why i am not writing

it takes an ocean not to break ,













untitled by mexico rosel


i can't tell you about it.

it's too repetitive. too typical. i'm actually ashamed of myself. disgusted. i can't look myself in the mirror. __again. again? (why can't you get it right Q? why can't you?

i can't tell you about it. i spend a lot of time wishing i didn't know anyone - and then there'd be no danger of blabbing


___*___*___*

PLAYLIST

staircase, radiohead
april in paris, ella fitzgerald & louis armstrong
vladimir's blues, max richter
nightcall, kavinsky & lovefoxx


___*___*___*

i can't engage with it. __it's like needing to sneeze or cry and not being able to.
consequently i just sort of... am. ___i'm just there. _don't know how or why . but i just find myself places.


___*___*___*

___& i hate myself for it.


___*___*___*

if i let myself whisper a word of it i'll be over.

not a word not a word.

(it really does,
really does


___: an ocean not to break.

tryst

____Why do I tell you these things?
You are not even here.

from This Room ___ John Ashbery














we effected the a perfect escape

a kiss at the tramstop,

a lingering conversation riding our bikes home through the wind
and 2am darkness ,

lost in the hotel hallways : is that our room?, no i said,
but kiss me here anyway

___( i was soo beautiful and young
when naked, we swam in each other__)


___*___*___*

her hair in the wind is a smeared halo

with that dress she's a tulip

her voice is sunday, always sunday


___*___*___*

what beautiful silences we knew

__(and
how loud
what's left __of it)


___*___*___*

how strange the sound:
my own memoryfantasy
how strange the sound.

yes , and , but - everything. (that i wanted haven't

tired.
tired? __yes. __(maybe.

impatient too.
bored.

slow slow, and then everything fastfastfast and then not sure which,
Both.
__yes. __that's right: both. ____definitely right.


___*___*___*

i forget that i'm just settling in.
that it's all new. __5 weeks. __what's 5 weeks?
nothing. that's what it is.


___*___*___*

i miss europe.

all the time.

i keep hoping this is a phase that'll wither away and i'll wake up again and go to work and love what i do and be absorbed in it and be surrounded by friends i thought were strangers who i too frequently end up kissing. that just about sums up (entirely) my idea of a suitable (now)/working life.
war crimes. __coffee.__ surprise!kissing.

i could get over it. (i mean, i could try.

but i feel very strongly about it now: i don't belong here. the end. no shame/harm in it. i just don't. that's fine. totes okay. happens all the time. people in wrong hemispheres. on wrong trains. in a body of the wrong gender. that sort of thing.

i've got a 4 year plan. hopefully 3 year plan. it'll work. but g'damn there's gotta be a quicker way.


___*___*___*

i'm sad but only in the mildest way. a hazy kind of ambivalent-sad that i don't really notice. the colour of egg-shell. the feel of kitchen-counters. that sort of don't really notice. just there and so it is and so it is and so it is.

i haven't decided who i am right now. __there's some temptation to go all hermit and just keep to myself. __there's a counter-in(s)-urge to be happy and confident and write people i don't know insane emails going all blah blah blah about nothing thanx for listening ya know what i mean?


___*___*___*

on my last night we kissed and rubbed bodies to make fire out the front of her apartment with me contorted and supporting a bike with one hand so it wouldn't fall on us and with the other leaning up against the wall and her head locked in-between all that and soft and smelled of 2am rainbows and cars swooped by occasionally and it had just rained and i was ablaze and sad and sick for all the homes i wish i had had time to get to know better.


___*___*___*

i am not committed to these words. i find it hard to invest in emotions these days. i can't allow myself that indulgence. i sort of just do whatever the next minute requires of me . follow the string so to speak . walk the line . because of that i have not said the things i really want to say . i have not said them to you because i have not had the courage to whisper them into my own head . i am either a coward , or a very smart man tonight : survival is a skill.


