thoughts (fragments)

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh ... And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new


____ee cummings





юля 3 by mademuaselle



will you leave me my body then? no no she replies. can't do that. i nod, and look at the everpresent mound of clothes and shoes at the centre of her room trying to locate my underwear.


*___*___*

___what's next?
___dunno. what's left?
___life; i guess.
___ok __let's try that then.


*___*___*

mom, your husband lost our bow tie.
what are you talking about?, getchyour own bow-tie.
no. we're sharing.
fine. go find it then.
he lost it.
wait a second [muffled noises through the phone]. ___he says you have it.
goddammit.
go look.
fine. [the first place i look i find it] ___goddammit.
you had it didn't you?
yes.


to celebrate i have a bowl of cereal. two 5mg dexamphetamine. a fridge-cooled RedBull.


*___*___*

what are you gonna do tomorrow?

[wake early. have pills and redbull for breakfast. drive my car over a cliff (me jumping out at the last second). i'm going to pimp myself out to a deranged businessmen who will pay $10,000 to have his way with me over a three-day-weekend. that covers fri-sat-sun. but, i'll have to rest for a day or two to let the bruises heal and get over my limp, but by tuesday, i'm going to Wyoming. to Shanghai. to Jakarta. i'm gonna buy a dusty car that makes a lot of noise and looks better and better dirtier it gets. then i'm gonna buy rum pen condoms paper and Ovid's Metamorphoses. (and an ipod). might get a haircut. if i've got a hotel room i'll shave with a plastic shaver i'll get from the 99c store. i'll drink vitamin water and RedBull to be healthy and nutritious. greenapples help the caffeine-comedowns. coffee at 2am helps with the amphetamine-comedowns. i'm gonna eat pancakes. meet skinny women whose knees and ankles and elbows form weird protuberances and when i'm on top and i kiss their chests i will feel the hardness of their ribs. i'll kiss their long toes and their long hair will be everywhere. when they get sweaty their hair will smell like shampoo but when i first met them it didn't smell of anything. then i'll sit at noodlebars and write rubbish and read Ovid and write more rubbish. i'll call my mom and tell her i'm fine. call my dad and tell him to tell mom i'm fine if he speaks to her. (also my stepdad). call my sister and chat about nothing. when i ask her to kiss me through the phone she does. i exhale loudly and say babyface your kisses are the most delicious and she's confused. she doesn't know what i mean by that. at night i have bad dreams or no dreams and nothing in the middle. in the summer i'll buy $5 sunglasses that don't fit my face and leave little red indentations on the side of my nose. i'll take up smoking just so i can chat to people outside of hospitals and bars. i'll take the bus somewhere far and decide it's a good idea to hike the rest of the way. i'll find a trail and eat chocolate bars (to keep nutritious) and drink warm water while i walk. it'll end at a beach or the top of a mountain. i'll sit and pray to a god i believe in. turn the warm water in my mouth and spit it out at my feet. breathe light air. my hair's scratchy by now. i haven't shaved in a while. time for a hotel room. i'll find one. an older woman who needs a distraction. a corrupt pharmacist who tells me about a corrupt physician who refills my med prescriptions for a HJ and some tips on how to encourage his 13 year old daughter to study more. i only have a few dollars left but i buy three homeless guys a bite at a taco stand. meet a wanna-be-singer/songwriter who lists Lady Gaga as an artistic influence. he asks for a cigarette but i decline. instead sharing it with a 3-bit-tranny who impersonates Margaret Thatcher and Woody Allen and the Grand Ayitollah. runs up to some commuters at a busstop and yells something about a fatwah. they don't find that funny but i laugh till i tear. on the 345 bus i meet a girl who's way younger than she looks who lies about her age and refuses to eat mushrooms which she calls 'fungus'. we kiss for the first time in a college library in the Classics section where i'm looking to steal the oldest edition of Sappho i can find. we get to third base in a movie cinema watching an action adventure movie and neither of us ever comes but we hold hands when we walk and when i tell her during dinner that after this fancy meal i'm gonna get in my car to drive off again she cries through the main and dessert. on the side of a highway i meet a man who purports to be the last great suffi in the 'old-tradition' and when i ask what that is he says i have to buy him a drink first so we drink cranberry juice with lime and talk in sombre tones about how great high-threadcount bedsheets are and how Woody Allen's on the right track again. later he asks me if i've ever made-out with a great suffi master in the old-tradition and i confess that i haven't. he asks if i want to and i politely decline. he lists a menu of oddities in case i'm interested in any of them but by the time he gets to #3 footjob using maple syrup as lubricant i freakout and bail. outside i meet a young woman who's happy with her life and happy with herself and everything to-do with her is just fine so i let her lead me to a look-out behind the parking lot on a hillock where you can see the highway and huge expanse of nothingness after that. i feel close to her and akin to her and ask her if i can just please i hope this isn't odd but i mean it totally platonically i just wouldn't you mind if you don't mind that is a hug? of course she says and i even love the way she says of course. back on the road two teenage boys scuffle and i stop to separate them. they're arguing over who's a bigger genius Rachmaninov or Prokofiev and i admit it's a toughie that one. we get milkshakes and use one sheet of my paper and one of my pens to list the pros and cons. later their sister calls and tells them their father is ill and dying and they run off to find a bus or ride back to Ottawa to catch the funeral and sing in three-part harmony with their sister an arrangement of Chopin's marche funebre which they begin practising as they rush off the barstools. i laugh and stare at the pros-cons sheet of paper and smile because i knew the answer all along it's: neither. Shostakovich. eventually the car breaks down and i'm broke and there are no fetishistic businessmen in Darwin anyway, so i get a job at a cafe, until i can get a ticket to Kings Cross where i do find a businessmen and this time score 12k but spend a few months holding my chest when i laugh on account of a broken rib. by now i'm thin like a rake and lick the oil of french fries off my fingers and having not slept for 50 hours straight when we get back to her place, laughing and my hands all over her breasts even when she's trying to unlock the door, i collapse and say please buttercup- let me sleep. In the morning, i promise? she says of course dear and takes my head in her arms and holds it to her breasts and i____]

i've got class at noon.

two short stories

jetable by goldfieldsfoxes



___1. a sleep with no dreams :: gus the bookstore mannequin on santa monica blvd

it seems you only notice it in the evening. it is a mannequin, in a seated position, on what looks to be a restructured bike-seat. it is wearing large headphones, and in front of its face is a small GPS screen that shows on repeat images of flowers. some wires hang around that connect everything. it looks like a post-contemporary-fashion-experiment in a window. there is a blue flourescent lighting the whole thing into abstraction. because i have nothing to do i play basketball with other people who have nothing to do and walk home down santa monica at 2am. i stop by the window and contemplate the strange nocturnal contraption.
___- hello strange contemporary artsy fartsy nocturnal contraption person-mannequin thingee.
___-
___- i wonder if this is your dream, or if they are stealing your dreams and replacing them with flora.
___-
___- i don't really dream of flora.
___-
___- i don't really dream.
___-
___-
___-
___- bye.

a few days later i wander into the store. i browse and find Stravinsky: a critical survey, and the second volume of Woolf's a common reader essays. a woman serves me at counter overwhelmed with books and magazines and pens.papers.unopened letters.newspapers.littlepinkslips.nicknacks and a sweater. she has to reach right across, morphing her stocky body into a surprisingly graceful arch. she takes my books and says goodbye to them.
___- this is a labor of love isn't it?
it takes her a moment, but then she understands what i mean. her heartfelt goodbye to books she's probably never read. probably didn't even know they were in here.
___- it's funny when people bring things to the counter___things i didn't know were in here, i fall in love with the place more. they bring to my attention things i hadn't had time to get to know about it.
___- [i nod]
___-
___- is he trapped or is he being saved? [i point to the mannequin]
___- [she laughs once. softly.]
___- good question i suppose. wouldn't it be nice to be saved from our dreams., have roses and daffodils instead.
___- depends i guess.
___- ye ah. imagine it though. he wakes everyday a little more...
___- he thinks he's a flower?
___- [she smiles, there is a sort of hope on her face]
___- or at least wakes at dawn with the others. fresh and rosy fingered.
___- [i imagine 'others' means other flowers. i smile, at the Homeric allusion mostly. she sees that i got her reference and she smiles again. in relief.]
___- or at least rosy-cheeked and quiet and with softer skin.
___- we should all be soo lucky.

she hands the books back. in a white plastic bag that was from a supermarket. it still has the logo. i smile and walk out. staring again at the still-life-aspiration in the window. i can't help but think they're inserting into his vacant nonentity imagination a new language. first come the flowers, then the bees. one day pinnocchio will wake up. and hell will break loose. and he'll walk home at 2am down santa monica blvd and wish someone had unplugged the damn dream-machine.



