Three of a Kind

Now's no time for goofy behaviour.

Now's a time for darkness and spiked coffee. 

I read the news and ask Kyle, my parrot, the bane of my existence: 

"Have you heard about the disease?"

Last night he destroyed me at poker. 

"Nigel, why do you look so sad?" he enquires, 

Smugly, a glint of malice in his asshole eye, 

(and, truth be told, in not so many words). 

I reply: 

"Because today, Kyle, we are to die". 

"All three of us?!"

A seed dribbles from his beak into my coffee. 

I gaze eastward to China, 

My precious doll, who supported me in last night's shit show, 

For an answer. 

But yet again

I let her down. 

"Baby, I'm so sorry. 

"Why didn't you come to bed for some loving?"

She does not reply. 

It appears that we aren't talking. 

Well then, that seals it. 

I load my pistol

And take a final shower.

For this, I want to be clean. 

I want to be naked, too, because

My muscles are showing

After depression made me lean. 

One last time I feed that fucking bird, Kyle,

And see my brains splatter around his dirty cage

With a final Squawk!!

But now's no time for goofy behaviour. 

A Green Mermaid

Salty seaweed and crystal ripples

Anxiously swirl

Beneath a moon and my canoe. 

Over years I've come to know her

And to know her distractions, that melt anxiety

Like crème de menthe,

Repressing seasickness

Of a torn t-shirt and blown-out crotch;

She is on top of me,

An eastern Juliet. 

A devil in the bathroom mirror,

French Canadian, dirty, atop a log,

Commands me

To eat a pineapple

Off of her.

Her seven notes

Turned me on

To electricity, and to life,

But I don't know if I can deal

With all the problems that come with these things.

Dugout

Lost at sea

I encountered

A mermaid.

Dandelions and caterpillars

My first love--who was a blonde--accused me of being conceited. 

I didn't know what she, or the word, meant. We were twelve years old, playing Red Rover with the others out back of the school. I was in a phase where I tried to look typical. I could never pull it off. They all laughed at me, and rightly so, when I wore my knock-off Ocean Pacific matching t-shirt and shorts. 

Peer pressure had caused me to wear very bright clothes. Later it caused me to retreat into darkness.

The laughter (the horror). 

"Are you going to the beach, Nigel?"  

I couldn't articulate a response. Instead I hung my head. Now I know exactly what I'd say, articulately, succinctly: 

Fuck off, guys. 

Yet, somehow, despite my garish clothing, there was a girl who liked me. Or at least she made me feel funny, and I think I made her feel funny, too. It was an innocent version of a Whitesnake video--as if there could ever be such a thing. 

She was, as I said, a blonde. I don't remember her name. And, as with other blondes since, I messed it up completely. At this point in my life I didn't know you could mess things up completely. 

Of course it was a big misunderstanding. Red Rover is a game of war. You hold hands, forming a human barrier to capture innocent intruders like a spider catches a fly. The cold concept of the game conflicted with the hot hormonal moods that were beyond my control. What I mean is, when it came time to form a human barrier, I refused to touch her hand. Not because I didn't want to, but because I did. I was scared she might perceive, through the thin, poorly-sewn veil of my orange day-glo shorts, the little snake that lived within me. 

"Nigel," she said, tears welling. "You're so conceited". 

I didn't know what she meant, but I knew it wasn't good. I had a jarring epiphany: Holy shit, is there more to this world than tether ball and Froot Loops? 

Pulling at the grass, I sulked on the ground, playing with dandelions and caterpillars. 

"I'm not!" I shouted. 

"I bet you don't even know what it means". 

Oh, no.... Time to run away, you little idiot jackrabbit.

****

I tried hard to remember the word so that, when I came home and had my post-educational bowl of Froot Loops, I could look it up in the dictionary. But I didn't know how to spell it. Would I be forever in the dark?*

A few years later, I don't remember how, I came to know the meaning of the word. And I remember thinking, I don't think she understood the meaning either. Did she not just mean to call me a "jerk" or a "knob"? Or perhaps she did use it correctly because I was, after all, only thinking of myself, not caring that I hurt her deeply and destroyed our unspoken bond. Did she know my secrets? Sometimes I wonder if blondes are actually more clever than we give them credit for.

