y = a(1 - r) to the power of x [part four/conclusion]

My condition causes some discomfort but little pain. And even as I continue to fade, a strange calm pervades. We are not meant to know our future. The curve of my life was graphed and anticipated. With all my ability I could not change that curve. Now, that there is nothing more I can do, my mind is free to wander without the oppressive need for haste. I look out my window, the sun struggles with clouds. For the first time I really see it.

y = a(1 - r) to the power of x [part three]

I spent a life alone with mathematics. Feeding my diminishing whole with numbers; frantically searching for a different solution. And having failed to disprove the irrefutable, I now regret those years in the narrow halls of academia. The ghost that I am becoming will have nothing but time to remember, and very few memories. 
[To be concluded tomorrow.]

y = a(1 - r) to the power of x [part two]

He told me I was living half-lives and a time would come when there would be nothing left to halve. He then taught me the simple function that would define my life.

y = a(1-r)^x

[Where a is the initial amount before decay began (my whole self), r is the rate of my decay (1/2), and x is the number of intervals (my half-lives).] 
My decline continues rapidly, but the rate of change will decrease over time, as there is less and less to halve. A ghost of me may outlive you all. But that ghost's mass will be so insignificant it will not be able to interact with the physical world. In fact, it is likely that it will fall through the earth to further reduce within its core.
[To be continued tomorrow.]

y = a(1 - r) to the power of x [part one]

This morning I awoke to look through myself in the mirror. This new symptom of my singular condition, although long theorized and manifesting on schedule, terrifies me. How could it not? As I type this now I find it difficult to impart the necessary force to depress the keys. I am with increasing frequency disintegrating. These are the last words of a man fading from existence. I will then attempt to be brief, so that I may convey a lifetime of experience in the few moments I have left. 
At the age of fifteen it first became evident that something was terribly wrong with me. While I appeared outwardly healthy and continued to grow in size, I was in fact decreasing in mass. A neighboring mathematician and close family friend, acting on a hunch he would later call insane, began measuring me daily. Over time a pattern emerged and his most outrageous fears were confirmed, I was decaying exponentially.
[To be continued tomorrow.]

Up & Up Tampon Packaging Redacted

Adjust and fit to the required standard. 

The risk increases. 

The risk meets your needs. 

Death at good prices.

Rot Sweet

Let us rot sweet like botrytis grapes.
Let us lie in the grass like snakes and awake like lions.
Let us bottle.
Let us fester.
Let us explode.
Let us remember everything that we forgot.
Let us learn nothing.
Let us learn it together.  

Gold Medal All-Purpose "Better Bread" Flour Packaging Redacted

His exhibition over. The difference counted. Electric and hollow. All purpose measuring and level with a knife. 

I have two hands.

I have two hands. They can make two fists.

When I am scared or nervous I can feel them clench.

Earliest Memory

In my earliest memory I awake in the dark, scared, cold and alone. I climb from my crib and fall over the side. I do not cry then; I expected to fall. I am going to find my parents and the safety and warmth they represent. I climb the first stairs and the landing. I climb the second stairs, but at the last step I trip and fall abruptly forward onto the floor. I cry then; I did not expect to fall. 

I relive this memory as a dream. The dream is always the same, but I am older. I awake in the dark, scared, cold and alone. I get out of bed and climb stairs to a warm, safe place and at the last step, I stumble.

Day Dreaming

Some people have fantasy lives. I have fantasy deaths. My favorite: I am eighty (somehow) and in my rotunda library. There is an earthquake and I am crushed by well loved books. 

Icy/Hot Patch Packaging Redacted

Opening hot, easy. Simple muscle strains for contact. Eyes and skin swallowed right away. Firmly grasping. Both gently pulling until carefully exposed. Once exposed, completely one.

Johnson & Johnson Hurt Free Wrap Packaging Redacted

Hurt firmly, too tightly secures. Soft and cushioning, hurt is comfortable elastic that conforms. 

Writer's Block

The absence of inspiration is the absence of god. 
I know no other way to worship than to observe beauty and its decay.

La Charme Eyelashes Packaging Redacted

Beautiful European flesh. Hand-trimmed, soft, flexible, and easy. To apply: 1. Peel from plastic gently. 2. Apply adhesive along flesh from end to end. 3. Contour with hands. Press gently along the length until adhesive has dried. To remove: 1. Take hold of outer corner and gently peel away. 2. Remove fragments of adhesive from flesh and remount on plastic insert to preserve the shape until next wearing. 

From Zeno to Hero

The paradox of infinite halves keeps your lips from mine?

Carson City

Where fat old men inquire into good fortunes and ailing wives in casino bathrooms. 

Where desperation and smoke rest heavy and sick sweet on the air.

Where the desert fails. 

Where money is a lullaby.

Pinus Longaeva Haiku

Older than man's god.
Still, in the heat and the cold,
The Methuselah. 

Half Lives

I have been living half lives. And with increasing frequency I am disintegrating. The condition was discovered at an early age. And I have grown with and against it. There is a formula which describes the rate of my exponential decay. And I am not a mathematician, but I have been told that the day will come when there is nothing left to halve.

Beer Enema

The journey of beer can start where it ends.

Instead of blood in your stool, your colon gets cleansed.

The end.

Growth

I will extract the offending flesh and bottle it in a formalin solution where it can be safely studied behind glass. I will place it on the shelf. I will note its shape. I will note its size. I will record everything about it in a book; close the book and put it on the shelf. 

Bad Mirror

I get lost in the long nights. Just me a pen and the city lights. My art has always been more honest than my life, and there are times when I don’t want to read what I write. So I drink until I can't hold a pen.

The Queen

The Queen of homeless queers surveys her queendom on the corner of Genesee and Rainier.
She has seen a lot of demons, but believes in angels she can't see. She can feel them on the air.

Breath. Blood. Broken.

Breath. Breath mixes with cigarette and rises from wet 
to cut the light that's left on a cold Autumn eve. 

Blood. Blood spits quixotically through the city's dilated arteries, 
coagulating where the wounded breathe. 

Broken. Broken minds laid open in the street like ants under 
feet their numbers make them mean less.

Horse Limerick

There once was a man from Enumclaw,
who liked his horse penis raw.
So he hopped a fence, but the horse was immense,
and now he's a corpse in the straw.

Waitress

She said there's bourbon in your coffee.

I said I don't know why it's there.

She said do you drink a lot.

I said I don't know why I'm here.
She smiled and asked if I was done with my eggs.