___2. three teenage girls discuss the hipster funeral tomorrow

it is a scene out of Lolita, Humbert Humbert probably couldn't dream it up any better. three young girls, 13-14-15, lounging in a teenage bedroom, smelling of too much perfume and clothes scattered everywhere listening to fairy-floss pop songs. occasionally singing along a verse or two. with painted toenails and tiny hands that look like any Spring-moment they'll reveal fresh buds of flowers or tiny fruit. the whole thing overwhelming with youth. skin without blemish. eyes still wide and electric with occasional wonderment.
___- OMG [she actually says it: oh em gee] Alice, stop talking about it!
___- what?, there's gonna be people there.
___- people means boys you ho. just admit it, we know who you want to see anyway.
______(- yeah!)
___- eff you both ok, it's a funeral, i need to look nice.
___- do you even know _whose funeral it is?
___- Yes.
___- ... ___well?
___- oh i don't know, like, my brother's cousin or something.
______- leave her alone Sushi [it's a nickname], all her brother's friends dress weird anyway
___- they totally do hey.
___- wha'do'ya'mean?
______- plaid plaid plaid everything blah blah plaid and tight and freaking emo gimme a break.
[all three laugh]
___- i think it's cool!
___- thankyou. so do i.
______- they all look gay.
___- you look gay.
______- oh i am. that's why i like sitting around your house in our PJs brushing your hair.
___- ew. stop being gross_ dickhead.
______- you're gross. i'm the only that's actually been with a guy, as if you call me gay.
___- true.
___- true.
___- _hobag.
[all three laugh]
______- eff you biatch!
___- Alice you can't wear that bra you don't have boobs ok just get over it you don't.
___- i don't want them!, big boobs make you look fat.
______- eff you again biatch! you're jealous.
___- as if. C is for Chubby.
______- A is for Assholeonyourface.
[all three laugh]
___- how about this one?
___- goddammit, it's violet!
___- so?
______- yeah, so?
___- it_is_a_Funeral!
______- F is for Fun.
___- LOL! [she actually says it: elle oh elle] yah. you said they all dress weird anyway. maybe they'll all show up to his funeral in drag or something awesome like that.
______- no way. they're emos. they'll totally all dress in black and sing Muse songs outloud to one another and cry and then do soo much blow they'll single-handedly fix Afghanistan's economy.
___- ...
___- ...
______- dude?. ___dude, what?
___- ...
______- freaking What?
___- Tess it was an OD.
______- eff my elle, shit, i'm sorry.
___- all good. ___like i said, ___iz just a friend of my brother's.
______- wear the black.
___- you really should.
___- what? really?
______- yeah Al listen,
___- [listening]
______- who knows why things happen the way they do.
___- wha'tha'hell hasthat got to do with anything? what are you talki-
______- sssh! _listen: wear the black dress. ignore the boys, they're friend just died.
___- yeah Al.__ imagine if it was one of us.
___- ....
______- ...
___- that's, _just the- __thing. ______i can't.

deuxieme novel, in summary

drugs. make your heart beat faster, harder, more productive. you can be sad but still get through a day. (i hug her tight, it's nice to see you, been a while i say, she says i can feel your heart... beating. i nod into her hair and respond it does that. she finds that funny and laughs). my sister cries, she's in her chair between me and dad, who have our feet planted on opposite sides of her chair but our noses are touching. i see red and am pretty sure he does too. she cries and mom eventually pushes me back out into the hallway. then they hold hands. there is a description of several trees. also trees in the nighttime which are an entirely different breed.
___you need to learn to sleep naked she tells me. she likes it better that way. so i do, and shiver all night. and have nightmares that terrify me about things i cannot remember. in the morning she says can you possibly get any farther from me? she's right. there's a pillow on the floor, i'm hanging over the edge. after not touching the piano for months i finally play and for 12 minutes forget i'm alive and feel happier than i have in a long time and then someone speaks and everything starts(stops) again. you're quiet tonight i just nod and keep sucking on my cough-drop.
___i'm freezing i have a jacket on and pants unzipped and half down my legs, sand everywhere, my head pushing back into sand the wind from the beach occasionally lifts her skirt and i grip her hair too tight and wake in the morning and can't remember dream from reality until i put shoes on and feel sand and my hands in my pockets sand and take off my pajamas and there's sand every goddamn where ; on the plane i sit with the reading light on staring at nothing and an old lady stares at me - with a shocked look as though i'd seen something that i wasn't meant to see yet. 30 years too soon perhaps. i smile back but she scowls at me. (a generation of apostates i want to say to her, but she is too far in too many ways to hear me). red eyes from the rum bottle, and unslept night after unslept night i sit at this one cafe reading every(noth)ing, i go in my PJs and sit there and the girls bring me coffee and sometimes talk to me about what i can't remember. i can't make sense of it. she wants to know of what? and i can't answer her. later i sit on a too-comfortable couch and nearly cry for no reason. in my head i hear the phrase 'theater of the absurd' over and over.
___there's a fictional character. Peggy. Suzie. Jakarta. i don't know, who cares. she drinks RedBull for breakfast and sneers at people at the bus-stop, and a nice boy took her to a movie once and they kissed in the line to get frozen-cokes on their way out. (having confessed she loved them, and being too late to stop at the candybar on the way in, he thought it'd be a nice idea to get one as they left). and he kissed her and she squealed a voice she'd never made before. 3 years later she would prize that memory most highly and never tell anyone. she lies in the fetal position in bed and can't sleep and writes a different word in large letters on every page of her notebook (COLLAPSE. EQUESTRIAN. DELIRIUM. DAISY. BALLAST. TROPICAL. VIRGO.) and once burst into tears during an orgasm and once sat with her feet in the pool for 2 hours before someone finally said hey, you ok? and she looked up and smiled soo strangely the man was spooked a whole week and said f*ck knows buddy.
___i don't get it what's the point she says. the point is projection. it's the opposite of people relating to something. people are not relating. they're projecting. they're fantasizing. they're wishing themselves into something they do not relate to. i'm the opposite of that. she corrects me: you hope. yes. very true.
___we walk. i put an arm around her out of the need to touch somebody asexually. she trembles a little. (i drive home, the whole way terrified. arrive. leave the car on and sit inside it in my driveway. pretend i'm waiting for the song to finish. take my phone and send a text. another. another. another. sit, and consider what might happen if i reverse, drive north or south, and just go for a while. it's soo cliche. soo overdone. fiction is soo dull when it's based on reality).
___there are streets. the dusty beige painted homes in the poor parts of the valley. i drive with sun always glaring in my eyes i wince. my rash is terrible from sweating all the time. Mexicans on every street corner in dusty overalls and paint-stained jeans. heavy boots. basketball caps stained with sweat. selling fruit out of eskies in the backs of trucks. families huddled together wordlessly. a bottle of water passed around. i drive by. Lattes and large fries that stain your fingers with a film of oil and your lips cut. popcorn and darklit cinemas. Ashley's hand rubs my back lightly. my sister in the crazy-house. a portal out of Tuesday 1:07am. Mona tells me. this is what we do Mona tells me. 'this' i guess means life.
___in LAX i sit and colour in pages of my notebook all black. 45 minutes it takes per page (on average). i sit at the departure lounge and color my page. the woman sitting next to me moves a row over. i wish she had asked: what are you doing. if she had, i would have told her: writing down everything i understand about the word_ h o m e. _i look the other way and she stares at me. 'my tortured artist' she says. and i like it when she says it it has humor to it. i like it to have humor. all i ever wanted in life was a bookshelf and now i'm looking at one. this must be what happiness is. (that and your tiny feet you always kick and yelp when i kiss them). and falling asleep in her lap sshh, sleep baby; sleep. whatever universe that was.
___there's a description of my grandfather's tie. my dad's plaid shirt. second-hand Salvatore Ferragamo half-boots i found in a thrift store in Santa Monica for $28. six polaroids on my wall. when did you last eat? he asks, not sure. (her eyes light up, i push in and her eyes grow soo wide i hope to fall in them and live there it seems nicer). she drops me off and looks at me seriously, you need to get out more ok? she says. i nod. i want to tell her about Ralphie. he's a disabled man i bought lunch for once, on father's day. Subway. i want to tell her about the Starbucks on Santa Monica and Pontius. about having my car towed on Sunset, Mona driving me three times around LA trying to get it back. about sneaking into clubs. about getting drunk in Canberra and not kissing the girl last minute chickening-out and her getting mad at me and leaving me to stumble home by myself i had no idea where i was it took hours. it was soo cold.

