I want to destroy things. I want to destroy things that are no human’s business to destroy. I want to destroy the way you say “he’s the manager now, not the bartender–moving up in the world!” like it’s some sort of medallion and I want to destroy the professor fucking the girl by the tree with bitto on a stick. I want to destroy the infinitudes that lie in these long Melvillian sentences and I want to destroy you, Thomas Pynchon, and this asshole in a corduroy jacket who is “the world’s largest expert on” as he sits next to me with a merlot in hand at this poor excuse for a BBQ. I want to destroy the smell coming from your closed thighs. I want to destroy the smiles on the host’s yellow teeth. I want to destroy the sightless amoebas on the sea floor that live in the dark and are so desperate, so desperate they bump into shit and dead pieces of fish as it floats down and eat it, eat it all, eat anything that touches them because they’re hungry and hopeless. I want to destroy the words that came from your orange lips and I want to destroy everything that made me need them.I want to destroy things. I want to destroy things that are no human’s business to destroy.
Mike Joyce’s piece, “I Want to Destroy Things” first appeared in the now-defunct Dark Chaos zine in October 2011, and then was reprinted at Reprint Poetry on Feb 18th, 2012.
–Art by Bostjan Tacol