Traveling on, panicking often, trailing behind you some thin residue of anxieties. A veil of disquiet following every individuated gesture, as you lean forward to crack your collarbone, which hurts, and to press into the world, persistently, a reckless dance against entropy. Futile pursuits are everything. 'While the hemlock was being prepared, Socrates was learning a melody on the flute. "What use will that be to you?", he was asked. "At least I will learn this melody before I die." Things go with you, they follow you around as if you’re leading. And you are, whether or not you know which direction. Joining your shoulder-blades you walk through the oval hallway, wherein photos of you line the curving walls, eyes gazing and aware, all eyes watching and judging and knowing far better than you do. You remember these times, this future self, this wiser, brighter, more careful self. You were there for all of it. You’ve already learned this lesson, forgotten it, relearned it, and repeated this process until you were old and you were gray. And today, in this lighting, with these ambient sounds and the particular folding of this fabric, the lesson makes sense again. Reassurance in the shape of a gentle fist, a self-fist, a careful willingness like the lift of a low breeze. There, in full view, you remain whole. Look, you haven’t vanished. You haven’t condensed into a single drop. You’re spread safely. Composure becomes you, a river awakens inside, a warm rain has paused to reveal a gentle yellow hue among the pines that rises, slowly, steadily, upward. One, two, one, two, the words come without pretense or obsessive intrusion, they are simply a tracker, a tracer. You trace the outline of time with your fingertips tip tapping now at your neck just beneath your jawbone. Your fleshy animal dispenses with its ungentle tendencies, its violent self consciousness and intrusive awareness of the souls around you. What if, for a moment, you refused to cross into others uninvited? Have you ever considered your empathy to be a form of trespass? An enterprise consisting of your own pilgrimage through freezing dark deserts, an oasis in the form of another, your own arrival and knocking upon the inn door. But there is no room, there are no vacancies save those secret inward crevices to be filled with love and time. And so the individual of you walks forward through the oval hallway into the wooly antechamber of the dream, unreflectingly and without explanation.
Arrival to the island
The island was inhabited already, of course, as most islands are, and we later learned we were the first outsiders in six years, and that the previous intruders were Portuguese men who spoke cruelly and callously, and who wandered the shores armed. We were no such explorers. As we passed under the bowed arch of leaves, the wind entered the tunnel. George and I crept silently, waiting and watching for a cue, any cue, to invite us outside of the deep green cavernous space. The sunlight above was so obscured with foliage that any interest in time of day would have be settled in the mind as an impossible determination. Instead of focusing on time, which seemed to drone on incessantly in the wet heat, I plucked at the many hairs on my left arm. George sat on the damp sand and stared and stared toward the wind. Suddenly, the ring of a bell signaled our invitation. George got up and started on abruptly. He walked like a child, or like a monkey. His little arms expressed faint white brushstrokes that jagged out in regular angular measures. Watching his face, I began stepping toward the light, the wind. I first saw three men on the beach, one of them quite a bit farther away from the others. The two men wore tight kilts of boar hide, and their faces were painted a pale and nauseating blue, one that somehow reminded me of a kitschy decorative pillow, or something ceramic. And they seemed pleased to see us. Both men beckoned George and me closer.
Girl in the garden
She stepped through the pocket doors into the cool dusk, her minks wrapped delicately around her graceful frame, so that the evening’s chill struck only the top bits of her exposed shoulders, and she felt that whether or not she was watched by a mysterious stranger, her allure would still be fantastic and her wealth observable, but, having this thought, quickly dismissed the make-believe man and stepped out into the pale light; the tiny heeled shoes she wore sank quickly in the grass, and she found that she must quickly pat the earth with only the pads of her feet in order to cross the lawn and make it to the wooded area past the side garden, yes, that’s the place where she’d been needing to go, and as she hopped and skipped, clutching her mink, she encountered a familiar rush––one whose specific nature she hadn’t encountered for ten, twelve years––and allowed the feeling to carry her as if floating toward the darkly hidden wooden place; a musky scent, some thing to be foraged, she thought, and vine structure since destroyed that wrapped and reigned through and around the thin trees: an extension of the garden into the wood, a singular finger wrapping curiously out of the bounded space; it was barren now there under the ash trees, smoky spirals formed not from the bed of leaves, casting strange enchantments or lucky curses––she laughed lightly, in her throat, and tried to believe that it was, in fact, the past, that nothing had changed outside of this walled garden, that her feet were bare and soft, her mind still brined in a dark broth but an unconsummated one, virgin to its reflection which would make it double and more––she tried to believe this and could not, and tried to see in her hands the hands of a child and could not, and she tried to look toward the ash and see the snaked vines of an unenclosed wilderness, but all she could identify was the browning of layers of bark, a deep stain in a crevice––evidence of a former home––the utterance of decay, and the belated whisper of lost time.
Reading In Bed <3
A comfortable place to find waking
The cavernous expectations you indeed
Thought exclusive perhaps or shameful
You’re twelve; you’re a child,
An infant, even, howling for a single key
And you’d try at every door you see
To be let in and discover what you knew you knew,
What you’d found at four or six and harvested somewhere temporary,
What mutated, unconsciously, creeping into everyday luck
A recollection of patterns grown stale or ripe
The omnipresent buzzing of impressions unidentified
And now, finding their isotopes on the wider map
Carefully engaging their newfound capacities
And trusting that all maps might widen similarly
Clarissa's Asleep Already...
