practical law 101

tod seelie, slowdancing to slayer

LESSON 1:
appropriate style for texting present/hoped-for/future girlfriend an invitation to a dinner/movie date in haughty, bombastic, grandiloquent legalese - a must-have skill for all pimps, playaz and mack-daddies.


*___*___*

NOTICE OF INTENT

___Hereby, adequate notice taken as provided,
___constituted herewith in (this) present
___txt message of forthcoming proposal to:

______(1) partake in slaughter of animals; and,
______(2) viewing of Up in the Air, scheduled 20:50,
_________location taken as per usual and
_________consistent course of association; and,
______(3) copious smooching

___Be it known:
___contemporary statements of the Law of Contract
___continue to approve 'postal rule' applicable and
___analogous to txt message technology,
___all liability for potential or possible claims or actions
___either on the basis of
___breach of fiduciary duty (pursuant BF/GF relationship; or,
___negligent course of dealing in failing to provide reasonable notice; or,
___renege of contractual agreement; or,
___all other possibilities,
___hereby held not accountable to offeror of this
___NOTICE OF INTENT FOR PROPOSAL FORTHCOMING,
___agent or partner thereof, ostensible or express.

Bests and bests,
H.D. Monster (Esq)

bloodlust (a vent)

"you know there's no way this can end well right?"
"how do you mean?"
"so i'm working myself to the bone, yeah"
"yeah."
"say i do really badly, my ego's gonna be soo beat up, i'll work twice as hard next semester just to make myself feel better-
"yup
"and if i do well, then i'm gonna work twice as hard because i won't be able to bear losing it again."

things turned out ok in the end. suddenly... (i'm going to do something slightly atypical and toot-my-own-horn for a minute) suddenly 14 weeks have gone by, and i couldn't tell night from day for most of them and when semester started again i found myself a new... type of student. a geekazoid. one of the certificate-carrying members of the elite law-school nerdosphere. i made Dean's List, topped one of the hardest classes you can take, and am two percent away from having a high-distinction average - meaning i'm two percent away from graduating with first-class honours.

i have no idea how that happened. seriously. none.

it's 2:30am. i can't sleep. when semester started again, i was floating along. wanting to talk to randoms and watch movies and sit around. lazy. i'd lost something of that...


it's unhealthy. i'll admit it: here, watch me say it: it's not 'healthy'. but, there's only one way i've ever discovered to do well at something: ingrain it into the fabric of your being. your personality. your sense of self-worth. your entirety. that way, you're overcome by paranoiac delusions and irrational fears of boundless ruin should you miss your mark.

and tonight, or yesterday, or... somewhere in between, it occurred to me, i have a very real chance of being a 15 minutes-of-once-was. and i'm no smarter than anyone, the only reason things went right last semester was because i worked till i bled from my gums and because god was happy to reward me, just to keep my segregated from the other children so i'd stop persuading people to have pre-marital sex, or at very least, to masturbate more often.

and it's back. bloodlust. skin tingles with it. it's all you see. perfect tunnel-vision. you don't sleep till 3-4 in the morning as it is, and even then you wake up in a sweat two hours later for no reason, reach down and grab the stack of papers and the green pen (btw, thanks babs) and resume reading.

and mostly, all i can think is, of every failure that ever beset me, and hounded me nipping at my ankles till i fell and fell and fell - of every time i got to the end of something, and thought, 'nope', or even worse 'nope, but i'm stuck' or even worse 'nope. but i'm stuck. cause i got no where else to be.' or even worse 'nope. but i'm stuck, cause i got no where else to be, and have no idea which stop to get off at' - i think of each of those times and i think (quite loudly i think this) EFF THAT, i'm not goin back there. i'm not going back to unhappy, apathetic, mediocrity.

and mostly finally, i've already missed most of the graduate recruitment deadlines anyway. which means, all those fears i have of the future (somewhat lessened, somewhat greater) tap like rain on windshields when i try to sleep or stop moving or stop reading. and all i can think to do then, is to take a hatchet to my limbs and organs, and hand them in as assignments, and to use them as decorations on notes and tutorial answers, and to offer the last of it on a plate, cut into fours, on four final exams.

don't know where my head's been for the last 2 weeks,
but it's back now.

and (as usual), it feels inferior and (as usual) has something to prove. and (as usual), i'm the only it's yet to convinse.
____so let's play.

