Headful of ghosts.

[greedy fly]

<center>chemicals will hit you
chemicals will knock you down
is it over cos you feel no pain
throwing me around
you attack my head with numbers
you tack my room with things of glass
you attack my neighbours
'til you've found someone
who's cleaning up the mess
you are no good
cos i know you can't sleep
'til you know your overbearance makes me creep

-- the notwist.</center>

<center></center>.

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ July 11, 2005 12:21 PM: Message edited by: bulletproof cupid ]</font>

[greedy fly]

we're of the hollow men:
we are the naked ones.
we never meant you harm--
never meant you wrong.
and I'd like to thank
all of my lovers, lovers, lovers, lovers.

Solomon Stills :
Journal.

September 10th.

It feels good to relax. Reminiscing on past lovers. Smoking her. Smoking Mary Jane. She always tastes so sweet. Maybe I'll tell you about them. From least to greatest maybe? That sounds bloody classic... I guess I'll start with Miss Camilla.

I was literally wandering around the park one day last March...I think...and I slam into this jogging woman. Instant libido. Before I know it, (she's thirty-six, I'm twenty-two) she's taking me home via limo to her millionaire husband's lavish mansion (he didn't give her enough attention--he was always 'busy'.) To say the least I fucked the youth back in her. I told her she was beautiful, and she told me nobody had told her that for such a long, long time. I thought she was going to cry. Afterwards, we had a Mrs. Robinson-type affair..except much more risque. She had bodyguards to ditch and deceive, and we met eachother at unlikely places: cafes/grocery stores/bars all so I would take her home for a few hours, we'd indulge, she'd listen to my poetry and weep, and she'd leave to go home to misery. She'd sneak and call me almost every night, and we'd set up a new date every week. I almost anticipated it. But, after a month of fooling around I began to feel guilty--guilty for her husband. I don't like anyone being unfaithful to me (I'm quite hypocritical...) so I felt sorry for him. So I stopped showing up, and I'm sure she waited. I didn't return her calls. I don't think it was cruel of me, I thought it was a good deed to vanquish my need for her for her own good and her marriage's. Before her I think I slept with a handful of random, unsatisfied married women--but I haven't since then. I've grown up, and my infatuation with older women has for the most part, deterioated.

Raven O'Hail. I was going insane cos Kate left me (I'll mention her later) like visibly tearing out my hair, threatening suicide to my fucking walls, calling her nonstop. So Quinn suggests I go to a therapist--bruising my pride. Of course, I refused. But after a little persuasion, I finally went. Raven was the therapist, and she didn't help me one bit. She couldn't get in my head. I don't let me people I love, let alone mere strangers know about my past--so why her? She had more problems than I did. I became her therapist, I began to appease her. After awhile, I just stopped showing up at my appointments. She used me for my cock. I know it feels good, Baby, but don't fuck with "crazy" people.

Norma Jean. I was filling in for Quinn at her shop and taking appointments. This bouncy little girl wanders in and demands that I give her a tattoo! Now, I was reluctant, considering she actually admitted she was seventeen...but somehow she persuaded me (she was very, very persuasive.) Not only did I give her a tattoo--and for the life of me I can't remember what I was on--but she told me to write my NAME across her back! For some reason I concurred to that too, and surely enough, she still has "SOLOMON" written across her shoulderblades in cryptic lettering. I wonder if she ever just stares at it and kicks herself. We became friends soon after. We would talk about our petty problems. Exchange advice. Bought ice cream. I don't know. One day I said something along the lines of: "When you're eighteen, I'll have sex with you" because she was so curious (even though she had done it before) she was practically begging me. Fate would have it that a WEEK later, when I'm laying on my couch, half-passed out, drunk and watching Jenny Jones or something to pollute my mind--she just impinges in my apartment, and starts to bounce in my lap. Now, I'm a man. I gave into my impetuses only when she started to fist it. Before I knew it I was crazy over her. You know, crazy in the way she would try and cook me breakfast and would destroy my whole entire kitchen...crazy in the way she'd peek under my sheets when I was sleeping just to see if I had something going on under there. We did silly things together like get baths, go skating, aimlessly walk the streets. But we never had any depth or actual love. She was my only girlfriend that I actually broke up with. I wasn't upset when I did it, really. I just told her that she didn't understand me (and she really didn't) and it wasn't working out. She seemed alright with it. I still wonder if she kicks herself over that tattoo, though. Oh well.

Jane. I must've been a villain when I dated Jane. I worked at the same diner with her then that I work at today. Here was this girl--this mouse with ratty hair, that stared at her shoelaces, was afraid of the other waitresses--the customers, everyone...because she was so very mute and shy. The other waitresses teased her to death. I couldn't figure out why. She had this crazy little crush over me...I thought it was the sweetest thing. I found this napkin where she wrote "Solomon" in cursive letters with a heart right beside it. She would stare at me at the end of my shift, and she'd apologize profusely everytime she'd accidently slam into me cos she was busy staring at her shoelaces. One day--now, I don't know why--but I was pumping with testosterone, maybe I was having dirty Courtney Love fantasies while wiping the tables again--it was the end of my shift, and she was putting change in the register. So I cornered her. I had such confidence (I've always had immense confidence when it comes to women) and I whispered dirty things to her. I don't remember what I said, but I bet I'd cringe now. Either way, I brought her home. Without guilt I took her. I knew she was prude, I knew she was a virgin...so I took her slow, and I made sure she liked it. We started to see eachother, and she started to come out of her shell. I'd scold the other waitresses for picking on her. Quinn would do her hair and makeup sometimes. I helped her move out of her mom's house (her mother was an inane psycho tale on her own) and she moved with me. We'd spend days of indulging. Sharing drugs, sharing out bodies. It was so fun. The more she came out of her shell, the more she moved to a pedestal. She would make fun of me (not that I really took her seriously) and it was okay for her to hit me when she was jealous. A few times I'm sure I jutted my jaw at her and huffed my chest and she always backed down like a puppy with a tail between its' legs. But I loved her. I can honestly say I loved her. We broke up on and off. She dated some emo, scrawny bloke---and I beat him up. Won her back. Bought her a ring with a star because she was obsessed with astrology. She reminded me of my little Marie. I overdosed on sleeping pills...and it wasn't an accident, but I wasn't attempting suicide, either. It was my mum's anniversary. So she rushes me to the hospital, I had to get my stomach pumped. I felt like I was dead. When I woke up... heh....this is hilarious, you know? She was there, alright. But she was there making out with her fucking brother RIGHT NEXT TO MY BED!!! Not only making out with another man--but it was bloody incest! I couldn't talk, so I just croaked around and threw a shoe to get their attention. She walked over to me as though I didn't see anything, I reached up, and I smacked her as hard as I could. I don't hit women. But I was a little out of it, and I suppose anyone would agree that was a little fucked up, eh? After that, she begged for forgiveness. But she was selfish. Too selfish. That was just sick to me (incest: once again, I'm hypocritical...) so I never took her back. Wait, I guess that means I broke up with her too. Hmm.

