a sleep with no dreams

untitled by nobutyes


this picture is a picture of a reoccurring dream i have. maybe i have the reoccurring dream because of this photo. i'm not sure if it makes a difference: i'm stuck with it now like a memory. only it's not a memory, i wish it were. i wish it was something that had happened to me. but then i remember all the things that have happened, and i get confused - was this one of them? or something similar enough. i think truth is this picture is a picture of how i remember the things that have happened , even though this picture never happened (or anything similar). this paragraph is not one of my favourite paragraphs. it might be deleted. i'll decide later.


___*___*___*

i am not feeling super.duper. i'm not sad either. i feel like i'm waiting for godot. there's someone in this room with me. i can't write about him. if i write about it then he'll grow, he eats my thoughts. he's waiting. he has his tsunami coat on. couple of wrong thoughts, a bit of self-indulgence and some bad luck, a wretched day or three and i'm through. i'll wake up on a marooned beach too far from here and i'll have a beard and i won't know what my name is. it's messy. (might get some decent writing going though). (he eats my loneliness and writes poems about it. i find him to be a selfish, lazy bastard). (he's staring at nothing and asking me to repeat no aphrodisiac again. fine fine, i admit the piano part is brilliant)


___*___*___*

i haven't dreamt for two years. (the pills you see) ,
and now , all evening i'm busy. i awake exhausted
and spend my days waiting for things to happen.
i watch the ants ,
___news headlines ,

when i'm brave i daydream.

i awake startled. distracted. ashamed.

if i had my way i'd swim in clouds (they feel like porcelain bathtubs full of frangipani) ,
i'd be clean and young , the skin on my face would stay put.
the cars would shine and everyday would slip into the next and we'd be dizzy from turning around too fast and when we fell down we'd laugh like the magic-producing dynamos we were.

this ant isn't busy today either.
i sip tea and click around on my computer.

an old-man of a cloud labours by, dropping bits and pieces of himself as he goes,
she goes to hold my hand but always stops short. __sometimes i want to too ,

___but am stopped by some gravity.
___i have no idea where i picked up this new hesitation.
______she's understanding, she nods and slips her arm around mine.
______we walk on ,

i leave the ant and shower. second or third? maybe after lunch i'll have another.

before i sleep i stretch. gather up my breaths. crack my knuckles.
move odds and ends away from the bed in case i kick.

the next morning i roll myself up from my supine position. stand up looking at the doorway.
what? she asks, but i don't answer.

______i wish i were farther.
______farther and farther and farther and farther still.

i walk into the kitchen and stand staring at the sink. my shoulder hurts. my lower back too.
want breakfast? i shake my head.

when they find me a few days later i'm contorted inside my laundry hamper, under the dirty clothes from the fourth shower.
they ask me what i'm doing.

isn't it obvious?

___i'm playing hide and seek with the ant.


___*___*___*

maybe i should try those pills again.

it's just a 'transition time', it's normal.

maybe i should

it's just a

maybe


___*___*___*

we come out from the birthday party and i've been pinching her in the elevator and she takes three quick strides to escape me. i run out in front of her in the lobby of the apartment, and she yelps and i jump and give her an awkward ha-ya! and kick my leg forward. she laughs in confusion what was _t h a t ?_ i stare at her dumbfounded. i just fly kicked you! she cracks up and i open the door for her to walk out. hey i say and when she turns i take her hands and lean back and start turning quickly with our arms stretched out. you're crazzzy! she screams with a perceptible doppler shift. she laughs but the more she tries to escape the more she leans and the faster we go. __time stops , like a polaroid, a last page or a happy death.


___*___*___*

HOW I FEEL / WANT TO FEEL / THIS IS A NIGHTMARE / THIS IS ALL I WANT / A LIST:

























link


___*___*___*

another psychic tells me it'll work out.

it makes me feel better.

maybe i'll start frequenting them the way other men frequent brothels.

sneak in late at night, with my savings from the week.

sit in a waiting room and select a lady who fits my preferences.

inside i'll ask her to take my hands and close her eyes and not look at me if i cry.

of course, it's her job to take me as i am and be discreet with it.

i'm just another car with a half-empty tire that veers to the right, and grunt in my cough to her.

she tells me it'll be alright in as many different ways as can fit into an hour.

sometimes we just sit in silence. at the end of the time she whispers it.

other occasions i need to hear it harder. furiously, i make her repeat it, over and over,

beg her to say it louder and harder ('scream it into my ear i don't want to forget your words').


___*___*___*

the creature in my room is cutting into his third course. he's pleased with me he's got my liver on his plate. he wants to know what the problem really is. what's this all about?

and that's when i have a strange realisation.
for years the problem was that i felt a sense of homelessness. not just that, but that i had lost the meaning of the word home. misplaced the concept. was so distant from it that i couldn't even understand the memory of it. and it made me cry in my lungs and bones. places were people wouldn't see me doing it.

but that's not it anymore. home is irrelevant now, one way or another.


age.


he nods.


i guess he doesn't care much as long as he has a new toy to play with.


i ask him to sow my arm back on but he won't.

(if i wait it out maybe he'll bury me under a nice tree and there'll be no more dreams)