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


___**

things. just, things.

- so why then, why would you do that to her? - admit it, it's your ego - it is -
- of course, but what isn't -

- right so - 

- no, let me finish, 

- mm, sorry. 

- sometimes, you just... i just need, it's imperative, it's important that i like someone. that i remember what that feels like. that it's a possibility. ___even if nothing comes of it, something might. that thrill of possibility. it's life - that's what life feels like. ___in my personal life, i barely remember it. 

___*___*___*

i just want to go. i'm tired, i've grown pale. there are poems out there. i sense them. i want to find them. my pen tip is looking. i sense them sometimes near me. but always work - workwork - always work - i can't just stop and let them happen. 

this is how old age happens. when you can't stop for a poem. that's death. i'm dying. 

___*___*___*

i still think about sex with you. i don't think i'll ever forget it. the last time scared me. that's the truth, it scared me. it wasn't sex anymore, there were feelings. i'm not sure that's happened before. but it happened then. if ever we crossed that boundary, i thought i'd have known about it. that it would have been a conscious decision. but on that occasion, perhaps for the only time in my life, my body wasn't lying. not to either of us. that was truth. god that was scary. 

happy birthday anyway. i still miss you in every way.  it hasn't been the same without you. 

___*___*___*

i don't have many stories left to tell. all i know now are lies used to fill in empty spaces. whiskey on weeknights, lying skin on weekends. daylight hours are filled with work and comics when you take 20 minutes for lunch.

and she says: 

- good, i'm glad you didn't go in - who the hell works all week and then works weekends too? take a day off!

- do you think Oxford would have happened if i took weekends off mom? do you think i'd be where i am at work if i took weekends off? do you think life waits around for me to catch me breath? 

- no son. no. but...

- [but: be weary, death licks its lips]

___*___*___*

this (right now, right this second) moment is what i'm most afraid of. this is what happens if i don't fill the gaps. this right here. 

___*___*___*

i'm in the door for 5 seconds - 

- q, glad you're here, we saved you a line. 

- uhh, OH. i see. 

- wanna try? 

- so, i have a sinus infection, will that affect anything? 

- na, should be fine. 

- good. 

i'm lying across the arm-rest of couch. listening to my body tingle. 

- q, you aaight? 

- ... 

- q?

- what? oh. yah. i'm just thinking. 

- what? 

- ___what? 

- what are you thinking? 

- do you know what happiness is? ___could i be happy right now and not know it? 

___*___*___*

a knock on my office door - the big boss. q, just wanted to let you know, your leave of absence has been approved. you'll get the official letter in the next day or two, but thought you might like to hear it directly.  he's right - that's great new boss, thanks for letting me know. of course, this means you have to promise to come back to us. i want to tell him: this is the place i feel most loved nowadays. i'm here all day, all night, and most of the weekend, because it's all i've got. it's all i've had for years. my phone is silent. i don't get private emails. i just eat law. create it. make cases, and break them. give me five boxes of records, i'll find you an argument. 

i want more. 

___*___*___*

- why can't you sleep? 

- i don't know. 

- are you excited about leaving? 

- maybe. 

- are you depressed? 

- i don't think so. 

- why can't you sleep? 

- i don't know. ___maybe because i've been dreaming again. 

- you didn't used to dream? 

- the pills. since the pills i don't dream. but they're back. 

- why's that a problem? 

- i hate dreaming. ___it's like thinking all night, i wake up exhausted. 

___*___*___*

i'm still awake. 

i haven't been pouring full shots. 

i'm gonna go fix this. 

note / oh no.

I don't know how your eyes hold the bouquet of flowers

Or how I can see soo much in the dark.

Every sound I know converges to make this silence,

to slow this second for a moment or two more _so that I might distinguish the petal of your lip, _the slender arc of your arm, _this long short night from all those other dreams.

She sways to the music,

a flower in the pool-hall wind.

 

___*___*___*

oh no.

is that a poem looking thing?

it's happening isn't it?

here we go again  

Schrodinger's cat / the Big Leagues / the letter

i spend 18 days praying to be free from it. from the outcome of it. detachment detachment detachment. what will be will be. who you are you are. nothing to be done. you gave it your best, can't fight gravity. all that.


