michael todd

May 2

“Conchas”, strange that I’d never heard the name before until recently. They were always just the wonderfully frosted (pink in color usually) pastries of my childhood. For as long as I can remember I’ve been in somewhat disagreement with the sweet side of my palette, but never when it came to my conchas. It’s hot as fuck, I’m a sweaty little kid with an equally sweaty five dollar food stamp in hand (back when they were actually paper, not that weird EBT shit). At this age there’re really only a couple of things that you really truly care about, these things being primarily food and fun. No matter how you sugar-coat it (haha) these are the driving factors in any child’s mind. With that said, I’m sprinting down Market clutching the fuck out of this food stamp, I know it’s the key to unlocking my happiness for the next 25 minutes or so. Bolt through the door of Chico’s, and the odor slams you like you wouldn’t believe. Cinnamons, sugars, bread smells I didn’t know existed, exhaust from the street outside, the stench of young boy’s armpits; all collided just for me and this huge smile on my face to experience. They said she flew right out of her shoes. I grab the “tenastas” and proceed to pick the biggest pink one I can see, put it in a bag and walk to the line leading to the cash register. “Should’ve looked both ways, the poor soul” they said. It’s gotta be at least 140 degrees in the shade I’m thinking, San Pablo doesn’t get much hotter than this particular day, and I’m feeling like it won’t get much hotter anywhere in the world ever again. The kind of day where you don’t even get the chance to try to fry an egg on the street, you crack it and it’s cooked itself over hard already. So the line for the concha shrinks to the point where I’m right there, chin at the counter. I grab a chocolate milk from the lil fridge. I look the man dead in the eyes, stone faced. He tells me “That’ll be three something or other”. I hand him the food stamp. There had to have been at least 6 cop cars, one exaggerated. No cash change allowed with food stamps so I just leave. Stepping outside I notice the omen that is bright yellow police caution tape, I’d been too hasty on my way in to notice the scene. A policeman is present, though he just looks like he’s standing around near his car while a man sits cuffed in the backseat, not really policing very much. A seat taken on the curb to fully enjoy my meal in the brilliant sun. A seat taken next to the window to fully enjoy my flight. I don’t think that poor little girl is gonna make it, did you see the way that man came around the corner?? I’m oblivious to what’s happened maybe only three quarters of an hour earlier, and while I’m wasting crumbs and wiping my milk-stache, all these people around me are distraught and terrified and horribly hurt and damaged emotionally. The little me is in ecstasy with this cake, and the little her is dying in an ambulance, speeding needlessly to the hospital with sirens screaming, “needlessly” because the paramedics, the young girl, the birds above and the devil below are all fully aware that no amount of critical care can bring this child back to health. Her heartbeat has been racing for a while, pumping and pumping and beating harder then it ever has before. Terrified and silent and barely conscious she lies mangled, waiting. My mother’s had cancer in her uterus for almost two years now, I don’t think she’s ever gonna tell me about it. I don’t really blame her anymore. She’s just that poor little girl and I’m still that poor little boy, hungering for food and fun. I wonder if they’ve got Conchas in Chicago.

