Bedroom Artist.
I'm a bedroom artist.
Surrounded by trash and mental illness.
Lamotrigine, Trazodone, Wellbutrin.
They get me through the day
Current cocktail to numb the neverending pain.
They make me more reliable, lovable,
Less emotional, more tranquilized.
Like that one elephant at the zoo
Who steps on the clowns.
No remorse.
They caged him in the first place.
Displaced him from his trees and rivers,
Making him wear a stupid hat and pretend to be some sort of happy delusion.
I fell in love with someone.
Or we just existed well together.
I used to love him.
He used to get drunk,
We’d fuck,
He’d profess his love for me,
Forget he said anything in the morning.
I will never forget the time I found three empty bottles of Jameson next to his closet.
I dumped him on his birthday because I wanted to see other people.
He had already been seeing other people but would lie when I asked him about it.
I’m sick of the city.
It makes me feel schizophrenic.
I’m good at living in the city.
Just bad at leaving my house sometimes.
The ghosts in the suburbs are less pushy and reactive.
The ghosts in the city cause me to crave parliaments and marlboro lights.
The city is full of acid hallucinations.
I went to hell and I liked the sex but I hated the people.
Because they hated me.
My clean body completely lacked the body art required to be cool and punk or whatever.
Fuck them and their cocaine riddled brains
ignoring everyone outside of that secluded bathroom
As if everyone else is a leper for not sticking molecules of white dust up their snotty noses.
Yes, I am bitter.
Because all I wanted to do was have a fucking conversation.
I have a soft spot for those without homes.
They are the kindest citizens of this world
Even if they claim to have met God.
I always give them a dollar or a conversation. Sometimes both.
Not for them, but for me.
For the Karma and the company
Both conversation and karma have no price tag.
I don't need that one dollar
And I don't care if they buy drugs.
Not to be mean, but because that is what I would do.
What I want to do.
He told me I was the most beautiful woman in world.
Which of course is a complete lie when models walk among us
Amazonian women with perfect small figures.
Designed by the devil
As God designed the broken and helpless.
Not beautiful.
He told me I gave him the best blowjob he had ever had
I only half believed him because my oral skills contain a lot of enthusiasm.
I’m not a loud lover.
Passive. Afraid to say “pussy” and “dick”
Because it reminds me of Rape.
A comedian is a magical thing.
I was never able to do it well
My subconscious didn't want to tell comedy.
Only tragedy.
But for a while it ruled my world.
Approximately three years.
But I developed a paranoid personality,
A sense of vengeance,
And a persistent need to drown out the voices with PBR and shots of tequila.
Since I quit drinking I don't think about it much.
I miss the community it provides.
I have the hots for every bartender I come in contact with.
They should receive a purple heart for putting up with their patrons bullshit.
He has to pretend to not know who I am because of logistics.
I have to pretend to not know who he is because it's the right thing to do for some reason.
I think he knows who I am,
And i think my existence pisses him off,
Which is fine but also it hurts me deeply.
I made myself throw up in the porta potty that one night I was tripping.
It smelled like shit and day old piss
And I christened it with the vomit I forced out with my pointer and middle finger,
Wiggled the uvula, touched my tonsils
Gagged a few times and the deed was done.
It was beautiful.
The fact that he looks so angry and I've never seen him smile
Was why I got the sense I needed to purge that one time.
I couldn't control it and I can't control how he feels about me.
Loves me?
Hates me?
He shouldn't love me as we’ve spoken ten words.
He shouldn't hate me as we’ve spoken ten words
I pursued him after he pursued me.
I pursued him not just because I think he is gorgeous
But because I was thinking of taking my own life that year.
I needed to feel some magnetic connection so strong,
That I could hold on a few more years.
He moved away and I think he loves someone else
Because why would he love me?
Some men refuse to be with women who are smarter than them.
Funnier than them
They go for looks.
Then they get surprised when they get bored and sick of her,
And her vocal fry and overuse of the word “literally.”
But men need some coaxing sometimes.
Not that they are dumb,
It’s just that they have seen too many pictures of naked women.
And we can't always make that face.
The one that we make to look like a sex goddess.
Parted pushed out lips, sleepy eyes, desperate facial tilt.
That one!
That’s the one!
The one that feels so familiar yet unnatural.
I can’t make that face often.
As I am a bedroom artist.
A lonely, shy, sad, broken, held up
bedroom artist.
Priscilla Spangler is a writer and artist based out of Denver, Colorado. For the past few years she has been performing stand up comedy in the bustling comedy world of Denver performing at crappy dive bars and black box theaters.