Weeds

“And in the end, everything will be okay, if it’s not okay, it’s not the end.” But for Penelope Grey, it was the end, and for Penelope Grey, nothing was even close to okay.

I guess I thought it would be worse—with Penelope being dead and all—I thought the thought—the idea—of her rotting would just kill me. Yes I sat on the floor drinking for 26 straight days, but I’ve always had a drinking problem. But I could still think, I could still move, although, I didn’t really want to. I could compose thoughts, it surprised me was how little I thought about suicide and death. I just kept thinking of seeing her lifeless body just rotting, I kept thinking of the dirt under my nails I let her down to just rot, to just become food for little worms. Maybe I just handle death really well. My first experience with death—other then my own—was when I was seventeen, my friend Jude, a junkie to black, hung himself. I never learned all the details, nobody really wanted to talk about him, or the events of that night. I still miss him, which is odd, I thought that his memory would just be forgotten except on January first—the anniversary of his death—and maybe not till after that, maybe not till the third or the second, when other people, people that were closer to him then I was, who also forgot about him, posted something on facebook or whatever. But I’ve realized that his name just continuesly pops up into my head.
I guess that isn’t the first experience I had with death. When I was eight or so, my brothers friend hung himself, strangely he was also a junkie to black, he left behind his girlfriend and his two kids.
Before that my Mothers best-friend, who, oddly enough had a son who was one of my best-friends, got a rare cancer and died.
I guess if i think about it, I’ve had a lot of experiences with death, but not too many of  them have been deaths of people I really loved, I guess that they just didn’t mean too much to me. My ex-girlfriend died, She was actually my fiancé at the time, but she ended up breaking off our engagement and a few weeks later she just disappeared, I guess that’s where I started drinking. My father died, he had this disease that which attacked the nerve-endings, pretty soon he couldn’t feel his feet or his hands, then his legs and arms, and then his heart and lungs started giving him problems, then he started having horrible headaches, and his nervous system just started failing. My elder sister was raped and murdered. My younger sister and mother both died in a car crash, but Penelope was different then them, I mean I loved Penelope, and I still do, there is no past tense with love. I’m in love with Penelope, and I just need to see her again.
Penelope and I, we never fucked, but over the six years we lived and loved together, we did make an awful lot of love. Penelope was the kind of girl that never got boring. She was the kind of girl that I could just hold, we never had to talk or anything, I could just hold her, and it was perfect. I love her, and I just need to see her again. But, with Penelope being dead and all, there was really only one way, but like I said, I had been drinking for 26 days straight, somehow I never got alcohol poisoning, I never vomited and never had a headache. I never ate, I never felt sick, and I never forgot, I just need to be with her.




I woke up covered in clothing, There was a long metal bar across my chest, A leather belt around my neck. Then it hit me, while I was just laying there covered in Penelope’s clothes: If Penelope was just gone, why was I trying to kill myself, and I realized that there was a god, And if there was a god, there was a Heaven, which means that there is good, and since there is good, there must be an equal opposing force, which means there is a Hell, and I knew damn well I would burn in it. So with Penelope in Heaven and Myself in Hell, how would I ever see her again? Would God like let me visit? I love Penelope—But what about that whole thing with matter not being created nor destroyed, but changed, mutated, transformed, transferred, or whatever--Which means that part of her is still here. It means that since the soul is both the body and the spirit, part of her soul is still here. It was in the dirt and in the grass, and in the plants that grew by Penelope, it was in the birds that ate the worms that ate Penelope. Penelope is everywhere, and the birds are flying around with Penelope inside of them, and Penelope is seeing all the places she never saw while she was here.




I fell face first into the grass right below her headstone. It smelled nothing like Penelope, But somehow, I knew it was her. I could remember the time I took her up to the top of  Bittner Ranch, up in Park City, Utah. The gates were all locked, so we hiked a few miles up past the beaver ponds, up past my Grandpas cabin, past where my Dad is buried, to the top of the hill. I sat there and stared out over the city, over the valley, I don’t think the air had ever been that clean, She started rolling down the hill, She looked so happy. She came over and knelt by me, she started kissing me, she smelled like grass, she tasted like grass and wine, and cigarettes, and oranges. We made love for the first time on top of that hill.

