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.