anxiety love poem containing drunken ramblings about women and other species.

i had the swine flu

i did not make out with a girl because i was afraid i had swine flu

everyone has swine flu

i should have hooked up with that broad

what is her name

i saw her tonight

why was she there

she said 'i am from somewhere far away'

but i saw her tonight

'awkward'

'arousal' is a funny word

it keeps seeming funny to me

i want to say something sarcastic about 'arousal' but it appears only to seem funny

damn

i feel aroused by sumo wrestling

that seems funny

sumo wrestling seems like a bad thing to be aroused by

really drunk

this poem isn't good

too much party.

being in a band is similar to being in a fraternity

every night is like ‘getting fucked up and not giving a shit about what vagina you acquire’

i don’t believe in ‘acquiring vaginas’

'vaginas' seem to function on their own volition

where my bros at!?

i have no bros

i am alone in the universe

i created 'the universe'

the universe existed before me

but i created ‘the universe’ with my complex self-awareness centers

in my brain

where my bros at

they are here, with me, being happy

this seems okay

i will survive this

medium-slow-moving things.

things seem to move medium-slow in real life

eggshells, seashells, glass, and fishhooks are not fun to step on

when did i 'lose my shit'

fast-moving things seem four-to-eight times faster than reality

what was the writing process for 'through the looking glass and what alice found there'

what was the appeal for that

feeling objectively nauseous

unsure if 'fucking my hand' is an option or not an option right now

unsure what kind of movement is happening

moving towards west africa while west africa moves towards india, i think

all of my ancestors lost their virginity

going to edit this poem, i think

edited this poem 'extensively' over the course of eleven hours
male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black male, black

'"grassroots" promotional campaign' re tao lin's 'shoplifting from american apparel'.


buttercup feels like shit. after three days of drinking alcohol, repeatedly getting into trouble with the police and systematically pissing off everyone for being an intolerable shit-show when blackout, he decides to write a one-thousand five-hundred word story regarding an associate of his named tao lin in order to promote both his and tao lin’s blogs and possibly careers.

buttercup hasn’t eaten anything for the past seventy-two hours except some chips and an ‘atomic fire ball’ jaw breaker, which he actually sucked on and didn’t masticate. buttercup has feelings of not being sure what to write. his eyes slowly focus on the ring on his right middle finger and he thinks ‘fuck’ before laughing inaudibly.

buttercup debates writing a non-fiction story about how he and tao lin met, but can’t write more than a paragraph of that story without thinking ‘this is completely ridiculous. i don’t think i can respect myself as a writer if i write about meeting tao lin without involving a lot of sarcasm or something important happening, or embellishing the details to shit.’ then buttercup thinks ‘i remember the weekend i met tao lin was really fun, but i don’t remember this past weekend very much at all’ and ‘i don’t get much positive feedback regarding my relationship with tao lin as it is, why would i continue to “add more fodder” for potential shit-talkers if i already feel like shit and am conceivably susceptible to feeling shittier?’

buttercup remembers different moments during the weekend he met tao lin and decides to write about them to some extent. for example, when he introduced himself to tao lin at a muumuu house reading in new york and tao lin said ‘i know you from the internet’ or something, and introduced buttercup to his girlfriend, and buttercup introduced tao lin to his friends megan and luke, who tao lin also already knew from the internet.

a little later buttercup was smoking a cigarette or a clove inside the building, which was bad activity according to tao lin’s roommate. tao lin’s roommate changed her mind about this, kind of, and smoking inside became popular for the people who only came to the reading to talk shit about tao lin, as something to do while talking shit about tao lin. buttercup put out his cigarette or clove out of boredom and started walking to get a beer. tao lin ‘hopped’ in front of buttercup and said ‘hey’ and they had a conversation that seemed painfully awkward to the point of being extremely enjoyable, until tao lin saw his girlfriend and said ‘i’m going to go get my girlfriend’ and smiled and ran away kind of and squeezed himself through a very small space between a wall and a pillar instead of walking around things to get to her.

tao lin had said, ‘are you friends with megan?’

