My Own Personal Hell

by Shawn Christensen

...three pills, a quarter inch in orange-brown length, and downed with a swallow of warm beer. smash the empty brown bottle on the hardwood table in the smoky rear section of the dark, deafening bar. sit alone at a battered table that has been the breaking point of numerous brown bottles - the pills are down. stomach turns and make it through the mobs of screaming drunks and seas of greasy hair and spit and leather and booze to the bar. order a bottle of beer from the amazon bartender who towers gargantuan above, each breast making a mockery of the pitiful heads bowed over the bar - sets the beer on the sticky bar and flashes her ham-hock thigh, nearly shoulder high and gooey-pasty white. hikes her skirt up to her navel. a tattoo sprawls out over the folds of her protruding belly- a purple octopus shoots quivering tentacles out from her abdomen - tentacles wrap around each naked thigh and curve, snaking inward to her crotch. blink and follow looping tentacles in a crazy whirling swirl. blink and tip a buck - anchor at the bar. she walks away, blots out the flashing light - a neon malt-liquor sign behind the bar - burning out. bum a smoke from the kid in next stool at the bar. tear a match from a cover-less matchbook, strike it to life in a quick flare of sulfur smoke - bums nostrils. suck the flame into the tip - no filter - draw the smoke in. exhale. spit on the filthy floor. think smoke and filth and spit. see the multi-colored light curly-Q across vision - shadow splatters black across the walls. taste dry cottonmouth and slimy cottage-cheese textured saliva. hear sounds get cloudy and fade into background - echoes from far away somewhere below water. voices are muffled. think mouth tastes like yogurt-vomit. think purple octopussy. smell the urine and nicotine in the air - the heat and sweat of bodies in leather rubbing against one another in the humid, gritty air - the grinding of beef hide and grimy flesh. think neon nightmare in vomitous daydream. in jarring discord of blaring industrial noise, ears pop back and screech. see amazon throw shirt upward and display bra-less breasts to man and woman grinning carnivorously from bar-stools. takes shirt back down. think leather and skin. think sweat and smoke. twirling madly now, lights and faces twist and divide - the warped kaleidoscope of eyes and lights and shattering glass-glow igniting on the face of the cocaine amazon who dances jerkily on the bar - smashes peanuts with stomping feet-. feel entire room undulate and palpitate. bodies fly about dripping sweat and saliva - screams from innumerable mouths emanate, reverberate, shatter ears. amazon's nostrils shoot painful Light into air, into eyes - eyes begin to bum and water - white chalky film envelopes lenses. turn to the television near the ceiling of the far other-world end of the room. inside the tube a man shoves the barrel of a shotgun under a woman's jaw. in a convenience store. man blows her brains out in a bloody splash on marlboro packs and snickers bars. does same to old man behind register. cringe at the reverberating images - exploding skull, headless corpse. stomach turns and feel sweat roll from forehead into eyes, swimming salty smoke-waves, lapping over the bar. hold onto rail and ride smoking salt-waves to crest and lunge toward the bathroom through scowling faces full of cigarettes and pills, through pierced nostrils full of hair and cocaine - nostrils flared and sucking smoke. push into less thunderous pisser. floor breathing beneath - hold onto the sink. spit white into musty, rust-tainted basin. thrust hands under icy, beer-colored water. splash sizzling burning skin of face - crystallizes stinging skin. step around comer to find toilet - to sit. think lock the door. think sit and get head together. move around moldy-tiled comer. see single flickering bulb above obese, hairy man sitting on toilet tank, eyes closed, frayed jeans around ankles. see woman with gaudy, smearing make-up, sitting on toilet lid, resting her greasy hair on the folds of his belly. woman turns and smiles - turns back. man never opens eyes see that the toilet is overflowing in urine / feces ! moldy stench - the two on the toilet don't notice. leap through the doorway and out back to alley. quiet hits like a night-stick. feel the cool air freeze sweat into salty, rounded ice cubes on scalp. slump next to dumpster amid cigarette butts and shattered brown beer bottles - smile stupidly and think burning eyes. think burning octopus and purple nostrils flared. bite gagging lurch in throat - eyes roll and fall back in sockets...out... come to with shirt wet with vomit. see what looks like slightly liquefied yellow tapioca pudding - splattered on ground, on shirt. gag again and taste pudding-vomit through throat and teeth and lips - turn over and feel burning throat. feel stomach wretch and twist and convulse. wonder will it ever stop. think pain tears through guts. feel final lurch shoot yellow and acidic, red bloody over dead tongue. head bobs on wobbly neck, falls forward into dirt and...out...come to and light piercing white screams burning. morning. feel muscles stiff and lift head from blood puddle - vomit drips from lips and chin but no taste at all. lean against dumpster. wipe mouth with shirt. stand, and steps follow each other one at a time - feel foreign stiff legs pull from hips and knees down broken sidewalk. think morning and burning light. think purple light and amazon and pain in stomach. see the fuzzy edges on trees and houses waver and bum liquid in exploding sun, blurs of cars and busses. streets are sloppy with road oil and grime - gutters clogged with aluminum cans and big-mac wrappers. angry drivers crouch behind steering wheels of wheezy blue-smoke-coughing cars. think can't see beyond next comer. think one step follows the other. stumble over patchy grass in direction of the impossible bright sun. think one step follows. think can't see beyond the next corner...