fragments & notapoem

____your heart would have responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands

___The Wasteland, TS Eliot









via bigfun via the pulp girls


the weekend wants to end. it's tired and i've pushed it for every redbull, eternity-spoonfed 2am-star and covert drags of cigarette i can (quick they're coming and i throw it into the fire but i miss completely uncoordinated from being entranced staring into the fire the cigarette just rolls back towards my feet i pick it up and try again by now they see me struggling Martha makes a face you gave him one? - not a whole he responds, just sharing mine he just happened to be holding it when you walked up she shakes her head at me it's a depressant Q, dee-press-ant, is that what you want? fine. i find the gesture soo sweet i'm unable to speak for a few minutes, and retire back into my quiet shadow and listen to the campfire) and now it's time to sleep and i won't let it.

dear q this is Seattle speaking:
let me sleep q.
i am all redbrick and darkgreen trees,
i am everything you love in a city, tattooed and tightpanted and longbearded.
in welcoming you i rained for you. now, dear heaven, please, lay your head and let me sleep.


*___*___*

i am sad i don't know why.

uh-oh.


*___*___*

her email ends:
please kiss the tortured artist within you for me (i might slightly miss him) X

i smile. i miss you too.


*___*___*

notapoem


it can't slow.
the doctor looks over his glasses at me,
keep things fast son. it's better for you.

outside i hear police sirens.

_

boys + girls

I decided we wasn't goin' speak so
Why we up 3 a.m. on the phone?

Kanye & T Pain + (the Fray cover), Heartless








untitled, luca dinosaur campri


'but it's nice, just for the first time in a long time to be able to... go to a bar, or out or whatever, and just talk to girls, and mess with them a little and hava laugh and walk away... it's just... fun. candy. ya know?'
__sure. she knows. she doesn't speak, keeps her face straight, looking out at the road, she nods.
____the highway rises and falls, red brick buildings here and there. dark green trees. young men with dark coloured beards and women with distinct tattoos, i stare out the windows shaking my head slowly, 'god dammit i gotta move here'. [she nods again]

two nights ago i'm lying on the grass wrapped in god-knows-who's blanket and John Legend sings dammit lady, there's a war and a recession, the sky's a fallin and my country's a warrin, just love me already. i lean up. stare at him. my pants have a wet-patch from where i spilled my lemonade. (then proceeded to pick the pieces of ice out of the grass and suck each till i was shivering). leaning up i see the pretty girl i noticed walking in dancing with another lady. and i can't decide if it's contrived to what extent they seem oblivious of the couple hundred people around them, and the stage and the music they just dance to some beat and sneak their thighs in between the other's legs and the shorter-haired-woman grabs the other one, two hands, one on each cheek and stares soo deep into her even i get a peek of her soul and it scares me how easy it is, how prevalent... love._ i keep looking, i'm curious how long it'll take for them to kiss, they've been dancing around each others' lips for three songs now. the dancing's all but stopped, just a light, slow rocking, __(like leftover baby's clothes and tiny pink flip-flops being slowly dragged out to sea at sunset with the last family's laughter reduced to yawns and reminders that tomorrow's Monday have you packed your lunch yet dear?) __just a light, slow rocking, halcyon, you can see it nudging things together, like gravity lying on its back seducing leaves onto its chest, or magnets - dear lord all skin's just a magnet, there, they clash, lips like a zipper. fit into each other and make slow patterns. zebra stripes. dry at first, just skin to skin, but wetter, more forceful. harder. harder. tongues in throats, trying to climb mouthfirst down into another's darkness where it will be more wonderful than anything i've ever known because_ y_o_u_'re _more wonderful than anything i've ever known,

__i'm sad now i don't know why i can't explain it. i walk around looking for the brunette i saw before when i was getting my german sausage and lemonade, please- with ice? sure why not (after i spill the drink i can still suck the ice out of the grass and it will be a tremendous consolation to me) but she's not around. dark brown hair and tiny denim shorts. tanned skin and these days all i can think about - every 2.3 minutes i remember - kissing up women's legs, up the inside of their thighs, the crevice at the top, along the pubis - how it's firmer, more muscle than i'd ever thought when i first kissed a girl there, a small white tshirt and light blue eyes and the wind making her hair wild and short and curves in all the right places and delicious __Martha gives me a dirty look, shakes her head, he likes jiggly girls she says to our friend, who smirks. it's sunset and i watch her walk away, descend down some stairs, baby's toy : sunset : seduced by a too-much-larger than me tide : the sky/ocean soo large : convincing, how persuasive - no words, mine or otherwise have a chance, the top of her head disappears. So here i am, looking around, not finding anyone. i walk farther and use the bathroom. smile at a woman by the bar, i'm having trouble speaking tea coffee? best i can manage. she looks around, goes out back, returns, sorry dear, just... wine mostly. i nod. it is a winery afterall.

i buy a single scoop of strawberry icecream and talk to the man who sells it to me about the Counting Crows. i feel funny and laugh at his jokes only out of time. out of sync. not like the in-love-lesbians. i sit at the top of the amphitheater and stare at John Legend's drummer a while. deal with my iceacrem. try and ignore the wet patch of lemonade on my pants. the phrase: the sky's falling, love me already which makes me want to propose to the next gorgeous somebody i see and take her hand and say you my dear, yes you, the world is just another tomorrow followed by another(another) and i promise you nothing exceedingly extraordinary except us but it'll be wonderful even without it (exceedingly extraordinariness) why not, why wouldn't it, dammit girl, there're a dozen wars and we're not getting any younger and youth is soo beautiful we ought spend it all naked and laughing and let's go right now right now let's go we'll jut get in a car and drive and wake up in Honduras and it'll be every wonderful thing we never thought possible and what difference does anything at all make just love me already.

yeah it's different for me though i say. how so? she asks. i haven't really been in a relationship thingee for like... since... 2004ish. really it's 2003. i just... i need this. just to laugh with someone and watch movies and try and kiss her feet because she tells me she's weirded out by it. she shakes her head imperceptibly. if you say so. i raise my eyebrow. i do. that is what i say. so. so. i turn up the radio and roll down my window and start hollering about a little bar we pass named little bar that i think would be cool to hang out at.

fun.
candy.

and the lesbians can't control anything. physics. damn physics. runs things ya know. two people fall into the fast lane, it just goes from there.

fun and candy seem like small words.
all this makes me kinda sad.

bye.