buttercup had said, ‘i met her online. i just met her in real life today.’

tao lin had said, ‘damn,’ among other things.

someone opened a beer near tao lin’s face and it exploded and he yelled loudly.

later buttercup, tao lin, luke, megan and sarah, tao lin’s girlfriend, ‘mexican pile-upped’ into megan’s car and she drove fast from manhattan to brooklyn so they could get some food. later buttercup went to an apartment building with tao lin and a lot of other people and drank more beers and read some of tao lin’s writing that was in the first-edition literary magazine the person who lived at the apartment printed. later buttercup went to tao lin’s apartment and hung out with jamie, zachary, miles, chelsea, brandon, megan, luke, sarah and tao lin until luke left to visit his cousin in manhattan and everyone was either very drunk or very tired and wanted to sleep. later buttercup stayed up and read tao lin’s novel, eeeee eee eeee, before falling asleep.

buttercup thinks ‘these stories seem fucked’ regarding the stories of him and tao lin hanging out. buttercup tries to remember the first time he heard of tao lin, and thinks that it was through tao lin’s association with the blog ‘hipster runoff’ maybe. buttercup tries to remember specifically what made him want to be friends with tao lin and thinks ‘people who seem to agree with each other about a lot of things and who are interested in each other’s work and personalities should be friends.’ then buttercup thinks ‘maybe tao lin isn’t interested in my personality’ while maintaining a neutral facial expression.

buttercup expects his copy of ‘shoplifting from american apparel’ to come in the mail tomorrow. he also thinks that the police will probably come to his house at some point this week to arrest him for trying to break the windshield of a police car. buttercup doesn’t remember trying to break the windshield of a police car, but remembers a hispanic police officer pointing a gun in his face and saying ‘what the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ so he assumes that he tried to break the windshield of a police car. the police let him go but stole his phone, identification card and a condom from his wallet.

buttercup eats four cookies and smokes a cigarette with gary and paul. he says ‘i am trying to write a short story and failing’ and they say ‘how’ and buttercup says ‘by forgetting too many details and not wanting to make up details.’ paul and gary laugh.

buttercup feels really excited about getting ‘shoplifting from american apparel’ in the mail soon. he sees that tao lin has logged off of gmail chat and feels a little bad for not talking to him when he was online. buttercup looks at tao lin’s facebook wall and tries to find something he thought he had written on it. buttercup finds out he never wrote anything on tao lin’s facebook wall. he writes ‘it’s almost halloween’ on tao lin’s facebook wall.

buttercup rereads the short story he is writing for the fourth time and sees that he has almost one-thousand words written. buttercup feels ‘relatively okay maybe’. buttercup leaves his computer for thirty minutes and eats a lot of food. buttercup remembers going with his friend to see the film ‘paranormal activity’, and not wanting to go, but feeling 'okay' about watching it because there was an american apparel store near the movie theater. when he told his friend he was going to american apparel to look at clothes, she said ‘no you aren’t.’

buttercup decides that his friend seems ‘unchill’.

buttercup thinks, ‘tao lin seems “chill.” it seems funny that people have negative opinions about tao lin because he seems objectively chill to me. if i were going to write a metaphor about tao lin it would be “tao lin is an entire flock of penguins” because of how chill he is. i’m just kidding. “tao lin is the collective mass of shit produced by all penguins that have ever 'summered' in antarctica,” hehe’ and writes this down.

buttercup sees that tao lin is signed on to gmail chat. buttercup says ‘sup bro.’

tao lin says ‘chillin.’

buttercup says ‘sweet. going to submit something to your new gimmick because i want a copy of “bed.”’

tao lin says ‘sweet. write about your trip to a muumuu house launch party, perhaps.’

buttercup says ‘that’s in there. should i just write about that?’

tao lin says ‘no, it should focus on me.’

buttercup says ‘okay, sweet,’ then without really looking says, ‘every paragraph starts with “buttercup...” but i say your name three times more than mine.’

tao lin says ‘good.’

