Aria. Awake in bed, arms above her head, stomach rising and falling with breath. Ginger on her tongue. Abdomen, rye. Her mind, steel. Blackened. The pills only hurt, so she kicked without any help. Four years back. Four days of dread, brain snaps, tingles in her fingers and toes, palpitations. Heart on edge. Four more days of a hole in her chest. Withdrawals. Synthetic. Four more days of recovery, and four more days to clear the way.

Withdrawn.

Without synchronicity.

Always kick on a Monday. Allow Sunday to be the gate.

She kicked on a Monday. Midnight to end Sunday. It had been that way with liquor, with cigarettes, with sugar. She put nothing in the way of feel. Her walls were plenty without help. Her father built the first one, but she had learned control with the first line of ink. Lightning strike, once to remain alone, forever. No other line would be so new. No other pain shocking. Graffiti for the walls, for her own understanding, for her understanding of alone. For her love with it, their affair. On her back. Quilt over glass. Moonrise.

 —Four years back, she kicked on a Monday. Midnight. Sunday behind her to show the week it would give itself over or lose her. Wild pig days, itching blood. Taper Sunday to midnight. Clean sheets. Showered and in bed. Breathed up into the night, remembered a story of stars up there, the belt of Orion, the burning of light. Eskimos whose souls would find Heaven stepping up the stars of his belt. Three on the rise up. Open arms of somebody never dead. The story of it, the sadness.

Her sadness. A psalm of the city. A flower filled with blood. Unmoving.

A plant in her heart. It grew only when she shed what was not needed.

She was a flower grown from the city, and it was proud, so proud even death would not usurp her. Her skin graced by the city, the design, the product it pushed. She was vindicated through crawling up a victim. Now the faces of the city were there to keep the flower strong, to keep it alive. With the city as her only love, the nightmares had stopped with her addictions. The city saw to that. When the sadness would punctuate its reach, the city only moved faster to heal.

Her face in the mirror. Sunfall. The lights along the awnings breathed possibilities into the sidewalk, breathed sleaze. One stroke of eyeshadow twice, one carton of juice drained, and the elevator spat her out. The landlord smiled. Lobby. Aria gave her a nod, a late-night-at-the-office sigh, and the landlord laughed, watched her walk away, to someplace offering risks meaning memories. What she would not give to be in the skin, the youth of her, the years facing forward from her. Behind the counter, what the old woman would never know. The eyes of men and lesbians would mean much to her, the smell of the stage, the degenerates, as long as they would want her, she would give herself to them. The years behind the counter. The city was her thief, but she knew nothing righteous. Her eyes clung to the coat of Aria. Long, black. Her hair blue and white, the city opened with neon, prostrated in wait, when her boots would touch the concrete, the city would begin. The landlord looked away.

Aria disappeared through the door.

Tall Jack Coke. He drank half. Two drunks sat facing the bottles blocking the mirror. One drunk spoke to him, but the other cut him off, a pat on the forearm. The stranger spoke to no one but the bartender, and even now the words became one nod: Two shots, a pint, and a tall Jack Coke down the road. The drunk shrugged it off, and they focused on the two women. The bartender looked over the shoulder of the stranger, out the window, while Aria walked past for the place next door, where she would remain until four in the morning, where she would pull in more than any attorney in the city. The drunks and the women followed his stare. The drunks laughed at the bartender, his lust, they laughed along. They knew her silhouette as much as the others. Aria went into the building next door. The bartender shook his head and uttered one word.

“Beautiful.”

Beautiful. The stranger stared into his glass. The word rested upon his lips, a dead thing. Beautiful. Did not come close. The word could not approach her. Aria. Beautiful. It cheapened her. Diluted.

Beautiful.

A useless, shiny adjective.

The name was not lost on him. She was a flower reborn by the city. His. He would wait for the time to tell her what she was, when she would listen to him, when he would make the connection fixed for the time ahead. A flower. His. A child risen from the city, into his own. Like the plant from the blood of Robinson Jeffers, the line from the book had scratched him. Long scar. Unmoved beneath the sky her ghost set over him. The flower in his blood, Aria. Her fingers set in ink, born from the city, meant only to move through his hair. Moving through obsidian. Burn the film off his body. Nothing smelled as sweet as blood.

