tick tick tick

D800 test shot 1 by ali khurshid


i walked back towards the train station it was LA's sky. blue. cloudless. invariable. __my stomach grumbled and i'd still be sick once or twice before the day was through, but for a minute, i closed my eyes and pretended it wasn't grey street, pretended it was rochester drive. a thrill.


___*___*___*

- will you come?, she'd like that if you do.
- you know, sometimes when people get married in random pacific islands it's so that randoms don't come, as in __that's the whole point
- yes yes, but she wants you to come, she wants us all there.
- ...
- ...
- ...
- well?
- yah. eff it. five days in fiji sounds just perfect.
- YES!
- yolo bitchez.
- double yes - wait -
- __what?
- ____what's yolo?
- i gotta get outta here.
- what?
- i'm moving.


___*___*___*

- are you fine?
- yes.
- are you happy?
- no.
- are you sad?
- no.
- wait. what? so what are you?
- ticking.
- like a bomb?
- no. like a clock.
- then what?
- then what?
- then what happens? 
- i don't know.  __should something be happening?
- doesn't it always?
- good point.
- so what's gonna happen?
- who knows. __tomorrow.
- tomorrow?
- yes. exactly. tomorrow's gonna happen. almost always tomorrow happens.


___*___*___*

i'm in a strange place. i don't know what's going on. i'm unable to distinguish anything from cardboard anymore. i'm worried i'll wake up one day and that'll mean i feel miserable. but for now, it's just a matter of doing things that need to be done, sleeping long enough to stay awake long enough to repeat it the next day. a redbull or three a day, two to four coffees and about seven cups of tea and i manage it __,mostly.

the house hunt continues - though not without ample resentment and frustration.


___*___*___*

my throat hurts from screaming. i'm not sure what we did last night, but it involved a fair bit of pelvic thrusting, masquerading as people having an amazingly fantastic time (which i actually think i was having) and the mandatory 'what's the dirtiest thing you've ever done' conversation.

the morning is too bright.
too soon.
and so much unwelcome.


___*___*___*

i'm trying to write, but it is a stranger to me. i am a stranger to it. none of this is anything. (not even good, it's not a thing, what the eff is it, it's nothing) but i have to do it. go through the motions. reconnect the neurons. find the steps again. i'm hoping it'll take me back. i'm soon to be left without nothing, i know it already. work is unsatisfying, the house hunt is the most unpleasant distraction i've ever found and in australia i never get sexed as often as i need. soon, words will be all i have again. maybe i'll run for the medicine cabinet and start tongue kissing a bottle full of amphetamines. who knows. anything can happen.

tomorrow.

for now

these words are not me.
they are mine though.
they are the periphery of something glowing (but not bright).
they are backstreets and endnotes. hints of something deeper rummaging about underneath. flutters in the shadows (in the night you hear a car drive past and the lines in the room shift just barely)

why do we bother doing anything that isn't burning?

i feel mostly like i'm carrying bricks around and placing them, tossing them, or kicking them from nowhere to nowhere else. one day there'll be a death-trap i have to sleep in.

tick

tick



tick __,