Sam Pink

You Hear Ambulance Sounds and Think They Are for You

FIRST

You are a very real person when that is what you wish you weren't most.

You avoid phone calls.

You fail in yearlong increments that shake hands with their successors when their shift is done and then go home proud.

You think that all lives are an individual's strange insistence on choosing a lifetime of last words.

You look at your hands and say, "I wish these were hard enough to ruin bricks and stones," and then you say, "but I don't know how to make my head into a brick or stone so it doesn't matter."

You have imagined yourself standing still, smiling as everyone around you drops dead.

You have a vision of a faceless woman sitting in a chair knitting the future and it is a long photo negative of everything that happens ever.

You have bad paranoia and you can't even return things you buy when you find out they’re broken, because you are annoyingly shy out of nowhere.

You wash your face after crying so you can just say, "No, I’m just tired."

You feel fine always.

You keep putting your hands in your pockets and then inventorying the things inside because you are neurotic.

You have nice teeth.

You see old birthday cards you’ve kept for some reason and each one joins the swarming sharp things that make pulp of your heart.

You see your own face in the swarm of sharp things that only looks for more hearts.

You stare at the ground while scratching your face and you don’t know what you are doing.

You just want someone you trust to cut you open somewhere to prove there is no gravel inside.

You just want to make sure.

You have seen me begging and you like it.

You admire yourself and you like it.

You hate when life reminds you it is really happening.

You are older now than you've ever been and it is not something you look forward to continuing over and over endlessly.

You are very real when that is what you wish you weren’t most.

You hear ambulances sounds and think they are for you and you like it.

SECOND

You have never approved of yourself so you bother other people to do it.

You are an invisible trail of replicating statues each more fun to be around than the last.

You never help out people as much as they help you and that's the underside of something even uglier and it bothers you.

You have dumb hands.

You go to public areas and you expect people to group up and tell you you add nothing and you should leave, and you are willing to congratulate them on being right.

You don’t argue.

You just ate so much fruit-flavored cereal your stomach hurts bad.

You mention when someone else has stolen a relatively worthless pen because you have principles.

You think principles are real.

You eat things even if they aren't fully microwaved because you don't deserve any luxury.

You are the most beautiful motherfucker on the planet forever times the square root of 78,889.

You seem like a servant to someone you hope eventually asks you for something, for anything.

You get dead so slow.

You lost all your hair but I still love you.

You will feel pain.

You will not learn from it.

You will be mistreated by people, because somebody has to do it and at least you get to pick who.

You congratulate yourself on being right.

You are married to trying to defend yourself and you have soft gumlines for weapons you motherfucker.

You get preferential treatment in your own bad afterlife.

You are right to ruin yourself now so the afterlife will be a handicapped parking space.

You will not learn from it.

THIRD

You are royalty when no one asks you to explain something you just said.

You aren't sure whether you have feelings or not but that’s all part of the shrug you have performed in slow motion for your entire life so far.

You will continue this shrug.

You will be rewarded.

You should hold a contest where the donations are used to pay to have a plane fly directly into my head.

You should do things on purpose.

You keep people away from you on the train because you smell bad.

You do this on purpose.

You do half of your living actions on purpose and half on accident and the accident half begins to overproduce and you like it you fucker!

You think it seems like everyone else is living some kind of life that involves ideas that exist outside your world and when you look around you think, "'No hope' is a feeling I have a lot."

You think about the why of the why and a block of ice surrounds your head.

You are getting taller and taller and sadder and sadder.

You jump off high things but always make sure to land in ways that won't hurt.

You have known the experience of dividing yourself equally among other people who only want to divide you more.

You seem alright but you will know the general habit of being avoided.

You will know my ability to avoid.

You will secretly compliment my ability to avoid.

You are proud that you can concisely and effectively tell people how to beat certain video games.

You have never said anything that I didn't hang up on my wall I promise.

You haven't even felt a kiss yet you motherfucker!

You are terrrible with three r's, you.

You aren't sure whether you have feelings or not but that’s all part of the shrug you have performed in slow motion for your entire life so far.

You continue the shrug, waiting to hear an ambulance.

FOURTH

You have a recent fixation of imagining yourself doing a front-flip through a table and then just lying there laughing.

You laugh a lot and it hurts and you like it.

You have no sexuality at all.

You feel palpably more free when your phone isn't charged or isn't working.

You just ate a fudgesicle and it fucking dominated your taste buds and you keep repeating “fucking domination” in your head until it’s senseless and it’s time to go to bed already?

