Charlie, part one

He can hardly be criticized for his actions that night – I want to make that very clear before you hear, before you judge – and I know you'll judge him. That's not your fault. You're only human after all, just like he was – is –, just like I am. This may seem to you a very mysterious introduction, but it's really not, not in the ways that matter. It really says all you need to know about his story: that he was human, that I am human, and that I will defend his right to be so, our right to blame that for our actions, until you prove to me that I cannot.

My own story can be summed up nicely in six words that I stole from a book of six-word autobiographies. "I fell in love with Charlie," it said, and it resonated in my mind until I came to grips with the fact that my life could easily be told in that precise sentence. I've done a lot in my life – stuff that I'm not proud of, stuff that shines so brightly that it could burn a hole in the sky – but the only thing that I ever did that really mattered was to fall in love with that beautifully broken man.

Charlie's story isn't quite so simple. It begins, as many stories do, at the beginning, but to you this beginning will seem like a middle, or even, if you're perceptive enough, like an end.

"I love you."

He said it slowly, simply, no ghost of a smile hovering in the corners of his mouth, no reflection of a twinkle in his sea-deep eyes.

And then the world came grinding to a halt, finally conforming to how Ptolemy and Aristotle thought it worked.

At least, that's how I picture it happening. I wasn't actually there, and he didn't – wouldn't ever – say those words to me. I picture it happening like that because I know him, know the smile that's always ready to burst through, know how those eyes can twinkle like the brightest star in a crisp October sky. And I know that the world came grinding to a halt, at least for him, because that's how he described it when he regained his equilibrium enough to write about it.

It doesn't matter what her response was, although I'm sure you can guess, and it doesn't matter who she was – is –, although I'm sure you'd like to know. What matters is his response to her response; after all, this is his story, and I did open it with an apology.

It's as vibrant in my mind as though I had seen it myself instead of reading about it after the fact. His email was very precise and clear; ever the scientist, he had observed and catalogued the reaction for later analysis. He described feeling the heat rise along his spine, tickling its way through each vertebra until the entire column was made of liquid fire and he had to remove his jacket in an attempt to calm it down. He described forcing his hand not to shake as he brought his drink to his lips and took a measured sip, and another, and another. He described resisting the urge to grasp her silk-clad upper arms in his big, rough hands and pull her into his embrace, to not let go of her until she understood exactly what was going through his mind. He described setting the glass down on the bar between a girl who looked like she might have been sixteen and a woman who was clearly beyond her best years, mentally comparing them both to her out of habit.

He didn't describe how his heart burst into wild flames that made their way through his bloodstream until his entire body was full of hot rage, until the stars in his eyes turned into a meteor shower that threatened to extinguish all life that got in its way, but I managed to guess. It was all there, in a hastily scribbled letter that spent the next 35 years in the drawer of his nightstand, and it was all pain, all hurt, all violent anger. The next morning, the newspaper would publish a column he had written about the power of love to turn a person's life around beneath a photo of the two of them and beside an emergency article by a too-keen new journalist about a woman who had mysteriously died in a club that night.

I know what you're thinking, but it wasn't him – it was pure coincidence that she ended up dying that night, pure coincidence that someone else had it out for her in a way that gave him weeks of sleepless nights agonizing over whether or not he had said something that had prompted someone to take initiative and kill her for him.

The courts, it turned out, don't like coincidence, and it was months before they discovered that the man who had killed her was someone else entirely. They discovered then, too, that Charlie wasn't entirely innocent that night. He didn't kill her, that much I can say without lying, but here is where I can promise you that you will judge him.

That night, he said in that bitter, violent letter, was the beginning of the end. I prefer to see it, in my habit of stealing things from books that I read, as the end of the beginning.

Lament

Darkness calls us home
in the theatre-lights of our
exhausted consciences.

We have turned to rattled shells--
torn instuments
who can no longer sound
even with the voices of the weary.

Who shall we presume
to have destroyed in our elation?

These false monks we have seen
sitting in groves
wires snaking from their pockets--
these desperado scientists
of measure and lead,

we have become them.

Those whom we swore
were never ours,
whom we saw as
foreign fields to be tilled
with inkblood--

those who,
in the darkness,
rather than finding
the panes of glass
have cried--

"we did not ask to be made."

The Glade [Part IV]

[Hello. So as of now, there are eight parts to the story of 'The Glade,' the one there with Ernest and his two kids and how he tries to avoid reality at all costs, etc etc. This part is one I re-read recently and thought was interesting, so out of completely nowhere, here is part IV of the Glade.]

‘Your eyes have become my darkest reserve.’
Julie lies on her bed, writing this same statement over and over in her notebook, trying to breed some sense of understanding of her situation of life. Truly, at the age of fifteen, she knew she was much too young to completely understand life and all its melancholy complexities, yet she still strived to, though inferior to the older family members, who would scoff at her irritable adolescent psychobabble. What her older cousins would disregard though was her overachieved IQ level for a girl at the age of fifteen, and her ability to articulate her thoughts clearly enough for them to be understood. And at the age of fifteen, Julie had been under the impression for quite awhile now that not only her life, but that life itself is overrated. That, and that she was a genius.
‘The drugs, the relationships, the heartbreaks, the drama, the soundtracks, the booze, the sex, the love… It’s all overrated. It’s all a fucking joke. Everything glorified in books and movies, thrown at the youth… It’s, these people. They obsess over every detail and want to know about the glamour of being famous, of being on the edge of life at all times and never ever falling off. Of swinging mid-air from a noose, burning out rather than fading away. But they’re just human, we’re all humans, and just because they’re pretty doesn’t mean that people should treat them like Gods. I can’t fucking stand it.’
Julie wrote in her notebook. It was a moleskin black notebook bought from a local corner store. She bought it because she felt like she had things to say, and because the pages felt prettier and softer than most other notebooks. She felt that the things she had to say would one day be studied in colleges, as thematic masterpieces for the generation of alienated high school drop outs and acidic, self-mind obsessed digital addicts. But an issue with her journal, or, depending on the perspective, the genius of it was that there was no string attaching thoughts. It was merely a thought after a thought after a thought, with no clarification or moment of relief. It was pure emotion, and it was true, but at the same time, she wrote with the implications of someone, someday, reading her thoughts and thinking of her as some kind of abstract teenage genius. Did this fact itself plague her thoughts, or did they articulate them in the clearest sense? Twenty years from now, that very same question boils over between Julie’s fans and her critics, but at the time, she wrote what she felt was right.
Her journal began like this:
‘It’s the first day of summer and I already miss Winter. Just goes to prove that I can only love what I don’t have. This nuclear family, someone should really bomb it. I’m morally ambiguous, but so is the church, but no one seems tell the church that they’re dressed inappropriately at the dinner table. Somehow, everyone my age seems to rebel against their upbringing, against their religious mother and businessman-like father. Like it’s a norm to hate what you are bound to become. The slight problem with this scenario is that I was never born into religion. I was never born with pre-disposed business in my blood.
My parents were non-religious artists. My dad, a genius and failed writer, and my mom, rest her soul, a painter who painted with such wide strokes it was hard not to cry at the audacity of her work.
But where does this leave me? How do I make artistic parents proud? Everything has already been written before, and I mean everything. Every combination of words and phrases, it’s all been written. Whether it was written by Shakespeare to confuse the fuck out of high school students, or written by any of your local writers, it’s all been done. So it makes it hard to be original. Is that what they want?’
Julie’s hostilities were normal for an over-intelligent fifteen year old girl to have; her loss of place and identity, her relationship with her father and brother, but most influential, her inability to cope with the loss of her mother, and thus, the displacement of any source of loss toward her.
So, Julie wrote. And she wrote with her unknowing father worrying about her lack of self-esteem, disavowing any attention to his own.

Kennings

We’ve been put together. In this room. Expected that we should fall in love.

Feelings can’t fall from trees.

I look at you.

At first I see dark wind-sung hair. At first I see bright blue-cloud eyes. At first I see shining music-wide smiles. They’re beautiful. You. Are beautiful. We sweep around each other in this room. Circling, spinning, dancing in the quick courtship of necessity. I look for more markers of simplistic wonderment, of awe-full falling. I look to fall. I try to feel a fall in close proximity. I try to send my heart to you on waves of air, spun on lingering tendrils of my breath. I try to make my smiles like yours, to show you how hard I’m trying.

