Jamiemccarthytv

Tag: meechplugdead

  • Council of the Damned

    How the fuck do you crawl out of rage?

    How the fuck do you scrub sadness off your teeth?

    Answer: you don’t.

    I call in the heavyweights,

    the intellectual cavalry,

    and it’s a goddamn carnival.

    Nietzsche storms the room screaming will to power,

    eyes rolling like a rabid horse.

    Aurelius is polishing his stoic turds

    while the empire burns behind him.

    Wilde wants better wallpaper.

    Twain heckles from the cheap seats.

    Thompson kicks the door in with a shotgun,

    mescaline dripping from his pores.

    Bukowski is shirtless, pissing in the corner.

    Burroughs has turned into an insect,

    clattering needles like antennae.

    Joyce is babbling in tongues that even hell won’t translate.

    Byron is dry-humping the apocalypse itself.

    Kerouac is pacing the ceiling,

    muttering go, go, go like a scratched record.

    And Hitchens—dear Christ—

    Hitchens is on fire,

    lighting one cigarette off the next,

    snarling through smoke,

    grief is a goddamn scam, don’t tithe to it.

    The walls buckle.

    The sky splits.

    Ink, blood, static, numbers—

    the whole matrix vomiting itself onto the floor.

    And me?

    I’m strapped to the chair,

    still asking the same useless question:

    how in the fuck do I get free?

    The answer is written on the walls in piss and whiskey:

    You don’t.

    You ride the rage like a dying horse,

    you suck up the sadness like sacrament,

    and you learn to make the end of the world

    sound like a song worth singing.

  • UNKILLABLE

    Fuck The Matrix and This Simulation.

    Almost Arriving

    Every time I inch toward something called normal,

    when the day almost tricks me into believing I’ve arrived,

    doom slips its hand back on my shoulder.

    I will never accept it.

    Not in this life, not in any.

    Jack is gone, they tell me,

    but I spit back the only truth I know:

    He may be gone,

    but he will never, ever, ever be forgotten.

    You will know his name.

    You will know his story.

    If I remain in this strange matrix of survival,

    it is only to keep him alive in every syllable,

    every note, every silence that dares to fill the room.

    My grief is my rebellion.

    My love, unkillable.

  • Father of Madness

    “They say time heals all wounds.”

    Who in the fuck are they?

    Some bureaucrats of grief, clocking in, clocking out, wielding the second hand like a scalpel, deciding when the wound has been stitched,

    when the blood should dry,

    when the rage should settle into something softer.

    Time—the prison, the con artist, the liar.

    It doesn’t heal. It magnifies.

    It twists the knife while whispering lullabies.

    It counts the days like a debt collector, reminding me of every second Jack no longer breathes, and every hour the bastard who gave him poison does.

    And still, they tell me time is the answer.

    That I should let it pass, let it work.

    I want to take that very hand of time,

    the well-intended, patronizing hand,

    and smash it for 19 straight minutes

    with a dead blow hammer,

    until the gears stop turning,

    until the numbers scatter like broken teeth,

    until time itself finally understands

    what it means to be overwhelmingly crushed. 

    Miranda, devil in a hoodie, dealer for pocket change was never a scapegoat.

    He was a man who knew exactly what he handed over.

    I wonder if he ever wakes up sweating,

    if he ever feels the shadow behind him,

    if he ever senses the weight of me

    staring at the back of his skull.

    Sixty ways in a minute,

    three hundred sixty in an hour,

    eight thousand six hundred forty in a day—

    I could carve my grief into his flesh.

    I could become time,

    the father of madness,

    breaking him down into seconds,

    watching him beg for a mercy

    that he never gave to Jack.

    But there is no justice.

    Only the slow, excruciating unraveling of the world going around the sun, 

    where killers breathe and sons are buried.

    There is no closure, no grand moment of reckoning.

    There is only the hell of waking up each day,

    wishing for ghosts,

    praying for gruesome vengeance,

    and knowing—the only end is mine.

  • FATHER SICARIO

    The streets pulse like open veins, black tar slick, the night a slow bleeding thing. Neon hums. Buzzing flies. A dealer on the corner licking his lips, pulling at his collar like he knows. Like he smells it. The reek of old grief turned to something else. Something with teeth.

    I move through the alleyways, pockets heavy with ghosts, fingers tapping the weight of the thing inside my coat. Not a gun. No. Something older. Something sharper. A father’s rage honed to the edge.

