Tuesday, March 30, 2010

hello 4:21am




















IMG_1718 by Andrew J Keep <--- awesome person



sometimes you write to create the world you wish you had. beautiful women. restful nights. large Southern houses with white bay windows. two parents. that kinda thing. sometimes you write to vent what you actually got in your pocket. (rather, what you don't got). most of the time comes right down the middle. fragments of wishfulness and autobiography. meaning, i transmogrify myself into limbs and outbursts and chorus chants and dreamscapes and paranoia and end up right back in my bedroom at 4:24am still writing the same blahblah still thinking the same blahblah and still satisfied enough to try again.

(sidenote: i have green knight by the memory tapes stuck in my head i'm listening to it for the 10th time today).


*___*___*

___'he's a force of nature'
___'you're a force of nature'
___'na-uh. he's a force of nature'
___'fine. he's a force of nature'
___'see. now you get it'
___'yah. i get it. he's a force of nature. and you're a chump'


*___*___*

maybe i just always like to be up at this time because it's my own little private uninhabited world where no one calls or emails or texts and there's absolutely nothing useful that can be done at 4:32am so you drift off and spend some time embodying inanimate objects and another hour as a shade of slightly not soo dark shadow under the coffee table and read a little and listen to something or another and sunrise is always worth the 99c magic show and for a little while it's the quiet place you always wished it was and for a little while it's all yours and no one elses and for a little while it can be anything you want it to be the perfect life-sized playground made of libraries and concert halls and perfect black pens and when i'm lucky (sometimes) from time to time she sleeps in my bed and makes a soft purring sound and i look over from my desk every now and then to see the contours of her body and the silhouette of her skin and her little feet and her this and that under briefs and a singlet.


*___*___*

when it is fall and i am in chicago i will drink hot chocolate in the law library and walk with my hands in my black pea-coat pockets and keep to myself and share my thoughts with the Balthus'es hanging in the Art Institute and when people ask me questions i'll just smile and say i have no idea.


*___*___*

___'i don't know if you're aware or not, but you did that entire moot without looking at any notes'
___'uhm'
___'you were quoting judgments, like, reciting passages. but you never looked at your notes'
___'uhm, thankyou?'
___'it was incredible'
___she leans over from the left and takes her pen and scribbles on the paper between us:

_________ssooperr epic BIG nerd ---->
_________(you ar)e

and i just nod. take the pen. write beneath hers

_________Thou art chumpest of them all
_________<---- to which she makes a face.


*___*___*

so why do i repel when people try to touch me? i keep turning away so by morning i'm on the edge of the bed. she won't let me get out so she holds her entire hand around my index finger. i sit on the edge of the bed feeling sick to my stomach from amphetamine come-downs or caffeine withdrawals or morning sickness or loneliness or future-fear or self-loathing or hunger or a pure unadulterated happiness i'm not sure how else to respond to. meanwhile she falls asleep still holding my index finger. for whatever reason i just sit there for a half hour or so. staring at the black of my piano and noting the gradated changes in light as the sun comes upper and upper. eventually i slide my finger away from her hand because it was going numb. but i keep sitting there. another 10, maybe 15 minutes. i hear her stir behind me what are you doing? ___to which i have no good answer. so just stare at her oddly i feel soo ill i say. why? i don't know. because. because i say.

when she leaves, in a hurry. i take two pills washed down with redbull and i sit at my white desk and stare at the painting on my wall and it reminds me of autumn. and i stare at my books. and i find it difficult to form thoughts, and i find it difficult to transcribe my emotions into...


*___*___*

i'm not hibernating Ash. but i'm not really here either. one day i'll look up and it'll be another year or another life and we'll be drinking lemonade on the moon and we'll say to each other how'd that happen kiddo? and we'll shake our heads in amazement and say something like hey text Mona, see if she wants to meet us on the westside for a movie or something. and when she gets there i'll mouth into her ear completely inaudible, just the heat of my lips moving the words _how_strange_the_sound and she'll be the only person on whatever planet we're on to know what i mean by it. and she'll look back and say how strange the sound as if answering a question i had asked (which maybe i had) and it'll feel like...


*___*___*

i'm listening to Lionel Richie at 5am.
try not to tell anyone.
it can be our little secret.
like a penpal thing.
or a pregnancy.
something like that.

