Nick the Art Kid
1
Nick the art kid
Who introduced me to whorehouses and cocaine
Showed me that hedonism was a sinless path
That pleasure was the only true pleasure
And that we live inside a dream
We would dance all day
Bacchanalia tunes
THE MOUSY GIRL SCREAMS VIOLENCE!
While slurping spilled wine off the floor
There were togas on every body
It stunk of bisexual hormones due to
The tongues in everyone’s mouths
The horny art kids would ******* up against each other
It would get too hot in the room, especially once the molly kicked in
So we would have to escape to Nick’s dorm
Crunch up some caffeine pills and snort them
Tell the crowd we were giving each other head
Because we didn’t like to share
We’d be all like
Whatever this
Whatever that
It was a couple of kids
With edgy black hair and tight jeans
Playing shitty punk rock at the local dive
We would set up the shows, collect at the door
Spread word so that people would
See what we were about
Whatever that was about
None of it meant a thing once the high wore off
2
I got attention
I’ve got attention
I’ve got attention
I’ve got
Attention has got
Me all because
I guessed she likes to be pet?
Like a dog, a golden retriever she said
I’ve got attention cause she likes to be pet
I left Siberia a couple days ago
Trying to find myself in
Rural white trash
East York
Found this alley way
That reminded me of the mazes
Verbal and geographical, I remember
I’m in East York and I –
An opportunity to indulge
East York baby I do have to say
The people are sick and they don’t talk shit
This is my place to stay
The band and I
Ziggy, Iggy, Boogie and me
Sammy
We’ll beat those bongos
Until the street smells like gasoline and nicotine
I’ll be singing in the mic while holding some heart
Feel its beat pulse into my wrist
Into my shoulder into my neck
And throw it into the crowd
Found myself in between her legs at St. George
Still overthinking everything
Am I just some dumb mule
Slobbering for piddle
What absurd mannerisms we’ve locked ourselves into
Why even bother trying out for the football team
Oh you sly son of a bitch you
She trusts me so she shows me some music
I’m pretentious about my music
I can’t help but laugh sometimes
3
Nova
Thunder and
rainfall
See, look outside,
now it’s dry
Sun down
Rain fall,
evaporate
Vicious cycle, I
want to rest
Wake up ready to watch rain fall
We’ve stood here for hours
Waiting for the rain to transform into something
That better resembles the space between Earth and Heaven
My beret won’t keep your head warm, it’s just an accessory
What am I doing with it?
I’m trying to be a poet, I guess
She said she could see why that would drive me crazy
ugh, fuck you
fuck you and your nonsense
I spend most of my days escaped in daydreams
Like a lady of shallot
Looking through a mirror
pointed at the city thinking
How nice it would have been to have
Walked under that sunset
So delicately blue, a
slight fire brewing within the clouds
I have too much more to write to be out
4
Tell me what my nightmares mean
What horrors have I bottled away, deep
Only to spill out when I least need them to
Really? Ruin the alien? For what? A chance to win?
You look like such a lovely person in photos
The type of person I’d like to try to keep warm on a January night
You make me want to play major 7th chords
While catching strawberries with my mouth
Like a Venus fly trap closing its mouth on prey
Slow and vicious
I’m scared that you’re more self-centred in real life
You come across like you’re obsessed with yourself
She said she feels stepped on by everyone around her
So she felt the need to compensate
I’m sorry that so many people have stepped on you
I’m wearing heavy boots
But I’ll tread lightly when I’m walking around
Just help me get rid of the bad dreams
And I’ll let you in on a secret meditative technique
Close your eyes, fade away into the black, and contemplate blindness
5
At first, the music makes me feel out of body
In moments of pain
The closest thing I have to escaping
Where I am, who I am
On subsequent listens, it brings me back to that moment
And in my current pain, I long for those simpler times
Happiness is an illusion, you do get that don’t you?
Music, right?
Music is why we do any of this
Music is all that brings us together
I felt the rift form
Once we were all in our rooms
Listening to music privately, separate
Our dissimilitude too large
For us to try to force it all together
Now you listen to house and I listen to outsider music
You like songs without vocals
And I think that the pain in the voice
Can grab you
Can stab you
I can’t get myself out of the loop
Of sad song after sad song
Why am I so addicted to the melancholy?
Why do I live in the sadness?
Will anyone ever be able to put up with me?
It’s all so empty, what I find myself working towards
Being put up with
We aren’t inherently worthy of anything
We need to earn it somehow
And that part hurts a little
I showed promise and I failed to deliver
It was an unfair trade-off, what you and I had
Now I see it wasn’t me that was duped
That really was a nice day we had
When we first were discovering the area
I remember feeling like I could
really make a home out here
going through a maze of alleys with you
It was a little escape from my responsibilities at the time
6
I’ll drain away into this bed
Marijuana psychosis rotting away
Fat from fast food and
Chill consuming chronic
I’ll rot away like a corpse
My eyes dangling out of their sockets
Foaming, an angry, almost gnarly hue of yellow
Thinking whether or not I had been abducted into a strange world when I was younger
A circus for freaks, botanical wonder, so many colour choices
I didn’t know which one to pick
I stewed in it for so long
That I’ve become like old Titus
Saturn devouring his son
In rich HD I tear apart at the baby cow
By candle side, slathering it with garlic butter
A romantic feast for one
What did you show me and what did it do to make me feel this way?
I’m draining it away
I’m smoking it away
I’m pray it away
I wonder if I’ll go to hell
When this is all over
I haven’t been too negative a force on the world
But what if society as a whole is nothing more than compounded plasticine?
what if it really is the choice between suffering and hell
Is that what you consider a life free of partying to be?
Suffering?
What then do I do when I see St Peter
I’m dreaming, aren’t I
In the large brass chair
Buzzing with electricity and brimming with flowers
I beg thee Peter
I beg thee
Trotsky Pliskigate
Trostky is a writer who enjoys all that is beautiful and poetic in life. He enjoys taking long, winding walks in the attempt to stumble upon some new poetic phraseology that’ll make readers quiver. Trostky was born and raised in the snowy outskirts of Toronto. Trotsky wasn’t breastfed as a child; this has made him feel insignificant to other boys in his age group. Trotsky hopes to one day feel warm without the assistance of narcotics or a jacket. In Nick the Art Kid, Trotsky explores the many feelings and events perpetrated by his alternative campus life. Stumbling through this Hunteresque narrative, Trotsky writes as his conception of his friends and his habits shift into something uglier than how he initially interpreted. Will hedonism ever leave him feeling fulfilled? Probably not, but at least he has this cool poem to show for the mess.