all i have left of my life are ties and polaraoids and pages of notebooks.
i can't fit them all into books.

(i was promised a dream of tulip petals and mustard seeds.

these words are graveyards. cluttered closets. vacated first-kisses. ghosts.

(she likes it when i kiss her clavicle. i rub my hand across her chest. her neck. kiss her clavicle. she leans her head back into the pillow. softly says i hate you.)

words live in silent spaces. look at them, even now, sitting here silently. speechless. like trees.

(geranium red from Haifa. the smell of jasmine in summer. i ran away from Vanessa and physics and mom's fibroid and dad's everything and a not-subtle suggestion of my failures and walked in the desert. woke up at 5am and walked to the ocean. we sat on rooftops and watched rockets land in the bay. there were sirens and our friends, families back home worried watching CNN. we rolled fake-grass onto rooftops and hungup white sheets and projected Pirates of the Caribbean and lay on my bright yellow couch. Mona drives down Hollywood Blvd. i look out the window. stores. stores. those may have been the greatest days of our lives i say. i don't know how it happened. or why. or what the f*ck we thought we were doing out in the middle of nowhere like that... but... there must have been something to it.

she nods quietly. the car rolls on.

[i left something on Mar's front porch. for the life of me i can't remember what.]

this is the only way it could have been Q. that's what she said on the phone to me. when i cried.
this is the only way it could have been Q.
there's nothing you could have done. this is the only way it could have been Q.
the only way it could be.

this is the only way it could have been Q.

this is the only way it could have been Q.

this is the only way it could have been Q.
this is the only way it could have been Q.

thoughts (fragments)

sunburst breakfast, amalia chimera



(1)
look where you are, look, just look can you even get any farther away from me? she's right. i'm right at the edge of the bed. i've lost a pillow to the floor. i look at it. what's wrong? she asks. i'm cold i'm cold i say. she hugs me. skin to skin.


(2)
as i drive home. Aquemini on the stereo. i'm cold. turn on the heating. i'm terrified. scared. i concentrate on the lights in front of me. the noises disturb me, but i can't remove a hand from the steering wheel to turn it off. must be endured. drive slower and slower, don't know why. can't go faster, must go slower.


(3) a letter to nina simone

____right n' wrong don't matter
____when you're with me my sweet.

dear nina,
you make me hurt. in my chest. you make night darker. you make an afternoon heavy. you make everything into scarlet velvet curtains and sultry tennessee bars. you make tea lukewarm scotch. you make me want to smoke. right now, with my sore-throat, i can barely speak, all i want is a bottle of dark rum and a cigarette. i wanna sit out on the porch of Martha's old place. i wanna stare out at the yellow streetlight and the yellow street beneath it. i'm half certain that's where you were sitting too when you wrote it.


(4)
is everything ok?
_yeah. __yeah_, _it is.
why don't i believe you?
_...
wanna say something?
_that's just the thing, i have nothing to say.
and that's... the problem.


(5)
when my grandfather died, in the chapel-thingee, where the service was. in the backroom there was a small organ. it did not work and it was dusty. and while the others walked around pretending to check things and care about how comfortable the seats were or were not, i stayed in the storage room on the side and touched the dusty keys and my fingers were dusty and for once i didn't care.

and my mom came in and said so? , is the PA system ok? which is i guess what they assumed i was doing - checking the sound system. seems like it should be fine i said. and it buzzed and fed-back through the whole service.


(6)
there's that buzzing again. across the man-made lake. from inside the toaster. behind the bookshelf. wherever. you can outrun them for a while. hide in Seattle. or Haifa. or at your mom's house where everything's usually pretty safe. eventually though.

his friend nudges him. Orestes, hey, get up, you hear that? he's sleepy. his eyes open partially, but as soon as he hears it, he sits up. remember what i told you? he says to his friend. no buts. this is what's happening as he says this he has stood up and is taking a bag from the closet. in it a few tshirts. a moleskin. a few photographs he has lying around. a green apple. a black pen. his passport. John Ashbery's Collected Poems. c'mon dude, you can't be serious, i never thought you were serious when you said all that stuff. Orestes just looks at him. nods. three steps to the door of the bedroom. another two to the front door. he never heard it close. the buzzing had gotten too loud.

fragments

_______... unspoken

Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew

And after this our exile

____Ash Wednesday, T.S. Eliot



(1. writer's block)

and what do i do if i have words left over?, in remainder. not enough for a description. a sentence or two at most, with incorrect grammar- i don't know, most my conjunctions are gone.

sachet full of jacaranda, violet flowers in powder form. sniff twice: morn and eve, continual sixteen or [_]years [_] slight purple tinge to sniffles in winter [_] spring tightness in fingers. immune from autumn. bee stings. excessive [____]



(2. woman-worship)

a thousand girls cried the Salva Regina into flowering (silent sister veiled in white and blue), and quiet-eyed Romeo's burried their heads into the breasts of their mothers and lovers - kissing it perpetual and wishing to be abandoned into some more quiet world, comprised only of two hands in their hair, and the softness meeting their face, all else space.
___and the girls (signed but spoke no word) hummed their hymn. and saved all mankind.



(3.)

it makes me sad to see pictures of strangers smiling.
how long does it remain that way?
sooner later..

if only we could invest them. deposit them into library walls. busstop seats. redlights. internet homepages. and have them slowly find their way back. surprise us at the supermarket checkout, behind a pack of gum. smile back at us. some perfect memory that deserves to live even if i don't.

i spoke to a physicist. asked about echoes of memory. 'boomerang theory' i wanted to name it. a penance for my sins. ___we had lunch and took a photo together. ___later we drank dark rum and we made noises that were either laughs or cries. ___when i woke up keys trembled in my hand and someone had hit my car and there was plastic all over the street.



(4.)

my body hurts from jogging and sex.
moves slow.
lags a little in conversation from sleeplessness and anorexia.

sits long hours doing very little, and asking for nothing more, from pills.