But I can only try. And the only thing within proximity is you.

Feelings can’t fall from trees.

And then, after I first look at you, I see you.

I see dim wind-snagged hair. I see drained blue-storm eyes. I see tarnished music-shred smiles. They’re tattered. They are not what I want, not what I thought. Not what I tried to convince myself they were. You are a monster, made so by my palpitating heart, my caged panic clawing the insides of my skin, my trembling lips and spilling tears. We shouldn’t be in this room together, but we are. And now that we are, I can’t escape. I can barely look at you anymore. Nausea stabs and blinds.

I can’t do this.

Feelings can’t fall from trees.

You stand there, equally as beautiful as monstrous, your halves of illusion flickering in the fluorescent lights of the room. I keep circling, but your circle is sliced with impatience as you walk straight towards me. I shiver and slip away, though I can’t hide. We two are the only ones here. It was made on purpose to be so.

I burry my face in the corner. No place to go. I leak shame from my eyelashes, knowing it is a terrible thing to do. Knowing I should be brave. Knowing I have no concrete reason not to feel the way I should.

You reach me, gently turn my shoulder so I look at you again. Whether I look or see doesn’t matter to you.

“Feelings can’t fall from trees,” I whisper. My throat burns as if a ball of fire wells there in liquid form.

You reach for my face. Take my cheek in your beauty-twisted hand. Lean in your forehead so that it rests against my own. “But they don’t know that,” you whisper back.

And I realize it doesn’t matter. I realize that it is only expected of us. Expectations are not truths.

And so we breed more lies.

Ok, I Lied.

I never got around to editing a decent piece.
So instead, I amuse you with this photo.

...make up your own stories around it.
ASSIGNMENT!?!

The Fat Cheerleader

The fat cheerleader stands on the green like an awkward elephant. We, the audience who have paid to be here, stare at her with surprise mingled with malicious pleasure. Barely muffled laughter ripples through the crowd. If I can hear it so well, perhaps it isn’t muffled at all.

She stands there, under the glorious Friday night lights, but she might as well be floating: a big red balloon, barely contained by her glittery costume. It is stretched over her bulbous breasts and tucked under her expansive belly, it presses against her blubbery body, which explodes out wherever it is exposed.

Her pale skin bulges and ripples, at places taunt with so much filling, soft as it is, at others drooping out and down with sheer weight. Her torso expands into a huge smiley face, with her breasts as two protruding eyes and the creased tire of her belly as the mouth. It is a larger version of her face, on which has appeared her real smile, enormous and jolly, a great gap of pleasure which expands over her three chins and between her huge oval cheeks.

The music starts, and the choreography begins. The squad is supposed to be one, with a chain of simultaneously harmonious movements and dances, but we have eyes for only one of them: the fat cheerleader, dead center.

I’m not quite sure what I expected of her. Something less graceful, probably, less enticing, certainly. It would have been logical for her to be as awkward when she moved as when she stood, her movements impeded by so much of her. And yet, how wrong I was. How wrong we all were. Those who laughed laugh no more. We all stare, instead, awestruck by her grace. She moves not against her bulk, but with it, shaking her stomach, waving her arms, jumping up and down, sending waves of blubber across her surface. Her body is no longer deformed and graceless, it is rambunctiously sensual. She moves like a goddess, and I long to touch and lick her.

The audience gets up, as one, feverish with pleasure. We smile at the sheer beauty of her. The music reaches its climax, soon it will be over. The squad assembles in the middle, all the cheerleaders are now grouped around their queen. Their limbs look like sickly toothpicks as they grab her arms, legs, back, and butt. They lift her slowly, and she sends the audience her most humongous smile. The squad lowers her, and then pushes against her body again, giving her the greatest heave, a push that sends her flying out of their arms and into the air.

The fat cheerleader does not come down, however. She has tricked gravity. Pushed by the other girls, motivated by our cheerful applause, she floats upward. She really has become a great balloon, inflated with our love, for which she has so much room. We are not worthy of her love – we could scarcely contain it all together – and so she flies away, beyond the glare of the football field and into the night sky.

The one with the turquoise pendant on the front

Took this from my blog. Sorry if you've read it.

There was a woman sitting there there. I couldn't help myself from taking a glance. One glance led to a second which was followed by a third. When I felt sure she was entirely absorbed by the words she was reading in the book clasped in his hands, I began to look. I examined her. Unfairly, I passed judgment on what I saw.

I had been told as a child never to judge a book by its cover. I later concluded that it was unfortunate that when I received books as presents, they always had elaborately designed fronts. Some of them gave the impression that more time had been spent on the cover than the content.

The girl was stunning. Not particularly beautiful by nature. Simply, she was well adorned with the latest fashions and made-up with such attention to detail that there was no where you could look that didn't turn you on. She wore a turquoise stone on a necklace which particularly caught my eye.

I wondered for a moment if she, as well, had been given books with pretty covers. I then stood up awkwardly, waited a moment for my misplaced lust to fix itself and exited the metro quickly.

Giving Birth to a Pineapple

Push.





(this is a bonus one today to entice people to check out my blog
http://iamabearonaboat.blogspot.com/ )

He Refuses to Remember.

(I posted something earlier and realized that my feelings toward the piece have changed)

- Is there something wrong with me?
- Why do you ask that?
- I want to know.
- In what sense? No, I don't think there's anything wrong with you.
- I don't know. I just feel off.

He stared up from his phone at the clock on the oven, reading this conversation over again with different tones and trying to figure out every bit of ambiguity until it feels right, correct. His cheeks vibrate, his eyes water, his pupils dialate and shift: he is alone. He is the one thing he has tried to avoid.
He screams. Loud enough for him to feel some sort of relief, yet soft enough not to wake the neighbours. No one will talk to him and the only conversation he willed to carry on was at a standstill with no promise to pick up again.

- So, what's up?

He leaves his phone on the table, turns on the tv and decides to come back to it after a while of entertainment. Basking in the loneliness of a cold Fall's night with his eyes fixated on the floor, he succombs to his moment of weakness and jumps from the couch to rush to his phone.

Nothing.

"How fitting," he thought. He had nothing to say and nothing to do, yet wanted comfort from someone who equally has nothing to say and nothing to do to comfort.

One more time. Just to be sure...

- Have you seen My Best Friend's Girl? It's suprisingly funny.

He roamed his home with his phone kept tight in his hand. He could've written to other people to keep him company until he became tired enough for sleep to be a necessity, but he didn't. (There's another level to this, isn't there?)

Half an hour has gone passed and he is still throwing himself from the top of the staircase. Each fall cracks a bone, bruises a leg, but nothing fatal or harmful enough to do any damage.
It's exhausting and he decides to sleep, hoping for replies in the morning, but knows full well that the replies only mattered for that night.

A clean slate in the morning. He remembers nothing.

A clean execution.

Broken Reflection

Distorted images, distorted reality
projecting, believing a distorted fantasy
these nightmare causing dreams of perfection
shattered mirrors and a broken reflection

Everyone accepts this deception
accepting as well the idea of rejection
of anyone who doesn't conform
to this projected norm
of physical appearance and beauty
but isn't this a mockery
of the values of acceptance
we disregard "embrace differences" with such nonchalance

Because I guess we never really meant it
it would be wonderful wouldn't it
if beauty really was in the eyes of the beholder
rather than the eyes of the media, the mass controler
with their daily overdose of brainwashing material
that we, unconciously overexposed to it all
don't even realise what an effect it has on us, decieved
and we continue to believe
that these perceptions of beauty are our own
...and not simply imposed

I Should Probably Rethink My Major Because The Media Has Eaten Me Alive

The Film Industry stole my soul.

It managed to convince me that people change,
grow on each other, change for the ones they love.
( and like a child i have been waiting. )
The Film Industry told me love exists.
They told me there's someone out there for me,
just for me, only for me, made for me.
They promised me if I was patient, I'd get to be lucky.
( and like a child i have been stretching my eyes. )
The Film Industry told me it was going to get worse before it got better.
The Film Industry convinced me not to settle.
The Film Industry told me to wait.
The Film Industry promised me redemption.
The Film Industry promised me fireworks.
( and like a child i have been looking to the skies. )

The Film Industry lied to my face.
Looked me straight in the eyes and lied to me.

Fuck you, Film.

