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.