buttercup uses microsoft word’s ‘find’ feature to check how many times ‘tao’ and ‘buttercup’ appear in the story. he sees that his name is included one more time than tao lin’s and says 'damn' to himself.

buttercup sees that he has written more than twelve-hundred words and feels weird. buttercup thinks ‘i feel horny and frustrated and this is bad because i will take out my aggression by being really mean to my dog, which sucks.’ buttercup’s dad sits in buttercup’s bedroom watching ‘monday night football’ and screams at the television every play. buttercup drinks some pepsi. buttercup thinks he probably won’t have sex until winter is over and imagines the concrete idea of a nude sumo wrestler and feels the opposite of horny.

buttercup wonders if tao lin watches football. buttercup vaguely remembers reading about whether or not tao lin watches football in an interview maybe. buttercup is unsure of how tao lin answered. buttercup is sitting on the same futon he was sitting on during the gmail chat with tao lin that he wrote a short story about the week before. buttercup's ass hurts.

‘no! no! no! no! no!’ says buttercup’s dad. ‘pass it! big pass! yeah baby! no!’

buttercup says ‘dad, do you know how to check to see where the books i ordered are? is that possible to check on amazon? i don’t know. when will they get here?’

buttercup’s dad says ‘maybe your mother knows.’

buttercup sees that he is less than sixty words from one-thousand five-hundred words. buttercup reads some of the other conversations and essays in the ‘"shoplifting from american apparel" "grassroots" promotional campaign’ gimmick and thinks ‘these are all way better than mine’ and laughs through his nose a little. buttercup decides to type 'tao lin' one more time and then the washington redskins’ running back is tackled by all eleven players on the defense and is crushed.

black people seem chill.

heard somewhere today that bros 'name their junk'

decided to 'name my penis' 'piss beast' when docile

'sperm monster' when erect

seems good but unoriginal;

unsure about name selection

decided to not have children

if my gf wants kids i might have kids

just kidding bros

'sperm monster' impregnates all the bitches

guess who's losing the battle against incoherence

feel really drunk

on 40% alcohol vodka

scooby-doo seems like a 'great dane'

unsure which people from denmark aren't great

i am going to smash everything tomorrow

every protozoa, lichen and alga that i see will be smashed with a fist that is awesome and connected to my palm by ligaments

and when i see them i will declare that they will be destroyed and change my mind and make myself their leader

and i will have a monopoly on selling environmentally sustainable household objects and accessories when the next wave of 'intelligent life' happens in a few billion years

if i were a cat i would pounce the universe

where are you bros?

where da bros at everybody?

just saw the t.v. spot for 'new moon'

'seems wild'

sincere apologies via the united states government douchebros

you have immunity now, not really

georgette and adam go to a party.

adam walked down the hallway with a serious facial expression. he adjusted his backpack over his right shoulder and ‘accelerated’ a little. he was confused and went down the wrong corridor then went down the right corridor and into the radio station lobby. there were eight people with neutral facial expressions including scotty and dan listening to scotty talk about ‘important-ish’ business things. dan made an enormous smile and high-fived adam. adam maintained a serious facial expression while moving through the massive collection of eight people with neutral facial expressions and into a booth. it was six-twelve pm. adam introduced ‘wraith pinned to the mist and other games’ by the band ‘of montreal’ calling it ‘their sell-out song,’ and played it and then the phone rang. it was an old-sounding person.

hi, said the old-sounding person, is this ebbie?

no it’s adam, said adam.

oh, said the old-sounding person, well i just called to say that the song you are playing played in a series of outback steakhouse commercials a couple years ago.

oh, said adam, really? damn.

sorry i thought this was ebbie, said the old-sounding person.

seems okay, said adam.

adam played other songs and talked into the microphone and said, this is w-m-v-c radio eighty-eight-point-three f-m, periodically, and read a public service announcement. at seven-thirty pm georgette called adam’s cell phone.

hey bro, said georgette.

sup bro, said adam.

i am going to be ten-to-twenty minutes late, bro, said georgette.

damn, said adam.

i ate some bad food when i had dinner with my mom and need to buy some pepto-bismol on my way to visit you, said georgette.