___*___*___*

in 4-odd hours i will wake up. it will be just before dawn. i will eat breakfast alone in the dark. whisper a long prayer to myself and my mind will wander. i'll shower for no reason other than the comfort of warm water , and then i'll shuffle from minute to minute looking up here and there just enough so i don't forget i'm the hero of this story

whatever that means ::


___*___*___*

when the blacks of my eyes grow wings

i'll come find you

and we'll dance laughter in each others' ears

and hug sunday afternoons into every humiliation.

when the tips of my eyes mime dreams.

nocturmnia

untitled by buradori


day, i have nothing to add to you.

here we are though. picking our teeth with stars and waiting it out.

my hands float,

weightless in the dark.


eventually the sound and the blue will creep back in,
we'll pick up where we left off

and stumble along.

night: large as an iceberg,
veined in shadow and
black's incessant typography

you always stop to chat as you pass me;
you're patient as geology,

what choice do i have
but to watch your petals
open, yawn and fall

eye-lid kisses
unheld hands
dreams i missed out on having

for having sat with you
and chewed the fat off our 4pm coffee
and re-lived the lunchroom chatter,

this time with the lights off.

a brutal punch at the intersection of night and summer,


when tomorrow lands bare-legged and hungry
it'll hurt from toe-nail to nose-hair.

under the bed they'll find me clutching
the frontier of shadow as my blanket,
and mumbling prayers to daisies

kettering

friday is so far away by meyrem


my mom tells me to get married __i listen to some of it, the rest of the time i worry about my books that have to go in boxes again __i worry about when i'll be man-enough to have my own place mineminemine) __and i ate banana bread last night it took the better part of 5 months to get in shape again __(whatever that means) __are you listening to me? she asks __i am i am __and i am. __i'm tired of working, not really not so much working but there's no food at my place i get home too late to get to the supermarket i work out instead __instead i choose tomorrow's pocket square - there's a big appeal, all the big guns will be there, constitutional challenges always cause a stir __- i'm worried about my dad, about my sister, about my mom - there's no one i'm not worrying about __too many people have died this week, maybe that's the problem __i try and think about gol's baby instead, that's something new that can give me hope __this is because i listened to Hospice again tonight / i really should know better. __i'm 29 that scares me, 29 with roomates that scares me, 29 and i'm not sure when i left haifa, it feels like i'm the ghost and the real me's still there when i left the hague, it feels like i'm the ghost and the real me's still there, when i left LA, it feels like i'm the ghost and the real me's still there __and happy and unconfused and always knew where he was going and never got lost and never failed and everyone was proud of him and he wouldn't need to worry about his mom and dad and sister because he could look after them better __what does 'kettering' mean anyway? look that up q, remember to. __tomorrow all the big guns will be there. and the court of appeal will be constituted by the most senior judges. __the light blue tie i think. __and that concludes her case for why i need to be married. _yes. good. ok. right. fine. very well. __i'm 29 i'm in the wrong country in the wrong city in the wrong everything. __everyone gets mad at me when i say it but it's true. __this is the wrong place. i know that now. __i'm 29 i have to be careful with my decisions. i'm not a teenager anymore i can't just make stupid decisions. i've used up my quota of stupid decisions. __still i don't know how she ended up in my bed so i kissed her out of loneliness and we did that for a while. and i whispered jokes in her ear and she laughed and eventually we fell asleep. __when i woke up for work 2 hours later my ears hair eyelids lips everything hurt. __two weeks later when i woke up that was today i wasn't tired anymore but maybe this feeling (this same one i can never name understand comprehend anticipate decipher) decipher is the right word __is loneliness. __mom's asking me if i'd help her put new floors in. __are you kidding? it'll be the most fun thing i've done since the last time i put new floors in. __i mean that.

i'm the youngest almost-but-not-quite-adult i know.

i'm trying to keep it that way.

but all those books, with their quiet lips stuck in a box worry me.

i need more poetry.

i'm too tired to read.

all of this troubles me.

(if i pick the right pocket square for tomorrow,
if i run another 7 kms tonight


it
will
all
go
away

and i'll
be safe.

i. have. INTERNET!!!!

i have internet.
internet, internet, i have internet.

internet, internet, i love my internet.

to celebrate, you can all dance along to my new fav BFF best ever ever song:

Herman Dune, i wish i could see you soon

much has happened. and i've flipped hemispheres again. so. maybe i'll write something about that. (after i get through dancing with Herman Dune)

goodbye den-warcrimes-haag

pretty moment den haag by apennyfortheoldguy


so. i have three more days. on the fourth i leave. goodbye Hague. goodbye Netherlands. goodbye Europa. perhaps it is high time to stop and take stock of the last four months.


