Porta Potty (a cautionary tale of love and the illusion of plumbing)
The Porta-Potty stood there
in the corner of the park
smelling like a dead shark
made out of bent hubcaps
and loose stool
reeking out its insides
wondering how the hell it
had all gone wrong
What’s that?
No!
It hadn’t always been a porta-potty
Once upon a time it had possessed
what the non-bowel receptacle’d population
would call: potential
but the Porta had decided
to flush all that
the Potty had decided
to give up the best thing
that had happened to it
in exchange for a transient life
of fluffed ear hair
and margarita stained trousers
and temporary plumbing tattoos
and you know, the shit of it is
the Porta-Potty didn’t have to be
a porta-potty
I mean, fuck!
the fates weren’t holding some sort of shit stained gun
to its ‘Occupied’ stenciled mid section
there was no evil shaped super villain hiding out
on a dark balcony somewhere demanding that if Porta didn’t
spend the rest of its life letting strangers take urgent shits inside it
THE WORLD WAS GOING TO END!
nope
it was just something it had decided to do
all by itself and on its own
like a bored dog decides to spend an entire winter smelling its own asshole
and humping chew toys
or Donald Trump decides to yelp like a bloated turtle
and collect the hatred of others like a manic prick
(Historical Note: I’m pretty sure Donald Trump has an old time’y
butterfly net instead of a dick)
(I mean) Fuck!
the Porta-Potty could’ve been
a scientist or a hairy butt model
or the assistant goddamn manager at Sears!
the Potty could have evolved past
the lazy mediocrity of average height polyethylene walls
whose sole purpose being: to shield
a partially civilized world from the sight of a plastic urinal
resembling a nightmarish sink and a hole
filled with partially digested corn dog
and chili fries that have forgone the former shape of fries
while disturbingly maintaining
the consistency of chili
and what appears to be the end bits
of the bun
Porta-Potty didn’t have to end up like this
DJ Porta P could’ve spent its life
sleeping on real pillows
that smelled like the coolest goddamn girl
to have ever inspired snowboards
and eat caramels like a champ
but the Porta Potty was stupid
and had lost all of that in a rash moment
of overinflated guacamole
mixed with a lousy day of shitty tips
life is choices and old movies
and with its choices already chosen
the Potty, it perched there, thinking about
the adult ed class it never signed up for
and counting the minutes that lapped
between and endless puddles of little kids
and fully bowel-grown adults
that just endlessly stood there
waiting their turn
to dive inside its insides
(like love)
and start shitting
and stop shitting
and start shitting again
“It’s a living.” said the Porta-Potty
and also it was a late Saturday afternoon
because in the Potty’s world it was always
late Saturday afternoon
and the Pot was surrounded by human beings
compacted with excrement
treading sand in dead grass
Today Porta was being shit in by a bunch of strangers
attending a little league t-ball tournament
Last week it collected the waist of overweight
loud noise enthusiasts at a Monster Truck rally
Next week it’s going to hang out beside
one of those inflatable castles filled with bouncy balls
for the grand opening of another goddamn mall
she deserves better
than a modern day manifestation of outdoor plumbing
she’s too goddamn pretty for all of that
she deserves more
than a lidless toilet hole
that’s in one place waiting to be shit in one day
and in a completely different place waiting
to be shit in the day after that
and whose biggest ambition in this life
is to maybe pick up and spend a summer
renting himself out in the UK
because over there they call porta-pottys
Portaloos
and it thought it made his job sound cooler
like that
“No I’m not a fucking porta-potty. I’m a Portaloo!”
the Porta envisioned himself saying eventually
“So you’d best better show some respect!”
nope
she deserves more than a portable toilet shed that can be
so easily tipped over in the wind
she deserves something permanent
she deserves a real goddamn bathroom!
a goddamn bathroom that will always be there for her
the sort of room with one of those recline-abe
movie theater chairs where the toilet seat usually lives
and a huge picture window that looks
out across the most interesting bits of the cosmos
and toilet paper woven humanely from free range unicorn hair
and instead of the towel racks holding towels
they hold pizza!
she deserves a bathroom with a great big view of the planets
and that you can eat pizza in
and when the toilet’s flushed
it plays her favorite Gary Clark Jr songs
and like Prince doesn’t let anyone
else do their Prince stuff in his bathroom
except Prince
this bathroom is off limits to other people’s bottoms
this bathroom is monogamously devoted
the kind of bathroom that has a big sign
carved above the door in her favorite gummy bear color
that says:
“Gosh, you look beautiful today.
Try not to worry about this year’s elections.
This bathroom is for you”
Multiverse Johnson 