short stories

Voodooman, chicken bone chicken bone
I can make a thunderstorm from a light rain
my ears start ringing
my nose gets bloody
I feel a little bit of pressure on my right brain
intermission, transmission, put me in submission
listening, trapped in the light prison whistling
the Christ told me come closer to the light man
I went blind woke up in front of a mike stand.

_____Jay Electronica




NYC_7 by Alex Lukas, courtesy my love for you is a stampede of horses

____i. (shooting star manifesto)

another one.
yeah i saw that one too.
[it's too dark to see the ocean, mostly just lines of white as the waves crest, then they morph into only sound and a blackness takes their place and another white soon follows like lines of teeth smiles coming and going it makes me paranoid because nothing will smile at me longer than a few seconds, i look back up to the sky]
oh there! did you see?
no, i'm looking the other way
i know, i can feel your chin pivot on my head.
______deal with it.
i am. obviously.
[silence. inhale broadly. she lifts her head worried
___i actually heard your ribs crack!
___it's nothing. my inside-stuff is all funny noisy
___yeah.
[puts her head back down. more silence
poor boy [as she rubs an uncertain hand against my chest.
[someone moves, we're almost face to face, she darts her lips away]
calm down. i'm not gonna kiss you.
i know! stop saying it.
stop acting all freaked out.
whatever.
you wanna go?, we can go.
no. not yet.
good.


____ii. (morning song ritual rain dance)

chicken bone with a bowl and a light tap (three right one after two after other makes
bump bump bump clouds swell like deep white soo white it's moonlight
can't stare up looks like a new sun,
tap again hum along boom boom boom bum
cloud darken a deeper voice groans in the sky (now a light rain)
yess yess yess mistah mistah you know no summer like the drizzle i'm about to sizzle to nothing pain
(but i do know that)
shake fingers over bowl, barely visible blurrs of motion, electrons electrons electrons everything electrons
three taps side of bowl (three ready set go go go)
a deep pain like someone slashing at a piece of fabric
the sky is ripped, the cloud burst, the heart stopped, the warmest skins roasting themselves
like hot hot hot lobsters in pots suddenly look up up up
and shizoid phrenics dance wet in the street and epiliptic hound-dogs freak and
don't play scary games you might lose at little man, so wet it's loud
it's a darker night if you come home from that spell that spell has no cure but darkness
all the light of it all i put into this cloud, kissed over to shadows and then vanish from my sight
like a water balloon on this empty hollow shallow nearly narrow city's head
you won't live another month quite like this one
and you won't know a scarecrow from the cockroach when its over
now i'll diminish your stature till you're little little little
as the bone of this chick wing in this black bowl filled with rain's kissed water.
dddhhhhiiiiee. (die die die)

pre - lonely - post

Stars open among the lilies.
Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens?
This is the silence of astounded souls.

__________Syliva Plath






blondie, on matadora.



the guys i'm standing next to are idiot wallflowers. i see her walking past again. last time, i held the door open for her and i thought maybe that was that look, i don't know so hey, tell me about your tshirt she looks back at me, smiles, and we begin. i laugh and think to myself, i'm soo glad you're someone i don't know. she says i broke up with my boyfriend yesterday. i realize what this is. i know her type too, 50% romance, 50% adventure. so we talk about Los Angeles. Paris. Istanbul. her eyes are a little blurry, must be the alcohol. i sip at my cranberry juice and it bites at the back of my throat and makes it a little hard for me to talk. she takes my hand and leads me away towards the door where do you live? she's skipping first, second and third. i haven't had time to look at her yet. she has red hair. i like red hair. i like her tshirt, afterall that's what got me into this mess. i stare at her face while i talk trying to find a glimmer of it... chemistry, or affection, love... a click... all i see are her watery drunk eyes, i just don't want to be at home i say to myself. i'm only out because i wanted a distraction. now we're by the front door, she leading by the hand, me playing the part. Courtney, you got my keys? Courtney looks at me hello person who has Annie's keys. she rummages through her purse, looks at me oddly again, (soo awkward, i try and make small talk about Missouri... no one's fooled) she hands the keys over. i'm led by the hand outside where Annie stops to speak to a few people.

