Michael O'Connor
Bio
If you like my content, you can purchase my published short story in ebook or paperback on Amazon!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CRF12G63
Stories (13/0)
One Bar For Me
I awaken likening a cold slab of butter left to refrigerate too long as I pull myself from the flashing of a wild dreamscape and fasten my newfound feet to the Earth. Welcome back. The echoes whisper and then raise their ugly voices out into the neighbourhood. Instead of melting softly in a pot with sips of my morning coffee, tenderizing to the touch of warmth surrounding my exterior, I remain cold and hard and tense in my position on the shelf beside fresh and unused resources. A beer is required. I ride to the garden cafe - not walk, and sit in the restaurant - not the cafe. The lady knows my order too well and produces precisely one, Saigon beer “cam on chi”. I blast fast guitar paired with wicked lyrics to match my enraged and unstable mind. I take out a fine liner pen which is mostly the only one I draw with anymore. The sketchy pictures are a simple way to portray the facts of my inner turmoil. The faces are all both jagged and smooth with patchy and dark coloured edges, all screaming to be heard as they leap from the page to the person. I notice the awareness of the faces around me, they surround me with an awareness that a screaming soul is present and determine that it’s in need of soothing. They gently nod their heads to the sound of music outside the cafe, and ensure it’ll all be okay.
By Michael O'Connor3 months ago in Humans
Love Is True. And I'm Just Thinking In A Garden.
The hoe in the gardener's hands gently nestles itself into the soil of the garden; the giver of life and nourishment broken into millions of tiny fragments all coming together as one to help the leafy greens grow. Swing, swing, swing. Such otherwise tiring work is complete in each moment with peaceful ease. Less than with great effort it continues on its path between the gray spot connecting sky and land and the floor of dirt below. I sit back and observe whilst pinching hairs on my chin in twos and threes to search for the rogues and the strays left behind after the clipping process days ago. I seek and I find and I pluck the lengthy wires. Perhaps the process is for pain or to be present, perhaps it is to be groomed so neatly and clean or perhaps it is simply to watch the moment of time that is both trapped and unfolding in the present.
By Michael O'Connor3 months ago in Poets
Explosive Heart
I want at times for my fiery soul to burn luminously under the hue of the blue lights in the red rooms late evening. I want for the delicate, guiding hands of a gentle and hardened female to take my mind to the moon as I explode in a furious, passionate moment of lust brought on by existential humility and wonder.
By Michael O'Connor3 months ago in Poets
Get Your Head Out of the Way
Sometimes we just need to have our heads out of the way. We need to find the connected screws and unwind them slowly until we hear a giant ‘pop’ when our head finally is removed from our ass. Today, the coffee acts as a mild sedative for my unhinged, racing mind that creates difficulty in finding awareness in the midst of the racetrack running to first place. It has difficulty in seeing the splash in the river by the fish that just flopped by, or the breeze that blows through the trees so tenderly. The motorbike is exhausted. I increase the throttle to push through the patch of emptiness that lives inside the fuel tank, throttle, throttle, throttle… It runs out of stamina regardless and it’s right as I arrive aside the fuel station where I pull in on the last gasp of the night and roll safely to meet the man with the giant nozzle I’m requiring.
By Michael O'Connor3 months ago in Humans
Good Luck Next Time
I take the motorbike down to the beach. I decide against the paid parking spot and go further down to where the locals go, I’m a local after all. On the way I thought a Coca-Cola would suffice to defeat the pit of guilt for an angered night that burned alongside a steady, scattered hangover. There’s a little restaurant there that’s overpriced and sells those ‘I’ve been to Asia’ type tourist meals that people flock to. They’re fixing the side of the restaurant and the aqua blue tin sheeting has been pulled off and they’re using a drill to reconnect it. I remember that I, too, know how to complete such a task. I walked to the sand and seated myself on a red, leather cushioned lounge chair parked under a large umbrella, along a line of red, leather cushioned lounge chairs parked under umbrellas. It’s satisfying enough. I remember how my ex-girlfriend - the woman I asked to marry me and was engaged to for a short period - used to require sculling a can of coke as a means of curing a hangover. I remember my sister saying the same thing just a few days ago. I remember that my Mum loved Coca-Cola in a can too. Before she passed, after I’d finished a long day at work and finished all of our grocery shopping, being sure to bring home the coke that she asked for, she sent me back to the supermarket to exchange the Coca-Cola bottle for a can. She always preferred it in cans - nay, required it in cans. I sipped away before agreeing and sculling, thinking maybe it will help. “Hi sir, you want something to drink?” I knew what was coming. “No Chí cám ơn. Oh I can’t sit here? Ahhh..”
By Michael O'Connor4 months ago in Confessions
King of the Forgotten Land
It'll fuck you up, but it'll make you king of the forgotten land. That fucking bottle, the financial cost was at an all time low of three dollars. I don't know who told you that red wine was for the finer folk in society, but they were wrong. Sure, I mean believe it or not I've paid more than twenty dollars for the odd bottle of grape juice, the taste is phenomenal when you throw an extra buck on it, but the feelings all the same. Once, maybe twice I drank it in moderation, what an absolute bore it was. Sipping away like a happy little chap with a ticket to the chocolate factory, pretending I'm a superior human being, spitting on the bums with their disgusting clothes who perched next to garbage among the vermin. No no, not me. I knew what I was when I drank red wine. I was the vermin who lurked in the rotten alleyways and peered through blind eyes at the golden glow above, the golden glow filled with frocks and frills that caused me to shake with fury. How dare you have more than I, how dare you dress so clean so fresh and never have lived a life as I. You don't know what it's all about. You've not the slightest idea of what it means to be alive, to be human. See when I drank red wine, it wasn't to be used as a numbing agent to suppress the horror story that is life; it was to encourage that feeling, to put a heavy emphasis on the depressive nature of existing; to feel the beautiful, relentless truth of our society. Everything would come rushing in, and with tears streaming down my face I'd drift away to the songs of the other lost souls; Social Distortion, Days n Daze, Johnny Cash.
By Michael O'Connor4 months ago in Confessions
- Top Story - January 2024
The Rolling of the WavesTop Story - January 2024
It’d be so easy to say that tonight I just went for a dip and got some dinner, but I won’t. Feeling a little low after rediscovering the soft, warm touch of a woman last night, I take the bike and cruise down to Cua Dai with 50k in my pocket. The lady who I pay to park keeps offering me coconuts until she was shown that I had a beer in my hand. A walk in the dark along the shore shows me what quiet is. The waves crash down so gently as a breeze almost sneaks by. There’s a young couple hanging off each other's arms and laughing before they settle in a wooden lounge chair to make out under the moonlight. I find a seat nearby just hoping to be seen - hoping that a beautiful woman will stroll by and want to have a beer and a cuddle with me. The rolling of the waves settles my maladjusted thoughts that swirl in a pool of wonder. One wave comes in to meet the sand, and another follows, and another…
By Michael O'Connor4 months ago in Humans
Isolated
Nothing's satisfying anymore Not bourbon, not arguments, not masturbating, not a great movie, only the morning coffee and cigarette. There's no relief or release anymore, we're nothing but stuck, without the hope of a road trip, or the wish of a gold coin.
By Michael O'Connor4 months ago in Confessions
