Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker Page A

horrible Slave Trader can be,
    Temperamental and raging like all the Arabs I've seen -
    but I couldn't leave him
    I had to look at him
    just like Argus had to keep
    his thousand eyes pinned on a horny cow
    ('cause she was a beautiful female)
    and so couldn't die or sleep.
    Just as I'm unbuttoning from my hair tiny flowers
    just as I'm laying on Persian Slave Trader's head
    now the apples I've ripped off I'm putting in your hands
    all to a thankless I'm giving sleep
    gifts rolling off your slanted body
    the few times I have to breathe
    I try to stop, lest my breath be an augury
    that'll bring you nightmares and fears
    or worse,
    lest I make a nightmare that'll take you away from me.
----
    The windows turned-different-ways the moon running before the moon flickering light delaying the world
    here unreality):
    long beams your eyes revealed
    ind you said on that soft fixed bed arms:
    ARE YOU COMING BACK TO MY BED,
    I KNOW YOU'RE COMING TO HARM ME,
    ONLY 'CAUSE SOME GUY COVERED YOU WITH HIS SPERM
    AND THEN REJECTED YOU?
    WHERE D'YOU SPEND THE NIGHT
    CAUSE OBVIOUSLY YOU HAD NO DESIRE TO COME HOME UNTIL
    I DIED)? I WISH YOU WOULD KNOW THIS NIGHTLY AGONY. I WISH THE TABLES WERE TURNED! JUST A FEW MINUTES AGO I WAS TRYING TO WAIT UP FOR YOU
    BY WATCHING TV THEN BY WRITING POEMS THEN BY COMPLAINING
    THAT YOU CARE FOR EVERYONE ELSE BUT ME THAT YOU COME HOME ONLY WHEN YOU HAVE TO FINALLY FORGETFULNESS SWEPT HER ARMS ACROSS ME, OBLIVION IS THE ONLY CURE FOR AGONY.'
    The diseased
    I want all of you out there to shut up.
    I'm going to live the ways we want to live.
    What do you want of me now?
    Liver, blood, guts?
    The only thing left is madness.
    You too're gonna drive yourself to the pits: You're gonna walk on coals through blazing fires: You're gonna drink down the world's most painful poisons: That's what wanting love is.
    My man isn't like other men. He can keep you in prison. He can make you do anything. I know why all of you want him.
    But worse, what happens if my Slave Trader for some stupid reason happens to like you?
    Then you're screwed:
    no more sleep.
    Nor will he let you keep your eyes.
    He compulsions alone can fetter forces wildness.
    How many times a spineless being you'll run to
----
    all the weaky friends you formerly despised, tremulous sorrow will arise with tears shuddering warts and pimples and fleas'll appear on your skin all your wishes'll go, words are no more, you'll never again know who you are.
    You'll learn to serve him, girl, to be whatever he wants,
    to disappear whenever he wants you to go.
    You'll learn why people who want, want to die
    why the whole world are lies.
    Your rich parents ain't helping:
    cause Love's more powerful than social climbing.
    But if even small you have given footsteps of your failure
    how quickly from such a reputation you will be a murmur!
    Not I then I will be able comfort to bear to asking you
    'Cause I'm sick too.
    At this point sicker than you.
    My disease is forever.
    I know no comfort.
    Since we're both maniacs,
    let's be nice to each other.
    I myself want to live.
    I want to burn.
    all I ask is no one loves me
    in return.
    But living is luxury
    What does it help to go without life, hair
    and in thin silk to move slink around,
    why from the Persian trees perfumed arm-pits myrhh
    you sell in these exotic yourself wares
    your natural and self as you throw away art and culture?
    Believe me, no your there's bettering figure
    Love does not take tricks bare.
    Love does not take tricks bare
    Love is nowhere
    Love is nowhere to be found
    Wings are falling to the ground.
    Not thus Castor Phoebe set on fire,
    His brother by working not her sister,
    Not by working Idas, and the horny source of discord to Sun
    Marpessa finally away from her parents' home
    no the Phrygian by fake she captured glitter a husband
    dragged away by alien wheels:
    not to those eagerness all the time to get control of men:
    to them more than enough the form honesty.
----
    I But you're not honest so I'm