i'm left alone a moment. i think of everyone who... and... what about... and i look at her back, and think about how skin is something sacred... how it has a magnetic field and how touching it should not feel like bulbous masses of flesh but like stardust and fields of tulips... i look at her red-hair and think what's wrong with me. why i feel like i'm falling over inside myself. she looks back and a hand out (wait up wait up), yes yes. i know i know. i try and imagine her body naked. and my lips and hands... and hers and... i turn around, where my friends don't understand why i'm standing alone in the carpark. in my head some blues anthem starts playing. all man and guitar. i just needed a hug tonight i say to myself. and i wonder if maybe she'll hug me after. she looks back at me. it's in the eyes. watery, red eyes.

a friend calls me over, and i oblige. you look sad tonight she says. and i look at her sadly. then i turn around. Annie's talking to random-other-guy. i'm going to be sadder in a little while. and nod in little jerky motions. what?
who are we?
what?
what _ the _who _ fu^& are we?
what are you talking about?
i gotta go.

and i drive back and my groin feels a little self-conscious. and my hands grip the plastic, and i imagine nothing would have been different about that. i feel soo lonely and wonder if it would have been worse if i was touching some other plastic skin.

unsaid words could have been kisses

i want to start by saying that: unsaid words could have been kisses. this is a thing that's true. i also think unsaid words could have been:

____- stories about that time
____- a sigh
____- something you said instead with your eyes
____- and sometimes there are no words anyway for what might need to be (un)said
____- the dream you forgot about
____- sticking your tongue out and smiling with your eyes and laughing with your body (it is possible)
____- everything i had ever hoped to tell some.no-one all wrapped up in perfect silence

there are other things. there are always other things. like dancing. which is a thing that you do with your body. like if you shake the string hard enough and balloon starts to move around in the sky, like that, if i shake my body hard enough somewhere somehow my soul has a jiggle giggle gigue of its own.

love too. and the whirrr of ceiling fans, is love really a game of inches because... if so, why are we all soo far from home?

can someone hold my hand and run like madness from nowhere aimed directly without vacillation on perfectly focussed point nowhere ahead of us and not stop for grass or Mondays or the water at the beach is soo warm these days and all i really want to say is... is...

also sometimes i just want to practice this weird concept i have in my head, a theory of art, a theorem of creating art centered around a non-cheezy, non-lame-o-saurus happiness- which manages to do it without being... sanguine and ridiculous. i want everything in life to be little miss sunshine which was is soo real and soo true and soo yes (everything that is yess is soo good to the soul and the touch, and sometimes even when women let me, to the kiss and to the palm to skin and the skin to skin and everything so soft and yes) do you see what i mean?

life is still the terrible tragedy it always was, except i swear i hear more bells in my head nowadays, i can't place them obviously, and so account them to the only true-thing they can be (fairies obviously). if not that then the game of inches leading me along and

have i mentioned dancing yet? which i did like a lunatic. again. and which i can't find it in me to regret (sorry sorry sorry it's soo ok to look like a foolio when you do)

if i am wrong i am right. (luckily i'm almost always wrong. (ask Mar)

errrr. i'm not saying anything that these are just unsaid words that could have been butterflies or sunday smiles or children scared of fireflies or beauty-pageant contestants crying at coming in second and high-schoolers adjusting their ties and pregnant women putting their feet up. i'm not saying anything but unsaid words that could have been Ajax's prayer from the Iliyad or Medusa feeling soo sad about how everything went down or myself, hating myself for all the terrible things i do that make me feel soo wonderful, and thinking thinking thinking thoughts that are nothing at all that people can see or rub their fingers along or put their noses to and whiff, but still are soo evident and a person with ugly ones is sooner or later soo found out and...

no.
it's not...

who are we people?

