GINA ABELKOP / from WE LOVE VENUS!
“NEW” “WORLD” ENCYCLOPEDIA No. 5 Vol. 6: VARIOUS AND/OR PROBABLE ANSWERS TO THE QUESTION “WHAT HAPPENED?”
As for what happened, there was one person who discovered it first, only she was not one person, but instead a team of people whose work would be mostly attributed to one person; structurally, this functioned as a way to identify a jumbled few as “geniuses” and leave the rest to perish as mere shit stains in their own lives.
As for what happened, on the 17th of August, one decade ago as of the printing of this edition, three separate American lakes produced the entirety of their Piscean inhabitants on their silty tops, each and every one as bloated and milky soft as a maggot on a slice of cream cake. While the inhabitants of each of the towns and cities neighboring these lakes were, more or less in keeping with the severity of the circumstances, hysterical, the rest of the country turned their backs two months later, caught up as they were on the swift and cruelly edifying tragedies of their own hometowns.
As for what happened, when the freezers at the local grocery stores stopped carrying ice cream the population’s ears pricked to attention. Now pleasure was at stake, and everyone had a horse in that race, partly because of the decreasing numbers of it which, according to a dutiful national survey conducted within twelve months of the publishing of this book, it had by 86%; a decline that happened not over the course of time, as all tragedies are want to do, but all of a sudden, overnight. One night we went to sleep, and the next morning we woke up and it was different.
As for what happened, one might think of going to a local library to see if they have image files for the last print issue of the long-time and revered fashion magazine, in which the editors, knowing that both their lifestyle and selves were hanging on the raw edge of a raw edge, decided to dedicate the entire issue– yes, even eschewing advertisements– to a two hundred page apocalyptically-themed photo shoot titled “The Ned.” Intending a joke with the inversion of the two first letters of the last word of the title, they found themselves rather clever as they leapt from the edge; the public, however, turned their nose up at this gesture, and chose not to laugh instead.
~
Everyone always asks us: how did you meet?! Where did you find your one and only?! And We’re rolling on the ground laughing and snorting and shoving dirty fingers into each others nostrils, pulling out the sticky goo from there, smearing it across our cheeks Hey that’s some blush! Iridescent highlighter alright!
There is no such thing as one and ONLY we scream, sliding on and off each other’s laps, leaving wet kisses on each others cheeks so little bubbles of spittle settle there and drip down with the weight of our gummy spit.
And nobody gets it! Except for the other people who get it!
But not our enemies, those bad weasels in the garden eating up all our bulbs and strangling the scrawny chickens, those bad meanies intent on stretching these last days on earth into some chrome shell of a story that sucks out all the good parts that come from bodies, all the slime and wet stuff that leaks out of every orifice, every sore all raggedy from scratching, the very best parts, the parts that dry and burn and flake away only to give way to more.
In the evenings we run screaming around the center of our donut, that garden of beauty with all our gifts to the gods saying NO MORE ENEMIES PLEASE NOT EVEN ONE!, all the staked artichokes going to rot or beaten within an inch of their lives all green leaves hanging by bits of stringy string, haha enemies, haha! We run in circles slipping in the muddy parts and we run in circles kicking up the dusty parts and we run in circles smacking into each other and we run and run and run until our bodies and the sores that lives on it get wet with sweat and our stitches bust open and we bleed and our wounds pulse out hot shimmering wells of greenish pus and we run and run until we can’t run, and then we run into the bedroom!
In the bedroom we throw each other against the wall and slam each others heads into the too soft bed, laughing and screaming I love you! I love you! Jumping on top of the bed and jumping so high our heads hit the ceiling and jumping so high our hair gets caught in the ceiling’s cracks and pulls out in little clumps so our ceiling has hair now too alright! We push each other off the bed and climb back onto the bed and push each other off the bed and the sheets are pulled off in a lump, or our sheets are pulled off and fly through the air like death wish birds, and the mattress is covered in stains and the mattress is covered with messages We’ve left for each other I love you I love you I love you!
And as soon as We find ourselves face down we start pulling off the lycra, We pull off the cheetah print, We pull off the zebra print and our long broken nails scratch each other’s bodies so We look like we’re zebra print too! And We start shoving our fingers into holes and sliding our fingers into holes and taking our whole fists and dunking them in a can of cheapo sunflower oil so they slide right in! To the holes!
We work two fingers three fingers five fingers and then ten into each other’s holes! We poke at the sores making new holes and We whimper a little when it hurts but We keep practicing! Because practice makes perfect! And We slide around all over each other, sweaty from running and sweaty from jumping and cummy from cum and sticky from blood!