People i wish well as my ADD plays up at the departure lounge of LAX as i wait for my flight to Seattle and mostly gawk at beautiful women whom i...

indiscriminately want to kiss [end of title fades into

start of post] I arrive late as always.usual run off the bus ; e-boarding? sure why not i look up the woman who checks my ID and boarding pass has tricolor eyes i stare into while she surveys my boarding passes, drivers license, then looks up to my face again, i smile big and cheesy i'd feel really good about the world(myself) if i could make you smile before i walk away? but she doesn't smile - maybe a Mona Lisa, but i can't tell it's too hard to tell so thanksyou i say and walk off - in the next isle a man does the same job he stands erect with chest pushed out i don't find him pompous or power-wielding at all more he's thorough and noble thankyou sir he says to a rushed looking Iranian man who smiles and darts off, sir, thankyou i say and emphasize you he looks at me funny which makes me feel a little funny for having said it so i walk away.

She walks past me summer-dress short hair and red canvas shoes, skin brown and healthy : dear Lordie, i haven't loved anything this much since i discovered blueberry muffins back in 2000. Sweetheart my dearest, you are my favorite, but she hasn't received my telepathic love-letter she's walking away now i turn around just to make sure she existed at all it's better this way my dear, no way in middle-earth i could sit opposite you for a whole coffee/meal/parkbench-conversation, simply impossible, you in the sunlight with all your youth and miracle under that and inside that and one with that dress and shoes and your hair a little damp and skin a little slippery (it is hot), it's no pretty sight when i eventually implode can barely control myself within 3-minutes no doubt i'm sure i would, and when i get like that i mustmustmustmust kisskiss and if of course (as always) you kiss me back funnylike or awkward i'd be distraught and the time-space-Q continuum would be completely negated and all future(s) would be lost - can't have that goodbye my love... i turn back around too fast my backpack is fine but i'm holding a weekend bag by the handles it twirls away from me (centripetal motion) and bumps a caucasian man the size of a hillock with clean blond crew-cut gelled back too neatly hair, denim shorts, sneakers, and an Ed Hardy tshirt ; i smile i'm sorry sir (but i had to check she was real) no problemo he says as he walks away two massive arms appear by his sides i notice them out of nowhere red (like crab claws) from all the tattoos but they make no sense on him, completely incoherent - they seem like a skin-tone relic from a former life (i'm glad you were nice it has assuaged my prejudice of you - dear mankind: i am soo terribly sorry if you wear an Ed Hardy tshirt i am judging you)

At Starbucks, all through security blahblah, finally relaxed, thankyou Lordie my life is great (MLIG) the Latino girl at the counter is delicious my my hello hello i say
__- hi what can i get you?
__- lemon et poppy seed muffin and a vanilla latte please
__- what size? [i point] - grande. she says. - grande. i echo and not wanting to leave it there i see her green nail polish when she comes back with my lemon et poppy seed be honest did you do your nails that colour to match your uniform? she looks at me funny, i give my award-winning mischeivous slash adorable smile, she smiles too, but doesn't say anything oh it's totally ok, i think your enthusiasm alone should win you the employee of the month hands down- i mean, if that doesn't do it what will? she giggles but in any case you're all ready for St. Patrick's day, think of it as a bonus. If i were an Irishman or a leprechaun you'd be irresistible.
__- exactly. she's smiling too much to speak clearly , saucepan-heated raw sugar brown with a dash of cherry cordial red in her cheeks from me messing with her
__- in any case you'll be ready
__- i'm ready now! she exclaims, accidentally with too much force, the first thing she's managed to muster oh lookatchyou i say with a proud smile sexy never left huh? She's stumped again. I say thankyou miss (as an aside: i love Paris, all that mademoiselle and monsieur speak gets one in the make-out and maybe touch your boobies through your black slip dress as i take off my suit jacket kinda mood) hey!, hey... she stops me but she's stumped again trying to finish her sentence have a good day she says almost as a question and you with a slight nod i walk away all clouds and marshmallows on the inside only to bump full-body face-first into a small Asian woman probably Chinese androgynous dressed mostly male in straight leg pristine denim pants and a baggy button up shirt, sneakers, bum-bag, and a neatly cut clearly confined bundle of graying hair my heart skips three beats she is soo delightful i think i've upset a swan. i put my hand on her shoulder gently and apologize soo sincerely it heightens the moment turning farce into momentarily-dramatic-but-not-cheesy-Life. Pardon me i say she nods in response and i nod in response to her nod and walk on ; past a curvy woman in a hot pink top curvy in all the right ways looks like a mom she has that softness in her face which looks like probably love ; and sit besides a varicose-veined woman very late 40's-maybe, skin old and tanned deep brown , light-blue dress light-blue toenails with lightning bolts drawn on them in glittery silver also in light blue velcro-sandals with blond hair ; looks like she's on her way to a gin&tonic and maybe losing $400-even in Las Vegas or with some old dear friends in Florida over a game of bridge before meeting Mr-high-school-made-out-twice-now-has-a-moderate-gut-but-a-Porsche-and-very-handsome-eyes for dinner wine and sex gets better with age i'm sure (i'm assuming) (i'm hoping) i'll need to feel young more desperately later (older i get) than i need to feel alive with it now
____(as a sidenote: she hauls herself off me ew i'm gross she says why i ask still trying to kiss her breasts (and her incessantly grabbing me with both hands on my ears hey Mr: my face is here ok? while i nod yesyes, of course dear kiss twice her lips once her nose and then find myself back in her chest) because i'm all sweaty, why do you last soo long? and i look up (from her breasts again, she shakes her head) and smile playfully as i try and lift her arm and lick her armpit grossgrossgross!! she yelps fidgeting in spasms now she's on her stomach with arms jammed tight by her sides i can't get to her pits i laugh gloriously (uh-oh she knows i've thought-up something most horrible to do to her) in one swoop i bite clean-ripe-and-wholesome a mouthful of her naked buttock oh my _ eff! God! eff you you f*cker! me laughing naked and equally sweaty diving off the bed to avoid her kicks)

Four seats down a young Asian woman describes some procedure meticulously into her cellphone yes, yes, and then i repackaged it with transparent packing tape not the other kind, the masking tape stuff not that kind, i used the more secure , and double taped everything, twice. so that's four times in total, and the box was closed as tightly as possible and behind her a woman who is attractive only because she tried really really hard to be sits sideways on a seat and expresses repeatedly how little she believes i don't believe it. _I don't. No. Not _at _all, __just don't believe it. Dear God. __That's what I said, _don't __no __don't believe _God _it. I do _not be _leave it. __No. __No way. _Can't. believe. _Don't. (very ostinato- Prokofiev would be proud)
__I turn around and see the most average looking man i've ever seen even looking at him i don't remember what he looks like long enough to write it down he has his ipod in and flips through an average-person-magazine. But on his shoulder a slightly chubby girl's face rests fully asleep - i'm addicted to eyelids i can't help it she glows she's wonderful in every way - you are the luckiest man alive i telepathically tell him but he just keeps flipping through his average-person-magazine you fool! make sure you kiss her hands when she wakes up! ok? brown hair half across her face she sleeps perfectly motionless i look to see if her breasts heave when she inhales but can't see and so look away.