________(what strange place is this?)

fragments (why i cannot write)

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that dtstant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

____Gabriel Garcia Marquez








cloudrunner, pinkyhonor

____i. (i hate summer)
a steady rash like the skin of a new snake being born inside me crawls under my armpits. across the expanse of my shoulder blades... and leaves spots and marks on my waist. chest. abdomen. my skin is always a little moist, like the snake i am soon to become, and movement becomes progressively more difficult so that soon i will renounce it to lie on the ground and slither around. i lick my lips alot, i feel they are always dry. i grow lovehandles, like some new puberty's breasts.
____i remember finally why i always hate summer. the Los Angeles summer was an anomaly in my life. a crisp summer, like something snapping cleanly into two pieces. like glass. or a fresh lemon chopped in half. a certain slant of unoppressive light- a gentle glide. fresh masking tape that sticks to anything. everything was clean and with delicate edges.
____the Australian summer is like living in someone's mouth. it is saliva and dogs humping your leg. it is a mouthful of dirt, a broken-down car on a nowhere highway. insects crawling on skin and mud and the air is soo humid you feel you are perpetually stuck in a misplaced cloud. a froth. mucus on every surface, you don't dare touch anything. the inside of cars are too warm with exhaled breath, and the outsides stink of decomposing skin.


____ii.
an elderly couple mows their lawn 4 times a week. the man topless, the woman in a sportsbra. their skin droops off their bones and any moment now will drag the whole lot of them back into a hole they've no doubt dug (and landscaped) for themselves out back. the scene reeks of postmortem.
____at lunch the woman finally straightens her back out enough to stand up semi-straight. she laughs outloud, turns to him, and says: hey remember that time-
(at which point he starts laughing too. (she laughing to hard to finish the phrase)

i don't think i can imagine anything more beautiful.


____iii.
his distended belly takes up half the car. his smell of cigarette smoke the other half. his watch is too bright a color of cheap, fake gold, and attracts soo much sun. out of the corner of my left eye i can see it slowly gathering momentum to turn into a star all on its own.
no no no. sometimes you just have to be that way. i can sleep anywhere. not in this car. too small. but in my other car. the one the fu*&ers stole... that one, i spent lots money on that one. i sleep in the back when i travel. i travel everywhere. Cairns. Port Douglas. Sydney. but sometimes you just have to be that way. save. i nod and drive on. he's right. why not? gave all that up years ago. the brothels and the hookers too. both. nodding. not sure. wouldn't have a clue. marijuanna. clubs. nah. enough. work all week, spend it on friday. nothing to eat saturday. what kind of life is that? not sure. wouldn't have a clue. i am political refugee. i can sleep anywhere. i nod. have you been back at all? yeah. about 50 times. really? yes yes. i used have more money, go back all the time. sleep anywhere. back of cars is best.


____iv.
i wake up and notice a strange blackness to my left. it glistens from behind a newly acquired skin of dust. i look up. it's a piano. i feel as though i have had someone sleep besides me all night. and morning is not soo empty as it usually is.


____v. (i am soo fu&^ing sick of this house)
the house wakes at 6. before me even. i stumble and open the door, and it takes on a life of its own after that. it creeks and wretches and spasms with sounds of wood snapping and metal grinding and tiles dropping and accented voices speaking. it exhales dust. everything dust. everywhere dust. and excretes shards of tile. builders' pencils. cans of RedBull and V. coke bottles half-full of red-cordial. drill bits under your feet, everywhere you walk screwdrivers and drill-bits. broken tiles. planks of wood. timber. the white plaster-dust of gyprock that will no doubt infest my lungs and eventually kill me. the walls have patterns of filled holes like a zebra. the house has its own life now, it's own color scheme. then there is the brown dust of sawdust from wood. the gritty toothlike dust of metal. more tiles, in haphazard pieces. tubs of paint, half opened, so an acrid smell has invested in the room. it is my room she says to me when i get in. not seeing myself fit enough to argue with a bucket of half-opened paint, i turn and walk another way. door handles sit mute on a counter top. the counter top is propped up on a cardboard box. LGK-R5447. regrigerator or something i think to myself. someone's left a fan on and it twirls the dust into eddies that would look beautiful if they were not darkening my skin and attracting all the bugs. the doors are open all day, every corner now has a resident spider. small bundles of acute angles stealing what little air is left. flying creatures live off sawdust and grow voices thick as wood. at night i swear i live in a forest.

