Stickered tip to toe

Noth­ing fits, from dawn on through weary after­noon into still and sleepy dusk. I am out to vis­it­ors inside my own skin, since today I am an unwel­come guest myself.

Your face don’t fit, mate. You ain’t fackin’ comin’ in.

Frame cracked, smeared glass, imper­fectly aligned and pic­ture crooked. Up a bit, up a bit, down a bit, down, down. Yes. Just there. That’s it. No. No, you’ve lost it. Try again.

We could improve you with a snip, you know. Another snip, a tuck and a slice. We could tear you into jagged strips, rip you sense­less, then lose cru­cial moments of your memory under the fur­niture, incin­er­ate limbs in the ash­tray, bleed your veins into scream­ing babies’ mouths, before tramp­ling and scrunch­ing your putrid leftovers into decom­pos­ing land­fill under cover of night. Job done — a dirty one, but some unlucky bastard’s got to do it. We would be through by morn­ing, ready to stick a red warn­ing flag in any ori­fice you like, warn­ing of pois­ons that may cause irrit­a­tion and inflammation.

My hair is three sizes too loose. My scalp requires belt­ing up. My cereb­ral cor­tex needs to be taken out back into a dark, wet alley and given a damn good kick­ing. My ears aren’t my own; never were, and never will be. My nose smells worse than it looks, my looks look worse through my eyes, and my eyes keep rolling out and fall­ing into my lap at inop­por­tune moments, com­ing to rest with one gaz­ing heav­en­wards and the other pray­ing des­per­ately for a final rest­ing place ooz­ing between the floor­boards. My fin­gers crack their knuckles men­acingly, serving as a warn­ing that my hands won’t ever stop itch­ing for a chance to smack some sense into my face. My skin sweats, and a single drop of the sugar-salt mois­ture coaxes my tongue forth to taste. I am the liv­ing and dying, inhal­ing and exhal­ing image of a human-creature; a creature-human made flesh and bone.

From tip to toe and back again, noth­ing fits, noth­ing works.

This product con­tains mov­ing parts. Main­ten­ance should only be car­ried out by an author­ised dealer. Warn­ing: war­ranty void if removed.

Comments: 16

    I have a slightly unnerv­ing feel­ing that you’ve been inside my head! I also have a strange curi­os­ity to know what it sounds like when you read it: ironic or humor­ous maybe, or angrily and even a teensy bit aggress­ively, like it sounds in my head…

    Thank you, I enjoyed this VERY much.

    Stephanie | 02.25.08, 22:27

    Noth­ing fits, noth­ing works, it’s all too much! And then I have a good day, when everything fits and everything works, but again, it’s all too much!

    lillipilli | 02.26.08, 03:20

    Came via my friend’s(Goddamn Right) blog and have been read­ing through your archive for about 6 hours. I’m staying.

    - Ziv

    Ziv Catbee | 02.26.08, 10:49

    Thanks too, I needed that just as much, if not more

    Dr Zip | 02.26.08, 14:52

    My imper­fect parts, in an imper­fect life, in an imper­fect world, fit just fine.

    blueseaurchin | 02.26.08, 15:19

    There, there. Bit of tape, fix that pho­to­graph right up. If you tart it up with a little glit­ter and glue, I’ll even put it up on the fridge door.

    Ani | 02.26.08, 16:43

    Very worth wait­ing for. This reminds me of the Tears song Imper­fec­tion. A little bit.

    (Do you grow your nails too long? Do you taste of orange chocolate?)

    goddamright | 02.26.08, 17:25

    Stephanie — Thank you for the thank you. I could tell what I sound like when I read it, but my almost impen­et­rable accent won’t allow me.

    Lil­li­pilli — Oh yes, that’s my sort of drama queen moment. Right there.

    Ziv — Hello and wel­come. I’m glad you’re stay­ing. I hope you fixed your­self a stiff drink after six hours of these archives, that’s for certain.

    Dr Zip — My pleas­ure. We aim to help. (Well, I like to think I do, anyway).

    Blue­seaurchin — Imper­fec­tion is not only good; it’s essen­tial. If we were all per­fect, where would be the variety?

    Ani — I would advise against put­ting this par­tic­u­lar photo on any fridge door: not unless you want to curdle the milk. At the last count, this par­tic­u­lar cut-up face had sev­en­teen eyes, three mouths, two chins and some very pecu­liar noses.

    God­dam­nright — And another wel­come. I know that song. I do grow my nails too long, as a mat­ter of fact. I’m not sure about the orange chocol­ate taste, but I can cer­tainly say that my teeth aren’t straight and my mood swings oscillate.

    An Unreliable Witness | 02.26.08, 22:17

    I had 5 cups of cof­fee. Same effect really. Still alive as well.

    Ziv Catbee | 02.27.08, 07:36

    This is great — it sounds like my hangovers or just another bad day. This line is the one for me though — ‘lose cru­cial moments of your memory under the fur­niture’ — I need to go search­ing right this moment!

    jem | 02.27.08, 09:39

    many things in this world do not fit and do not work.

    your remark­able words are not one of them.

    mizyake | 02.28.08, 10:39

    If everything fit­ted and worked, would we even notice? Or would we find some­thing else to ques­tion and decon­struct? I, too, am broken and ou of order. Until fur­ther notice.

    Ariel | 02.29.08, 19:11

    “Why have you cut up my auntie Jean?” I asked her pathologist.

    He said, “She’d been fall­ing to pieces for years.”

    NAGA | 03.02.08, 02:06

    *swoon*

    heh, haven’t done that in a while!

    peach | 03.03.08, 16:09

    Peach, I second that motion, whole-heartedly.

    Ani | 03.03.08, 17:37

    I wish I’d read this sit­ting by the win­dow with a cup of cof­fee. Ideally out of a well thumbed and affec­tion­ately dog-eared paperback.

    Ben | 03.04.08, 11:04

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