(5. prayer)

dear Lord Alleverything, dear Wonderfulmostest Who knows the answer to Thursday afternoon and string-theory and multiple-orgasm and loneliness:

i apologize for my every failure in being human - including (especially) my failure to know what that means. i apologize for not making better use of the pool, swearing too much, self-indulgence and encouraging people to have pre-marital sex.
__i apologize for those times i cannot do more than sit and stare. sit in the sun and contemplate warmth. it is lazy of me, i know. even knowing this to be true... i cannot explain why, in those moments, i just feel that You're there and waiting for me to join You. crazy i know. i apologize for blaming my faults on Evergreatest You. i am most sorry for believing too sincerely that there is a fingertip or long-lost exhalation of Yours that sometimes finds me, and pats my back, and redeems my misspent everything, and makes me feel that feeling that binds the letters of the word h a p p y together insufficiently:

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Hamseen. notapoem.

herd, jennifer davis


sitting alone in a room is such a variable experience.
shifting along a spectrum.
gradations- but along multitudinous axes:
from grating to karmic.
warm to jarring.
stinging to soft.
ethereal to definite _,_ localized.

lost and found.
(everything)


*___*___*

solutions are the endpoint.
maybe. ,but if that's the case, then we never experience implementing.
_(but isn't the end point of that process the solution of the solution?


*___*___*

what happens next? he adjusts himself. stares away quietly. tries to avoid the words. they're still there. somewhere in the room probably. waiting for him. scrutinizing him. judging him.

there's been a dust storm all day. what cars and palm trees are covered with a thin film of red dust. it looks like mars. like Shanghai. like Haifa. like happens the entry to Hades on a busy day. all my histories are revisiting next me.


*___*___*

it is rare to find this particular genus of sadness on the other end of my pills. i am not accustomed to finding it under these circumstances. to be frank, i'd more thought of the pills as a 4 hour holiday , a constantly renewable lease , some other(different) sort of place(lessness) to drift off to.

but this one is a lamb. the very gentlest. just a light kiss. you walk through it. sort of dissolves you, removes you from yourself a little, a phase distortion. you stare at nothing. don't notice sounds much. time just nudges and squirms away from you. everything drifting off away just a little. things just an inch further then you remember. a peripheral tremor, you look up and find everything slouching in their places.


*___*___*

Hades or not, the dust makes me uncomfortable. there is a smell to everything i find perturbing. i am hesitant to breathe. inhale with reserve. when i drive it feels like the sky is raining geology. Vesuvius returning from a very long walk. the headlights all ghostly, it is snow of weeds and bones. snow of dreams and tombs. a particulate hum in the sky, white-noise has taken physical form. our Lord, our Father hath returned with a body so wide the sky are His electrons.


*___*___*

and now i cannot remember time. i cannot reconcile space. the boundaries of my inner dialogue elude me i do not know if you are hearing me or if i am speaking or if i am here at all. or if i am here but am no different from the television or the half-filled water bottle i kick every time i walk into the room. existence is an ocean. sometimes i believe that.


*___*___*

a rain of fossils.
still life in hieroglyphics.
mountain-range poetry.
__( - do you speak mountain-range?
___- haven't the patience for it, those syllables are too long!)
an etude in respiratory calcification,
it builds up on the sills: miniature desert.
the tooth of what's left to come.
pre-biblical cocaine, rougher on the nose.

ssshhhhh baby, sleep.

lay down in the street and hold still.
by morning you're Tutankhamen.


*___*___*

if i close my eyes,
you promise to pay on my behalf?,
(the meter never stops ticking,)
he'll know what to do,
a penny or two for the old guy,

a cheaper fare for those who can't fly.
(cruise down a black river that never goes dry.)

ssshhhhh baby, sleep:


*___*___*

some other(different) sort of place(lessness) to drift off to.

prayer. notapoem.

these streets will make you feel brand new
big lights will inspire you

____Empire State of Mind, Jay Z








rosas swimminginmilk


good morning dear whatever-the-hell-you-are(wanna be), just so you know if i feel the need to fall asleep again, 12 days of where-the-ever-hell-am-i? sitting on my couch all the time not really caring to leave the house under blankets and a quiet perfection solitude like waves of secrecy, dark and folded and thrilling like womanity beheld naked lost amidst myself like labial folds, then i will.will.will! __and when i wake up, and dear god look at this afternoon how perfect it is! the colours perfect behind sunglasses (always a little truer to form if life is tinged in sepia or magic - reality being the colour of sidewalks and not much use for anything at all) and the wind soo much my sails are full my lungs are laundry hung out on the line my discipline forgotten i have fourteen-hundred-words for anyone who wants tea-orangejuice-a drive from herethere to nowhere, i can make love for four hours straight i promise keep the window open let them hear it: isn't this what spring always sounded like it's this sound + sun that wakes every leaf blossom the colour green itself was invented under the buttocks of love-made-lovers,
these are my windows, darkshine or sunshine they're open come summerwind - molester or winterrain i ain't going nowhere my eye's darker than anything i've seen you pull dear whatever, and no mid sunday afternoon, no December 14th 2006, no December 25th 2007 worth of a tragedy car accident late train to what-the-hell-am-i-gonna-do-with-my-life? is gonna scare me i been there done that,
woke up 14 times dead resurrected and bruised broken blownaway battered beated blasted brown bitten and blemished and branded by bastard behemoth named LifeLifeLifeLife and each time looked at the dead-curious-cat rotting away right beside me, woke up and polished my Lazarus eyes and unwrapped myself hand and foot and removed nails from wrists and ankles and laughed my death to the bank to redeem whatever blue-chips i'd earnt and drank tea instead of ale and everytime a tanned too-perfect-for-humanity girl walked past me prayed 14 more times for the next cataclysm dear too-perfect-for-humanity-girl, dear too-perfect-for-humanity- afternoon wind, dear ridiculous-nonesense-hiphop-tune-that-makes-me-dance-around-like-a-buffoon, dear LA, dear blueberry muffin, dear C-cup breast, dear Lord WhatWhoEver Thou be-ist who do-ist what Thou will-est, Thou art totally kick-ass (Awesome) and Thou knowest best-est how to rockest my boat-est and my heart goes doofdoof beepbeep haha! to wind of Thy wind and the sight of sunset and movie-premiers and 4 ridiculous shafts of light outside of LAX when you drive in from Sepulveda,

heyheyhey,
today is the pinnacle of every Q that ever was the redemption of every Q that ever failed the reconsideration of every missed-phonecall-loneliness i've ever know,

dear world, i have nothing but open windows for you
nothing but old not-quite-functional grammar for you
nothing but patched skin and delirious madness in my insane mimbrain for you
nothing but dancing ravished body but dancing still, and hey guess what i'm gonna do tomorrow? i'm gonna wake and scream and laugh and finish school and get jobs and make love and fall in love and roll over out of love and eat apples i picked off trees and get sick and have diarrhea and laugh playing video games and moving to anywhere and buying a vintage car coloured bright red and roofless and blasting stupid music anyone should be embarrassed to like(LOVE) and stand up on my seat in unmoving traffic with a sky full of smoker's-lung-pollution and have 8 dollars to my name (5 in one pocket, 3 hidden in a shoe) blasting out of buzzing and terrible speakers, knowing nothing but that i'll die again (and again) (and again) in every imaginable future - there's not a path for me god/life can pick that i'm not gonna run down to my failure and throwing two bold middle fingers up while cracking up the whole time screaming TTHHAANNKKYyyyyoooouuuuu facing the whole time certain oblivion and thinking nothing could be more wonderful than that,

f*ck me dear life i'm going for a jog.

poem

electric dreams, swimminginmilk


but is there a way out she asks i hand her a book. a condom. two quiet eyes that function as ears. i hand her tiramisu made with too much brandy. here are two tulip petals i say, when i am lostandaway rub them against your cheek and they will be my lips.