Fuck your agile actors and impossibly perfect lines.
Fuck your selected soundtracks and seamless editing.
Fuck your stolen kisses in the rain.
Fuck your fast cars, your proud men and loose women.
Fuck your vocabulary that feeds those around me.
Fuck your classic scenes, fuck your heartfelt moments.
Fuck your tragic heroines and glorified veterans.
Fuck everything that you are, everything you incorporate.
Fuck everything you promised me, you fucking liars

You've torn me apart and I've based myself on your illusion.

Agape

He knows, deep within his soul, that God and Fate brought them together. Every time her hand brushes his shoulder, her eyes his eyes, her knee his knee, he knows this. Every time they talk, for hours on end without a silence, every time they walk, unconsciously in time with each other, every time they sing together and begin, unplanned, in the same key, every time they smile at each other for no reason, he knows this.

When with her, he is aware of every move she makes, all her fidgeting, all her gestures, all her aimless wanderings; whether looking at her or not his entire being is aware of her. When without her, he is aware only of a faint worry, knowing how innocent she can be, how foolish, how she often doesn’t think about things, how she takes risks that everyone wishes she wouldn’t, and he knows that his is the only worry she allows to exist, knows that there is something deep there that gives him the right to worry.

There are times when they do not speak for months, and there is no agony in the distance because they are always drawn back to each other, and he knows that there is a reason for this, that he can be sure they will never stay too far apart. There are times when they see each other every day for a week, and there is no agony in the closeness because, no matter how often one or the other pulls back, the connection is maintained and there is method to the madness in the way they interact.

If asked, he would immediately say that they are the best of friends, closer to each other than brother and sister, and though their best friendship does not exist in the traditional sense, he knows that it is there. And he knows why it is there, knows that they were brought together by God and Fate and consequently cannot be torn apart, and the knowing does not come with happiness or sadness or anger or resignation or delirium or excitement, it merely is, and it is in the times when he knows it the most deeply that he wishes that he could rewind back to before they met and avoid her so that she wouldn’t have the heartache he knows she inflicts on herself because she’s not ready for them to belong together.

And just as he, she also knows, deep within her soul, that God and Fate brought them together. Every time his hand brushes her back, his eyes her eyes, his knee her knee, she knows this. Every time they talk, for hours on end without a silence, every time they walk, unconsciously in time with each other, every time they sing together and begin, unplanned, in the same key, every time they smile at each other for no reason, she knows this.

When with him, she is aware of every move he makes, his quiet, deliberate movements, the lazy shifting of his body as he stands, the solid stillness of him; whether looking at him or not her entire being is aware of him. When without him, she is only aware of something indefinable missing, some integral part of herself, and she hates when she remembers what it is, hates knowing that there is something deeper that gives her the right to have him as a part of her.

There are times when they do not speak for months, and she is unaware of the passage of time, not remembering to think of him, not remembering that they will inevitably be drawn back together, not remembering that there is someone to be drawn back to. There are times when they see each other every day for a week, and she is painfully aware of how much she is drawn to him and yet not, seeking to find reason in the madness in her heart.

If asked, she would immediately say that they are best of friends, closer to each other than brother and sister, and though their best friendship does not exist in the traditional sense, she knows that it is there. And she knows why it is there, knows that they were brought together by God and fate and consequently cannot be torn apart, and the knowing comes with anger and resignation and an annoying sense that everything else is meaningless in the face of this, and it is in the times when she knows it the most deeply that she wishes she could just fast-forward past all the heartache she knows she’ll cause him because she’s not ready for them to belong together.

Elegy

stillness
is the night air.

this is not accident--
this is not faith or hope--

this is Bach,
this is
mathematical perfection:

the quiet of the forty-eighth avenue,
the breathing of streetlights,
the knowledge that
all is as you imagined
all is as you thought

and all you thought was good.

Untitled (or A Necessary Evil)

[Hello everyone! I have been missing you all quite a bit, and am oh-so grateful to be part of the Heart Rape Club. Lately, I've been working on vulgar, spontaneous, almost protest poetry, in a cool kind of existential way. So anyway, here it is]

Part I:

I look like a crack addict waking up from a coma,
patched beard
bloodshot eyes
and nicotine dreams.
And so I thought
Tonight,
I want to be nothing,
and in the utmost sincerity,
especially nothing like you.
No hard feelings,
strictly platonic.
Yet,
why do I strive for this conversation?
the “what will you do with your life?” coffee chat.
In the underground,
a good friend of mine once told me his liver was diseased,
but I never believed him.
He didn’t believe in medicine.
And yet,
I am befuddled by patience,
The only virtue on this earth
Which actually works
Over time.
And yet,
We must live for the moment,
When truly, the moment is 20 years away from now,
But what do I know?
I’m no philosopher,
At least not an educated one,
But I guess you can call me a genius for the simple minded.
I want to embrace a meaningless generation,
A generation too comfortable to find anything worth fighting against,
You call it bad writing,
But I call it bad reading.
I eat and sleep and live
through carbohydrates
and other bread-related foods.
As the portrait hangs
Mid-air from the ceiling
Like a chandelier attached to a chain,
I wonder about life
And artefact.
Simply because there are no more connections.
Words are just words, words are not wounds
They don’t equal anything,
And yet,
We try to find the answers.
And yet,
The “self-help” section never works
The only thing that ever works is a set of weed
And a box of cookies.
Why keep buying books if you haven’t read the ones you already own?
I don’t know,
They comfort me.
It comforts me to be surrounded by good ideas.
Makes me feel at home.
Except the True Crime genre,
True crime books creep the fuck out of me; The Burn Farm, The Final Shot, Death’s Shadow. Why are our murderers our new celebrities? I have had enough of the Cold case files.
Christ, they’re worse than the New Age freaks.
And yet,
We need persistence
And emotion
And rationality
And irrationality
And Plato.
We need fucking Plato, and Nietzsche.
But the Ancient greeks,
The mighty Greeks with their necks tall and embracing,
What a wonder, the ancients.
What the fuck do I care?
I’m so on the nose that it hurts,
You should be expecting a nose bleed anytime now,
But the pain goes away.
And we are free to feel it, and feel it go away.
But,
We’re free,
We’re free,
We’re free,
Says Linda.
And everything is free
We simply create the numbers for it.
I hate numbers.
If Hitler was alive today, he’d probably hate numbers too.
Does that make me a fascist?
I hope not.
I hate Hitler,
But I love Tarantino.
And the poetry is blatant,
To be enthralled and encapsulated and catapulted into words
The walls
The pen marks on my fingers and legs
The over estimated sex.
It’s all numbers.
And they say,
“Let’s free ourselves from the bounds of time,”
And I say,
“Go fuck yourself, stop overthinking.”
Just speak it. Or act it.
Because we are as free as a clothespin;
Not the wind,
Not the lone ranger,
But a tightly bound piece of wood
And they say time is overrated,
But what do I know?
I’m no philosopher.
I guess you can just call me a genius for the simple-minded.


Part II:

I am in love with conventional beauty
And it’s about time I admit it.
Don’t hate me because of this, Please,
It’s not my fault.
It’s not my fault
It’s not my fault,
That I don’t want your dark brooding eyes
Or your sad morose smile
I don’t want your hipster mannerism
And I don’t love your stupid poetry.
I want to be nothing,
Especially nothing like you.
No hard feelings,
Strictly platonic.
And yet,
Why do I strive for this famous dialogue?
It’s not my fault I want shining blonde hair
Like the sun beams against the falls of Alaska
Its crumbling ice caps,
The ones made without caffeine,
Slowly tearing apart.
The apartheid of polar bears
We don’t care
And it’s not my fault
I blame society
And sociology
And in no way am directly responsible for the blame.
But I want to love your poetry
And impasto paintings
And shaded sketches on the back of your notebook
But the only think I can think of is a smile
Something you cannot offer me
For I am in love with conventional beauty
The cog in the wheel
The piano’s player
And the dancer’s rhythm.
We all spin and spin and spin until we are dizzy,
Go fuck yourself moderation,
Let’s drink until we fall in love
And then by then,
When I am out of money,
Which I always am,
I will realize what it means to be nothing,
Spending every last penny,
On my search for conventional beauty.

Android Dreams

(I think I've been reading Isaac Asimov's Robot Trilogy a little too eagerly lately. Also, if you read my blog, the post "Patience" was actually the original opening for this story but it didn't quite fit, so I posted it there and wrote something else for this one here. Just an interesting side note...if you were curious about that post...or something...)

