LOOSE TOOTH// LOST YOUTH

Its a strange thought, its only been a few weeks since Michael has been dead.

Feels like years. 

They burned the body. Cremation, I guess its called.

And now, Michael is trapped inside of a fucking vase.

His funeral? Its a series of the most redundant and terribly vague stories ever heard. Told by drymouthed kids with fake tears burning inside of beady eyes. Kids that never even knew Michael. Family members who never visited him in the Hospital. Teachers that Michael never even liked.

Because when you die, absolutely everyone wants to be your new best friend. There’s inside jokes you don’t recall, and stories you can’t remember to save your nonexistent life. 

Its sad, pathetic; to watch Michael be reduced to some Highschool popularity contest at his own funeral. But i’m too tired to pretend we had been best friends. I have every intention of walking out of this building with my dignity still in tact. Michael was a good friend. Not a best friend. I don’t lie. And his death hasn’t changed that.

Tori is here today, too.

Tori Wallace. My best friend.

A lighter. Michael’s medical marijuana. The basis of a friendship never meant to go anywhere. Every night, she’d stumble to his house, hug his mother, and light up in the bedroom. His mother knew. Just didn’t care.

The cancer was already eating away at the back of his head by then. And believe it or not, when your cancer is terminal, there’s really no reason to worry about any of your other organs.

Tori is in the bathroom, with her boyfriend. Jared. I can hear them. Loud enough to be heard in the lobby. And he loves her. And she loves his sex.

Think; praying mantis.

See also; black widow spider.

Did you know, that the male praying mantis is physically incapable of fornication with his head still attached? The female must decapitate him before having sex with him. Tori and the mantis have that in common. Jared knows Tori doesn’t love him. But he takes what he can get. And it kills him inside.

His black widow. You kill what you fuck. And vice versa. And i still can’t believe i’m here. 

In just a matter of time, Michael’s mother is going to come to the sickly realization that her son’s ashes aren’t in that stupid vase of hers.  In just a matter of time, Tori and Jared will be done fucking. And in a matter of time, my parents will turn around, and realize that i’m here. In just a matter of time, my life will go from being a shitstorm, to a complete shitstorm.

Tori’s heavy breathing. Loud and wet with empty anticipation. Michael’s mother is up at the podium, telling some sob story about her precious baby boy and his fourth birthday party. Messy cake eating. All the cute shit. She’s crying too hard for anyone to understand a word she’s saying. But then again, i’m only half listening. 

Someone is talking on their cellphone out in the lobby. Whispering mindless statistics, robot data. Etcetera, etcetera, business bullshit for days. And i’m pretty sure it’s disrespectful by anyone’s standards.

Moaning, crying, whispering. In your teenage years, anything and everything can be related to sex.

Truth is, i’m done being a teenager. 

Michael’s mother falls to the ground, and this is everyone’s cue to start caring again. She screams, cursing god and pounding her fragile, ringbeaded fists into cheap, tearstained church carpeting. Everyone watches, quiet, waiting for a hero to stand up. To help her, deliver her from this. From pain and embarassment, from dead sons, and wrinkled pantsuits.

I stand up, with no intention of heroicism, and run down the aisle, out into the lobby. Quietly enough to not steal the spotlight. Swiftly enough to let her bask in all her childless glory. 

From the bathroom, the heavy smack! sound of a good spanking, then a loud screaming laugh followed by a long sigh. The man in the lobby hangs up his phone. I push past him, still running, heavy footed, light headed.

Out the doors and into the white hot afternoon light. Tomorrow marks the start of summer.

Its getting warmer.

//

“YOUTH NOVELS.” is a misanthropic fairytale and a violent satire on the youth of America. It follows the odyssey of a nameless fifteen year old boy on a journey to find his best friend Tori, who has run away into the heart of Los Angeles. His story is chronicled in part by reliving the last months of the life of his friend Michael, whom he lost to cancer. He does this by telling stories of youth and self destruction, and the emotions that existed only when he needed them to.

“YOUTH NOVELS.” will be available in paperback in spring of 2012.