Ushiko came in through the window i smashed by
throwing a chair,
Studio Ghibli
Ushiko stepped over the drawers (wood and cloth)
with etcetera contents—
klonopin for bettermen,
needle things from addict kings—
while the busted cunt of a light in the foyer
cast jank shadows and aspersions on this
disco underworld,
Studio 54
Ushiko howled
like Ginsberg wrote about
& Ginsburg Helled about, aborting
my League of Legends euphoria
from ultimate spellbook, making
the crowl̵̖̈́e̶̻̊y̴͍͋ hairs on my neck ten-hut
as Deist cogs did in 1776
17-76 was the score,
we weren't coming back anwyay
my nightmare team,
who let themselves be fucked in the ass
by saintly zileans and screamed racial profanities
through my
studio headphones
Ushiko strutted, bobtail bobbing,
screeching,
tense
and as spotify'd Bob is telling me,
"somebody better investigate soon"
my reptile brain is wishing for guns and clubs
to silence this terror racket
stray thought:
"has the psychiatric racket side-effected me again?"
thoughts stray back
to the less conspiratorial as i see her
a stray, of course
looking to eat my mice before
leaving turd presents
but as i ready shoo-broom
to Howl's Moving Castle doctrine away this little bold
savage
(21)
21 grams exit through the gift shop
into my pants
as she, the cat, speaks:
"You are more than this", she says
or some other fantastical truism that
flips my expectations
so i flip my broom around
presenting the jagged handle
maybe ketamine therapy has broken the last straw
maybe this is heralding my Berkowitz moment
and if so,
let me check off my animal abuse prerequisite
by killing the messenger
HOWEVER,
at that moment i am whisked away
me and Ushiko fly from this world
like African Americans in Virginia Hamilton's
uplifting folktales
but i am no longer African American
i'm fair
and blonde
and kawaii
because anime makes everyone into their most
colorless self—
inside every mud man is the soul of an anime girl,
trying to get out—
and speaking of magic
my form is now awash in its glittering grandeur
as i behold a reality that's
i dunno,
better than this one
and all the things that phrasing means
the ways and means
are now in my hands
to exploit my potential,
potential being a value applied to objects
and not men,
and i am now a very high, vibrant object
descending rapidly onto a battlefield
where the movements of troops are deliberate
as opposed to stereotypical
where renegade mages terrorbomb with 'contraptions'
as opposed to 'devices'
where flags wave in the vacuum of fantasy
as opposed to the airy compartments
of private Boeings that hold
windy associations blowing
through cash, coke and ear canals
flashing at everything but lies
where i'm gonna live?
i rocket towards all this
a supernova turning champagne, as my mind,
weaned on helplessness,
drinks
and gets drunk (!)
off of pure purpose
because i am drafted—
not for Vietnam like daddy;
no, this sphere of The Orient eschews
purple haze
and pink mist
for clean linework
big eyes
and even bigger feelings—
i'm a captive here
a prisoner to stimulation
(diminutive Asian men
give me shocks of electric discharge)
but i'm a ready and willing POW
because this indistinct cloud of missiles and sword foley
this meticulously storyboarded conflict
is elsewhere
which is a far cry
from the secret war with intrusive thoughts
only heard under my breath
only seen in my
increasingly erratic behavior
and is mental illness a transformative curse,
like Sophie's
or "nigger"?
and holy shit
i just impacted
hard
and blew fully up
on some big fucking dragon
...
Ushiko the Studio Ghibli cat
________
Rudy Johnson is a co-founder of Misery Tourism, a D&D player, and a fucking retard.
Rudy Johnson is on X @lynchpoet