[i will probably regret this post in the morning and delete it. enjoy while it's hot]

the beautiful book

Beautiful Book by Jack Smith, 2001 after 1962


all a man really wants is for it to not be too hot. for his shoes not to get wet in puddles on his way to work, so his socks are wet and each step he takes makes an odd noise. it's nice to find a parking space, it's nice to afford the gas, it's nice when it switches gears easy. just that. to sleep easy, rise peacefully, and lay down again at the end of the day in one piece. nice to be woken with kisses. nice to sleep in someone's chest. nice when you get the softest pillow. the isle seat. when there's lots of previews, when you're not expecting a call so you have no problem switching to silent. all a man really wants is some silence. scratch that, lots of silence. cartons of it. spools of it, unrolling from hour to hour, just some time to hear your muscles contract and your nerves twitch, like sitting in a garden and watching grass twitch and trees ebb and flow. and beautiful women, everywhere, who smile back peacefully. those amazing ones - with blond hair in the wind like the halo of a meteor. who you stare at out of cars unable to look straight ahead because... she resembles a youthfulness. skin something too perfect to be touched. feet sculpted out of god's smile when she walks the grass grows erect. ___and sunday. not always, but, it's nice to have a few sundays in the card deck to let off some steam. to do laundry so that when you get in bed on sunday night it smells like sun and wind and detergent. haircuts when they're due and bills that leave something over for flowers you don't need but want in the house and, bookshelves. large, sprawling bookshelves that spread like embers of colour and fascination so that when you look around there are little families of colourful spines and covers and bookmarks living as satellite colonies under coffee tables and on office desks and kitchen counters. vitamin water. clean glasses. green pens left on your table for you by someone who knows you like green pens. things that are bright red and remind you of fire-trucks and 1965 mustangs and super hero outfits. to playfight with children and scratch behind the ears of dogs and under the chins of cats. to read under trees and sit under trees and walk in the company of trees and for the night to let you be. for night to be just night. for there to be a breeze. a man just wants his keys to be where he left them. his shower to be hot. his bed to be warm with someone else's body. just that. he wants his memories hung in worthy frames, and his nostalgia drank with warm tea and dates. for there not to be spam in his inbox. for his candidate to win, and for there to be enough hugs to go around. a man just wants first kisses all the time, even when it's your third or fiftieth to nudge back and think 'my god, today's you is newest and most beautiful of them all' and she to say 'oh i know what you're thinking, you wanna get in my pants mister' and for everyone to then end up in each others' pants laughing and dreaming their way out of their tiny apartments with dishes in the sink and vacuums in living rooms everyone tripping over them. not too much is it? for fathers to find peace and mothers to find something to be proud of and sisters to... fly to a world where legs and spines and crooked eyes and pimples and urinary tract infections don't mean a thing. where meaning is a thing. a man just wants a clean, clear, fast wi-fi signal to go with his macbook. his muffin warmed. his delivery only a few days late, and i know what life's about, i don't need to be the best, really - just get me over the line i'll take it and thank my way giggling and humming all the way back to the next time we meet. some men like lamps. lights that come with dimmers. showering together. being met at the airport with a sleepy smile that says 'who cares if it's 5am, as if i wouldn't come'. (and then for your luggage to be there too). couple more things, just a few... ___the ties of his grandfathers around his neck. to know something to have faith in, __and to feel found at the end of feeling lost.

to laugh and whisper while making love and watching television and to die a man who was born only a possibility.

quiet frustration. a story.

untitled, marie edwards


the professor's wife had said that she'd be back and went to Berlin to see a major Lucien Freud retrospective. he hadn't opposed the decision but found himself turbulent that evening. he had medication to calm him, but a side-effect was insomnia so it made better sense to try and sleep.


*___*___*

unmedicated, the professor managed to convince himself in 25 minutes that (a) he had no friends and no one liked him (b) his wife had left him forever (in conformity with point (a)) (c) he had put on a regretful amount of weight (d) henceforth, life would be a long road of misfortune and abject failure.


*___*___*

of course there was no good reason for these conclusions, which the professor rightly knew. the professor also knew that 'knowing' something and matters of 'belief' are two entirely different sharp-edged instruments. to calm himself the professor looked through internet websites displaying artistic photography, and tried to make up stories to suit the various images he saw.


