all the things

+
yes, rain. rain indeed. more. [i grab my jacket and walk out.
there's no better way to avoid the 400 pages of reading that are absurdly required


+ x
- so i told you a secret, ___now you tell me one.
- that's difficult - no - listen, listen - it's difficult because i don't have a lot of secrets, i blab too much.
- fine, so tell me something.

i really take a few moments to think. i want to give her something real, and intimate. something deep. it's a test, i want to see if she can recognise what i'm giving her.

- sometimes, when i can't sleep, when i'm sad, if i've had a long day, other times just sitting with a friend and discussing things, i like to drink. ___bourbon... ___and that's a big deal for me. it's not something i'm comfortable with. it's not who i've ever been before, but it's someone i am currently. and i'm terrified of where it could lead, and why it's even a thing, but... well. there you have it. it's like a relationship with a dangerous woman - but a dangerous woman who's been nothing but sweet and loving to you, so you have no reason not to trust her, but still you don't. because as long as you're good to her, she'll be good to you, but you know deep down you're a bit of a prick and you're scared you'll be mean to her and then, if you do that - if you make that mistake - she'll tear you limb from limb and smile with your blood running down her chin. and i know she has that in her and i have some sabotage in me.

she doesn't really get it. ___which makes me sad. it was that age old risk: sentimental gift or something easy from Tiffany's. i guess she wanted the blue-bag.


+
i find settling in to new places difficult. this is all there is to it. i'm not good at it.

so it's no biggie. it's just the pattern. round we go again. always around, always again.

just what it is.


x +
it was , it was - that was the night you fell asleep in my chest mid-sentence, 
that's what she says,
___i want to say: i love hearing your voice and i miss you and i'm terrified by both those things.

i want to say it but i'm too busy laughing about how that night - in our excitement and fatigue - we booked tickets to the Book of Mormon in New York instead of London. we laugh loudly.

outside it is dark and it rains. and my room is cosy. and i miss intimacy.

it used to be like this.

it used to be like this, __then of course, it wasn't. __but then, of course, it was again.

__(3am, sitting in my car in the driveway with the engine on - too scared to turn it off and be engulfed in the silence, in the sadness that would come with it [the fact of]:

__the spectacle is over q. the glitter, the nonsense talk. __and you are alone, again. 
__always again. 
____and it is because you are not enough. never will be enough, and no one even notices you are gone. 

)


___*___*___*

i tell my stories, and make my jokes. eyes occasionally darting from side to side to appraise who's where. planning sequences. it's true i'm not as smooth as i once was, but with practice it'll come back to me. (something i've said has gotten a laugh). hey guys, let's sit for a bit shall we? this is a transition, i know there's only one available seat, a high-chair between two attractive women on which i'd have to perch. the transition is seamless, i move into a new conversation, they're left hanging around. the girl to the left likes me and touches me frequently. the girl to the right departs - women can sense these things. a male friend of mine takes her chair (men cannot sense these things). later he says 'i think we've got a good connection, can you not go for her?'. i take a moment to think about this, i don't usually indulge this stuff, but he's a sweet guy. you know, ultimately it has nothing to do with us. women do the choosing and they choose for themselves and they choose early and there's nothing one way or another you can do to persuade a woman after she's made her choice. ___i'll make myself scarce, but... this is an exception. ___i mean it, i don't usually do this. i doubt he understands how serious i am. anyway, the girl doesn't know me. she can't like me. she calls me by the name that only acquaintances use nowadays.

[life is defined by moments. there are moments wherein truth is frozen. available for re-examination after re-examination, displayed endlessly for the rest of your life.

we had only been speaking for 5 minutes, she'd asked twice where i'd lived, which i couldn't see the relevance of - to our conversation about Nina Simone - so kept evading a clear answer. finally she took my hand and started walking out. she stopped in front of her friend, 'can i grab my keys'. the friend gave me a looking over and was not approving. she handed over the keys. it occurred to me what was happening. i wasn't sure how i felt, what i wanted. if i do, i'll feel so lonely and if i don't i'll feel so lonely.

it's become one of those moments: that moment of understanding that i'm doomed to the loneliness of it. ]


___*___*___*

again, i've misplaced it again.
lost it again.

back to the beginnings ,
rebuilding from grits of sand.