___* * *

it's 10:15pm when i get out from work. the final few days of the Fast, and i'm wrecked. my body is exhausted. the 15 hour days are not helping things. i walk out of my building and habitually check my networks waiting for the pedestrian crossing. 1 new message. Your application to Oxford. i haven't run fast enough. it's caught me at last. so this is the moment. i always imagined it would happen during the day - i don't know why. i imagined it would happen... not on the side of the street. (i cross the road). think what to do. how to do this.

there's a bus stop. i sit down. i need to say a prayer.


___* * *

in the car of your trunk, there is a cat. it could be alive, it could be dead. if we were quantum physicists, we would say that there is a 'superposition of states' - that both states exist simultaneously and are 'entangled'. This is because there is x% chance the cat is alive, and y% chance the cat is not. so, it's both. at the same time. the only way to find out, is to open the trunk. when you open the trunk, you force ('collapse') all the possibilities into one, final, definitive state.

i am accepted. i am rejected. i am both. i enjoy the moment.


___* * *

my decision is the Long Healing Prayer. (later my dad laughs when i tell him the story. 'what were you praying for? to avoid a heart attack?!)
___i don't care what it's called. i feel very close to this prayer. i've been saved by it before. when i sat on Mar couch staring at the ships in the bay and pretending i wasn't crying, this is the prayer i would say. it's caused earthquakes before. when i sat on the floor of our apartment in Santa Monica and mom asked 'what do you want to do with your life q?' and i couldn't answer and we both cried - this is the prayer we said. the Healing Prayer was there at the start of this mess. if this is to be the end - one way or another - this has to be the prayer to be said.


___* * *

three sentences in i half regret it. The Long Healing Prayer takes me between 8-14 mins to read depending on my mood. that's a long time to concentrate on something other than the cat in the trunk.

it occurs to me, Your application to Oxford could be anything. In 12 minutes i could check the email and all it will say is 'we are in the process of reviewing applications, thanks for your patience'. Somehow i know that's not the case... but it could be. The cat could not even be in the trunk. the cat could be at home still.


___* * *
1 new message. Your application to Oxford.

[click]

___Dear applicant

___Please see the attached PDF File.

___Best wishes

i stare at it for a minute. try and divine what that means. dammit. i didn't get in. that's it. that's the only thing that it could mean.

PDFmailer.pdf

[click]

(loading)


___* * *

... delighted ... inform ... successful.

w ait.

what.

what.

i start from the beginning, i can't find the beginning. it's like your blurry eyes slowly forming the shapes. i close and reopen and try to read slowly

I am delighted to inform you that your application to the University of Oxford as a graduate student has been successful. We would like to offer you a place...

[i can't breathe]. my hand is shaking. maybe i read it wrong, keep reading, keep...

Our admissions round is extremely competitive, and we would like to congratulate you most warmly on your success.


what?


___* * *

- q! Q!
- yyes, what?
- Q!
- ...
- why are you so quiet? are you okay?
- i... am ___uhm
- oh my poor baby, you're shocked
- yah.
- where are you?
- on. the. side bus stop street somewhere.
- why are you shocked?
- nothing makes sense.
- what? what are you talking about?
- i can't connect the dots. ___how did this happen?
- you made it happen.
- i don't understand how. i remember sitting in the living room, and you asking me what i wanted to do with my life, and me not having an answer, and everyone crying. it wasn't that long ago...
- 2008?
- six years isn't so long is it?
- it's nothing.
- so how?
- sshhh. baby. you really have no idea who you are you know that?
- ... sometimes.


___* * *

i'm still digesting.

[to be continued].

notaprayer

Dear alleverythingverymassivelargeGod
Forgive me if i have fallen down even where there was no step to trip on, like on sunny tuesdays. Forgive me for being scared of tomorrow/s, and for having intense allergy attacks everytime i see a cat because i know i shouldn't play with them but i can't help it because i'm weak. Forgive me for not loving J and making her sad, and even more for not being able to forget her and even even more for being angry at myself for feeling lonely even though i know it's normal because i'm disappointed i'm not a robot. You are alleverythingful so You don't need my reasons. You know me.

Help me shake tomorrow's hand, and unloose my tongue to respond to my friends, who i miss. i don't know the words for the things i feel, so i cannot describe anything. You know all. So, everything that needs to be said, You know. So, just...

everything.  

she doesn't return my text.

she doesn't return my text. i'm not surprised. or upset. maybe i'm relieved, i think i'm relieved. (and she's not the only either, no one has this week).