Judas. My first male lover with a matching biblical name. He came after the death of Marie (who I'll mention later.) I was young, dumb, and nineteen, a completely new American citizen. Quinn introduced us, and at first we became buddies. Like jocks. We'd go to parties, and clubs, pick up girls together--fuck them senseless. Sometimes, we'd mindlessly fuck his dealer girls, and steal all their cocaine afterwards. Those were the days I regret the most. I remember the way he'd use those girls and say: "Come on, Sol." And they'd just be laying there, mind-dumb, and I'd sit there and apologize for what I'd done. They'd just nod and look right through me. I just wanted to fit in. I was that vulnerable little boy that just wanted to be cool. Jude was five years my elder. He was my father-figure. I wanted to be just like him, even if it meant demeaning women that way. He had no feelings for them at all. And if you ask me, I think he's been gay all of his life, and still is, but he won't admit it. Either way...we were at this girl Trish's house, and I snorted my line's a little too quick, and a little too harsh..like the amateaur I was. He was a heroin addict, so he was shooting up while I did the exact opposite. My nose was bleeding, and in his haze he wiped my blood away, but it wouldn't stop. Somehow, he ended up kissing me. He climbed in my lap and started to kiss me. I was so uncomfortable at first: I don't like men. Why is he kissing me?! But then I gave in, and then he abruptly stopped cos Trish strutted in and made a sardonic statement that I thankfully, can't remember. Then, I became a little boy. He didn't even remember the kiss because he was so strung-out, but I had it embedded in memory. I only had one serious relationship in my life, and she was gone now, so all I had left was my father-figure. The man I looked up to. The man I (regretfully) wanted to be. We were in his car, the middle of December, driving to God knows where..and I told him "please don't hit me--but I liked that..when you kissed me. I like you." Something along those lines. So he pulls over, and I swear to God I thought I was going to die! He was going to kill me for being a faggot. But instead, he kissed me again, and told me that he liked me too. And what are we going to do about it, blahblahblah. Why? Because we were both local gods: renowned amongst the street trash and we were both names (though I was newer so my reputation was just starting to blossom.) He was so ashamed to go out and public and really be with me..but that changed after awhile. Sometimes the sex was brilliant, sometimes he was so rough it was traumatizing. Sometimes, we literally fought for who was on top. He emasculated me. But I was this skinny little nineteen year old with a goatee and long black hair..he was my elder, it only made sense for him to be the more masculine one. Somehow, we worked out roles in there. We never moved in together officially, but he paid my bills. We loved eachother. I worshipped him, he worshipped me. But there was one thing that ruined it all. One thing that broke his promises. His addiction. Heroin. Heroin killed my mother, so I never went near it. He lived for that shit. He overdosed. And I went crazy. I sent him to rehab, and promised that when he got back, I'd be waiting for him. He was only supposed to go to California in rehab for six months. He was supposed to call me chronically. He never called me once. He came back two years later when I was dating Kate, demanding to have me back. Of course, I had gotten over him with time. So he found Alice and proposed to her. I was really jealous, but I let it go because Alice Veruca is an angel. Besides, I had Kate. The night of his bachelor party (I was his best man--his best friend, I threw it for him) he wasn't entertained at the strip bar. So he took me home and told me he wanted one last night with me. Then...he left Alice. He left me. I think he skipped town. Alice -- is still recovering. We've become such good friends. I love her to death.

(rewritten 2/04)

When, I was sixteen, that's when Mum died. The swapping of foster homes only thrived for two more years until I was eighteen, when I received more hours at my lousy music store job. I rented myself a flat in West Hampstead; it was modest, and for the most part, I kept to myself. Everyday was like clockwork, I'd stand behind a counter for eight or nine hours and then I'd trudge my battered, teal Converses (they'd seen better days) down Cricklewood Broadway, past all of the Indian food supply stores and order myself something small to eat. Sometimes, it was just tea and cake, sometimes; I actually opted for a meal. Either way, it was dinner time and my budget depended on a constricted jean pocket (which never seemed to be big enough for a lot of money, ironically).

There was a girl that worked there everyday, she had dark skin and frazzled curly hair. Her eyes were just as sweet as her skin, darker, but still as honeyed, and her cheeks used to lamp with flush every time she waited on me. I was older than she was, I figured that it was a simple after school job for her--this Marie, whose nametag used to sit lopsided, pinned nearly to her collarbone, rather than the swell of her breast like the other string of waitresses. She'd smile at me when I tipped her, and rush off, gnawing at the ragged half-moon of her pinky nail, and I'd go on my merry little way, grinning like a fox.

But towards Valentine's Day, I felt this ache pulling at my heart strings. The pastel-gray, overcast streets seemed ashy and empty to me. The snow flurries weren't just melting in my copper curls anymore, they were sticking stubbornly to them. Winter was making me weary, and it robbed me of an appetite. So when I watched her from across the room, paving a path to me in her sea foam uniform, I dented my lower lip, and finally saw her for the first time in a different light -- this girl was a blossom.

I asked her out on a date, and she coyly asked 'why?' and I hadn't an answer for her. I shrugged my shoulders and fluttered my lashes until she concurred. After work, I'd take her to the cinema. I picked her up--well, without a car, and we both skittered several blocks. I stole a couple of wild flowers from a street vendor, and as he thrashed clumsy footsteps, tailgating us as we rounded a thousand corners, I noticed her laugh, and it was brilliant.

"Solomon," she lilted to me about one block before we reached her house just near Primrose Hill---her father was a man of money, obviously. "I can't kiss yew oan th'first date."

