words

untitled by coolhandluke


i'm sad ; if nothing else it'll explain the dreams (the
dreams alone i'd run back to my pills just to avoid them -
every night i spend chasing busses i'm too late for to arrive
at interviews it turns out i was never invited to after returning
home twice, three-times to fetch a tie or a jacket
only to arrive wearing one shoe and one purple sock,
i break out crying holding onto a metal shelf in the backroom of
a library i don't remember ever having been to in a city
that resembles half a dozen i have visited, crying to my dad
who hasn't appeared in a dream of mine ever so long as i can
remember and whom i haven't cried in front of since i was 11.
just to avoid it


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a bleached-blonde, thin as a rake with strange-shaped feet walks away and i think i might just give up on everything and follow her around.


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suggested (currently listening as i type) tunnage: welt am draht (animal collective remix)


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i think about being a serious lawyer. this older guy gets home about 9pm. eats his dinner which has been left out for him quietly. he walks upstairs and reads a story or two to a kid or two who appreciate the gesture but truth be told wonder why he bothers , but even as a token gesture it means something to him (so he does, bother). shower. tea. a few words with a distracted woman he lives with. walks back downstairs wearing pyjamas and turns on the lamp on the desk. clicks play on a gentle string quartet. this late he needs more heavy duty glasses. arranges the stacks of papers into an agreeable order, and continues to read , to what end he can't quite remember.


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suggested (currently listening as i type) tunnage: i'll try anything once


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it sounds serious. too serious. why is everything 'important' so... serious. i'd like to spend my life wearing knitted socks. having time to indulge in self-pity. writing. making friends instead of spending soo much energy trying to ditch them all the time. (she says you know you'd probably get a lot more done if you just accepted you had them and called them back, which i ignore) my friends are dads. husbands and wives. full time employees. doctoral candidates. i'm still scared of marriage, refuse to commit to a puppy. my time still doesn't feel full, no matter how busy i get my time feels hollow , just 'on the way' time , obiter time. i'm not sure about any purported growing up that's been done. (she sits and complains about why i won't move in with her, but i stick to my guns and let her be mad. turn the corner, nodding the whole time. you're hiding behind it she says, truth is you just want your alone space. i shrug, who's hiding?, of course i do. exasperated she falls back into the seat. an apple falls and rolls below her feet). i'm seeing my age as a distance. i'm feeling it as a distance, i'm not sure from what, but it's multidimensional. a distance from youth which very clearly is puffing its last few smokes. a distance from the future which isn't going where it was supposed to go. (of course there's no such thing as 'supposed to'... but there you have it). (she asks if i want to come over when i get done and i say i do. she'll watch the news in bed and i'll read three pages of a book that's too heavy to hold up for much longer. i'll sleep, or not. i might wake up and kill a spider at some point.)

six years ago a girl i barely knew sat across the room from me and said you'd have made a wonderful partner, too bad. and i, amused, asked why. she smiled to indicate what she had to say was not ill-intentioned. discontent. you're always going to be discontent sooner or later. and with everything. i couldn't live knowing you'd sooner or later become discontented with me. i'm stunned. not offended, but that much insight usually packs a punch. i smile back, it scares me that you can read soo much. she shrugs. (so that's that. a memory amongst memories)


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it's getting late now. i still avoid , ya know ... sleep.
"take deep breaths" (this is mom now) "deep breaths, before you sleep, inhale intensely, really fill your lungs up, in / out, in /out, like that. you'd be surprised what it'll do for your brain". my mom thinks breathing exercises can solve all the world's afflictions. yesyes. i'll be sure to make sure i breathe , and at least you can have some peace knowing if i forget, at least my autonomic nervous system will remember because as it turns out, i'm not the least bit in control of it. she's not amused.


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suggested (currently listening as i type) tunnage: oh my stars by a weather


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fours years now - since the room with no windows. 'the year of disappointment'. seems 'four' is too short a number. seems like the bottom of a well. not sure how we got out. my mom's discovered facebook, my god she says i saw photos, XXXX's lost so much weight she looks amazing. i nod, yes. it's amazing. i wonder who lives in the room now, if there are scratch marks from my nails in the walls or a slight indentation where i'd bang my head trying to make the noisiness in my head stop.

hope is a dangerous dangerous ... a thing i guess. a liability. like love, or the little bird in your hands. just a twitch. the bump of a passerbyer. anything.

i try and dodge fallen palm-tree debris and manage to run two tires right down the middle of it. this could be it. this could be the moment i punctured my tires while being late and having no gas. i drive on and wait to see if it is. that easy. (turns out it's not)


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she wants to know what this is all about , what have you been trying to say?

"you should have been a ballerina"

[ ? ]

"there's still time"

"race you to the gate and back"

"this cologne, i remember it like a story"
("so maybe it was")
"i remember it as a story"
("so maybe it was")

"from here, how strange it sounds"

"and we all fall down"