You're Next, Dick

(Graveyard #05, Wailuku, 2009)

Sometimes I give too much credit to my own personal demons than they deserve. They take more than they give, and they completely lack manners. Worst of all, they don't look after themselves, leaving me to clean the food from their faces, wash their clothes, give them bathes, and even wipe their buttons. I keep telling myself as I carry 20lbs of red and black suits down the street to the mat, I shouldn't give in like this. All my neighbors think I have a horrible taste in fashion walking around with their clothes, not to mention how dirty I must look to them. But I can't help but care for them, they're idiots, they don't know how to take care of themselves, and without me, my personal demons would most likely die.
At times I hate them. They can make me so angry, but then I calm down, and reminisce on the special times we had. I remember the time I was dumped by my girlfriend of two years, and they tripped and hog-tied me, and threw me down the river where I struggled for breath for miles before I went over the waterfall and broke both of my legs. But once I was relieved from IC I was bathing myself, and I even learned how to walk again. It was those first few steps that made me believe in miracles, I could hear the voices of four different doctors telling me I was never going to walk again, and like those movies about someone who gets hurt and can't walk, my moving and standing legs proved them all wrong. And though there was no way for the doctors to ever know I was walking again since they probably didn't care, they will never have their faces smeared with human triumph.
Without my personal demons I would have never realized how much I valued something as simple as walking or how useless being broken up by someone's departure from your life is. Of course I could never tell them how much it all meant to me in fear of them just doing it again. And so once my hate was dissolved, I resumed my care and longing for them. I got up from my couch, ran over to the bathroom, missing the cat by the whiskers of its face, and looked in the mirror. At first I tried to remember everything I was thankful for in my reflection. I looked deep in my eyes and thought of everyone I love, and loved, and I wished them all well. I thought of every girl I ever loved and wished them well, and vomited out the names of others as my hate left me completely. I said out loud to myself that I was happy, and then spent two minutes trying to produce a genuine smile. I gave out a fake laugh, and I froze the reaction of my facial muscles and held it as I examined its stillness. I wondered if I'd make a good Joker, they needed a new one for the next Batman. I wondered if this was what Smilin' Bob does in his trailer before he enters the stage of another Enzyte commercial. The birds were singing at my window sill, and the dogs barking all down the street. The wind blew the curtains in a flutter, and knocked off the picture of a dead relative, and shattered glass all over my floor. When I returned to my living room I saw spelled out on the wooden floor in sparkling pieces of sharp glass the words,
You're Next, Dick.

In my hand was the picture of Uncle Albert, a naturalist in his day, who was murdered by a gang of wolves. I slept well that night, knowing I knew perfectly well how to kill a man with my own hands, and wondered how different wolves could be from humans. Just before I reached REM, I called to Albert, telling him to stop sending me messages from the grave.