Read Spider on My Tongue for Free Online

here. And if I weren't here, you wouldn't be here. If this apartment weren't here, hell, we might be somewhere else, and you'd be asking me the same lame-ass questions."
    And so it went.
    ~ * ~
8:30 AM
     
    She's here, too. She and Sam Feary. They're both here, in my little house in the dim woods. Both playing their little cosmic games.
    All these beings, things, wraiths, ghosts, spooks —holding me hostage to their little cosmic games.
    Yahtzee, hah!
    "A full house," Phyl li s said so long ago (yesterday, this morning, tomorrow evening, even as I w ri te). It had nothing to do with the dice. She was seeing my future. Her future. Everyone's future.
    And, my God, now you're here!
    ~ * ~
8:46 AM
     
    Phyllis and I were walking east on 50 th Street in Manhattan on a rainy night in August, late, and the sidewalk was all-but empty, though the li ghted shop windows cast reflections on the black street—our side and the other side—and an occasional yellow cab zipped past.
    We were holding hands. I wore jeans and a gray T-shirt with the words "Love Ain't No Trouble" emblazoned across it in yellow. Phyllis looked exceptional. She wore a bright green dress that covered her a bit less than well-enough and I felt ecstatic she was beside me and that I was holding her hand.
    I held a large red umbrella over us which, because there was no wind, and the rain fell straight down, protected us.
    I said to her, for the very first time, "Do you know that I love you, Phyllis?"
    "My guess would be," she said, "that you love me a lot," and glanced my way with a small, open-mouthed smile.
    "Quite a lot, indeed," I said.
    "Indeed," she said.
    A yellow cab zipped past and its driver laid on the horn for a couple of seconds, clearly for Phyllis's sake. "Asshole!" I yelled.
    "He likes me," she said, as if in admonishment. "Everybody likes me. They like the way I look. They like the way I walk. They have nasty fantasies about me in the moment after they've seen me. They want me." She was very matter of fact about it, as if she were talking about her pies or shoes. "Abner, they want to get me down on my back and pump me up with their stuff."
    I wanted to say, "Phyllis, why are you talking like this? I've just told you I love you, for God's sake!" but, instead, I said, "Yes, I understand."
    She glanced at me again, with a wider smile, clearly amused. "No you don't. You can't."
    "You're right," I said. "I don't understand."
    "Yes, Abner, I know," she said.
    ~ * ~
    Let me tell you about you !
    First of all, you want only to survive. You'll do anything to survive. You'll even slit your wrists or gargle with Drano or play Russian roulette with all the chambers loaded (because "survival" means more, at last, than simply drawing breath, feeling hungry or being able to take a piss). You'll even withdraw into the small and corrupt universe that exists somewhere between your spleen and kidneys, or concoct fantastic and comforting otherlife out of ancient insinuation, fable and stories told by the very imaginative and intellectually suspect.
    You want to see in color, have a full tummy, engage often in incredible sex, enjoy your bowel movements, live without pain.
    You see your face only rarely (compared to those around you, who see it quite a lot), and that's okay because faces reveal too many secrets.
    After all, you have secrets you're very afraid will outlive your gray matter, your cartilage, your mortal appetites.
    ~ * ~
July 28, 12:03 PM
     
    I have many items in my little house whose origins escape me. For instance, a large gray herringbone couch with stains on the arms: I have no idea how it came to be here. When I arrived (I'm not sure how long ago) the house boasted only a bright red club chair, a 50's-era blue-linoleum-top dining table and chairs, and a copper alarm clock. But I arrived home one day from the little village where I buy my food and found the gray herringbone couch in the living room. It has to be some kind of gift, I told myself, but