okay bro, i will probably leave the station at eight-‘o-five, said adam.

oh damn, you sure not eight-‘o-six, said georgette.

i might push it back another minute, said adam, for posterity, he said being funny.

okay, said georgette. then she laughed. then she said, later bro.

adam felt really good about georgette and felt like maybe he had a crush on her and like maybe he had had a crush on her for long time. since the first time i saw her in real life, perhaps, he thought. adam felt incandescently pleasant regarding georgette.

everything seemed pretty good.

everything did not seem pretty good when adam walked with georgette to a party at a house they could not find. there were grad students and a bitch there. the bitch poured a cup of water on james for saying the word bitch. james called the bitch a bitch after she poured water on him. the bitch made pie. the bitch took her friends into her room, and gave them facials. the party was over. georgette and adam and james went to james’s house with georgette driving the car. there was a pair of shades in the front seat of georgette's car with gum on them.

where did you get these shades, said adam.

i don’t know where they came from, said georgette, they have gum on them.

jesus, said adam, i was going to say that these shades are 'very georgette.'

yeah, said georgette.

james said something objectively funny. james anally retained some flatulence. things stayed okay.

georgette parked her car near james’s house. georgette got out of the car but kept the keys in the car to move the electric seat apparatus. james ignored the electric seat apparatus and did a somersault out of the car. georgette met ‘the bedfellows’. there was an indian person at james's house watching seinfeld. georgette, adam, ‘the bedfellows’ and the indian watched an episode of seinfeld. the indian showed georgette and adam some paintings and an ink drawing he made.

if i were going to write a review for this art, said adam, then i would say that you are the human that is the most in-touch with the human experience and the human concept of sensitivity that i have ever encountered.

the indian 'packed a bowl' of marijuana and he and adam 'smoked' it.

james went to bed. ‘the bedfellows’ all went to bed. adam and georgette smoked cigarettes outside and then left. georgette said she had a little bit of a crush on james. adam said james is an asshole and a 'wolf’ and felt really bad for saying that.

does that mean he is covered in fur, asked georgette.

does that mean he runs in packs, asked adam.

you mean he is a 'lady killer,' said georgette.

damn, yeah, said adam.

georgette gave adam a bag filled with butterscotch candy and he ate a lot of them.

everything is real.

i don't know who i am

having trouble discovering animal species differentiation

listening to the new weezer song featuring lil' wayne, seriously

thinking about having another celebratory cigarette

last night was completely fucked

today is okay, i guess

had a 'fantastic' stew for breakfast

if i can get the recipe i will post it here

not vegan, there was chicken i think

and cheese

where is everything

in space, relatively

i'm almost done

be right back,

bitch fuck.

sweet apple fuck

big helium fuck

low-decibel fuck

wikipedia 'fuck'

jesus fucking fuck

halloween fuck

slimy bastard fuck

hello, fuck

vaginal intercourse

untitled re-release fuck

marijuana-induced paranoia fuck

fuck you fuck

fuck, hehe

undulating cellulite fuck

patent leather fuck

holy motherfucking shit ass

holy duck 'n fuck

the definitive traveler's guide to the united state of america, by buttercup mcgillicuddy and megan boyle.

maryland sucks

baltimore is a shithole

college park is alright

d.c. is OK

new york is sweet

‘philly’ is kind of dirty but is also OK

l.a. is pretty sweet

everyone ‘loves’ baltimore

ryan manning lives in ashburn, virginia

it’s rainy in seattle, and also portland

this is going to suck

this is sucking really bad

wilmington delaware is on the way to 'philly'

it takes fifteen minutes to drive through wilmington, delaware on the way to ‘philly’

portland is also in maine

everyone in portland, ‘oregon’ shops at wholefoods

but i don’t know anything about portland, maine

stephen king maybe lives there

chicago is totally sweet

everyone should move to chicago, right now

damn, this sucks

denver sucks too

no, maybe denver’s OK

ryan manning lived in denver for a little bit

jack kerouac maybe liked denver a lot

jack kerouac also liked san francisco

toronto is weird

they have a space needle in toronto, like in seattle, but it’s not a real space needle