May 1, noeditsyet

I’m anxious. This feeling in my gut might be fear, but it could just as well be hunger. Lately I’ve been eating like a middle-aged unmarried woman who’s just realized that the guy she gave her number to at that shitty bar downtown (the one with the nice lights outside, that strangely emphasized her thinning hair and growing waist size) isn’t actually going to call her. I can’t seem to lose this image of myself, withering into creative stagnance, getting old and calloused by labor, forty-something and penniless, lacking a progeny of any sort, cold, dying, dead. So, disheartened, I eat. The scene could be anywhere, let’s say for sake of “setting the mood” it’s a “restaurant”. I’m by myself or with another starving (wo)man. We’re in that moment just after you’ve been brought your food, but just before you start in on your meal. The moment when you unconsciously reach for your fork, excited and your salivary glands are giddy too. In my head my meal has already been finished, I’m in the future where I’m satiated and all I’m doing now is turning the pages of the short flip-book of a meal. (S)he’s being mindful of the bites (s)he’s taking, thoughtful of the flavors and textures and aromas of each. I can’t even keep my chin clean but I’m so absolutely content I don’t mind. The mess I am, the hard wooden seats forcing us into impossibly proper posture, the glare of the reflection of the beautiful sun from a boring, incredibly common duplication of a painting done by some no-name soul from ages ago, beaming straight into my eyes. I don’t mind that the person I’m with could have every intent to rob me as soon as we step outside, with a poorly constructed knife hidden even more poorly in their breast pocket, me being totally surprised regardless. But they don’t. We finish, pay, depart, and I’m still broke but at least I have my wallet. I’m alone again, but not lonely. I wasn’t actually with another person in the first place so my walk back home is no different than the feeling of staring at my fingers for the duration of my meal, waiting for one of the knuckles to shatter from the amount of abuse I put to them, pounding and pounding and pounding like the police on my front door. It was a hot august night, humid. When I heard them I just crept down into my bed to pretend I’d been asleep so I couldn’t get the door. I assumed they’d just take my mother and go, leaving me to my bed and it’s comfort. Facing away from the door, I feel the footsteps rumbling up the stairs before I hear them. I hear the shouting of these badge bearing men before I see them in my doorway threatening. I see the barrel of the shotgun (make, model, serial number unknown to me) before I feel the real danger. Pulled out of bed, dragged downstairs for a very stern “talking to” from the swat team. Mother’s in cuffs crying, pleading that her babies not be there to witness her in the bad-guy position, hair wild and voice raspy. Words like “Paraphernalia” and “Abuse” dancing off the tips of their tongues as if it were news to me and my sister, 16 at the time but full-aware of our parents histories/present doings. Too often have I thought about them as wrongdoings, but at the moment it’s all innocent. It’s playful it’s forgivable it’s just a phase boys will be boys she’ll grow out of it. And then they’re gone. My walk home is alone, but it’s not lonely. I wasn’t actually with another person in the first place. I don’t want this to be about numbers or bodies or bodies of numbers like seas of data collected and distributed and redistributed at wholesale prices. I don’t want this to be about words of birds or text of sex and bacon and cigarettes. I want this to be about my feet. My hands. My teeth. This damned heart that wants to die but can’t help but beat. Really my walk home is shaded by crows, as much as I’d love for them to be doves or even ravens with their talons blunted. My life reincarnated as tomorrow life is happy to hear that yesterday passed in his sleep. It was a peaceful death, like the tide coming in and then returning to itself. I’m projected into my steps without even being aware of it. All the while I’m walking I can’t help but whistle, improvising little tunes that will echo and echo but never be heard. I’m home now, this step and this step and this step. If home is where the heart is, I live in my chest and I’ll always be home. Wherever I am at the moment should be where I call home, and if my heart is my home then it’s a gruesome horrible place filled with blood and gross black shit that comes from my oral fixation, press your ear to my chest and this house beats best regardless. Trudge up the steps into my shitty house, tomorrow I’ll think about money. The day after that I’ll think about my role in nature or my lack of a role in nature. The day after that I’ll be a great man. And then I’ll die. 

stranded - impossibly high on a ledge - some sort of disaster - two strangers appear, perched with me on my ledge - a really long ghost story about a golden knife - a single opportunity for salvation - plummet plunge fall far down into the water - strangers left up on the ledge, a weak cry - “If we ever find a way down from here, i pray that you’ve made it far away, because if i find you, i will slit your fucking throat” - doors fly by i’m running through some long hallway - crowded and every person i bump into glances at me and has his face - the bounty has been set - bottom of the stairs now, out the door into the street - cold bustling metropolis, but ive got a focus - crossing the street towards an awful, familiar silhouette - reach my hand out, grasp aimed at this silhouettes shoulder - as if i were pulling the trigger with that touch, a cold touch on my neck - “see? it was that easy” - and now i’m watching myself watch this stranger hold the knife up to my face - “no” i mutter - and i’m watching myself watch this man watch me die - i’m on the ground bleeding out - hours pass without words - the second ledge friend appears with a gun, three shots into my torso - weakly, “owwwwwwwww” - strangers depart - i wake up alone and confused but i am content 

Hands’ve been shaking for a while now, even with the absence of greeting old friends or meeting of new ideas.