The fog rolls gently in, and a single owl shrieks from behind the thick trunks, and in the lake the light reflects so accurately and precisely that one single star can be seen at the center of the black pool, and, looking closer, it’s actually a plane, where inside sit Clarissa and Dwight, newlyweds. Dwight, “dishonorably discharged” from his previous marriage as he liked to say under certain circumstances such as those of drinking whisky and feeling a pervasive sense of masculine energy and perhaps waxing emotional absent the occurrence of a full moon, the condition of which would sometimes add another layer of melancholic sentimentality to Dwight’s memories of his former wife, the actress Petunia March (known perhaps best for her rendition of Antigone at the Grecian Borzniak Theatre), sat with one hand cupping a green alcoholic beverage and the other cupping one of Clarissa’s ample breasts. She’d knocked out, and they weren’t even two hours into their red-eye flight.
a proof
shadow of a cloud, helps
to touch something solid
consider two balloons
holding a hollow bone
a mother holding a calf
having a yawn is
letting a bird fly away
whiteness lingers
after the whale
a circle in the sea
Some Character Names
Edgar Trofsen
Anna Clemons
Harry L. Wilder
Samantha Patton
Jerald O’Hare
Moira Guidry-Sheen
Jude Robson Jr.
Sarah Bretton
Karen Kane
Avery Whitter
Tory Louts
Theodora Crowley
Lori Shaster
Emmy Malindrome
Kevia Burton
Alpert R. Thomas
Redrie McKenzie
Colton Foster
Emory Beet
Francesca Yolk
Bethany Germany Hamilton
Vanilla Wart
Tiffany Beagle-Jackson
Resona Willoughby
Callonius Ditch
Fannie-Ann Riddle-Koroma
Anthony Rebus
After reading some McCarthy
Doctor caught sight of his thick neck and scooped him up like a bee
Fairly told were the last straits to mimic his sound
Like god was humming straight through the vines
An awful vision play on his mind
Like those were the last horses to ever greet him
And
Like bad dogs he sat with dread
He lifted up his shoe to find something sticky that had been bothering him. He didn’t find any nonsense or gum under there. He put his shoe back down and tested it and sure enough it would tap and stick to the linoleum flooring. And as he stepped it bothered him. He felt like he had a slight secret impediment beneath his every movement and maybe the others in the room would hear and notice and make him and maybe that was just as well.
6 years old
She actually didn’t want to be my friend anymore. And I know that because she said so to Tammie and then Tammie told me I am a lonely girl now. If you are a lonely girl then it means nobody at recess will play games with you and so you have to go to the sandbox and count until the bell rings. I don’t know what I did! I was giving my eraser pack to Emily and because Emily really likes the pink ones that smell like strawberry but I wanted to keep the grape because I like the grape. But it was a secret and so nobody knew that I still had the grape. I think grape is my favorite fruit and color too. It makes me feel like I am powerful. I like to sniff it during class but I have to be sneaky or else Mrs. Sanders will take it away. She is very mean to me. She doesn’t like me because sometimes I whisper to my friends during quiet time but now I don’t have any friends anymore because I am a lonely girl.
Obituary of one Albert Ross
At seven years old, he hesitated to kill a moth. He had the inclination, truly, to punish its flapping existence, its life-as-nuisance. The choice died in his mind as soon as he decided it would be a sin. Distressed and ashamed, he went on to become a Jain for a short time between his eighth and twelfth birthdays. As a direct result of his reading God’s various obituaries, his violence returned when puberty hit, and the period of previous peace died slowly in his arms. Over the course of his life, he killed the following animals:
Two partridges
Seventeen fish
One unlucky hamster
One opossum
Six chickens
One hog
He said a brief prayer each time he took a life, but didn’t feel a single pang of guilt after he turned thirteen.
When Albert Ross was fourteen years old, he tucked a handwritten note into his back pocket and refused to meet her eyes. One day passed; four days passed. The note was washed and dried in the machines, and the ink bled out.
He didn’t try out for the football team, but he was close. A single deterrence killed off his courage the morning of: he’d read into the pulp at the bottom of his orange juice cup, seeing what was unmistakably a deer with a broken neck––a forbidding omen. One more fragment of Albert chipped away that day.
He had nightmares, but they always ended. He didn’t write down his dreams, though, and so they were promptly forgotten as the mornings dragged on.
Albert had one friend: myself. No one else was watching his shifting posture when he changed his mind, when he took a moment too long to decide, when he let inclinations become stillborns. Ideas rotted inside him and created necrotic wounds from which he would later suffer a delayed punishment for postponement of gratification.
Albert was a good man, in general: he had a family and a career and few to no DUIs. But he died thousands of times, and resurrected just short of that many. I watched him wane day to day, and I hesitated, and I said nothing.
May he rest like the rest of us.