On the plane the steward stares at me a little too long and smiles like i'm a breakfast-lunch-AND-dinner-roll with chocolate cake and a coupon for two free drinks why hello, mister (and just because i promised Ashley i'd tell everyone i meet i'm the gayest man alive only i f*ck exclusively sailors and pirates- and the scoundrels, miscreants, nomads, and loner outcasts of the high seas on broke-back tidal waves in small boats i rock like Bon Jovi, or small quarters in huge tankers whose potholes i steam up, so what the eff i think i go with it no-one ever believes me anyway i don't know why they don't make pants any tighter than mine)
__- hiya
__- having a good day?
__- yessir __i was late as all heck, just glad to have made the flight
__- mmm-hmm, so am i
__- ha! [i laugh as i walk past him, at my back he says
__- i luurve your glasses.
__- thanksbro [i say.
Later he's walking past and there's turbulence and he sits besides me, introduces himself Paul, shakes me hand (in total he'll have shaken my hand 8 times before i get off the plane, and patted my shoulder thrice), all very courteously we talk about Australia and the Great Barrier Reef and Dallas, TX and how i got these glasses because anyone who puts them on looks immediately smarter and i could do with people thinking i'm a little smarter i guess (ha! he laughs, oh Quue, he stretches it out like that, you _ are _ heeelarious). and he gets up and gets me another Sprite
__- Quuue, you don't drink?
__- no sir _why? you trying to get a girl drunk?
__- Quuue! you. Are. Terrible!
__- yessir.
__- you have any friends in Texas?, __if you do, you must come and i can show you around, this here [points to a woman sitting besides him in a stewardess outfit] this is my new-friend Carol, we met on Wednesday, but I'm showing her around Dallas tomorrow
__- [i think honestly] sadly Paul, got no buddies in Dallas
__- shame shame Qqquue. [gets up to leave - as he does this - more turbulence and he falls into a seat just near me] oh dearie me, look at that wonchya, i almost landed in Quue's lap! my my my. [Carol and I laugh]

friday kicks ass.

insomnial proclivity (an exercise in faulty-grammar)

the smashing pumpkins, meepmeep


because of my no-don't-feel-like-it sleeplessness, it is very night, as night as night gets, and i, reclined in an uncomfortable position on an uncomfortable bed in a mostly empty room (except for my half-opened bag on the floor, a small old-as-only-at-your-grandparent's-house-old plastic dirty tablette thing with an also old-as-your-grandparent's-house fan turning) and the window open so what there is left of air will maybe some of it find its way into my roomthing that i'm sleeplessing in, only now it smells like marijuana, where it is as night as night gets and maybe even more so than that.

having self-managed an overwhelming bout of aphrodisia i am left wondering why i don't write a story about a haunted-house. if not that, then a story titled all my best friends are septuagenarians, if not that then something else then but equally wonderful. i cannot though, writering is a thing i can only do when i am mostly alone because the writering is a relic of living in a half-way-world a place most people don't know about that exists kinda on the other side of your bed you know the side the side you never bother to vacuum over there, it's like being half-way-here but also not like half-visibility, it is a place where you're half-alive and half alive but somewhere else distant from everyone it is a very personal place very much just-yourself and sometimes very lonely if accessed the right way. i cannot be there if people speak to me talk to me write to me text me call me from farther rooms or in anyway interact with me like now there is much of that and i don't really mind because i want to see you. so. writering must wait for later.

gosh i am soo tired even in this more-comfortable-than-previous-sitting-position on this uncomfortable bed i can barely hold myself erect (not the aphrodisia, i just mean in general leaning up against the wall but almost falling over) and these words whatever is their point other than to record the scattered almost not-quite maybe reconsider half-worth-not-worth meaning(ful)(less)(est) moment of some(no)body's (half)life that in and of itself is worth an infinity worth of death or nonexistence which i prayed incessantly for for a couple of years back but now think is a fate worse than a teenager falling in love with you and texting you 14 times a day telling you all about it. (i wouldn't wish that on my evilest most nefarious sometimes friend).

if not most my best friends are septuagenarians than at least a story that includes threesomes and amphetamines and people running on beaches rocks instead of sand and heavy thick looking waves and beautiful women's lips and my sister one complimentary night in the loony-bin and my therapist says i have narcissistic personality disorder my psychiatrist says i have ADD-ADHD spectrum disorder my sister thinks i'm mad awesome and i need to rock-on till i drop-dead and my mom's pretty sure i'm just a lazy piece of sh*t (after which we all laugh as i cut myself a piece of cake and am ordered to make the tea darker in the future it is too light this time and last time too was too light)

these moments are perhaps (not) worth recording. i don't know. i don't know. i don't know. god they are tiny minuscule almost-never-happened moments the bread crumbs of our days no one ever remembers why the fu*k would i stay up till 4am i know someone's going to wake me at 8 tomorrow and i'm busy as an ambitious pimp on a public-holiday soon as the sun goes up in a few hours (but really i am craving more cake but i can't walk downstairs my sister's dog is god-damned Cerberus himself (only the girl poodle version ugly as the orphan kid no one wanted but endearing as all hell i love anything that loves my sister that damned dog loves my sister more than bitch-life itself when my sister goes out she sits under my sister's wheelchair or looks sadly out the window and waits waits dog-tail wagging soon as a car turns into the driveway barking mad lunatic raver on too much speed hello hello owner my love love my wonderfulest welcome home i am happy you are here barking viciously at me god dammit dog i have to lift her out the car you bark at me again i'll kick you in that ugly-assed-poodle-face of yours is that what you want? my sister says be nice Q that's my Bella. yes. fine. reunited at last the bitch and the handicapped retire to the latter's bedroom to recount the day's nonadventures to one another in notebooks over ipods and not-dark-enough-even-now tea (i don't care i cut my cake and am about to eat it too).

