Nothing awaits in Carcosa.
Sport is a form in decay,
Art is a decadent waste, and
Learning is vanishing fast.
Carcosa is barren, and dusty.
Its monuments crumble and crack;
Its people are gluttons and curs;
Its gathering spaces are sparse;
Its children are thin and abhorred.
Carcosa is buried in plagues.
Ennui, deceit, disease,
Stupidity, and loneliness —
Death.
You ask what your future will be in Carcosa?
Hear me, there’s nothing that waits in Carcosa!
The streets never sleep.
Like me—up at 6, out the door by 7.
Starting on Valencia Boulevard.
You know Valencia, right?
Where the lights never sync and traffic crawls for miles around the mall,
past the Valencia Town Center, the courthouse, the library—
all the places I can never stop for.
The green spaces? They’re there, sure,
but I only see them in passing.
It’s rush hour.
I hit the 5, the 405, then the 118.
Every day, a metal river, exhaust fumes thick as the air.
I roll down the window, choke on the mix of
gasoline, street tacos, wet asphalt—
the horns blaring like a pulse too fast, too loud.
I inch toward another 8 to 5,
just enough to keep me here, but not enough to own a damn thing.
$2,300 a month for rent, then utilities on top.
And sure, the medical bills are covered—thank God for that—
but disability doesn’t replace the hours he can’t work.
Three times a week, dialysis drains him.
You ever been to one of those clinics?
It smells like bleach, like something hollow,
machines clicking away like clockwork,
whirring his blood through sterile tubes.
I sit there, in plastic chairs that don’t bend,
watching time drip slow as the IV.
We don’t worry about the bills anymore.
But everything else? Yeah, we worry.
How long do we keep pretending we’re okay?
We talk about it sometimes,
my husband and me,
over cold leftovers at 9,
joking about mortgages we’ll never touch.
Laughing about pawning the TV,
because dark humor’s cheaper than therapy.
But beneath the jokes, there’s anger.
It swells, rises up like the rent—
faster than we can hold it down.
He’s barely 43, his body slowing before its time,
and I’m just trying to hold on to the pieces
while my own time slips away.
I’m in my 40s now.
And when the hum of the fridge is the only sound,
I think about motherhood—
how it slipped through my fingers.
I was too busy holding everything else together.
I missed the window.
Chasing experiences instead of diapers.
My body’s clock ticking louder than that damn dialysis machine.
There was hope once.
Doctors, technology, science—they promised a way.
But now?
Now, even that’s being torn apart.
Laws tightening like a noose around my choices.
Hope? Hope’s a distant memory,
just another thing they took away,
while we were too busy surviving to notice.
I don’t know my neighbors.
Do you know yours?
Thin walls filled with arguments, sirens down the street every night.
But we keep quiet, like strangers,
stacked on top of each other in apartments that feel
like temporary shelters.
Not homes.
Who can afford to know anyone here?
We’re all just counting the days,
praying nothing breaks that we can’t afford to fix.
Still, I rise each morning,
pulling on the same worn shoes,
walking the same cracked streets of Santa Clarita.
We make do.
Me, my husband, the furbabies.
Our small family in this rented space,
living between what is and what could be.
We carry hope in fragments now,
stitching it together with love, soft purrs, and wagging tails.
But let’s be real—
this city takes more than it gives,
and I’m tired of waiting for a break
that might never come.
But here’s the thing—
I’m still standing.
And that’s more than they expected
I bury myself in work, suffering, just to prove myself
I look in the mirror and change to be like her
I want the approval
I want the appreciation
I want to stop going unnoticed
When she is around the sun shines brighter
As for me it merely dims in their eyes
All the little girls say they want to be just like her
But they never notice me
Nobody thinks about those behind her
Spending hours, days, weeks, and years trying to earn just a sliver of their satisfaction
All they think about is the ‘perfect’ one
Sometimes I daydream about living up to standards
I daydream about living life like her
Having people love me like her
So goddamn effortlessly perfect for no reason
Whatever she does is amazing
Whatever I do goes unnoticed
So here in the darkness of her shadow I will spend my days trying to prove my worth
I’m going to kill a man. The thought spirals through my head. I’m going to kill a man. No hesitation. Because he deserves it. He’s responsible. He’s the reason. The reason for the black hole in my heart, the reason for the grief and sorrow, the reason why I’m standing in a field, under leaking clouds, salty tears mixed with rain, holding a knife in my left hand. My hand aches. But my grip doesn’t loosen. I can feel the pain and agony as the handle bull doses into my knuckles. I hear a crunch. My fingers don’t budge. I want to remember the pain. I want to remember what he did. So I won’t break. So I won’t crumble from guilt. Because he doesn’t deserve my sympathy. He doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as I do when she can’t. He doesn’t deserve to live. I hear sirens. I don’t back down. I won’t, never. Not until the deed is done. Not until I’m fulfilled. Not until the screams echoing through my head are replaced with his. I won’t break. Because I’m going to kill a man.