Exchange between strangers without the exchanging of names
With the confidence of a much older individual, Donny looked directly into the girl’s seemingly bashful brown eyes and fixed his gaze there. He recognized that it would make her uncomfortable; he wanted to make her uncomfortable. Her comfort was a shroud over her visible skin (and she was always conscious of her visible skin): a pleasing, anesthetizing coating, but a thin layer––a pea sized dab of lotion spread smoothly and evenly across her face and décolletage. Like this he considered her a baby still covered in natal detritus. He considered washing her clean of her comfort, both clarifying the skin and baptizing her in a public fountain. There was no place nor reason now for him to hide. His staring was neither malicious nor investigative, it was purely position and intent: fully, spiritually there. Now his presence was entwined with hers. No fluttering blink, no lengthening of shadow, no slight gestural accommodation to the web of textured feeling could cause any hesitation now. Two minutes passed this way.
She noticed; she couldn’t not have. What’s this? Another eager sheep? She smoothed her hair with one hand, not because she was self conscious about her bangs, which she’d cut on impulse a few days previous with a pair of yellow embroidery scissors, but because she’d actually had the urge to pick at a scab on her collarbone, but had also the good sense not to do that sort of thing out in the world, especially not in the presence of a very keen ogler. For the first few moments, the gaze did feel penetrating in the sort of way that freezes a girl from the inside: she was suddenly encased in a thin, icy shell, conscious of the crackling sound that accompanied even the slightest shift in her face or frame. She wanted to maintain whatever illusion kept him watching, to show that, yes, this is true: the smallest challenge of the day. She was disgusted by her own willingness to entertain a stranger. After a significant time had passed, though, being watched didn’t stir the usual sensations for her. Gone were the compulsive twinges of awareness—an altogether new game possessed her. She was no longer pinned to the cork board, her delicate wings entrapped by glue and time. Now she batted her lashes and escaped.
An unexpected pitch drowned them both in stark interim. Contact lapsed. Set forcibly aside from their miniature quests, both children’s mouths opened slightly in anticipation of the next block, the forward coming motion of sequential events, marked by a relentless, connective ringing.
It was time for recess.
some areas of interest
Crying as much as possible. Having a job eventually please. Poetry, creative nonfiction, short story. Editing text for clarity and comprehensiveness. Philosophy, classic literature, memoir. Painting, sculpting, and drawing faces. Disruptive and “ascetic” dissociation from experience: food avoidance, bodily neglect. Trauma and narrative fracture; memory and its disfigurement. The figure of the Holy Fool; a childlike perspective defamiliarizing & making potentially sacred, especially in the works of Dostoevsky. Other archetypes, especially the ones that are super reductive and insulting. Just kidding. Folk and fairy tales. Human universals. Sensitivity, receptivity, ethics; ways to live well. The child’s mind. Relationships between individuals: responsibility and blameworthiness, honesty; the unforgivable act. The insidiousness of secrecy and shame. Dangers of metafiction, general self-reflexivity in literature and life, including obsessive/narcissistic. Being silly but also powerful. Strange loops (Hofstadter-Möbius). The meaningful contradiction. Rabbits and bunnies, purity, innocence. Pattern recognition, prey behavior; love. Obligation to craft; willingness to share control with one’s creation––Shelley’s hideous progeny. Suffering wisely. Textiles. The grace of humor. Forgiveness.
Pelt Cloak, Drill, Lysol Wipes
PELT CLOAK: This is an artifact that I have made. I made it for a class several ago: it is a cape or cloak consisting of the skins of stuffed animals, all sewn together into one large fabric. What I had to say about it was that it is a representation of childish innocence in the face of morbid enmeshment. That means things, but is overly technical. First, one should note that it is creepy. I went to Goodwill (I’d have used my own but they’ve been thrown away) and bought a bunch of hopefully-once-loved stuffed animals, and cut them up. I separated the back of them from the front of them. It features several bears, a seal, a monkey, and a rabbit. The rabbit is crucial for me. I took their insides and used the synthetic fluff to fill up a full bodysuit that came to resemble a life-sized doll, but that’s something else. Then I took needle and thread and sewed the skins together into this large and heavy cloak. It is soft, it is quite soft to the touch. Some of the stuffed animals are much softer than others. I didn’t wash them before I made the cloak, I think about that often. It’s a little unnerving. I’m afraid to smell it because it might smell like the intimate lives of people, perhaps people with whom I do not want to be intimate, understand? Is that so wrong? At one point I sprayed it with a scent I love, clary sage or something like that, it’s called Dream Extract. It runs out easily because/and it is absolutely uncannily warm. Wearing the cloak is a comfort, actually, it hangs really nicely around the body and feels like a childhood blanket. So it has this sense of comforting innocence, sure, or at least memory of a time when stuffed animals were of paramount importance, but it also consists of many of them (supposedly) dead, without their stuffing at all, without their full bodies, assimilated and enmeshed in with others, we must assume uncomfortably. Too close for comfort. The cloak was shown in the AD&A museum and received a Faculty Award of Distinction, which is an odd but gratifying thing to earn for something so personal and sweetly disturbing. I had it on a mannequin but put it on different people––they seemed to feel secured within it. Which is the point, somewhat. It might make careful swoosh sounds while it’s being draped around a figure, but I wouldn’t count on it. It isn’t a loud object… find an image of it in the gallery section…