I sat there smelling the grass. I sat there with my ear pressed against the ground listening, I’m not sure what I was listening for, maybe a heartbeat. Even if she had been buried alive, she would have suffocated by now. I didn’t like the thought of her in that coffin though, I didn’t like the thought of her scratching and clawing at the casket, yelling and screaming, even though she would have known that no one would be able to hear her. She was smart. Nothing came, I remember the time we watched All Good Things. I had been wanting to see it forever, But now, I don’t even remember what it was about—the only movie I can remember anything from is For Robbing The Dead—I remember playing with her hair as she sat with her head against my chest listening to my diseased heart.

The grass felt nothing like Penelopes hair, It wasn’t Penelope. Penelope is dead, her body is rotting in the ground; her spirit is burning in hell. She isn’t living in the grass or the birds or the worms or the trees or anything. SHE IS DEAD. It made me mad, It made me angry, that some control freak who calls himself GOD, would create this horrible world  and then just send us all to hell. He created this whole damn universe, everything, and everyone in it, he created the laws of physics and science and all that shit and then just turns around and breaks them on a daily basis. He does not give a shit for you or for me, or for anyone or anything. We are all just living to die and spend an eternity burning.
That’s when I started ripping out the grass, clawing at the ground, my hands were dry and cracked and bleeding, the earth tore my fingernails off. I was screaming, I don’t know how to describe the sound of it. Not because I wasn’t the one yelling, but because I had never heard anything like that come out from anyone, myself included. My lungs collapsed, my heart spun like a washing machine, my head twitching like the leg of a daddy-long-leg after you step on it, my hands shaking as violently as her death.
That’s when I Took out a pen that I stole from the dead body of a young blonde man named Kyle, and wrote this manifesto all over my arms, legs and chest. And now, here you are, reading it, kneeling in the blood covered ground.

And in case you were wondering why I shot myself:

On august third of 2011, I William R. Holden, Raped and murdered my wife of six years, Penelope Grey Holden, and buried here in the grave of the famous LDS prophet, David O’Mckay.

This was all too much for me, I guess that it all can end, and it all can not be okay.

I can not tell you how much I regret this, I can not tell you how much I Loved her.

Unfortunely,
William R. Holden

P.S. If you would like to know the events of that night, I suggest you DIG.

                                                                                                      

I put my manifesto inside an empty bottle of extra dry gin. You can’t miss it, I jammed it down her throat.

And Then Jude Hung Himself.

I know I know, this post is way too long, but please, give it a chance.

It was December 31^st of 2011; I went to a small party to celebrate the shitty year that I had made it through and to welcome a—hopefully much better—new year. I was playing pool when the Moose walked in. The Moose was the sauve-tan-handsome-guitarplaying-rockclimbing-coffeedrinking-hipsterthateveryoneloves type. He gave me a small hug—the first we ever shared in our two year friendship—he told me “it’s been too long since we last saw one another” the strange thing was, that it had only been a week and a half. He joined in on our game of pool.

I saw some really sexy girls that night. I saw some girls wearing not nearly enough clothes that night, and I saw some girls that should have worn more clothes, maybe something to cover up their “husky” thighs.

I only saw a few GOOD women that night, one being a blonde girl who I met at a church dance several years ago, I secretly call her Beatrice, she is the type that spends too much time blogging and drinking tea and listening to Ingrid Michealson, and too little time learning how to drive her over-sized truck that nobody would ever think she would be the one to drive. We greeted with a long wonderful hug, we spoke softly of how we needed to have a cake-fight and a tea-party and ditch school to get a cup of coffee and sit her basement and have a REAL conversation, as she plays Ingrid Michealson covers on her ukulele.

We paused our game of pool and all danced when The Knife started playing. Jakob, techtoniked like nobody’s business, The Turtle danced better then anybody could ever imagine. A group of girls just stood socializing—feeling as though this was un-acceptable, I took a “party popper” and popped confetti into one of the young ladies “back-side”. Matt danced like he was Charlie Brown, Noah did a sexy wall stare, Jerry stood in the middle eating several slices of pizza at the same time. It was good, nobody can say that it wasn’t, nobody can say they didn’t have a good time. Smiles were wide all around, yet for some reason there was something missing, something horribly wrong with everyone, just the way they smiled and the way they all danced and the way they looked at each other and ate.

I walked back out to see Alex and his lover playing pool. His lover, whose name escapes me, wore an incredibly sexy dress that she almost looked too good in, but for some reason upon seeing her, I could only think “she’s gonna catch a cold”. Alex wore a blue Volcom hat and a blue, grey and black three/fourths sleeve. We greeted each other, I asked him who he had come with. He pointed over to the corner and said “Uhh Jaden, Bryce, Cade, Brady, Thomas an’ uhh, Sam.” I asked him where Jude was he told me he didn’t know, I didn’t think much of it; I guess I wish I had.