i know am i writering in funny-Q-speak-language but this time of night this is the only language that's spoken if you don't believe me hang around till 4am then come back and try and hava read it'll make perfect sense at 4am you can speak Q (and also leprechaun, fairy-floss, haunted-house, caterpillar, dark grass, suburbanite-emo-self-destruct-loathing-button-drunkard-initiatesequence-mass-boom-GO!. (but i'm not speaking that right now no where near that i'm speaking the opposite this is the language of chirpy-happy Q has too much to absorb say damn that fan makes a racket but brings me great solace in the nightest moment(s) or all night.

dear world:
you are too hot and i have a rash the size of Bangkok-Herpes from the damp San Fernadino Valley air, and of course my pockets are never deep enough and my car is soo dirty i can barely see out the front windshield, i have to be up sooner than i'd like and the three craziest people i know (grandma, ma, sis) are all screaming at each other all day for no reason about the strength of tea and even Jesus doesn't care what else while the dog barks and the cat (no one knows where she came from we just call her Kitty) keeps getting stuck in the pantry and i keep thinking why on earth would a rational person choose to come here for a holiday, and but then i remember i am not a sane rational reasonable person at all so i feel better about it and smile a crescent of yellowing enamel in the nighttime no one will ever know about or see or maybe didn't even happen it was soo in passing.

good night dear world.
good night dear loveliness.

mother-son banter as you drive around LA

untitled, Rodion


__- what is that?
__- redbull.
__- i see that, that's what it says on the can.
__- then why ask?
__- what is it? it's one of those energy drinks isn't it?
__- yes.
__- why couldn't you just say that?
__- because you already knew.
__- i want a taste.
____[she sips, then hands it back]
__- did you like it?
__- no.__ no wonder you have no appetite.
____[shrug]
____is this your second?
__- third.
__- third? we haven't even loaded all the shopping yet how have you had three?
__- one in line. one walking towards the car. this is the third.
__- what if your heart stops?
__- the amphetamines haven't stopped it, i think we're safe.
__- you can't have three.
__- i just did. [throws can away]
__- you can't.
__- i just did.
__- it's going to stop your heart.
__- my psychiatrist says as long as i restrict myself to stimulants, i can have whatever i want.
__- what does that mean?
__- the stimulant family.
__- and who are the 'members' of the stimulant family?
__- this is the baby- caffeine [holds up remaining can], momma is amphetamine, and daddy is cocaine.
__- i'll kill you.
__- ...
__- i'll kill you. then you'll be dead. you want that? is that what you want you want to be dead from being killed?
____[smirk]
____you better have your last can. it's better if you just die from that so i don't have to kill you myself, i don't want to get this dress dirty.
____[laughter ensues]


*___*___*

__- you know how you pretty much live in America now?
__- i don't live here i'm just here alot.
__- fine. so you know how you're here alot?
__- yes.
__- i'm going to trade-in your van back home.
__- fine. just get something easy to drive, not too big and good on gas. also cheap on parts and service. ok?
__- yeah. __you see that car over there? [points to a Ford F350 roughly the size of a stegosaurus]
__- i'm looking for a car, i'm not seeing a car.
__- right there, the blue-truck
__- yeah that is not contemplated under the definition of 'car'.
__- i'm gonna trade it in for that ok?
__- you disappoint me son. i really thought you'd seize your oppotunity to get a gypsy caravan to extend your room.
__- oh, they're too small, i was thinking of getting a school bus like that [points to yellow schoolbus]
__- that's lame, it doesn't even have a built-in toilet.
__- yeah but it has lots of windows.
__- you're a thinker, a real thinker son i'm soo proud of you.


*___*___*

__- why are you soo excited?
__- these tshirts cost 99c.
__- since when do you wear 99c tshirts?
__- since my underwear cost $7.
__- are you wearing designer underwear?
__- ... yeah they're Ralph Lauren.
__- i was gonna say. what kinda idiot pays $7 for underwear.
__- are you crazy?, they cost $40 in Australia
__- that's 7 times 5.7 worth more idiocy than even you.
__- did you just do that in your head?
__- yeah. one day when you learn the value of money and have to budget your accounts, you'll also learn to divide.


*___*___*

__- turn here.
__- where?
__- here.
__- where?
__- there- you passed it.
__- dammit.
__- i'm glad you got those new glasses, they make soo much difference.


*___*___*

__- i thought we're just going out for lunch.
__- we did go out for lunch.
__- yeah, about 4 hours ago.
__- do you have a problem with helping your mom run some errands?
__- some errands? dude, we've been to the 99c store, Walmart, ValuePlus, Ralphs AND Vons, two persian markets, and two kebab shops
__- what do you want from me the bread smells nicer at this one.
__- eff my elle mom. eff _ my _ elle.
__- save the effing for your new whoever temporarily misguided girlfriend [cracks up laughing]
__- oh you think you're soo hip.
__- __what do you hate in life?
__- uhm... driving i suppose. i hate driving.
__- me too, i hate driving. and pushing shopping trolleys, i always prefer to have someone shop with me so they can push the trolley. oh, also i hate pumping gas. Q, remind me, we need to get gas on the way home.
__- (eff my elle)
____[she smirks proudly]

anti-climax

so right. yes. hello. right. uhm, hi. been a while. yes. long while. long while. sure i've missed you, sure i have (lie). i haven't. i really haven't. even now i have nothing to say. firstly, i had nothing to say because i was studying. for exams. that was intense. wow. yeah, lots of study. also some play. which meant i didn't sleep. no need for sleep. put those amphetamines to good use. but it's not enough, better washed down with energy drinks and a couple of caffeine pills. oh i must be kidding, i can't possibly be serious. (except i am). and then, 50 hours later, i finally get home (worried the whole time i'm going to crash the car and die because my leg won't stop shaking my knee keeps hitting the steering wheel. i stumble into the house and i eat a banana, thinking i ought eat something that doesn't have a stimulant as its main chemical constituent) and sit on my couch a moment and drink tea with 14 cookies each dipped in the tea first and then soft and soggy and warm and wonderful next thing i know it's morning. like i said. fun.

so clearly, i didn't have it in mind to writering about anything.

and then, now, where am i, oh yeah, free-refills and unlimited downloads it's great to be in LA but too warm i hate summer hate it hate it hate it, and all i want to do is for no one to talk to me so i can sleep and read. sleep and read sleep and read maybe a pinkberry with Ashley and a coffee with Monz and then sleep and read and sleep and read and instead: no. drama drama drama all other people's who love it love it love it and then whinge and whine about how terrible it all is bullshit you love it soo much you can't go twelve days with concocting some for yourself i say and they all give me dirty looks and whinge and whine some more about how unfair it all is bullshit i say then try and turn to walk away to read my book in my bed wearing my dark-red calvin klein boxers which are wonderful to sleep in and look great because i am finally junkie-thin and after a 3-day comedown eating food like a recently-no-longer-homeless person would and i think i might fatten up a little for three weeks so when i get back to school and amphetamine land i will just lose it again anyway.

oh god, it is too warm here i have less than nothing to say but now that i'm writing i can remember a story or two i suppose i should come back and writer them up next chance i have get want make create concoct.

bye.

unslept rambling.