DRILL: This drill belongs to Mary. It is a sort of chartreuse lime color, and also dark gray. If you press the small pale button just under the snout, the screwdriver head will turn counter clockwise. This, lefty-loosey, is the way to unscrew a nail from its spot. The default setting is usually clockwise, or––if you will––righty-tighty. This will press up and embed the nail, swirling, into the material it’s up against. I don’t own a drill, personally. It has a thick black cord, and its handle has a sort of grip material on it. I hope to own one myself one day. It’s got a body like a glue gun. The tip is either Phillips or not. I only know Phillips; it’s the one that looks like a cross or x or plus sign. The screwdriver makes a quite intense whirring noise when it’s doing its work. When it’s struggling it’ll be more Errrrrn, but as its pace quickens up and the nail’s starting to spin right out, it’ll make more of a Riiiiiin noise. Which reminds me of my friend Eirin. The sound of the drill. It’s somewhat of a nice little machine, it isn’t overly bulky or hulked out. It almost has a charming beginner’s quality. The drill was used quite recently to take off a door from its hinges. It worked. We then put the door back on its hinges. It works again, but now it is slightly more difficult to close. The drill is a power tool. I have socks that say “I love power tools,” but to be quite truthful, I don’t own even one. I do have a soft, foamy spot inside me for this particular drill––it’s not too loud, it’s very effective, and it’s certainly fun to use. Click clack. Reverse return. Electric drill. Bully of nails, or rather homer of nails, or perhaps killer of nails. Securer of nails. Twister, to be sure. Spinny drilly with its pointed tip and precise rotation. I love power tools.
LYSOL WIPES: So, we’ve bought these Lysol Wipes, the ingredients of which I could never tell you without checking. Basically they’re these small paper towel-like pieces of thin, disposable fabric, pre-soaked in some sort of disinfectant solution, and piled atop each other in order to easily be pulled out of the cylindrical container one by one. Their scent is meant to be lemon-lime, and sure enough has the abrasive chemical odor of all lemon-lime scented cleaning products, you know the one. It corrodes the nose but only in a way that’s also sort of cleansing, of course, too. The Lysol Wipes supposedly kill cold and flu viruses, 99.9% of viruses and bacteria. That’s absolutely incredible if it’s true. And sure, I’ll take it: the designer used a very standardized font colored in red, in all capitals, so it’s sure to be a plausible claim. I won’t be the one to deny that, I have no evidence. So we sweep the cloths over counters and chairs and tables (but not too often), and we expect ourselves to have these clean surfaces once we pass into the next room or onto the next small task. No way right here to truly tell, but they look clean, and smell like the fabled cleanliness of lemon-lime product. It makes me a little nauseous. But true, it’s comforting, in a way, to see those old Lysol Wipes. They’ve been around for a long time, they clean tables earnestly and have been doing so for years and years. I remember them in classrooms and theater classes. I remember them being used especially often once the pandemic began. I used them to clean up the chairs and tables in the elementary school where I used to work as a teacher’s aide. They smell like the attempt to construct security and ensure an order to things. Trying, at least. They smell like you’re supposed to trust whoever bought them, because certainly that can be nothing less than a good deed. Lysol Wipes leave a scent on your hands, though: that’s what I dislike most about them. After using, your fingers may be left confused and dryish, smelling slightly of chemical citrus. You can wash your hands afterward, but what if the water is less clean than the Lysol? That would be upsetting indeed.
January 23rd ( 4:08-4:18pm)
Buckle up, this is going to get whiny. Surprisingly my PTs are sort of shocked by my hypermobility and joint instability and stretchy skin. Come on shawties it’s not that cool, shouldn’t they have seen it all by now? I told Lisa I have EDS (Ehlers Danlos Syndrome). She’s the type of tiny heavily tanned older woman with a gravely voice who you know could absolutely brutally fuck you up if she had her mind set on it. She’s an amazing physical therapist and I trust her. Today she says “You need surgery. Girl, you need surgery.” Like thank you Lisa but I’m well aware of my constant pain and that my hip pops out of its socket with zero effort at all and that my labrum is torn in several places and my acetabulum is mutant tiny and doesn’t cover my femur in any worthwhile way and I’ll need a PAO asap and so on. PAO is where they chop your pelvis bones in two places and reorient your entire midsection and I CAN’T WAIT for my pain meds addiction character arc! Just kidding but speaking of drugs M—— may be sending me some of the money he owes me, which is a lot. He’s getting a lump sum inheritance since his dad passed and now he’s sober (?). The reddit thread for EDS is all like “Zebras unite” and like a bunch of people whose entire personalities are based off the fact that they’ve got this “invisible disease.” Dramatic. I wish I could go on a walk. In Denise’s class homework next week is to write while walking but I won’t be able to participate. I am waiting for a disability placard in the mail for my car. My literal “gumby" ass can’t do anything without injuring myself. Okay. I’m all done yelling. Time to whisper.