Her blood. It sat in his, trapped by him. When she would move he would feel it. Next door she would work the stage, the faces. When the other girls would spray and wipe the pole after their time, it made her sick, so she never went near it. Aria. No inversions, no slow slides down, no ascents to communize her, no bills handed to her or placed upon her. Their money, on the foot of the stage in front. The faces in the crowd, the look from them. The bodies beneath her. On stage, in dream to get her through, she would watch them burn to bone and ash. The other girls, how they went nude and often beyond, rejects of the city reaching for its grace. Outstretched, ignored. Aria, not once exposing her body as nude, not having to. Her mystery piped in from the city, the Moon on high, the lights and the sick things filtered for her, for the view of the city to keep it for its own. The city. The air as flesh, the rain as veins, the night sky as blood. Aria, her flesh as rain. Next door, the stranger finished his drink and walked out.

Silhouette walking west. The old man watched and it was no more. On his back there, dirt cooled, the night receding lighter. Torn back by dawn, when the city put him to sleep, when the light would bore the artists, the thinkers, the hunters. Light in the city, the expansion of lungs, only levered because it had to be. Tolerated. Daylight for the adopted. Loved just enough. They had to be there for business. Landscape and lifting. Commerce and order, base work. When the Sun would fail, the real blood woke and waited for the naked stars.

—From The Velocity of Ink, a book I wrote, and one I'm reading for Audible. Here's a link for the narration of the chapters above, if you want to hear it. Thanks to @Mamba for creating the photos to go along with the read on YouTube. Here's the link.

https://youtu.be/nCNPIuBK_uw

Here's the link to the book.

https://jeffstewartauthor.com/the-velocity-of-ink/

The red bird was her favorite. Reminded her of old songs from her youth. The blue was the wiser. Never preened for anyone but her. The morning her old man stayed gone, she went ahead and fixed the glass. From his time gone, four days followed with what could be, had the heavens heard her wish. When the detectives came in to tell her the news, she had two words for them: You sure? They glanced at each other, and one of them asked her to come down with them to identify the body, to sit for questioning. She looked at the birds. A tear broke loose over its edge. Once and big. Long crawl down. Inside the tear, the years of it, over. She breathed and looked skyward. Swollen heart. The joy in her. The detectives stared at each other. After she had viewed the corpse, grey room, two-way glass. Never a suspect, but her relief at the news caused intrigue in the lead detective he had not felt in years. Heartbeat aside, he needed a recorded statement. He set the coffee in front of her. Before he hit record he had squeezed her hand.

“Just protocol, sweetheart.”

The apartment between them, empty. His on the end of the hall. Hers two down on the left. The Sun gone from the city, the last moments of light, gold. A knock. Nobody knocked on their floor. Out of bed, the dream pulled back, a café blurred. Feet to floor. Eye through the doorway. Two men in suits, talking to Aria. Her door open. Her body unseen. The men were sharpened. Linear men. He listened there nude. The detectives, there by word of the bartender. The body was discovered a week after death, they canvassed. Easy work led them to Aria. Her voice from her place. The sound. Satin over chalk. The music. She had nothing for them. She had neither felt him walking behind her nor heard a sound. Blade broken off in his head, teeth kicked out. In that order. They waited for body language. Aria, stared through them. She asked them how the landlord was holding up, and nothing more. They left, locked out. A beat of three on down, and the shower turned on.

At the counter, she watched them leave the lift. Across the lobby. The lead told her they were still working the case, but after this much time, absence of outside prints, and the fact nobody in the area knew anything, to have no expected miracles. She smiled at him. This one was plenty. Done with the floor upstairs. The face and body behind the door up there. The ink behind her robe. The hardness of the widow facing him. He gave her a smile, loose. He left with his partner. Night in the city had swallowed day and any trace of the case.

The city kept him busy for its own reasons.

The old man was prepared for nothing, and he remained that way. What he wanted from the city was easy, a blank space from which to breathe. On his bed in the dirt, when the city called to him it was nature now. Servitude, hungry. Involuntary. Never enough love from the skyline, from the base of his fathers looking down on him. When the night covered the city, the old man could even see the tops of the buildings bent down, slight, glass eyes watching his blood.

