Earth’s emerald-green, pantyless pubic region; a beautiful taste of forbidden fruit, such a lawn demands my respect and calls out to me in sun-soaked song. Its short, freshly-trimmed blades glistening in the summer heat, gently waving in the gentle breeze — as if posing for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue or a Creed music video. Its perfection so unmatched in matters of perfection, it quietly makes its way into paintings and photographs and our perceptions of idealistic-utopian beauty.

I want to marry such a lawn — to frolic with it, and eat ice cream sundaes and go to a drive-in movie. (Maybe afterwards we could neck in the backseat of my car at Lookout Point.) And every time I see this lawn — this ravishing slew of bugs and dirt and seeds and grass and dogshit — every time I see it, a pang of lust drives its lusty spear straight through my lusting body, reminding me that no girl will ever be as unequivocally amazing as a fucking lawn.

Neither of those are actually secrets, but nevertheless, I was telling those things to Dawson Leary in my dream this morning, that smug bastard, and now I am telling them to you because:

I FUCKING HATE COCKROACHES. I HATE THEM. I AM WRITHING AND PUKING MY INSIDES JUST THINKING ABOUT THE DEAD COCKROACHES I SAW IN MY KITCHEN AFTER THE EXTERMINATOR FINISHED EXTERMINATING. I HATE THEM, I HATE THEM. (I FUCKING HATE THEM.)

Those vile, hellion bastards-of-life have probably touched the things I have touched (not including my privates, hoping to God), licked things I have licked (the floor?), eaten things I have eaten. I will never watch Joe’s Apartment the same way again. In fact I will never watch Joe’s Apartment again, period.

“In about 10 days, they will all come out to die,” said the exterminator.

“I will be spending that weekend vomiting and pissing and shitting on myself and the floor in terror — likely an invitation for more cockroaches,” said I.

The American Dream does not include cockroaches. It includes mountains and the wild west and probably drugs and girls and freedom and no-job and trains and ghost towns and tumbleweed. But not cockroaches. Cockroaches are not in the list of possible things The American Dream is supposed to consist of. Cockroaches are what my ex-girlfriend is, or what Criss Angel and Dustin Diamond are. They are not welcome in my house, just as AIDS or cancer are not welcome in my house. In fact, I would rather share a nice dinner and a glass of wine — preferably Cab-Sauv or Pinot Noir, I’m a bitch — with AIDS, or play a friendly game of golf with cancer, than ever see another cockroach again for as long as I live.

Hey Satan: Hey…um…’sup? Yeah? Cool. Umm…not much, I’m good. I would like to live The American Dream sans-cockroaches, please. No seriously. Okay, thanks for understanding. Also fuck you.

You might expect the day I was raped of my manhood to be the day I first entered the workplace, or the day I turned 18, or the day I moved into my own house, or the day I started school. But you would be wrong. Sure, there were times when my manhood was called into question before that fateful day; but none as extreme as being pulled out of a placenta-caked cavity of blood and bodily tissue while pieces of me were being cut off and thrown away.

Things had been going swimmingly in the preceding years: I had beaten all my friends to the fabled uterus to copulate with its beautiful queen egg (who we’ll call Eleanor); survived on nothing but courage and grit (and also a small tube that involuntarily injected various vitamins and fluids into me).

I was in it for the long haul. Trapped in that cave of organs for nine long months, never once did I give up. I persevered, I conquered (and kicked sometimes). I accepted my living quarters and, over time, even grew to enjoy them. It was lonely at times, sure, but there was a certain primitivism to it — a sort of willful disintegration of my pride and spirit (much like prison, except the prison cell was a uterus and the walls were built out of flesh.)

But nothing lasts forever, and just like nothing, neither would this. I was prepared to leave, I really was, but I never expected the horror freakshow that was thrust upon me that winter morning.

In a fit of Nazified rage they came after me — waking me to screams of pain and bleeding, my fragile face pulled through a vaginal cavity surely too small to navigate through. Things began to blur: blood, blood, screaming, vomiting, vaginal walls, more blood, what-is-happening, help, help. I was dying, I was sure of it (or at least going through some kind of Anne Frankian reincarnation). Still dying, though, regardless.

They pulled me out and cut pieces off me, hung me upside down like a prized, freshly slain hog on display in a slaughterhouse. They hit me, alternating the hits with hugs (???) and strange coddling (!?). My manhood was gone. I had become a cog in the machine of emptiness — a vacuous being released from a prison of somatic cells to be beaten and tortured mercilessly in a world of same.

The day I was raped of my manhood.

the cough: achoo! achoo :(

cough suppressant: shhh

the cough: ahem!! achoo

….

…….

cough suppressant: dude. stfu. srsly.

This beard will be the epitome of me when it is finished. This beard will put Jesus’ and Jim Morrison’s to shame. This beard will define me and enshrine me in a world where beards go to live. I will not touch this beard with metal nor will I touch this beard with flame. I will not give up on this beard, as it is a living, breathing thing (and I am not talking about the micro-organisms probably living and breeding in it but rather the metaphysical, metaphorical aspect that effectively renders this beard a sentient being). No, I will grow this beard and then I will grow it more. When people ask me why my beard is so long I will respond simply and coldly with utter disgust.

The idea to grow this beard to such a point of crucial allure has come and gone and come back again and then gone away again several times in years past, but the time just wasn’t right back then.

But it is now.

I am sticking to my original dream this time. I will not give up like I usually do with most things (which is rather easily). There is a fire inside of me — driving me, steering me, has me on cruise control — forcing me to grow this beard. That fire inside of me is probably some sort of murderous beard-eating ball of flames because, really, why would a fire want me to grow a beard. But nevertheless that fire is there. And questionable intentions or not, it has me in its fiery grip. (A grip which no stop, drop or roll is capable of releasing me from.)

So like a lemming to a cliff or a heart to a heart attack, I go blindly towards the light. I grow my beard and ravage the countryside with glimmers of peace and love and a face that resembles a pubic region.