___*___*___*

the insecurities are killing me. if you want it straight, there it is. 31 year old, oxford graduate law student, works wonders in the peripheries of the room. and feels like little more than a barnacle, attached to the bottom of the rowboat, humming aquatic chants to amuse the cool kids in the boat, who don't hear him, or know him, or care one way or the other whether he clings on or doesn't.

i had forgotten this feeling. i have not missed it.

here it comes: 2:57am. the knife's-edge of 3am. razor sharp, merciless.

the less you find of me in the morning, the better.

II. from TWO INEVITABILITIES, A POEM/LIST

Leonora, aged 5, sings and paints beside me / Spain scribblings

desire. (an unsatisfactory notapoem). (a half-hearted thing)

its unavoidable now - here, look, see that? did you?
___it pulsates across the surface
its song hums off the train tracks -
__the shape of the clouds trees patches of sidewalk stained Monday morning buildings -
hums, hums that damn song,

every time she says, every time is also the sum of all the ones before,
packs a lot of punch into such a small increment:
___a black hole dense every dollar first-kiss trophy award 3-point swish
redeems every fail before, accelerates every rush

i think of all the nights i stayed up seeing red behind my eyes while i couldn't sleep,
thinking of things i didn't dare dream about: could i, if only i could, if only me
if only it were possible, could i, if only



under my skin i can feel it , the heat of it. ___miniature futures growing fingertips
___new somethings.
i pierce my fangs into an apple. ___into sunny Sundays. ___into the new season of, ___distractions;
hoping to be relieved of it,

yield bitch. yield. 

the stone of it remains. ___unavoidable.
filling shoes. ___occupying minutes. ___dying clothes.

to want. ___the pain of it

tuesday 12:40am

it's already night but it gets darker as it goes on. neighbours' lights go out. leaves grow , trees grow. still, it's no less inviting. i get out of bed. walk around. with my steps trace the rectangles the windows make on the floor. feel the shift from wood to rug. try it without the sweater. then with. without socks. with.


___*___*___*

in two months i'll be somewhere else. somewhere far. i haven't felt this much uncertainty about my future for... a while. i lived with that feeling in my gut for a decade, this reprise feels like a homecoming.


___*___*___*

it occurs to me, whatever this is, this is what i've become. it seems mighty late to be someone new now. i'll just have to live with this. i wonder if i'm okay with that. if i had a re-try would i lose my virginity sooner? would i go to the conservatorium after high-school? would i have stayed in haifa and tried my hand at love?


___*___*___*

things that i've already decided will come with me to oxford no matter what, a preparatory (incomplete) list:

+ the copy of prayers and meditations with Ashtree's inscription - because it makes me feel unlonely. and i like that feeling. but then it also makes me feel far. and distant. but mostly unlonely.

+ the pee-wee sized football that lives on my couch and that i hold when i read. there's something very comforting about it. and although no one in australia knows how to throw a football, i lay upside on my couch and throw it into the air. it feels nice against my hands. sometimes i just let it crash against my chest. thump. throw.  thump. throw.  thump.

it's admittedly a short list. i can't seem to decide anything. which pens do i want with me. which of my 7 pajama pants? do i need more than 1 baseball cap? what about Sykes's Law of Securities?


___*___*___*

______my exams are over, you owe me a movie.

i stare at it. ____damn.



what am i going to do about you, you're going to destroy me.

______- Wednesday?[details]

______Done. see you there!

i stare at it. all i see is her dancing and her purple dress and her almond shaped eyes and the feel of her lips and -

damn.

damn.damn.damn.


___*___*___*

i can't stop reading Faulkner. i can't stop thinking about Faulkner. i memorised Macbeth's soliloquy. i mumble it to myself as i move mom's boxes into the van. what are you saying to yourself?
- full of sound and fury, ___signifying nothing.
- why do you keep saying it?
- listen to the 't' sounds:
___it is a tale told by an idiot
hear that? how percussive it is? tah tah tah tah
- yes. ___so?
- and the next bit is:
___full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
alternating 'f's and 's's.
- the last word should start with f.
- good! Right, exactly, it should - but that's the magic - the 'th' - it sounds almost like an 'f' but without the kick. it's fading itself out, phonetically.
- are you just saying it because you like the sounds?
- maybe. has there ever been a better description of life than as being 'sound and fury'?
- fury?
- i don't read 'fury' as in anger... think more, passion, and... feelings, like water boiling over - a wild energy being bashed around. that's life right? this huge exertion and noise and heartaches and breaks and remakes and blahs and blahs. and not really for much. after a few years, those huge melodramatic struggles become little anecdotes we smile at. an entire year you can retell in 10 minutes.
- no, don't take that box yet.
- what?
- that one.
- oh.