*___*___*

unlike cats which always land on their feet, people often land flat, compelling their heart to jerk forward and collide with the inside of their chest, for a moment being face to face with the floor. only she'd hadn't landed on the floor. and the floor (in this case) was not a house roof. at least, not in a literal sense. she had crawled out of a window, and climbed up. then she had turned onto her stomach and slid down into a stream of autumn that was waiting to carry her somewhere else. where she lived, streams, rivers and traffic conveniently had the habit of waiting for her to appear so that they might carry her onwards. midway down the roof's slant the stream stopped for some air and a sandwich and tea. she refused to speak, she hadn't anything to sad and she would not be coerced or cajoled into making a statement. rather, she sought to simply be dragged along. alas, the autumn stream, the tree besides the roof, and an energy-meter down below all asked repeatedly but, my dear, why the indian outfit? but she comforted her eyes with the delicious sensation of darkness, and tried to cram all if not all and some more into the insides of her closed eyelids so that her eyes would protrude out a little bit she imagined it to be like a secret hammock or a cave with a soft thin wall where she'd be safest safest safest and as she slowly maneuvered the right elbow and arm of her soul into the darkness of the eyelid she but, my dear, why the indian outfit? kept being interrupted.


*___*___*

too many of the artistic photographs he was looking at were nudes of attractive women. this vexed him. there is no greater aphrodisiac than knowing you won't be having sex for a while.


*___*___*

the real fear was in her legs. they just lay there, oddly. the stream could sense the young girl's will to move, but the legs remained perfectly... paralyzed. the tree stopped questioning her a moment to really think about what was happening, and the energy-meter hushed the autumn stream, and they all stopped to look at the girl.

out of the window a scream was heard.

winter. home.

agnes thor via tinyvices


in my eyes i see what home looks like. every now and then, i can feel it for a moment or two. i'll be lying on the couch with GF and we'll be doing nothing and i'll lean over, handling her delicately because i think she's asleep, and click the laptop on the coffee table to replay the playlist, and lean back. she'll have been awake the whole time and she'll turn her head a little, and we'll hold our lips right near a few moments, like holding two magnets just apart for a few seconds to feel the attraction in your hands, then... click. lips amongst lips. like a bowl of orange segments. ___ walking into my room, when it's still how i left it. looking at my bookshelf and seeing a little microcosm of myself. a few textbooks from my physics days. a few from israel. a whole bunch of novels and books of poetry, all representing different times, different places. inscriptions from different people. sometimes friends, sometimes strangers who owned them before i do. on the last shelf there is a book called entropy pieces, gol had it made for my birthday. a sweet sweet gift, selections of my writings, pictures i'd used on the blog. below that there's what looks like a photoalbum, but if you open it you'll see it's a farewell book mona put together. full of messages and photos and... things that usually make me too sad to look at. especially _ _ _ _ _'s message 'we want you, but the world needs you'. even without looking at the book i remember that line. it haunts me. nags at me. makes me think if she was wrong about me all along. just... another deluded young couple too infatuated and well before they knew what love really was. it always scares me, that she might actually have been wrong. another of my failures to her. love is more painful than rugby i can't take it. ___ i imagine home. the one that i don't have. i imagine a place where it's always between fall and winter. seattle maybe. it's quiet when you need it to be. it's never too bright, it doesn't glare, i hate glare. i can walk 90 minutes without breaking a sweat. i like to walk. driving stresses me. besides, to know a city you have to walk it. i've walked every city i've lived in, except LA, you don't walk LA. even still, i've walked all over parts of LA, if that counts. you sense the pace, the feel, the people of a city walking. on busses and trains. you see it moving past you. you are relaxed, so you spot signs and see people standing at traffic lights and walking besides you and the names on nametags. it means something to me to do this. Vienna. Prague. Brisbane. Haifa. Chicago. Seattle. Shanghai. Osaka. Beijing. walked walked walked. my toes bled in Sydney once. didn't care. ___ home only really begins when you know where all the streets lead. where you can find an all-day breakfast.

i'm like a dog, territorial. it's dreadful, i won't use the kitchen unless i pay the rent. when i have to move back home with my parents i confine myself to my room. rarely leave. i have space to receive guests in my own quarters. never ever answer the landline. try to be a ghost. in my own home, the imaginary concoction in my head, i see myself waking up on a sunday (home always happens on a sunday, when you have time to bask in it), it looks like new york this time, open widows with sills painted white because i like fresh air in the morning. it's a studio maybe. i put on a jacket and some jeans, both black. down the stairs, buy fresh bread. eggs. cheese. flowers, something cheap, like white daffodils or magnolia. come back home and make breakfast.
______ it's in the air. i mean it. home feels like adelaide air in the autumn. looks that way too. (i wonder if we ever really think anything's home but our childhood. wherever that went).