—Four nights back, a long thought up into the stars, he had been pulled to his feet. A degenerate moved west down the boulevard to pluck their flower. The old man in dirt, he was a fix for the city. Nothing he would do more. Where the silhouette of the stranger would walk east, across the street moved the beauty of the city, a song of life everyone heard but her. A mass of silhouette following. The old man reached down his side and gripped the handle. When he moved, he moved to hunt. The warm voices in his head, what was needed, and what he would give. Unlimited love:

Leave the blade inside, son. Take his teeth for fun.

The kill was not the first, the last, or the slowest. He had done worse to others when the city called him out.

At the counter. The landlady sat, younger. A reverse lift of burden, Schopenhauer. Her old man, dead, the city out there in her consideration. Her birds in tune with her. Well-slept, bellies full. Songs of the streets, audible now. She had tried to feel for him, to feel the loss, any type of semblance to sorrow. It fell dead upon conjure. The wish for him to feel long pain, fear until his end, was the only stone in her faded. Her fridge bulging with health. Skin on the mend. Lotion on her face, lemons to her elbows. Unlimited moonrise, a kind Sun. The faces crossing the lobby almost beautifully. The fridge became full on the afternoon of the letter from the holdings company. A condolence, and praise for her work. She was full management now. All checks would be paid to her name. It arrived with one, made out with an extra month in full. Hers. Signed with a stamp. She sent the post office box a card. A message of grace, of gratitude. She dipped her wedge in honey, sucked it off the end. A slow bite into the meat of the fruit. Life had not been as bright as this dark truth. Age set aside, she could breathe and live like the others did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4r9OztHPs4

Been some time since I've posted on my own profile and not as Prose., but I wanted to post something from here and tag some writers, because I want to start getting back to my own shit. I need to write more, or just plain out start writing again. Prose. is a labor of love, so that's great, but no matter what, I need to write. Realized today I haven't even posted to my own channel in ages, and it worked out, because I didn't want to post my work on The Prose. Channel, because I like to keep that for the writers aside from me, and my voice and big, fat face on the channel is enough from me, without reading my own work, too. Holy fuck, I couldn't even watch that...

Been on this gnarly but satisfying carnivore diet the last couple of months or just less, and yesterday was an all-Hell-breaks-loose day. Beer, whiskey, bread, name it... paying the fiddler now. I'm sure he's thrilled. He's an asshole.

As myself, I want to thank you for being on Prose., and for being so generous with the work you give to it. Every day I read something great on here. So much talent in one place, and I think back to when it was just an idea stemming from another hangover, in the heat of a Texas afternoon, where I happened to find myself in that particular moment in time. Looking at Prose. now, it's very humbling, and I am grateful to you.

Alright, enough mushy feelings and shit. Here's a link to my own channel and some poems from here, but also appearing in a book of mine, set to release in the near future.

Thanks again.

-Jeff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKw-vodNOMU

It was getting colder out and the rodents were coming in for shelter. I could hear the mice running the walls while I tried to sleep. It wasn’t uncommon for me to feel one run across my feet when I brushed my teeth. Meg would chase the sounds of the mice in the walls and I was going insane. I had flies in the room. They would come in from cracks in the light covers and take over the place. One night I spent six hours killing every fly I saw with folded typing paper. I became obsessed with them. I would crouch behind the big stand after I had cleared the room of them and wait for one to crawl out from the ceiling, and I would spring on him and flatten him. I thought I would never get to Manhattan, I thought I would rot there. The car had been on empty for weeks. I had nowhere to go and no money. All I had was the warehouse and I was lucky I had that. I could feel my mind slipping away moment by moment. It had nothing to do with where I was or the lack of food or humanity. It had to do with the morbid process, my incessant repetition of speeding into brick walls, my travels further into failure. My own brother lived close and he didn’t give a fuck. Time came forth and showed me pictures only the dead could see.

I was not human anymore. I hadn’t used my vocal chords in over six weeks, aside from talking to Meg. I was barely surviving. I learned to adapt to Meg’s food but that made it go quicker. My brother in the south end drove over illegally one Sunday and gave me a twenty. When he walked in and saw me he had to stop and put it together. I was ashen, my ribs were showing. He took me out to eat but my stomach had shrunk and I couldn’t put down half a burger without getting full. He bought me a can of coffee and some groceries. I was able to live for a few days off the groceries. All I had was the typewriter. It was all I ever had. He wanted me to come stay with him in the south end. He even said Meg could live upstairs with me. I couldn’t do it. I convinced him that I was fine. I had become so addicted to being alone that even spending the day with him was painful.