___(guess i'm on my way.


*___*___*

On my tombstone it will say... (one of the following:

it's too late to die young.
in any case, he tried.
Thy Trust hath been returned to Thee.
stillness, at last.
save the last chance for me.

how strange the sound

Sunday, March 21, 2010

me + u





___ps
___meet
___me
___at
___the
___air
___port

___Kx








pia jane bijerk

i was dreaming of another life today
























http://lost.net.au/vic/ ___good find Ashtree!


one where we're not girlfriends __ secret agents __not brothers who don't speak on the phone to their sisters enough, __who live in faraway timezones so the memory of their friends erodes slowly, __who miss first and second weddings __and struggle to keep up with your job interviews and your daily stories and your auditions to be a world famous supporting actress in a comedy category. another life. quieter and stiller and less full of clutter and traffic signs. (ever think how quiet it was when there were no cars? no buildings. no machines no television. when the world was just what grew out the ground and out of women. could walk from town to town and mistake wind for music. God's morse code. help me help me help me.

__one where we're not at the end of youth __where the books got read __we had the right numbers __they liked our resume __they'd been waiting for someone like us. __and when you planted something in the ground you could see a tongue poke out to taste sun, __and our girlfriends weren't mad at us for being late __selfish __aloof __scared,nervous,anxious __where we didn't have paranoid attacks at 9am about needing to take showers and didn't feel fat at 2am and go for runs and didn't feel stupid all day long

that life. __a dream for fools and beggars and too young men too much already dead and forgotten. __but look at its colours. __the way sunday drifts into wednesday , __for almost three years i lived on a mountain in the desert. i must never forget that i say to myself sometimes. __for almost three years i memorized maps. Botswana and North Dakota and the Galapagos Islands and Kyrgyzstan , __for three years we slipped away from our parent's divorces and siblings' high-school dramas

where we're riding on carousels __and sunset is a feeling __where i can think in poetry, so that i smile as i walk home from the bus-stop at all the loveliness in my head __where our friends kiss their wives in front of us and we smile for them each time like we did at their weddings, __and their children are born whole and healthy __in old boxes we find our childhood toys, hollow yellow plastic baseball bats that served as electric guitars and swords and when stood on a surf board
____where our cars drive straight __and when we put our arms out at night we feel a body, what's more a body we're glad to have near, __and when you kiss her shoulder she groans and automatically turns into your arms, we sleep like handfuls of vines __where colours have ends so we after staring into eyes and ocean's horizons and pink tutus we reach a satisfactory conclusion. __where our ties always match __our opinions are based on our willingness to become informed __where we dance when we're alone __and go to the beach even though we're fat and thin and have patchy skin and rashes and bald so we need sunscreen on the tops of our heads __and our Faith makes us believe it's worth the time to hug, to speak to children, to sit a little bit each day in quiet rooms just ourselves and all the screws and nuts and bolts of our too large universe that we cannot control or fathom or fail to be a part of

where everyone stops speaking to me when i listen to Thomas Tallis so that i may forget that i have skin and not angel's wings

i was dreaming of another life today
where i was not late. __average. __not sitting in a room alone, __where i was not worried __not doped up with shaking hands __where my laundry was dry


*___*___*

LITTLE PRESENTS PEOPLE GOT ME THAT I'LL REMEMBER FOR EVER AND LOVE FOR EVER AND EVER (AND THE PEOPLE THAT GOT THEM), A LIST:

Kiana, the film Magnolia (she'd heard it was my favorite) on VHS

Ginger, a drawing

Dad, a box larger than me. insider another. then another. then another. the last small, the size of my hand. insider it the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles nintendo game that came out on monday that cost $50 and i knew we couldn't afford

Gol, Entropy Pieces, selected writings by a pennyfortheoldguy (and 6 months of patience before it finally caught up to me)

Jinab, a painting i'll die before i let outta my sight

Chad, two inny-winny super tiny moleskins i use as my daily to-do lists

Mona, who one-upped him by finding them in red. (and two green pens for valentines day when i knew damn well there were no more of my fav green pens available anywhere in town)

Ashtree, Prayers and Meditations, softcover, so that i could always have it when i travelled

Martha, Pablo Neruda. (but actually, i remember more fondly the poem written in her own handwriting in the back of one of my notebooks)

Mona, 6 polaroids that pretty much sum up our first 5 years of friendship.

_ _ _ _ _, an ipod with an inscription: yours is the music for no instrument. so that for two years when i thought of her i thought yours are the poems i do not write.