You are everyday and you like it.

You make friends with strangers standing on pieces of ice that are melting and you like it.

You are only bored because you hate yourself.

You only know what to do when no one is watching.

You always act like people are watching.

You are a big monster made of wet newspaper and you get pushed down every three seconds and no one’s afraid of you.

You have no reason to remain alive.

You built a small dwelling in your closet with some hangers and a sheet and you did this to avoid people, not to have fun.

You never have any fun you fucker.

You only talk to yourself.

You will not survive that one beautiful thing you discovered when you weren’t even trying.

You would like someone to throw a shoe at you now; you would just go, "Thank you."

You miss a lot of people but it comes out as a strong miss of only one thing.

You own your own ideal and you hate it.

You should commit suicide twice.

You're older now than you've ever been and it’s not something you look forward to continuing over and over endlessly.

You hear ambulance sounds and think they are for you and you like it.

FIFTH

You were only happy when you were like five or six and that's it, right.

You think there are enormous amounts of people who love you but just to be sure you don't talk to any.

You have weapon vocabulary.

You have weapon vocabulary but fingers too weak to work each weapon.

You are anorexic.

You starve yourself for days and then hallucinate.

You look at me if you think I won’t be looking.

You look at the light patterns on your wall and you stay in bed because you are avoiding everything else.

You are objectively pathetic and your sheets are dirty and how can you live like this.

You can live like this.

You live like this.

You can live like this.

You like it.

You like yourself for reasons others do not.

You don't connect with anyone.

You listen to me and that’s why I keep you around.

You hate everything and you like it.

You want to die.

You never know what day it is.

You can't imagine taking your mind off anything.

You pray but you don't know it.

You get nervous the few times you're at the doctor's office because you are convinced s/he might (justifiably) hold you down and execute you for carrying some incurable disease that can't be explained but will be fatal to everyone else.

You like everyone else.

You like being alone.

You always give up when things get hard.

You have never loved anyone like it is possible for you to and you like it; you don’t like it.

You will feel pain.

You will be let down.

You have no control over how the brick cleans your face.

You have no time to turn around and see what you’ve done.

You have no need to see what you’ve done.

You talk and all you hear is ambulance sounds and you like it.

SIXTH

You made up a game where the winner is always you.

You made friends with the walk home when you really don't want to be anywhere.

You wake up and do things over again.

You are over again.

You always impress me.

You will powerfully vomit when you realize I am gone for good.

You will powerfully vomit when you realize it is the part that remains that hurts most, not what is gone.

You're older now than you've ever been and it’s not something you look forward to continuing over and over endlessly.

You are a compassionate human and you make ambulance sounds for anyone who wants them.

SEVENTH

You think your life will be better once you learn to somersault out of bed.

You wear your own medical bracelets for jewelry.

You only make people upset now, what happened.

You are my friend and that means you will see me act strangely.

You are a stranger and that means you are my friend.

You couldn't kill me if I had a connect-the-dots over my throat (and you know I mean that as a compliment).

EIGHTH

You haven’t been able to face the outside so many times you wonder what has happened in your absence.

You couldn't draw yourself if you became invisible and wanted to reappear.

You see people outside your window and you lean out the windowframe and go, "Hey, catch me ok" then jump before there is an answer.

You base your actions on whether or not they limit what you think freedom is.

You base your actions on whether or not they will result in situations you feel are embarrassing.

You can’t say what you mean ever.

You prepare your house like there is going to be a big party but then you never invite anyone over and you like it.

You really don't care what other people think and it's not at all like it was when you said that but didn’t mean it.

You want to know what you’re talking about.

You want to know how to understand years.

You want to know something.

You want to know something, you are a mathematical equation that begins with a bunch of meaningless signs and ends the same way but it looks like a lot has happened (and you know I mean that as a compliment).

NINTH

You think it would be cool if your hands just, like, fell apart as uncooked rice and then you didn’t have hands anymore.

You think it would be cool if you never felt obliged to anyone else.

You don't know anyone else.

You think of how you would like yourself more if you had come into existence by washing up on shore somewhere.

You are not the point.

You hear ambulance sounds and think they are for you.

You know that punishment is wrong because the punisher can always just teach (it’s like, why be a dick right?)

You know you need to be punished.

You have typical human reactions and you are relieved because you can't imagine inventing reactions for some things (you know that’s a form of punishment and you accept it).

You have pressure inside your body.

You walk around your apartment and feel like you can’t be comfortable if you stop moving.