thoughts.

dear future.wife,

i've been thinking a little bit about you these days. it's not that i miss you more or less than usual, or that i anticipate bumping into you at a bus-stop or in the library or anything. Only that... well... i think you'd enjoy being around me just right now. and it's not just you i miss either. Ashtree would find me soo enjoyable right now. Mona would find me light. Martha would find me outright annoying as i'd stop every three paces to start a new converation with someone. Anjali would stand back and say: are you done now? with one hand on her hip. Gol would try and stack numbers up against mine.

it used to be, and still is, and always will be, that when i feel little bubbles of happiness burst in my chest i'd run for a prayer book right then and there. right then and there. no delay. i figured it was such a rare thing to be able to pray and want nothing, just... hey G. all good down here on mortal-plane. just wanted to holla atchYa. increase the peace Yo. Bless Yo'self. this is a similar feeling. just want to shake hands with the world once when i'm at peace with it.

and there are different kinds of loneliness of course, and some go away and some never will, and you can only really fill one of them- but this isn't about that at all. it just seems like a trip we ought to have taken together. and i can sit with my feet on the coffee table reading Donaghue v Stevenson and you can lie sideways with your feet in my lap and i can use my green pen to highlight phrases and draw stars on your toes.
____and we can go do RedBull runs at 3am while jamming to M.I.A., and of course you can borrow my car.

doesn't it just seem like a tremendous waste to make everyone endure soo many of my sadnesses when none of you are here for me to show you who else i can be? who soo-much-better-now else i can be. i don't understand it really. but it doesn't bother me that much. (right now, nothing does.

much love babyface.
q

self-portrait

________Dropped lines trawl
______our veins for a colour -

____blue, the blue of blue
______skies to collect
______our thoughts in as the first

____planets clock in,
______and the Bay, that salt mouthful
______of the sea's unsounded
____silence,
______yawns and takes up
______our story.

________David Malouf, The Catch






the purr of the tires, yes,
those distant lights behind me, similar ones straight ahead,
all around irreparable colours,
those satellites i'll never recover, yes yes

who are these memories that in softest silences
speak softest words?
(and now such a soft silence it is almost perfect)

(across the table she finally smiles, i'm staring at her eyes because, yes,
that's where you find it, and holds both hands together in front of her face,
i look down to my tea)

and the tires turn so fast so fast:
i drive too quickly in slow cars, and live a fast life slowly,

decant myself from one body into another, reformulate shapes,
and eye-colours, and i'm soo pleased with yes and yes and yes,

(and everything is a yes)

and the slowest music is soo slow it's just single notes held afloat in air, hung like ornaments
i can almost reach out and touch

(she shakes her head a little while i, still looking down at my tea tease her again,
and she yelps like a hiccup she didn't expect me to say that, and her eyes grow browner)

the purr of the fan that twirls warm air around my room, and rubs my skin like invisible hands
(yes i'd prefer the hands)

and in a final silence i take silent solace.

and i sleep every night without dreams.
(and have never been soo happy)

happiestness

Naive Love Scenes I Probably Don't Have the Courage to Hope For

____1.
- Let's listen to the mass in B minor.
- again?
- at least the Kyrie.
[she shakes her head from where she's sitting on the couch, with her feet propped up]
____the baby wants to.
- oh really.
- yes really.
- and how do you know this?
- my baby loves Bach.
- your baby loves Bach? um, would that be the one that's in my body?
- yes. that same said baby.
- well that baby is bored to death of Bach.
- it she he (i really wish you'd let us
- _____________________i said no!
- fine fine, it she he is not bored of Bach.
[she pretends it annoys her, but really she loves it when i call the baby it she he, and i know that because she can't hide her smiles very well]
- come sit by me darling. i want to listen to the Kyrie.
- really?
- yes dear, come and bring me another pillow.
[i go to get her a pillow and walk back]
- but try not to rub your head all over my breasts ok? they're tender today.
- what good is this whole exercise then?
- you're a pervert.
- you're a prude.
[as i settle in with half my head on her lap, and her bulbous belly rubbing against the other half. once comfortable i stop moving. and i notice three heartbeats at once. i can't tell whose is whose. and feel so happy, and decide we can all share]