Richard, who listened to me love and miss and eventually die because of _ _ _ _ _, a striped black and white shirt. and he said Q... _t r y_ and look after yourself. ok mate?

Eman, a small chess set that's soo much heavier than it should be

soo many things.
my walls are full of your pictures and drawings and photographs and prints from india and my shelves are lined with you autobiography of bigfoot picture books and if someone ever stabbed me all your names coloured bright bright red would come stumbling out.

it's good to be me tonight.
love you all.
hopefully see many of you in the fall.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

dear Jesus:






i really need this to be my next car.

keep me in mind in case you have a miracle lying around in need of a beneficiary.

thanks boss.

Q

Monday, March 15, 2010

notwords



























we are perfect, by adelaide rose



hi, you don't know me. in my world it is 6:02am. sunrise was nice today, thanks for asking. the evening was fine too. a little blurry around the edges. sometimes they're crisp. sharp. particular. other times, not soo much. they just seem to drift off into their own pondering. a train of thought type of thing that never ricochets back in on itself. in my world good morning sounds like Pantha du Prince. at least this good morning does. other times it sounds like a few scattered birds. occasional pizzicato speckles. i listen to lots of things you probably don't. Shostakovich. Monolake. Burial. Bic Runga. i like words. i like them to be precise. i'll tell you why (just in case you're interested, or you haven't heard me say it before, because from time to time i feel the need to reiterate the reason to myself. just in case i forget. or just in case i myself am interested. which i am usually, but), the reason why is: i don't feel understood. not really anyway. and i can't work out how to... be better understood. i figure language is a good start. words that more closely resemble what i mean might be one step. for example, maybe what i really mean is dipsomania. or that i feel acarpous. maybe when she spoke it was mellifluous. that is more precisely what i mean.


*___*___*

one day, i was sitting at a white desk, on a bus, in a line waiting for coffee, and a boy came up to me, and looked at me a minute, and held out his hand. which i took, but didn't move from my spot. he wasn't in a rush, but he looked at me waiting. will there be glockenspiels there? i thought to ask, but i didn't.


*___*___*

the common law is misunderstood sometimes by people who come from civil law mentalities. even the Unites States is flirting with codifying soo much of everything. there's this great relief that comes when you can think there's a book somewhere with all the rules in it. probably accounts for most of the religious people i know too. words on paper that set things straight. point to answers. delineate solutions. but the common law, law based on precedent, stare decisis, breathes. that's the difference. it is a three dimensional construct, where threads grow, nuggets of ideas and possibilities coalesce over time, the murmurs of old men and women in austere gowns with creases on their foreheads gaining momentum and for a while, drifting along steadily. but, then, one day, some renegade looks over and notices the rest of society took a right turn. some new idea had dawned... that a native people had pre-existing rights to some dusty patch of nothing up north of Australia, or that it made no sense to tell people where to sit on the bus. something like that. and so, one day, a new bunch of stuffy old-bags wearing intimidating black robes decide, what the eff, hang a left here. and pow. a thread dies. a few more petals of a flower are picked. words are forgotten, old torts die (seduction), new ones are born (defamation); there's a lifespan to justice it seems. the measure of it, the yardstick changes. breathes. there are popular kids (negligence) and misfits. dreamers and the ghosts of things that we intended to leave behind but found ourselves wearing one hundred years on (sovereignty sovereignty sovereignty).


*___*___*

by 6:30am it is a timid light out.


*___*___*

perhaps this is what it means to be young. an unwillingness to accept meaninglessness, and simultaneously, an inability to derive genuine, satisfactory okayness from the tiny glimmers of occasional meaning we find. i have been trying to ignore my recent unhappiness. i figure, unspoken to, perhaps it will go find other landscapes to foredoom.


*___*___*

O ne _d AY.
__the se) lost (lost) (soo lost) word/s

will find un.expected ly
____________________H O ME z

words, gravity,
_____memory,
___________all those. <--__all those.) _unCONTROL_ a b l e__things.

c o n t r o l
a b l e
a b l e
c o n t r o l

won d'aye.
(these are the:__all of them, these

soo soo _lo st where!ds____(where?)

calm hone.
calm home.
come home.


*___*___*

(i have nothing else to say. but if i stop writing, i will be stranded at 6:45 in the morning. with nothing to do or be.

and that's scary.

ssh. don't say anything.
just sit with me a minute, i can hear you breathing in the commas_, ______, __;

__,
______________,______,_____._____________________________>

_______;__ , .________ .__________________ ::

__._____________,__._____?_,________,



__)

(t h i s_ i s_ t i m e_,
can you hear it?