Another month went. On my 29th birthday I locked the place down. I could see headlights outside of my room and I heard someone knocking but I didn’t get up. Insanity had come fast, but it came certain. I didn’t know if it was the years behind it, or if the room was simply the last straw, the snapped end of string with no time left to replace it. I knew that I had lost my mind sometime in the passing week, but coming to terms with it only lost it further. I wanted to be surprised that it had finally found me there in the room, but I wasn’t surprised. The time it took had been well-earned, since the age of 16. The speed of its arrival was only offset by things bigger than the room that I wouldn’t let break me. The room was only there to garnish the grave, what the room reflected was what I’d traded my mind for, to let it go without another fight in me.

I was dead and destroyed, wasted, sorry, lonely and fucked. I had once had women and people who believed in my work. I was once a human with honor and strength and muscular flesh. Now it was gone. Everything was so gone I wondered if it had ever existed. Maybe I was born in the room and everything had been a dream, a neuro-chemical hallucination brought on by flies crawling down my throat and copulating as I slept. I had quit masturbating because it exerted me, and it only made me hungry afterward. I was not even alive. I was a cell in a jar and I was being monitored by giants who had painted this life for me to live as though it was real. I inhaled deeply, closed my eyes and refused to breathe. Not because I wanted to die, but because I was bored with breathing. My body went through a cold wave and then it was dark.

I woke up with a headache and vomit on my chest. Meg was on top of me, licking my face. I was naked, and I reached down and counted the thin muscles that poked out of my stomach. I had eight of them. Eight was a magic number right then. I thought of scenarios with the number eight. If I cut off two toes and two fingers then I would have eight of each. If Johnny had ten apples and Susie ate two of them then how many apples would Johnny have left? Eight, goddamnit! Eight was a powerful figure! I drew figure eights in the air with my finger.

I was 29 years old and I was a loser. I had tried but I had failed. The world was good and sports were good and careers were good and a job meant success and only fools thought they could write. Brad came into my room and told me he wanted money for the utility bill. It was a total of two hundred and eighty-six dollars. I jumped up, and told him there was that number again. I told him I would give him eight-hundred and eighty-eight dollars in eight days. He backed away slowly and said whenever I got some money, that was good enough for him. He told me to take it easy, and he backed out the door. He had his hands up and he bumped his head walking out. I looked at Meg and she cocked her head at me.

I was a freak. I was wasting away by flesh, rotting away by soul. Where were my people now? They were out in the sunshine and they were making love and talking to God and God talked back to them. I was no concern of anybody’s anymore. I was now at the gates of my real self. I was born for the room. I was born to write in the room. Without the room I would blow away and die in the dusty wind.

One night I woke up to the sound of Meg growling deeply. I had never heard her growl like that. I reached back and flipped the light on. She had this huge rat cornered in the room. It was drawn back against the wall, hissing at her. It was horrible. He was big and vicious and his tail reminded me of a whip used to snap out my eyeballs. He took a scratch at Meg and I snapped. He was diseased and hungry and he had the heart of a demon. Then I got it. He was a demon, coming for me to take me away because I had even failed to do that on my own, and the devil was fed up with me. He sent the rat to me to gnaw out my esophagus in my sleep.

I stood and hissed back at him. He was watching me with those eyes and he wanted me. I picked up my typewriter and held it over my head and stepped toward him. He gave me a flash of death and I brought the typewriter down and killed him.

Meg jumped onto the couch when it hit. My typewriter was broken and he was on his back, a claw still ready, but the nerves died in seconds. His face showed pain, remorse to his master for not carrying out his work. I scooped him up and carried him out the door. He was heavy. I walked down the hall and saw myself in the big mirror. There I was, naked, holding this rat. My profile was sick. There were my ribs, and I had a six month beard and long scraggly hair. I saw the picture again and my mind rushed back into my skull. It hit me and I took one more look at the mirror and stumbled back against the wall and slid to the carpet, holding the rat and sobbing. I threw my head back against the wall and screamed. I sobbed and heaved and coughed up yellow and blood on the rat. I cried for him and for my life. I screamed for my mother in Heaven and for my soul, for a way to get back into my body and live again. I screamed at the ceiling and called my fate a worthless whore.