i see the end of the day too. where i hang my jacket when i get in. wifey/GF saying want some tea babe? me saying thanks babs and walking into the kitchen with sleeves rolled up, open collar, and tie loose. and she's brewing leaves because she knows i prefer them but am too lazy to do it myself i just throw the bag in and live with it. she has on a singlet and pyjama bottoms. i kiss the back of her neck (she has her hair up, which she apologizes for but i really don't mind at all).
___- why do you insist on listening to Wagner in the morning?
___- what?
___- this morning, i heard you... before work, i heard you go out for groceries, thanks for the flowers by the way, and Wagner while you ate.
___- the overture to Parsifal.
___- yes [she can recognize it by now]
___- it's magical. helps me believe in magic.
___- all this time, i still have no idea what you're talking about half the time. or if you're serious.
___- what's more serious than a miracle?
___- it's fine. i liked it. it's nice to wake up to that.
___- beats megadeath?
___- [she smiles] yes. definitely beats megadeath.

my parents' closets were always a mess. still are. mine are always organized. i suppose it's a new generation thing - love of clothes. cloak and bullet-proof-vest for the modern age, a well fitting shirt and trousers you paid too much money for. perhaps perhaps. my closet is meticulous, in my home this is, in my head. there are paintings. photographs here and there. not with me in it, just... stuff. gifts from friends.


in reality i am in summer's wednesday (far enough in to be exhausted of it, but still ages away from the weekend respite). there will be no rain to calm my nerves for too long yet. i have gained weight, i am fat. i have been sick for a week, the sound of fans and feel of bedsheets has settled me, but also, tired me in a different way. this cannot be home. this is not how it is in my head.

what am i writing?
sometimes i forget i am, and i look up one moment and find myself in front of my computer typing and i have no idea what i've written or what it's about. it's... scary. last i remember i was brushing my teeth. now i'm here. time is fragmented not continuous, that's the truth.

i'm here for now. i'm grateful to be. but... i need to find a way out. this is not where i need to be. just don't know where's... ___something that fits better.

(often times, when i come to and find myself writing, i suddenly feel exhausted and start falling asleep. like now.

i may decide in the morning this post sucks and delete it. so. sorry to waste your time. full refund and apologies, compliments of the writer available upon request. bests and bests.

happy birthday day Q, happy birthday Mar.

dd
___Q

where are we? where are we where are we where are we? who is this life, who are these people? i can't recognize much of this landscape, but it has a... sense of correctness to it. a feeling of it being the 'right way'. and for whatever reason, we have regained something of ourselves haven't we?, and in addition, have made a profit or two along the way. i was counting, between november and december i saw 36 sunrises in a row sitting at my desk. is that what life is? after dinner, i throw away what's left of the roast chicken. it makes me sad to do it, but, it was getting old. is this what life is? but what a heavy thing we have become. so full of myselfness so that even when i am insecure i am not. and when i am perplexed i crash walls and she says to me sometimes i think i have to tiptoe around you and she wants me to kiss her but i can't. this is who we are. drifters. desiccaters. licking our lips between sex and gasping at how wonderful it is to remember we are alive afterall. Q, we are alive, afterall. [i smile]. after it all, a diet of cough-drops, amphetamines, hand-holding, and persistent sunrise watching has sustained us. (how hard it is to be a dreamer. a professional violin weeper. a sunset cemetery leaf sweeper).

licked our lips between gulps of rum, sitting in rooms by ourselves, with our fangs having nothing to stab but notebooks writing page after page forgive we who are lost, forgive we who are lost, forgive we who are lost, only to wake finding our car, parked out front, has been smashed up by the neighbor too-sleepy on his way to work at 5am. and nauseous, drove where we needed to go and sat and stared at computer screens listening to our neurons crackle like static. this is where we have come from. that is a world we know. ____and yet, ___this is the silent land.

purpose, my mother had said, is what you need boy. you are purposeless. and i had stared at the floor and felt my insides connive to catabolism, afterwards spitting out mouthfulls of shame and blood and acid.