toronto thinks it’s an american city

jesus

miami has an airport

i am aware of miami having an airport

athens georgia is where ‘of montreal’, the band, is from

among other bands

stuff happens in boston

there are people doing ‘significant things’ in boston

i'm running out of cities

st. paul, minnesota

i have to get my driver’s license renewed by the 26th

fuck

san diego is not where ‘full house’ was filmed

carmen san diego

damn

las vegas has strippers, prostitutes and magicians

and money

yeah, magicians

magicians are sweet

carrot top is not sweet

carrot top is las vegas’s mascot or something

eldersberg maryland is small, there’s a shitty mall there

almost forgot austin

there are equal portions of hipsters and cowboys in austin

perhaps the best demographic of all cities

oakland, california is not san francisco

but people from oakland say that they’re from san francisco

there are a lot of songs about san francisco, i think

why are there so many fat people

obesity is a problem

ryan manning also lived in ibiza, but that's not in the united states

angry.

feeling powerful urges to hang-glide into something

into a cliff wall or large presidential face, maybe

unsure about the relevance of 'the internet'

inconclusive about how it got here

feeling powerful urges to squeeze an attractive woman with my arms

and for her to squeeze back

and try to break me in half

and maybe for me to be 'african american' in aesthetic

unsure if i can consciously promote africa

don't want to promote pirates or AIDS or apartheid or pharaohs or lemurs

or jungles or political assassinations or islam

feeling feelings of being angry, a little

like smiling is impossible and breaking large things at the expense of small children's emotions/well-being seems acceptable and inconsequential in the relatively short/meaningless existence of a large planet that produces a large magnetic field that surrounds a massive center of gravity that maintains extended cycles of life that will cease and be 'consumed by the sun' according to a film i saw recently

babies seem chill, though unstable structurally

kanye west poem.

i'm kanye west, the author-slash-poet

i'm completely aware of my high levels of ignorance and naivete, but feel unable to control them

or approach them calmly and ask them to go away

or ask that when they go, that they interview and hire a new version of their selves that has more interest in knowledge, and that has a world-worn, powerful, but serene, demeanor like jay-z or something

since i can’t do this i approach my high levels of ignorance and naivete with intense frustration and feel incapable of saying anything coherent to them

and since i do this i approach other people with low expectations and genuine interest in what they think of me, as well as high levels of nervousness

if what they think of me is what i want them to think of me, then i am happy

and a recent line of this poem was a self-aware hypothesis

ignoring that 'mind-reading' is 'impossible'

or that the concept of 'mind-reading' as i understand it is 'impossible'

or the abstract idea i attribute the action ‘mind-reading’ to, exists exclusively in my imagination and is therefore not represented in concrete reality except by people who claim to have ‘metaphysical' or 'supernatural' powers making it 'impossible'

i can't tell if people think of me what i want them to think

i feel unsure of what i want people to think of me

it seems that i want people to like me and for them to want to be around me and say positive things about my short stories and poems

this happens relatively frequently

i feel insecure about personal relationships regardless

i'm kanye west, the author-slash-poet-slash-visual artist

i'm very interested in having an extensive oeuvre of short stories, poems, and drawings that people associate with positive feelings

but i forget that people feel positive about my short stories, poems, and drawings during everyday life and neglect to reproduce them

or promote them anywhere

and so only my close friends see them

and sometimes i forget to show my close friends

and my short stories, poems, and drawings stay on my computer and my career becomes ‘malnourished’

my career is a malnourished baby cow

my career moves through space eating things that make it fat and bloated and disgusting

because my career was bred for the specific purpose of being sold to the american public in the form of non-organic meat products that only have to achieve relatively low FCC standards

my career looks healthy but is really just on a lot of drugs

and sustained primarily through consuming pop-culture information from the internet and not by producing short stories, poems, or drawings

my career seems fucked

i’m kanye west the author-slash-poet-slash-visual artist-slash-musician

i send my short stories, poems, drawings, and music to people suddenly and unsolicited

i forget that there are less-abrasive ways to show people things that i feel they might enjoy experiencing

and i send them three-thousand word short stories in emails

and i feel unafraid of being plagiarized or imitated

due to low-levels of self-esteem and positive feedback

sad poem.