The next day I pummeled my fist at her door, beaming like a fool, before she whipped it open and stared at me wide-eyed. She told me that I couldn't just come by like that--her parents didn't want her dating any men ..especially white boys, and she was an honor student and hat to watch her grades! But, as soon as I feigned my best melancholy expression, she raked her twig-like fingers through my hair and concurred to go out with me.

I discovered a thousand things about Marie Larsons, she had lived in Primrose Hill for half of her life until her father had been laid off from his job, and they instead, migrated just outside of it. She was planning to go to Cambridge University to study Psychology. I asked her if she was insane to want to attend such an ugly, crumbling place. Then, she listed all of the famous poets that had gone there during the nineteenth century, and I was impressed. Her father was overprotective of her, and her mother was an accountant that poured prescription drugs in her palm a little too often, and found herself to be more distant from father and daughter. I brought her to see my band plug in and play sloppy punk music at a local pub, and from behind the lead singer---a crazy bloke who put egg-whites in his bleached hair named David, I watched her feel dreadfully out of place, and at the same time, so animated and in love with the way I jumped from fret to fret.

For months, we had been seeing each other in secret, I?d convince her to phone her parents and tell her that she was staying over her girlfriend, Samantha?s house when she was with me, tangled up in beige sheets on my floor-stapled mattress, talking politics or our future life together. One night, though, she snuck me into her room, and being the boy that I was, I introduced her to her first joint, and she grew so giddy with every drag that I?d have to cup her mouth to muffle her laughter. I remember it quite distinctly, I was sprawled out shirtless across from her on her twin bed, her cheek was buried against her pillowcase, and our conversation had been quite pointless ---revolving around whether or not horseshoes were really good luck. That was when her father boomed behind the door, and I darted into her closet after crippling the marijuana cigarette against an amber-tinctured ashtray I had brought along. I took it with me, cupped against my abdomen, haloed by a motley off her clothes. He asked her who she was talking to ---oh, it was just the television, what was that smell? Incense she had burned. She had always been quick on her feet and witty. But that was when I accidentally snickered.

He flung my skinny body against the wall and told me not to see his daughter. After I was squinting through a swell of burgundy-blue with pixels of red just below my skin, I could see her rushing to clasp his shoulder and drag him away. Time blurred from there. Her mother watched me stoically as I was flung onto the front lawn, without a shirt (thank God for May) and her father ignored her tears. I straightened myself up haughtily as best as I could, as her father warned me to never go near her again. After jabbing my finger to her over his broad shoulder, I spanned my arms like wings, and told her that if she didn?t come with me she was blind, and she didn?t love me!

The next morning we were on a rattling flight to America, I had saved up an obnoxious amount of money for the past few months just so she could someday see the Statue of Liberty erected in the smog-pale New York skyline. Of course, we had planned to do this after she graduated, but now her Cambridge plans were completely obliterated, and I sat with my chest swollen with pride, because I had her. I won her over?as selfish as it sounded. Her eyes were glazed like ceramic with salt during the entirety of the ride, and I coaxed her with throat-nuzzles and earlobe-mingling whispers; promising a fresh start and a love that could never be marred.

Somehow, we wound up in Philadelphia, and not Center City, but rather, the more rugged outskirts where the playgrounds were blighted, lime weeds swallowed the basketball courts, and where police sirens were monotonously droning all day and all night. I was used to it. It was just like home to me! Even through her stages of smiles and happiness when I made her dinner and switched our roles (I was now a waiter at a restaurant on South Street) I knew she was secretly miserable. I had her name branded into my skin with a rubber band-vibrating tattoo gun in Middle English lettering, controversially low on my abdomen, and the whole time she flinched for me, and kept telling me that it was alright to cry! It didn?t hurt that much.

Our meals were meager, our walls bare, and I had a thousand odd jobs. One day I was walking through the Gallery, and a man hooked me by the jut of my elbow and talked me into a modeling portfolio. I had always been an avid painter, so I found myself an agent to help me with selling them. Marie, worked at the art supply store on South Street (I swore she charmed them with her accent) and I had a discount on the oil paints. After three months, summertime buzzed and melted sweat like wax on our skin. She was pleading for an air-conditioner, wallowing in a cold tub, and I was reading by the light of a dim lamp. She had just turned seventeen, and we celebrated it with a few of our American friends (who to say the least were wild, and drug-induced).

One Sunday when she was scheduled to work until five, I was unloading groceries on a counter, when our phone rattled shrill. I thought it was the girl upstairs, a tattoo artist with the most vivid blue eyes in the world, Quinn, but instead, it was Marie?s mother. How she got the number, I?ll never know. Maybe Marie had tried calling her and hung up, and the number caught on the caller I.D. ? or just maybe?

Our conversation was an emotionless thrust of words, before she slaughtered the small-talk and laid it on me. The anchor weighted my chest, and instead of being tangled with seaweed, it was spun with barbed wire, and it pricked me bloody and guilty.

?Solomon,? it was the identical scolding tone Marie took with me. ?Yew need tae stop this nonsense. This is nonsense. Yew are destroying that poor gurl?s life. She?s younger than yew, and unlike yew, she has a chance. She dropped out of school, Solomon. Because of yew. Because she is blind. I?m sure she loves yew, but if yew really love her, yew should stop and think about wot you?re daein?. She has a thousand chances, and I?m sure that after she finishes school and gets into Cambridge, yew two can run amuck again. Ever since she was a little gurl, Solomon, ever since she was a little gurl, she wanted this?don?t yew spoil this for her.?

After I hung up, I submerged in my couch, with my hands folded in mock-prayer, silently I argued with myself, gritting my jaw, and struggling not to be selfish. When she came home, animated, because she saw a man dressed as a clown honking his bicycle horn at her on Locust, I asked her to sit, but she didn?t for very long. The argument was intense, she was screaming bloody murder, her voice penetrating all sound barriers?becoming the nasal screech I naturally loathe in English women. Her tears wouldn?t stop, and she threw her flimsy, feeble fists at my unbudging chest a few times.

?Yew don?t love me, anymore?!?

?No ..? It was the hardest thing to say, and the bass of my voice could hardly croak out such a lie. ? ?I don?t.?