___MAR

___(as always, in my head, i hear Mar's voice and Mar's silence. Mar's little hands and Mar's tea kettle which Mar could hear boiling 24 seconds before any known creature alive Q, the kettle's boiling she'd say, no it's not, i'd say, sure enough 24 seconds later i'd hear the dimmest high-pitched shriek starting up; as always, in my head: this is the only way it could have been). we'll laugh at their funerals Mar. we will laugh at our funerals. we will dance at our birthdays and our dawns, we will have dreams made of tea that smell like vanilla, and markets smelling of fish, we will sit at the borders of States and argue about nicotine and we will live brutal brutal unfair lives, and we will laugh till somebody does me the favor and ups the morphine drip. and we will lick our lips in between for more.


___Q + MAR

in a world with too few friends how'd we end up with soo many Mar? and life is short i hear but there're stories crammed into every drawer, closet and backpack we own - can't start the car without encountering a few more. i've done us a favor and been succinct about it: friends and stories, that's all there is to it right? friends, stories, that's all you take away from the table.


___MAR

dear lovely eyes, say hi to Mar. the only person to hear me cry in more than a decade. who outstretched her hand from beyond continents and calenders to make you feel better. whose couch has saved me more than once. who doesn't let you get away with fallacy or cowardice. whose soft in the heart but guards it so you can't get to it without earning you way through. the sort of friend who'll sock your ex-girlfriend in the face for being a bitch to you [Q smiles as he think this].


___Q + MAR

happy newest year guys. happy newest versions of yourselves. happy the best-ever versions of
yourselves. the most up-to-date. exhausted and fatigued in all the best/worst ways. you have more future than time for.

___(i'm in the water alone, it's black and the sky's black and the moon's yellowish. it's hard to see much. in the distance, on the sand dunes i see some light-bulbs on the sand with coloured plastic around them. a sound system blasts music and people run around and dance and sit by a campfire. laugh. a couple of the more responsible amongst them clean up the remains of an epic barbecue. it is a rare convergence point - the lives of some 30 people having found their way to an isolated beach in northern israel of all places. i know some distance away, to my right, there are ruins of an old fort. i am swimming in history. every grain of sand was once a bone. the fossils of footsteps and feet and stones that footsteps and feet walked on of zealots and desperates and lovers and dreamers. of exiles and parasites. sand that was once blood or blue eyes or white gowns.

then boom. next thing you know, years have passed. most names only exist in facebook. occasional anecdotes in coffeeshop story-telling sessions.

we have more future than time for.
(god bless that)
____(and more history than heart for)

big love on our birthdays
q.

a codicil to the manifesto

marc hundley via tiny vices


i've proved it at last. noise, movement, they make you sick. i'm sick. also my tongue is burnt, there's a little white spot on the tip where it happened. i reburnt it everyday for four days by insisting it was fine to drink tea. i have since abstained from drinking tea. it has not been easy. runny nose, nausea, sore throat. it's all very 19th century London if it weren't summer. so there you have it dear friends, too much activity will kill you.


*___*___*

recently i re-read the first post i ever did on the submerged submersible. i titled it a primer on speaking flower, and it was to serve as a sort of manifesto about the blog's mission. one of those pretentious things writers sometimes write trying to outline why they bother to write in the first place.

it was an interesting re-read given the twists and turns of the last two years and how those have been reflected in the blog. i had envisioned the next challenge of my writing as being to learn to express more fully the 'happy' side of human emotions. happiness. i wanted to write 'my novel of happiness' to match the lachrymose novella i'd (then) finished writing. and i think in a large part, i've got it now. only, my language of happiness isn't frivolous or hollywood in the least. fact is, the way i see it, Happiness is no more frivolous or tiny than Sadness. it is huge. a huge thing. a person may be Happy throughout a miserable life. a person may glum faced and depressed as all hell still harbor a deep-rooted, impregnable ember of Happiness that no one may know is there. heck, half the time, even we ourselves can't spot our happiness when it's there. (i say that as i lie feverish in summer, listening to Max Richter's gorgeous the Blue Notebooks and feeling pretty nervous about the next 4 months --> 40 years). still, Happy in a sense that i am in a room alone, where things are not speaking to me so that my body has a chance to speak to me. it says: f*ck you! for not listening sooner. my body has absorbed too many coffee-shop babble babbles, too many sitting around time-wastings and is now overheating with idle words that never went anywhere. they are seeping out of me now. steaming off my skin. dripping from my nose - all the dead white cells of disappointed Me trying to get my own attention to say: shh, slow it down Q, be where you want to be you don't want to be here. i'm thankful for it. it's nice when your body can step in and put out a white gloved hand and declare STOP on your behalf. so here i lie. feverish in summer, with a burnt tongue unable to drink tea so i drink iced-tea instead. i wear a thisrt that's about 4 sizes too large so it's almost down to my knees. it's sexy when women do it but ridiculous when men do. which is perhaps why i'm wearing it. what better time to act the fool then when you are the fool.