__________m ______o __v ______e
_____________________i _n g
________________l __o
_________________s_____ t




(moving , losing , loving , lost
)

Sunday, March 14, 2010

yeah, but, what about, everything
























love at first sight only works one way by Marie Edwards


i think this is going to be about future-fear. i think so. i'm just gonna sit here a minute and let Gonjasufi tell me what he thinks first. he's rasping about taking a holiday right now. which i understand. i understand it because i am tired. and look at resumes and transcripts and wardrobes and bookshelves and mirrors and think... average. you'll have to rely on luck. which is the very thought i'm trying to avoid. just once in this life i'd like to wake up in the morning and think it's tuesday. it's 7:10am. don worry, you got this kid. but that's just not human is it? may be it is. maybe it's just not Q. maybe that's one of those things that is 'for later'. like holidays.


*___*___*

after forgetting it was there for the better part of 9 months, i realize there is actually a piano in my room. it seems like an unusual shape. like a long-neglected once-was-BFF or a hungry cat contorted out of shape in the corner of a room waiting like furniture for a new chance. i pull the stool out from under it to sit down. when i go to lift the lid i see a small love-heart, drawn with a small finger. i don't know when she did it. but they're everywhere now. in the mildew of my shower there are patterns of love-hearts. perhaps there is a small, silent finger somewhere trying to tell me something.

i wonder what.


*___*___*

___- his wife is beautiful, gorgeous.
___- incredible for a woman her age.
___- you should see him.
___- Mr A?
___- he's nearly a 100 years old
___- don't be silly
___- silly, he's at least 95
___- SHUT_ UP.
___- i'm up shut. he's at least 95.
___- he's so...
___- he has cream with his coffee. not milk. cream, and cakes too. always cakes.
___- it's the stress that kills ya, nothing else.
___- h -_m.
___- ___ya
___- ______when'd you sleep?
___- bout 7.
___- you addicted to sunrise or something?
___- yah. something like that.


*___*___*

it's like a secret. sunrise, i'm talking about sunrise. it's like for 19 days you're excused from staying up all night, eating cakes and listening to techno and reading till your eyes are soo raw (mine scratch all the time but i can't rub them because it hurts speaking of which i need more eye-drops). but then you come out of your room, wearing a blue tshirt you got from the 99c store for 99c that comes down to your knees and you look out and its a secret blue color the rest of the world doesn't know about and it's not silent it's just... hussshhhhh and you look out the window and it's not the world you know. with glare and talktalktoo much talk, it's not that. the sky hangs like silk and its wet and shines sometimes darker sometimes brighter like gossamer or ether's got everything a little bit LSD-ed out. oh, it's a dream. right. i get it now. or not. i grab my little yogurt thingee outta the fridge, open all the windows so I'm chilly, and sit staring out at nothing much. 10 mins? 30? i don't know. last i remember it was 11pm, now it's... something else.

these days are...

*___*___*

i suppose at the end of it, if you don't think you're worth anything then it won't make a difference what grades/income/life you got. seems like a fair proposition. may as well drink another cup of tea and get on being miserable.


*___*___*

i don't like feeling like i'm a train-wreck waiting for the right bend to tip it once and for all. seriously, what drugs does a guy gotta get on to ditch the crazy-man? (meanwhile iTunes should never be on random - Mona sent me this song. i sat in an internet cafe in Vienna once for hours, with this on repeat trying to write an email to someone i knew was ready to break up with me). it was raining then too. and i was unshaven too. and it was probably 12:11am then too.

where was i?
(what happened to Gonjasufi, he was teaching me good lessons).


*___*___*

it bothers me when i'm not the dream my parents had of me.

whatever that was.



*___*___*

i'd like to be in Haifa right now. the moon is different there. i know it's just pollution, the sky's wretched. and at the beach, the sand is too grainy, hurts the soles of your feet. and everywhere you walk goddam stairs. crooked cab-drivers. that's where i wanna be. i want breakfast with Martha. i want to watch movies with Mona. and come home and argue about C.S. Lewis for an hour with Benny. and i want for Jinab to put me straight and shake his head at me when i say obscene things. i'd like to be in LA right now. maybe Ash wants to get pinkberry with me. or we can drive somewhere far (in LA everything's far). so we can go farther. like Seattle maybe. like Shanghai where no one knows you exist but everyone stares at you anyway when you walk past and you feel like a ghost and a rockstar both all at once. maybe i'd just like to be someone else right now.

lots of maybes.

god i'm whiny. i think i should be a singer-songwriter. they strike me as whiny momma's-boys with too BIG emotions they feel the need to tell everybody else. kinda like poets maybe. and bloggers. eff my elle.