___[
___Therapist: do you think there's a problem?
___Q: ___no. there's no sign of a problem.
___Th: __really?
___Q: ___yah really.
___Th: __you know what the thing is? the thing is you never see it.
___Q: ___...
___Th: __what tends to happen is, you wake up, and you're 50, and your family has left you, and your friends hate you, and there's no one around and you're all alone. and you're great at your job and it suddenly occurs to you that you don't care. and that's all you've got. and now there's no time to do anything about it. it's too late. that's the problem.
___Q: ___is that what you're seeing?
___Th: __yes. ______do you sense it?
___Q: __  can i tell you a secret?
___Th: __sure.
___Q: ___it's worse than that. ___... i already know it's happened. it's just time before i screw it up beyond repair
___Th: __...
]

no one all week. (but wait, i'll get back to that in a second:

**___ in the evenings, when i walk home, i've been staring at people. i can't stop staring at them. the beautiful girls and the pudgy boys. and the teenagers with the ridiculous hair. and i think, it's a river, it's a thought that just moves from person to person as i walk: who loves you? and you - who loves you? is it him? it is? do you feel like she does? can i sense it? - if i stare at you. i hope somebody does, you deserve that. (maybe even... _)
___[ Q: ___no.
____H: ___ what do you mean?
___  Q: ___ it's this horrible feeling i get after sex.
___  H: ___ ...
___  Q: ___ like, i look at her. and all i can think is: someone should love you. leave this. leave here. find someone who does.
___  H: ___ ...
___  Q: ___ and, f&ck, i can't believe i'm about to say this___,
___  H: ___ ...
___  Q: ___ and. i'm thinking it to myself too. y'know? i'm telling myself the same damn thing. who is this? where'd she come from? why are you here q? just... anyway, ___.
___  H: ___ oh q. [as she puts her head on my shoulder and my arm around her] whatarewegonnado?
]

and all these beautiful ___in the evenings ___coming out of the gym , is it for somebody? is it for you? will she notice? is it still the same?

___*___*___*
- why didn't they text you back?
- i wouldn't text me back.
- ?
- dude, how can anyone put up with me? i'm here one minute, then i disappear for weeks without a word. then all of a sudden i'm back. who can keep up.
- well. you're doing your stuff, you're handling your busi-
- no. nono. no. i'm just a prick. admit it. i can. i can admit it. i'm just a self-centred prick. i'm not there for anybody. i can't be. i just descend into myself, into all the things that terrify me. and i fight with them, and when i come back... there's not usually anyone around. and that's okay.
- ...
- it is.

___*___*___*

it is okay. it is okay. it is okay.

i amuse myself. two weeks ago, on a wednesday night. i stumbled to my couch, hand trembling. taking big, voluminous breaths. who does this? i thought to myself. who gets drunk on a wednesday drinking straight whiskey and then sits down and reads Harold Bloom's introductory essay to the Complete Poems of Hart Crane.  (which i have read four times. and never the poems themselves. Hart Crane is hard. but the essay makes me happy. i love reading people write about things they love, things they believe in. Harold Bloom loves, believes in Hart Crane. it makes me happy, the sincerity of it. so i read it. from time to time).
___(my roomate comes in a week later. i have my football tucked under my arm - it comforts me somehow - and i'm holding the whiskey, and struggling to hold Bleak House open above my head, but it's too heavy and keeps falling on me. jesus dude. )

** the Seattle Seahawks, their pre-game psyche-up mantra is
we all we got / we all we need.
i don't believe that.
______at least,
____________not the second part. ***

___*___*___*

when i was 16, i remember my mom asking me if i was alright. and i said i was. and i felt like i was. very alright. completely alright. i felt perfectly alright. and she said oh baby. we won't know yet. we won't know for a long while yet. one day, we'll know what i've done to you.

___*___*___*

please help me words. please help me. you used to. you used to be all i had. i believed in you. everything i couldn't say in any other way you were there for. what's happened to us? why is it so hard to say what i mean now? why do i not mean anything? maybe that's the problem. maybe it's that i've stopped meaning anything.

___*___*___*

she asks me if questions can run on. oh girl. you don't even know. there are no answers, the questions just run. on. across. around. on and on. not an answer in sight. it's just a field of questions. like rabbits and landmines.

___*___*___*

it bothers me when i dream of you
i hate that you're there ,
we don't even speak, it's very civil
you just... you do your thing.

___*___*___*

one day i'll find a way to

______one


____________d a___y