We sat in a circle and talked, we had good conversation. We talked about god and religion and abortion and taxes and the army, and for Christ sakes, we talked about love. It was awfully strange talk to have at a party. Somehow, speaking about things like higher powers and the power to create and destroy, while techno and electro blared in the other room, and the laughs and the bouncing of ping-pong balls and the quiet taps of the que ball breaking just made everything seem like it was gonna be okay, like this year really might be better.

It was around eleven when I just started feeling terrible, like something was wrong, I just started seeing things and imagining things, I started remembering things. I grabbed my coat and left. I sat on the top of a man-made cliff and looked out over the great Salt Lake City, It was just hours before that I layed on the sidewalk at the top of a hill and looked out over Utah Valley. I was wrapped up in an over-sized blanket, one ear pressed to the freezing cement, the other listening to the inhales and exhales of Penelope and her cigarette, listening to her voice that seemed to beg me to take a drag say “God, I love American Spirits” it was the same voice that later—after weeks of being silent—would say “Sequoyah told me not to talk to you, I’m sorry, but don’t stop being my friend—JOEL—don’t stop being my friend.”

All of us are lonely, every one of us. The couple in the corner cuddling and the two kissing on the dance floor and the kids in the back of the car with the foggy windows. We are all alone.

I walked back inside and asked a blonde boy—who thinks he won’t ever die, and who really does believe in a god, despite what he says. (His car was backed over by Beatrice), he climbs rocks and trees and takes photos and rides bikes and draws and dreams and always seems to have a pen—if he had a BLACK pen, he handed me one and said “give it back on Tuesday. I went back to the man-made cliff and began on my left forearm. “’And in the end, everything will be okay, if it’s not okay, it’s not the end.” But for Penelope Grey, it was the end, and for Penelope Grey, nothing was even close to okay”

Something like okay, I handed the blonde boy his pen and then they all just left. The Moose, Beatrice, the blonde boy, and all their friends.

I went and danced. Jerry was on his twenty-something slice of pizza, still standing in the middle of the floor. Alex was gone, Jaden was gone, Bryce and Cade and Thomas and Sam and Brady were all gone; Jude had never showed up.

I spent the hours between two and four listening to side three of Joshua James’ build me this album, and Joshua James’ Sing Songs ep and his The Sun Is Always Brighter album, I read some of my favorite poems, including What His Father said, by Anis Mojgani and so you want to be a writer by Charles Bukowski, I read some of my favorite parts of my favorite books. I took a shower (and used soap), I shaved, I cleaned my ears, I blew my nose and cut my finger and toe nails.

I felt awful, so I set my alarm for 6:40, and went to sleep.

I woke at 6:50, I was late for my short four-hour shift at the local grocery store. I felt like shit, I blamed it on the lack of sleep but I knew it was something else there was just something in my stomach I guess, there was something gone all of a sudden. It was like a hole had formed while I slept, and all my good expectations just fell into it, every feeling and thought of this is going to be okay, everything will be okay.

Church was at one. It was around 3:05—after Sunday school—that a beautiful young girl informed me that Jude had died the night before, I looked at her and calmy and replied: “bullshit.”

I walked home and got on facebook, I looked at Judes profile. I screamed in my head as I punched the X in the top right corner. I turned the computer off and went to my room.

I passed out around six that night; I blamed it on the lack of sleep.

Monday.

I went on a hike with my family, I don’t think I said more then ten words.

My father tried to convince me to go on a ride (mountain biking), I just kept saying, “I’m not in the mood pops.” When he asked why, I told him “because I’m just not in the mood pops.”

Tuesday.

I saw Alex, he was still wearing a blue Volcom hat and a gray and black and blue three/fourths sleeve.

I saw a collage of photos of Jude, It said Jude Steven Harris October 14^th 1994- January 1^st 2012.

I saw Jaden, I couldn’t help but ask what had happened. He spoke slow, and softly, in a tone that told me that this was the truth, and that Jude really was gone, That Jude really was dead. “Jude got drunk, like fucking smashed. He was—“ a kid who either knew what had happened and was trying to cheer Jaden up, or who had no idea what had happened and greeted him in a usual way with fake sincerity. “Not good.” We kept walking, it was a few minutes before the movements of his mouth made noises that were comprehendible as words. “Jude got smashed. He was with Savannah, and they, they got in this huge fight. Savannah won’t talk about it, but, I’m guessing it was huge, because around one he called me and asked me if I wanted to go smoke. I told him that he needed to stay clean that all of us, me, him, Alex, and Bryce, and everyone needed to stay clean. New years resolution man. I went back to sleep. And then Jude hung himself. I’m never gonna see him again.” He just kind of breathed for a second, “His dad found him around 11:30 on Sunday mourning” I didn’t know what to say. We just walked together down the hall. “I’m never gonna see him again man.”