*___*___*

yo Bobby, what's next?
Monday. the rest of Monday.
and something after that.
grades. background checks. resumes. departure lounges. overdue rent. unshaven faces. dirty glasses. lifetime guarantees. weakness. unanswered applications. traffic. Jesus. mortgage. tomorrow. tomorrow. tomorrow.

*___*___*

___- will you wake me for sunrise?
___- ___sure. ___what the hell.


*___*___*

____________and the rest is silence

____________[players exeunt]

Saturday, March 6, 2010

re 5am email

CURRENT TIME:
5am.

DAILY SCHEDULE:
6am - 11am, sleep
11am - 6pm, study
6pm - 8pm, eat
8pm - 6am, study

STATUS UPDATE:
hungry.

STUDY LOAD:
unfinished, perturbing

TENTATIVE SOLUTION(S):
eat, take leave of Corporations law, revisit at later time

MENTAL STATE SPECTRUM/SCALE:
primordial ooze
zombie
anti-depressant emotion-neutral (ie, minor zombie)
pep, with a chance of giggle
happy
happy, with a chance of dancing
mania

CURRENT MENTAL STATE:
anti-depressant emotion-neutral (ie, minor zombie)

TENTATIVE CONCLUSION ON MENTAL STATE:
maintain

SUMMARY OF EMAIL:
nothing of import communicated

LIKELY RESPONSE TO EMAIL UPON RECEPTION:
she likely smile.

SENDER'S LIKELY RESPONSE TO RECIPIENT'S LIKELY RESPONSE TO SENDER'S EMAIL:
satisfied.


initiate send sequence in
5

4


3



2



...

via lucho a lucha

shoot the moon, it's a big target; a monologue

cashing dreams in takes too long and anyway, i'm comfortable having them sit around like long-overdue library books you just get soo used to having something a certain way, ya know?, but enough about that i have seasonal affection disorder in reverse summer and its goddam glare and sweat all down my back and the stench of hot cement makes me sick to my stomach i can't bear leave the house, when it rains i open all the windows and after months turn the blinds and sit nursing my insomnia and listen to the pitter patter of raindrops and oyster shells falling from the sky as the pretentious aristocrat on the moon blows on the occasional dandelions he finds wishing for a ride-home which drift along and with time petrify and solidify and get soo used to the cold and the dark and anyway the sky is soo comfortable with them floating around like library books sideways on its shelf it's the crust of an angel when it hits the sidewalk outside my house when i jog i hear my footsteps crushing petrified dreams, fossils of hopes men too far too long awayago had for themselves and their sons and wives before soot and loneliness turned sunglasses and roller-coaster yelps into tree-trunks. cause i'm on fire, i'm on _f i r e _, when i think 'future' i think f!ck and it turns up in any case, there's everything to be scared of but what the hell? right, take the good with the atrocity i say, but then again, as always here we sit in our rooms and our couches, in our swimming pools and bent over weeding dead things out of our aging parents' front gardens, we have our suitcases standing upright besides us and packed our toothbrushes and our comfortable pillows and a rain-jacket and we wait and wait and wait and wait and any daysecondmomentago the future's on its way to hug me and whisper into my ear you're here at last and i'll think 'how slow it is to be where you want to be' and someone today asked me so what's your goal where do you wanna get? and i thought, 'well for now if i live through this banana cake i'll be happy enough', and dipped a piece in chocolate; here's my ticket Mr, what platform should i be standing by? who inspects it a moment and says "son there's no destination on this one, you just keep standing by the bus stop on the side of the road out the front of your house, your old house which seems to follow you into every shared apartment room office conference space you visit smiling with teeth made of baywindows dragging by tartan sails a slow laboring ship called history kicking bottles which scatter into a dozen fragments of autumn leaves when you wake up the next morning there are photos lying around a half-filled tea mug and a small plate with crumbs of cake left in it and it smells like sleep when the windows are closed.