__17
__It came on time.

___The Scripture of the Golden Eternity, Jack Kerouac













friday night, Hollis Brown Thornton


there are will be other ways. if not this one, then maybe the next bus. the late bus, last one- huffing and puffing mechanical beast, all metal and hazy windows, and the bright lights on the inside. and life is a fantasy made of itself. on the bus, these two women, one not-quite-30, the other a decade older. they're all just skanks nowadays, f*cking whores ya know? keep it ta ya'selves ladies. you should see my sista, littlest one, worst of 'em all. a toddler, cute little munchkin, tries to launch herself off her mother's lap. sit still will ya - already can't keep ya where ya s'pose tobe. i smile into the book i'm reading, lifting it higher to cover my face.

and life is a fantasy made of itself. i clean my bathroom, with a cloth around my sink, dust and hair and little nail-clipping around. love the smell of glass-cleaner. funny how you never notice how dirty things get. i sit in the sun and drink my tea. besides me J's on the computer typing away. Behind me someone else toying with photoshop. on a reclining chair, on the grass, reading the Obama autobiography. everyone soo quiet. talking to spring in their own ways. i don't tinker with anything i'm just sitting there. leaning on my coffee mug i can barely sit up and i have my chin in the mug, covering the opening entirely it's warming up my chin quite warm now very pleasant.

tiredtiredtired. haven't slept in days. we get in the car i have a bundle of papers with me and an energy drink. i drive with the windows down and take 10mg and open the can, wash it down. Dude, are you having amphetamines and an energy drink for breakfast? i smile. i don't mean to, but i do. i'm actually sad. yeah. guess i am. Dave shakes his head at me from the passenger seat, hey you got ATLiens on your ipod? nod. they ain't make no pills for what i've got i wanna say. nothing to clear up the lines that are never straight. the car sounds unhealthy. labours on. i finish the can in three gulps and throw the can behind me.

i make my bed. slowly. for no reason at all. it's almost 7pm. if i sleep here tonight i'll sleep soon. but i'll probably fall asleep in her bed again, but it doesn't matter. could be the same bed, the same night, the same everything, but when i get into a made-bed, night just seems a little special. a bow. or well wrapped gift- makes it seem soo much nicer. all my stars just where i want them. i'm terrified when i do try and sleep, last time it was... 4:56am when i got into bed, when it all stops, the music and the tea and sound of pens scribbling or pages turning or tapping on computers or televisions on and cars out by the highway when it all stops it's just me in a really dark room with a heartrate that's... __it can't be, soo fast it worries me.

she smokes. he doesn't have much to say so he doesn't. she tries to read him and fails. hey, what's on your mind? he doesn't look at her. just keeps staring off, with his eyes unfocused, you know when it's just a blur your see but it's soo... captivating you don't want to focus them back up, his Tiresias-eyes, you know, being alive is an art. she doesn't understand what he means, but only that it must have been something important. she remembers she's holding a cigarette and she takes another drag.

and life is a fantasy made of itself. growing itself out of itself. news arms out of thursdays and saturday's blue-eye winks a new sunday morning out of nothing and hands it to you on a platter of such vast darkness, i am in a new place you can't understand- entire night, the whole of it, all 7pm till 6am is nothing for me now. eyeblink. i kiss her eyelid and lie facing the wall a little while, she hoggs all the blanket, she turns me towards her a few moments later and smiles and says it's 8. i nod. a new day out of itself. constantly breaking faces and mirrors and dropping things and new things fall out of and slide past and stand next to and

hey q, yeah, you seem soo out of it, you ok? i nod. yeah, i'm actually really good. really?, you've just been sitting there staring away. i shrug. you've just been reading. what are you thinking? dear god today is a miracle i think to myself. i shuffle my shoes.

so what's next then?

i'm done making the bed. i look around. it's fine. it's dark now. i've had the windows open, so the smell of stale air has dissipated. i collapse on my couch, stare at the ceiling.

today's gone.

nothing to be done about that.

in a minute i'll shower. shave. and go kiss every freckle on her face.

experiments in the destruction of language [i hate exams pt1]

truth i am still upset very much so after dinner we kiss and she says you really need to study don't you looking at me like obviously who cares about study when there is a world where night is made of skin and tea and pillows and

__[this music is the insanity of all insanity- minimal bleepy darkdark slides slick as washing-machine detergent water, sort of passing through life a million miles a minute giving a cursory glance at everything you ought to know better to leave behind to ignore forget if there is a sound like this in the universe then super duper yay hurrah let's just throw our clothes off and dance just you and i and whoever and also whoever else like epileptics in the street and on cars howling and raging and i myself am soo damn lost can't tell coconut from remote control__]

i'm still looking at her thinking i shouldn't be looking because looking is the thing that got me into this in the first place. i kiss her once on each cheek and then her lips. i go to pull away and she grabs my head, one hand on each cheek and pushes her tongue in my mouth and i respond ofcourse ofcourse who doesn't/wouldn't/you'd be crazy, and i'm lost again (there's no wind where i'm lost to) and i open my eyes, and she smiles and she says

__[no one seems to understand it's not music it'snot it'snot it's my little way out of this smalltime no-name never-heard-of ME (who da hell is that anyway?. it's sonically engineered for me to lose my sh*t so nothing is the same - in the library i lean back in my chair and exhale and put both hands up in the air with fingers slightly separated oh god Q's trippin again Ashley says to Dave and Dave laughs go boi!! i smile my headphones still on slowly leaning from one side to the other about eight times slower than the music's going because it's like insect noises when you can listen you can hear__]

outside it's all spring evening and springlike - she doesn't say anything, she just looks at me. go study, it's ok. i kiss her eyelid. i think i like that more than she does but i like it a ton if not more so i do it all the time anyway. i hate you by the way she says as i step out her garage and she presses the button and the door starts to close on me good thing we're just friends she says with a cheeky smile she knows cause i told her the day she decides we're friends is the day i delete her number i have too many friends.