____2.
it's overcast and the beach is loud. too loud. i try and put it out of mind by concentrating on the color of the sand. the color of the sky. i can't focus on anything. she comes and sits by me, at first i'm annoyed by the intrusion. she shook the sand beneath me when she sat and i was momentarily off-balance. i grimace a little but try and hide it. she notices but doesn't hold it against me. she sits besides me a little while, letting the air around us settle. there's a nasty gust of wind but it soon passes. i consider leaving, the noise, that damned din. finally she makes her move and puts her head on my shoulder. i think for a few seconds, and decide to accept her affection, if for no other reason, i don't really want to upset her. i put my chin on her head. i feel her tension dissipate. she's calmer now. i can sense all that through my chin, and the halves of our torsos that are rubbing. one of her hands comes up behind me, touches the back of my neck, and plays with my curls. i think how in a few years there won't be enough hair left for her to play with. that makes me sadder. the other hand dips into my oversized sweater and presses my undershirt to my stomach. she's been doing that for years. i exhale. she lets my message be presented absorbed lost to the world in silence. then she leans in close to my ear and says i know baby, i know. she rubs her nose against my cheek. i nod quietly, trying not to cry. i don't want to cry. it's important that i do not cry. it just is. we're going to be ok. ok? you and me, we're going to be ok. you hear me in there? i can't speak, so i sigh again. and she knows what that means. she kisses my temple, and whispers with a wry smile good boy. and i can't help it, i emit a sorrowful laugh.


____3.
- can i daddy?
- what did your mother say?
- she said no.
- then no, you cannot.
- daddy!
- yes dear?
- no! why can't you make any decisions on your own?
- i can. but your mother's already made this one.
- what, is she like the Judge of the family?!
- yes.
- why, may i ask daddy?
- because she has better judgement.
- that's grossly unfair.
- who taught you that word?
- i heard you say it over the phone.
- well it is not grossly unfair my dear, it simply is the sound decision your mother made and i'm supporting her decision.
- then it's just gross.
- i love you baby.
- i'll love you again later.
- boo to you.
- boo to you [as she walks away]
(that's code for: we still love each other)


____4.
- i hate seeing you in the hospital.
- what? this is the happiest occasion of our lives, what are you talking about!
- i don't care if it's the birthday of the freaking world, i don't like seeing my wife in a hospital bed.
- i'm not sick, i'm pregnant.
- symptoms are the same.
- oh you're a doctor now?
- no. just a guy who doesn't like seeing his wife in _ the hospital!
- listen, i've stood by you through everything! through every damn time you're boo-hoo depressed about something, and even that time i caught you flirting with that little whore from the gym
- i was not flirting
- darling, whatever, you were, moving on, and now, you, my sweetest dear, are going to sit there and put up with the smell of placenta until i'm through giving birth to our baby. understood?
- yes dear.
- that's what i like to hear. say it for me again.
- yes dear.
- ooh yeah, mommy likes it when you say that.
- lol. you're a dickhead.
- i know. give me a boos and then go get me some water.


____5.
it's happening now, but it feels like it already has. or no, maybe... maybe it's something that's going to happen again, but is now as well... like sunrise. like something so familiar. it's hard to describe. i let go her hand and she looks back at me to see if i'm still following her. i am, yes yes, i am, i'm here. i reach out and touch the top of her neck, her shoulder. she reaches around and touches my arm. it's all touching. soo damned touchy-feely. i take two quick steps and come up behind her, and put my arms around her shoulders and neck and kiss the top of her head. all hair and that delicious smell of shampoo. she's touching my arms. i don't want to let go, but the crowd pushes us on. i can't let go. i have to touch her. every moment not touching her is not life. i reach out again and hold her wrist, then higher up, i hold her arm, it's soo soft. climb up and touch her shoulder. she slides out of my grasp and laughs as she runs a few steps. i follow her and keep up. dodge a few people in my way. it's almost time! yes dear, it is it is - but i don't care about that, i'll never care about anything else again. she looks up and the first crack is heard and she laughs delighted. she takes my arms and puts them around her again, like they were a moment ago in the crowd. i'm behind, my lips to the back of her head as she stares up at the lights and sounds. more and more people fill in the spaces around us. she squeals at the exceptionally loud cracks, her body reacting. and mine reacting to hers. i thank god for every good and bad thing, in that precise order that led me to this moment. and i sigh. she takes those seriously, and turns around and looks me straight in the eye, and says: you better appreciate me freak. and we laugh.

