Visions from a Diseased Mind #1: The Popcorn-Making Incident

"Hey, why don't we make some popcorn?"
"Hey, great idea! Just as soon as I beat your fucking face in with this frying pan!"
"What?"
*CRACK*CRACK*CRACK*

This man,
This unknown shirtless man,
Lies motionless on my parents' kitchen floor,
His face a bloody mush,
The floor a bloody puddle.

The frying pan lies beside this man,
This unknown shirtless man.
On the underside of the skillet,
The burner side,
The killin' side,
Is bright red warm blood
And tiny bone fragments
And tiny little specks of brain matter
Clinging to,
Dangling from,
Uncombed greasy black hair.

The walls, the cabinets, the stove, and the fridge
Are all covered with the spray of the blood
Beaten out of this man,
This unknown shirtless man.
Even the ceiling is not spared.
Nor am I.

The body twitches.
Is this man,
This unknown shirtless man,
Not yet dead?
I must get the bag of broken glass.
Everybody keeps a bag of broken glass
On their bed
Where the pillow should be,
Don't they?

Yes, they do.

Back into the kitchen with my pillowcase full
Of broken glass.
I take out a nice triangle piece
And carve a large asterisk into the chest of this man,
This unknown shirtless man.

I step back
And take glass pieces one-by-one out of the pillowcase
And whip them at the now-lifeless corpse.
They sparkle and sail through the air
Like icy throwing stars.
I have to make them stick into the body.
Some do, some don't.
Some bounce straight off.
Some bounce to the left.
Some bounce to the right.
Those that do bounce off
Leave a tiny bloody hole in the cooling flesh.
Those that do stick
Penetrate the body
And look like knives
Thrust from inside the chest cavity,
Up through the chest wall,
And out into the popcorn air.

The popcorn!
I forgot the popcorn.
It's burned.
But I'll eat it anyway.
It looks like tiny little specks of brain matter
Or tiny bone fragments.

"I like to dip my popcorn in ketchup."
Or is that blood?
Only one way to find out.
I'll eat it.
As I do, I take pieces of glass from the bag
('Cause everyone's got one)
And make long, deep, jagged incisions
Along the length of the body.

---

Originally written:    October 1, 2001; November 24, 2001
Put online:    November 25, 2001
Discussion:    Your guess is as good as mine as far as what the hell is going on in this thing. This poem is taken purely from a dream I had at around 4:00 AM on October 1, 2001. I'm sure some kind of dream analysis would reveal something pretty messed up in my head (but I have no idea what it means). The abruptness of the ending is because I woke up at that point. Furthermore, I don't really like popcorn all that much, and I certainly don't dip it in ketchup. It's fun to see what's going on in my head, isn't it... (What the hell is wrong with me?) I suspect this will be the first poem in what I'm sure will become a series of bizarre dream poems. For example, I just recently had a dream where I was driving around in a crappy little orange Renault car, but I can't remember enough of the dream to make anything meaningful or useful (as if this poem is) out of it. There could also be a poem about barbed wire in the near future. While it is somehow comforting that these images are present nearly constantly in my head, it it still somewhat troubling to me. However, it would probably be even moreso if they were not present at all...


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