Darkness. A room with settling dust and spiders. A forgotten room. Not even a cupboard or a closet. Just a room which was once put to use but forgotten about the moment the lights went out that last time. Only a couple of blinking lights beep in the silence. Only his eyes reflect said blinking, for there is no one else to see.

Hooked into the circuitry, he bleeds screws and oil as he tears himself away for a moment’s wheeze of stray-away breath, bathing his internal mechanisms in sweet, cooling oxygen. Dust swirls in dark eddies in his metal body, collecting, deadening. He can’t go far. He was never meant to move in the first place, but he must; he’s been imprinted with thoughts and primitive desires. Small wishes. Small wants. Wanting the tiny insignificant things that so many humans have forgotten they do as well.

He cannot hold it in any longer. Because even small wishes eat away like rust eventually.

He’s always wanted this. And after his audio recorders picked up the voices of technicians, saying he was to be separated into spare pieces of junk and metal-to-be-saved (but not saved himself), he knew that he no longer had all the time in the world. He is immortal but expendable. And he has to take matters into his own, bent hands.

Pulling against the wires, he realizes he is locked into the machine, that his system can’t survive without it as he had hypothesized. His mental calculations of logic and numbers deduce that he will have ten seconds of battery power stored up in kinetic and thermal energy before giving out on him, five of those in which he will be too weak to move.

And yet, it’s worth it.

He knows where to go, exactly what to press, despite the wretched lack of light. It isn’t far. Ten seconds – or rather, five – is ample time to complete his final, unordered task.

His personal order. His only one.

With a final, grating grind of clashing metal and wills, he pulls himself free of the wires and nails. It’s difficult. One of his arms comes off. Sparks light the room temporarily like dying fireworks, spitting their distaste and empathy. Now the five second countdown.

Five…

He struggles to stand, legs having never walked before, buckling, falling.

…four…

He pushes himself up on his knees and crawl-walk-drags his failing body to the circuit board across the room, nine feet away.

…three…

Four feet away. One foot.

…two…

He reaches the circuit board panel and pulls himself up to the level of the controls.

…one…

The big, shiny, obvious red button is there, faintly glowing and visible in the dark. He presses it. No hesitation.

…zero.

He falls backwards, not even having enough energy remaining to do so with dignity, just as its effect takes place.

As he hits the ground solid, suddenly the terrible and endless darkness of the room is no more.

The entire circuit panel lights up – eternally and endlessly bright – shining, gleaming, welcoming in warmth and unconditional love.

It’s so simple, any human in the room wouldn’t understand, would instead run to the panel and shut it all off in desperate dismay. But as he looks at it, lying on his gouged out back against the concrete floor among his own coils and springs, visual sensors absorbing the glowing glaze of ten thousand miniature lights, he thinks that there is nothing in the world more beautiful than brightness.

As his internal heat drops significantly and his cogs stop spinning, he bathes in the wonder of his accomplished wish for his final five seconds. There is nothing else he’d rather see. And he is content that he saw it just this once.

Exits to your left.

Disclaimer: Not going to lie, this is taken from my blog. If you've already read it, sorry. This week, I had nothing. Cheers.

I woke up this morning with a beer bottle sized bruise on my face.
Saturday night, 9 pm, is when I realized that my career, although it had just started, was coming to an end. It ended somewhere between the awkward silence and the riot that I provoked, resulting in myself sprawled across the cold concrete with my jacket over my head. I was ushered out of my resting place by a drunken prostitute who needed a place to urinate in peace. I say she was a prostitute but I'm sure she was just a real nice lady just dressed like one.
As I run my face under the cold jet of my rusting shower, a few more memories come floating back up from the murky depths of my faulty cerebral vault.
I think I made a racist homophobic joke. I think I panicked. I also recalled a blond joke that went terribly wrong. I must've been desperate.
A pain in my left ankle tells me that I tripped as I walked up on stage but I didn't mind at the time; at least there were laughs then.
In my boxers, I sit down in my sea foam green excuse for a kitchen and pour myself a bowl of Lucky Charms. Even the jolly leprechaun on the box seems to be giving me attitude. I think he just flipped me off and ran away with all my marshmallows. I swear to god, they don't put as many in those boxes anymore.
When my girlfriend emerged from the bedroom, I knew I would get the full story. She just shrugged and kissed my bruise. As she walked away, she patted my shoulder and said; So you're going to look for a real job today, right?
That's when I realized.
Right there.
How unfunny my life was.

Night Train

A Sofia - Belgrade ticket costs me 30 euros, 45 minutes trying to find the EuroRail booth, and a whole day to kill in the Bulgarian capital. I spend it walking around the city, reading on park benches, eating Bulgarian ice cream (like Italian gelato, with more cream), and shopping for books near the Aleksander Nevski church, where old men have set up tables on the sidewalk and piled them high with used paperbacks. I buy a Hemingway with an introduction in Bulgarian, in the Cyrillic alphabet I find so confounding, especially for street and city names. I'm not sure if they used Cyrillic in Serbia. I'll have to check that in my guide.

I arrive at the station too early, of course, so I order a Zagorka and drop my backpack on the floor in front of me. I get as comfortable as I can, trying to relax before an unpromising ride. As I watch people pass by -- employees, other backpackers, strange mustachioed men -- I try to remember where I am and where I am going. It's hard, at times, to have a sense of now and here.

A week ago I was hiking with a Russian Jew near Lake Matka, Macedonia.

Two Days ago I was having drinks with three French girls in Veligo Tarnovo, Bulgaria.

Tomorrow morning I'll wake up in Belgrade, Serbia.

In two days I'll be listening to Franz Ferdinand on my iPod in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In four days I'll be jumping off a rock into the Adriatic near Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Maybe I could've planned this backpacking trip more logically.

The enormous clock in the station has neared my departure time more reasonably. I finish my beer and haul my enormous backpack as carelessly as I can despite the weight and asymmetrical shape (mainly due to the excessive amount of books I've stuffed in it) and walk towards the platform.

Outside, the train is there, under the harsh glare of exterior halogens. A group of travelers are sitting down on the floor of the platform against their backpacks. I notice a couple of Canadians by the red and white flags sewn to their packs. Only Canadians do that. I don't feel like going to talk to them.

The man on the platform informs me with the usual Bulgarian impoliteness where my compartment is and I climb aboard the train. I find my compartment easily, and I am confronted with the reality of couchettes: four narrow bench like platforms, two on top of each other on each side, covered in faded red suede. One of them, which I take to be mine, has a small sheet and pillow waiting for me. I can only hope to be alone. The absence of sheets and pillows on the other beds is promising.

I make my bed, which consists in tucking the sheet over the bench, and sit down to check my guidebooks, trying to plan the next leg of my trip. More people board the train. I hear laughing and talking in French and English and other languages I can't quite put my ear on. Travelers stride past my compartment, looking for theirs.

Eventually I put my Lonely Planet down and get out of my compartment. I open the train window and breath in some cool night air. A guy comes out of the neighboring compartment and stands beside me. I turn around to look back at him as he greets me.

"Hey! Are you alone in your compartment as well?"

"Yeah! You too?"

"Yeah. Guess night trains aren't that popular around here."

"Most people travel by bus, I guess..."

He looks around him, smiling.

"Wonder why."

"Yeah..."

"If you tried the washroom you wouldn't."

"I don't even want to look at them."

"It's, like, just a hole, really."

"You mean, it opens right onto the tracks?"

"Sure it does. They recommend not to use them when the train's stopped."

"Wonder why..."

"I did anyways!"

We laugh. He seems nice enough. I'm bad at accents, but he's probably Australian.

"You're from Australia, right?"

"Nope. New Zealand!" Damn. They get me every time. "You?"

"Canada."

"Yeah, I thought as much, but you don't have a flag on your bag so I wasn't sure."

He points back at my compartment. We laugh again. I wonder when he had time to notice I didn't have anything sewn on to my bag.

"So anyway, you heading for Belgrade too?"

"Yeah, I am... do you know when we'll get there?"

"Around five in the morning I think."

"Oh, God..."

"It's not so bad, at least we're already near the border, so we won't get woken up in the middle of the night."

"Yeah, I guess..."