random words

____________faraway rung bells
scratch that__________________________(and start again somewhere else)


(or fall)__________who)___________but mumble to yourself constantly & for no reason:
Constantinople,Constantinople,Constantinople (all those places i've never been)

[time is soo distant]
_______________________(and of all the things you cannot replace

i only know that somewhere there is an ocean
________________________________that is mine.



*what the hell does any of this mean???*
(and does it matter anyway)?

the reverse-denouement

__FRANCISCO:

For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart.

_____Shakespeare












delerium, tommy oshima


this story it to be told in reverse. we are to start as old men, either embittered by sun-glare and lonely evenings, or happy-chappy smilers whose smell is a curiosity to the children who sit on our laps.

the first chapter is death, and that is the most important one. read that one and you've read it all. the second is the one that happens just before death. final words. will writing (if a person is of sound-enough mind to do so, and i know, me, if you ask me anything, i will only hum Bach back to you and giggle and say sound!, get it?). there is all that. the organization of death. polishing my two coins for the long aquatic trip. the rocky-boat. the humid dank blackness that's been waiting for me soo long behind every 3am, every car accident, every illness, every shaky moment i almost fell flat on my head hard enough. every broken everything. have you ever seen perfect blackness smile erotically as though finally satisfying an itch?

and the story will weave through the unravelling of wrinkles. Slowly unwinding the ones on my forehead back to taunter skin. restoring my eyes to humanoid colors, abating the trembling of my hands.

at some point i'll start to dance again. and perhaps if we dig back far enough, through ebb and flow of dates and times and love and unlove and happiness and that other thing, oceans of self, the whole volume of life with all its seconds and banged pinky-toes into corners of rooms, and moments of driving too fast listening to songs you won't remember the names of and being happy for reasons that defied reasons that you won't remember the sense of (and is that the saddest thing)

and finally, somewhere three-quarters of the way through... there you'll find your pictures. from the beach. the ones i vowed i'd never forget. (and then wished forever i could). with your hair held up, two hands, so it looks like you owned the sun too. and the sand. (me anyway. (but i am easy). and then you'll see that those pages are soo withered. soo crushed and bruised and worn and you can barely see anything left on them. just... a scattering of words,

the reverse genie-in-a-bottle trick.

dreams i can't make sense of

our souls are friends

reinventing physics

and ten thousand stars of the stardust of your hair

and that's all your story. me in tatters. a whole history unravelled back to dust and sighs. (i mean silence in either case). a whole person reduced to soo much nothing it took... 2 years to crawl back out.

finally the pages restore. they are uneven sized and the fonts change erratically. you don't know what you're reading. it breaks for long periods of silence and there's a mute-force to descriptions of my glares and pouts. my body starts to break back down into a pre-birth death. a different kind of death, the one i like best. the one that had no beginning. the one that leaves no trace. no memory. no misunderstanding at its wake. there was is cannot be simply nothing ever conceived or known about this sort of non-being. it is a perfect death (non-birth is).

these small oh soo white pages. (you loved the pictures of them). these early stories are soo sweet. it hurts to end in such a happy place. and in the pit of a dark continent, amongst a civil war and confused parents...

there is no back cover.

some polyphony (nonesense)

Counterproductive, as you realize once again

That the longest way is the most efficient way,
The one that looped among islands, and
You always seemed to be traveling in a circle.

