No One Can Do Anything Worse to You Than You Can by Sam Pink
My rating: 3/5 cats
this is another one of those times when my star cat ratings only make sense to me, and no one should dismiss this book because i “only” gave it three stars cats, since some people seem to think three stars cats is a bad thing.
which it is not.
however, this is my second sam pink book, and i liked it slightly less than I am Going to Clone Myself Then Kill the Clone and Eat It, which i gave four stars cats. so blah-di-bloo…
if you read my review of the first book of his i read, just insert “ditto” here. it is more of the same kind of sad and true and damaged reflections from a sad and true and damaged individual that manages to be horrifying and funny and occasionally sweet, but which is also so many times saying what i am thinking that it is sobering and scary.
but it’s better to just let his words speak for themselves:
I’ve seen a crowd of people in my head and the whole crowd points at me, saying, “Ewwww” and is then quiet.
And the quiet is always worse that the “ew.”
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Right now, there’s at least one other person thinking about cutting someone they know in half, like a magician using a saw – only without any illusion – without any saw – and this person is someone the magician knows – and this person has taught the magician the trick.
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Sometimes things are done when you say they’re done – and sometimes before you even notice.
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I’d love to cut your face open with the smaller blade on a swiss army knife.
But who wouldn’t!
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This is good
This is so good I am so happy right now.
This is my maniac youth.
And the maniac youth will never be over.
Because it is always just beginning.
27 years old and responsible enough to think being born is always an accident.
Fuck this.
Give me thirty minutes and I’ll feel completely different.
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“You never smile.”
“I’ve never seen you smile.”
“How come you don’t smile.”
“Why don’t you ever smile.”
“Why are you smiling like that?”
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My first reaction to not hearing from someone in a while is that s/he has discovered a good reason not to like me – a reason I’d immediately agree with if told.
And check this shit out – my main reason for not communicating is not wanting to bother someone.
Cool, dude!
Slamdunk, dude!
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I avoid things that will make me happy, because those things are the hardest to think about later.
Later is the worst.
It’s time to hurt a thing that can’t defend itself.
It’s time to see the immense clear tendon that runs through all occurring things.
It’s time to feel the worst.
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When i was five, me and another kid who was five would show each other our dicks on the school bus home every day. Not sure why it happened more than once. Who knows!
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Because it’s a bad thing to realize you’re being guarded by someone you’d never fully confess to, but that’s half of any relationship.
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Thinking about my future – which always ends up turning into a vision of my burnt corpse in an overgrown, dandelioned backyard in the Midwest during Spring, getting eaten by a malnourished german shepherd.
The Midwest is beautiful.
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You see old birthday cards you’ve kept for some reason and each one joins the swarming sharp things that make pulp of your heart.
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You just ate a fudgesicle and it dominated your taste buds and you kept repeating “fucking domination” in your head until it’s senseless and it’s time to go to bed already?
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You are a big monster made of wet newspaper and you get pushed down every three seconds and no one’s afraid of you.
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You built a small dwelling in your closet with some hangers and a sheet and you did this to avoid people, not to have fun.
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You’re older now than you’ve ever been and it’s not something you look forward to continuing over and over endlessly.
You hear ambulance sounds and think they are for you and you like it.
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At the Van Buren Bridge, watching traffic go beneath me and wondering if I can jump down and run along the tops of cars.
At the Van Buren Bridge, laughing after I imagine how I’d land on the first car and fall violently to the ground, smashed and limp.
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In the alley behind the 7-11, deciding it’s time to walk home and be there.
Halfway home, deciding to live beneath a car parked on the street.
Halfway under the car parked on the street, deciding I can’t fit.
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You see people outside your window and you lean out the windowframe and go, “Hey, catch me ok” then jump before there is an answer.
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You really don’t care what other people think and it’s not at all like it was when you said that but didn’t mean it.
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You have never approved of yourself so you bother other people to do it.
You are an invisible trail of replicating statues each more fun to be around than the last.
You never help out people as much as they help you and that’s the underside of something even uglier and it bothers you.
You have dumb hands.
You go to public ares and you expect people to group up and tell you you add nothing and you should leave, and you are willing to congratulate them on being right.
You don’t argue.
You just ate so much cereal your stomach hurts bad.
You mention when someone else has stolen a relatively worthless pen because you have principles.
You think principles are real.
You eat things even if they aren’t fully microwaved because you don’t deserve any luxury.
You are the most beautiful motherfucker on the planet forever times the square root of 78,889.
You seem like a servant to someone you hope eventually asks you for something, for anything.
You get dead so slow.
You lost all your hair but I still love you.
You will feel pain.
You will not learn from it.
You will be mistreated by people, because somebody has to do it and at least you get to pick who.
You congratulate yourself on being right.
You are married to trying to defend yourself and you have soft gumlines for weapons you motherfucker.
You get preferential treatment in your own bad afterlife.
You are right to ruin yourself now so the afterlife will be a handicapped parking space.
You will not learn from it.
fucking wonderful stuff.
