands straight up in her clear dress with black stitching, wearing the sexy, silver

stilettos that she’s never without. Dr. Fil, often found in Camels, and Marlboros; in those white

and brown sticks of fiery smoke. How hard he works to keep the insistent impurities at bay.

Mary and Joseph, together forever, wedded as citric acid and water. Jesus is the belt wound tight

on my right. Domineering he stands, God the immortal, God the Messiah, God the manipulative

white powder at my fingertips.

Mary and Joseph are joined with God in the magical spoon, over the flame; through Dr.

Fil up into my love there to be joined together in sin. Jesus is tight on my right, m’ lady slips

into my withered veins; and all together we are bound in this crummy apartment.

Status: All together now

God pumps through my body, soothing my pain, steadying my shaking hands, yet those

hollow, unceasing eyes are still there, across the way they stare; ripping my soul apart they stare,

green as money, green as grass, green as envy. More I need more; again God shoots through me,

into me, becoming me. We are one and the same, we are joined as one extreme, I am God; God

is me.

Why won’t they go away? They stay there across the way; unmerciful, accusing me,

what did I do? What did I do?

More
 He surges up and down me. He quiets my head, and calms my heart, blocks my ears, and

plugs my nose. My mouth is left to catch the air; my eyes are still open staring into those

seemingly ineradicable, hollow, green eyes. More and more they empty, more and more they dig

into me, more and more I converge with God. My arm is numb, my body is cold, my heart

pounds, my lungs ache, my breathe is short. Across the way they’re there, I claw and scramble

to reach them. My arm collapses, I pull my self along. I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe; closer

and closer I come; no smell, no sound, no feeling, my sight is surrounded by a haze, I am at the

edge, I have reached my self. I have no strength, all I can do is look straight into those eyes,

those hollow...obsessive...green eyes and watch as they slip shut.