Objects: Rug, Drawing, Printer, Pen
1. My new carpet is too big for my room, proportionally. It leaves very little space for the hard wood. Its colors involve a pale blue, a deep dark blue, red orange, orange red, a little yellow or gold, some brown, and maybe a teal of sorts, although that may just be the blues mixing with the yellows. It feels softer than it looks. It feels like it could be part of a much larger animal, something sheep-like. I refuse to taste this object––I imagine it’s dusty and fairly tasteless and leaves little tiny rug threads or whathaveyou in your mouth, which is extremely unflattering to the senses. It feels comforting. Even though it takes up the entire room. Cricket likes it, I know that, because he no longer is skittering along wood with his furry little feet. Ice skating. Now he gets to strongly and robustly hop about, confident that he’s not going to slip around like a cartoon character at the end of a cliff. The rug is not think enough to prevent my elbows from hurting when I’m lying on my stomach, legs bent at ninety degrees and feet in the air, my mitts placking around on the laptop keys. For this reason, I am feeling slight pain in my wrists and forearms, and elbows too, and while we’re at it, my entire body feels unwell and my head is in pain too. So it goes. I’m sitting on this carpet, I do care about it, I feel ashamed that I’ve shamed it so, but really, I may as well no longer have hard wood on the ground. But it is nice. And Cricket likes it. It feels like a million short little threads have all stood themselves up very tightly in a clump, and each one is doing its little part to keep the softness and the bulk and the thready texture. It is doing its own work. I do care about this rug, and I might even kiss it. My body is in pain on the rug, though, and it is difficult to ignore this organic aspect. The comfort of the texture can only do so much when you’re in physical discomfort that goes deeper than the epidermis, the site from which I enjoy the rug’s texture, and its size even, maybe.
2. I’m writing about a framed portrait I have in my room, it’s a copy of a penciled drawing that Picasso made. I always have considered it important that he knew realism before adventuring out into cubism and the more eccentric things. It seems only respectful. The drawing features a woman, a mother, a young mother, looking down at the baby she is carrying in her arms. The baby may be breastfeeding, but we can’t tell. Her hands are extremely elegant and evoke care and precision––maybe “careful” is the most pleasant thing to be. It used to be my mother’s and live in my parents’ bedroom when I was a child, and I’ve kept it through college because I find it quite special. My parents’ bedroom does not bring good memories. But this is one of the surviving bits that still gets to take on new life in new places. The young mother’s look is of close examination, concern, attentive love. The baby is such a simple line drawing, but really brings to my mind the soft feeling of holding a spongy little darling human. Around the image of madonna and child are a few hand studies, four sketches of the right hand in naturally elegant poses. If this object had a smell, it would possibly be a warm vanilla, or something like that. Bergamot. Maybe. It is the sort of image that softens a person. Looking at it, my heart rate seems to drop slowly, unnoticeably, a sense of safety returns to an ancient part of my brain. The kind that can’t be fooled by rationale. That’s that part that needs to trust, the part that needs a careful and touching mother for its limp little tiny fat body. A baby yearns. The sound I associate with this is Tomorrow’s Song, a beautiful instrumental piano piece. It seems that in the background are slight creaks (the rocking chair) and the baby’s slight cooing noises. Maybe an old novel’s page is turned at some point. And there is almost always a fire burning in the fireplace. I do love this old thing, with its old wooden frame and its comforting and consistent stillness.
https://www.pablopicasso.net/mother-and-child-study-1904/
3. This object is my printer. It’s a black HP Envy 5660. I’m not sure why they call printers things like this, it’s really not a very attractive name in any regard. Envy isn’t even a positive thing. It’s odd. The printer makes these humming and whirring noises, it sometimes has to “realign the printhead,” whatever that means, and while doing so it vrums and muhrs and ch chs. The paper produced is covered in various ink marks: squares, lines, mostly squares and lines. It determines the accuracy of the print thing, somehow, it’s a test. The printer feels like a frenemy. I fear what might happen if it somehow refuses to work, or is unable to, because I don’t think that I have the ability to fix it. Maybe I do, but it doesn’t seem that way, so it’s mysterious and has control over me in that regard. Also, ink is pretty expensive, and definitely a commodity that runs out and is replenished, which is precarious as a long term situation. My printer is mine, though, that’s nice to remember––not even in a possessive sense, more like a team building sense. It works with me, it’s a colleague. Recently I’ve been printing poems on newsprint paper for some little books I’m making. The printer is black, has a little blue light as well. It tells me when it’s out of paper. How does it know it’s out? How does it tell me, that’s something I’d both like to know and not like to know. Those things are magic, you don’t speak of the tactic of the trick. My printer also scans documents, it sees them almost, and it copies the image. I do not understand how this happens. It is a miracle every time I use my powerful printer. I feed it paper, often plain white, and it dispenses that same paper right back to me, just with new ink. It’s a pen pal. It’s a lovely and remarkable friend. Although, of course, if it were to fail in some way, it would be as if a person is being washed away by a current you can’t fight. That’s probably a bit more intense, perhaps. My printer can sometimes smell like paper, or warm ink. There is a warmth in it, it warms the page, the page has been processed, changed by this interaction. It’s always exciting to anticipate what will emerge. The paper experiences its first lesson. My printer’s name, Envy, somehow already creates a divide between us––I can’t help but feel a bit thrown by that name, that implication of jealous pride. It’s a little odd. I can, however, bypass that odd feeling and simply let it chchuch chuch out the paper I feed it. Reciprocal. I am running low on colored ink––