Surely she couldn't be as clever as me? Oh.... 

Had I been more aware and less afraid, we could have gone on to become great lovers. We could have returned to the spot years later, remembering the first touch of our hands, and played a softer version of the game. One where we didn't care who won; one where the joy was in the playing; one where we felt no fear, or at least didn't let it become a barrier. We could take off our clothes and play in the grass amongst the dandelions and caterpillars. How magnificent that would be. Perhaps I wouldn't have ended up so dark, so miserable. Perhaps I would have continued to wear bright colours. But instead, for some time, I'd have to settle for tether ball and Froot Loops.

*I'd like to add here that I would go on to become a great speller. Something that is now a lost art, like chivalry. 

Not who I was, but who I wanted to be.

G*d, The Devil, and Th*m*s M*gn*m (or, Why I've chosen to grow a moustache)

Dear G*d, 

I am a fraud. 

Now, in exchange for a confession, I request a transformation. Turn me into a swimmer. Let me take one drink, and then, G*d, lead me through your old and winding streets, all the way to one of your fancy-ass hype man priests. I'll bring my pistol and my flask. 

Churches make me queasy. Idiots singing poorly. 

Father (you remind me of Coolio), I confess. I'm one of those pricks who pretends to speak French. I'm a victim of Being There and always saying Yes. I confess. There's a sweetness in my soul. 

Don't tell. 

I did not grow up in the church, and, as such, I do not understand it. Do you, G*d, get off on people's secrets (I do)? Does it keep you from rifling through drawers and medicine cabinets (I do that too and have made many great discoveries). Man, I imagine, with all you've seen, you could write some incredible erotic fiction. I like your house. It's a speakeasy. You say the magic words and boom! the expanse of the universe opens up and yields itself unto you. You're such a lucky bastard, aren't you, G*d, you omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent asshole. I'd like to be your friend, although you come across a tad needy. 

Earlier I ate some drugs. Now, here I am, confessing to Coolio, nodding off to the distant hooting of an owl and the purr of a sports car. You must think I'm a mess. But I feel like a summer's breeze. 

Would it be rude if I peeled and ate this hard-boiled egg in front of you? 

There we go. Yummy, yummy. Now, G*d, I'm in heaven. 

I'm all heavenly with my egg, that is, until I try to conjure you, G*d (not Coolio), in my mind. It does piss me off that you are invisible. Seems like an odd decision on your part. Surely you could have made yourself cooler. You could rave and howl, a compound beast; an awesome creature with a donkey dick. But instead you chose to house the essence of an owl. 

Hoot hoot. 

Do you want to flap your downy wings and open a new door? I'll lend you my pistol and my flask. The only way out. 

I'd kill you for justice. You know I would. To save the world. 

Here, Dear Baby, I took a piss outside and fell over on the lawn. Up became down. Drunk and deranged, my mood flipped. I walked back into the church angry as hell. 

Seeing red, I shouted. 

Fuck you, G*d! And fuck your fancy-ass hype man priest! I've got tickets to see Rodriguez and don't have time for this shit. Cold fact. Just remember this. The howl is mightier than the hoot. 

Oh, shit..... I've made a bad decision and now I've got the spins. I am a mixture of alcohol and regret. I wonder, Am I just a toy to keep G*d from fidgeting? I am a wheel within a wheel, a howl within a howl, a whimper within a wimp, as my shape, it shifts, and like Alice I shrink. 

I lose all my body hair. 

I re-acquire my conscience. 

Squeaks stick in the cracks of my voice. 

Oh, G*d, I am in puberty once again. Oh no no no. 