One day when Pansy comes knocking at the front door we say Howdeedo Pansy! And she shouts Howdy-do ladies! And We shout come in Pansy come in! And Pansy pushes our door open and walks down the hallway and says Where you at and We scream In our room Pansy In our room! And Pansy pads into the room on her bare feet with a basket in her arms, Hey Pansy we missed you Pansy! And she is laughing her best laugh, her deranged children’s television show talking animal laugh, and she says Howdedooooo and we scream HOWDEDOO!! And We laugh and say sorry Pansy sorry We’re a little occupied Pansy! And we try to wave hello but have both our fists up inside the other’s holes so we roll across the bed like two soft logs and bare our yellow teeth at Pansy, Hi Pansy hi! Wanna play?
And Pansy has to unlace all her laces, all the dusty bits of lace and all the dusty bits of velvet wound up and down her legs and torso and the swath of dirty gauze she’s sewn pink sequins onto unfurling and freeing her tits all the way Pansy alright! Pansy throws her outfit into the air and screams TADA! And We shriek TADA and We are all screaming TADA, our fists inside each other and Pansy on her own and We get sad and say Pansy don’t be alone! Pansy don’t be alone come be with us Pansy! And starting to cry she says Ok I love you Ok I love you and Pansy jumps into the bed!
We pop our fists out of each other and hug Pansy, screaming and laughing and our voices hoarse and smearing our wet hands all over Pansy’s body You’re anointed Pansy you’re anointed! We kiss Pansy and she kisses us back and We hug and squeeze tight and We suck on each other’s tongues and lick into each other’s waxy ears and We pinch Pansy’s pretty cellulitey thighs and she smacks our fat wobbly asses and laughs and laughs and laughs! PANSY! Pansy picks up a tube of purple lint-covered lipstick left open on the floor and she draws big hearts on our bellies and draws a big heart on her belly and howls Eat up ladies! And we lick each other’s lipstick bellies and the lipstick smears and stains and the lipstick gets onto our lips and now we look so fancy Pansy!
Sometimes for awhile we stop and take a break, laying on our stomachs or laying on our backs or laying on our sides, filing our nails shorter at the tips or admiring our polish or rubbing our fingers together to make dirty pastes of all the fluids there. Or we’d all fall asleep and we’d be snoring and drooling, staining the pillows and falling asleep with each others earrings or each other’s press on nails or curly strands of each other’s hair, or baby pink nail clippings and gummy wads of fake eyelashes all pressed into each other’s skins. And then we’d wake up! And start again!
After we take turns sitting on Pansy’s face and after Pansy sits on our faces and after Pansy takes an empty bottle of hairspray and puts it in our holes and after We take the empty bottle of hairspray and put it in Pansy’s holes and after we carefully carve our names into Pansy’s thighs and after Pansy gently bites little matching “P”s into our thighs and after We lay in a puddle stroking and kissing each other’s frizzy heads and after we cry hot oily tears into each others leaking tits We decide to take a nap. Pansy, We implore, Pansy, can you sing us to sleep? And Pansy wipes a stray pubic hair from her cheek and smiles, the best smile, Pansy smiles her big smile and her missing teeth seem to sparkle and We shoot up from our pillows Hey Pansy what’d you do to your mouth? And Pansy conspiratorially whispers, Sequins, and she’s right, she’s shoved sequins into the empty gaps and they look so good Pansy, they look so good! And then we lay back down because Pansy is going to sing us to sleep!
Pansy closes her eyes and then opens her eyes and then closes her eyes and opens one eye, then closes that one and opens the other, and then opens both her eyes and grins her sequin grin again before opening her throat to sing us her new song:
I saw a light / coming through the trees
I saw a light and
Thought it was the end
I saw a light and it was just
beginning! I saw a light
And it was where we are
I saw a light and it was a lighty light
I saw a light and it was a bomb but
It wasn’t a bomb, it was a light
I saw a light I saw a light I saw a light
I saw a light I saw a light I saw a light
I saw a light I saw a light I saw a light…
Laying on our dirty pillows we stroked each other’s hair, we gently pawed each other’s bodies, we listened to Pansy’s song and felt like We could see a light too Pansy, We could see a light too! We closed our eyes and We opened our eyes and We opened one and closed the other and then opened the other and closed one and no matter which way We did our eyes We could see the light too, We could always see it when Pansy showed us. When Pansy showed us how we always knew how.
~
“NEW” “WORLD” ENCYCLOPEDIA No. 8 Vol. 2: VARIOUS AND/OR PROBABLE ANSWERS TO THE QUESTION “WHAT ABOUT THE FLOWERS?”