__because these histories of ours are too big to escape i am stuck with this being human.
i know just what you mean my love.

i wear the same thing as yesterday and wear my mother's belt too.

i push into her , eyes grow wide, soo much blue blurry, head tilts back and away, shh- go slow she says, a two-body fusion experiment. the physics of miracle. (this long boredom bastard haze of Brownian Motion i have slept in trains and died at parties cried on phones, look here: this small glitch escape i have found, yes!)
go slow she says, a two-body muscle pulsating slower,any slower it'd be geology and of course i remember: it is,

__because these bodies of ours are too small to escape i am stuck with this being human.
i know just what you mean my love.

(they show me photographs of their recent trip abroad. photo after photo red-eyed and sun-burnt and hair a mess clothes stained with dark brown dots of liquor trapped sweaty skinned and mouths wide yellow teeth in dark spaces (unbeknownst masochistic cocoons) with toxic lights people's tongues on each others' cheeks and lips the whole thing sticky as saliva zombies on a one-way-trip to monday next week,

sporadic daffodils, bulbs of yellow and miniature spring's hearts, in the grass as i walked home from the train station, tiny bodies in too vast histmemory, i was only 12, 15, 17, why do i always remember that colour?

its been washed too much this underwear is loose and my socks too dance around the bedroom, ((slept in trains and licked a stranger at the station bathroom the floor dirty, scratches on the cubicle door, (zombie) can smell my own skin admonish me

but there is a way out she tells me. thin beautiful girls walk and talk lost in each other's company and their delicate knees absorb me and their wrists, spring again, one blonde in particular passes me her hair follows like a shooting star,
__everywhere i look i find nothing but youth bubbling to the surface of,

lean into her, hips follow. a tree made of limbs and clavicles (i like it when you kiss there). still life with motionless creatures but there is untold dynamic in staring (just that) into someone's face lying atop them naked it's ok not to move, sshhh baby, just look and breathe with your eyes a minute,

((slept in trains and walked as an old man home; lay by the pool skinny and jaundiced, skin patched with rash and hair like a decaying hound, alone and lone loaned a library book and a friend's dreamscape to read the night by, and fell through the other side (the portal works fine but kicks you hard in the guts and bites to kill, but gets you from A to B,

woke up shaven and showered.
naked upon even more nakedness with clean sheets and she's still sleeping mumbling incoherently redemption songs.

but here is out.
tiny tulip petal, mistaken too often as another used(and now dried-up) teabag , strapless watch with the numbers all detached when i shake it the numbers fall around inside making tiny sounds like miracles clicking friday afternoon into place.

i wear my mother's belt. my best friend's watch.

out.
15 minutes 2 dates 1 long conversation with Ashley worth of anomaly or a couple years worth of magic strung together like pearls or good fortune no one looked under the vending machine to find by any other name is still the most wonderful version of today i've ever will ever know.

(portal works fine- has a delay sometimes misses your stop howls hatred at you the whole way you wish you'd taken the ride deaf but gets most of you from A to B,

(but is there a way out she asks.

instead i dream of cherry trees i've never seen. of a small room in Shanghai with a window it made no difference open or closed was soo dark. dusty cars huffing heat and tired Mexicans trying to get a gig for the day sweaty and scared standing in the Bank of America parking lot, these thin beautiful girls, summer dressed, long toes fit into sandals and sweaty leather creeping around their ankles (i spend an hour trying to find something on her body i've never kissed you're not going anywhere near there mister she yelps), so close my eyes and listen to German techno and British rock.

i wear out my own body. kill it into youth once again. surrounded in relics (in the pocket of a jacket i find a strand of long brown(red) hair, i must have known a marooned mermaid in a former life,

i promise to never wash that dream:

_________*___*___*

__(but is there a way out she asks.
_(portal works fine)

____.. everywhere i look i find nothing but youth

writer's block pt 2

i do not know if there is another world. one in my head. i find the proposition unlikely, i am not an imaginative man. it is perplexing. being urged to write. i know of one world. i am sitting in it. perhaps at its periphery, perhaps at its centre ; because my attempts to plot it have been unsuccessful, i cannot tell you which. the world exists as an extension of myself. it grows from me like grass and roots and tumors. i sweat clouds. this may or may not be true, but seems to be consistent with my ex-therapist's conclusion that i have narcissistic personality disorder, a matter i continue to find amusing.

therein lies the first problem with this story: it has no place. more correctly: no placeness. more accessibly: i have no sense of home ; therefore, i find it difficult to 'place' any story in a definite w(here. location is amorphous to me. if i close my eyes, i am not sure if they will open to a cubicle in the law library of Bond University on the Gold Coast, or if i will be sweaty standing at the corner of Topanga Canyon and Ventura Boulevard watching cars swallowed by the mouth of the 101, or sitting at the bus stop by the big roundabout where Ben Gurion Street ends in Haifa. the same is true of my characters. they exist as blurs. flashes of light and tenderness and affection, somehow converted by the magical touch of a Boeing 747 to polaroids on a wall. words on gchat screens. beeps on my phone. silent, ghostlike eyes reading this. that. other things. and confused i flip through the parts of my notebooks where i've written their names, our stories, and can't for the life of me think where i've left them. (or they've left me).

put a piece of paper in front of me, i promise i'll start crying before i determine where to place X .
so here we are: all my unimagined, unwritten stories. here we are without a starting point. without characters that hold their shapes. with too many streetsigns. and yet , there's an urge.

My confidence comes from the belief that all human beings resemble each other, that others carry wounds like mine- that they will therefore understand. All true literature rises from this childish, hopeful certainty that all people resemble each other.
____Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Acceptance Speech translated from Turkish by Maureen Freely

i know that two things must happen. (a) i must designate time to write for me. not for blogs, websites. only me. it is time i begun discovering where all the words go when they stop walking with me. there's a room or a blind-spot inside me somewhere, a convergence point, a locus, a grail-room where they're kept. when i find it, i can listen to the old man who's sitting there, and he will tell me what stories he wants told. who they're about. (b) my first story must be about home. about lostness and foundness. this much seems clear. in order to write this story, i will shut-out the memory of every scrap of half-formed story/poem/article in every one of my notebooks. this must be a new endeavor. this must be a new telling of this old battered world. i must reasses the clouds sweating off me and the thick branches growing off of me, and the small pebbles i leave behind everywhere whenever i sit or stand.


*___*___*

the pills have left me a little shaky , when i walk this is. so i try and sit. i find chatter burdensome. i have nothing i need to say.

but now i remember it. a wordless, austere melancholia. something so natural and common and inexplicable that we all pass it by without thinking to comment.


*___*___*

i have a faulty eye. commonly, i misinterpret. other times, misunderstand. often, misconceive in nature - a very deep error. if i am to tell of my own unplotted, unAtlassed world, then i proceed with plastic, Toys R Us seer stones. retracing my steps is too complex now, there can be no beginning. memory is capricious at the best of times. my friends are blurrs and polaroids and heartbeats. sitting at quiet tables i am going to slowly recruit. procure. designate. crosshatched names and street signs. kick over a house of cards and ask a shaman to tell me what happens next.


*___*___*

On Mooshley Having a Bad Day, Some Words in Consolation:


a book is perfect in colour.
crouches in its place on the shelf.
plays nicely with its neighbours.

the sun is occasionally too bright.
often, too-fully clothed in white clouds,
but like any half-decent friend, always shows up again.

my point is, if days can be unstitched back
into raspberry muffins and bright red mustangs,
then their fangs fall away too.

and if not that,
then heat the kettle,
like any half-decent friend,

i'm always en route to show up again.

writer's block

with the lights out, it's less dangerous
here we are now, entertain us

____Nirvana










Morning light, by irwin romain jules arthur


*___*___*

- whaterr you doing? [she mumbles]
- i'm cold [as i rise to step into pj bottoms and a tshirt, then, thinking a little, decide to put on a hoodie too]
- skin is better. i forbid clothes in this bed.
- you hog the blanket, i'm cold. [getting back in]
- psshh. don't touch me with your... clothing.