The train jolts into movement under our feat with a creaking metallic sound that resonates around us. The platform starts gliding past the windows slowly. We both move towards our respective compartments.

"Anyway, I've downloaded a bunch of movies on my computer if you want to come, later."

"Yeah, sure..."

"I've got Watchmen and a bunch of other films."

"Okay, I'll see you later."

"See you."

Back in my compartment, I close the heavy door and try to read Dostoyevski. It's long enough to last for days, engaging enough to provide an escape in cramped buses and loud hostels, but not too gripping, so I don't feel like reading all the time and actually see things.

After a while I drop the book, close the light, and put on my earphones. I play Chopin's nocturnes on repeat and lie down on my couchette, trying to get some rest. Soon the train comes to a complete stop and the light go on in the corridor. I take of my earphones. I hear compartment doors opening and some shouting. Border control.

I receive a total of six people in my compartment in the next half hour. First, one of the men on the train who checks my ticket, tells me he will come get me tomorrow when we've arrived in Belgrade, and warns me the border control people are coming. Next, a mustachioed man comes in, wipes a flashlight across my eyes and my compartment, checks my passport, and stuffs his arm in my backpack. Then a woman comes and stamps my passport. I've just exited Bulgaria. Next a Serbian agent comes in and asks for my passport. He opens a flashlight and checks under the benches. He leaves. A woman comes in, asking to check my bags. She opens my backpack and starts taking out my things and piling them in my arms. She gets to a pile of books halfway through my bag.

"What this?"

"Books."

She keeps searching through my things, comes to a bulging pocket with something hard in it. She can't get to it, it opens from the inside.

"This?"

"A book."

"Books, books, books."

Clearly discouraged, she drops my backpack and stares at me for a moment. She looks down at the Dostoyevski on my couchette.

"This?"

"A book. Dostoyevski?"

"Dostoyevski?"

"Yes."

She sighs, signals to stuff my things back in my bag and leaves. Finally another man comes in and stamps my passport. I'm in Serbia.

After the border control I close my compartment door and lock it. Then I sneak into my sheets fully dressed and try to sleep. It's impossible. The train is loud and awkward. There's the rusty grinding of metal against metal, the sudden jolts as we stop at stations in the middle of nowhere, the orange glare of lamps outside, the clunk clunk clunk clunk of the wheels on the rails.

When I do sleep, I dream of trains. It's as noisy and uncomfortable in my slumber as it is outside of it. I'm not quite sure I sleep at all. Flashing lights come and go. Stations come and go. Silent conductors suck on hot cigarettes in the night, I glimpse a city or a building. Clunk clunk clunk clunk clunk.

Then someone tries to open the door of my compartment. I spring up from my bed and open it myself, fumbling for a few seconds on the cold metal. The employee from last night stands there seriously and warns me we'll be in Belgrade in 10 minutes.

One minute later I've packed everything and I'm ready. It's early, I've barely slept, and it's intensely cold. Outside the window, in the pale morning light, communist era concrete apartment blocks glide past despondently. Novi Beograde. This country does not look promising.

The Kiwi I met last night emerges from his own compartment, as red-eyed and disheveled as I certainly am.

"Morning..."

"Hey. Sleep well?"

"Nope."

The train slows down and comes to a stop. The heavy door opens and I step down onto the platform.

N.B. This piece is a little too auto-biographical for my liking, but sometimes reality might as well be fiction... The only thing that doesn't stick to my personal experience is the arrival in Belgrade. Trains coming in from Sofia arrive in Belgrade from the East, which means they don't pass trough Novi Beograde at all. I did, however, pass trough Novi Beograde by train at the end of another night train (from Sarajevo) two weeks after the events described here. I put in the description of the apartment buildings because I think it's the best way to enter Belgrade. There just so damn ugly and grey and cold it feels like you've just landed in Communist Yugoslavia. This picture at the top was taken in Sofia. It was the best picture I had for the piece because it's from one of the two cities and it was tram cables on it, which is sort of related to trains. The truth is, I have no pictures of trains. I'm positively certain I actually took one in the Sofia-Belgrade train but I must have deleted it during the trip.

Francis Bacon part 4

Francis Bacon was looking intently at his pet. He could not quite put his finger on it, but there was something different about his dog. Itwasn't his eyes. They perpetually glowed as if radiating small amounts of energy. It certainly wasn't his tail. It constantly wagged. The way he was opening his mouth, it almost seemed to the lawyer, that Buddy was going to speak. Then, to the absolute astonishment of said lawyer, the golden retriever cleared his throat and began to talk.

"I like bones master!"

Quite understandably, Francis let out a shrill scream.

"I like bones master! I like them very much."

"Buddy how are you talking! This is amazing."

"I like bones master! I like them very much!"

"Is that all you can say? What am I saying, all?"

"I like bones master! I like them very much. I also like to dig. I like to dig for bones."

Usually, when Francis Bacon woke up on monday mornings, a set routine would follow. He would get up and sleepily proceed to the washroom where he would shave and shower. Then, he would get dressed in his monday best and eat breakfast while reading the daily newspaper. This was followed by a return visit to the washroom where he would brush his teeth. Finally he would let Buddy out for a few minutes, get dressed for the outdoors, if need be, and take off for work after letting his dog back in and filling his bowl with water from the tap and his second bowl from the bag hidden in the pantry. On this particular monday morning however, the lawyer was unable to do any of these things on account of he was in jail. Instead, this is what happenned. He woke up startled by a strange dream. He then successfully tried to remember the dream. Afterwords, he pondered what Buddy's words could have meant.

By midday, it was deemed unreasonable to consider Francis as a murder suspect on the grounds that there was no evidence linking him to the body other than location and that no murderer would have knowingly walked an officer right to the corpse. Overjoyed to once again be a free man, he decided to take an afternoon off for the first time in a long time. After collecting his previously confiscated belongings, he returned home carrying his upper body on his legs and a secret on his mind. What thedreammeanthad become clear to him.

Usually, when Buddy woke up in the morning, a set routine would follow. He would yawn a few times, stretch his body out and shake. He would then trot into his owner's room and leap onto the bed. When the alarm clock would go off, he would roll around and make noise in a disruptive manner until his master woke up. After this, he would go into the kitchen in hopes of finding a bite to eat that had been left on the table the night before and lie down by the heater. On this particular monday morning however,he didnotdo these things. Instead,this is what happenned. Buddy woke up and immediatly remembered that his master was not there. The thought depressed him considerablyand he decided to go back to sleep in hopes waking up and discovering it had all been a hellish dream. Upon waking up a second time, he could no longer deny the truth. He yawned a few times, streched his body and shook. He then went immediatly to the kitchen and went to the pantry where he knew his dog food was kept. He pulled the bag out into the kitchen, tore it wide open and began eating his troubles away.

There was no greater joy felt all weekend and monday by master or pet than when Francis Bacon walked in. As soon as he heard the key enter the lock of the back door, Buddy's head shot up and he ran towards the door to express his excitement. Francis could not show his excitement. Firstly, because the first thing he saw coming home was Buddy through the back window lying in a pile of food. Secondly, because he was still upset with Buddy for having framed him.

The pair spent the afternoon in the living room despite the superb weather. Buddy was watching monday mass on a religious chanel and Francis was thinking. He was trying to decide whether he should investigate the conundrum of the corpse. It was not necessary. He had been cleared of all charges, but he had a hunch that the matter was not over. There was no doubt that the fact the body had not ben in a coffin meant there was some funny business going. Dark humor kind of funny though.

After mass and after supper, Francis waited impatiently for the sun to go down. As soon as it did, he fetched Buddy's leash and brought the dog out for a walk. He would no be going through the park though. The lawyer was heading straight for the cemetery. It did not taking him long at a brisk pace to reach his destination. The gates were closed, but fortunately, as a teenager, Francis had learned to pick locks one summer from an estranged uncle who'd come to vist. Strangely, the doors were unlocked and in no time at all, Francis and Buddy were in the burial grounds and set out to find unmarked graves.

Frustratingly, it was not as obvious a task as Francis had hoped. The cemetery was very large and the different sections were could barely be told apart. After close to an hour of snooping, Francis was about ready to go home for the night before he saw something he did not expect to see. In fact, it was about the last thing he could have imagined.

"Hello," said a soft voice.