I shift from blackout into a garden at dawn. Welcome to the fucking pleasure dome. Welcome to fucking Eden. Tiffany swims in a pool of Green Chartreuse. Well, I think we're alone now, but we are in a very sticky situation. 

I take a drink of the water and it tastes like fire. 

Tiffany, naked in an emerald pool, her smooth chest rising and falling from physical exertion, swims toward me, eyes full of lust. She warbles a deep cut from her second album. I intuitively recognise it as a veiled ode to sex. My brain swims with chemicals.  

I murmur softly, mournfully. Tiffany I am so horny right now. 

Talk about a shitty time to revert to adolescence. I don't know what to do or where to put it (this was before the internet). And I'm very, very spotty. 

Dear Baby, I hated being a teenager. I stayed in bed and never left. I'd watch action drama comedies from the '80s (it was the '90s). I wonder if this is where the sweetness came from? 

Tiffany, being with you is absolute torture on my balls. Forgive me if I act like an ape. Get me out of this damned pleasure dome. 

And look who it is, grinning and giggling behind a bush, eating a peach with his donkey dick out. Ah, yes, it's you, the moustachioed Mephistopheles. Hello Satan. You are a g*d-damned bully, aren't you? But you are much cooler than G*d (it even says so on your t-shirt--you've even included the "o". Naughty). 

Me and the devil became fast friends. The rest of the night is a blur. I remember racing dirt bikes and jumping out of a helicopter that looked like an Easter egg. Satan likes X-treme sports, apparently. They aren't really my thing. And there were a lot of drugs. Uppers. Not really my thing, either, uppers. 

Here, Dear Baby, I vomited a long one. One where you can't believe your body can be so toxic. I felt like I'd been fighting in Vietnam. The acid destroyed my voice. Down became dawn. I looked deep into the emerald water, now stained with my bile, and saw myself, but not as myself. I was no longer an adolescent. I was bigger. And I had a moustache. 

I knew that enough had been enough. 

I remember all those hours in bed as a teenager, feeling sad and afraid about a girl. I'd watch you, M*gn*m, on the television, not realising I'd discovered the third way of existence. Now, via this incredible moustache, I have become you, Th*m*s M*gn*m, my idol (I do believe in idolatry). Now, let's crack open a beer and take a joy ride in our 1981 Ferrari 308GTSi Quattrovalvole.  

"Nigel," you say to me, you, Th*m*s M*gn*m, in a voice without pretension, totally accepting that you cannot, and never will, speak French. "I've been with you this whole time."

My eyes went misty and I wept. 

Hoot hoot. 

"The Ghost of Elle Macpherson"

Dear Elle, 

As your name implies, you have many manifestations. You are a letter; you are a woman; in France, you would be a pronoun. In Paris you gobble up your steak tartare, the beautiful raw yolk of an egg curving on the verge of spilling out all over that beautiful meat. 

Oh, yeah, that's it, baby. 

Who would have thought you were also an Australian? 

And you gave me my first boner, though I did not know at the time it had a name. All I knew is that, like rock and roll, I liked it. It was Scott Cochrane who told me it had a name: Boner. We used to hang in the suburbs, watching Top Gun, RAD, and Def Leppard videos. 

I thought Def Leppard was a band composed of disabled people. This was on account of the word "def" in their name (perhaps that was the singer) along with the presence of a one-armed drummer and the band name spelled in a manner symptomatic of a learning disability. "Pour Some Sugar On Me" was perhaps a sexual ode to the placebo. 

At the time I thought, "I don't really like this... But I suppose it's impressive, considering they are disabled." I was more into the impish athleticism of Gowan. 

Shall I compare thee, Elle Macpherson, to Def Leppard? You have both your arms, and, as far as I can tell, not a single flaw (but what hides behind those grains of sand sticking to your perfect breasts?). 

I remember the first time I saw you. It was in a magazine called "Elle". Puberty is a confusing time for a young man, and this didn't help. 