__[otherwise there must be a redeeming feature to this room it's not the coffee table full of books and empty tea-mug and half-filled water bottle and pens and paper with scribbles and a little bottle of dexamphetamine and the music makes it all seem useless and limp in the shower i danced a little to it i had it up loud and it reminded me of plutonium or a ritual fire-dance or the death and toil of too much youth without a place to go__]

i stare at the phone. or my car keys. the other morning i get home at 10, you just getting home now he says with a smile on his face, and i, exhausted and exhausted nod still in pyjamas and suddenly feeling very alone you just get up? i rub my eyes no, been up since 8 i say, but morning's a great time for kissing greater if not est - why are you hugging the wall, turn around she says and takes my hand and i turn soo sleepy-eyed i can't tell Post-Colonialism from pepsi-cola, eventually it occurs to me outside somewhere there's an exam with my name on it.

he's too intense.
_really?
yeah.
_how so?
i don't know. just is.
_i'm surprised you don't think i'm too intense.
you?
_yeah.
but you're always joking around with me.
[it's true, all we do is tease each other]
_guess so.
[nods]

_don't hate me.
why not?
_i'm going to kiss you more later.
i'll stop hating you for a little while then so you can kiss me later.
_i can live with that.
that's all you get.

c'mon q. gotta study. gotta gotta.
there's no pill in the world that can make me focus.

ideas for novel(s) i may(not) oneday write

still, i keep having halfideas. they annoy me because i can't quite delineate what they are. i don't see them clearly as shapes or characters or titles or anything that neat. instead it's a mush of words and phrases in the distance.


(1)
time is a joke. a lost set of keys, so that when they actually are in your pocket- its sharp and scratches your thigh and despite its jutting out of your pant pockets- brings some comfort. and then gone. just when you need them.

people waking up and the names of the week make no sense anymore so yesterday was called Theordore and today is Suwensday. and waking up in parks, and it being last year sometime and watching the sunset waiting for my sister (which only happened a few minutes ago) and then being back in the room with the flourescent lights and then the beach with the girl and freezing cold with my pants half undone (which only happened a few minutes ago).

and then stops.
and you wait for it. and every hour is 14 episodes of southpark long, and you listen to a CD nineteen times in full and it's still only 9am. so you shower. and the sun is stuck at midmorning and everytime you look out your window the white car is still parked there and it's not that you have no friends in this city, it must be that your cellphone reception has been redirected to Mars so some ratlike amphibian is talking to all the totally cool people who are (not)calling for me right now.

i swear a year ago...
i just don't get it.


(2)
__- it's a great thing you're not a rockstar or something.
__- what?, why?
__- you're the kinda guy who'd leave behind a string of dead hookers and black eyes.
[Q, remember to use that line later]


(3)
and my sister one flew too close to the cuckoo's nest or stopped by edge and peeked in and screamed and screamed like some bad-dream that afterwards you can laugh about maybe because your brother can't think of anything else to say but dear lord tell me you've learnt your lesson! and she laughs in sharp stabs Ha!. Ha!. Ha!. Ha!. and her voice i hate and can't stand and yet there's no sound i look forward to more and despite the heaviness of everything i'd die to have lost her. __(it's a story i refuse to stop telling)


(4)
ravers, swaying and stumbling, their thighs barely able to support them into the 4am McDonalds; and me with my unslept unshaven clarity staring and the two gorgeous girls with the barefeet, blackdress and bluedress, walk in and stare at me and make blow-job gestures and laugh to themselves and i smile. and they smile and wave hello and i smile and wave hello and i knew it, life always was just an erotic noir pantomime and i've been imagining everyone's voices.


(5)
i have no idea where she came from or who manufactured her face so that everytime i see it i must kiss a part of it, if not a lip an eyelid, if not that an ear or a hair-covered temple or just stare you stare a lot she says what are you thinking about she asks and i think: freckles will be the death of me , and i think: many dictionary will pay for the price of your blueblue eyes , and i think: i prefer everyone else i don't give a damn either way if they call back or not but you you are different i actually likelike you. and i say i've never known it to be soo quiet. she doesn't know what to say, so i try and kiss her again.


(6)
this never-to-be-written(but maybe once twice attempted to be) novel should be about loudness and silence in heads. whirling noises. not schizophrenia or anything quite so dramatic. i'm thinking more just... overcrowded, undigested thoughts. and all the places we try and stuff them away, like all the clothes hanging over the chair on the floor and couch and coffee table and i pick them up and just stuff them into plastic milk-crates i have in my closet and hope to forget they ever existed. like that. or, that there, that bottle of rum is too full. if it were empty we could hide a few in there. he scratches the back of his ear. what do we do?, seems a waste to spill it all out.


(7)
maybe i'll call it the redemption machine.

she bends over the sink and bleeds. says she never had much patience for grammar or punctuation, but her blood clotting wouldn't be too much to ask for. we text back and forth, and finally i work out it has nothing to do with the purported mountain of blow she claims to have procured, which i still doubt. i imagine little bloody marks on the keypad of her phone. i doubt a lot about her. but then, she said she lived in Moscow and one day i pick her up and she's speaking Russian on the phone, and when i go over to her room the other night there's a yearbook from her school. for now, i imagine the sound of water running, and the blood of her nose staining her lips and rose coloured stains around her sink. but the sound of the water running.

and always, our whole lives, never ceasing, never stopping, the beeps of our cellphones. (and the long silent semicolons in between each one)

short-story

__- i have to go.
__- yes.
__- i really do.
__- i know. go; _you need to study.
__-_ study. _,_yes.
__-___yes.

[eye meets eye. they kiss some more. he's holding the sides of her head with both hands, fingers like the roots of a tree in her hair. with a sigh it ends.]

__- but i do.
__- you should.
__- yes. __right. veryright.

[he stares off at nothing in particular across the street somewhere]
__- you ok?

______hello?

__- hiya babyface. [he smiles]
[she smiles]

_____here we go again.


*___*___*

i can say this because i am me. because i am broke because i am addicted to books and lonely because i am addicted to skin and hungry because i live off amphetamines and coffee and cough-drops. because every time i put my hands in my pockets my fingertips are sandy and because my eyes are darkish-blue puff balls that look like large flies and because my dad refuses to give up his dream of me and my sister's the first one to get locked up. because my car makes odd noises and all the lights on the dash are possessed so they light-up for no reason and the moon is in a different spot every night and last time i looked up it was yesterday dinner. i say this because time is fragmented and every now and then i notice something and then i am gone again and one moment i am in a car kissing and the next i am in a library studying and the one after i am sitting on the grass and have no idea who dressed me and where my shoes are. i can say :

it'll be fine.
__we'll work it out.
___(eventually.