___*___*___*

things i am thinking/feeling:

+ i don't want strangers living in my house
+ let's get on with it
+ god i'm tired, i need a few days off these pills
+ i don't want to know what feelings are hiding under there, don't take a few days off these pills
+ i want to touch you, and undress you, and feel your ankles in my hands, and your wrists are so slender, and why do you always dress so proper?
+ i want to not think about you. or see you. i want to leave and not look back.
+ q, this is who you are now. you're not artsy anymore. you're not a creative type - you're a suit, live with it. [i sit at a table by myself at lunch reading. some colleagues approach - i guess from tomorrow i'll have to find a new place to have lunch -  heya q, whatchya doing? - reading. - ... - ... - ... - oookay, well, i guess we'll leave you to it then. - no problem, see you back up there. they leave. i keep reading.]
+ i'm really concerned about what to do with my first edition of Four Quartets. i'm more worried about it than my piano. no one's going to lose my piano. but the book...
+ who's going to show up in September? i really don't want to be workaholic, hermetic q. i don't want him to show up. i'm not ready for how much work this is going to entail. all i really want to do is ride my bike around, and join the beginners rowing team, and stare at the snow and read Absalom! Absalom! and try to write better than i'm managing now.


___*___*___*

it's darker still. no less inviting.

i'm not ready for tomorrow to happen. i'm not ready for today to end. i'm happy here in the middle. just let me sit here a minute. i wish you were here. we could listen to Made in Heights in the 2am dark with our arms around each other and sway our bodies ; and we could drink tea and tonic water and bourbon and we could play with my plastic dinosaurs and re-enact scenes from mean girls and i could play you Satie's gymnopedies and you could hold the football and lay on the opposite side of the couch with your feet on my chest and we could say absolutely nothing and stare at the books on my shelf and think about what they all say and it would go on for years. a perfect darkness. a perfect moment under the blanket hiding from tuesday.


___*___*___*

i understand that this is the shortest of the lives i'll live.

sometimes i wish that weren't so. other times it's the only thing that will console me.

in any case, i'll just have to live with this. with the books on my shelf. the decisions, the unmade bed. the empty rooms. the quiet nights...


one day soon my sweet ;
i'll have my face between your hair and neck and my arms around your waist, and we'll make fresh popcorn in the dark and i'll feel so alive, so real,

___our bodies like flowers in a vase,
___overlapping shadows

______ssshhh, listen to that - you hear that?
______what? she asks.
_________outside, i can hear the jasmine smiling in the dark

poem.

these are wordless thoughts
movements behind curtains
things i cannot shape,
distortions

___*
i still have a pencil from high school
the one i used during final exams
i'm too superstitious to write with it - sometimes i hold it
maybe it remembers me

___*
the moment i was born,
she handed me a balloon. 
it's your soul she said,
keep it safe she said - __she said
it will remind you which way is up
until your wings grow.

*
in 31 years i have forgotten french and physics ;
many things ,
continents.
books and books sit on my shelf,  heavy and empty.

___*
he was right, my dad:
everything that matters in this life is not of it.

measureless. timeless. __dreamstuff and spookstuff. 

___*
lost
and every minute more losing.

meaningless rhythms of flustered fools
full of sound and fury,
traffic noise, sun's glare, spam mail:

___*
there's a left somewhere i missed

sometimes i glance up
maybe there's a balloon that knows physics, speaks french
remembers the smell,
the feeling of ___, the possibility

remembers how to hold hands 

___(really you can't?
___ i can't.
___ try it she says, she takes me hand
___ i cringe, look away
___ oh my god! she says ,
___ she says you can't even look at my face! )

___*

Berg's violin concerto is
written in a language
i cannot translate.

hieroglyphs and dead-language spasms
of a foreigner 

___*
you scare me when you're like this she says
'but i am so calm...'
she says you're not even here q, i don't know where you are ,
i don't know where you are she says, you're not here
you're not here she says
she says you're not even here

___*
undiscovered star
silent oceans of fire
invisible inferno

enough night can smother anything.

___*
each day i walk in , walk out.
45 minutes each way.
tides.
mountain ranges of minutes.
markless footsteps on unimportant roads.

heat and hallucinations,
___The hope only 
___Of

___*
beautiful truths,
truthful beauties : 

measureless. timeless. __dreamstuff and spookstuff. 

wordless distortions

collected silences

___The hope only 
___Of


___**