Anyway, what I want to say is, "Thank you for the warm and lovely boner, Elle." It was my first. When I compare it to my most recent boner, there are many superficial similarities. But, ever since I divorced your feeble replacement, Laura, they have lost their beautiful simplicity 

Yours, 

- Nigel Tewksbury

Madness returns

In 2007 a volcano exploded. Out spewed A Season in Hell. A whirlwind, composed of booze and Tatiana, followed, and, when the dust settled, I looked in the dirty bathroom mirror--lit, weirdly, by a desk lamp--and saw a thin grey cat. Part aesthete, part recluse, but cursed with a sandpaper tongue. 

Six hours a day I run, but can't escape confusion. Tired and twitching I dream of murdering aliens--brutally--a smashing of their spaceship, a slitting of their throats--but the world is angry with me because such brutalised bodies are of no use to science. Well, what I can say... I was caught in the moment. 

Last night I confessed to my girlfriend that I had sex with an elf. But it was purely psychological. 

I tried to write a saga but could not make it sensible as my reality is fragmented and backwards. I blame those little green messages pretending to be red. Instead of work I dream of being alone in volcanic landscape, the meaning deepening knowing there is no one to share it, except, perhaps, for some hidden folk in the moss and rocks. 

They demand no explanation and invite me to the party. 

There's little in the taste to distinguish the vodka from water and the madness has returned worse than ever. It does that. Between two worlds on a tourist's bus, Dante's midlife crisis is called to mind. All I can say is Alexandra Palace belongs to the people and Massari seems unaffected by the economic crisis. And I wonder why parting is full of ice and fire. 

I know a girl who looks like Robert Plant

Dear H, 

It's 3:00 in the morning, centre of the abyss--man I've got the spins. My bed is a winter, and there are mirrors everywhere. I am a blue whale cruising the 8th dimension. 

I've come from the asshole of existence and spent some time on the straight and narrow. Full of terror and wherewithal, I was married. We had a child and a sofa. It was comfortable, but then things got crazy. 

I was on the sofa, shagging your darling Edwina like a dog, instead of writing to you, you twat, you idiot, you piece of dog shit, which is how I think of you. Oh, and my wife... 

Remember when I cut the tip off your finger with the little saw on my swiss army knife? I chopped it up and ate it and snorted the dust of your nail. We were brothers. I told you I knew a girl who looked like Robert Plant. A botanist. 

Then I was shagging Edwina in Paris and composing a note to you in my head. We went to an orgy on Noah's Ark. Helga was there (remember her?). I mainly watched while drinking tea of opiate. 

Hello Satan. Let me cook you breakfast. No no no, I insist. 

But what I really want to say is: Fuck you. I hope you die. Your reign of terror will shrivel and expire with a pathetic little mouse-squeak. 

And I, screaming and squawking, will be reborn as Nigel Tewkesbury, hatching, fully drunk and erect, from a celestial Cadbury's Creme Egg. 

I am yours, in death, love, and intoxicants, and Oxford, remember Oxford, always remember Oxford. 

Sincerely, 

N. Tewkesbury

Tomorrow I'll set Henry on fire

I was lightheaded in a basement. A chatty blonde walked me home. I kicked over street signs and thought it hilarious. I was disinterested in all she said. 

On my mobile there was a green message from my asshole brother. Still alive and kicking?

Yes... But I awoke in filth, with my dick inside a puppet. 

Tell mother not to worry for I have it under control. I suppose, now, you think you're better than me. But you have not experienced Henry. 

Do you know a good cleaner? One who doesn't judge? I'd prefer it if she can't speak English. I want to share experiences. My filth tells a story. 

Oh birds of paradise I'm so disjointed with no career prospects but songwriter or blogger. And it's too late to start a career. 

So I will search for a method of turning fire into ice. 

Bee Wee and the Death Rattle Hum

Good Friday was spent comatose on a beach... 

TOWIE screams through consciousness. Magical pagans. An explorer turned dull. 