Oh echo, how hard you must try. I can’t imagine the difficulty in whispering the same thing quieter and quieter, yes and yes and yes until eventually i’d be unheard. The syncopation of lung and vocal chord and heart and head is so slight, you’d think everything was at the same time.

Growing up isn’t like someone flicked a lightswitch, it’s like standing on a deserted road and headlights are approaching you from behind at a painful pace. It gets brighter and brighter but you don’t notice the car getting closer. And then it fucking hits you.

I can’t breathe, oh god oh god I can’t breathe. I’m not underwater or asphyxiating on a tiny Barbie doll hairbrush. My larynx hasn’t been crushed by a well-deserved suckerpunch to the throat that was delivered because I was intentionally flirting with this fellow’s girl while he was watching, waiting really, from across the room at some party just because I thought he looked a bit hypermasculine. Fuck oh shit fuck, it’s getting worse, I can’t even remember what a breath of fresh air would feel like, not that i wouldn’t settle for something stale and humid and smokey like one of the rooms at my old spot where everyone would sit and drink and smoke cigarettes for hours on end as if the sun was always eclipsed and would always be. It seems i cant breathe, though i’ve never been asthmatic or had any upper respiratory issues. My windpipe isn’t obstructed by an unnecessarily large forkful of instant ramen noodles i’ve refused to chew sufficiently but still saw fit to attempt a swallow. My throats hollow and clear, no need for me to pull this blue pen from its almost permanent residence behind my right ear and perform some sort of emergency trachaeotomy like you might see in a movie like Anaconda or Saw V, even then i’d probably spill more blood than gather air into my lungs. I haven’t taken a breath in over a minute now, and i’ve heard it said that sixty seconds of suffocation seems like sixty minutes, but really its a lack of value for our seconds when we aren’t suffocating. Imagine if every second carried as much significance. I’ve been holding my breath for months now, i don’t know if i should ever grant my blood access to oxygen again. I deprived the depraved of whatever it craved and it got me here. 

Raw food gets you hyped

Wrote this two weeks into raw food diet, probably two months ago i think.

“My mouth is by far my favorite organ, eating drinking talking shit eating pussy kissing smoking cigarettes ingesting pills, as long as i’m exercising this organ, i’m totally content. most of the above get me in some kind of trouble, what a bummer. Raw food is challenging me to get around this, whether or not i still use this hole in my face as frequently as before is no question, i definitely do. But the things i’m putting into it are different, even if the difference is only slight, and thus my LIFE is different. I still drink mostly everynight. I still smoke a pack of cigarettes a day. But i feel as though maybe it’s the first incision of the process that is my cesarean rebirth. I’ve never been required by life to practice self-control, it always just seems like whatever i am able to do is what i should. Growing up poor, i learned that if theres extra food near me (eg friends leftovers, strangers leftovers), it would be wise for me to act fast and eat it then, because there was always the chance that i wouldnt have food later. Food is where my consumption issues began, it then spread to relationships. Rushing in and wanting all at once for romance to be completely devourable, to eat the essence of love as quickly as i could left me unsatiated. My “charm” and slightly “persuasive” way with words made this an acceptable tactic in my relationships. Let not my words mislead though, i did sincerely love these women, all of their traits that i claimed to adore and hold dear, i really did. I wasn’t using the concept of “love” (or just love, no imaginary fingers bending) as a lure to get into some sweaty fun, i just wanted the WHOLE of anything around me that had any degrees. Consuming love is like consuming food, it still tastes good and i still don’t like pickles very much, i just don’t know if it’ll be around later so i recklessly indulge. I’m now learning though, to be mindful of each bite, to forgive myself for past glutton, and continue eating and learning and laughing as loudly and as wildly and as feverishly as i can. I’m screaming at the top of my lungs with my mouth full. Fuck etiquette.”

Probably gonna go raw again soon. ;D