*___*___*

__- maybe if you don't look at me.
__- what?
__- if i look at you i have to kiss you.
__- how's that my fault?
__- it's not.

[she looks away. pretending to be annoyed. some hair falls across her cheek. he leans in close, and rests his forehead against her ear. she turns a little. they open their mouths and breathe each others air]


*___*___*

it's morning.

____someone with blonde hair is smiling at me, have you had lunch yet wanna gr

the coffee in my hand is trembling. it is making my hand shake too. i should return it.


___i'm sitting in a car. __i gotta go. _study.

it's morning ______________it's saturday i'm dusting my piano

have you eaten?
no.
when'd you last eat?

____________i'm late.

the library is warm. __when i leave it's cold and i don't know where my car is.

____stop being silly Q, that was yesterday!
_really?)

__it's dark.
it's light.
_in the car. _i remember setting my bag down. __(coffee. _late. _cold. _silly yesterday Q!

it's morning.
_when'd you last eat?

___blonde hair. _still looking at me. _what?, sorry sosorry, i missed that-

___________i'm late. _______the library is cold.


in the car. ___gotta go sweetie. yesyes..

___________it's a purple coloured book. __shelf. ___library.

it's morning?
_stop being silly Q, that was yesterday!


*___*___*

__- i'm not going to open my eyes.
__- uuhm. ok.
__- this is the only way. i just have to get out with my eyes closed.
__- yes. i don't want to keep you from your study.
__- yes. __what i'll do, i'll just get out.
__- right.
__- right. __yes. __ok. __uhm; bye.
__- _...bye.
[they kiss. _they stop. _he turns his head, _opens cardoor. _it's cold.

his eyes are closed.

__here we go again.

_

thoughts (fragments)

these fragments i have shored against my ruins

____the Wasteland, Eliot












break-up, Federico Erra


my sister flew one flew too close over the cuckoo's nest. and my mom lies exhausted and mumbles as she tells me the story and i say, well with all your hollerin i was half worried they'd throw you in right with her. she doesn't laugh. smiles briefly. my sister laughs. she thinks it's hilarious. my sister laughs in pizzicatto. ha!. ha!. ha!. __(poor mom.
- have you learnt your lesson?, what have we told you about opening your big mouth?. there are consequences.
- i know i know. i know. iknowiknow. ok? i have LEARNT my lesson.
____- nonesense, you never learn. (that's mom interjecting).


*___*___*

"Burke, always genial and shrewd, taught me to ask: What is the poet (or critic) trying to do for herself, as a person, by writing her poem or essay? What Crane, in his seven-year agon (1923-1930) to compose The Bridge, sought to do for himself as a poet was not less than everything, and so survival as a person was intimately involved. ... I read this as Crane's gamble upon The Bridge (and finally upon "The Broken Tower")- if they demonstrated that he still had the shaping spirit in him, he would stay alive. If not, not."
__from: Centenary Introduction to The Complete Poems of Hart Crane, Harold Bloom

and so now i ask myself a bunch of things. here is Crane. Whitman. Stevens. Dickinson. Eliot. Ginsberg. these people who breathed life into artless pieces of paper. made black markings on pages resemble souls and insane-asylums and certain slants of light. i write a little-known blog. some articles for a website. sometimes i repeat words over and over for myself in my notebook because i like the look of them (or the sound of them (or the shape of them). maybe being a writer is not about writering. in any case i have no idea what it's about- though not for want of trying.

and what is this(me) psuedo-maybe-halfbreed-writerer trying to do for himself by writering these 'stuffs'?

hide. find. remember. forget. absorb. recreate. resolve. dissolve. explore. fathom. exclaim.

maybe nothing. maybe he just likes the sound of the tapping (of pens scribbling). maybe he's just real lazy and has nothing much better to do than this.


*___*___*

i was scared about getting scared. so i took my meds. i tried to write about it last night. but couldn't. four attempts. epic-fail.

how we're always late. always. don't know why. always try to be on-time. always always. set my clock and get up and everything always like a machine. but then there's roadwork. or telephone calls that drag on. or the only clean shirt isn't ironed and the only ironed shirt isn't clean. life has long tentacles. i smirk, this could only happen to ahSar. i imagine dad nodding over the phone. thankgod it's all over anyway. now i nod. yeah._ poor mom.

but then i don't feel scared. and that worries me. probably it's the meds. or that i'm a selfish bastard.


*___*___*

i've long been planning, in my head this is, a novel titled things i said at my sister's funeral. i thought it would be a fitting occasion to exorcise some demons. stitch some things together and glue some tinsel wings on it, and send it off. alternative titles are:

___- the memory-machine
___- the speed-freak's guide to midnight time-management
___- gravity

i struggle with stories though. i think stories are boring. i don't really care about people walking around and dialogue and character developments and subplots and that kind of stuff.

my writing should be like my vision. which is skewed. memory is not linear. certain colours are always too bright, others faded or erased, so things appear elongated and certain people appear too often, and others not enough. just like looking at old photographs. can't remember that person being there at all. who is that guy? or... no, you were wearing a dress that night. i know it. i know it. and she shakes her head. no. i know it, it was purple. and boots. brown. i know it. everything mixed and jumbled. in your head it is a choose-your-own-adventure, so last night, we sit on a pistachio coloured 2-seater couch, and i tell her two-thirds of a story about Los Angeles, and it turns into one-fourth of a story about sashimi and nine-tenths of a memory about a girl named Kristen Feyer and then back to Los Angeles again. that is memory. discursive vectors. not what was said, or left unsaid, but what happened in between.

and characters? stumblers and dreamers. obscenity users and amphetamine pushers. my characters have faded shoes and pockets full of sand from kissing girls by the beach, and drive cars that make funny noises and speak to young girls with bright eyes who drive brand new BMWs and tremble a little when you stare at them.

