You say I have angsty gay cowboy washed up rockstar vibes. You say this in response to us discussing a song you sent me: “Guts” by Spike Fuck. Angsty gay cowboy washed up rockstar is probably not a good way to understand myself I tell you. Maybe not a good one but a fun one, you tell me.
You take me to the grave of a poet known as Jack Spicer. He’s buried in the mausoleum at Cypress Lawn Funeral Home and Memorial Park. It's the same place where William Randolph Hearst is buried. That a lumpen poet and Hearst found their end together is beautiful in the same way losing your mind on the beach surrounded by million dollar mansions in California is beautiful.
The outside of the complex houses a building that is an especially egregious example of neoclassical architecture. Large roman columns and metallic signage saying “Cypress Lawn Funeral Home” brand every building. It's hideous but the inside is full of palm trees and sections of old redwoods and sepia light that leaks in from stained glass above. It’s the color of a choir or something dying.
It's an interesting day for me. I don’t know what to make of my life. I woke up today and found out I’ve lost nearly all of my life savings. It isn’t a lot of money but it is what I have. I put it all in cryptocurrency. I don’t know what to do or where I’m going. I should cry, but I can’t. There isn’t anything coherent happening around. I’m surrounded by chaos, creating it and reacting to it.
When I tell you that I have washed up rockstar vibes because I almost became a rockstar this past year you’re curious. You want to know the story. Telling the whole story means telling you about an estranged friend; our falling out and my subsequent admission into the psychiatric ward at interfaith continental hospital. The ward was on the highest floor in what seemed to be the tallest building in all of Brooklyn. It was freezing outside. Nurses buzzed around like bees and gave me Ativan in a white cup while I read the Bible and rain pattered against the window. I was there like an old wizard chained up at the top of some dark tower.
You have a map. You guide me through the building and we search for the name John Spicer. Curious fact, Jack was buried John. We find his name among a list of many others, completely undistinguished. There’s a tiny flower hanging from a hole drilled into his slot in the mausoleum. I touch the flower. I imagine the roots touching his ashes, by proxy me touching him.
I’m writing a novel right now. It’s something I’m really doing, and it feels surreal to say. Among confusion and pain I have an artistic project I’m working on. I’m burnt out on poetry. I want to make music or paint. Sometimes I imagine myself having peace in my life. I have a studio and walk there in the morning, make coffee and then start painting on a number of huge canvases. The abandon in which I’ve lived my life now comes out on canvas. I’ve managed to distill chaos.
When you send me your songs and playlists and poems I think about how you’re smarter than me. Your curative ability makes me jealous. You gather the world around you like driftwood on a beach and combine them to create a bonfire. I don’t have the ability to read the world in the way you do. You’re delicate in your selection. When you send me this stuff I sit there in admiration. Then I wonder what I flow with.
Listening to the songs and playlists you send me makes me obsess. There’s a heterosexual fantasy that is guiding this romance. We both indulge in it, making hints at the guilt we feel for our private imagining of being seen by somebody of the opposite sex, of sequestering ourselves away and making a beautiful life. Beauty becomes a marriage and a child. It's ridiculous. I don’t tell you but I failed at loving someone this past year. If I’m honest I want the innocence that love brings. I want to try again and to love someone and take care of them and grow and forget myself.
You tell me Kevin Killian would take younger men to the corner where Jack Spicer’s ashes are in the mausoleum. He would have them remove their clothes and they would stand nude while he took photos. You tell me this before you motion me to the corner and move your face to mine. You swallow my lips for a while and then crouch on your knees and put my dick in your mouth. I’m surprised I’m as hard as I am. I feel special while you suck me there, right next to Jack’s ashes. When you come back up to kiss me I hold your mouth to mine before I unzip you so I can feel you in my mouth. I love your dick and giving you pleasure is easier than receiving it. We alternate like that for a while, going back and forth on our knees, kissing and holding each other's cocks in our mouths. We make out and masturbate in the dimly lit corner of the mausoleum. You have the sense to cum into your hand rather than the floor. After you stand there awkwardly with semen cupped in your palm not knowing what to do. I stare at your cum hand like a dazed child. You ask if I came. I did not and I feel bad that I didn’t so I lie and say that I masturbated twice that day so today’s a hard day for me to cum. You wipe yours on your underwear and button up your pants and ask me to pose in front of Jack Spicer’s grave. You take a photo of me just like Kevin Killian would.
Lazo Atado is a writer and a reader.