medal tulips

moonface by missikovsky

tunnage: bug in a web by CALLmeKAT

the thing with this song is her voice. either that and/or the minimal instrumentation + arrangement. a couple notes here, some repeated chords there. a chick and two keyboards. simplicity works well for old men like me.


___*___*___*

the medal sits in my room. on my desk, where i put it down when we got home in the evening. i haven't touched it since except to put some papers beneath it. there you go, it's a paper-weight. i'm uncomfortable with it i think. it's heavy. when i first saw it - from across the stage - it was bright it caught me off guard. when i held it it was heavy, the Chancellor must have seen the look on my face because she said now hold on there, let's get this right and she waited for me to adjust my hands around the half i was holding, then i looked at her and she smiled and waited for me to adjust my face. then she looked at the photographers who snapped their pictures. don't trip don't trip don't trip and i was off the stage. went and sat in my seat again.

i'm told by my friends that people clapped very enthusiastically and that i was composed and dignified. this may be true, i don't know. i just remember my thoughts (don't trip don't trip don't trip don't trip) and shininess and the weight and now hold on there, let's get this right and my seat again.


___*___*___*

i think i need to do it in phases. get high on sugar, enough to lose myself enough to take a few too many pills, enough to take a few too many twirls around to dizzy me enough to make some dumb decisions and wake up empty pockets next to a dumpster somewhere with a cut on my cheek i don't remember getting.

___she laughs just promise you won't be an asshole to me so that i can never wear it again
___after you leave, and i look away uncomfortable with her tone

walk home from the Valley, used to take 4 hours. sometimes 5. remember Rich? call it a night at 1am and get home about 5. have breakfast and sleep to the birds' singing. that was the thing with that window, it'd open just to the leaves of this one tree, the light would flow into the room green, everything i had looked green. and loud. those damned birds, kept me up all the time. i'm sure that's what it was, just the birds. four walls all brick my head would bang against the wall - it'd hurt (in different ways) - on the phone to _ _ _ _ _ for hours thinking the whole time i've gotta get off the phone i've gotta run (which of course was the problem with that whole... thing). sometimes we'd stop for a snack midway; walk into the casino about 3am just to get out of the cold. we'd complain we couldn't afford the $20 for a cab but somewhere we'd find enough for large fries we'd pick at slowly watching the sad divorcees over-laugh with another glass of wine and 'the boys' order another round of drinks, all of us washed in the peculiar light of the casino. dip the last few in the ketchup and walk back out to kick rocks the rest of the way home thinking to myself the rest of my life would feel more or less the same way.

___don't trip don't trip don't trip i thought; but deeper than that, in a forgotten, violent dreams
___kind of place i was thinking about how many of my past lives were being buried that very minute,
___how many broken things were forgotten.

waiting for the damned bus, squinting because i couldn't read the numbers anymore so i'd miss it every other day and cold all winter and wet and would have a panic attack every third and have to walk away from the station breathing deeply and sit on the side of the road counting numbers and imagining myself playing the piano, scales over and over until i was calm, but by then so tired it hurt to walk back to the station and squint waiting for a metal mousetrap to take me home.

___distance from all that.


___*___*___*

X: will you get a job here?
Q: [hesitates] no. no i don't think so.
X: far?
Y: you should get away for a while.
Q: ...
X: far?
Q: as far as i can get.
X: why so far?
Q: _i can't explain.


___*___*___*

it feels like my birthday. isn't that odd? i don't really remember my birthday. i think i forgot it actually and GF reminded me. but i don't remember the day at all, if we did anything... or... i've lost it. another day amongst days.


___*___*___*

i've been dreaming of the Special Court for Sierra Leone. of working through the day and finishing at 6 and taking a long walk around Freetown while people stare at me when i pass. it's not a good idea to take pictures so i promise myself not to forget anything i see. come home at 9 and sit behind my desk and start scribbling in notebooks. in my dream i've decided not to take my computer (just to be safe). everything gets written on paper. keepin it real, an old dude, a pen and a mind/world full of things to think about. time passes. i work with war crimes and write poems about time. and home. and love. and age. and women's lips which are sometimes worth fighting wars for.


___*___*___*

maybe i should have been a photographer. women always seem to end up naked around photographers. i could just sit and stare at them, as though they were cats or daffodils, no one expecting anything. motion stalled and eventually, we forget about it, so used to just sitting and staring at each other motionless. the light changes. i notice it's that later time of the afternoon. darker now. i'd ask her if she can wait while i shower, i feel dirty. (i always feel dirty. although sometimes i think it's just i feel nervous. other times panicky. so i shower. what else can i do? i can't think of anything else). i return from the shower and she's half dressed. i finger a cup of tea and thank her for stopping by. when she leaves i sit by the window and look out. the day dips a little closer into darkness


___*___*___*

the book still isn't finished. i've taken to carrying it around with me everywhere i go. at traffic lights i'm tempted to flip it open and read a paragraph or two. i try in the evenings but i fall asleep before i can read more than 2 pages. still i persist. it's heavy and bulky and doesn't fit naturally into the recess under my arm-pit. are you still reading that thing? my mom asks when i walk in with it. meanwhile a new pile has started to grow next to my stereo of newest things to read. i plan and re-plan what order i'll read them in instead of finishing the current beast. plan. re-plan. plan. re.


___*___*___*

i'm not sure how to explain this new sadness.

i don't think i understand it.

___- anymore

- what?
- understand it anymore.
- what are you talking about?

she explains. i haven't been taking my pills. it's been long enough. maybe it's default-Q poking his head out.

i shrug.

- can you describe it?

i tap my teaspoon against the side of the cup.

- what are you doing?
- ___describing.


___*___*___*

X: far?
Q: as far as i can get.
X: why so far?
Q: _i can't explain.