WHO WHAT WHERE / ALLEVERTHING /A CONCLUSION OF, SUMMARY OF, A RECOUNT, A LIST:

(1) for the second time this decade i stumbled around europe broken-hearted, confused, sad;
for the second time this decade i tried to run the clock on days by finding strange cinemas and dreaming myself into a different life.

(2) such fireworks. (i've never seen.) such madness. what a thrill.

(3) the Netherlands is a perfect place for an alien invasion to commence. never in my life have i left a country having developed an outright prejudice,_ but there you have it. i have discovered a place that is truly charmless.

(4) i grew a beard i loved. now it's gone. i see its shadow every day. what an odd thing to miss.

(5) inexplicably, i've had more lovers in the last four months than i've had in the last four years. all but one of them singular, stark experiences. icebergs scattered over 4 months of cold nights. things i couldn't cling to even if i had wanted to. phantom hours. the bones and fossils of affection. i have never seduced more women i have not been seduced by.

(6) in the rain i rode my bike. in the wind, when it almost knocked me over twice - a man walked besides me quicker than i could pedal. i rode by bike in the mist, i could see three feet ahead. the light lit up just that. i kept imagining the world would end and i'd tumble over off away into nothing and nothing and nothing. (it would be so quiet)

(7) when i danced with you i was alive and young and everything was something. you were something i could hold in my hands. i grasped you with my whole body. wouldn't let you go. haven't let you go. ___the ebb and flow of memories. i know you'll come and go. i'll find you from time to time when i drink tea and stare out of train windows and run on treadmills. you'll drift in and out of focus, blurred and green and dancing. i remember when we met, that's unusual too, i don't usually remember things like that. (here's one goodbye i put back in my pocket and avoid spending)

(8) today was my 22nd consecutive day of work. not a day off in almost a month. three more to go. my trash can today was nothing but paper coffee cups, cans of redbull and wrappers from muesli bars. what are you always doing? the others in my office want to know. i can never answer them directly. i don't want to upset them. are you really that busy?, what are you working on? i've crossed the intern-lawyer divide. ahh. just some evidence credibility stuff i say. truth is she's checking the footnotes on my draft. i offered to do it myself but "no. __nonono. we need your brain. come pick up the BiH draft from my office after lunch. A few people have been through it but... just... i don't know, fix it."
___I'm proud of myself, but i'm more proud of life. i had hoped it were true, and it is. work harderest. do anyevery task you get as well as you can. do it enthusiastically and with a smile. #Conquer.

(9) i am presently alive. which means in 4 months i have managed not to kill myself on a bicycle.

(10) the great mexican standoff. i refused to pay rent for my last month, he refused to guarantee return of my deposit. the art of war i kept saying, planning the next email response. the next move. he rejected, i challenged. he agreed, i vacillated. he changed the locks, i got in through a closet. then i walked away, destroyed his reputation, calmed my nerves, tried to meet a deadline and several hours later found myself mostly-naked falling asleep in a massive bed with a beautiful girl whose brown eyes sparkled at me in the dark.

(11) night after night. lying awake. not a wink of sleep. when i had them, i'd take a pill at 3 just to put an end to the shadowed monotony of it. __during the day i'd take the opposite pills to keep me sitting at my desk. sad as a teenage friday just keep reading i'd tell myself. keep reading till it's all over. (the waves) . (the furies) . (by any other name ... ) . they catch/caught up (me).
and then.
they left.

just like that.

(12) i just want to work out. i can run my way out of this. there's a solution to any problem in the convulsions of my body.


___*___*___*

it's taken nearly 2 hours to write this.
i don't know why.
maybe time is heavier than i thought.

(and faster)
(and slower)

good bye ICTY - which i'll miss
good bye holland - which i won't.
_