The Lawnmower

By Faryal Rashid

I think I left the gas on on purpose I hacked
The oven hoping you’d notice the
Morbid avidity. I go further
Still.
From type to prototype.
I became the thing that springs
Directly from the source.
Monoxided.
The powerhouse. The Zamzam.
Call it the brain or heart of creation.
Call it the end.
Our oven self-cleans.

When I watch
Party Girl she slithers out of the
TV
I love her emphatically.
Her earrings especially.
Ghetto gold discs I think that’s what the
30 something with the big curly hair on another show said.
The face is just okay.
Cute dress though.
You should wear it with
Those heels, the pink ones with the metal studs?
Uh huh, the spiky ones.
Silver cone slut.
They are just whorish enough. And resourceful. Which is always a plus.

He watches Party Girl watch me. I think it turns him on. Although, I can’t be sure. I think he has some sort of Mandala Dick Syndrome. Like his dick meditates? Which is interesting. Definitely. I’m taking notes.

I’m a real
Good detective. I have him have me
Pinned.
Just like that.
No, harder.
No, slower.
I like it like that.
Do I like it like that?
I stutter in both directions.
Each star I spot lasts just a day.
I bite you with
Fatal omen. I swallow then spit then
Psyche you sideways.
I hate every second.
I want to be inside the oven.
I’m trying very hard to still like you.

We are the
Union of irreconcilables.
Both dreams consummate the same thing:
I call the center the self.
He appraises his Oatmeal. At 2 pm.
Granola-ing
To Nazareth.

We were going to have sex. Except he’s in the lawn now. We have a lawn now. And he’s mowing the lawn. He is primarily a man. But second, he is a friend to all bottles. Big-beered, no limits, until they are realized. I hand him another bottle. Anyway, I’m sober now which is awesome for everyone but me. So I’m not handing myself any bottles. I’m staring at a tiny NA keychain. First day is the most important day. Every day is the first day. The lettering is gold so it is difficult not to notice it. I keep it in my bag. In fact, I hook it to each new bag I use. Click. Click. The brown hobo, the black tasseled totally fucked one I should really stop using. The mini pale blue tweed with the little coffee bean sea shells. NA at the beach. It’s a rotating keychain. I also have a Virgin Mary and Her Son, Our Lord and Savior, an ornamental pink bow thing that my friend gave me years ago, kind of threadbare now? I should’ve kept it in a nice velvet box or something. But it is pretty and looks nice next to the NA one.

Anyway, he hasn’t called the landlord yet.

Did you call the landlord yet?

This again, he says. Very original.

It was due on the 1st. That’s literal. As in, reality. The thing that happens.
Mundanely, typically without flourish.

I’m getting around to it. Chill out.

I am chilled out. I’m literally the chillest.

Shut the fuck up. Just stop fucking talking.

Jesus. Calm down.

Shit, baby I didn’t mean that.
I just want
You know, a nice
Slow
Never mind.
I think I should meditate.

He believes in transcendental meditation. I don’t even know what that means. Apparently, the aim is to cultivate some kind of a “unified and open attentional stance“. That’s Wikipedia. Catching the Big Fish. I don’t think he’s ever seen a fish up close. He doesn’t really own a net, or a hook, or you know, a sinker, a feeder. He doesn’t know how to bait shit. But he is definitely transcending something. I don’t like Catching the Big Fish because I’m not a fisherwoman but I can appreciate a sincere man. Which he is not. But the man in the video is. So it is okay. After the video rewinds for like the fifth time, I yank the cable out. Yeah, that’s done.

You should’ve
Told somebody it was
THAT BAD.
Okay. Relax. It wasn’t that bad.
Except maybe it was exactly that bad.
I thought I was doing you a favour?
I can’t be sure it might’ve been after we-
Wait, did we?
Shit actually now that I think about it –

Apparently, the truth is structured like a fiction. On this particular occasion, it is also boring. The event becomes sullied only because it has been recalled. But it doesn’t really matter to me because I forget everything anyway. Once the associative properties of a structure are revealed, everything else withers away. Desire most of all. And I am not for that. I’m specifically against that. So I try not to name it.

I thought you said you liked it when it leaked.

Faryal Rashid is never beating the allegations. Her work appears in Do Not Submit and Charm School Mag.