*___*___*

it's impossible to do know what even just sentence make up wait lemme start again, deep breath, rub eyes, wake up a little, okokokokok:

it's impossible to know what to do even just make up this sentence or know what to wear and where to wear it to and why.
(the song ends, it's a live cover people clap,


*___*___*

these are not our poems. our poems defy words. unclasp meaning(s) like bras. fall at our barefeet. the poets sit in coffee shops with pens that are useless. laptops that just blink. you cannot find a word anywhere to summarize this. there are no poems for us. no songs. no foxtrots, no ritual fire dances. no daydream transcribers and midnightmoonstargazers so when we wake up we see little dots across our field of vision.

(what the hell am i trying to say?)

existence is larger than all this whatever.ness.
god dammit how'd u do it?, every rock i kick hits a miracle i can't think of what tomorrow could bring that today hasn't sweetened it makes me happy enough to lie here and die i'm soo bored and have nothing nothing nothing i want to do anyeverything is just fine i'm happy to lick icecream of play piano or just sit quietly with you and rub fingers together this sort of complacency is exactly the very thing life was invented to snap us outta our daydreams of breasts and clouds and things that move slowly this earth is no place for adagio and lento and largo and grave. (truth is, i have no idea just what very thing this life was invented to snap us into outta and if the daydream is the very very point or the exact opposite of.

banana cake dipped in warm, thick chocolate and the tea is too bitter but the sun is just right so i don't complain and dip my cake in my chocolate and sip and talk and stare off into sunny grassiness and a topless little boy maybe 2 years old runs around giggling. what are you thinking she asks and i shake my head ever slowly and open my mouth to speak and instead, shake my head another once or twice. sip my tea. and let the moment dissolve into the next, where a new conversation will stumble into my mouth and we'll forget the moment(s) that words cannot describe. (or are wise enough to avoid).

(what the hell are you trying to say?)

round here we're carving out our names.

i found my first day hectic kinda i tell her. what? why? what did you do?
- nothing honestly. just sat around. chatted. heard people's stories from their holidays.
- sounds pleasant, what's hectic about that?
- i don't know. but i found it all a little tense. a little... nerve-wracking.
-
- [nod slowly]
- so what are you going to do?
- ___i guess tomorrow i'll start my pills again.
- don't lose any weight, i like you this size.
- [open mouth to speak, but...


*___*___*

nocturniette.

turn the blinds.
but the wind is just lovely.

any chance of it?
oh, oh who knows.


*___*___*

i have nothing (left) to write about. i forgave the past. it packed it's bags and slowly removed its belongings, packing things away and living just traces of dust that sometimes make me sneeze. that gone, i have nothing but empty rooms. i eat and sleep, or want to eat or sleep. and i sit by myself and listen to music and hold pens and open notebooks only to find i have unemployed words. they stand around. Mexican laborers on every other streetcorner in the Valley waiting for a gig, hands holding basketball caps, everything sweaty already even at 7am. there's never enough sleep just kissing and skin and books and movies and food and again, a new day, rinse and repeat. nothing left to say. life is its own beast. resigning to it leaves little reason to complain. i am too old now to revolt. my stories revolve around showers. around noontime sunlight and resolve finally in 8pm nocturnes that are soo mild i might as well write about hot chocolate and empty strollers.

somewhere a car beeps.

my eyelids are heavy i'm about to fall asleep. (again.

again.


again.

thoughts (fragments) :: welcome home penny man

___Or observe how words themselves can also write.

___House of Leaves







two of my favoritest favorites, by Golriz


it is the strangest rudest thing that the day never introduces itself or offers even a smile in place of an explanation. there it is. always. again and again. presenting itself at our doorway. in rectangular lines around blinded windows. running fingers here and there from behind our blinds. slamming full-forced into our eyelids as we wake-up on park benches and summer beaches. yes yes, i get it, there you are again. congratulations. unintroduced. unexplained. mostly mute, but for its gestures - light ; rain ; circumstances ; wind ; green-lights and yellow-lights ; good coffee and/or badly made coffee on the way to work.school.nowhere(important). just that. here are some playing cards. here a diamond here a clover, red and black, this is a day. if we play again, roll the dice, finefine, but the only one single solo solitary side that is invisible ought to be the winner. not the one on top, or the sides. the part you never see.


*___*___*

6am. goodlord i love jetlag. i open the blinds partially, look out at the empty street. not something you see often enough. get ready for my day with no idea what i'm getting ready for, it's called monday. it has a name. a word written on a flashcard. happens regularly, one out of every seven, but each is different to its progeny. i listen to Drunk and Hot Girls, which is ridiculously out of place, and think where to get breakfast.


*___*___*

the plane is divided into three sets of three seats. by each window three, and the middle three. i'm in the middle. i'm just stoked someone left behind a copy of this month's British GQ in the gate-lounge and i flip through it as i walk onto the plane. sit down. fit my backpack under my seat and flipping. eventually i look up and realize the plane's more than half empty. to my right is a young woman. dark hair. not necessarily attractive but for reasons i have never understood i'm always aroused when i travel. and i always travel alone. later she'll sleep and her bare feet will hang over the edge and i'll spend 15 minutes staring at them but thinking about nothing(something)(somethings)(everything)(alleverything)else. then i'll rip the plastic off two blankets, grab all three pillows and lie down myself across all three seats and wake up 7 hours later and mumble the words somewhere over the dateline to myself set to the melody of 'somewhere over the rainbow'.


*___*___*

i told her i'd see her last night but i fell asleep reading. when i woke up it was 1:30am and i was on my couch and my book was heavy on my chest and i guess i submitted voluntarily because my glasses are off and sitting on the coffee table. i rub my eyes, respond apologetically to the text she sent couple of hours ago. turn off the lights, creep into my bed (new sheets and bed made properly, it feels wrong to get in, like i'm too dirty, too messy, too much entropy for it. i quarantine myself to just one side, decide to only use one pillow and promise to freeze into only one position for the whole night. when i wake at 6am, i have been true to my word. i carefully make the bed exactly as it had been. like i was never there. i consider texting her back and asking her to breakfast but i really just want to finish my book. and an omelet.
"can i add mushrooms to this?"
"uhm... yeah, sure."
"how much extra is it?"
"$4.50" (i'm soo annoyed i can't speak for a moment. getting used to Australian prices is always difficult. i considering writing a letter to the Prime Minister informing him of the horrendous economic situation in his country. instead i shake my head,
"no, don't worry, i'll take it as is."
i eat slowly and try not to be annoyed i'm not at Denny's across the Vons on Topanga - the tables always a little sticky from someone else's maple syrup mishap. smelling of oil and freshly brewed slightly burnt coffee. old faces of people who have no idea what's happened to their neighborhood and large immigrant families. i drink my coffee (which is superior to anything i've had in three weeks and smooth and soft and feels more like someone kissing me or a cloud in my mouth) and try to curb feeling annoyed about not being at Swingers in Santa Monica. Mel's on Sunset. where i had an omelet and an english breakfast and a redbull and Ashley just shook her head as at 2am i gulped down the redbull in two sips and put it on the edge of the table, whole thing took 30 seconds, before i begun messing with the teabag. where i had three sliders and curly fries and about 4 refills of my cherry coke. Ashley shaking her head, me saying peeing every 12 minutes for the next 3 days will be worth it i'm going to make damned use of free refills long as i can, hell, last week during Harry Potter i ran out the cinema (full-sprint i hate missing anything) up to the candy bar demanded they refill my frozencoke(by any other name icee.slurpie.slushie is just as potent an antidepressant) which they duly did and i ran back in feeling sick from being chock full of sugar and drank sucked licked tapped out every last crystal of syruppy brown ice one for the road i thought to myself, make best use.

next thing i know the book's finished (700-odd-pages). my omelet's finished. the coffee was gone lone ago, and the plate the muffin was in is empty but for crumbs. it's over. my vacation is over. [i sigh]


*___*___*

i'm wearing light grey sweatpants from H&M, they're thin and fitted and perfect. i get out of bed and notice a bluge in my crutch despite my being flaccid. i tuck my penis this way and that trying to make it go away but it won't. this is not a problem i usually have. unsure how to resolve it, i take the pants off. find a pair of tight navy corduroy pants to wear. i keep the light brown tshirt i wore to bed on (it reminds me of the 99c store which is my mom's favorite thing about America). i shut down my computer (PS if anyone is going to read House of Leaves, you'll need this), and can't decide what to do next.


