To the Man who Blew Scopolamine in my Face, Stole my Bicycle, and Punched me Crazy Hard in the Ass – Artur Witkowski

May 1, 2016

I.
her name was Sex Action
Sex cops!
in fishnets, in heels
(best kind of cop, easily)
An officer of the law, complete with aviator shades, handcuffs swinging around a finger
black lips whisper with a
lover’s warmth,
a hummingbird fixed in the air, twirls her tongue into my ear
delivers the impossible:
“We found her,
we have recovered your bicycle
of
ten
years.
Yes, her.
She is sturdy pedaling at 4AM
She is sliding across black concrete, humping speed bumps with zest
That zany bitch put fire to the foggy tea fields of Southwestern China
and now she is off slicing between the cars of Manhattan
ditching that gruff coke dealer.
Her handlebars curl into your fingers,
twist into your palms,
oh baby
growing new veins, the way
the way your fingertips
connect you and the Earth,
only formal steel
rumbling hot between you and
everything other.
Tectonic Angel
She is here! Now!
Look, touch, have her again.”
What else makes me cry, besides movies
My bike does
Your slicked-back oily police hair cries me, your perfect Latina everything
it cries me the fuck out, like stiff socks on the line
(a foot in a stiff sock can be inconsolable).
The tears were going downwards
before they cut all these zigzag doodles into my face
It wasn’t me
I woke up real cold
No one
thinks about how clowns wake up.
They wake up angry and confused
that’s why they’re funny
like a victim in a Disney movie
my memory is ‘Hazy at Best’
How long has it been since our last confession?
two kilometers, two miles
Curled in the dirt, blind in scopolamine sleep, crawling tiny and without name
between animal dreams
I heard ocean waves dragging in and crashing over my bike
dosing me with
the secret message of every city:
“Stay here.
Stay right here.
Make yourself comfortable.”
A new city says it sometimes with a breakfast burrito hidden in salsa,
a divine metro system,
or the half-smile of a pretty lady whittled from a stalactite
“Make yourself comfortable,” the cities sing
softly, under Christmas songs, behind happy birthdays, always a
“staaaaay…”
I waited at stop signs, man!
A balancing act every red light: diagonal the front wheel, weight on front ankle,
eyes down, motionless,
a parade at rest!
a lion in the thickets!
Ritzy sunglasses flew from the faces of sweaty females in convertibles
who did notice,
did pause,
did gasp,
did marvel, and
did zoom off to fake orgasm under guys who paid for this and that, but
no one ever faked an orgasm on that bike, Officer
She was a good bike
And now
now
that piece of shit is probably letting the air out of the tires
II.
everybody on my dick, like they supposed to be
You look awesome though, biting your lower lip
riding away on my life, the sun rising, my backpack over your shoulder
you crazy guacamole vampire motherfucker
riding my life to the store to steal more guacamole,
for the official ‘I Stole Another Hot Bike’ party
She’s an old road bike, heavy
After you sell her for money, you can pay for 15 meals
(Awesome)
Anyways
I’m sure you know, police are jerks
I never cried in front of such a pretty officer before
I mean hands and knees crying
I remember looking up, and she was so absolutely annoyed
“Tu puedes hacer un denuncio.”
She was saying hurtful things a dentist might say
“Tu bici probablamente ya esta en un bus para Bogota.
Solo es una bici, pues.”
…I watched her mouth like the last burning ember…
Hope is warm,
gosh, everybody wants to be warm
Hummingbirds think flowers are on fire
Hummingbirds rush to the dynamite before it explodes
Hummingbirds don’t give a shit about much
I went back days later, to the same arctic police station
to watch myself in the fuzzy-wuzzy, grey police footage
some white guy in a tank top
a teapot whirling
Popeye uppercuts in the air
lunging at taxi drivers, vomiting pitiful, hopeless questions
“have you seen…”
They drive away, I javelin myself at the next man, he sure does drive off
The gringo collapses into sleep, we all laugh
People in pain only care about themselves
That’s why they’re shitty
In my dreams they keep playing the saddest song
It’s called
‘All You Want to Do is Fuck Me like You Used to’
Stage of Loss and Grief #III
stop right there
Let me open my little ribcage so I can bleed down onto your thief fingers
Thinnest blood to sleep good and brown inside that annoying space between nails and meat
Ooooooooh
Let’s give you cancer
‘He has no children!’