Happiness. it feels like a rock. a solidity you can cling to. if only we weren't such ravenous, jealous lover it may even stick around. too often we assault at it with our fangs gauging into her breast Happiness, promise me, promise me never to leave, never ever, i need you soo much, and that being the least sexy thing you could ever say to a person, it's no wonder Happiness is out the door first chance it gets. look there, i see her sitting by the window listening out for the choochoo of the next train coming through.

but Sadness is solid too in its own way. more reliable in many ways. always there like shadows or the manifold miniscule disappointments you encounter each day. it is solid in feel but also amorphous. it has a way of flowing into this and that, becoming one thing and while you hold it gently in your hands like a butterfly shaped rain-cloud, you look up to the sky and see it's raining on you in your hands is actually a treasure chest in the shape of a scorpion. what a confusion just to work out the answer to how're you feeling nowadays?

my Happiness smells like sadness. if you weren't reading carefully you might even miss it. might think i was always feeling the same way. this isn't true. only that Happiness is often the underground roots of a tree, and the flowers are blue and smile sad smiles and smell like sad jasmine so people mistake nostalgia or miss-you for sadness when really it's a deep deep deep Happiness even to love something soo greatly as to miss it (Martha, Mona, Ashtree, Jinab, Haifa, how sad it makes me to Happily love you all soo much).


*___*___*

we drive in the mistubishi with the air-con on and i select a range of cheesy 90's pop tunes to sing along to and we argue about the nature of alpha-males and misplaced religious fervor in the car and i smile to myself while playing puzzle-games on an iphone, dad, this is fun right? and he smiles soo Happily, like a million brutal alonenesses just got their well-deserved be-headings and he says very very very much fun. i imagine this same drive in a mustang. in a charger. a gran torino. in a bright yellow ford XA that sounds like the horsemen of the apocalypse blasting 90's trash-music down the middle of too brown deathbed of a fossil Australia with two generations of the same person half lost and reconciled for four hours on a car trip smiling Happily to one another calling it something soo petty and illusory as fun. (finally he says to me, seriously, Happiness son, is a serious matter. and i know immediately, that fun is a fairy floss that dissolves even if you spit at it).


*___*___*

i decide to try and write a story. the computer is not working for me, it just stares back me. it's too challenging. contesting every sentence. so i take a pen and open a notebook and scribble letters in it pretending for a few minutes that i am a different me, living in maybe Antwerp or New York or Florence as a famous typographer who designs fonts with names like little girl blue and white breasts, clouds and vanilla. but then i start writing a story about how terrible i am at writing stories. half down the first page i write a title i've been kicking around in my head for three years now 'Problems with This Story Include...'. when it is finished i am not pleased to find i've written another story about dropping/failing out of medical school, love, and the world for a year. about the flight from Vienna to Chicago. about what Mar said and how Mona picked me up and what Eman said at the airport in Chicago and all those... razor blades. i thought i was over all that i think.

then it occurs to me, it has nothing to do with 'being over'. writers are like receptacles for the past. it fills us. moments, times, names, stories, we absorb them and we become their puppet and their pillow case and it is simply not a matter of being able to forget what makes you. i am more fossil than man i suppose. so that when i write i speak in 27 years worth of languages and none of them makes sense to anyone but me.


*___*___*

one day i will write more frequently. and better. it will be everything i always wished i knew how to say. it would somehow cross the internet and the ocean and pseudonyms and it would reach the ears of the people who populated my stories. they would wake up in the morning knowing everything i wanted to say to them, and still think i'd like to say to them, and was always too small to say. they would know it the way you know the truth of some dream and the falsity of a lie even if you can't quite fess up to it. she's and he's everywhere would wake up in the morning and sense my words and hopes to them, as though whispered in their ears by me as they slept at their bedside reading softly with my cracked voice crackling and as they made coffee or poured orange juice in little girl blue it would be written in the sky,

one day i will be better.

open letter

this is not a post because there is no space, time, or quiet.

on sunday, after i get into my house, have showered and made tea, and cleaned and done laundry and read emails and made my bed... i'm going to try and write something decent. anything i attempt right now will be unsatisfactory. this makes me sad because i am a bit pent-up and i feel like i have much i want to say. only i have no words. words are scared of noise and movement. they only peek out and show themselves when things are calm and slow and you have a room of your own in which to sit. so. until then dear lovely eyes, bear with the old man.

bests and bests
q

story. and lullaby.