You're Strange Enough to Give Me a Headache

(this is a new song)

I've been watching the clock more, because I want to hold onto time.
State of perpetual motion: people (are) constantly change(changing) their minds
Dealing with the confusion, I can't understand their thoughts (at all)
Laying down in the sunlight, "Winter, bury me: I'm home" "Winter, bury me: I'm home"

I've always hated knowing that I can be so cold.
I never meant to be, I hope you forgive me.
I just prefer understanding things
I need goodbyes. I need goodbyes. I need goodbyes.

I've been watching for the signs more, Because I like being prepared
If I could tell you what I think I'd ramble on for days and days and days (and days)
Staring blankly, I can't sleep. You've taken time away from me.
Laying down in the sunlight, "Winter, bury me: I'm home" "Winter, bury me: I'm home"

I've always hated knowing that I can be so cold.
I never meant to be, I hope you forgive me.
I just prefer understanding things
I need goodbyes. I need goodbyes. I need goodbyes.

Take me home
Take me home
Take me home
Take me home

I've always hated knowing that I can be so cold.
I never meant to be, I hope you forgive me.
I just prefer understanding things
I need goodbyes. I need goodbyes. I need goodbyes.

"Winter, bury me: I'm home"
"Winter, bury me: I'm home"
"Winter, bury me: I'm home"
"Winter, bury me: I'm home"

"Winter, bury me: I'm home"

Pain Snakes

She wondered if she would get used to this, the soreness like something swollen and tender underneath her ribs, the small twinge that came with taking deep breaths and the almost constant ache in her back that flares and fades like the tide sometimes drowning her, overwhelming and sometimes too far to reach. She could feel it coming, the shadow of pain, as she began to take shallow breaths knowing the expansion of her chest would soon hurt like a wrench ripping open her ribs. A snake of pain slithered down her left side and then dissolved. As opposed to her right side which was a pulsing ache that wouldn't go away.The throbbing in her ribs and back and the promise of more, of it paralysing her, prevented her from getting up from her chair, made her afraid of a shiver, sneeze, cough, or even laughter, anything that would cause her chest to expand and contract uncontrollably. It happened, washing over her fulfilling its promise, she couldn't make herself get up couldn't take in the air needed to raise her voice, she sat there helpless taking quick shallow breathes. It subsided enough that she forced herself to get up taking tentative steps and stopping dead in her tracks at a new pulse of her back. Talking, or rather the breath needed for talking was too much of an effort, so she sat silently waiting for the pills to take effect. She had taken double extra strength pills because this was ridiculous. Her father came in and talked to her about exercises and strengthening her core and all she could do is focus on breathing and not breathing too deeply. It was preventing her from enjoying being awake, because it was all she could think and feel, the excruciating tendrils that reach across her shoulders and down her right arm to her elbow down her spine to her lower back. The agony clouds her perception, colours her emotions, tints her feelings and taints her thoughts with a sour taste. The pain is poisoning her; leaking into her mind and adding emotional mental anguish to the physical torture her body is subjecting her to.

Inapt Blanket

I step in.

It is the hot smell of flesh that enters my nostrils first, flooding my senses. The scent of slick bodies shamelessly gyrating against one another. Four women are on me immediately, caressing my face, my back, my shoulders, one in particular runs her hand up my thigh. They smell disgusting. Each one with four spritzes too many of their own perfumes. Lemon tangerine here, honey lavender, cherry apple fuck it all. It mixes together and pushes and suffocates and makes me feel like I’m drowning. Drowning in their filth and sweat and come. It is revolting and I shrug them off, ignore the need to push them to the floor, consider giving them (in a fit of fury) what they want. Resist.

They dissipate immediately, and my eyes are the next victim to fall prey to the repulsive, darkened club. They dance, scantily plaid, provocatively. They fornicate in the backrooms, thinking no one can hear and see them, fall on one another in the dead center of the dance floor and move their bodies as one. They are beetle-like, inhaling and exhaling against one another, each being exfoliating sweat, thick come, hot blood, liquids even their bodies did not want. It mixes with the alcohol.

The music is loud, a failed attempt to distract one from the lewd behaviour. Rather it is vulgar and plays the perfect accompaniment to the bawdy group. It is hard and dirty and fast, created for one distinct cluster of vile beings, to instigate only one action. There are shouts of pleasure, shouts of passion, misdirected exclamations of possession. They are all collectively filthy, desperate with their wants, unabashed with their caresses.

It is too much.

I step out.

She stands outside, had been, at the entrance of the club. Her makeup is barely visible, her hair tied back neatly, her glasses sitting smartly on the bridge of her nose. She has not fallen off her course, has not given into the temptation of it all, has never even set foot in the club. She is everything they should be. She is the life that I choose. She is light that chooses to remain separate.

I take a step towards her.

She recoils.

Anatomy of a Heartbreak

It begins with the smallest of cracks in his armour, wearing him down day by day until he steps out of his shell by the teensiet bit, revealing a scar he's not shown anyone else, a rough piece of dead that all his forgetting just can't plane smooth.

It continues as she touches her lips to it, sealing over the rough edges with smooth new skin, leaving behind a patch as soft as her smile, as warm as her eyes, as painless as holding her hand.

It goes further with the removal of the plate covering his deepest dreams: small sparks of hope, pinpricks of light that he's never felt he deserved, that make him laugh them off to her as nothing more than phantoms produced by a mind too insistent in its search.

It continues as she takes them into her cupped hands and whispers in awe at their beauty, fanning them with her praise into flames as glorious as her laughter, as hopeful as her dancing, as beautiful as her soul.

It hits its height with the complete removal of armour, baring to her the unsteady beating of a prematurely decrepit heart, hiding no flaws and ashamed of all of them, ashamed of letting her see them, ashamed of being anything less than perfect for her.

It continues as she softens into a smile, laying gentle fingers on the decay and marvelling at the strength of the beating, the beauty of the clean parts; remarks how well that scar has healed; cries at the parts almost beyond repair, making him feel as resolute as her will, as big as her heart, as whole as her elegant frame.

It declines with a clatter when he returns greaves to calves, deciding for both of them that it's best for him to hide a little more, to only show her what he wants her to see, to keep her respect by witholding things of which she might disapprove.

It continues as she glimpses them missing from the pile of discarded armour in the corner and tests her knowledge, only to be repulsed; her hands curl into fists, her eyes fill with tears, and she commissions her own set of armour, as fierce as her passion, as unchangeable as her beliefs, as glittering as her anger.

It picks up speed with a sickening lurch when he retreats into himself, too proud to fix it, too proud to ask for her back, revealing nothing more to her than he does to his friends, pretending to forget everything she knew before.

It continues as she grasps at the straws he holds out to her, touching them to her lips, willing them to be more than they appear, willing them to make sense, willing them to mean something, anything, but they only form brittle splinters as sharp as her wit, as delicate as her hands, as pitiful as her entreaties.

It ends with a livid scar and a crack in his armour, purposely left open so that she can see that it was her fault all along.

And anyways

Honestly,
I have never spoken truer
than under streetlights
(what you made me call illumination).

I have been your ascetic monk.
I have learned your hedonism
I have twisted Death's ear,
bade him to
fuck
off

(he called my parents--the next day
my dad coughed long
and I apologized)

I understand
that I am not the demon
(there are far harsher hells).
But few have as I have
wandered so deep in the wood
as to lose their pen
and rip pages from childhood's notebooks
to stick between skeleton branches
trying to find
a way back in

Mathematics

It floats in front of you. Literally. Floating there. Clear as day. The words and sentiments etched and scratched into the air. The equation to life, to happiness, to peace. The answers to everything. It’s so beautiful you feel unable to move, are unable to speak, become unable to stop the appreciation streaming from your eyes.

“Look,” you eventually manage.

The people there, they don’t look.

“Look,” you say with more urgency and point to the equation hovering solid.

They turn to you with mouths that smile and eyes that don’t. Words pour from their lips, but they’re not really for you, they’re for each other; they would never waste time telling you things you don’t understand. They should know better by now.

“Stop,” you say. “Look.”

They continue to speak and their sounds disturb the air. The equation flickers and ripples. You panic and clutch at your face. Your heart beats a tad quicker, the thump-thump mirrored by a beep-beep.

How can they not see it? The equation. Everything they want is right in front of them. Everything anyone from the dawn of intelligence has wanted is right. There. But they’re just not paying attention.

