Tag Archives: relationship

2016/11/03

Contaminating Our Gaze

By dsholloway

“Sorry,” she said, lunging at her eye which was lodged between the floor and the heel of my left shoe. “I can’t get it to stay in.”

The casualness with which she spoke of her abnormality offended me. She glanced at me with her one good eye, looked away in feigned innocence.

I retrieved her eye, offered it to her from my open palm. I figured she rolled her eye in my direction on purpose. She figured, I figured, that since I’m a retard she could become my retard friend, sister in arms.

“How did that happen,”she asked. Everybody else pretended not to notice. But she spoke with the confidence of a retarded Other, identified some sort of twisted commonality between us.

I looked her up and down, decided I would try to fuck her. I answered. “You did this.” I traced the hole in my chest, pointed to where my heart used to be.

She stared at me with her one good eye, the other eye now in her hand. “No I didn’t.”

I responded with a sigh: “Then who did?”

She shrugged, answered, “You did,” offered me the knife I gave her for her birthday, stained red now.

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2016/07/13

Xenon

By dsholloway

Never did I think I would love, for love was a ridiculous, childish concept.

But I loved, finally, in spite of myself. I loved, I knew, because I thought only of her, always. Because she was my default, my origin.

She says, “Fuck you, K,” in a voice that craves verbal violence, disappearing from view even though I can see her, touch her. I reach, she recoils – a perverse dance. She looks at me with the eyes a stranger, yanking her engagement ring from her finger, throwing it out the window.

I go outside and sift through the bushes. I find her ring floating in a dog’s water dish.

I pretend I am not relieved and go back inside. She is dead, having swallowed my pain killers.

I put her ring on her lithe, cold finger. I press her lithe, cold finger to my lips.

Then I go to sleep, taking the same pain killers. I dream of our wedding. Our families are present. We are happy.

I wake up, see her dead body at the kitchen table, coax myself back to sleep. Again our wedding, our families, our happiness.

I wake, finish my pain killers, kiss my phantom bride.

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2015/06/25

A Fit Object for Man’s Love

By dsholloway

She let her jeans slide down, muttering something about a Japanese myth: the pieces should fit together like a puzzle, or something.

That’s not how the myth goes, but I got the gist.

I pushed her to the bed and yanked my belt off. The buckle (an ostentatious L and V fused together like ugly conjoined twins) crashed to the floor with a thud. I disrobed the rest of her with a practiced hand.

(After fucking my fiftieth girl, I threw myself a party at a bar. Balloons and everything–HAPPY FITYITH. Bystanders congratulated me even though I “look[ed] no older than 30.”)

I dramatically pried apart her legs as though she were resisting. Then I stopped.

“What’s wrong,” she cooed, playing her role.

“I’m sorry, ” I said. “What do you want me to do with this?” I was staring at an angular opening, like the corner of a jigsaw puzzle. She recoiled on cue. “Asshole! I told you: like a puzzle piece.”

I pulled my pants up and fetched my expensive belt. “I thought you were misquoting,” I said. “Sorry.”

“Could it be, I’m not as smart as I think I am,” I wondered on my way out.

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2015/06/05

Between His Acts and His Beliefs 

By dsholloway

She was gone, leaving only a photo of her chubby adolescent daughter wearing a Batman mask and her collection of gilded objects. A cherub, a horse head–“found objects” is what she called them even though she bought each one at the mall. 

Due to her interest in “DIY” there had been a permant cloud of spray paint in our apartment and empty cans of gold spray paint next to the trashcan. After she left I opened all the windows. 

I put the photo of her child on my desk and moved her “found objects” into a pile by the door. It started to rain. I closed the windows. That night I dreamed she cut my torso open and gilded my insides. 

I woke to a thick haze of spray paint. 

I opened the windows. Once the haze lifted I found that everything in my apartment had been gilded: chairs, desk, mirror, toothbrush. Her “found objects” were gone.

The venomous scent of spray paint assaulted me. I clutched my stomach and fell to the floor. 

“Don’t be such a jerk next time.”

I looked up. Her chubby daughter was standing above me, a disapproving look peeking from behind her Batman mask. 

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