Bêtes de mode by Helmo (thomas couderc, clement vauchez) for Galeries Lafayette


maybe the story i just wrote will be published. maybe it will bring me fame and acclaim (which i don't really care about), more importantly, maybe people will read it and feel better. or understood. maybe they will hold a piece of paper with my words on it and feel somehow (optical illusion) that it were a hand, my hand, and it was holding theirs. (which i do care about) and after they read it they would think, yes, it is true. i feel alone, but i am not. not in everyway. in some ways i am not. and maybe some people would tell other people to read my story and they will also read it, and then, i will be given some money and told write, write whatever you write, we will pay you to write. and i will think yippy. while i am thinking yippy i will purchase a ticket. probably for a boat. a cruise or something. i hate summer, but i like the idea of laying out on the sun in the middle of a great big blue paddock with no weeds, all blue. blue ground and blue sky with white clouds and white foam. and i will drink icetea and start small-talk chitter chatter conversations with skinny blondes in bikinis who will smile on cue and after dinner we'll slow dance and i'll whisper in their ear various confessions about who i actually really (think) (possible that i) am, and i'll walk her back to her room and kiss her hand. she'll wait. and i'll think what the hell and kiss her lips. then i'll go back to my seat on the deck and sit and stare at dark dark nothing and listen to silent silent nothing and a chubby brunette will come and tell me a joke and i'll laugh and we'll have the most wonderful interesting conversation and i'll walk her back to her room and kiss her hand and thank her for a wonderful night, and think what the hell and kiss her forehead and her brown eyes and her lips too and walk off to read John Locke in my own bed.

maybe the story i wrote will engender some confidence in my own writing. and i'll take some daredevil twists and turns like i do in my head when i'm planning the little bastards and people will read the story i write on the cruise and think gosh darn that took some daredevil twists and turns he's sure got a newfound confidence here's a pat on the back pennyguy, hurrah. i normally don't think much of back-pats, i prefer hugs, but i'll take what i can get from a satisfied reader and curtsy twice once looking left, once right and take my brown suitcase and walk off the boat in, dear god, where'd my ticket bring me? how about Greece? how about... Madagascar? Hong Kong? Maine? Monte Carlo? Vietnam? where people will feed me dumplings and caviar, and will smell of soil and toil and the dirt of farm life and wear Brioni suits and dashing smiles as they step out of large saloon limousines with the doors held open for them. and i'll sit on the floor with the wrinkly skinned peasants and smile and nod and lean back in leather couches with botoxed barbie-dolls in gowns who smile like they wanna blow me in the back of a limousine later. (maybe later i whisper to her and get up to watch people play blackjack).

three months later i'll wake up somewhere. i avoid the heat so it will be autumn. whenever i wake up it will be autumn. when people ask why? i will say because i like falling. some will consider my response as being a literary metaphor and postulate various interpretations. others will simply account it to the customary quirks of the artiste. (which i am not). truth be told, despite my two successful stories, i will be terrified, petrified my next will be terrible. it will slowly dawn on me that this is to be a life-long obstacle. anyone who's read a book or two knows enough to know who they're up against; scary names like Marquez and Virginia Woolf and Rushdie's and McCarthy's and Capote's and Murakami's. so i'll wake up in a sweat and it will be coldish which is why i'll pull aside the black blanket and discover besides me a white skinned girl with dark hair. i'll have roused her and she'll smile at me, and i'll smile back looking at her small breasts. after breakfast i'll take a walk to the stone wall at the edge of the farm (turns out i'm on a farm some ways outside Dublin) and take a seat and stare out at everything emerald green and sleek grey. everything wet. my notebook damp since i got her. my pen leaks. my story cries for me, as though thinking oh dear, soo close, soo close. at this stage i'm trying to write a love-story because i haven't worked out how to describe the way as you get to know people better the kissing improves. that's all. small theme i suppose. but incredibly meaningful. turns out love is a dance. takes a month just for the hands to bump into each other enough times to cling on. it's evolution. primordial ooze fearsome and random gnawing at a beach shore till it has the courage to take one hesitant grasp. turns out love is a dance for hands finding the right positions. walking in step. finding sleeping positions. bodies discovering bodies. the lips working out their preferred patterns. motions. (she smiles when i kiss her nose. sometimes i change, but usually, it's nose, forehead, right eye, left eye, cheek, cheek, back to lip) all this happening over coffee. over conversations in bed, when, finally, i turn towards her and say i do it because i'm scared of everything. but also, after everything that's happened, because of nothing. i'm fearless. and at the same time, because of the same experiences that make me fearless, i'm terrified. she just looks back, finally, says, so what will you do? i shake my head, try and write i guess. she nods.