    And then there’s the voice in my head, Del Toro-cool, a slow drawl:
    Jack is gone.
    Jack is gone.
    Jack is gone.

    And someone has to pay.

    I remember the last time I saw his hands—calloused, taped up, always ready for a fight. But he never saw this one coming. Didn’t know the rules. Didn’t know the game was rigged before he even stepped in the ring.

    He was a fighter.
    This dead city made him a corpse.

    I light a cigarette, let the smoke coil in my lungs. The dealer sees me now. A flicker of something in his eyes. Recognition? No, not yet. But he will.

    He shifts his weight, sniffs. He thinks I’m just another buyer. Another lost man looking to fill the hole in his chest with powder and promises.

    But I’m not here to buy.

    I’m here to collect.

    I step forward, slow, deliberate, the way a lion moves before the pounce. He starts to speak—some rehearsed pitch, some poison-laced gospel—but I cut him off.

    “Shut your mouth. You’ve already said enough.”

    And then I show him.

    The steel. The weight. The cold certainty of a father who has nothing left to lose.

    His hands go up. Shaking. Sweat pools in the hollow of his throat. A scared animal now. His mouth moves faster than his brain, words tumbling out, desperate, sloppy.

    “I—I didn’t know, man, I didn’t know, I swear! I just—It wasn’t personal.”

    And then there’s the voice in my head, Del Toro-cool, a slow drawl:
    “For me, it is personal.”

    I press the blade against his ribs, just enough for him to feel the promise behind it. I lean in close, my voice low, steady.

    Miranda, pleading like an 8-year-old, who’s lost his blanket and thinks crying will bring it back.

    “I didn’t know!”

    I’m somewhere between uncontrollable rage and elation, but 100% locked in the moment.

    “Well, now you do.”

    His breath stutters. A whimper caught in his throat.

    I exhale smoke in his face, watch the fear seep into his bones.

    No prayers.
    No deals.
    No mercy.

    Only the reckoning.

    FATHER SICARIO (Del Torro Cool)

  • HELL IN THE CRACKS

    Life splits in two the second you lose a child. There’s before and there’s after. Before was seven hours and nineteen minutes in a dark theater, the entire Nolan, Batman trilogy in a single sitting and you grinning at me through a mouthful of Sour Patch Kids, teeth glowing like a jack-o’-lantern in the dim light. It was frozen Coke dripping down your wrist because you held the cup too tight during the fight scenes. It was Whittaker and Romero 2, the roar of Chicago, the way you practically floated when Dana White grabbed you for a picture—your grin telling me, This is it. You’re doing it right. It was those goddamn short films, half-baked ideas and duct-taped props, where we didn’t care if they were good because it was us making them. Father and son, building something real out of nothing.

    And then came after. That call. That fucking call. In some dead Indiana parking lot that stank of piss and stale cigarettes, the sky too blank, too indifferent. The words didn’t make sense, not at first. I just stood there, the phone slipping from my hand, staring at the cracks in the pavement as if my soul was spilling through every jagged line. And then, smashing my forehead over and over on that torn concrete until the blood seeped into the cracks, following my soul into the void. That was the moment I learned what real hell is. It’s not fire or pitchforks or devils; it’s standing in the middle of nowhere knowing the only thing that mattered is gone. It’s remembering the grin you gave me in that theater and knowing I’ll never see it again. It’s the torture of memory—every golden moment tipped with barbs now, gutting me every time I dare to look back.

    And then there’s him. The dealer. The worthless, bottom-feeding coward who handed you that poisoned pill—a devil in a hoodie, trading death for pocket change. I see his face in my dreams, over and over again. I imagine all the ways I could make him bleed, suffer, break. My hands on his throat, squeezing until one of his eyes pops out and he’s gasping for air while I laugh and squeeze harder, just enough for him to feel what he’s taken from me. I want him to feel it—the endless, searing agony of a father who’s lost his son. I imagine cutting his fingers off with his own wire cutters so he can never hand over another fentanyl-laced counterfeit pill, leaving him as useless as the soul he sold long ago.

     

    But then comes the letdown. Sanity slipping back in, a bitter taste of restraint that almost feels like defeat. Because vengeance is useless. It won’t bring you back. It won’t undo the call, or the parking lot, or the crack in my soul that will never close. And yet, the thought of him walking free, dealing death to someone else’s kid, keeps me up at night. That rage is the only fire I’ve got left, the only thing keeping the void from swallowing me whole.