4. Another choice to write on a useful sort of tool, how utilitarian of me! Or perhaps I think of it as an extension of my body, how aesthetically delightful! Truthfully, I have a strong headache. This pen I’ve just recently bought at the CVS, after looking at all of them and having a strong conversation with myself about what I want and what I need and what is best. I had to decide between a Bic Atlantis and a PaperMate Ink Joy––I eventually decided on the Ink Joy, and I’m quite pleased with it at the moment. It writes very smoothly, which makes up for the minutely longer drying time. I don’t mind smears. There are many pens that are higher quality (although not at the CVS), and, as a person who writes often, I might have learned a little more about the fantastic pens that are out there. All in good time. My pen is .7, a pretty pleasing size for the thread of ink. Writing with it is quite a release, and in fact it’s making the digitized version of this journal seem like a poor idea now indeed. ALAS, for consistency’s sake, I will continue in this virtual ink format. The pen is superior to the pencil. There, I said it. Oh god, No, I don’t really believe it, I can’t. The ink smells like nothing but I imagine if it smelt stronger it’d be a sort of rich, mechanical scent. It clicks satisfyingly: chi-pit, chi-pet. Inky wonder! My body from the waist up is a source of mild to moderate pain, not having to do with the pen, of course. I imagine if the pen could do anything to ease it it would. Holding it in the hand is nice, it’s thick enough to feel substantial but not so large that your fingers feel like a child intimidated by holding his first gigantic crayon. I’ve always held my pen in a “wrong” way, when I show people how I write they’re always a little bit shocked by it, how do you write like that?? It is really the most comfortable and controllable way for me. This Ink Joy has a twin, one who I’ll use at its untimely but inevitable death. All deaths are inevitable and untimely, especially that potential one of my rabbit. I hope he lives forever.
January 20th (6:44-6:54pm)
I voluntarily exposed myself today by resurfacing on Instagram and giving access to this website and this blog, and I have learned that I absolutely loathe and resent having a blog, which is exactly the reason I need to keep it up. If a tiny amount of exposure makes me want to die under a bridge, then I need far more if I’m ever going to sustain any sort of public practice that gives me enough money to make rent. Although I currently feel repulsed by the self (my idiot one in particular), I’m going to keep fucking writing on this little platform like a coked up little mouse. Exposure exposure therapy. I do fear the way that acknowledging others’ perceptions will disturb my trains of thought. But it’s inescapable at this point, so I’m just going to assume that nobody’s reading these silly entries anyway. Sweet chariot of clarity. Recently I wanted to tell Vanessa that I was hungry but what came up was “I’m up in my grumbly.” So now I say that sometimes and it’s very exciting and fun to say phrases you made up isn’t it????????? Please calm down. It’s okay for me to be in the open, everyone’s busy zipping their collective fly and painting the Sistine Chapel. Flail, bitch, flail! Do it up real big. You know how I like it. A little sprawl on the carpet, I’m just trying to exist. One other concern at the moment is getting all of my writing to play nicely together in a thesis. Its content varies so drastically that I fear certain tones perspectives of my voice will come through as more trustworthy than others’. In the sense that people find out an actor has released a record, and are annoyed. Because they should stay in their area of expertise and so on. Yeah. Relax.
Sonnet Saturday? I'd Rather Die
Days’ Work
A person prides himself on what he knows
And takes what he can get while he is young.
The fires fight in craggy rocks below
The breath displaces air inside the lung.
A kettle burns itself in smoky tar
And duty tends to falter like the leaves
The line is waxed, the boy is in the bar
The night affirming something he believes.
A movement down the way to lonesome checks
The homes of all the people on the street,
But theirs are hopes of daylight’s bright effects
Its leading for their woe-be-laden feet:
With hints of early morning comes fresh bread
Their stone is full, and horses in the peat.
With language from Trader Joe's, Love Island, a truck...
“Pairs well with many flowers creating an elegant bouquet!” Filled to the brim, once distorted is the angled. It makes us stalky and so fern. Forlorn? Every color is a choice. There are places not emblematic. That is fictive. All, or entirely, or with season to, the right case of action. Except in the case of largeness, whose creature is without context. Leverage if sullen.
“The only really lips I want to kiss in this villa are Mackenzie’s.” Frontal bay of the St. Jonathan. Without future tenses exemplifies what villages lie beneath. Don’t. Walk separately! Exactly, with feet as well. Surprising that followed. The only piece to trust is civil. There are no ones. Furtive sinking, an obvious shout. Elemental is silverish, is wishing for (another).
“Your Best Business Partner.” A way, at least, in theory, to prescribe what is for attack only. Expecting not to release a patron (a worthy one). Truck sounds differently like in betweenness of sleep noise. You wouldn’t be able to remember unless a silver rumble between your thumbs. Of wheels, few. Of your flavored person, there is a tobacco-free cemetery. There is poise. No one tolerated that; we liked it, though. The normal is supplied and radiating.
Separate writing bits
Please barely read these. You won’t be rewarded.
