Miscellaneous Garbage

How to Destroy Angels

Miscellaneous Garbage

by William Herbst, except where noted

I WANT YOU

On weekends I want to sleep in because it’s raining

and we’re naked with cold feet

I want the drapes to match the carpeting.

I want to shop at Pottery Barn with a Pier One girl like I mean it.

I want to be haunted.

I want all those songs we sang in the 4^th grade

to come back to life.

I want to be wrong again.

I want to lay in the grass and count all the things hardly worth noticing again.

I want to sense the rush of winds flushed to the soles of shoes

when we kiss and we smoke and we sweat again.

I want everything we used to believe in

to come true and make us all fall in love with ourselves.

Then we divorce, but it’s amicable.

I want us to mess up and screw around some more.

I want to feel what I tried to read but couldn’t.

I want to taste what I tried to sip but spilled.

I want to hear "I don’t love you anymore" from the inside.

I want you to tell me that you didn’t like what I read, and

that you think all my friends are flakey artist-types and drunks.

I want us to mess up and screw around again.

I want to stay up too late and do all the things we’ll regret again.

I want he puts his hand on her thigh.

I want she makes a wish and it comes true.

I want Lee hits a towering drive and it stays fair in October.

and I want mauve to be the opposite of something for once.

And I want you to be my mauve.

And I want to be that color on the opposite side of your scale-

somewhere between mustard and greenish-yellow, I would imagine.

I will do all those flirty things those opposite colors do

like compliment you,

make you feel like you really stand out in a crowd.

my love toils and my love labors for you.

I’m not like all of those other player colors.

Can’t you see I made myself into this horrific shade

of yellowish pea green just for you?

If Only (0=2)

Let them say what they want, if only because they want. If only because they are tiny men with laughable mannerisms and delicate little fingers, if only because they puff themselves up with emasculated hushes- their arms virtually hairless, dying scalps black to fill gaps. But our gestures are strong and our fingers scabbed over by the razors with which we have shaved ourselves; our legs thick with stubble, our breath heavy and damp like animal sweat. We don’t use words like "soul."

We are crowned and conquering children. You, like a rose- you write the book- and everyday I rise up in your east like shining stars. They say "I want to love you" and "let me understand," but I say never want to love anything and always refuse to stand beneath things.

Yes I say let them say what they want, but only because we will. Rose you are sick and you bleed through my brightest veins.

TERRY, THE ALL-AMERICAN MAN

Terry is truly the modern All-American man. At 33, he runs around with a college-aged goth girl who dresses in black and listens to music that was pertinent 20 years ago. Last summer she got her tongue pierced.

Terry moved back into his moms basement a couple years ago. He still tells his friends that he plans to move back into the city and get the band back together, like anyone would notice if it ever actually happened, anyway.

Terry lies. Mostly, he lies to himself. He hatches schemes, he plans plans, he tries to do "the right thing." I wish there was a good word to describe Terry, but I am already sick of the term, "Emo."

Received by Maggot, via Virgil Cartwright (deceased)

I would like to find a doctor here

who can do something

Move

Out of darkness, move forth across the light.
Out of darkness, moveth forward across the light.
Out of darkness
And the light
And the darkness like a great big infinite ink-cloud
Move forward,
Arms stretching fingers pleading across a catalog of stars.
Stand worlds
Upon their heads.
This is no place for us.
Move forward across the light.

The sun rises and sets

It's rays of influence

Enlightening the masses

With "she knows better."

Are merely tolerated.

A FEW WORDS OF ADVICE REGARDING THE OPPOSITE SEX

© Always tell her she looks nice. Really nice. Wow.

© Never agree to meet a person with whom contact was initiated via the World Wide Web. Internet dating is a formula for failure; a meticulously calculated means of attracting insecure social misfits; the supreme portrait of poor taste, bad judgement, and a cannibalistic appetite for self-destruction. Plus, shell probably end up fucking with your car or stalking your mom.

© Avoid women named "Lola" and men named "Dino." Poor parenting skills have a catastrophic effect on a childs character, and name selection counts for at least 20% toward the final score.

© Looks do not count for much. If you are fortunate enough to find someone with whom the notion of a 40 year conversation is not completely repulsive, marry that person. Fuck all the rest of them. Literally.

© If it seems too good to be true, notify the local authorities immediately. Its a war zone out there people, and lives are in the balance.

© In the unfortunate occurrence of romantic rejection, make no attempt to pursue the issue further. Shallow little creeps get off on it, it never gets any better, people do not change, and co-dependency is contagious. Consider prodigious abuse of alcohol, drugs, and meaningless sex as viable alternatives. Lighten up, for Christs sake, and quit behaving like a loser.

© 999,999 times out of one million, people from Wisconsin are really, really fucked up. Avoid them. They must put something in the cheese up there.

© A wise man once told me, dating and friendship have nothing to do with each other. Nip that shit in the bud.

© Real men pay for everything, and realistic men expect nothing in return. Get a job, and keep your hands to yourself. You can always download porn for free, once youre home for the evening.

© Real women accept apologies, and real bitches expect them. You know the type- they all act like theyre all cool with things, just to see if youll take the bait.

© There are hundreds of millions of people in the world. Most of them will never meet. It occurs to me that the chances of finding your one true "Soul Mate" are about as likely as the odds of hitting the lottery. Twice. Dont believe the Hallmark hype. Learn to settle.