feel embarrassed and otherwise unmotivated by deep feelings of wanting to be appreciated

these feelings cause other feelings of wanting to believe there are things that are 'impossible' for the purpose of ignoring them

i.e. my capacity for world-wide acknowledgment and appreciation

when really the concept of 'impossible' is an existential imperative

used to put a boundary around the abstraction that is 'concrete reality'

while in 'concrete reality' nothing is 'impossible' because nothing that is 'impossible' can exists

i will develop something that large numbers of humans will be interested in and be fascinated by

and i will hate it, or maybe feel OK about it, or not know how to feel about it

and there will be millions of people who see it and will want to see it again

and i will show them again and repeatedly, until i need someone's help to show it to them

and then i will delegate control and distribution of this thing people look at

and eventually the people i delegate to will lose control

and the entire system and what i created will be atomized

and i will become depressed and inconsequential again

and then maybe someone will love me

transcending the metaphorical concept of 'euphoria'.

happy about the future

unsure about my current understanding of reality

going to take a shot of whiskey

be right back,

haven't taken a shot yet

mario kart seems like a menial distraction

like it is a thing that makes you frustrated

so you are not frustrated by other things

my bro is on the phone

with a broad that seems overly concerned about his well-being

making nervous hand gestures

OK whiskey,

'fucking wow'

there are people who are capable of completely adequate social performance

and people who are incapable of adequate social performance

there are people who exhibit both properties based on what other people are in close vicinity to them at a given time

super smash brothers seems 'really fun'

wondering who discovered that zucchini is edible

feeling 'intensely euphoric' due to the effects of whiskey

incapable of walking properly

'from the land of pleasant living'.

increasingly concerned about the quality of this poem

trying to form a concrete image of 'helium' or 'hydrogen' in my mind

in a manner that isn't abstract or scientific

this process induced a 'salvia flashback'

feeling suicidal maybe

never mind

felt consistently drunk all day today without drinking

confused by this

seems having sex would make things better, i feel

momentarily thought i broke a blood vessel in my neck when yawning

i think 'feeling suicidal' implies 'fantasizing about killing oneself'

and i feel enormous and unnecessarily complex

and probably like i would like to stop existing

'and then some'

too bored to solicit anybody for sex

and convinced that seducing someone is inordinately less fun and less satisfying than not doing anything

just going to feel sad and alone today

someone text messaged me to say someone else is disappointed about something i did

damn

having trouble keeping my eyes from closing

woke up this morning wrapped from shoulders to feet in duct tape

still unemployed; court in two days

i'm going to ignore that i feel sad and alone because those feelings seem really boring

untitled.

feel incapable of making astute assessments about the world

seems like that is an astute assessment about something

i am myself

i am no other people

wondering if intoxication 'adds' to or 'subtracts' from the quality of my poems

haven't really eaten a 'meal' in a week or so

my favorite band played at a venue fifteen minutes from my house last night

it was a sold out show

i got really drunk with my friends and danced

not at the concert

not sure where these friends came from

i enjoy everything

including the severe intestinal dysfunction i am experiencing

'when man discovered fire'

this is too intense for me

assorted truths about things i've heard of.

feels like i am 'failing' at maintaining existential coherence

keep thinking 'when will the train get here' while sitting on my futon

flatulence was just released

pretty loudly

by me

i am the only one suffering

the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

going to make another bowl of cereal

going to create a religion for the plebes to follow

going to usurp a key terrorist leader and turn al qaeda into a babysitting club

i want to crush something microscopic

to prove that i am large and of great consequence

worried that the world could realistically end without my knowledge of it ending

this poem feels 'out of control' or something

trying to download a movie illegally

had to sort through which versions were better quality

decided on the shittiest one

out of respect for the novelty of what 'bootlegging' once was

water seems pretty important