Arthur walked back to the coop. He’d forgotten to give the chickens water, which was his duty, but which was easily overlooked due to the fact that the water pails lived in a far-off compartment of the barn-head, and that the water given had to come from the kitchen and not the outside tap, since the outside tap may or may not be poison to the chickens. They found that out after four chickens died one fall out of the blue. He was sweating like a guilty man, although he felt nothing in relation to the chickens’ overall collective health status, and frankly would’ve left them drink-less for the night if it wasn’t for the fact that Ann-Marie did a coop-check every evening. If that coop doesn’t look right, if the straw is scarce or the fresh eggs waiting til eight, her hollering will wake up the neighbor’s dog, who’s grown old but is still a rowdy mutt, and AM will curse you until the morning. Or at least til she takes her sleeping pills and her glass of wine and retires to her upstairs room. After that she doesn’t exist until the next day.
Six silky suns set silently, secretly, simultaneously. It was so beautiful that anyone who could have seen it would have secreted fluid out through every orifice at once, and then in a moment of pure desperation, suck it all back into a newly original and consummated self. Their eyes would begin to bulge slightly, and their tongues would hang slack. Some would die. The silk of the suns created such a sheen, such a shockingly simmering glaze smeared, part liquid, was the heat of the closest half of each sun. The suns were far away, farther than could be counted, but the distance was negligible because of the immensity of the suns’ auras, which extended outside them so that each sun appeared almost twice as large. It seemed as though they were setting intentionally, with such faith in their respective orbits. A determination held by no human, or anyone who imagines that, after all, he could have done otherwise. Suns brought themselves down, a self-inflicted power over the self, the eagerness of the patient.
At dusk six men were gathered in the reddish unmarked building just outside of Zurich their blindfolds arranged to cover not only their eyes but also their noses and mouths and most chins although some of the chins were so long and bony or fat and cakey that they just couldnt help jutting or bursting out a little bit which might allow a more careful viewer to identify Rostov whose flesh extended about twenty percent farther from his bones and muscles and tendons than the vast majority of the general public the men heard a ticker count down from five in French and then removed their masks all at once in a terrible rush and began studying their peers or brothers as they’d been told to refer to each other by their respective governmental authorities no words were yet spoken each man was exceptionally well controlled and cautious of his five new siblings the identities of whom were entirely unknown and yet must eventually be trusted exceptionally perhaps involving the extension of more trust than was custom for any of them toward even their closest family members these men you see were picked carefully so as to practically guarantee the success of the mission that now awaited them
He wouldn’t look at me. The therapist wove her hand, dismissive. There on the ground was a rug. I can’t do this. Writing narrative isn’t what I’m used to. It’s frightening, actually. I rather dislike it sometimes. And my voice sounds shriveled. Each sentence is a fragment, a window. But none enough to be a door. And I don’t want to lie. If I lied, then what? My lies are the entire page. I can’t bear to tell the truth. Not after what it’s done. Ah! Silly thoughts. Silly moments in general. The rabbit scurried through the tube. He went grasping after it. Some desperate scene were they. The rabbit a flash of white. He a desperate mad dash. He was ugly, true. A face like a pumpkin. And the hat wasn’t in style. Regardless, he was very popular. The rabbit didn’t like his hands. So many short sentences. One must follow the first. One must lead into the next. Only I live in isolated squares. The chopping block gives no warning. Soon you will be somewhere else. No planning, no expectation available. It seems cruel to give a story. Stories will pass into ash. Poetry is already ash. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I’ll give a story once I’m immortal. I tell only lies in fiction. I tell only truth with my eyes. Wait for privacy to give way. Soon it will tell you too.
She ate the porridge. She loathed the porridge. The porridge was both sticky and dry. It would coat her hard palate with residue.
When he was a child he would say
“Wait up!” and, following, “Wait for me!”
When he was an old man all of his friends died first.
When he thought about the past, he would say
“Slow down!” and “Don’t go!”
It was obedient and waited for him to catch up.
When he was a child he would say
“Wait up!” and, following, “Wait for me!”
When he was an old man all of his friends died first.
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction *CAT POWER* music video
Listen to the song.
Inside a pleasantly decorated luxury train car, a 28 year-old brunette woman is looking down, reading, with her hair in her face. The woman appears a bit bored and despondent, biting absentmindedly at her nails. She’s dressed in 1940s clothing: a white blouse with a delicately beaded jacket. With the first errant note of guitar, she glances up and out of the train window. Nothing registers in her face at first. It’s dawn, and she squints, looking for the first note of actual sun yolk in the cloudy morning. It feels still within the cabin, but the train is going fast. It’s running through a semi-rural area in what appears to the southern United States. It’s the California Zephyr from LA to Chicago. The scenery outside is a somewhat monotonous arid landscape, and the track extends as far as the eye can see. Mountains rise on either side.
A 65 year-old woman across the aisle from our first character is fixing her makeup in a tiny portable mirror, brushing a bit of pale powder over her eyelids. It looks to be purely habit: she’s not preparing for anything or anyone in particular. Something catches her eye, and upon closer inspection she is now using the mirror to look at a man behind her. A handsome man on the train is smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper.
