Just

2007-12-30T03:48:00.000+10:30

Approaching December 31st and a mind casts for meaning. It's been practicing now, reciting, in secret, all year, every year, for something. Something without a sense of being a thing, but rather a fracture of something. A moment perhaps. Good moments, sad moments, are mere moments, not indicators of the future. Nothing to count on.

A mind facing the meaningless magnificence of a new year.

Soon it will be the end of the year. Time will fold in half at the distant horizon and disappear. The past feeding into the horizon like paper through a shredder.

Feelings well up over time. What is missing feels surer than what is not. For years you try to link the dots and now you just think, let them be dots. Round and round they go, each one a world. Reclaiming yourself, you learn when to hope and learn when not to.

2007-12-13T22:35:00.000+10:30

From the depths of red dust, the unflappable moon carves it's place into the sky. The red sun sets as a sea of bright faces swallow the world whole, just for the night, making no claim to the hallowed earth. Holding it. It's memories in orbit.

Names pile up year after year of the people I have known. What once was definite now seems empty on the outside, empty on the inside, now living somewhere on the edge of space where music begins.

I Hammer hard on the doors of sleep and beg to get in. I dream of sailing into the moons light where logic suddenly becomes a mere ghost. Plunging headfirst into a blanket where a voice, meant to be my own, delivers a message from the past, built of smoke.

In this land of no sleep all thoughts sink below reach. Laughter falls like tears; memories come together like a transit map, the framework of the past, the present, and the future.

Death to the wind. No time to lose. An explosion of colours, the ground wild with jewels. The moon limps away in a stained sky, trees flutter, all dressed to kill.

A disappearance encourages love. Intolerable thoughts, thieves in the night, this side of life. Old as a scorpion, the world gone belly up. I watched it sail away into the night sky and return with a new name.

There you are, gone and the same. Today the white flag isn't high enough. Building is the weapon of choice. The thinking behind it prevents us from ending. Hoist up the moon and watch the big fresh face in the sky thaw it out at night.

Why do you and your memory make a habitat together? The vast space between the floors, the distant space between the years screaming in freedom to leave. Screaming in freedom to stay. The questioning of love is not to condemn it. It's to see through all the smoke, to let your fears sail away into the night sky letting your soul thaw out.

2006-10-30T21:46:00.000+10:30

Ok. How to do this? Where's the manual? She calls, you pick up the phone in the kitchen, she picks up the phone upstairs, she says, Sorry I can't make it. You march up the stairs and say; what's this about? The room turns black. The stairs back to the kitchen turn to water, each stair a wave breaking over your feet, you don't remember arriving.

The kitchen has changed. Suddenly the walls are too white and the faces in the photos watch as she says everything you don’t want to hear. You watch the pieces of life as you know it fall away. You talk. You don't talk. She talks. There is a semblance of dignity in her explanation. There is knowledge of tragedy in your acceptance. Is there life after deception? You start walking on the Moroccan rugs, placing one foot in front of the other like a drunk test. You keep doing this. You are leering for your new life. You try to embrace the idea of freedom -- you think. You tell yourself you never owned her and now there is relief in the concretizing of your worst fear. You think. So many worst fears are coming to life lately. You keep saying to yourself; what next?

This afternoon composed itself long, long ago. Who do you think you are? There on the beach, light sits like a pool. Above it the dark bottom of clouds hang on a slice of gray-blue sky. A thousand white birds speed into view and zigzag away over the shore. Who are you to think that you deserve more than this? She leaves in the car. You have responsibilities. You want to stay healthy but you forgot to eat dinner and your eyes keep locking onto nothing. What next? You walk out of the empty room. Nothing stays the same, but nothing ever gave you the idea that this wouldn't happen. Life as you knew it had moments of joy and hope and you know how to wait for them again.

Withdrawal

2006-10-07T22:45:00.000+09:30

Mostly, when someone dies you feel left out, as if you were not worthy of knowing all. The weight of unanswered questions nearly buries you alive. Family members are mere markers, testimonials to old tales. You finally get up and walk out.

Outside, light falls on your face, skin plum, as if nothing happened, as if you had not just experienced the deepest confrontation with eternity. Enormous emptiness fills your mouth. You tell your arms and legs to continue.

Then, when you are completely seduced by the safety of your flesh, a flash of violence takes everything you have gathered. Your hands rush to your face, your eyes wide. You begin to die too.