It was the day she returned to England that I couldn?t bear to look at myself in the mirror. My pillow was frigid and empty; there was just ghastly skin haunting it, and her perfume mists were still lingering everywhere; my stomach kept churning. So I called. I called her home, and her father said she wasn?t there. I called an hour later, his pitch was grating and annoyed, but I refused to give up. The next day, he hung up on me. Later that evening, he threatened to call the cops, which I laughed at. Then, my number was blocked. It wasn?t until I was at the restaurant the next day that I could punch in her number again, and listen with my Adam?s apple bobbing in anticipation to the throb of rings. Her mother?s voice was low-key and somber, crackling behind silken Kleenexes.

?Sol ..last night, Marie, she had ?she..?

And she didn?t need to finish, I was already cradling myself behind drawbridged kneecaps on the dirty floor. Her note read:

It?s hard to breathe when
Solomon Stills falls out of love with you.

It was an overdose by her mother?s prescription pills; draped like a lily pad over the plane of her mattress. I wanted to call to tell her I was just lying, I wanted to call to tell her that I really did love her and that her mother had manipulated my feelings. I wanted to tell her that she was everything to me, that if Romeo and Juliet were star-crossed, we were bound by a thousand galaxies. But in the end, it was a modern day tragedy. In the end, we were Romeo and Juliet, because the day she died, was the day I died, too. Inside.

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ September 19, 2004 03:34 PM: Message edited by: so pass? ]</font>

[greedy fly]

THE SCOT AND THE BRIT:


"It looks like yew killed a real leopard for this thing."

"Sol, shut up," Jillian Monroe brashly clipped his words with the razor-homicide of her Scottish-oriented tongue; swathing her quilt with the fragile census of her elastic-wrung spine.

"I'm so tired."

"Why are yew tired? Yew didn't have to work last night, right?"

"Well, I was up all night.." ..A petite grin crept across a vampiric-bled pout- almost docile -- almost.

"Oh yew were, were yew?" The sardonic Brit passed her the remnants of a Mary-Jane threading gift, and she seized it between corpulent ruby sepals, sucking it down, fuming nothing-nothing breezes into her lungs and soul. It always took her from the edge. She was always on the edge.

"I was."

"Why?"

He shot her a saucy, alluding wink, and she shrugged. Solomon knew that he wasn't going to get an answer.

"Right ..well, pass me the notebook."

She did just that; slowly arrecting herself to half-mast.

"So, let's see what psycho-despondent lyrics we can extract from Mr. Solomon Panties Stills today!"

"Psycho-despondent? Not today, my luv! I wrote some down already. I have them memorized---like happy lyrics---happy."

"Happy?"

"Happy."

"As in: 'I don't want to kill anyone happy ..?"

"Yeh. Give me that pen."

"A'right."

"Now, I already know how I want the first verse to be sung. I don't have a chorus yet, Jill. So I still need to think about that."

With the BiC pen transferred between the pads of adept fingers, he started his scrawling session on a wing-split shard of spiral notebook paper. Capital, unkempt letters with these huge, unfilled dots above the 'i's'. you look so fine,i want to break your heartand give you mine. He reiterated it aloud for the frontwoman in a raspy lilt; melody incoporated, and vocal ambience dimly-lit.

"I need one more line to finish this.. hnnn.." ..Splattering the anxiety-gnawed cap of the pen against the empty line after 'and give you mine' he glanced up when Jill made her suggestion (and she never made suggestions unless she was intrigued.)

"You're taking me over," she pivoted herself upwards in a glib thrust, murdering a roach, and engraving the air with the stranded clouds of redolent grown-perfume.

"you're taking me over..." Mr. Stills whispered this aloud in a sewn concentration pattern, and then he did it again..this time with a sort of cadence swathing it.

"I-- ..yeh. I like that."

A beam augmented-- the kind that was half-prejudice of the left side, before he prodded off a surly nod and inscribed it officially on scribble paper.

"Now, a verse."

Jill was busy replicating the first verse to herself; cleansing her veins of last night's alcohol pollutants by girlish singing. Solomon thought her voice could be so gorgeous and angelic sometimes-- and sometimes, it was nothing but a teasing seethe for attention.

"I'm not like all the other girls.. I won't share it like the other girls..that you used to know."

This was when he catapulted that rubberband attention span the the inspired supervixen, and just ceased completely, wide-eyed and distraught.

"That's really --.. beautiful --Jill..."

"Yew think it sounds nice, Sol?"

"Yeh ... I do. I do."

"Jill, who is it?"

She ruptured into a few effeminate, deep-tunneled snickers, and boldly shook that carmine-haloed crown.

"Wot are yew talking about?"

"Jill! You're smiling. Yew never smile. Wot's going on? Did yew meet someone?"

"Oh, shut up yew British faggot!"

She batted at his shoulder, and he started the pogo around the bed like a hyperactive wildman, hovering over her. Bursting into a high-pitched fit of overdosing giddiness, she shoved repeatedly at him.. albeit, it didn't seem to budge him much.

"Shut up, Scottish wench! --Yew met someone?"

"Maybe..." She orbited feline, electric-ivy eyes, and proceeded to stay evasive from that cinnamon-sticky gaze.

"Yew did! Who!"

" 'Doesn't matter. Let's write this song."

<font color="#666666" size="1">[ July 20, 2003 02:49 PM: Message edited by: cigarillo ]</font>

[greedy fly]

ROCK SLA(N)G
By Solomon Stills.


Instead of my usual album review segment this week (I was going to dabble upon the Vines "Highly Evolved" but the concoction of Beatles fused with Nirvana-shriek still has my brain sloshing), I've opted to discuss a concert experience. At the Theatre of the Living Arts (ironic that it's a crumbling concert hall) I paired up with Jack Daniels to a Distillers gig. All in all, I thought that the show was reminiscent of a Sex Pistols gig that I never actually went to but sometimes I tell people I did so I look cool and this is a run-on sentence, my hair is curly! I'm not going to reiterate the usual figurative language to describe an exuberant rock show; (i.e. "dynamic performances" and whatnot) but the Distillers put on a wicked show. I'm not just talking out of my stalker'esque, intense crush on frontwoman Brody Armstrong (Rancid's Tim Armstrong's wife) but rather the choice of songs. At first, I felt a bit out of place. I mean, where's my mohawk, and my nose ring? However, I was standing next to some unbelievably pudgy asian kid named Wung, and I felt cool for a minute. Snickering, I told him I had a "wang" as a sort of drunken jest, but he gave me a left hook from five-foot-one on the ground and well...drunken Solomon watched himself get trampled by a dozen identical Chuck Taylors. Yeah, punk! Rebellion! Woo! Let's revolt against shoelaces! They opened up with their debut album's "Oh Serena" and I began to discern a few comparison's of my own. Armstrong's voice is a facsimile of Courtney Love's; deep-throated (no pun intended) and sneering female angst through amps. Also, Jack Daniels and I made an inebriated affinity between drummer Andy's resemblance to both Jason Lee and faded eighties rock star, Alvin (from the Chipmunks. Have you seen that Behind the Music yet? Absolutely moving.) Albeit, some people in the band...I refuse to mention any names (!!) looked extremely strung out on the plague of heroin, they still managed to rile teenage angst and arouse my interests. Out of five chicken nuggets, I'd definitely give the Distillers an ample four.--with some barbeque sauce on the side.

