5.

hollow building. a remaining prism.
with dusty compartments,
off-white,
once lived in and personal.
the air is re-claiming,
decomposing,
eroding foundations.
there is no longer any noise,
any movement,
no longer any laughter.
i am the last human being.
and i will watch this structure collapse,
re-uniting its elements with the earth,
and the cloud of smoke can take me too.
because i'm not moving.
unable,
or unwilling.
unsomething, me.

............................

her WIDE BLUE EYES
undo me, unwind me,
unravel and find me.

intro.

I’m just walking. If there was anywhere to go on a day like today I would walk there. But there isn’t. Just the sun moving slowly across its sky and me moving in circles far below, looking up. The snow has melted in our town and I can picture the grass fighting upwards, buds on trees whispering of revolution. And I’m walking in this change of season thinking about how seasons can change but people can’t ever really change and realizing what crazy means and what crazy does. How can I not think of Deep Water, of dives to retrieve lost souls? I’m not a bad man. I don’t think I’m good, but I’m certainly not bad. And besides, who can tell the difference?

chunk 3

you want to talk about the future? well, i can't. let's chuck shit at these walls. at night in the city all the losers come out. and i could be one of them. the sidewalk familiar, the streetlights quick. the bars full because it's so fucking cold. i'm in the street holding my dick. oh, heaven, you're so thick with fog, it's haunting. i'm better off aiming underneath. it's warmer and i've lost hope. a former statue of happiness in my yard, still hard but all in pieces. i'm scarred but it's all just creases. you want to talk about the future? no, you don't want to talk to me. so the conversation ceases to exist. i refuse to talk about this. move on.

______

She was fifteen, lying on a dock and looking at the stars with a boy. They had spent their summers together since they were little. They only knew each other in the context of the lake. He was four years older. It was a cold night in August and both of them were shivering. Neither of them wanted to say goodnight, though, so ______ tucked herself into the boy, under his arm. Her long legs gently entwined themselves with his, and her face moved closer and closer to his until there was nothing left to do but kiss him. No other option. And she wanted to. And he didn’t know what happened… and he didn’t care. If the dock had flipped and both of them drowned he wouldn’t have cared. _______’s hair draped her eyes. She tilted her head back and smiled a shy smile. And the boy said, what did I do to deserve that?

combo

- what time are you getting here?
- not sure.
- you've gotta tell me so i can pick you up.
- k.
- you're not going to come.
- yes i am. why wouldn't i?
- yeah, why wouldn't you?
- what is that emo shit on your profile?
- i do lots of emo shit.
- haha.
- why is that funny?
- you need to lighten up. stop being so fucking emo.
- well, you never come through when you say you're going to.

...............

love is in the stomach, and it's in the hands, and it cannot be controlled or wielded.

.......................

- new socks.
- why?
- to keep my feet warm.
- we have loads of socks.
- they never match.
- you have to make pairs.
- i wanted new ones. i like the feel of new socks. they're so cozy and warm and they don't have any holes and the elastics are tight.
- yeah, i get it.
- and i got new boxers.
- jesus.

..............

a shell, in whose hollow caverns the shocking effects of heartfelt pursuits are just resonating.

chunk 2

i'm not in this for the money or for possessions. i'm looking for something unknown and it will be happy and there will be songs sung through the summers, and there will be love. but paths do not present themselves to those without ambition or plans and i have none, only hopes. no goals. no survival, no team. just me and my pen and my breakfast. coffee. cereal. promise me you won't ever get real because real doesn't exist just feel my wrists i'm on the outs but destroying doubts at the same time because i don't want anything to be mine. lose everything. come on down and walk through the empty future with me, it's got endless possibilities and it's nice not to be tied down to this world and it's boring boys and girls. swirls.

chunk 1

i cannot lose a thing, but maybe my voice and some inspiration to the moving water in march that seems to wonder like me and wander like me and stare back empty. so who is anyone really? i don't know a pretty face in this town and that's okay for tomorrow and new beginnings but i'd like to settle for a bit and stop kicking. little chance of moving up. little chance of traveling very far and the night sky tells me so frequently with its laughter and its mocking stars so bright with things we don't understand. hold my hand. some wrong kind of ambition, sweet girls in their spin and i'm just watching. no mission. i once had a love and now i don't have permission.

unafraid

WHOA THE GREAT DESTROYER
grabs you by the goals(souls)
crawl back, get back again
REDEMPTION
just words, just small ideas
but still the come back
still it's worth it

(and big words fall out of broken mouths and broken hearts that carry sadness like a badge of honour, don't cross me. because i am nothing and therefore, unafraid)

98%

oh burden
i worsen
oh, worse off
oh, fate
is this all you've given?
is it all that we gave?
oh, comely
oh come
i've spun
i am so much more than done
and this year runs on and on
this time of year, it hums
with a single-cell note
left ringing through the air
i am humming along
i am scared
oh, lovely
i bother
it's easy
i care
oh, lovely
i go outside

helix.