He’s actually sort of scouring it. An article mentions a fatal car crash, and he uses a large pair of red scissors to carefully cut it out, cigarette still in his fingers. He places it on the windowsill on top of a pile of other cut-out articles, and smoothens them out. The man looks aimlessly at the seat in front of him for only a moment, and then returns to his task. The sun is coming up now.
A mother and a father sit with their triplet 3 year-old boys. One boy is on father’s lap, one boy is on mother’s lap, one boy sits on the outside of mother. The boys on laps are quietly play-fighting with each other with some flappy gesticulations. They’re wearing matching tiny bowties. As far as anyone can tell, this is an ideal 1940s family situation. The third boy is looking out the window in excitement, and trying to get the attention of his brothers by tapping their shoulders. They don’t notice, so he goes back to staring out the window and puts his hands on the glass, completely absorbed by what he’s seeing in the distance.
An ungracefully tall train attendant comes by wearing a pinstripe suit and a little hat with a tassel; he bows, smiling, and offers the three little boys three little lollipops. Each child as well as their father turn toward the attendant in utter covetousness and glee. They all smile garishly. The lollipops are handed out individually to each child with a specific dignity. Father––popless––looks at the happy boys with disgust and resentment. Mother smiles at the children and wags her finger. She plucks the lollipops out of their hands one by one. They eye each other unhappily––they expected as much. She hands the three lollipops to the father. Father is overjoyed to have regained control; he leans over and passionately kisses the mother whose red lipstick smears and transfers all around both of their mouths. It’s disgusting.
The train appears to be moving into some clouds. The initial woman looks at the clouds through the window. Immediately they morph into something almost recognizable, a fish with feet. Now several: a school of barefooted fish. She opens her mouth in awe. It’s remarkable. She looks around desperately to see if other people notice the phenomenon. Others have not noticed, besides perhaps one of the triplets, but there’s no way to express the connection.
The hallway of the train car is now free and clear. There’s a sort of gaudy chandelier on the ceiling, and the people inside have all settled down. The rug in particular has a beautiful, complex pattern, and each window has a little velvety curtain affixed open with little gold fringes.
Suddenly a single blue butterfly appears in the cabin. It flutters back and forth hesitantly. It takes a moment for anyone to notice. Then the kids point and cover their mouths in delight––their thought of the lollipops is completely gone. They poke at Mommy and Daddy (who are now sleeping with their red mouths open). They aren’t waking up. The older woman looks up from her mirror and claps her hands, pleased. A butterfly! How darling.
The young brunette woman looks back outside again: formless clouds. Big, puffy cumulous clouds. No fish in sight. She shakes her head and goes back to her book just as the butterfly passes right over her hands. She looks up in wonder.
Two men are playing cards: the younger gestures upward to the older. They put down their hands for a moment, both happy to see the butterfly. They smile and nod. One of them begins to chuckle a little bit too excessively. Everyone sees it as a special little moment. It is a special little moment. People laugh and converse: a new lightness has fallen upon the scene.
After the entire car has registered this not-unpleasant situation, another butterfly appears in the train car. At first it’s a source of small excitement, but it’s also a bit confusing. The triplets look at each other with surprise. The older woman starts to look around to see the reactions of people around her. The men sitting beside each other are doing the same. A third butterfly now. The train patrons are all looking around at each other, unsure of how to react. It seems as though three butterflies on the train is probably two too many butterflies on the train. The man who was chuckling to the point of tears now strains his neck and dabs his forehead with a cloth napkin.
Our train attendant is on a mission to politely catch the three escaped butterflies. He prances around with a little net on a pole, swiping at the butterflies. He’s trying to do this delicately, but he looks lanky and awkward running around with the net. He runs back and forth with great effort but the butterflies easily elude him. Everyone prefers to be politely ignorant of the situation, and looks away self-consciously. The boys on laps giggle. The man trimming news is the first to actively swat at a butterfly with his papers. This action is met with a harsh look from the older woman sitting in front of him.
Now dozens of butterflies come flooding into the train car. The older woman’s eyes widen. The chuckling man has turned red. The train attendant’s expression turns quickly from panic to resolution. He tightens his grip on the net and looks around for the source of the swarm. It’s an impossible effort.
The train is now rounding the base of a scenic mountain. It looks calm from afar, chugging along persistently. The light on the mountain is beautiful, and the fine train flows along the track with poise and majesty.
Inside, the car is in a state of unrest: everyone is swatting at the bugs––the older woman with particular vigor––and everyone besides the sleeping parents is attempting to protect their faces from the swarm. The train attendant is swinging the net like a baseball bat. The two men who were playing cards pry open a window, and some of the butterflies fly out of the train, but a good majority of them decide to just stay inside. Attempts to make them leave are futile. People begin to leave their seats and run around in absolute chaos. The older woman faints back into her seat. The triplets bawl: Mommy and Daddy will not wake up to see the commotion. The three lollipops are decimated by the butterflies. Everyone is horrified, especially the attendant. The butterflies appear to be consuming the riders; every body is covered entirely with swarms of butterflies. A butterfly goes inside Mommy’s mouth.
From a distance, the train moves steadily down the stilted track. It’s shaping up to be a beautiful day, and the clouds are all remarkably shaped like fish with feet. They walk out of sight as the vision fades to black.