Corny rock joke of the day:

Q: Why did Creed cross the road?
A: Cos Pearl Jam did first. Haahaha. Haha. Ha. H--...


Disclaimer: Solomon Stills' opinions do not reflect the opinion of the editor or staff. In other words--the British dude is insane.

<font color="#ffccff" size="1">[ October 18, 2002 08:24 PM: Message edited by: greedy fly ]</font>

[greedy fly]

you've seen the crippled dance.
free your mind, baby, now's your chance..
your eyes like cyanide.

i am so dumb,
just beam me up.
i've had it all forever.
i've had enough.

remember you promised me,
i'm dying ..i'm dying please.
i need so--i want to be ..under your skin.

-- hole.

<font color="#666666" size="1">[ May 27, 2003 09:45 PM: Message edited by: cigarillo ]</font>

[greedy fly]

"Hi, this is Solomon ..leave a message after the beep."


The message was so dull, and monotonous- and over a thousand people had heard it replicate in their ear drum at least once. European-bred, thick in his maple-syrupy, muttering growl (boiling honey-aviaries in the tunnel of a nicotine-sullied voicebox.) His voice was one of the most sonorous (and raw-sexy) things for a person to experience. Envisage it pre or post orgasm. It was swollen dark.

Yet, as euphonic was that dim-candled message was, Solomon's forefinger extended to the gray button upon the cradle of the cordless and expunged it with one sullen dab. Promptly afterwards, he teetered diagnol to that button and opted to weigh sandpaper-callus upon the gadget properly dubbed 'record,' and proceeded to do so in a wrecked timbre. Morose and puddling pathetic, he made a silent plead to the only person in the world he'd epxloit his love to through a fucking answering machine.

"..if yew can hear this," Solomon hedged a triangular-peeking tongue across chopt, sallow lips and their wired upbringing. "Please come back, Baby. Please."

Beep.

The mangled luster of chalcedony-highlighted brown was shoveled back with a forking four-fingered frustration (from the kiss of widow's peak backwards to coiled conformity.) His leather couch witnessed his immersion inside of its' balmy stains and comforting embrace; he was a puppet sacrificing himself in a prone lay against cushions and the sight of the spiderweb-cracked ceiling. It dribbled grey on dreary days. The reverse of a wrist highlighted the toasty composition of his forehead, in some sort of distressed symbolism.

Now all he could do was wait.

It had been four days, and he was a madman lip-synching cocaine jitters.

<font color="#ff99ff" size="1">[ October 27, 2002 07:49 PM: Message edited by: greedy fly ]</font>

[greedy fly]

Solomon Stills :

Journal.

October 26th.

Words get tangled on your tongue,
and you stumble on your feet when you miss somebody.

That's what I got so far, the first verse. I'm sitting here with one of my acoustics; contemplating on how to perfect this poem or at least make it the least bit melodious when I reiterate it aloud to my lamb.

I wonder stupid things. Does she hate me? Does she still want revenge? Is she seeing someone else--and if so ..does he have more money than me? Is he better looking? (yeah....right.) Lately, ever since I received her letter boasting of fucking closure (I see it as an invitation) I've been thinking about her nonstop. If we're going to be honest, and I want to be honest, I need to tell her about my 'therapist.' But, besides that, I've been pretty cleansed right? She doesn't need to know too many details about the ... hospital, I'm sure Alice told her the things she needs to know. Nor does she need to know about that empathetic girl that my heart beat so hard for.

One thing I do know is that I'm leaving tomorrow at about six pm. Why do I have everything planned already? I don't know. It's a Sunday, traffic on the highways won't reek so fucking bad like it does on the weekdays or Saturday or whatever. I don't really know how I'm supposed to get there or what her exact address is, but Alice is supposed to tell that to me. That's what she's there for. The middle person giving all the top secret information. She's precious. But not as precious as my lamb.

I've been drinking a lot of coffee just so I won't have the craving for what's under my sink. But the addiction--it's starving, but I want to suit myself in sobriety when I see her. I want to look perfect, and smell like wine, and I want to act in such ways to charm her. Fucking chivalrous. I know I need to work everything I have to bait her back in. If I need her as bad and as desperately as I do...she must need me too, right?

It should be righteously reciprocated. I'll wear her favorite button-up and maybe some nice shoes? God, I don't know. Perhaps, I should go to sleep. Perhaps, I should wash my sheets of their sin from her last visit. This way, when she comes back with me she can lay on a fresh slate. And I can't even imagine the love we're going to make.



<font color="#EE0000" size="1">[ March 25, 2005 01:29 AM: Message edited by: softcore jukebox ]</font>

[greedy fly]

all the bridges in the
world won't save you.
if there is no..
other side to cross to.

Hydroplaning a bleared line across the horizon of the effeminate font inscribed upon a beige envelope, his quaking fingers traced her name in the upper left hand corner. He even peeled her stamp like velcro, just so he could leer upon the other paper-shredded side where her tongue had grazed for adhesives. Lotus-designed limbs embroidered in camoflauge kept the letter hatched in the proximity of an insulated boy-lap. 'Baby was situated on the centre face of his usually burning bed and six month linen; surburbian suicide haunting his memories as he tripped his index finger across to deftly unfasten the triangular fold. Our London trash removed the letter, and shakily unraveled it. He was so reluctant. What was Kate Pierce sending to Solomon Stills?

