This is the New Mythology:

She mugged me in a subway station downtown so I wrote her a poem in graffiti. Later, the both of us booked and held without bail, we spent the whole night tattooing ingredients for imaginary soup recipes on one another's necks. When no one was looking, we mapped out a detailed escape route in flesh, and perspiration.

Before dawn, we would refill our bellies with banana pancakes and butter. Then, we would break.

In those days everyone was in the middle of losing their minds. There was nothing left to say. Performance artists applied for federal grants to make fun of innocent bystanders/would-be participants. In the city, they erected a Museum of Ridicule and filled it with two-way mirrors, and faux security cameras, and triple entendres. Everything was (supposedly) videotaped. At Sotheby's they auctioned off bits of anger, and ill will. Your violence was placed on permanent display at the Smithsonian and other highly respected institutions. Your success was proportionate to the inexpressible pain you caused in others. You spent your evenings conducting secret group networks of mean-spirited exchange and psychological terrorism, and framed it, and passed it off as Art; over a period of several months, you found yourself slowly choking on the silence of your own voice.

In the breakroom, a woman warms her lunch in two separate microwave ovens. Her shirt is inside-out. Size: Medium; 100% Cotton; Washing instructions on reverse. You consider saying something to her about it; instead, she becomes another crazy anecdote over dinner.

Outside, the muted slam of a distant traffic accident. A rushing ambulance. An unrelated conversation over raisins and hard-boiled eggs: "She was just...gone. Lost it, completely. She just wasn't there. She would sit in the shower with the water running, and just...sit there. And say nothing. She thought it was raining inside."

Have you ever heard the Russian national anthem? My God now there is a national anthem. I cry just thinking about it.

Have you ever heard an angry unnamed ghost eyesclosedspinning crying vodka tears?

--here, please--have another slice of Dalai Lama. On the house. I made it with extra love, just for you. Because I want you to feel better. Because I want you to feel. Because I want you to know my life has been nothing but angry drunken ghosts too.

Meanwhile, on the Universal Citywalk, America streams by unstoppable and spectacularly gelatinous. Everyone with gleaming teeth and giant yawing holes in their narratives. There is something magical and delirious in the neon air tonight. There is something quivering at the edge of things; it pulses and glows, and flickers against your cheeks. And through it all in the hidden spaces between audible wavelengths, logical progression reigning supreme: "Buy. Spend. Eat. Shit. Buy. Spend. Eat. Shit. Buy. Spend. Eat...."

--na man, you're absolutely right--everyone is going crazy in their big fat blacklit aquariums. You're right--I have nothing left to say. You're right--I should just go away now. You're right--it's all one big virtual bankruptcy--Bunk, Ink. Hey remember that time we exchanged silent punchlines and called it connecting? Yes, those were the days now. Weren't they. Back then they still had a cure for laryngitis. Back then I was still deaf and dumb AND sincere.

Now I'm just...irrelevant.

But hey that's okay--it's a foolproof plan. We break before dawn, see, and head out for the border on my trusty black steed--mugger, and tagger, and predawn moon in orange. We close our eyes and spin on the intoxication of impulse, and something worth saying. You grimace and eat the worm and send a telegram ahead to the federales, but you’ll never catch us now amigo.

Rapidly, we recede in the reflection of your cool mirrored aviators.

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