or, at least, what i meant to say was,







__

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

in this life






















R002-037, fatale femmes



in this life i have been a student. i have been a failure. i have received phonecalls that made me proud. once i fell asleep in a park at sunset. more than once i've slept on trains. on buses. in this life i have danced around my coffee table all alone at 3am. there was a streak, 36 days in a row i was up to see sunrise come and go. in this life i have had car accidents. constructed bookshelves with my own hands. in this life i have wasted hours pretending to read while i listened to rain. in this life i have used words to try and explain the meanings of the very words i was using. i fail consistently at that. once in this life i came first at something. but only once. in this life i played video games, memorized song lyrics, and wore oversized cardigans. in this life i have been a coffee barrista. an audio-visual technician. a brother. in this life i have changed diapers, pushed wheelchairs, carried disabled angels up stairs into white hallowed rooms. for six hours of this life i was a telemarketer. for six weeks i was in love. for 2 years of this life i crawled back out. in this life i was a physicist. a math tutor. a piano teacher. in this life i played mad world backstage on the piano and tried to sing until i heard giggling from behind a door. in this life i have dreamt of being an NBA all-star, a Nobel Laurette, a world-famous international DJ/producer, a hobo. in this life i have been operated on. cut into. i have been a failed medical student, a successful applicant, a miserable resume drafter. in this life i have run on treadmills for hours till my muscles have stung. in this life i have walked to the beach at 5am in Haifa because it was the only time the air was fresh. i have wheezed and coughed-up black stuff in Shanghai. in this life i have had one water fight. in this life i have felt out of place. have felt organic and seamless. have held hands. in this life i have collected books, basketball cards, mp3s, white oxford button-up shirts, black pens. in this life i have read prayers i have sometimes meant. i have had therapists break-up with me. i have been lost in outback paddocks with nothing in my headlights but rabbits. i have eaten pork feet. in this life i have repeated mistakes. i have fasted. i have taken drugs and danced and misunderstood for several hours that life was about love. maybe had finally understood. in this life i have cried on airplanes. once on a telephone to a friend who knew what to say. in this life i have never missed a flight. never been stung by a bee. in this life i have made friends with old people and with children who called me Q-cumber. i have spent months sleeping on the floor, with my cheek to the carpet and living out of a small weekend bag and rotating through the same three tshirts. in this life i have burnt my tongue on tea and gossip. in this life i have collected memories i shifted and sweetened for years after. in this life i have worn bow ties. skin tight acid wash jeans. shirts soo baggy they came to my knees. in this life i have been a 10 year old secret agent. a 21 year old octogenarian. an unconscious poet. a gym junkie. a playboy. a fool. in this life i have gotten blowjobs on beaches and given them in dingy nightclubs. i have spent nights in backseats and in $300 a night hotel suites. in this life i spent a week going to the movies everyday trying to outrun myself. till i ran out of things to see. i have walked in art galleries. in Paris. i have slammed my head against walls all night out of loneliness and lust. i have taken medications to clear my mind that drained it instead. i have eaten strawberries too large to be natural. in this life i have gone 60 hours without sleep. in this life i have given bad advice, and gotten good advice in return. in this life i have friends i believe are my friends. in this life i know people's hair can be red even when it's not and freckles come and go just to keep me on my toes. this life has been exhausting. in this life i have framed photographs and organized travel itineraries. i have attended funerals where i stood in corners and refused to speak. in this life i have been hopeful and hopeless. i have discovered emotions there are no words for, and words that are soo true they hook into the gums emotions like fish. in this life i have lost chess pieces. lost chess games. lost best friends and phone-numbers and too-good-to-be-true opportunities. in this life i have believed in god. have hated god. have had no need for god. have reconsidered that position. i have drank too much tea. have been rated out of 10. have been told i am not good enough. in this life i have saved pictures people drew for me. in this life i have surpassed my father's expectations and disappointed my mother. sometimes neither, sometimes both. i have missed weddings i should have been at. in this life i have been too scared to play spin-the-bottle. in this life i have hated myself. i have spent too long doing that. in this life i have been soo angry my fingers shake. so sad i couldn't speak. so happy my chest hurt. in this life i have been saved, too often, i have not discerned from what. in this life i have been an honours student and a drop out. i have been a good waiter at a bad restaurant and a bad barman in a dirty bar no one could have told the difference. i have licked the tongues of girls i hadn't said a word to. in this life i have loved sunday. green pens. vintage muscle cars. vanilla icecream. in this life i have been nothing but confused.

in this life i have tried my best to be human.
whatever that means.