His stomach knotted into a thousand boyscout-nimble knots, and he fluttered hummingbird-lashes and pistol-whipped a gaze towards his doorway. The door was hinged shut. This was private. Nobody was going to impinge on his letter reading. Shadowed, and thrusting the candle of his gaze to skim line-by-line; gorgeous cursive and italicized freedom. Scribble-free, and probably mused about again and again. Crumpled and filling the trashcan with an author's self-criticism. (He envisaged her doing just this in a pair of plaid pajamas, and the tidal waves of brunette hair pegged in disarray.) She was so beautiful. His charcoal-daubed sketches would prove that theory, and he'd vocalize it through subliminal messages for the world to hear one day through his songs on radio heavy rotation (or so he wished.)


To--well, you know who you are:

(What happened to puppy? The warren of his mind burnt; doused in silent-shrieking sanguine flames.)

I can't count the number of times I have written this letter and burned it. Or lost it, hidden it, trashed it, finished it, sealed it up, gotten ready to send it and then just ended up tearing it to pieces and throwing it in the garbage. Maybe this time it'll get done. And maybe this time it'll get somewhere. Even if it's only into my purse and never into the mailbox.

I just wanted to thank you. For everything you said and everything you didn't. I know it's hard to hold your tongue, I know I provoked you. I know that everything you did, I pushed you to do. Everything that was wrong between us wasn't your fault. Not entirely. And for everything that I didn't do for you, I hope you have found someone else to do it.

As cliche as it sounds, you taught me more than anyone else has even attempted to. You were wonderful to me, you showed me things I never thought possible, and things that things I thought possible were actually so improbable. You taught me that love is not life, and life is not love, and love is not a fairy tale. I remember sitting in that restaurant and telling you all about fairy tales. And then in the backseat of your car and you telling me everything. And I remember that in those moments I felt like a queen, and I thank you for that. From the bottom of my heart.

There were silly trivial things that at first seemed like inconsistencies: you telling my brother that you intended to marry me (remember that fiasco at the wedding? And the aftermath in the hotel room?), you telling me about Jude, and then...just everything. I remember the first show I saw you play, the first time I watched you paint, and all the baths we took, and in retrospect, I have to say I am very happy with our time. It was well spent. It was consistent, and I understand why you did what you did. It was just..too consistent. You need variety, you always have. You couldn't keep still for more than five minutes, how was I to ever imagine that you would be able to stay with me forever?

The point of this letter is for closure. For you and for me. Although, you probably have already found it, I don't think a woman truly sees something as done with until she can convey herself to the remaining parties and have some sort of positive outcome from it. So here's all I have to say in closing. What you did was a mistake. But what I did was a fatal error. And if I could go back and change it, I want you to know that I would. Even if you wouldn't. Which I don't blame you for.

I don't know if this letter will ever get to you, but in case it does, you should know that I hope you are deliriously happy in whatever endeavors you pursue, and I hope you find success around every corner, because really, that is all you have ever deserved. And this, Solomon, is what I call closure. For me. And hopefully you have already found it.

Sincerely,
Katherine


To say the least, he was overwhelmed--overwhelmed was an understatement; there were tremors wracking chaos through Solomon's vivid portrait of bones, and the mesa of his ribcage began to immerse with sullen breezes of petrified inhales. ...This to him was an invitation. This was telling him to come and get her- to bandage her in his arms, and interlock her in that balmy embrace interminably.

And he would.


miles away,
there's hopeless smiles brighter than mine.
and i need for you to come and go,
without the truth falling out.

Dusk was beginning to rouse itself and bat dismissal at the tangerine protest of the sun. On autumn days the sun was so lazy. It excused itself so fast due to the moon's pestering. But, Solomon was in favor of his English sun--because it was a gemstone and a rare artifact to stumble across (and it was the warmest hearth there was.) Flinging the opacity of his sunglasses unto the void passenger's seat, he triggered the tattered car to proclaim its' husky orchestral purr with a flinch of his wrists. Merging unto the city street, he accelerated and floored it to a faraway illusion of Sunday night downtown Philadelphia.

old incisions...
refusing to stay.

At a red-light, his blade-scarred wrists and their healing, etiolated presence dangled absently over twelve-o'clock on the steering wheel. (He cut them for Kate. I cut them for you, Baby. My knees were scraped with carpet burn from begging you.) Instead of flickering straight unto the highway, he opted to tiptap his turn signal and parallel-park betwixt two more lavish vehicles. Plodding unto the bustling strip, he burrowed shoulderblades inwards to maintain his heat through that barely-buttoned white-riveled dress shirt.

like the sun through the trees
on a cloudy day.

Mr. Stills bought a single-stemmed rose, emerald and Valentine's Day bloody, prick-free and stinging of redolence. He tucked it between the isles of his teeth, and continued to pace on the margin of the sidewalk. What else was he going to buy? God, what else, Solomon? Rewinding into a brick-walled niche, he scoured through his wallet---and the aggregation was fifteen dollars. Well, fuck it. Nevermind, then. Back to the payphone. 'Baby knew his poem was enough to make her falter and plunge deep, deep, deep- and if she was seeing any other man..she'd forget about him because Solomon was there now.

telephone..
socially scared and impaired.

Cradling a phone unctuous from random civilian's hair along the pinnacle of his shoulder and stifling the loop-punctured shell of his ear; he punched in Alice's number after the insertion of two quarters.

"..'ey."

"..Hi."

"Hi, yeh...ah..I forgot wot exit I was supposed to take?" he stumbled through his pocket and unraveled the origami-folded slab of directions.

The girl on the other end rustled a winsome sigh into the phone, transiently swathing them in a silent-lullabye cloud.

"Are you sure you want to do this, Solly? Because---"

"Look," he slithered an enlistment of cursory blinks in frustration, and hedged his tongue across a chopt mouth. "Please. Just tell me."

"Sixteen."

"Thank yew, love. I'll call yew if anything goes wrong."

"Even if 'ya have a flat?"

"Yeh."

"Be careful, Solomon. Don't let yourself get hurt."

"Thanks, Mum," sardonic banter chimed through, and he hung up the phone. Back to the car.


if the trees will bloom
the wind can blow..
without the fruit falling out.

With an isolated rose feathering its' creamy sepals upon his dormant sunglasses, and the autumn-burnt trees pervading the highway blurring by, he stared through the dark windshield..and concentrated on tail-lights and his reverie. The way he knew he could bury his face in her chest as soon as he got there. Then, he could whimper and weep; and she'd knead his hair and still love him for it. Windows were eclipsed in miniscule crevices, enough to filter out the insipid chemistry of his cigarettes, and provide him with some frigid air in the cramped vehicle. His hair became unkempt, ribboning around in anarchy--these caramel-mottled corkscrews that were untamable under the reign of a comb, and even more untamable under the shovel of fingertips. Wind-flushed, hollow cheekbones and starving, salmon-wiry petals. Everything he breathed in his soul was love, love, love.

you brighten my life like a polysterene hat
but it melts in the sun like a life without love.
but i've waited for you, so i'll keep crying out
"without you."