____John Ashbery





untitled, .littlegirlblue


and here is the challenge, identified at last:
the big void of silence, and me to decide how to fill it,
how to expand into it, so that my skin
and its skin are one and merge peacefully (like ocean to sand),

finally clouds, and birds flapping too far away to be heard,
voices that exist inside telephones that never rang again, letters your fingers only touched once,
dreams that existed as perfect mutes (but to me sounded soo loud and soft
and within them anything was possible)

gravity of course, which creeps up from soil and tree-roots and the hot-air reflecting off too-pale sidewalks to grab at ankles and pulls down the sweat from my brow, all the things landing in the gutter besides names and pieces of papers with phone-numbers and love letters and exclamation marks, and

i want to say everything that exists in just one soo small (solitary) moment that makes a day a day, and heartbeats are such small things no one ever notices them, and seconds are soo small that no one counts, and glances and smiles, and the lack thereof, and the contracts fingertips form that hurt soo much in the end, and all those moments we live(d) and re-live(d) in our quiet quiet silent silent mute mute minds,

my whole me inside myself is such a quiet place. just the murmur of muscle tapping its head against the inside of my chest, from faraway the sound of chewing as i obliterate a piece of gum,
the sound of cars and people laughing soo soo far away,

time is the farthest thing between two people.
time is the farthest thing between two people.
time is the farthest thing between two people.

(and there is no coming back from that distance)

(how strange the sound)
(this silence)
(how strange the sound:

this distance.

nocturne

i sit and let the sounds of the day evaporate off me.
words and drum beats, laughs and giggles and those quieter moments,
hushed glances, and brand-new curious stares
(the dark of the room absorbs it all, barely flinches,
and keeps staring the other way, unconcerned with me).

and once the sound is drained out of me, (everything but my heartbeat)
i am just another shadow-covered object in a shadow-covered night,
with all its moving parts concealed.

and the sadnesses that possibly still live beneath the surface i leave to their dark pond-
an occasional bubble reaches the surface and only just audibly bursts
(and a star somewhere sneezes)

these moments grow soo quiet,
and i think how love is the only silence i like the sound of.

you don't matter, courtesy of my love for you is a stampede of horses


music makes its down defense so i don't need interfere with that one,
and my hair looks terrible and so i ignore it and it goes away and i don't need to worry about that one,
i jump not soo high because my still shaky ankle and that holds me back a little, and of course
there's the problem with losing it in large crowds of people which makes it hard for me to dance
but in my bedroom there's just me and nighttime slowly setting in (the way it is when ice melts
or people realize for the first time that they want to kiss someone) and between the two of us
there are no (and haven't ever been) secrets. (she, of course, being the one who read me my dreams out loud while i heard them in my sleep, translated, of course, into soo many things only night knows the language of)

by the way, do you recall that thing from childhood?, i can't think no other word for it but excitement, i have no reason for it other than it's a thing that suddenly turned up in my wallet (in the glove-compartment of my car), (under a crate i keep my underwear in in my wardrobe), (besides my bedside table where there's only a book by Aeschylus, a little vase from a set of two because Martha has the other, and some dirt that reminds me time is always on my side), anyway about this excitement thing that makes coffee a pastime worth looking forward to,
and nighttime an occasion to dance around your bedroom in after showering still in your underwear while glancing unashamedly at yourself in the mirror thinking not bad homey, but still some ways to go, notice the lovehandles still love you more than you them (all the while giggle at your own nonesense) heavier and heavier the blanket of night that once left me soo cold finally has started warming the pupils of my eye i dilate all day and hope my biggest largest eyes will find something sweetest and loveliest to set themselves on so that i may say in all earnestness:

dear wonderful sweetfulest you you You YOU,
kiss me here and now, and dance with me,
and sit quietest besides me so that the night can select your favorite dreams for me to see,
and my favoritest dreams for you to see and even in dream we can make love,
and in defense of myself i have nothing but miscalculation,
so instead i give you...

everything other than i that i can grasp in my two handfuls and against my chest to offer you. here you are, they are yours:

[insert alleverything here]

*___*___*

this piece preceding this was called: saturday night party piece. it was written becasue tonight is a saturday. i don't really have a party to go to, but i'm dancing around my room to Sasha's set from Amnesia (at Ibiza) this year. If that doesn't mean anything to you imagine: orgasm, laughing uncontrolably for 2 hours, orgasm (twice is better than once), sweat sweat sweat, electronic mayem in a factory in space, exorcism.