     

    So I rage. I dream of blood. And I write it all down because it’s the only way to survive another day in purgatory. This is the after. It’s torture. It’s rage. It’s love twisted into something unrecognizable. It’s the weight of what could’ve been, dragging me toward the grave. And still, I wake up every day wishing, screaming, dreaming for a world where you were still here.

     

    Read by James McCarthy

  • The High Isn’t Coming

    god is the new obedience.

    the rest of us? just junkies chasing the first high. eyes glazed, hands outstretched for the next hit of belonging. the tribe, the party, the movement—they offer you a fix, say you’re one of them now, part of something bigger. they sell you purpose in a pill, a flag to wrap around your shoulders like a noose disguised as a security blanket. but here’s the thing—just like the junk dealer’s push, it’s all laced with something lethal. the high doesn’t last. it never does. you wake up sick, needing more. always needing more. and the cold truth is, the club you think you’re part of? it doesn’t exist—not the way they sold it to you.

    talking heads and politicians, like junk peddlers, know the game. they cut it just right, enough to keep you hooked, just shy of dead—or at least, that was the plan. but the bodies are stacking up. 279 die every day from counterfeit killers. more dead recruits than Vietnam, and these aren’t soldiers, just citizens swallowing the lie. it’s all poison. they toss you a pill, tell you to vote, tell you it matters. but it’s counterfeit, a placebo laced with sweet nothings. you down it, even though it chokes you every time, feel good for a minute, like you’ve made a difference, like you’re part of something righteous. but what’s in that pill? more poison. just another way to keep you tethered to a system that doesn’t give a shit if you live or die. hell, they’d prefer you sick, obedient, just healthy enough to show up and follow orders.

    and they need you to chase it again—the high of belonging, the sweet lie that you’re on the “right side.” but there is no side. it’s grey. the world is grey, the people are grey. the skies are always grey, the streets paved in grey since day one. I’ve walked down that avenue, eyed grey faces lost in the grey mundane of their everyday. everything’s muted, colorless, lifeless—just the way they want it. they need you blind, seeing in black and white, picking one of two flavors, because they need you to believe you have choice. But you’re just another number on that team jersey they sold you at the concession stand. they know you’re never actually going to be a real player on the squad. that’s why the numbers are grey—just bright enough to keep you loyal and coming back for more counterfeit salvation.

    i’m done with their game. i’m done swallowing their pills. i’ll walk through the grey, hands dirty, eyes wide open, because that’s where the truth is. the rest of them? let ‘em keep chasing that first high, keep lining up for another spoonful of sweetened bullshit. i prefer the chaos, the mess. i want the real thing, the uncut stuff—bitter and sweet, raw and true. not the garbage they keep the masses hooked on.

    it’s all an illusion, this belonging. a drug they sell to keep you numb, keep you thinking you’re alive, when really, you’re just another junkie in line, waiting for your next fix. the question is, when do you wake up and realize—the high isn’t coming?

  • Anything goes in Wayne County

    Anything goes in Wayne County

    ◦ Wayne County Circuit Court, Detroit, Michigan.

    If a criminal wants to commit a crime and get away with it, Wayne County Circuit Court in Detroit is the place to be. Take Aron Miranda, a 24-year-old who sold counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl, resulting in the death of a Birmingham boy. Miranda was also caught with 11 illegal firearms, cocaine, fentanyl, and a mass of pills he sold mainly through Snapchat.

    Miranda’s arrest was made by Birmingham police since the victim was from Oakland County—Detroit police were not involved. Birmingham handed Miranda over with all the evidence needed for a conviction. Yet, in a predictable turn, Wayne County dropped the ball. Despite the overwhelming evidence and serious charges, Miranda received a minor personal bond and no tether. The expectation that he would voluntarily return for his court date was naive, given his criminal background.

    Now, Miranda is a fugitive. Some believe he fled the country; others think he’s still in Detroit, continuing his criminal activities. There’s little confidence in Wayne County’s efforts to apprehend him. If you’re a criminal looking for a safe haven, Detroit seems ideal. You can sell drugs, kill people, and even if caught, walk away scot-free.

    In a city where law enforcement appears ineffective, what’s stopping criminals from flocking here? In Detroit, it seems, the line between criminal and free citizen is blurred by a justice system that fails to enforce the law.

    You don’t have to have much of an imagination to envision how vigilante’s are born……