The four hours to New York (and the banal wind of the New Jersey turnpike) was spent reminiscing. Kate Pierce's puppy remembered their first unofficial date; beach flirtations, and their every fight and flaw. She'd always take him back, and in turn, he'd do the same. Parties, and stripclubs, the most wild sex, and the most passionate dinners spent in their own little world. Tripping on acid, and handcuffing her to the bedpost. Frivolous baths and arguments with white-trash neighbors. Weddings and funerals alike; lipstick and bruises. They were fire, and holy water at the same time. ...And still, he sped twenty-five miles over the ideal speed limit, in some stomach-twining bout of inspiration and anticipation.

feels like the wind blows,
holding you with us.
she takes no other,
false light and ashes.
blooming like winter.

After triple-checking the address, and lolling the symmetry of an adonis chin towards the New York place of residual (the 'x' --or rather fat, lopsided heart marking the treasure upon his map) the wounded and nervosa-swallowed bloke shouldered from the car, clutching a rose and the chamber of his triphammering chest. He ascended the stairwell to his euphoric perception of heaven. The reversal boulders of his silver-gaudy knuckles rapped indolently upon the door, reverberating a sacred melody. But, she didn't answer. Solomon shifted his weight from foot to foot, until he couldn't stand it anymore-- he twitched the knob and the door flung unopen without a blemish. Unlocked. Dilemma.

dry eyes and cracked lips
under the stone wall.
withdrawn and wishless.
i love you.


The promising prose of his elastic tongue knived through one thing and one thing only: "here goes." And he stepped inside.

<font color="#00ccff" size="1">[ January 26, 2003 06:38 PM: Message edited by: greedy fly ]</font>

[greedy fly]

alice and solomon.
mid-august.


driving faster in my car..
falling farther from just what we are.
smoke a cigarette, and lie some more..
these conversations kill..
driving faster in my car.

time to take her home,
her dizzy head is conscious-laden.
time to take a ride,
it leaves today--no conversation.
time to wait too long--to wait too long.

"..just. .. i need to drink. drink with me."
____________________________________________


Freshly emancipated from his cursory journey in the mental ward, Alice --his only comrade besides Quinn that actually knew where he was--accompanied him on a drinking binge. He knew she was lightweight, but the calloused tough girl facade was divinely construed, and whimsical enough to make him snicker at her. She was such a little girl at heart. Staking crucified poses against the spraypainted wall plaster in his living room, adjacent to the incommodious kitchen route were two despondent, lurking souls. Both were decomposing in the dilapidated love-gutter; ivory and crushed by Judas Eden and the stiletto of Kate Pierce. Albeit, mainly it was the former that really stung and meddled to the core. It was his fucking up that brought them both down, and murdered dual euphoric relationships with his usurping reign. In the end ..they were left with eachother. And eachother wasn't enough when one was twitchy and haggardly-distraught, and the other was so naive and deserved the world in her palm--not upon her anchored shoulders.

Judging by the shards of filtering lurid, pale light streaming from his still-weeping balcony blinds - night time had set in. The humid stifle of summer wasn't overdosing on its' usual rays of happiness and good humor, but instead it was frigid like winter.. equipped with similiar cicled emotions. Two sets of kneecaps were propped and jaunty-jabbing towards a spiderweb-cracked ceiling. One pair was choked in paint-stained navy denim, and the other pink bondage straps and plaid-zipper sketches. Whiskey haunted them until their features had morphed from milk to agitated dispersals of flushes. Stain-glassed and quietly-trimmed, Jack Daniels was dismissed and they were left conversing in a hushed susurration amongst themselves (as though his walls were absorbing every crocheting whisper.)

"...so..were they really weird in there, Solly?" She swept at a feathered tuft of bubblegum pink and secured it behind the shell of an unadorned ear. Our sweetheart was somewhat slurred and inarticulate, whilst her counterpart was completely antonymous--just barely marred.

"...yeah," grave and leaden like a slate headstone. The Brit's tone was just as cryptic as his poetry.

"..oh."

"So why didn't Kate come, again, Alice?"

"Because I couldn't get a hold of her...."

"Do yew think she would've came if she knew?"

She sipped in the longest hesitation; tropical radiance and baited breath.

"..maybe."

But, the pessimism told him that her replication was more negative than positive. Thus, he sulked and pitied himself (and her too) all over again.

"Would Jude?"

This time, Alice didn't hesitate. "No." Brusque and sound.

"Oh."

For the longest time they dwelled on these inebriated thoughts, mused over myriads of abstract scenarios and even had reveries that adhesively glued lives back together.

"I just----" her tears welled, and suddenly her voice cracked. Their urbane sailing of silence was slaughtered. "I just...I haven't even told my mom yet! I don't know what my parents are going to think! I wanted to prove to them that this would work! Solomon, they thought I was too young and he was too old and I wanted them to fucking know!!" Hysterics erupted like the common influence of scalding lava, and all he could do was shift in his positioning, and bait her into his chest. She was moistening his shirt, but he reveled in just stroking the eccentric flare of pink through the quivering staff of tenuous fingers.

"shh...no..don't worry about it," he coaxed. "Your mum and dad aren't gonna'respect yew any less because of this. Not at all."

"This isn't about my mom and dad, Solomon!"

"Ah----yeh, yeh. Sorrysorry. I know, he---he does this a lot. He'll come back around, Alice."

"He loves you more than he loves me."

"That's not true. Jude loves yew more than I've ever seen him love anything. More than smack for God sakes, and he fucking loved it more than me. And--and Kate will come back around to...she'll come back around.....she will...for me. Cos she loves me...and everything will be fine again."

"You live in a fantasy world, Solomon," guilt-tripping eyes rotated to glare waterworks and glisten up at him--her brows were mashed and she was accusing him. "You live in a fantasy world and that's why they put you away."

All at once he untangled from her--howling in such stentorian vocalization..the kind that made the docile lamb flinch. "FUCK ALICE!" A ranting gesture swerved with his hand--flailing at midair as he blossomed to his feet. "FUCK YEW! YEW DON'T KNOW WOT IT'S LIKE!"

