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by Bettina Komenda via BLDG//WLF


but i don't know the answer to that one he replied, and she nodded. (in between the music
sunrise sunrise sunrise. again always back
__when i hear the birds it's time to stop

what do you think of her? she asks i look over, it's my bank teller but in white stilettos and tight jeans and her breasts growing out of her shirt like ivy.
what she lacks in beauty she makes up in glitter.
__(and all those things we regret ever having said ,

__- you're not an artist
__- why?
__- because if you were an artist, you'd be an artist.
____(and all those things that make sense at 5:59am when you haven't slept more than 5 hours
____of the last 50

she wants to pray for a dead kangaroo. the one her mother cleared off the road a week before.

if you were here we'd dance as it begins to snow. you'd wear your bathrobe. i'd wear my worried look.
it'd be wednesday evening all the time, and on my designated come-down days i'd twitch in bed and stare at the fan turning for hours and crawl into your chest and close the door behind me

she asks but what should i get him then? and i say there's no one way.
she wants to know what i'm talking about but if you don't know you can't know -

this one night we almost had sex. so close i had my cheek up to the train-tracks. it was a full moon. the steps you take on this land echo for all eternity , the steps you take on this land echo for all eternity , the steps you take on this land echo for all eternity , over and over, it's all i could hear in my head.

but who are we now? that one i ask myself. and respond with characteristic silence. (i know you're about to go off he says to me. this amuses me, i respond oh yeah, how do you know that? he grins mischievously, you start to say something and then you go silent. i can hear it gathering steam in your head. it's like a run-up or... revving the engine. then. boom.

__i miss the feeling of youth.

__i promise next sun i see i'm going to sleep under.

anything i can't swim in isn't worth

____(the problem with honesty is people expect you to live up to it ,
____when it's hard enough just naming it, picking it up, knowing it's sitting besides you,
____contemplating you in its loneliness while you contemplate it in yours,

____the softest miscast shadow

____when i am hungry i can eat it - what i'd give for a morsel of it now - an answer you can
____hang your coat on

there's people dancing. i don't know where, but when i close my eyes i see them. they hold each other close, touch. they wear long dresses and tuxedos.
________(this girl walks ahead of me, she's thin and has brown hair and is dressed
________so plain i forget why i was looking in that direction to begin with,
____i'm ...
________it hurts sometimes.
beauty is like a pang.
honesty too. (when you can find it.
loneliness , rather <-- the realization of it. (she looks up at me from where her book sits atop the ______________________________table. almost as an afterthought she adds but i have
______________________________no friends. i'm surprised to hear this from her.
______________________________unsure how to respond, all i can think about is that
______________________________she has beautiful feet)

i blink and they dance.

__i keep thinking there's something i've misplaced.
__, a feeling

__________it's easy to sing about love.
__________so instead i sing about love today,

and i sing until the one overtakes the other.
today is an expanding concept.

____grows.

one today i said i'd take you to the train station. when we got there you said what's this? this isn't it. and i thought, no, i've lived here half my childhood, this is the only train station i know of. i heard someone gulp. in the white station wagon. (when i was 12 i asked my mom why we always had station wagons she said because your sister doesn't walk). when we got there it was last call we barely said bye.
____tradition born. not sure if i've ever said a proper goodbye

Mona stood there at midnight under the streetlight and looked at us as we stared into each others' eyes without knowing what to say, all this happening on this street that inclines at 45 degrees. we all just stood there silently, no one knowing how to do it or what to do it, or if there was something to do then how to do it. remember all that? get in the car you said. and i looked at you and you said it's time q. that's enough, get in the car. i looked back at her again and froze. it's time q, you've said your goodbye, get in the car.
and so i did.

______silent goodbye.

________________good silent bye.


i am a tethered sheepskin.
my soul will come back for me.
when it's done all it needs to do.
the errands i walk too slowly for.
when she comes back i'll say i didn't hear you go. she'll just smile and untie me,

a girl called wrote a thousand letters wrote a letter.
maybe it's not sadness ; __maybe it's age , __and we haven't learnt to differentiate them yet.

maybe it is [sadness], but in our bones. framework and scaffolding. the whole musical scale.
or longer seasons.
so long.

______the things i need to say i can only say to strangers.

after we hug we talk.
she says that's how i know you're smart , you're never happy . you always think you've failed,
everything's a failure with you , it's the only standard you'll accept.

[i came out the shower and you were sitting at my white desk crying. (your mom is sad you cry,
________________________________________________i love love)
just once in my life i know what the right thing is , feel it , know it ,
just once . i'll be damned if we don't comply.
grab your coat]


__________Anjali's under a grand piano somewhere.
__________my hands are more loyal than i am.
__________they're with her , playing Beethoven adagios for her.

i am anchored)
live off coffee and flowers.
my eyes breathe the hips of skinny 18 year olds that pass me.

__and you said it's time q. that's enough, get in the car.
and i did.
and here we are.
and i'm still holding the phone i cried into when i called Mar.

when i died that last time i'm not sure i ever woke up again.

____footsteps in an inch of snow make that crunching sound.
____it snows, a silent, slow-motion rain.
____you laugh, throwing your head back in delight.
____in your bathrobe still holding a mug tea that's too hot for you.
____i have my arms around you , inhaling your laughs
____trying to find a way to be absorbed into your body
____your arm around my neck with the mug occasionally tapping the back of my head.
____we're in black and white.
____it's the last scene of something ,
____soo beautiful i discover new bedrooms in my chest
____when i exhale tree-houses are born , red ferraris , the sahara desert , all known magic

__