This is what happens when I’m left alone. It’s cold, not in here, but it’s cold. I can tell. I’m wearing my Spring slippers. Sometimes I want to push them, the people on the escalators, just to see what happens. I don’t want to hurt them, I just want to see them, tumble, tumble down like dominoes, one after another. Why don’t people dance more? And sing? Just dance and sing on the street. They listen to their iPhones. I hear the music pouring out of their headphones; techno, rap, pop, rock, why don’t they dance? People talk on their cell phones, loudly, they talk
about things that aren’t my business. They talk about getting pregnant or cheating on their boyfriends, but mostly they talk about boring things, things no one wants to hear, not me, not even the person on the other side of the phone. They should dance. People kiss, they grope and touch and pet and kiss, right out there for everyone to see, but you have to be crazy to dance. I love little old ladies. You see them, still pushing on all these years, they shop and push their little carts; they ride the bus and go to Bingo. I don’t think I’ll be like that. I forget everything at the store, I never look at my list, my cart always breaks, the wheel comes off, I can never find my Metrocard. At 43, I can’t take care of myself, I certainly wouldn’t be any better at 90. I think everyone who walks by me on the subway is going to try and push me onto the tracks. I give the cat fresh water; he likes it out of a Dasani bottle, cold from the fridge. It’s not bottled water, it’s tap water in a bottle, don’t tell the cat. I can take care of the cat, he asks for what he wants; meow give him food, meow give him water, meow pet his head, then he sleeps. The bunny doesn’t ask for anything, sometimes I think he’ll die. I check his water bottle and it’s dry. I don’t know how long it’s been dry, but it’s dry. I fill it up from the sink. He doesn’t get water from the fridge, he never asks. The cat looks at the bunny like he’s stupid as the bunny tosses an old roll from paper towels around. I’m glad I’m not the only one the cat thinks is stupid. “Everyone is stupider than I am,” The cat tells me. I’m not sure how that is possible since he’s never gone to school. I’ve had him since he was a kitten, and I would’ve known if he ever went to school. But I try not to argue with the cat, I never win. Sometimes I wish he was a little more obedient, but I learned long ago that saying something like that would just open up a can of worms. My mother never talks to the cat, she only talks to the dog. The dog tells her what she needs to hear, how great she is and all that. The cat only says things like that when I’m rubbing him behind the ear; even then I know he’s just purring it to get what he wants, afterwards he always denies it. I don’t think I believe in God anymore. I think the waiting room for heaven is like prison, everyone asks what you’re in for. If you die in a stupid way, you have to lie, no one wants to say, “I got hit by an ambulance” or “I choked on my retainer in the middle of the night.” Everyone says they died saving a puppy or a baby or something. Not the little old ladies though, they say they slipped in the shower, and they were 84 and they’re proud. I won’t be like that. I have treads in my shower, so I won’t slip. I don’t know what matches, I never have. I buy everything in the same colors so I don’t have to worry, it helps with laundry too, I can’t be bothered with sorting. How come no one in workshop class ever told e e cummings he had to use capitals? Maybe they did, maybe what makes him so great is that he didn’t listen. I wonder if he got an F. I wait for the call from the Library of Congress, the one inviting me to be Poet Laureate, but it never comes. Maybe it’s because I’ve never been published, maybe that’s because I never submit anything. Maybe I should get a dog. Bubbles! There should be more bubbles, just everywhere. My plants always die, I can’t take care of plants, they just sit there, they don’t ask for anything, they don’t ask for what they need, not until it’s too late. I hate the subway, people touch me on the subway, they touch me on the back. I wish people wouldn’t touch me on the back. The other women are so short compared to me, I stand next to them and look down upon them as if they’re flowers, they’re so colorful and smell so sweet, I want to pluck them. What would happen if I picked one up, what would people do? It’s New York, I doubt anyone would care. Well, except for the woman I picked. She’d probably make a fuss until I put her down. Silly little ladies. Maybe I’ll just dance.
My shadow grew very slightly larger today, I am quite certain of it! For all that you tell me that my senses are failing me in my age, I could not be more confident that that bastard Nillux has cast another one of his divination magics- probably engineered a brand new spell that he knew I would notice, just so he could show off. Well, if he thinks he’s that damned smart, tell me why he’s not conjuring up a fireball inside my large intestine? The fool hasn’t even cracked the simplest of my wards, yet he still insists on spending weeks at a time manufacturing new sets of eyes to watch me, to the point where I’m starting to think that he’s just doing it to piss me off. Being honest with you, it may be working, too- not only the constant itch of someone watching you, but the sheer lack of sportsmanship! Myself, I’m a reasonable man, I set up a few Arcane Eyes and maybe a dozen casts of Clairvoyance, and this sniveling toad decided that that’s just not good enough for him, has to have mind-bonded rats eating all the food in my bloody pantry and an enslaved demon to keep watch over me through my damned shaving mirror. He hardly even tries to kill me anymore, you know that? I haven’t had to Counterspell a bolt of lightning on my way to the grocer for nearly two weeks, and I waste all this time setting up a scanning system, go through the effort of imprisoning a dozen souls in a magic contraption, even consort with a dirty gnome to make the thing fit on the front of my carriage, and what do I find? The man hasn’t even tried to set up a single explosive glyph on a single road in the entire city! I tell you, you spend a week without blowing something up in a wizard duel and you might as well give up your hat and retire, for all the effort you’re putting in.