You meditate on the thought and feeling of your own head as a blood aquarium.

You hate other yous.

You look like everybody else.

You look gross and you like it.

You get horny in a way that feels more like sudden homicide.

You animate yourself and that’s unholy.

You fuck yourself into creation and that’s unholy.

You have boring sexual fantasies.

You have plastic cocktail swords for teeth.

You lose your teeth so often in dreams you no longer have free time now.

You never have real relaxations.

You balance on one leg while thinking of situations to get into that cannot be escaped.

You can always balance on one leg while thinking of situations to get into that cannot be escaped.

You extinguish yourself from all sides inward and it happens too slow to show.

You extinguish yourself from all sides inward and it happens too slow to notice.

You notice.

You have your own flag and it looks a lot like your slob ass.

You can't believe how well I am able to sincerely love something for a really short period of time.

You can't believe how much I owe a movie rental place for a movie I didn't even rent.

You don't listen to me and I love it.

You see and hear terrible things and when you run diagnostics on yourself to see if it has mattered, you don’t know what to look for.

You made up a reason to keep breathing and it’s working.

You just put your pen into your mouth to get something out of your pocket and then when you reached to get the pen you knocked the pen up into your gums and it hurt a lot and now you taste blood.

You have a sweet pussy.

You have real feelings and I steal them.

You rob banks and I open banks in my rusted-out home.

You make me embarrassed about my body.

You make me happy.

You plagiarize faces of uncontrollable worry.

You do things that later seem strangely significant.

You have no idea how much “no” there is in all things.

You're older now than you've ever been and it is not something you look forward to continuing over and over endlessly.

You hear ambulance sounds and think they are for you and you like it.

TENTH

You think “oops” is an apology.

You don’t wash yourself often.

You are upset because you can only ever control things too weak to really want.

You have coal mascara of no-sleep.

You should spend more time with me, you should.

You like it when I say "wink wink" after saying something serious.

You like that every creator also creates by letting its creations die.

You are embarrassed by how hard you orgasm thinking about my broken legs.

You will be asleep soon and that's ok.

You are an ugly person and I care about you.

You know that caring is hurting.

You need everyone to repay you now in order to be neutral.

You feel terrible when it's late and you realize “nothing to do” is a permanent state.

You have less than a month to live.

You train to die without making a face.

You die without making a face.

You deliberately think about terrible things that make you want to die.

You will be found dead.

You look too nice not to hang from a tree branch, twenty skinned arms for a noose.

You end up alone in your room talking to everyone you’ve ever known all at once and it sounds like ambulance sounds and you like it.

ELEVENTH

You are an expert at experiencing pain and maintaining the same look, the one that fools people who want to be fooled.

You are an expert at acting ok so you don’t embarrass other people and you don't get embarrassed ever now, isn’t that weird.

You make excuses for everyone and you are liked.

You make up years of your own life and you like it.

You keep backing up and the world is many folds high now.

You have a feeling that you are the result of dirt slowly aggregating out of air, hmmm.

You only have friends if you think hard enough.

You use everybody and feel bad about it, but even that is selfish, hmmm.

You use names to refer to people in order to make them seem more significant.

You only know one way to read.

You only know one way to have fun.

You should have more fun, yeah.

You should be more peaceful, yeah.

You should fall down and start to smell bad and not tell anyone where to look.

You should lose weight and put it on your head until you sink far enough to feel comfort — right, you got it.

You can have all my shit, I don’t want it.

You shoot a gun at your face and see no bullets just a slow-growing red beam that bends when it touches your face.

You perfected a form of silence that is your own ambulance sound and you fall asleep to it.

TWELFTH

You relax by not letting anyone know how you feel.

You resent people who know how you really feel.

You solve your own problems first.

You have hurt feelings and they are sticky shreds of what was a mouth that tried to hold in a bomb.

You allow yourself to really care about things knowing they will be gone, and you justify it somehow even though you know you only justify things you are too weak to just do.

You are fucking lame.

You are the kind of person who recites amazing facts so you seem amazing.

You are not human and this is coming from someone with self-esteem nil.

You look the way you are trying to look.

You look like you are trying to find your way out.

You're older now than you've ever been and it is not something you look forward to continuing over and over endlessly.

You hear ambulance sounds and think they are for you and you like it.

Content

Sam Pink
You Hear Ambulance Sounds and Think They Are for You

FIRST

SECOND

THIRD

FOURTH

FIFTH

SIXTH

SEVENTH

EIGHTH

NINTH

TENTH

ELEVENTH

TWELFTH