"your love is different than mine. what i mean is, when you close your eyes, for that moment, the center of the universe comes to reside within you. and you become a small figure within that vastness, which spreads without limit behind you, and continues to expand at tremendous speed, to engulf all of my past, even before i was born, and every word i've ever written, and each view i've seen, and all the constellations, and the darkness of outer space that surrounds the small blue ball that is earth. then, when you open your eyes, all that disappears."

from Banana Yoshimoto's 'Helix'

4.

- there is a day called tomorrow that you will never get to see. but still you must always be preparing for it, setting mysterious goals to follow into the grey. if you don't care about tomorrow then you're not living.
- what am i doing, then?
- just walking, and breathing i guess.
- what's wrong with that?
- nothing. but love and happiness are in tomorrow.
- i don't care so much about those anymore.

-------------------

- there's a storm inside my head.
- just shine a flashlight through it.
- i can't.
- if you are the storm, then you can bring the calm.

-------------

her memory is like honey crawling on me.
it moves from my bottom lip over my chin.
sticky and sweet.
and i am powerless,
limbs locked together.
i close my eyes and re-live,
sugar thoughts and old smiles,
things that are gone.
holding my strength in the balance.
i open my eyes and look on,
towards wildflowers and the breeze,
the raw honey i am swimming in
is thick and eternal,
but i can move through it now.
i can push forward,
pull myself out of it.
and go from being trapped by the sweetness of yesterday,
to a blissful emptiness,
a canvas on which to start anew.

TARGET PRACTICE
go go go go go
hey hey hey hey hey
my my my my my
go go go go go
SAY YES

A BREAK FROM

---------------------

Those nights don’t come along anymore, when we might lock ourselves in the house with a rented movie. Disconnect the phone. Once, shortly after we met, I cooked dinner for Sarah, fish I had bought that morning at the market. She stood behind me at the stove with her hands on my stomach.
“You use too much oil,” she said, and I felt her smile on the back of my neck. But I liked to hear the onions scream and watch hot oil fly from the pan.

something about march

GET BACK UP AGAIN
STAND UP STRONGER THAN YOU EVER HAVE BEEN


if these whispers suddenly catch up to me
where and what will i be?
surely i'm no longer on trial
surely i'm done trying to be something
because i am nothing

to come back is to risk everything
and nothing at the same time
with nothing to lose
how can i not be brave?


HE SHOOTS HE SCORES HE CRIES HE DIES
HE IS AND WILL AGAIN BE


here is the concrete, my friend
grind my soul into it and wait for summer
wait for gates to lift
the birds sing my song of revival
these birds sing just for me now
fucking beauty stuck in my head


DEAF and DEAD / left with bread

3.

We were traveling down the river in a canoe that my grandfather had built. We canoed often. There was a spot where the river opened up into a pool and we would swim. The water slowed and the surrounding woods made the simple basin of water into a refuge. My parents loved it there. When they held each other in the cold water it was as if the forms of their bodies, with valleys and hills unique, were meant to be placed into the other, assembling a figure as natural and bold as the Rockies. If I stood on one particularly large rock by the edge of the water I could see the river continue on for miles, with violent rapids blocking our delicate exploration. I imagined a varicose vein on the landscape, carved out and defined by age, eventually reaching the coast and pouring itself into the Pacific Ocean, becoming part of something much larger. But I couldn’t see that far.

*

i know you'll help us when you're feeling better
and we realize that it might not be for a long, long time
but we're willing to wait on you
we believe in everything that you can do
if you could only lay down your mind

i want you to try to help yourself

- sad brad smith

2.

to the one who was to be my world, but failed me, all i could manage to say was that someday we might sit in the crying light of dusk, thinking about ice cream, trying to pinpoint precisely when our lives had stranded us at the side of the road, and we will laugh redemption, pounding our joyful fists into the soil. and then i told her she had beautiful eyes, and that would never change.

----------

- what are you doing?
- holding your hand.
- why?
- why not?