I say, though, and it’s quite painful to be unable to put too much detail in here (since the prat will almost certainly read this), I think I’ve got the man smoked. You remember how I got his fifth son with that acid pit a few years back, right? And how he got me back with my third eldest with that meteor? Well, I finally got around to inspecting the mess that it made and I think that the dunce managed to leave a couple of his skin follicles on the thing. I can’t say much more, but I think that I can magic up something right proper for this arsehole, really show him what’s what! I say, you spend two hundred years trying to kill a man, you’d better make sure that you kill him proper, none of that magically-induced-heart-attack nonsense. Anyways, I manage to stamp out this cockroach and finish mopping up the rest of his inbred line, I say we round up a couple of the lads and go out for some drinks- on me. Hope this letter finds you well, send my love to Sybil and the boys, and hopefully I’ll see you in a couple of weeks, hey hey?
Friendly regards,
Magus Dominatus Argentus Necklethorn, Esq.
P.S: Hope your sister’s feeling better after that bout of lycanthropy- I know an excellent herbalist in Stolham if you’re in need, and an even better “herbalist” in Malhots if that more tickles your fancy.
P.P.S: Nillux, if you’re reading this, which I know bloody well you are, I’ll see you in hell, you greasy, shite-encrusted, moronic, rodent-like, beady-eyed, tasteless, incompetent, ghoul-sodomising, goblin-romancing sack of subpar sweetrolls in a cheap robe
She says I’m just her favorite little worm,
In the black soil we push and squirm,
Her shadow towers over us enveloping me as the shine feigns off her smile,
In the tar and mud I’m clawing away the soaking vultures,
Her violent giggle pierces as she stomps my spine,
The walls watch as I throw my arm, crack my fist, and bust the lip,
I become her muddied carpet,
Drag the hell on the sickly sinner,
She’s caught me in nylon fishing net,
Pluck every razor and serve them cold,
Cut my throat to let the insects in,
Coil all the snakes to clean your hair,
Cut my lips to give my cherry toothy grin,
Coil all the centipedes to strip us bare,
I am your darkest heart,
I am your crimson side,
I am your deepest part,
I am your christian bride.
Lay me on the table and drain me of my blood. My carotid artery craves the cold, sweet sting of your scalpel. Pump be full of formaldehyde. Don’t forget the dye.
Massage me deep and tender, pushing blood out in broad stripes, chemicals in like bright stars.
Pierce me with your trocar, straight through my heart. My lungs, my bladder, my kidneys, and intestines. Destroy them. Take them all. Fill them with your fluids.
Close my eyes with eye caps lest I further see your face. Stitch my mouth shut lest I further speak against you. Plump my sunken features, pat some makeup on my skin—though amber as waves of grain and purple as mountain majesties, bruises are not welcome here.
Dress me in my Sunday best and place me in my casket for my family to see. Let them weep to the twinkling loop of piano music amidst stock footage of waves on a beach. Among the scent of flowers and lemon cleaner in a church I’d never been to they will mourn a woman not yet dead.
Let them grieve.
Let them cry.
Though my soul is not yet gone, my body may as well be.
I would have more rights if I were dead.
There’s a part of we-evil I don’t understand
You! Should I squeeze, bang, drown you?
You head-drilled a hole into my beans
The beans village aunt sent by night bus
A parcel robed in brown polythene
The parcel, I unwrapped myself
Found you wrapping yourself
Around my village beans
I scooped a cup, found you under a bean
That’s when my eyes caught holed beans
Knew your female mates were in it too; peek-a-boo
You fell on your back, fluttered your limbs, making fun of me?
You got on your feet; success – another chase
You looked at me and bean with holes
I feel you – for you I feel
I look forward to my bean fill
Deal with me or cut a deal with your lot?
I poked you; you fell on the tray
I poked you; you played dead – like a tomb
You thought I’d forgotten you or been hit by night blackness
You started a crawl, again
Should I smash your pin head or pin-head body?
Should I squeeze, bang, drown your body?
You are a pin drop; it’s ridiculous
Sun-bathe you lot – roast you, give you a chance to escape?
Village aunt didn’t succeed
Send you back? Ungrateful, insulting
Chase you and your lot? Not enough time in a day
I forgot about you and let you be
I washed, boiled, fried; like you never were
I will have you; if you survive all that
I did not think of you as bonus food, not pest problem, why?
Village aunt will be a peacock; proud
Me no longer fussing about sitophilus granarius
Weevil, we-evil, who between us is evil?
silent breakage of rigid yellow leaves
shattered fallen are broken apples
red of life, yet rotten humble death
I confront oh, ravishing strong gale roars
as subtly haunting flowery footprints echo
whispering tunes like fragrances in grave
of fake crippled beauty draped on and on
Oh! they reap on rotten, half stolen apples
sorrowfully feed to cold asleep famished
with white starving fingers, now alive blood.
