Mercy

by which I mean a pure void, true nonexistence, is different; it

isn’t filled with horror or dread or fear or punishment or pain;

it’s ju st an absence o f being, especially so you don’t have to

think or know anything or figure out how yo u ’re going to eat

or w ho’s going to be on you next. It’s not suffering. I don’t

have suffering in mind; not jo y , not pain— no highs, no lows.

Just not being; not being a citizen wandering around the

universe in a body or loose, ethereal and invisible; or just not

being a citizen here, now, under street lights, all illuminated,

the light shining down. I hate the light shining down— display

yourself, dear, show them; smile, spread your legs, make

suggestive gestures, legs wide open— there’s lots o f ways to sit

or stand with your legs wide open. Which day did God make

light? You think He had the street lights in some big

storeroom in the sky to send down to earth when women

started crawling over sidewalks like cockroaches to stay alive?

I think He did. I think it was part o f the big plan— light those

girls up, give them sallow light, covers pox marks, covers

tracks, covers bruises, good light for covering them up and

showing them at the same time, makes them look grotesque,

just inhuman enough, same species but not really, you can

stick it in but these aren’t creatures that get to come home, not

into a home, not home, not quite the same species, sallow

light, makes them green and grotesque, creatures you put it in,

not female ones o f you, even a fucking rib o f you; you got ones

in good light for that. They stick it in boys too; anything under

these lights is here to be used. Y o u ’d think they’d know boys

was real, same species, with fists that work or will someday,

but someday isn’t their problem and they like the feel that the

boy might turn mean on them— some o f them like it, the ones

that use the older ones. I read about this boy that was taken o ff

the street and the man gave him hormones to make him grow

breasts and lose his body hair or not get it, I’m not sure; it

made me really sick because the boy was nothing to him, just

some piece o f something he could mess with, remake to what

he wanted to play with, even something monstrous; I wanted

to kill the guy; and I tried to figure out how to help the kid, but

I just read it in Time or Newsweek so I wondered i f I could find

him or not. I guess it depends on how many boys there are

being fed hormones by pedophiles. Once it’s in Newsweek, I

guess there are thousands. The kid’s around here somewhere;

it said Low er East Side; I hate it, what the man did to him.

These Goddamn men would all be each other’s meat if they

weren’t the butchers. They use fucking to slice you open. It’s

like they’re hollow, there’s nothing there, except they make