Wednesday.

The principal made an announcement over the intercom, It made me angry, it sounded like a form letter, probably because it was.

Friday.

I sat in an over crowded chapel. My hands shook like hell, I didn’t cry though, I still haven’t cried.

Men stood at the pulpit and talked about Jude, he was a funny kid. He was a happy kid, everyone was saying “nobody expected this” I feel like I should have. There was something in the way he looked at the world that should have let us all know that his heart was sick, that his soul was diseased. Jude was always cheering everyone up though, he was always putting others in front of himself. He was a SELFLESS person. When his mother started crying he would put on his stepfathers pajamas and stuff them with pillows and do a dance for her. He was a SELFLESS person.

I stared at a coffin, an arm around Jakob, he was always happy. He was into modern European electronic dance bands that used synth a lot. He cried the entire time. I just clenched a fist as tight as I could.

I had work that night, I was pulling in carts, when everything made sense to me, when I realized why Jude had done it.

In ancient Asia, Samurai performed a ritual called Seppuku, it was suicide by disembowelment. It was considered honorary. It showed a refusal to surrender, a refusal to die by the enemies sword. And that’s what Jude did, he saw the enemy coming, he saw the tanks and guns and bombs, and all he had was a rope.

He was in this labyrinth of life whose walls are built thick and high with pain and suffering, when god made us he also made a giant pile of shit for us to carry.

Jude did what I have always wanted. Jude did what I couldn’t.

Jude got out of this labyrinth, and I’m still stuck here. I’m stuck here talking to the sky like someone is listening. I’ve been thinking only of my self, I’ve been so angry at him for just leaving. Everybody has been saying that suicide is a selfish thing, and that Jude by doing it, was a selfish person, but Jude was SELFLESS. Nobody can say he wasn’t. I’ve been here thinking about how sad I am and how much I need Jude to be here, I’ve been thinking about how badly I want to go skate with him, and talk to his parrot and eat food and sleep at his house and wake up to the smell of the smell of the breakfast his mother made, which never had less then three choices for pancakes, I’ve been thinking about how badly I want to get my ass kicked by him in a game of skate and sit and watch movies and just chill, just be there. But I never once thought about how bad his life was, how lonely he was, how unhappy he was. How much he needed death. He needed death more then I needed him. I’m the selfish one, not Jude.

Maybe I’ll see him again. Maybe Jude is kickin’ it in heaven with his dad. Maybe after you die your body does just sit and rot in the ground, and that’s it; no after life. Maybe I won’t ever see Jude again, maybe I’m angry and maybe I miss Jude, but I’m HAPPY for the kid, and I hope he knows that.

What She Said In Northgull

If you are reading this, then you have obviously found the bones of Charlotte King Gacy. My name is Alex R. Gacy and on august third of 2011 I raped and murdered my wife of six years.

It had been raining the past few weeks. Weather like this was unheard of in Northgull. My wife Charlotte, was upset with my drinking, and I was upset with her cheating. We had been married for six years, and the last five were spent with us fighting, she would go out one night and I wouldn’t see her for days. I drank a lot, She didn’t like that. We rarely slept in the same room, I usually blacked out on the couch, and if I didn’t, she insisted I slept on the floor, if I refused, she took the couch. It had been more then two years since we slept in the same bed, it had been four years since we last had sex, I don’t know why she stayed around, I know that I loved her, I really did.
I wanted to fuck, but I was drunk. She was never willing when I was this drunk, and the last time I wasn’t this drunk, was four years ago. We had our usual night, I sat on the couch for a few hours drinking while she was out fucking, she came home, I yelled, she yelled, she slammed the bedroom door, I sat on the couch and kept drinking. But something happened in my head, I’m not sure what, I stood up, vodka in hand, walked to the door and started knocking on it. After a few minutes I started banging on the door and screaming, I can’t actually remember what I was yelling, she yelled back, I couldn’t make it out. She opened the door and before she could even say anything I reached in and grabbed her, I shoved her against the wall and kissed her violently, she pushed me away, shut the door and quickly locked it. I did the only thing I could, I started slamming my fists into the door.

Nothing.

