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Prince of the Balanced Body

Jason McCullough


January 5



What the hell is wrong with him. He never listens to me. He just sits there, soaking up the flood of liquid egg yolk that covers his plate with stale white bread. Those eggs make me sick. He eats them every morning without fail. Eggs sunny side up are making me ill.


January 10


He sings as he cooks the eggs. His raspy voice cuts my ears. He cracks the eggs and bits of shell fly onto the counter, the floor, into the skillet. I can feel them crack beneath my feet when I roam in the kitchen at night. Their breaking underneath my bare feet feels like bones, the remnants of past sacrifices.


January 30


He buys the eggs rotten, it seems half of them are cracked already. The carton drips as he puts them in the refrigerator. He says he can get them cheaper that way. Simple son of a bitch. The eggs are always two weeks past the printed date. Yesterday I screamed at him not to cook the eggs. He won't listen.


February 16


As he cooks the eggs, the smell of sulphur, the smell of rotting eggs permeates throughout the house. My clothes now reek of eggs. The carpet is infested with the smell. There is no escape. It reminds me of death.


February 19


The very sight of eggs now makes me sick. They are like huge rotting eyes that slide on a plate. They have visionary yellow pupils that he stabs to make bleed yellow blood. He slops up the yolk like it was cream, the putrid yellow seeps into his beard and mustache, where it dries into stalactites of egg. I would punch his bloody face in if it didn't have egg on it.


March 6


I hate eggs. I hate him.


March 7


I would kill him. I can't though. He won't wash his face. I can't touch him with egg on his face. He tricks me. He only washes once a week, but always on a different day. If it was always Tuesdays, then next Tuesday I would lay a piece of pipe across his brain. But while I wait for Tuesday he washes on Monday. He tricks me.


April 1


The eggs are driving me crazy. I remember the lazy new day when the eggs were friendly, now they deceive. When I get the nerve I will slaughter him and his eggs. Why won't he listen?? Tomorrow I will run down the drain, today I will slip up the spout. I will try a daily routine. They say it will help me. He needs help with his eggs, I will help him digest his brains, he can eat them off the floor.


April 22


Eggs, eggs, eggs. I hate the motherfuckers. I wish that the eggs were the royal death of the deceased. I wish that the eggs were the symbol of death among the long dead., among the new dead, among the brain dead. This is the time the egg comes to me in sleep, the time in which the egg occupies the inner self. The egg manifests itself in my speech, I talk like a phony self without conviction, without sustenance, without the slightest sense of who the egg is or who the egg is eaten by. I hate him. I hate him. He screams about egg, he cuts himself before he will do without egg. It is planned torment. He won't stop. He tries to aggravate me. He wants me to kill him. This I have just realized. He goes down in the cellar, he wants me to kill him. As he eats the embryonic chicken, he stalks me in my dreams, telling me that it is O.K. The egg is pure torture he divines to send me off. He hopes to antagonize me into the deed. He wants the floor, he wants the worms and the peace, he wants the dark smell of dirt. I'll kill the bastard.


May 5


Sweat filled sleep. My sheets stick to my back, they wrap around me. They whisper sing song "Do it, do it." That's the question. How to get around the eggs. A puzzler to be sure. The egg is his savior, yet I will kill him because of the egg. A double egged word, a hair that grows from tow ends and meets in the middle. How do you separate that?? The egg protects him, the egg will kill him.


August 27


I bored a hole in the wall, into the howling hole, the gravity box, the place where he sleeps. He sits in the chair with just a blanket up to his neck. An executioners dream. The smell of egg an death seep through the hole. The kitchen floor is pure white now. The floor looks like white tile, the wood can no longer be seen. A prairie expanse of shells, a salt flat. The rats crunch their way across the floor during the night, but no matter how much they chose to eat tomorrow it will all be replaced. Some day the shells will reach the ceiling, if I don't kill him first. I must kill him, then I must shower. I made a new daily agenda today. KILL HIM, shower, eat food, floss.


