The Book of Weston

Rows of yellow fluorescents flicker to life,

revealing a labyrinth of stalls stretching

into the humid darkness. I stumble through,

looking for somewhere clean to rest,

pushing on each greasy door until

one gives, but the toilet is filled to the brim

with thick shit and pulpy wads of toilet paper

dripping over the edges onto the tile floor.

I try several others and am met

with similar gruesome sights:

every stall desecrated in a uniquely awful

display of human waste.

The walls, floor, toilets, doors smeared

with an unsettling variety of bodily fluids

of all colors, textures, viscosities.

I move faster, desperation growing.

For all its filth, i see no others in this dank maze.

I hear occasional evidence in the distance:

doors slamming or unseen liquids gushing

into unseen receptacles, enormous echoing outbursts,

phlegmy sneezes, rattling coughs.

Finally, I find a functioning toilet

with only a sprinkling of amber urine around the seat

and a swollen roll of wet toilet paper

half-submerged in a puddle on the floor.

So carefully I grab it with two fingers

and wipe around the seat, which only

spreads the urine evenly across its surface.

No choice; I sit. As soon as I do, the stall door rattles

violently. Occupied, I mutter.

The banging continues, and I cannot relax.

I yank up my pants and push open the door,

but there is no one. I circle the stall. All is quiet.

Then a boy appears, hunched forward,

clutching his belly.

Oh, man, I don't feel so good.

And a shocking stream of vomit

arcs from his mouth and onto my pants,

trickling into my shoes. Panic seizes and I flee,

but there is no end to this place.

The stalls grow more alien and warped,

missing doors, some triangular, octagonal.

Clusters of stalls inside stalls inside stalls,

toilets by themselves, placed at random,

rows of misshapen urinals, some blasted

with excrement, one knocked to the floor

while a brown fountain sprays from exposed pipe,

mixing with syrupy fluid dripping

from the moldy ceiling tiles above.

Oh, god, I have to find clean water now

or else I will get infected, will become sick.

I cannot be sick. I won't make it.

No exit signs, nothing.

What the hell is this place? Why is this happening?

My foot slips, and I fall into a blinding puddle

that soaks my hair and face and clothes

with a warm concoction of bodily fluids.

I gag and lift myself and wipe at my face

with my wet sleeve. And a few feet away, I see

a glowing red exit sign and a door.

Something breaks, and there is a surrender,

and I laugh and laugh until I lose my breath,

and the whole dirty expanse is filled

with the echoes of my laughter, and

a giddy lightheaded relief washes over me.

My filth. No one else's. Not separate. Never was.

I look down at my hands,

and they are clean, and I am clean.