Outside I held the rat by his tail and swung him in circles until I let him go. He disappeared in the darkness, and I heard him thump far out in the grass. Back inside I turned the valve and scrubbed myself with hot water until my skin was red and raw and it pulsed. I spent the next hour bending and screwing my machine back to use.

I’m dying with the cowards

I’m dying with the heroes

and rapists

I’m dying with the barflies

and the sinners

I’m dying with you

we’re dying together

I’m dying with my dog

I’m dying with all the actors

and playwrights

I’m dying with the guitarists

and the painters

I’m dying with your people

my people

I’m dying with the cities and towns and countries

and skies

I’m dying with the warthog

and the Siamese fighting fish

I’m dying with the rivers and mountains

and music

I’m dying with everything natural

like I should

I’m dying with the flower, the pastry chef, the old men behind

the counters

I’m dying with millionaires and welfare getters

I’m dying with the children

and parks and playgrounds

I’m dying with famed athletes

I’m dying with animated voices from cartoons

I’m dying with designers and congress

I’m dying with science

and religion

I’m dying,

with

and without you.

Desert. Pint. 11:13 p.m.

right now in Barcelona

I'd be doing the same shit

or in Rome

or in Buckeye

the wait transcends

space and time and

ocean

but nobody does it

like they do it in

in the desert

sitting here outside of

it all

outside of the writing

the next book

the next hustle

all the next bullshit

sipping a Kilt Lifter

bonus lime wedges

from the belly shirt

and ass behind the bar

while outside the

moon burns white

above the mountains

drinking to forget

what I haven't done

or will never do

all the precious normality

I admire and despise

the constant condition

the constant weight

and lightness

the constant ghost

the hidden laughing bruise

the sick and tired prostration

before a night slowly wrapping

around us

a lotus dream before

the grip

sitting here at the bar

frontal lobe toggled

head change coming

the tapping in

mystery reopens

as the night moves

across the desert

winding and watching

the dirt and rock

and the grace of

moonlight

burning white

and shining

down

on all of this.

Nothing’s been the same since you

died

no matter how I slice it

no matter how I see it

no matter how much time attempts some bullshit move to heal it

You were in my blood and you will stay in my

blood

until my blood stops

and dries

your love and roots and every

bit of fur haunt me

no matter where I run

no matter which continent

or bar or highway

your little ghost

sits, sleeps, rides shotgun

your eyes the faintest of blue

looking wise in the sunshine

across the parks and ponds and lakes

and coasts

your little heart beating big enough

for my own

your belly against my palm

in all those shitty rooms

in shitty towns

or in the beds of

shitty women

you always knew I had

guts when nobody else

did

and you always knew I’d

pull us up and out of anywhere

we despised

closer to me than any human

will get

deeper under my skin than

my own bones

so far into my heart you’re still

the center

and though

your daddy was in jail

when you had to die

and though I don’t believe

in angels or anything beyond

carbon

you came to see me the first night

you were gone

and I held you on the slab in

the cell and fell asleep with my

hand on your stomach one last time

before you went off

to do something greater

than I could ever imagine

I want to take this afternoon

to tell you that I love you more than

anything

and no sacrifice I’ve ever made

to keep you

could hold a candle to how much

I still love you

six years past your

death

and I want to tell you here

that because of you

I know what unconditional love means

and if you were here now

I’d buy you the best of everything

even though you wouldn’t have

any idea what that means

but your little brother is almost

eleven now,

and he’s happy

and I still talk about you

and his tail still wags at the mention

of your name

and there’s even a little

girl in the mix now

she looks something like you

which is why she’s here

and while it’s true she doesn’t have your

shrewd, moody genius

I know you’d be proud that

I gave her a home

and on days like this

when the whiskey’s half gone

and I’m lost out on the road

while I wait for things to come through

while I cross my fingers and hope

things start to make sense

while I wait for the spines and brains around

me to grow

while tricky assholes have

siphoned my money

while I either do or do not

wait for eminent failure

or success

the Sun sits high and warm

and shines a beautiful

orange across the desert

while I sit in a hotel and

drink whiskey

to disappear back into

the days when you were

here

when I was alive

and we watched each other

swim

anywhere we chose

to swim

and while I’m sitting here

drunk

and staring into

darkness

I want to take this

moment

to tell you

I still love you.