there may be a bbq with new friends. there may be coffee alone. there may be mexican food and video games. there may be a book and nightlight. there may be any.whichest.wonderfulest thing,
all of which are equally expected because what other option is there than to enjoy the nonesense you've been given and told to spell the word LIFE with?

ways of not questioning happiness; (fragments); (for you, little star)

___You must have wanted him to know
___You must have wanted the world to know

______Stina Nordenstam









____i. (nocturne)
the fan twirls. it sounds like it's raining. but it's not, it's just the fan. outside it is night. inside it is something else. not quite as dark as night is. not soo heavy either. i sit in my underwear. under the fan. and it sounds like it's raining only it's not. and the air is thick (but not heavy). and outside it is night, while inside it is a quieter place than that. my skin relaxes its tenseness so i fold and hang over the couch. in my underwear. while it doesn't rain but sounds like it does. while it looks like night but is something lighter and quieter than that.


____ii. (operational procedures)
do not fear being ridiculous. be flagrantly ridiculous. drink Red Bull before 8am, and a Frozen Coke before 10am.

drive a SMART car and listen to Scarface and Ludacris. listen to them loudly. and make obscene hand gestures and pout your lips while you drive. elderly gentlemen will frown, middle-aged ladies will be offended, and everyone else will mock, jeer, laugh uncontrollably, or at very least: experience the legnth and breadth of their world expand just minutely. (you too can expand the length and breadth of the world minutely).

look people in the eye. do not retract your hand (or knees) (or feet) when you accidentally touch someone. ignore the Definitive Guide to Body Language and lean forward when you are speaking to people - it's ok to appear excited about people. enjoy company. enjoy words. enjoy saying hello for no reason. enjoy yourself.


____iii. (open-heart surgery)
the process of aging baffles me. to experience happiness at an older age is to experience a different genus of happiness. there is a kaleidoscopic morphing in life i am still unaccustomed to. (and it makes me feel happy. and light. like i am still a new thing.) and the process of aging soo infrequently surprises me by reminding me how new a thing i really am. how stars and trees are old men, and i am still in my original packaging. even the dirt smiles paternally at my feet.
____and i hope in time i learn to not hate the book because i hate occasional chapter of it. and i wonder if there's a tiny fusion-reaction somewhere in my chest, or if i have grown one solitary branch and that is why i feel more... human.


____iv. (something i have never... )
if i died now...
(i don't want to)
(i'd feel like i might miss out on something)
i've never felt like that before.


*___*___*

this is a new thing. i don't know how to write about this. i don't know how to feel this. over the next [insert time-frame here], i am going to develop a language for it.

Feb1, i_can't_take_eyes (love** [the missingest of dark skies]

found
Originally uploaded by buradori

but first state your intent in least comprehensible terms; preferring concrete affirmations of self-directed nature to bilaterally intended communication which might bind two minds into the same space (even) tempormomentarily.

____1. it is soo lonely to be this lonely don't you agree pretty-eyed-girl?
____2. who could what an if so thoroughly why
____3. i have read your eyes, and i agree

later you can manipulate your initial approach out of memory and replace with idealized version of first-encounter to include details not experienced in the original (life) version

____1. shooting stars
____2. gucci dresses
____3. a sense of gravitational pull

and finally, depending on size(s) of insecurities to be obliviated by person 1's service(s) to person 2 (and vice versa), recommend sugar-coating silence with garrulous parroting of blah blah blahness to bathe every early early sunrise morning with the light of social amicability.

to be innocuous is to be everything. (and an insipid song on the radio blurs those uncomfortable silences you cannot tell lies in back into the corners of rooms) (and they quickly fall extra-super-completely silent as the sun reaches soon its horizon and blankets nightshadows back into morning lights not to be seen quite so thick and cuddly for a whole day now,

to be good at romance is to nothing at all but
i am a machine that has a purpose if i knew what it was i'd know myself as a toaster or a (toasted) endoscope.