maybe the story will be published. if so i will ensure it has an inscription. they mostly all do. for Ashtree, my friend. or, Eman, remember? or for _ _ _ _ _, because we are also what we have lost. and when she finds it, and reads about our first kiss outside her house, when i tricked her by offering my cheek and quickly turning my head so she landed on lips (and before she kisses me she says oh god, people still do that? and i smile so our tongues meet mid-smile, what a gorgeous way to start), and when she reads about our second kiss standing besides her car, and our third in the car that i wouldn't get out of because of the kissing, she'll... i don't know. maybe feel her hand being held. (the Indian lady i met, a friend of my grandparent's, says to me i have no gift to offer you, i felt bad. please take this, she hands me a small piece of paper folded once, when you read it you will hopefully remember that somewhere there is a little old lady rooting for you, i feel soo touched... ) maybe the story is successful too. not just with the person it was written for, but with everyone. maybe, it was in fact written for everyone. everyone who's gotten to know someone slowly and felt their body become more inclined towards their new friend. maybe their bodies also became better friends. and hand-holding developed and kissing slowly made more sense and orgasms became regular (she looks at me, you came? i did. that's weird she says, she says you never come. i'm still surprised, i know right. she hands me some tissues, that's twice this week, record? close to). maybe because some few people read my story they started kissing slowly. have less sex and talking more. taking a second or two to kiss hands and feet. and foreheads and eyelids. (over the phone she says to me, he was soo hot. had your eyelashes).

maybe the story i just wrote will mean something. eventually. somewhere. maybe because of it, i'll wake up two years from now and find myself lonely in Tel Aviv. in Paris. in Jakarta. i'll feel tired. lost. i've been away for soo long, without medication prescriptions. i'll feel plagued and fatigued and sit on one of those long flights and my dad will pick me up from the airport. he's the only one who comes to meet me at the gate. no one else. as much as i don't care, it's still nice to see a smile as you walk off a plane. and he'll have his stupid hat on, and he'll hug me and smell my neck when he hugs me. and i'll be happy to see him. and i'll say, who's your doctor?, i need a prescription pronto. he'll nod whilst still smiling and say oh kay.


*___*___*

at night can you sleep little boy? try, try to sleep. if you do you can dream. if you sleep, can you sleep?, if you can, at night, you can dream little boy. and there won't be any more a dark house with dead roses in dusty vases. there won't be oppressive summers that feel like you're stuck in someone's mouth, and that make your rash play up. there won't be limited-download-internet. when at night you can sleep you will only remember little blonde girls walking barefoot across the roofs of red-tiled houses. in their hands they will hold the white petals of jasmine, and their dress will look like lace and cloud and the white petals of jasmine and when you look out you will see her like a slow moon and you will close your eyes and smell and it will smell like Haifa in the summer like jasmine. and it won't be thursday evening where you are. it won't be Adelaide or LA or the London underground where you are. it won't be. in your dream you will be soo soo far little boy, it will be breathless and you won't remember your yellow teeth and your lost youth, there, when you pick up spoons wet with silent film calm you will see in the reflection semi-spherical Viennese cathedral roofs and smile at dogs doing Charlie Chaplin tricks and every pen you touch will be perfect black and write perfect narratives where in every single one the women have such delicate ankles and such pristine breasts and such distinct charm, you will be seduced a million times just by their wit and their smile will be a solace unknown as you lie in bed alone and too-hot and stomach upset and eyes shut tight thinking sleep dammit fall asleep. when you sleep there will be a different moon. under this moon a million different lovers will lie and say a million different things till they swoon and kiss each other in a million different ways with their silent, groping, eyesless mouths whose only language is to part slightly and hold others lips like hugs or hand holding. but be good, be good for me little man, and keep your eyes closed and sleep. dear god, it's 2:46am, please sleep, tonight is too long.