- you can't win at this.
[we're standing face-to-face, noses touching, we've swapped eyes so i can only see blue and in the dark light on the street she can probably see nothing]
- you don't know who you're messing with. [she smirks. i don't move. i sense her mouth opening. i feel a handful of warmth on my face. i smile. lips stumble around looking for a light switch, i move away a little. kiss her cheek softly]
- you can't do this to me.
- i thought i can't win.
- you can't. [lips are blind and needy. open mouth to open mouth, just a moment away from one another. the cusp of a new moment. a universe begins everytime someone enjoys kissing. i run my tongue along her lower lip. she goes to bite down but i'm gone already. what a dance.
- you can't do this. [of course the leash has to break sooner or later. love is a device that stutters. stutters and starts. stutters and fails. bodies are the same. conversations. even spring can't open it's big sleepy eye without a few false starts god dammit i'm freezing on the sidewalk i grab the back of her head and push her so far into me for a few moments- while our tongues arm-wrestle- i presume i'm thinking her thoughts.

i step back. she exhales. i kiss an eyebrow. i shaved tonight, i'm proud of this. like the when you first learn to tie your own shoe-laces you feel like a little man when you shave. so i don't mind rubbing my cheeks against her and kiss her temple.
- you can't do this to me.
- i win. [she sighs. i win. and step away and walk towards the car].


*___*___*

did i just tell that story to remember it? consecrate it? is that even how it happened? am i wrong in my conviction that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle applies to everything in life? what am i trying to do for myself? am i doing it? am i failing?


*___*___*

i hadn't taken my meds for a few days and i was frazzled and frayed. hyperemotional and talking too fast and couldn't sit still and heart-beat like insect wings. mom sits with me, on my leather chair and i talk a mile-a-minute about who we are and where we are. what we are, but that's too hard that one. finally, it occurs to me and my eyes are very wet. we have to pray right now. i'm serious. it's like needing to pee really badly, there's no questioning this, this has to happen right_now. okay, okay she says.

less than a year ago i was stumbling down Santa Monica Blvd. and my ankle hurt and i couldn't walk straight. i slept on Martha's couch. i cried in O'Hara airport when Eman picked me up. someone asked what's next? and i just stared back at them until it got awkward. hello?. finally, i gulped and said, i really don't think there are words... i... . and it was all very French-film-weird.

a year ago i had no home. no real basic concept of the future. i misunderstood air. watched movies and hoped they would just leave me alone and i could sit in cinema 4 and live off left-behind popcorn and half-melted icecubes until some new(er)(est) life came to claim me and we could start again. less than a year ago.

i can't understand how soo much can be different. and i struggle to determine which was the dream. which of these lives is actually... life.
(and my therapist looks at me uncomfortably, and says sometimes i feel like you dissociate. like... not that you do, in a technical sense, but you have, to a small extent, ...personalities
- they're ghosts [i interject to make it easier for her]
- ghosts?
- yeah. people i've been.
- and they're still with us?
- with me. yes. always. of course.
- you can't lay them to rest?
[i smile:
- god no, they are too beautiful. but i am starting to forgive what had to happen for me to have them.


*___*___*

i will let a genius have the last word. at least someone who knew for what reason (for themself) they were wasting ink, pen, time and eyesight. i read this, i add a century to it, and i feel it. (dear world, how do these guys do it?)



____So the 20th Century- so
whizzed the Limited- roared by and left
three men, still hungry on the tracks, ploddingly
watching the tail lights wizen and converge, slip-
ping gimleted and neatly out of sight.

___from The River, Hart Crane

3am diffracted at 1pm

newa, by mademuaselle



she passes by me, just now, just now this is, and we lock eyes and i keep looking, more ? than anything and her looking back i suppose just searching, or maybe i misread the whole thing and she was seeing something in the air. a little rainbow or something i couldn't see from my angle.

it hasn't rained.

there, the smell of coffee.

__(at midnight she agreed to have coffee with me, which makes me like her, because anyone who is willing to have coffee with me at that hour is bound to be wonderfulness. and we do that. she's getting out the car, by now it's 3, and i think, well. she's easy to fall into. her eyes are always the best thing to look at around. but my gaze drops to her lips. not sure why. curiosity? just cause? so i do. we do. lots of tongue. i'm annoyed a little, i had wanted to acquaint myself with her lips)

the heater is the only thing that makes a sound. maybe my fingers tapping on the keyboard. but it is quiet. 3:30am this is. it's a machine, hidden in the dark-parts of the night. like a garbage truck. comes around. collects all the reverb floating around. squawks and horns. cars. whisperings. this machine comes along and annuls them. even the colours are silent.

__(so tongue-tied and my glasses splattered against her i-don't-know-what, i take my hand and rub the side of her cheek and my finger is still a little white with snow)

i look at photographs. naked people in showers. trees. a girl's feet. something distorted and abstract so it's just coloured shapes. a woman's breasts. a kettle on a table. bedsheets. two children asleep on a couch. a man in bed with a hairy chest. naked bodies. hazy buildings in the distance.

but is it poetry?
is a question i've been asking myself. i think the poetic aesthetic of our age is unique. it is more austere. not so flowery. things that are poetic are often labored. genuine poetry is made of unconscious atoms. things you cannot control. the collision point of light and motion and voices. just... moments. (and after i fail to smile at her, she keeps walking away. an invisible couplet falls on the floor). (a book somewhere grows heavier, a newly added line). so i am trying to adjust my writing to suit this. to be more coherent with how i 'experience' poetry in life. 'see' it. (because it can be seen. and heard. and all sorts of hybrids). life is a wonderful poet. expert at merging elements. embedding catastrophe in a hairband. for example. it is cold, i notice the sharp line of where the shadow ends. i take two steps over. pass the frontier into the sunlight. here, yes. this, this is how heaven feels. embedding heaven in a moment by a coffee cart.

i just want to sit here.
listen to this thing. or that thing.
hi Ashley, i like your voice.

what? 6am. oh no. again. i turn my head, yes. there it is. white lines bordering my windows. how'd that happen?, feels like i just walked in a minute ago with tongue still in my mouth and my vision has two blue iris marks burnt into it. everything i see has two blue eyes. i sit a few minutes more. let the song finish. whatever it is.

bed is a strange feeling. something quite novel. it used to be the most mundane experience. half-way house type of thing. no longer. now it is a strange position i don't often find myself in. and wrapped in fabric and under my head it is soft. and there is a strange weight to the sheets and blankets and


blank.


when i open my eyes

small hands.
ampersand.

i smile. my mom says my face is broken.
i smile anyway. she hugs me and says she's happy i feel better.

drive

the memory machine.
hums through the night.
archivalist.

de.post.con.re.structing.

here is the shape of a small hand.
here the shape of small lips.

here is the silence of.
here the of of silence.

silent books grow heavy.

we gaze a moment. fascination or gravity.
i don't smile. her face doesn't change.

there is a little wind. in the sun it is warm.

those are angels that were his lies.

these are not the words of a man.
these are not the man.

these

not.