Johnny's Mouth

Sometimes my days are sunny and sometimes they are grey. That’s okay. Some of my days sound like rock songs.

I used to make out with this guy, Johnny. We’d share spit in the front seat of his car. His spit always tasted kinda weird, like cola and cigarettes. Johnny thought he was a rockstar. Pfft. He wrote me a song once. It was called ‘Lilac Lola’. He thought lilac meant lovely. It seemed rude to break it to him that he was describing me as a light purple.

Johnny and I used to lock lips when I was sixteen. Things were brighter then; reverberating in technicolour. Today the air feels like a sad song, a slow tune about heartache. Excruciating and addictive in the same breath. When we broke up, Johnny wrote a song called ‘Lola Sux’. I know. To be fair, that song was his best one. It was the closest he ever got to sounding like a rockstar.

“Lolaaaaa you bitch! You suck-like a baby on a tit…..you ripped my heart apart, you selfish stupid tart…..”

I never let him meet my parents.

I’m seeing a new guy now. A drummer, named Brandon. With him, the days seem more upbeat.

When I write on my keyboard it feels like artistry. A craft perfected. Brandon is like that on the drums. I guess my keyboard is like a mini drum kit. If I press the keys hard enough they might sound percussive. Brandon and I could do a duet.

Just kidding about Brandon. I just wanted a reason to describe my keyboard as a drum kit. How do we move forward from this point? Why was I thinking about Johnny?

That’s right-nostalgia for my adolescence. A lot of days felt like rock songs then. My knees were always grazed and bruised, and it looked badass.

Confused. Last night Rocky told me he was confused. But that made me confused. There’s a spider in my brain. He didn’t know that.

I saw a pregnant lady smoking today. We were both waiting for a coffee from the same place. I overheard part of her phone conversation.

“He’s only this way when he’s been doing lots of drugs. I’m worried about him.”

She was wearing a dressing gown. The waistband was tied perfectly in the centre of her protruding belly.

Sometimes I feel like my mirror is looking back at me, instead of me into it. My face would look different flipped the way it’s meant to be seen. Perhaps it would suit me more. There’s spiders in my eyes.

They crawl into my bones and then into my hands. They spit little globs of venom into my bloodstream.

The numbers in the universe feel like they’re whispering something to me.

Distractions are frustrating to my brain. Clarity, it requests, clarity! Quiet and focus. But lights tend to tug at me. Some are blue, some are green, and some are cherry red. Beckoning. Trying to pull me into their world, when I want to stay in mine.

The later it gets the slower the drums play. They’re still beating along, just with more errors and strain. There are bags of rubbish in this room that have been here for quite some time. Johnny’s car used to be filled with rubbish. His favourite type to keep in there was fast food wrappers. Paper bags slicked with oil. He used to go to fast food restaurants both before and after school. Where he found the money for it, I never knew. I think he stole coins out of his family’s coin jar. I can’t be certain. But it seems likely.

The days are curiouser and curiouser. Night is here.

The spider venom is in my veins now. Johnny knew that would happen, he used to tell me so. I wonder if he still smokes menthol cigarettes.