[lolcatsaestheticdump]

[44hy]

July 8th. 4:25 AM. i roll over. something outside is scraping against the pavement. heavy cardboard.

the new a/c unit hums. its one of the "portable" ones, with the hose you fit into the window, and it pushes up the blinds far enough that if you looked in from outside it has direct view of the bed.

i got caught there. my eyes open, staring into the sliver of visible concrete below. to catch the eye of whoever was out there, dragging that weight in those short, choppy spurts. closer than it shouldve been. under my nose. right under my nose.

creaking in the ceiling. cardboard dragging. wood settling? something settling, wood beams snapping and popping, all of it too loud. cardboard dragging. eyes on me? no, i was still watching. just in case. another pop of wood like a gunshot. eyes on me. dragging. eyes on me.

4:30 AM. such noise and presence for such an early time, too much weight for this darkness.

flesh left the mattress slowly, eyes fixed to the window with a taut rope, staring and staring until i found dancing shapes in the leaves outside. the shadows of jesters mocking me, prancing in front of streetlights that should be too tall for them. i crept as a worm to the front door. the peephole blinked silver at me.

i miss my cat. i miss her always, but especially on nights like these, where every sound could be an enemy.

the worm crawled up the front door, dirt on its bare feet. the worm pressed the glowing ring against its retina like contact lens. a second skin. a window. something true.

just concrete and railing and cars down below. swaying leaves in the fisheye. the a/c hums, the only noise now. the only noise theres been for a while. still, the worm waited. a patient creature, pathetic, ready for a climax that never comes.

i miss my cat.

i turned around, back against the door. it felt like fake wood grain. white paint and ice.

4:32 AM. an eternity in two minutes.

i miss my cat.

[oladiysyablokom]

[44hy]

theres too much. too much here. now. one thing shoving itself up into me, one after another.

im fucking tearing. this rape of my psyche.

whats going to happen to me.

[44hy]

there it was, plain as day. the birth of the hatchet. the crusade of the sun. once it was just a split that twinkled between my ribs.

i didnt even know pain yet. fucking parasite.

[44hy]

its a bright beaming hatchet and its deep inside my chest. the sun itself made it for me. i told myself i would tear it out and end the pain but losing the light terrified me beyond any blood i spilled. so i kept bleeding, and kept bleeding, and kept bleeding. because its better than the dark. better than loss.

theres a phone to my ear and a hatchet in my chest. the sun itself made it for me. im telling things to that phone that i never imagined i would say. things the sun cannot hear. people want answers and im expected to soothe them. fine. i will do so out of earshot. my terms now.

im expected to honor that hatchet, the thing that leaves my soul and body wounded. i have a fear of the dark. the core of the hatchet is growing bigger, a star slowly going nova, searing through more of my flesh, taking the tips of my ribs. i am a burning retina for the whims of those beyond me. to let this core expand means losing myself fully. i cannot do that.

i take it. i tug on it gently, amicably, despite everything. it asks me why.

"im sick of my own anger," i say, "but dont worry. ill go slow. even as you continue to burn me ill take care to not bend your blade. i wont crease your edges. give you time to find another corpse to rend. dont worry." ill ease into the night - im still scared of it, after all.

but the hatchet then falls out of me without my input and its effortless, like it was the easiest decision in the world. like it was never meant to pierce me to begin with. there was a moment that struck me white hot, worse than all the pain it caused me before, and i blinked blood from my eyes and screamed. all around me i heard ringing, ringing, ringing, ringing, telephones and sirens and car horns. seconds that passed like hours in this isolation. my body curled; a dead spider left too long in the gaze of the magnifying glass...

and then it was all gone.

i looked in the mirror. a gaping, cruel, cauterized hole. the remnant of what the hatchet took from me. i dont think ill get all of it back, even years from now.

three years before my birth. two years after. a weekend in september every year. january of 2017. march of 2020. september of 2022. saturday, july 11th, 2026.

all important dates but the hatchet only even knew two of them. and now its nothing but ash staining my hands.

"it was a disaster." repeat those words now. this time theyre actually true.

[44hy]

when i get stressed i lose my appetite!

thats the lie that i tell people and tell myself. my starvation is done on purpose. with intention. the somersaults of ache in my stomach are the result of my active choice, a train of thought that i barrel through under times of duress; one that tells me that to eat is actually a luxury, and its one i dont deserve right now. or ever again, depending on the gravity of the situation. all i know is the ache. that borderline nausea reminds me somehow that im alive and breathing, and that i need.

i dont think this is good for me. can you believe that?

[unteriors]

Augusta Rockland Road, Windsor, Maine.

[thevaultoftheatomicspaceage]

[mournfulroses]

Makenzie Campbell, from a poem featured in "2 a.m. Thoughts," originally published in 2017

[architectureofdoom]

Unfinished cable car station from the 1980s, Ijevan, Vakhtang Lezhava. Picture by Stefano Perego, 2023.

[vintagegermany]

Dortmund 1920s

[dropdome]

Hauts-Forneaux B Blast Furnace built in 1962, Liege, Belgium

[upstairsdownstairsandinbetween]

Villa Nouvelle Vague, Oostduinkerke, Belgium,

Magalie Munters Architect

[opendirectories]

[unteriors]

E Kline Avenue, Lansford, Pennsylvania.

[44hy]

how dare my child self view adulthood with any kind of optimism. we are cattle. we are cattle. we are cattle. we are cattle. we are cattle

listen to me, child. we are cattle. i grab you by the hair, wrenching you into my face. i take a long breath and watch my eyes squirm inside your sockets. i recount to you a shared memory, when you ran ahead of your mother in the parking lot and tripped and fell, and that minivan rolled over you out of its parking spot.

do you remember how it missed you, child? how close it was? how you shimmied against the pavement beneath it as it turned above you so you could keep in line with the rear axle?

you shouldve let it crush you, child.

you wouldve died as a human instead of living as cattle.

[44hy]

they never should have met me. i was selfish. i took from them. i dug the holes deep inside me that they nest in now. i committed the unspeakable sin of letting someone find rapture within me.

he found rapture within someone who was never supposed it make it this far. rapture in a fluke. in a coward. their bodies weigh me down, anchors, a blessing and a curse in equal measure.

this was never supposed to happen. i am bound now. my death would kill them. either way i am going to drown.