*___*___*

the day(s) you finish a book are always soo special.

a climbed mountain, or, a notch on a bedpost, or... something definitive you said you did before you died. (achievement).

___(maybe it's just me. in that case:

the day(s) I finish a book are always soo special.

Ophelia- and other women who couldn't float (a complete waste of time in seven parts with intro & comments)

by här e christian


INTRO:
take a few words with you before you go ; i can't tell what good they'll do you, but they disappear with time and said aloud won't linger past the hour-mark. some stick, sure, anomalies, but here's hoping you won't get struck by any toothpick-sized lighting tonight.


(!1)
LA is a city the size of your car.
time is measured in traffic: a randomized god made of broken-down wrecks,
closed lanes, flouro cones. sirens. a hundred motionless beasts huffing.
__i kiss her on the cheek, and push my lips deep into her cheek, and get out the car.


(2_ :videotape: _)
a dusty yellow couch. in a room with a balcony we hardly ever sat on. double doors with a red curtain. tiled fireplace. dark haired white skin yellow eyed, and ten-thousand stars of the stardust of your hair , the beach - still with no waves. dark. submerged, staring at the moon, even with the moon out i was severed across the torso, a white arm and head the only things left :: my cat's name was Molly ; i ran because the schoolbus was late and parked in the wrong spot on the wrong side of the intersection and i knew everyone would be worried i got off and ran and tripped and the puddle was soo deep i've never been wetter :: in a dark cinema, i couldn't believe where my hands were going and her only leaning back and closing her eyes and oh my gg :: not this song, i can't hear this song ever again she said sadly as she stared out the window, and i couldn't look at her, i stared out another window, and leafed through my book. and the sherut kept going :: 10 straight Q, get 10 straight from the free-throw and we go in, :: the black of pianos, god-damn this muffin is the size of my head [she laughs] :: on the phone i cried and couldn't even understand how big this was, you have tiny hands Mar you know that? :: this is what we do, this is what we do, this is what we did :: the CD cover was a scarlet red. .. ... .... ....., :: Prague in the winter with the snow and my Cons wet with white sticking to the laces and my feet soo cold and sleeping on the floor and coughing and sneezing and hoping :: my grandfather's tie around my neck, and the picture of my dad in my cot with me in just a diaper in my pocket :: a sunday smile :: i sit in the dark office with Justin Manners and we laugh <<>> she smokes outside, sitting on Sahar's green swing, holding a mug of tea, and i can't tell if she's exhaling smoke or steam, and i stand by the wall in a jacket cold staring at her :: and here at last, i have soo much faith in you she says, a year ago she'd ended a conversation with i'm not worried about you, which had made me feel equally good, he's always happy when i'm around she says half-jokingly and i nod, it's true, and i think I am hidden, but I cast light upon his hidden place, i kiss her on the cheek, and push my lips deep into her cheek, and get out the car.


(..3am)
hello again you are soo dark. i hear the fan despite my headphones.
the computer screen lights up my fingers i can see the cracks in my skin.

there might be dreams somewhere. if i slept more i'd know them better. (i miss butterflies. i should dream more often of butterflies) ,, i shake my head, try and understand how quiet and dark it is, and the fan on my legs and i wear Eman's Harvard tshirt which makes me feel stupid even in my sleep but i wear it anyway and i think to myself how the phrase 'how strange the sound' applies to the whole of everything (as if 'sound' were a concept that could embody everything) (and between you and i, i am soo mistaken, soo confused, soo dizzy, that i think it does).

+-+-+-+-+-+-+ this fence is here for now +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

but now is much smaller than forever. and now disappears immediately and forever is always 20 minutes later.


(4))
- q. you've lost me. i'm sorry, i.. . i don't know what you're saying.
- [he smiles sadly] it's ok. i... even i don't know what i'm saying.
- no!, please, i care - i want to understand.
- [he shrugs] what is a myself and where can i get one?
- wh what?


[5a)
it won't rain for a long time. it is all summer now. more or less 9 months of it if i can get through this i'll give birth to Helios himself i am not looking forward to all the sweat i don't have enough in me for it (maybe i just need to drink more water).


[5b)
and now is ok.
and now
is ok
now is ok
is
and.

is. (right?)


(.6.)
___i'm going to kiss your breasts.


(7 everything else:


COMMENTS:
CASPER SAYS: q, i have no idea what you're saying... you've completely lost me.

CARLY92 SAYS: just for all the folks out there reading this, i know Q. he's a strange person and a terrible kisser. epic person-fail. i actually fail-blogged him.

MOTHMAN: i agree with carly92. q and i had sex once in the back of a taxi driving around bangkok while conversing with the taxi driver about Pericles and sharing a lamb kebab, and he was wack.

LU SAYS: i like yours very much. look at my blog also, i hope you like it it is about me.

nOt YO tYpIcAl Bit$ch!! SAYS: omg ur awesome. fb me sometime? (ps not to be weird, but, whose helios and how can you give birth?)

moves too fast

via the pulp girls


can you slow it down?
what?
the song is too fast.
slow the radio?
___(or at least sunset)
_are you waiting.running for something? she wants to ask
___(but look here how warm it is, and smiles are heavy dear god what do i do with all of them they won't fit in any bag suitcase nutcase

>>>how do we do this thing how do we do this thing how do we do this thing how do we do this thing?<<< ___[she laughs, with a screwdriver of course!]
____of course! it is summer, and it is dust, the windshield so dirty i can't see Reseda Ave i pass it again and curse and the air is sharp, some leviathan's bristles down my throat,

after all the things that we've been through,
___(a hundred times i had to write it out, sit on side of the road and look at the house and write out the address one hundred times until you don't forget it anymore 8035 8035 8035 8035 8035 8035 Hanna Hanna Hanna Hanna Hanna Hanna 91304 91304 91304 91304 91304 91304 over and over it's funny there are few details like that you remember for your whole life, it seems funny this place this place this place how often we crash/land/stop/crawl here ('place' has a figurative reading too she tells me, i just nod. sure. yes.

so which do you mean?

(one hundred times write down the sound of the fan. the day of the week. the names of your friends. the topics of your conversations. the dates of their birthdays. the clothes you wear. the sound of the fan. the sound of the fan. the sound of the fan)

seriously, which?

how do you get everything to fit in the suitcase?, hurry, my plane's leaving left gone never coming.

fragments (thoughts)

leave the sun behind me,
and I watch the clouds as they sadly pass me by
n' I'm in perpetual motion
and the world below doesn't matter much to me

____This Time Tomorrow, the Kinks











rappin granny by ye rin mok


in another life, one i don't really care to remember, i walked down a street just outside the old-city of Vienna. i passed Joseph Hayden's church, which annoyingly was never open when i strolled by. there was a little cinema and i watched everything. anything. (i do that when i need to get my mind off things). anything with english subtitles i'd watch. and Once was playing, and Gol had raved about how great it was and forgot to mention it was a pseudo-love-story, a pill best not taken with a broken heart. so unslept and cold and overcome - Vienna is a far too romantic city, it's dangerous if you're flying solo, just skip it, if you can't hold someone's hand don't bother - i sat and watched and afterwards nearly stopped to throw up besides a Turkish restaurant i ended up eating at, not really admitting it to myself, but secretly because kebab reminded me of Israel and at that point that's the only place i wanted to be.


