Wholesale Anthem

Original

This is me.

I am here.

I ask the world the price, and then I multiply that price by one point five using this very simple formula.

I hear what I want to hear and see what I want to see.

I see two anchovies running towards me.

Two anchovies could never hurt me. They're too delicious.

I pull out a bag from my bag.

Inside of it is a sign that reads, "Cheating is wrong. "

I nod.

There's nothing I can't do except what I can't do or what you don't want me to do.

But sometimes all I want to do is nothing.

Meryl tells us that the least thing our self-love longs for most, others instinctively withhold, and that only when time has slain desire is its wish granted.

To a smiling ghost, neither harmed nor warmed now by the fire.

At a small family-owned beach resort, I eat a BBLT and drink pond water.

My astrologer calls me and says I will die in a body of water.

That's not a problem for me. I'm an Aquarius.

And isn't the Earth basically a body of water anyway?

Life is but a place of brief incarceration.

I used to enjoy hearing what I had to say to myself.

It used to make me laugh.

Now it just makes me stare at myself in the mirror and do Brazilian dances.

I dry my dishes on my clothesline.

My bug bites take a year to heal.

My favorite meal is sandwiches.

A girl wearing frayed jean shorts asks me how I feel.

I don't answer.

When she walks away, I notice she has "game over" tattooed on the back of her thighs in the Tetris font.

I nod.

Surfers of the world spirit unite.

You know, I walked through Paris while that church burned, and though I saw an ember in the dirt, it was actually a flower.

Old women knelt in the street and prayed, and I asked the rain how long the rain would fall, and nothing changed or answered.

Mayhem is the coming together of friends.

Pandemonium, a perfect free lunch.

And remember that though your head might hurt, your heart still knows the truth.

That dinner plans can always be successfully enlarged.

Thank you for almost everything.

At the end, they will take me out on my stretcher, and I will be in good spirits.

Buckle up.

You may want to survive this one.