Pedaling Old Town

lean back and pull up on the bars

five stair drop

-easy-

let the coffee course

and your beard go white

fuck the rules of them

their candy ass bullshit

if you contrast your blood with

their copulation and debt

you will only suffer

like they do

the only division being

your awareness

and while life

is not a contrast

keep an eye away

from those who

don't tread

deep water

but right now

fuck them

pedal, sweat

and think of

Nabokov, botany

roll past the

young ass and

flowers and find that

perfect spot

red brick bar outside

blasting Ozzy

lean the bike

and order the

Jack Coke

talk to your waiter

about Rome

about catacombs

or Chicago

your life in a hotel room

while you drive the States,

pause for a week

to

live again.

Back out here

in the wind

ignore writers who

bitch about age

it's all bullshit

their bullshit

keep your body lean

keep drinking

keep the fire in

your eyes

and the sex

sexy

the rest is there

only to pull you

down

by

their weak

grip.

Letʼs not fucking reduce it to play it safe

the drink isnʼt the conduit or reason

or a fucking weak road to write the truth or

an excuse

to hate without disclaiming anything

burn the reasons why not

burn the fucking effigies of

centuries-long bullshit

tricks of the old page

manipulation of the weak and trusting

adulterers and thieves and con-men

working under the guise of loving

Christ,

of bullshit virtues

repeated forgiveness of sin

fuck each and every one of these

deficients

the still and nowhere dark of death

waits for them like everyone else

the earth will harvest them

as fast as the dead before them

and behind them is

the damage left for theirs

through which to sift and work

while honest men bleed

or give until they bleed and

and some of them need to

women misused and abused

and some of them need to be

the damage of all this infects the children

mass-connected and sprawled out

informed and dead and lost on risk

soft in the gut

soft in the instinct

all our lives 100 years left

at best

pigs rooting in greed

fat ass fucks

take at the trough

steal with smiles

our children raped

with ideals of

kneeling pigs

with one eye

on the door

the lack of grace and the forgotten

feel of cold sun at dawn

the first kiss

the first caress

the first sounds

of the water breaking shore

or the metallic taste of

stardust beneath the

panhandles of road

and dirt

extinction of travel,

of the hunt

the love of us relegated to

acceptance of anything

that stays out of the way

regardless of its size or stupid

recklessness

while outside the moon bears down

upon a tired old mother

polluted and disfigured

her oceans diseased

with the dream of pigs

but beyond this filth

the stars still shine

upon the artists

the blood from broken

calluses

the heat of

animal sex

the riffs of loud music

the clay of sweaty smocks

the stretching of new canvases

the words that run across the page

you know like I know

the truth

is ours

still

and the

true world

is here still

for us to dine

upon the

flesh

of

pigs.

At the table writing to War Pigs Saturday, summer hanging on

tooth and nail

shot of Blanton’s to drain the

remains: jockey riding cork and riff and the

fucking weight of these vocals

the distinctiveness

the acid blood encased in metal

giants ahead of their time

sitting here thinking about

the music that raised me

from classic country

to punk

to thrash

to Coltrane

to Jane’s

to Slayer, Simone, Buckley

Don Williams

and along the entire thread that spirals

umbilical

from

the head to the keys

as it was before any type of screen

and like it is now, across the

static of technology

remaining still is the grip of

centuries

the ink well of Dos

and the parchment of

Schopenhauer

the speed of a laptop

or touch screen

all of it is a

vessel of speed stopping time

with words to music

all the greats who’ve gone before

to pave inroads

for such broken thoughts

of youth

that ran into cities of age

and somehow

boulevards of luck

after alleys of shit and sweat

and gamble

rolled over and exposed

the fields lush green

the smell of published books

the scars less visible across

the knuckles

the bullshit edge of

labor fields at dawn

or the fucking faces in the factories

and warehouses

traded off to anecdotes,

to stories over

beers in Europe

or Texas

or from the table

while Black Sabbath

reminds me how bad

and good today exactly is

the metal pours out

from the speakers

across the table

down my arms

onto the

broken roads

and boulevards

into the cities

moving

toward

you.