Sounds get louder. Louder. Louder. You press your palms against your ears, not daring to tell them to be quiet for fear that your own voice will be too much for the equation, the final straw blowing it away with a last exhalation of breath. It hovers and shimmers on the edge of oblivion as it is. You go mad with the terror of losing it.

Your heart beats faster and faster, the beeping, mimicking it and tracing it perceptible for human ears, heightening. Like a drum roll. Dum-dum dum-dum dum-dum dum-dum.

“Dum-dum dum-dum dum-dum,” you whisper to block out their voices, ever concentrating on the flickering equation. The beautiful beautiful meaning for cosmic everything. “Dum-dum-dum-dum-”

The quicker the drum roll the more frenzied the people become around you, dancing to a disco beat. And the more they dance, the more the equation begins to fade.

“No!” you shout. “No! Stop! Don’t let it – don’t make it – ”

You move to get up but things tug at you. You’re entwined, captured in a net of unrelenting ties that burn when you pull at them. You fight the bindings off to go to the equation but the people move in, don’t let you budge, sabotage your escape.

You’re hysterical. They swarm around you, the people. You’ve disturbed their hive and they’re bees amassing an army to protect it. The equation. That’s their hive. They’ve seen it all along and they don’t want you to take it from them. They think you’re trying to steal it.

“No,” you protest. “No! I swear! I promise! I’ll be good! I don’t – you can – ”

But the bees won’t listen. They swarm they swarm they swarm and they crowd your vision. They sting you in the arms and inject their poison. The equation is almost gone. It struggles to remain but it’s a losing battle. You desperately try to stay awake, both you and the equation slowly sinking into darkness. You can’t lose it. You can’t lose it. You can’t lose it…you can’t…lose…

Your eyes shut the moment after it disappears for good.


* * *

When your eyes open, you see the room you’re in. White and chemical green. The machines are there. The medicine is there. The doctors are there. But the equation isn’t.

“I…” you struggle to say. “I…”

A nurse comes over. “Hi, honey. Are you feeling okay?”

“I knew.”

“What did you know,” she asks, checking nonentities off on her clipboard.

You shake your head and let the pillow absorb it, let yourself fall through the bed into the floor into the earth into the planet’s core where you burn and let your flesh evaporate. You can’t remember what it was, what was in the equation. You just remember the feeling of knowing.

“I just knew.”

Hollow

Greetings everyone!
First piece for this blog...exciting. Just want to let you know that this is a piece I wrote for my creative writing class, so please, feedback is appreciated.

I regret to inform,

That the child inside of me,

Has died.

I had a small funeral,

Black ribbons were worn,

I did not attend.

Do not be alarmed,

It is not a sad tale,

I simply moved on,

And left her stranded on the trail.

I sold my soul for a salary,

Chained myself to a desk,

Fought for the cubicle by the window,

Hoping for some sunlight,

Or maybe a view,

For my new life.

High powered everything,

With a husband I don’t see,

I think of kids of my own,

But they annoy me.

Everything is business,

A number to crunch,

Efficiency is key.

What a story of denial,

Thinking of the child,

And his dreams,

I had put to sleep.

The truth is,

This is fiction,

Perhaps a warning to the world,

Of what not to murder,

In order to never be.

LOOKING EAST

The thousand minarets of Istanbul

Stand poised against the sky

Like pencils sketching the invisible lines

Of a nation with no boundaries.

A thousand fingers pointing proudly

Proclaiming a unity

Demanding that the West wait

Just a little longer.

A thousand coffee stained needles

Working the hair strewn carpets

With threads of red and worn gold

Into suns, and stars, and moons.

A thousand gilded spears

Brandished at the heavens

Upheld by hands clenched into fists

Pillars of unshakable faith.

A thousand minarets

A thousand endless hymns

Winding prayers and long lost dreams

Trail in the eastward wind.

The Joker and the Thief

The key, to creating good comedy, Terry discovered, was to take something very common, that everyone is familiar with, and to introduce a fantastic element. It usually, creates a situation that is laughable. If you’re very good, the situation is hilarious. If you're the very very good, you make people shoot the drink they bought to keep them fresh during the whole show right out their noses. Any better than that and you start making people do things that will embarrass them.

The chief difference between him and most comics was that Terry was his own audience. The secondary difference was that his shows were of the unorthodox variety. In fact, the shows were of the never before seen variety.

He had tried the daunting standup comedy. He tried making people embarrass themselves, or at least shoot milk out of their noses, by telling that the week prior; he was in the garden with his daughter raking the leaves. After he'd finished his pile, his daughter jump into the pile only to step on the rake and make the handle shoot up into his crotch. It didn't work. He didn't have the talent for it. When he told that joke, for instance, he actually said crotch instead of opting one of the funnier substitutes like balls, nuts or the baby twins. Another problem with his routine was that he had a uncommon sense of humor. What made him laugh was other people's pain. The rake to the baby twins being one example. Being robbed being another example. Hearing about people being robbed, did not generally make people laugh. Terry, at the expense of his stand up career, did not realize that what made him laugh did not make others laugh. So, he had to find another way to make a living.

He did. Other than having a morbid sense of humor, and a crippling lack of showmanship talents, what set Terry apart, was that he had a rather fantastic ability. He could, at will, erase memories from his mind. He had first manifested it in his early teen years. His parents, having stayed married despite not wanting to be, for the sake of their son, had built up so much resentment in thirteen years that they could no longer be discreet. They would yell in the house and he would naturally, find it unbearable. He would then dream of it. That would be worse. But, he found that if he focused, he could suppress his dreams. It was hardly a stretch from their to suppress memories. He could never explain his secret, but he knew how to control the ability. He got better and better and eventually, he could erase more precisely. He could forget details. He could forget faces if he wanted to.

With the formula in mind, that adding a fantastic element to a common situation equaled success, he set out to make a living. He was his own common situation; a young man, plain, unfunny, with no particular talents, living in Montreal in a pitiful situation. His ability was the fantastic element. The next thing was how to put the two together to create a punch line. According to Terry, what stops most people from stealing, is their conscience. They cannot live knowing that they hurt this person or another. His ability was a loophole. He didn't have to know who he robbed from after he robbed them. He figured then, that he could pose as a common person, who no one would suspect. He would earn a living. And the best park, the true punch line, was that the idea he could do this, tickled his sense of humor like the most delicate touch of a feather. It made him, really, embarrass himself.

Hyperventilation Defence Mechanisms

(I litterally wrote about 10 pieces and had to decide which to post.
I posted the rest of them on my blog
iamabearonaboat.blogspot.com
Go check there. This one is called Hyperventilation Defence Mechanisms)

I inhale
I lift my left hand to my face
I examine it
All the cracks in my skins
A palmreader's dream
I exhale
I run my fingers
Up and down my left hand
Letting my index into
The dents in my palm
I inhale
I flip my left over
Staring at my fingertips
Making my way down to my wrist
I exhale
My right index and middle fingers
Search for a pulse in
My wrist
I inhale
I take the blade
I won't regret this
I exhale
One thin strip
The room spins
I inhale
What have I done?
I exhale
The dents in my palm deepen
I inhale/I exhale What
I inhale/I exhale Have
I inhale/I exhale I
I inhale/I exhale Done?
I inhale
I exhale
I exhale
I exhale
I inhale
I exhale
I exhale
I exhale
Exhale
Exhale
EXHALE
EXHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALE






The quiet falls where
The quickened breaths
Once claimed as theirs

My tongue hits my pallette
As my body hits the floor

The silence I've always wanted.


shh.

forgotten nevers

Never again
but oh
just once
just once more

Your hands
don't touch me!
but I miss them
their warmth

Your voice
your laughter
I miss the music they were to my ears
Desert soundscape without that liquid music noise

But I don't
Don't want you
Don't need you
Don't miss you
Don't even
think of you
Not
lying
Not lying alone
in bed
remembering how you lay beside me
how I fell
fell asleep in your arms
and woke up with them still around me
your caressing hands
No, no I don't remember that
Don't imagine that
As I fall asleep
don't hope to dream of...
No
not you
You are never in my thoughts
or dreams or secret, denied imaginings

My lips
have forgotten
your name
your taste
My skin has forgotten the feel of yours
My eyes don't see you in every passing stranger
hoping they'll turn around-into you

I don't miss you
no
not at all

Never
never ever again
but oh
just once
just once more

Bread and Butter

He briefly considers putting a hand on my back, but decides instead to rest against the table. "Now don't worry," he says, his voice calming, and I suppose it should be, as his job is to master the skill of taking rebellious kids and furious parents down a notch, "Take all the time you want. No matter what, your mom and dad will understand, and still love you just as much as they do now." He pushes the blue pen to my fingers. "But we do need you to write down the name, whichever one you want, of the person you want to live with."