*___*___*

i can't think beyond green apples and tshirts. i've bought a million of both. tshirt after tshirt. an apple and redbull for breakfast, snack and dinner. (my grandmother shakes her head: a monstrosity! shakes her head: a travesty! disapproving). in the opshop (thrift-store)(2nd hand store) i sneeze and cough - presumably from the dust - my mother gives me a disapproving glance because she assumes i'm up to something. i keep walking, piles of shirts and cardigans and ridiculous things i'm trying on for fun because i'm half-gay falling in my wake. i walk past a half-dead piano with a paper hand-written SOld sign and as if by impulse my left hand falls to my side and runs the arpeggio of A-major across two octaves it sounds clean and instinctual like maybe i'm someone who once played the piano pretty decently an elderly black woman with short greying hair and large glasses looks up at me quizzically. i'm too sad to throw her a sad smile, i just walk on towards the sign that says pantalones(pants).

sometimes i think beyond green apples and tshirts. last night i had a nightmare about failing an exam. the night before about some family drama. over dinner i say
__- when i get home i'm getting back on the pills
__- i thought you said you were through with them.
__- mind changed mind.
__- speak normally.
__- changed my mind.
__- why?
__- nightmares. got sad for no reason in Seattle one night. had a freakout in the bank today that we'd be late for your 3 o'clock.
__- you seem fine to me.
__- i am.
__- chirpy, if anything you talk too much right now. always joking.
__- give it a few more weeks. matter of time.
__- you're sure?
__- yeah.
__- so control it.
__- that's like telling someone with back pain to control it.
__- you're just spoiled. [this particular statement disproportionately angers me]
__- you're just retarded.
__- don't be mean Q!
__- sorry. _you should know better. 10 years of this crap you should know better. [she stares at her salad quietly]
__- so what'll happen?
__- the robot i guess.
__- don't you rather... aren't you happier being... you?
__- __yeah. [said sadly]
__- not willing to take the good with the bad?
__- guess not [it's cause i remember it and it scares me. i don't wanna be that again]
aside from tshirts and apples sometimes i look through photography blogs and see pictures of half-naked women. i remember those. oh yes. those are lovely. lovely indeed. in the summer i am rarely concerned with women. it's too hot.


*___*___*

it's hot. the incessant sound of fans taxes my patience. wet patches on bedsheets and pillows and i've taken to sleeping in boxer shorts which is usually fine. occasionally i adopt a strange sitting position and find a few moments later my penis lying against my leg airing itself. usually catches me off guard and i just stare at it a few moments thinking who let you out?.
__sitting in cars it's the worst. a sort of existential tragedy - a reminder of all things Dante's Inferno. and we drive and in the distance i see dusty hills with smoke rising from the bushfires. mom says don't you feel like you're in jahanam q? and i nod. the cars all stopped, bright red taillights winking occasionally. purring of so many engines - sounds like machine-animals feeding. the air is napalm. the LA highways are the backs of cement-skinned snakes with neon red and white bristles. a truck makes a massive racket as it rolls to a stop besides us. a huge noise. oh goody, here's Charybdis.
__god dammit mom, i don't f*cking wanna go to Walmart i want to get in the car and drive to Santa Monica where there's air and i'm bored as all-f*ck and seriously don't care stop talking. easy-tiger she says. softly. calms me. i mumble curses to myself and when she asks what? i say What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? to which she says what? again. and i smile pretentiously to myself as i stare out at the lowered window at rising masts of smoke and think it's the long fingers of a giant smoke-monster come to raze the world back into cataclysm. about time.


*___*___*

EMAIL HIGHLIGHTS:

more of everything - does that make sense?
yes. of course it does. me too. more of everything. always. i agree. (and i sit by the campfire and smoke awkwardly and she shakes her head Q! that's a depressant! and smile that invisible smile, with reddened eyes and hungry fangs and i lick my lips and Mr. Hyde gets a hard-on and ) (drive too fast with windows down in any weather it rains i don't care let it rain and if heat then we'll sweat whatever) (and i hug friends too hard ow it hurts she says and in her ear i whisper sshh baby, it's the only way to feeel my body and she gives me a weird look and i'm sad she doesn't get it) ( and i haven't called her since the time in her room worried about her roommate coming home any minute any minute she makes me keep my tshirt on and we jump every time voices are heard walking down the corridor and she laughs still holding my penis in her hand slippery licks her lips at least we're not freezing our asses off on the beach i laugh and grab her by the hair and pull her up to kiss her, and she contorts her neck to get out of it and slaps my cheek hard enough to mean business and i lift myself onto my knees and grab her neck and push her head back down onto a pillow ow! she says annoyed and i put two fingers in her mouth and grab her jaw with the rest of my hand and hold her till she kisses me ) more. more of everything. more of everything good and terrible. more f*cking tshirts and green apples and naked bodies and more miles of freeways and more hugs with friends and upsize my damn lemonade yes, of course! i've waited a whole year to be here you think i'm going to walk away without a refill you're outchyo mind. if it has to hurt let it hurt.


and don't worry about exams.
for whatever reason, only some people have that ability. to say something, the same thing everyone's saying, but you believe them. it actually works, it's does make everything alright.


that sorta causes heightening of the senses to some metastable state
met • a • sta • ble adjective Physics (of a state of equilibrium) stable provided it is subjected to no more than small disturbances
__and i interpret myself, using these words. find them in dictionaries and emails and hold them up to light and look through them and sit around thinking about them and if there's enough leg-room in a word to incorporate myself, having no identity of my own, maybe i can borrow this word's or that word's. and that's me. that right there. metastable.


I suppose it's too out of the way, but inconvenience is the deterrence tool of happiness. This is the bridge less taken, but we chose it.
it's funny how your words make me want to write stories. stories stories stories. true-stories about nonpeople. people who don't really exist, maybe just as versions of myself, or people i've bumped into. when i arrive(d) in Vienna this girl on the bus and i'm looking in my notebook trying to work out where the hostel is and where to get off the bus and her with a crumpled piece of paper in her hand and i ask her where her hostel is and she tells me and it sounds about the same place as mine and we talk and in my head (even though at this stage i don't think any woman exists except for _ _ _ _ _) i think please, pleaseplease fall in love with me and save me from this but she doesn't really, we eventually work out her hostel is at the start of the street and mine at the end and i nod sadly and walk away into a dark January oblivion of myself : two weeks after for my birthday i'm sitting at a restaurant somewhere in LA with Monz and Jamal and i can barely manage a smile but i joke around with them and someone finally says, q, it's your birthday dude, this is your birthday dinner. and i look up confused, what? (btw Monz, what will we do for yours?)

other stories. other stories that end differently. end in people kissing under bridges (is that the start or the end, or is one end the same very exact thing as the other's start?, yes yes, that must be it, all linked, like chains, every novel just starting off where another left off, every email, every first kiss makes another relationship officially over).

stories about my grandfather who posthumously i think is my very best friend and whose tie i appropriated out his closet after he passed away and wear too much and take it with me when i travel it's here with me now even though it has two small holes - stories about my mom and my sister and about crazy people and walking back home from McDonalds with my sister i chastise her the whole way (ok ok jeez, calm down she says) for not smiling at a homeless man (dammit Sahar, that's a person, do you understand? do you see that that's a human being do you have any idea what it's like to not be smiled at? not be acknowledged when someone walks past you it makes you feel like a ghost it's the worst thing in the universe (cause i do) besides - what makes you any different to them? what? tell me now? you, i, everybodydamnoneofus is 3 bad decisions, one unfortunate week away from being that person you give them the respect and dignity that a human being deserves or i swear i will be pissed _ off. (damn q, ok ok, i get it).

stories about random conversations/moments. that's all i've got tin. as far as i can tell, being human is just that. and i haven't managed to gather anything more to my name than that. (and that makes me sad)


*___*___*

how will i last without magic?