September 13


I found out how to kill him. I'll get the egg. I'll make the egg mine. I'll slit his chest from eat to ear. He will grin a mile or more, all the way to the morgue. I start to search my room for such a blade, a gallant little sword, a foxtrot razor, a big little slicer. I had such an item at one time. I can't seem to find it underneath the endless expanse of dirty wrappers, underneath the Lincoln log chair. I can't do anything right anymore. I have a new daily schedule. GET UP, eat food, kill him, floss, shower. Maybe today I'll kill him. Just like a weasel out of water. A screaming jelly bean ache. Maybe the knife is between the sheets, hidden under the bed. It must be here somewhere.


October 1


He is careless, he washed two Wednesdays in a row. I didn't expect it and I was caught without my little pen pal, my mat cutter. I found it hiding in my sleeping bag., I did. It leapt into my hand, called a war whoop, dripped silver steel, it shed the rust. Now I carry it every day and I am watchful He is careless. He will wash three days in a row soon and then I will cut a continental rift right through his ocean that will drain his egg to the gills. Today I have a new daily routine. Get up, CLEAN MY NAVEL, kill him, shower, floss, eat food.


October 31


Fun days, Mondays. True days, Tuesdays. Friends days, Wednesdays. Thirsty Thursday, try day Friday, simple Saturdays and sunny Sundays. I have a new daily routine. GO TO BED, get up, clean my navel, kill him, shower, eat food, floss. I crept into the kitchen last night with the little kitten, the catty whatty, the bona fide blade. I took the eggs out and held them. I tapped them with the blade. I listen for the cries of the shipwrecked, I heard nothing. I tapped harder, but the knife was the only one who sang. I held each one in my hand, the scoundrels. I drew XXX's and OOO's on each one. Hugs and kisses. This will help them get out. The eggs don't hate me until he cooks them. He ruins them, pillages the innocence of the white curve. After his hands they are vile creatures. They hate with all he knows. Now I go each night to tickle the eggs. To listen. He doesn't know. The eggs have shifted.


November 10


JESUS CHRIST!!! Holy fucking Christ. He caught me in the kitchen with his eggs, he scared the filth out of me. I was drilling tiny holes in the eggs with the help of the point of my knife, microscopic air holes. They want out. I help them. He cooks them, absorbs them in bread, he digests them without remorse. He crept into the kitchen, but the shells gave him away. Light from the refrigerator stole across the floor, his eyes blink with the lids of those who wish to die. I set the eggs down in the motion of a pendulum, back and forth. I watched his eyes follow the eggs, hypnotized with the great white, the circles of the path, the arc of the return. The eggs gave way underneath his feet as his weight shifted from left to right, right to left. He watched me hold the power, he saw me steal the day, my hate for him now was fear. I covet the eggs, he would cook them. I could not see his hands, they crept up in a sneak attack. We stood the stalemate from 2:34 to 5:09. I woke up in the shelter of my blanket, shells stuck to my feet, the sweat of the night on my tongue as I licked my hand. He has washed three Fridays in a row. The independent knife is ready. He says next time, the only time. He knows best. It will be three weeks, the mistake will be made. I will play the song, I will rehearse and come recital night I won't be wrong. In three weeks the performance, a symphony made for two.


December 31


I have a new daily routine. Go to bed, get up, clean my belly button, shower, kill him, eat food, PET MY KNIFE, floss. The new day is Sunday. The last two Sundays in a row. Today is Saturday. Tomorrow I will give him a piece of advice, I'll show him the elegance of my steps. I pace my room, a thousand Roman steps, I count every one, some twice. That is my problem. So inconsistent. You WILL do the job right. You will not botch it. I want it done clean, I want it done right, a job to be proud of. Yes sir!!! What, I can't hear you! YES SIR!!! I run the blade along my tongue and I taste liquid heat. It's killed him a thousand times before. Tomorrow will be the same. He will wash, the mistake will be made. He will jump off the merry cherry tree, he will walk a penny mile.


January 1


Today I have a new daily routine. KILL HIM, KILL HIM, KILL HIM, KILL HIM, KILL HIM. He has washed. He is making his way to the kitchen. Praise the lord of Simple Satisfaction, praise the new King of the Balanced Body, bow down to the Prince of the End. Our Father, forgotten in Heave, long time have I had no name. Forgive those that trespass against us. My knife nods his agreement. We go to break his egg, to crack the yolk.


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-Jason McCulluogh