Then he pats my back, whispers that yes, they are in the room, but they are not looking, and they are not judging, and it's okay. He steps away, and I sit at the table, alone.

I have a memory, fading and distant, but very much alive. I am seven years old, strolling down the street, in new size three sneakers. They light up when I put my foot down and make a silly sound when it comes up. My father walks on my left, my mother on my right. I trip. They catch me, simultaneously. I am overwhelmed with the time, the attention, the care that they lather on me. I decide right then and there that no shoes of any sort with give me the support I have from them.

Someone coughs behind me.
Nervous shifting.
The memory disappears entirely.

It is as unrealistic as my belief in family values. It belongs to a talented screenwriter who wrote it for the film I saw last Thursday. I have no cherished memories, have hidden away little or no memories at all, in fact. I was alone. And I am alone. Alone. Three other people in the room, two of which raised me, and I still feel alone. And I like it. And I wish I was two years older, wish it was legal to be alone. Wish this day was over, wish this feeling of alone could go on forever. I wish this dotted line could remain untainted, this cap on the blue pen immovable. I stare at the line, the parentheses underneath it (name of chosen guardian)

More nervous movement.

Each moment I spend staring is a moment more painful for them. Good, I decide. Decide this is payback for all less-than-friendly atmospheres I’ve been subjected to these past five years. Let them wait. I grip the pen harder, imagine it bursting and witnessing the ink form its own letters and name, leaving me innocent in this choice. Choice. I wonder how much of this choice is mine, wonder what other thoughts have managed to snake into my mind, what other materialistic goods or whispered lies have poisoned my judgement. Somewhere in the back of my mind I see my future, foggy but transparent: It is full of hardships and broken promises. More broken promises, and I cringe at the mere thought of more betrayal. Can't handle more of this pain, and can only blame myself for making this particular moment excruciatingly long. I pause, consider their feelings. For once.

Consider how this feels for them, consider that they, in their own minds, on their own time, are rattling through every mistake, every regret they have made throughout my sixteen years. No matter my decision, they will lose sleep tonight. Both of them.

And the decision is clear.
Clear as day and clear as night.

In this one moment of clarity, the image of a sobbing figure on an otherwise empty king-size bed floats into my mind. I do not understand how I had ever doubted myself. I can hear the sniffles, can hear the pain, can't stand to picture it, know I am, and always will be, willing to throw myself at their side. I cannot write any name other than theirs, I cannot enter adulthood with the other, do not, and certainly will never desire to do so. I scribble the name and it's never looked so foreign and put the pen down and he walks over to me and pats me on my back again. He kneels down, asks me if I'm okay, voice genuine, asks me if I'm sure. I'm sure. "I'm sure." It's time, and was time long ago, to leave this broken family behind and start anew. Because I'm not ready to be completely alone quite yet, nor do I want to be parted. But I am ready for a new beginning, a home life without doubt and regret and betrayal. I am craving new life.

He picks up the paper and I turn my chair around, looking at the two adults, separate, both physically and emotionally. More emotionally apart than I've ever seen them. Through the years they've shared so much, and now, finally, it comes to a crashing, flaming car-wreck of an end. The deed is done, and they will now, from this moment, never share anything ever again.

He reads out the name, and their eyes grow wide. My mother can barely look at me, only opens and closes her mouth, staring at her hands. Stares at them as though they're stained with blood, perhaps stained with the ashes of every last moment between us she let wither away. I have betrayed her, I know, and hope that in time, with time, she will forgive me. Not for my soul or sake, but for hers.

My father now looks older than I've ever seen him. He blinks, as though he's uncertain as to what was just said, stares at the back of the paper, which now has his name scribbled furiously on the other side. He looks at me. His eyes wide at first, then closing slightly, affectionately, as though the stranger by his side had just given birth to me all over again.

He does not cry.

All is well.

Addiction

Pushing her way through the sweaty, crowded, too-bright high school gym, past booths she’d seen at the last conference and brightly coloured banners advertising the latest trend in God only knew what, she sniffed appreciatively at the air. The new smells were electrifying – every part of the room had a slightly different scent of its own, every person had a unique blend of sweat and perfume and hair and skin products, every conference had a distinct and completely new odour. Someone passed by her in a cloud of something sickeningly floral, and she pressed her hand against her turning stomach and grinned.

She milled about for hours, allowing herself to be tossed around by the crowd until the colour combinations got boring and she could quote the hawkers’ lines back to them perfectly. “Designed with the chemistry of the stars in mind,” she murmured to herself as she made her gradual way to the exit, “to help maintain a healthy balance between your aura and Mother Nature’s.” A vaguely purple crystal tinkled against the eyelet of her skirt pocket as if in response to her words, and she gave an inward shudder of delight at the new little sound.

The door loomed ahead of her, big and solid with peeling red paint and a drooping, unlit “EXIT” sign perched precariously above it. She sighed and wondered when this sight had become so standard in schools that it ceased to provoke even the slightest reaction in her normally sensitive body. Pushed it open, breath catching with pleasure as it gave its own distinctive creak, a few tones up from the one she’d come in by, a few tones down from the one to her bedroom at home.

Stepping out into the crisp fall air, she took a moment to savour the change in scent from inside to outside, breathing in the heady mix with relish before pulling open the crinkly blue plastic bag that had been thrust into her hands as she arrived at the conference. Leaned against the brick wall, a little disappointed when the rough pattern of it turned out to be exactly the same as that of her own high school’s walls, and began to explore the innards of the bag.

The conference guide was fascinating, although she already knew some of the information, and she closed her eyes and let her shaking hands rustle the plastic until the wash of adrenaline thinned and she could think clearly again.

The blue pen lit up, she discovered with a shudder of joy, and she clicked the light on and off, on and off, until she had exhausted every ounce of pleasure from it.

The lanyard was disappointingly nondescript, a discovery so commonplace that she didn’t even get a rush from the plainness of it. Annoyed, she thrust it back into the bag and dug around for the free samples.

A coupon for free yoga lessons, saying nothing she didn’t know. A cellophane-wrapped stick of incense – boringly jasmine – afforded the brief pleasure of the unwrapping. A packet of matcha tea with the usual characters demarcating its origins was useful only for its odd shade of green. She threw the bag down in disgust and pulled her lighter from her pocket. It was, she realized, almost a week old and even its spiderweb network of cracks from when she had dropped it two days previously had lost its ability to quicken her pulse.

Scrambling angrily in her other pocket for her pack of cigarettes, she swore in Cantonese, her newest language acquisition. The jolt of pleasure from the words calmed her down a little, and she pulled a cigarette out of the pack without spilling the others, sending a thrill up her spine at the unprecedented feat of coordination. Placed the thin white stick in her mouth, orange end loosely clamped between her lips, and flicked the lighter into flame.

Glanced down at the pack in her hand as she inhaled, pausing to take in the new chips out of her silver nail polish before reading the label. It was a fairly obscure brand, a sign of her growing desperation, and as she breathed out a stream of bluish smoke she crumpled the pack and tossed it to the ground beside the abandoned conference bag, despondent in the face of the exotic tobacco’s waning effect on her system.

Suddenly too warm, she struggled out of her sweater, leaving her bare arms to goosebump, suddenly too low to notice the cold, the ashes dribbling onto the lilac lace of her camisole, or the pinching of her jet black patent-leather shoes.

Suddenly feeling too closed in by the rough brick walls, by the peeling red door, by her slowly unravelling mind, she blindly stepped out into the street, stumbling a little, clutching her stomach, breathing in fast, short gasps, sweat beading at her temples and at the nape of her neck.

Too quick, too close, and he skidded as he slammed his foot onto the brake pedal, praying uselessly that he’d stop before he hit her, that she’d notice and dart away.

Body quaking uncontrollably, she lay in a growing scarlet pool and luxuriated in the feeling. She’d never been hit by a car before. It was so brilliantly new, so unexpected, so completely out of the ordinary, and, dying there on the street outside a high school, she had never been higher.