After Macbeth has Macduff’s kids killed,
Macduff doesn’t know what to say, his knees give the ground a big high five
‘He has no children, bro!’
You don’t even know shit about her
That bike fucked France in under 5 days
She bypassed Morocco altogether, held it to the left, looked down on it
like an ice cream cone.
She shored the Mediterranean in ‘05
Sex Action!!!!
Her all silent, her all low-key
her all No-Spin-Wheels,
her body all chained to my belt buckle under the green balcony, all
tired on wet grass
Sleep and Rest: my best friends chatting me up for hours and hours
dreams of velocity
sweet dreams
as dew forms along backbone
slow-motion black girls romp across the catwalk
softening my forearms, pillows, pillows where she lay
my baby
suddenly, oh no, sprinklers on at 4,
chit-chit-chit-chit-ch
one shot razes my sleeping bag, one shot gets my backpack
oh my,
go go go
Yeah, I’ve decided to take this very personally
She crossed the big fat mountains of Taiwan,
those big ones that cut the island in half,
blind peaks up stretching up in slow mist, 70 kilometers of rain, up up up
You see the blue handlebars, all wrapped to hold
Sky blue, wrapped tight by kindness hands, all, and Costa Rican hands
You don’t know what birds have perched on those handlebars in the morning
Birds who look around, open their beaks, chirp “Chirp. Chirp? Mother?”
Yellow birds
Real sunny birds
Other ones
You just don’t know
You’re wiping those blue handlebars with your slimy dick
Hot semen glaze, where my hands lived, held hard nerves that held sharp
My poor baby
You pantomiming weird sex acts with my stolen chicken
You put the bike on your crimson couch
Yes, even your couch is crimson
because you’re a dastardly motherfucker
You laid down and your ass touched the seat, as you dreamt of stealing my bike again
and
I dreamt of you stealing her again, again
Dreamt of any deal
Anything to touch you
I tried to meet women, but it didn’t work
They had no names
There was only your name
They had no faces
There was only your shadow
You don’t know how hard it is to have sex
when you only fantasize about
eyeballs and pencils
So I’ll be going back tonight, with a mask
so people will think I’m a human being
I need to get you
my invisible stain, my anchor in the past
I need to stop, now, as soon as possible, right now
But
you need
me
and
while looking for you
I can learn to hate everyone
How could I leave you without licking your face?
Blinding you with my sharpest thumbs
Growing inside you like a cute little bush
that hates you
increasing as I brush away what was you
scraping my name into the walls over and over
Artur Artur
IV.
the best moments of the day
But
But then
But
and but
cells only live like ten years, anyway
and a bike made of gold
must, it must powder, it must freeze, explode!
poof
like gold dust in a Michael Jackson video
that brings everyone to their senses
I’m sorry
I can’t hurt you
I have to let the world hurt you
I have to let you hurt yourself
I would have done such a good job
We could have made art together
But I just couldn’t find you
I’m sorry
I know you might doubt my hate
Please don’t
My hate is a trapdoor
My hate is a waterfall of needles
My hate is a piranha tank waiting under an ice cream stand
and I’d cover your poor momma in leeches if it meant I could just smile at you
But
But if I let go,
I can stop scanning the streets
If I let go of you
chocolate milk will taste sweet again
the sweetness will matter again
I can close my eyes and taste
slowly, safe in my mouth like a tornado with a bunch of dynamite in it
boom boom boom
It will rain on my face, and your shitty face
My spokes will turn to sugar, and when spokes of sugar get wet,
they bend
out of goodness
They sweeten the water
You will try to turn downhill, but that bike under you will become blue gelatin
You will fall
Your back will glide down the hill like cheese along the grater
and everyone will rush to your aid