I walked into the garage and got a hammer. On my way back I took a piss. I heard the garage door open, I ran to the garage and she was standing there with a knife in hand, telling me to back away. “babe, what it is this?” she kept telling me to back away, “honey, I’m sorry, I just. . . I just need—“

“stay away from me, I’m leaving, I can’t deal with this shit.”

“oh and you think I can? You think I like sleeping on the fuckin’ couch?”
“you sleep on the couch ‘cause you’re a drunk asshole.”
“I drink because you’re out fuckin all night.”
“burn in hell Gacy.”
“Oh, you want me to burn in hell? You want me to burn—“

“Yeah, I want you to fucking burn—stay away from me” I was walking towards her, hammer still in hand. “drop the fucking hammer Gacy. Stay away, stay the hell away from me.” She jumped into her car and locked the door. Started it up, I saw her mouth say I’m not coming back. I dropped the hammer. Walked to the window and tapped on it. “roll it down babe, please.” She cracked it, “honey, please, can’t we talk about this? Please. Don’t go, I’m sorry, I lost it.” She turned the car off, “I don’t love you anymore.”

“babe,” I found that I had started crying “please, don’t say that.”

“I’m not coming back this time.” She was speaking calmly, she wasn’t crying, she looked happy.

“don’t say something you can’t take back.”

I turned around as she backed up, I picked the hammer up, “that’s my fucking car.” I threw the hammer at the window, the smash was louder then her scream, I unlocked the door and grabbed her by the hair. “we’re gonna talk about this, now get out of the fuckin’ car and walk inside the house or this hammer is gonna be smashing your head, instead of my windows.”

 

She was sitting on the couch, now, she was crying. She kept saying I’m sorry, over and over again, crying into her hands, begging me to not touch her. “I’m not gonna fuckin’ touch you. Just tell me what the hell is going on.”

“what do you mean?”

“What do I mean? What the fuck do you think I mean? Where the fuck are you going? Who ya gonna fuck tonight huh?” She just sat there completely silent “HUH?"

“let me go.”

“not till you tell me what the fuck is goin’ on here.”

“Jake.”

“What? Jake who?” She just sat there, with this look of, you know exactly who Jake is. “Jake? Jake, again? What the hell? What the fuckin’ hell. I thought you were done with that asshole?”

“I love him.”

“No. No, you don’t, don’t give me that shit, you know you don’t love him. You love me. You know you do, you wouldn’t have dealt with all my shit this long if you didn’t love me.” She just sat there, everything was silent, then she asked me if I had been paying attention to my bank accounts, I hadn’t checked in years. “Jake and I have been stealing money.”

“What?”

“I said Jake and I have been stealing your money.”

“What? What the fuck? You mean you haven’t just been fucking Jake for the last two years, but you’ve been stealing my fuckin’ money for him?”

“You don’t even deserve that money. You know you don’t deserve that money. We both know you killed your dad—“ I started screaming at her to stop talking, she wouldn’t listen, she never listened. “and sold his fucking company. You don’t deserve that money. I’ve stuck around long enough to take it, and I’m gonna sue you for the rest.” I jumped at her, this time, I grabbed her by the throat.

“Shut. The fuck. Up.” I grabbed her hair and threw her body onto the ground, her head hit the coffee table on the way down. I dragged her unconcious body to the bedroom and tied her to the bed. I went out to the garage and picked up the knife, she was just coming to when I walked back into the room. I sat on the bed and asked her if there was anything she would like to tell me, she just layed there trying to escape and then she really started crying. Oh the things I would do to this bitch.

I lunged on top and jabbed my thumb into her throat, I put the knife against her throat—I have to say that her fear really got me going—I unzipped and slid in, I began pumping violently. She started to SCREAM, but her words sat burning in her throat, they sounded like they were coming through cottage cheese. I tightened my grip around her throat. I heard her neck snap as I came. I looked at her eyes just staring off to nothing, and slapped her, I started beating her body, I started stabbing her lifeless body and fucking the holes. I dragged her body by the hair to the car, Drove up into the great mountains of the northwest. Standing over the hole, in jeans and a white and black flannel, my bare feet touching the muddy ground, I wrote this manifesto, placed it inside a bottle of extra dry gin, jammed it down her throat  and buried her.

More.

Poems from Mr. Holden You're In Love

The Sun Will Burn Our Eyes

The Lonesome Crowded West

Beets

I was like a beet, freshly pulled from the ground.
and She was the one who pulled me,
She cleaned me, She introduced me to life.
to the sun.
and then she cut me,
and boiled me in soup,
without saying a word.

Welcome to the Great Western Mountains