I've been sleeping with Henry, my ventriloquist's dummy. He sees my eyes half open and whispers to me: "Nigel. I want to die."

The wind replies: Bee Wee and the Death Rattle Hum. A new act, appearing at a haunted basement near you. An erotic puppet show of manners.

Made out of wood, Henry plays a prick. But he does well with women on account of his perpetual hardon.

Henry recites to me a line: "I'd shag her, but angrily. I'd marry her, but hate it. I'd push the fat one off a cliff." To bring it home, he does that thing with his eyebrows. 

Bravo. 

Opening night. In the audience, more otiose than a slug, I dream of orange girls and God. Stretching and stumbling through eternity, they have always been the stuff of the universe. 

Consensus deems the play weird. At the after party, I make eyes with a pagan and pull her passionately into a closet. She pulls down my trousers and starts sucking. We are disrupted by a click. 

Henry cocks his Baretta. A buxom puppet screams. 

Dark coquette

I did not set myself alight. I'm not that kind of guy. So I'm sleeping in a slow cooker, my pillow a chicken breast. Look at me: I'm lean. My meat falls off the bone. Call my mother and tell her I'm succulent and flirting with a French girl circa 1923. 

I prefer a dark meat. 

Dear Friend and Brother, 

Hell is a sauna and my spirit bleeds electrolytes. The dark lord is a personal trainer barking out commands and eating chocolate cake and icing and ice cream. I did not mean to fall asleep. And now I'm sick and longing for the dreadful alarm clock noise. I didn't think it would be so dull at the centre of the world... in the middling eye of the vortex. 

Monotony whipped me to submission. And now I'm you. And I hate you. 

We've always ridden the wave in and out of consciousness repeatedly waking up in filth. We've been known to break a plate and put our fists through walls. 

I've enjoyed the whole process. 

- NT

------------------------------------------

I crawled like a baby. In a tunnel I crawled like a drunk. 

In a field I woke along with mild euphoria. I did not want to return to the mess. A cigarette enhanced everything, as it does. 

Lost in smoke rings, I thought, Intensity put me here. I remember: I stormed out of the party and ran away. Don't call me a taxi. Storming and running is how I choose to live. I am, and always will be, a rather difficult child. 

But I've tired of my noisy aesthetic of throwing tantrums and toys. Have you noticed? I haven't sworn once today. I'm trying not to be a gimmick. 

I vow to renounce--no, to reduce--my grunting and groaning, but never to make sense. 

My dark, French darling, I adore you, but I must tell you I'm trying to change. I'm trying to go lighter. Do you have a Caucasian friend with a little evil in her soul? 

Henry

I'm sick and tired of this crazy-ass seaside town. It's no place for a gentleman and badass like me. (But you're a gentle lamb, even with those socks). Hello, Brighton. The slow clomp of my cowboy boots along your streets is drowned out by the football chants of your boozed-up Brits. I know you have pagan roots, but, in these modern times, it's just tacky to do it so overtly. So please do shut up, and if you're going to be slutty, for god's sake be thin.

Hello you hazel girl. I'd like to steal you away. But then you go on about the weather and baby that's not cool.

Let's go to Pret and eat prosciutto ham. And you're fooling around with that half-assed man and all because he's less frightening than me. I wish you'd embrace The Chills.

I've never met someone so god-damned fit yet so fond of cows. You wear them on your socks. How weird. Yes, I do, I do like tea--pour me some of that fucking black darjeeling because it gives me the tingles when I do it right.

Do you feel it? Or are you stupid?

I didn't say that last part... We're having of those hot-shit mornings. It's bright around the edges, but darkened at the core. Like that little wooden chap in my closet. I have introduced you to Henry, haven't I? My dummy? My darling, darling dummy?

Bimodal after-party blues

I should tell you, before we do this, that there's black hair all down my chest. Now don't be surprised if you dig it--it's a cue that you're a starving artist, which I'm into, sort of, that is, until I see the bill.