The flowers, though they seemed at first to react much like the rest of the vegetation, came back the next year with what could only be described as a vengeance, because they were so colorful, and it hurt everyone’s eyes, and no one knew how’d they’d done what they’d done, which was come back from the dead.
The flowers, which previously avoided the hues of blue closer to true blue and green, instead favoring the acidic purple-blues of common hydrangeas and bachelor buttons, came back insistent on turquoise and teal, violent sea foam colors not found in nature before, and now found in every nature globally.
The flowers, beautiful as they were, were welcomed back with unabashed hopefulness: harbingers of future nature, come back to feed our spirits all! But the flowers didn’t have much interest in feeding anyone, and in fact their new colors bled and stained the fingers of whoever touched them, puke green roses rubbing off onto the fingers of gardeners, planting little sores into the skin that broke and wept, scabbed over and leaked puke green liquid, or whatever color the flower itself was.
~
People always say to us Woweee you are so much together and so much in love! And We say no, not in love but just loving! Cuz romance is for suckers, suckers! And they say well how did you get to be loving so much with each other? And depending on if We like them or not We roll our eyes, or We smile into each others faces and wipe the crust of cum and blood from each other lips, or We sigh and close our eyes and sneeze like angry dogs, or We thoughtfully put our hands under our chins so we look like a statue of a man and say HMMMM HMMMM HMMM and then laugh and laugh and laugh because We never even made that choice! We just were! Loving on each other!
Our mamas knew each other from work which was boring and stupid like all work but especially boring and stupid because they had to smell creams to women who wanted to smooth over their pretty pretty cellulitely thighs which makes us cry! But thankfully for all the hard up, sad cellulited women the creams didn’t really work and of course our mamas knew, but our mamas also discovered that if you swallowed five to seven spoonfuls of the stuff you could get real high! With no hangover! And the high only lasted for an hour but for that hour, they said, you could really get it going really get it going REALLY GET IT GOING! So they’d go to work and stand behind a grim glass counter covered in the oily fingerprints of all the women trying to wish away their prettiest parts and then take the testers home with them, haha Basic Beauty Essential Inc. haha! And they’d go to one mama’s house or the other and spoon feed each other the wobbling pink gelatin which didn’t taste pink they said, they said it tasted chemical and white and like something to clean toilets with but it did good! It did good tricks for their brains!
And before our mamas were our mamas they were just two painted, ricocheting sacks of meat spending all their time with each other, eating cellulite cream and getting high for an hour at a time to make the long and stupid days go by faster. One mama got rid of her house and moved in with the other mama and one day while tripping their tits off one mama saw a gelatinous peachy blob like a jellyfish with no arms float into the room. She said to the other mama Look! Look! And she looked and for the first time– even though our mamas loved each other so, and knew each other so, and slept in each other’s arms and licked each other’s wounds and hocked creamy loogies into the same busted sink– our mamas saw the same thing! While tripping! Together they looked at the blob in awe and held hands, waiting for the blob to speak!
And it spoke!
And told them to GET! GOING! ALREADY! And they looked at each other, confused: weren’t they going already, with the cellulite cream firmly in their stomachs and money tumbling out of their hands faster than they could grab it? So the blob rolled its eyes! Even though it didn’t have eyes! But our mamas assured us that the blob rolled its eyes, proving, so they said, that science wasn’t real. Because if eyes can be rolled where no eyes even are, then what is science?!
When they went to sleep that night the mamas slept like little babies, holding hands and sucking on each other’s thumbs like lollipops. They dreamed the same dream that night, and in the dream the blob came back. One more thing, it said, one more thing! That I forgot earlier! Which was: each mama should get knocked up stat, because We needed each other! And if we couldn’t be born then We’d never find each other! And anyway, you know the policy: the more the merrier!
So the mamas woke up and smiled and each other and hugged, and the mamas woke up and knew they had a very important job to do, which was to make sure that We had bodies to find each other in. They put on their prettiest dresses with no underwear and their prettiest lipsticks with no bras, and their prettiest hairdos with high heels and rode their grimy pick-up truck to the busiest construction in town. They perched on the rusted out yellow hood and watched all the men go by, lowering their sunglasses with their drawn on eyebrows going OOOOhHHH YeaaHHhh when someone walked by they liked, when someone walked by and looked, when someone walked by with a sack of sperm between their denim thighs.
And they chose two guys, not the same guys, on purpose, because what if their daughters grew up loving or later inclined to loving? With each other?
Nothing if not options, thanks mamas!
Gina Abelkop is the author of I Eat Cannibals (co,im,press 2014), Darling Beastlettes (Apostrophe Books 2012), and Trollops in Love (dancing girl press 2011). Recent work has appeared in FENCE and Dusie.