amityville flux by Ethan Z. Lee (i love you, man) You can pretend that you really don’t care you’re in Amityville, and you’re losing your hair You’re in Amityville where you’re just in the way so you drink straight vermouth and you puke in the bay and you flirt with the truth, you remember your youth, but you just couldn’t say how you got here, or what’s going on anyway you’re in Amityville, and it looks like you’re going to stay... you’re in Amityville, where your shit doesn’t stink, ‘cause you’re used to the reek haven’t bathed in a week, and you drink for the forty-five minutes of don’t-have-to-think time and where has it gotten you? rotten blue gums and some muscular dystrophy thumbs aren’t opposing the way that they used to it seems like a high price to pay to be king for a day to be green in the liver and wake up a-shivver to visions that won’t go away when the light of the day hits you pray that your gray, wooden flesh will obey you enough to get up and say high to your memories just long enough to recall that you don’t like them anyway anyway, what does it matter, at this point, it’s sadder to live in the past than to blast it away with Canadian Mist while the cyst in your stomach gets bigger with each passing day just a little bit uglier what would you say to your mother if she got ahold of your number and called and you couldn’t remember her name? you’re a drain on society not so much evil as totally useless unstable completely unable to change or to function efficiently friendless and helpless to better yourself but you do something well: you can navigate Hell you’re in Amityville, and you’re still doing swell in comparison with all the heroin addicts and crack-baby accidents drooling and floating around in the welter of poverty you’ve got a job to be up for at eight in the evening; a crack-whore is something to Be in this town and you’re lusciously sorry you bartered your body you’re probably wondering something like how a male prostitute got to be selling himself on the streets when he’s actually thrashing around in his sheets in the grip of a feverish dream and he screams in his sleep, because even in nightmares, there’s still a small ‘Me’ in the back of his head and it says when he wakes up, that he will be You and it hurts to admit, but it’s true what the hell did you DO to yourself? you’re in Amityville, and you’ve squandered your wealth and your health on the battle you’ve waged in your delf, now there’s nobody left to discern a real victor the loser is clearly a parody of all the various people that you ever meant to be lost in the shuffle and parry and thrust of the rusty and broken-backed shuddering husk of the man that you might have been given a chance to start over again would you really pick gin at the ripe age of ten, to become your best friend who you spend all your money and time with, and lean on and nourish your dreams on and piss through the screen on and pilfer a tipple or three from the bottle of anyone anywhere trusting enough to believe that a tiny green kid wouldn’t ransack their full liquor cabinet and be smart enough to take only as much as they just wouldn’t miss at a sleepover you were the life of the party a natural clown with your stolen baccardi it’s hardly the way to be healthy or hardy, but hey, that’s the way that it happened, and you can’t be sorry if you don’t remember the story that’s partly the reason you keep on believing the fables of glory ignoring the gory unchaseable horrible truth of perpetual youth: if you never grow up than you won’t have to answer to anyone ‘cept for the Man, and he’s standing in every corner of every room that you stumble into in your drunken parade it was only a fantasy, how did it come to be real? it was never an answer for anything, but, here in Amityville, you can sit on your heels with the rest of the rats that are churning the meal at a variable pace, and they don’t blame you, don’t hate you, they can relate to you share the same fate with you staying up late, drinking booze in the zoo, keeping clueless as to who they’ve come to be, or where they’re going, or whence did they come they have fun, in a manner of speaking if drunken delerium isn’t your favorite frame then you’d better go back to wherever you came from if you still remember the name of the town and the family that you ran away from then you might be able to find your way back, but it’s hard to start out down the long, lonely tracks when you know in your heart that you’ll never get back to wherever you started you’re older and weaker and deeper in debt to the demons that live in your heart and your head and demand to be fed on the learn-to-forget liquid lucifer and if you haven’t left yet, then you’ll probably never be able to that’s what you get for ignoring the whispers and warnings of well-meaning parents and any authority figures or brothers or sisters or friends ever cautioned you sternly or gently against giving everything over to anything chemical, mineral, vegetable, otherwise they’re no replacement for using your own eyes and fumbling towards being good ‘stead of just giving up and retreating back into the goggle of beer or what have you, to snuff out the candle of thought for a second or two before it flutters, flickers back into existence a pitiful mockery tarnished and tattered by year after year of this sordid debauchery living in Amityville, you’re a jerk and a heel you’re a mouse on a wheel, and you play it by ear You’re in Amityville, where you drink and you rut and you’re vaguely displeased, but you’re hazy on what’s going wrong and your knees aren’t as strong as they used to be eyes aren’t as sharp as it seems like they used to see wake up each day in a blearier haze try to focus your gaze, but are dissed and abused by the tremors and fits and the food doesn’t sit in your stomach, and patterns dissolve in the solvent you dream about little blue demons and tiny green monsters they seem to be dancing on each of your eyelids and teaching you violent revulsion towards bathing, or closing your eyes for a second, ‘cause then there’d be nothing between you and them but the memory of when things were different long, long ago you try to remind yourself: how did you get here? and when did you cease to pretend that you wanted to be here to see, hear, to keep your teeth clean here you wake up each day in a puddle of sweat and you drink to forget, ‘cause you haven’t come yet to the end of the line and the once docile pets keep on doubling bets keep on pouring you wine and then calling your name when you get up to pay you find reasons to stay soon are back at the table and well on your way through the maple brown rum, and the cheap Tanqueray bores a hole in your brain you would scream out in pain, but you can’t find the words to describe it, and anyway it’s all the same in the end hell, you always had nightmares, you just didn’t mind them as much back when you were in touch with a baseline a groundstate a fulcrum a coldstone a starting line, place of departure, and now that you’re lost in a sea of perpetual dreams and you’re not crawling up through the mire and muck that you’re stuck in, you’re up to your ankles, and moving is difficult, but you must get up to piss, and if sometimes you miss, well you’re ripped to the tits, and at some point that seemed like an answer for anything anyone might at one time long ago have desired to ask you now nobody’s left to demand that you answer to anyone ‘cept for the Man and now, chances are, you never will you got lost on the way you’re in Amityville, and it looks like you’re going to stay... 041013 ... flux i guess i should point out that this is a song, if it's not clear.. and maybe it listens better than it reads. i just had to share though.. 041013 ... flux should have noted earlier, it's by an e_z_lee 150808 what's it to you? who go blather from