I don't look like a model, but I've been told that I've got depth. And now you've got the hiccups because I revealed to you the low-point of my life--the funny one, I mean. Not the real one. That one hits too hard.

Now be a dear and fetch me a bottle of water... and a can of peaches if you can.

I see you've got the hiccups because I told you how I crawled upon the pubic ground in the space between two toilet stalls. I didn't mention that I could have escaped easily by opening the door. Then you would realise that I like, for no particular reason, nothing more than a good, dirty crawl.

I am a pig, but lately I've found that some chicks fancy that.

Can I be so bold as to ask if you are "some chicks"?

My God I wish you'd finish your wine because I'm on this bimodal sleeping pattern that leaves me a wreck every sunset. And I've run out of things to say. So I'll gaze past all the pretty girls with my eyes stretching miles and miles and miles and miles.

I notice there are many, many girls here--usually around the age of 24--who are prettier than you. I gaze. Sexy, awkward, I really can't tell right now. Am I awaking the starving artist? It exists in every girl. But I would appreciate it if he stayed asleep until after you've purchased your round.

Now you've got the hiccups and I'm drunk and home alone. But I'm happier than a handsome model because yesterday someone called me a little rebel monkey. Oh, oh yeah... It's really quite late, but as I'm awake in the fucking predawn, I'll text you a message to remind you of our mortality. I have an idea (ouch!). For our first proper date we can see King Lear and maybe slit our wrists.

Have you read the play? It's dark.

Dinosaurs/Blue Whale

I saw a child wet himself upon encountering the animatronic T-Rex at the Natural History Museum. I nearly wet myself too. He was scared of it, and I was scared of him, and all the others of his ilk. God they make such noise... But the big dinosaurs don't frighten me. It's the little ones that do it. They are devilish, familiar. I fear they might run up my trouser leg, and, for a few reasons, I don't want that. No no no.

The blue whale was disappointing. Yes, it was big, but I had built it up too much in my mind. Plus it's not right to be hanging from a ceiling.

Happy fucking birthday you old dandy asshole

"How was your weekend?" She asked--a perky Lancashire blonde with crooked, rotting teeth.

I was moody. Do fuck off, baby, I thought.

"It was bad," I slyly replied. "I spent it croaking up reality. It's left me with a hell of a god-damned hangover."

I thought of sleeping with her, but she was young and scared of men like me. And I realised I was too beautiful and that she thought me too strange.

The Croak. I should have written it down. I intended to write it down. The great, collective Croak! A round-table discussion on the net hosted by Matthew and Mark-O preaching the gospel of bitches and pizza (good stuff, bitches and pizza). They dance all night to the tunes of DJ Unpronounceable and they forget to write down the moves (thrust-twist-thrust!). And there they are, forgotten to history, going to hell and waste.

The Croak. The song of the Holy Tramp. Too beautiful, too weird, too strange for a pity Lancashire babe to understand. To her it's a garbled mess.

Happy fucking birthday you old dandy asshole! Exchange my party toy for some whisky. To celebrate the occasion I've purchased a MacBook Air. The Dell was hurled out the window in dramatic fashion. Inspiron my ass. I am anew.

I am a very good-looking man

I prefer to open a banana like a monkey--I pinch the nip at the base. It makes me feel like a pervert, but some things feel right.

She called me creepy. I dismissed the criticism by moaning, Baby that's my style.

I looked across the water. It was filthy and it stank like shit. We gazed deeply into each other's eyes.

"Do ugly people look at each other this way?" she inquired.

"Darling I have no idea what ugly people do."

In the end, I did not eat the banana, though my doctor says I am deficient in every vitamin and mineral. There's a time and place for everything and this was not the time for that.

Training Log: 29 July 2010

Morale: Desperate
Type of Exercise: Elliptical Trainer

This morning, while "jacking off" in the shower, I felt an intense emptiness that normally I would combat with a mixture of drugs and alcohol. But, as I crushed my morning protein shake and devised a surefire way to score some smack--nude, in the glistening sun--I decided I would fight my heroin urges and hop on the elliptical trainer instead.