"Stop yelling at me, Sol----" she was pleading now, withering into herself; a butterfly retreating into its' cocoon because it didn't want to face the real world again.

"No! Yew make stupid judgements!! This is so stupid! This is all so fucking stupid! Yew are all so fucking stupid!"

"Sol...please stop," governed by entreating puppet strings, she burrowed her face into the water-cusp of her palms, and heaved dry sobbing ruptures inside of them.

Then he calmed. He felt his rocketing chest begin to pacify.. his reverberating heartbeat jailed itself in respite. She broke him down. Any woman crying was such caustic attrition for his drunken anger. Sinking to a fallen angel kneel before her, he coerced her chin to loll towards him with the skitter of his hand.

"I'm sorry for yelling, Alice... I'm so sorry."

"Solomon. We're so wrong...we're so wrong...."

"Alice. ...it'll be okay. Cos if they don't come back---if they don't---we still got eachother."

Swallowing abruptly, she absently nodded, and he leaned into kiss her for the first time. It was spontaneous, but it wasn't brash--he lingered there because it was a foreign enclave; a puckered-carmine pout that he had never felt before. His lashes shuttered, and hers' rapidly batted in a curtaining downfall against his architectural cheeks. He kissed her. But she didn't reciprocate it. Alice Veruca tasted beautiful, but she didn't want to test the waters of his personal nectar. Therefore, he pried reluctantly, and she crashed her forehead to seek refuge in his shoulder. In unity, they ribboned off into their commonplace kingdom of tragic silence again.

She eventually fell asleep against him in her void, whiskey-mottled fog. And he drove her home without a regret. Carried her into her own frilly, effeminate bed.. and watched her drown in mangled covers.

In the morning she was utterly flustered and lynched from the sprain of her aftertasty hangover.

...but she knew. she knew. and she knew she was going to kiss him again. On her vacant pillow (where Jude's visage used to impression) there was a half-sheeted note, scribbled in Solomon Stills script.

don't tell.



<font color="#000000" size="1">[ September 19, 2004 03:35 PM: Message edited by: so pass? ]</font>

[greedy fly]

Dear Kate,

And in reality, you are technically 'Dearest Kate,' like some sort of haunting eighteenth century love letter. But, that's hardly it right now. Alice keeps ringing me. Sometimes, my brain likes to play the cruelest tricks on me -- I envisage you on the other end calling me. Then, the answering machine plays... muffled from the living room, because I am in the kitchen, and it's a lamb-like voice but it's not my lamb. She's worried. I haven't even spoke to her since we broke (I'm not going to say since you left me, because I understand my mistake, Baby--and my mistake was the factor that drove you away-- a consequence for every action) I think I might have yesterday, and that's why she's been calling so much. I'm afraid I've been feeling really swollen and weathered since you left. I can't help but to wonder how you're fairing over there in NYC. New clothes? New job? More education? Less? I wonder if there's someone kissing you--and if so, I wonder what his name is. I'm not wondering out of vanity, or for the sake of my ego.. I'm just ...wondering. This has evulsed a lot of paintings from the very bottom of my soul. This. The chaos without you. And I think it's the best work I've ever done. I've written the best things I ever have. Or so, I'd like to think. So I would like you to keep them all. Every last piece that didn't make it to the gallery, and keep the Jude one buried in its' closet tomb because I don't want him to touch it. He was a member of my blackest years, I don't especially like to reminisce on them. Lately, I've been having a bit of a hard time deciphering reality from fantasy. Quinn thinks I've gone gonzo, and maybe I have ...but I swear to fucking God, and please don't make any hasty judgements--that I hear Marie. I don't know if I'm awake or sleeping. I don't know anymore. It's gotten too frustrating. I woke up the other night talking to you. I was in the middle of a sentence. I can't remember what I was saying.. but your name was included. For some reason that really hurt. It hurts more than this will. Missing someone is the worst possible thing in the world. I'm sitting here trying to illuminate the bad and bloodshed-- if I don't do this right now..perhaps you'll come back to me tomorrow? Maybe I should go to NYC and find you? Is it too early? Or is it rusted and too late? I swear to God you kept me bound together. Being lonely without a warm body next to you when you fall asleep leaves nothing but gnashed twigs behind. Nothing. I don't remember yesterday too much, or the day before that. I've been going to work, and I don't even remember to pick up my paycheck at the end of the week. Like a senile old man, you know? I'll tell you that when you and I were together, everything was brilliant. Because all along we both knew we were crazy and in love. Because you were fractions of Marie that I had missed, and that was so hard to discover in another woman, but you shined yourself. This probably doesn't make any sense to you, but these all seem to be the proper words. It's overused, overplayed, overexaggerated the metaphor---but I am empty inside without you. Hollowed out. Hollowed out to the point where I'm forgetting myself and I'm forgetting where I am. And everytime I wake up, it feels like I'm in a coffin but there's one word that always sticks to my tongue and it never lets go: Kate. And I can't live with this. Once you have Kate Pierce you can't have anything else, because nothing else is as sufficient. If you're with someone right now, he'll realize that too. Nobody's mead tastes the same, their mouth, their neck, the way they murmur their words. It's as cryptic as death, and love sticks to your ribs. You're so much stronger than I am, Kate. You claim you aren't.. because I'm a man, and you're a woman. I know you cry. You can't deny that you cry about what happened, and what could've been. But I know you're too beautiful not to get over it, and go on. What would we be without you? Everyone you've spoken to, or touched, you've blistered in the most divine of ways. The cat is even sad without you, or her playmate. I know you're young (and unfortunately, so am I) and this will be just a piece of me you won't forget. I'd love for you take everything, but does your apartment have much commodity? I don't know. All I know is that I don't want you to forget. I don't want you to forget the secrets I've told you that I would never tell anyone else. I don't want you to forget the quirky things you used to call me at our most intimate moments, or the way we'd lay in our glisten afterwards. When I had the flu, you'd take care of me. When I wanted my dosage of attention you gave it to me. That's why I burn for you so much..and that's why it's time to go. Because if I called you Kate, and you hung up, my heart would explode. So this is the best way.

I love you.

Solomon.

<font color="#666666" size="1">[ April 16, 2003 08:27 PM: Message edited by: greedy fly ]</font>