I did half an hour of interval training and my bursts were so intense I feared a heart attack but welcomed the prospect of Death as the destroyer of all my personal and administrative problems. Wearing only my finest silk undergarments, my cock danced like a sweaty snake to the Velvet Underground who serenaded me through my lime green Sennheiser MX75 Sport earbuds.

In my final burst, I asked for only death or endorphins, but neither came. Semi-satisfied, I crushed a smoothie in the Astro Lab and tried to contact the planets. I have no plans for the rest of the day.

Training Log: 26 July 2010

Morale: Low
Type of exercise: Road cycling

Battling violent winds, I rode along the southern coast. I hated every moment. That cock Aolous was angry at me, all because I fucked his mother last night in a dream. I struggled to keep tempo while the wind battered me and I broke down into tears on the side of the road. Afterwards I felt like shit and vomited a little in the shower--one of those pukes where a chunk gets stuck in your sinus and you hack and hack and hack but it won't shake loose until you finally admit defeat and turn on some trashy television and you are rudely reminded that, oh shit, I have thrown up again and fuck the taste is awful I want to die you bitch Nature you bitch you bitch you whore.

To Baby

Dear Baby,

Are you still mad at me because I called your pregnant clay god a whore? I told you, never worship a woman--a lesson that hit me like a tonne the summer I spent in Cyprus, masturbating compulsively in my monk's cell, never having any visions because I was drunk all the time (or at least 85% of the time). Alcohol for me is a surrogate spirit, but I must admit, it really gets things done on earth. Baby, it's how we met. We were drunk and wild and I’ve almost forgotten the sickness.

The monks and I would put on cosmic soap operas. I was always the hunky asshole/Neptune. After a row that ended with me tearing Myoki's fat Budha belly with a dessert fork, I fled to Canada, citing artistic differences. I knew that Neptune should be into bestiality--mostly cockatoos and parrots because of the tongues--but for some reason the thought disgusted Myoki. Touchy prick.

Canadians found me creepy because I stand too close. Well, yes, the English are a creepy breed. We are, after all, the ones who were afraid to leave.

But Baby, your smooth white English rose of an ass suits me fine. It's OK that you have no character--I just want to feel, taste, smell your fleshy Jupiters and oils. I think they can satisfy me, but, lest we forget, I’ve suckled the milk of paradise—come to think of it, I’ve suckled quite a bit. I'm sorry I told you we are not cats. We are. And I'm sort of into that these days. Let's be English cats and never leave the house. Let’s lie constantly.

We must destroy the pregnant figurine. Let's go into space. It will work out fine.

xoxo

- Tewksbury

The AstroLab

She was a tall drink of water with a kick and she had legs up to here. Well well well, we've got stars in our eyes tonight. Let's pour a drink and make out in my exotic car--I'm feeling like a tiger. And it's a full moon, or close enough... Or are you sick again? You can't keep out of trouble, can you, pussy cat? You're infected with the chaos of the world--now isn't that a drag? It's not easy on me, either. But I'll jump out of a cake with a blue Speedo if it makes you happy.

Now the universe is my thing--I dig that planetary noise. Like jazz, but good. I've constructed an AstroLab in the attic--old brass telescopes, compasses, and tube electronics. It cost a fortune, but I love getting drunk on Jim Beam while spotting planets and constellations. I love the milky way, but I confess, I spend most of my time looking in parked cars. In general I've learned a lot.

Last night I woke up as Jupiter. Really psychedellic. I was full and warm but my moon was bringing me down. She said she was killing herself. I was so worried that I pissed myself. I tried to convince myself that it was just a moon--I have 62 more--but I was sad to see her go because she was a pretty one. I watched it grow ugly and die.

It's no good being a sensitive planet. I'll change my sheets and learn courage from hard liquor and fast cars. That's my long-term plan.

Tewksbury at the Movies: If...