Nights Go By

2006-10-03T00:59:00.000+09:30

Lately it seems as if my heartbeat has been replaced by new memories that feel like anniversaries of older ones. A temporary suicide of choice, in a set moment of not knowing the difference between arrival and departure.

What I saw yesterday does not mean I will see it again tomorrow.

So curled up into a ball at 3am, my thoughts float above me as I scribe into an empty space in-between. I feel stuck in someone else's circumstance, in an arbitrary kingdom where walls contour around me; all exits leading to rejection.

There's no room to languish though. As I scratch around for meaning, things speak for themselves. They want to change their forms and be something else. We don't end with our skin either. We end up in these things we make.

Forever Falling

2006-09-13T23:41:00.000+09:30

I am repelling myself from evil, from a person in a position of sheer domination over another. A father raping his daughter; self glorification at the expense of degrading another person’s spirit because they are selfish; selfish at the expense of this other person.

Now my thoughs are throwing themselves around like discarded clothing in my head. Cleaning up, I pick up a few and take some notes, but the rest, strewn about in an empty room disappear when I turn on the lamp. Sometimes the very word I need to say, the very word I need to see goes dark.

So I'm on my knees in a dark room, my hands on the floor scurrying around attempting to find something that was never there in the first place.

Now I can hardly see you any more.

You stay, you go. You will be someone who I remember as always sounding the hunting horn at the wrong time.

You catch your plane as my body folds forward like a suitcase locking in all the pain.

2006-08-22T00:09:00.000+09:30

At the edge of a flickering white light, at the edge of an altered state of mind a crowd stands in awe, a crowd of restless and pre fueled protagonists; fueled by moods. Fueled by a festive mood. Fueled by a celebratory mood. Fueled by a mood to do hurt. Fueled by a mood to grab, tear and fuck. Fueled by artificial moods. They stand in awe.

Like a cinematic quick cut she stands alone in an empty parking lot; her arm out to the world; her hand open to the sky. Tears falling like autumn leaves from above with her outstretched arms wanting to catch all the gifts that rain down; gifts that extinguish every last flame from her distant past.

Fast-forward to an image of blonde Venus. Blonde insomnia. Blonde temptation. Staggering home on a cold winter's night into the fragile arms of naive seduction. Exotic beauty intertwined in ruffled bed sheets. An empty wine bottle lying beside a crumpled pair of jeans; the bedroom floor littered with the mementos of past acquaintances.

A wine glass, a cork opener and a lingering scent. A grown child stands in a corridor, starring at partially collected cardboard boxes, in a world waiting to be reclaimed, wondering if his chain of thoughts will ever collate a flickering white light, a cinematic quick cut, and an image of blonde Venus.

Take Your Time

2006-08-17T19:01:00.000+09:30

It’s obvious that it’s the first good day in ages. Everyone is out. Every last drop of the sea of mediocrity that flows through this fine institution is lolling about in the sun. Everyone that is, except me. Me, I’m sitting in an empty tutorial room waiting for my tutorial to start. The lecture I am supposed to be in now was cancelled.

If I were in the said lecture I’d probably be bemoaning the fact that I’m not outside in the sun with the rest of the Uni. Now that I have the opportunity to do just that, I’m sitting indoors. I can be weird like that; I think we call can at times.

Perfect timing for my personality to go into hibernation considering this is tutorial numero uno. Less than a half hour from now I’m going to have to parade my bubbling evervesence before a host of complete strangers. My only hope is that the tutor is so efficient that she won’t waste time on all the introduction crap.

If I want to know why everyone picked this class I’d ask myself, but the question is hardly worth exhaling. The answer is always the same. Always a riff on “I chose [insert course] because I have an interest in [insert subject component]”-riveting. They had it right in primary school – just read out our damned names and get on with it.

Time to class must be ticking down; two others have arrived. One of them looks completely vacant; maybe she wants to be outside. The other is pretending to read her tutorial readings. She doesn’t need to; luminous yellow highlights the fact that she’s already read it. She’s just bored and biding time, hoping we’ll think she’s indifferent to the fact that we haven’t politely exchanged greetings and made a half-arsed attempt at chitchat. Sorry lady, not in the mood today, nothing to do with you. She fans herself with a bookmark and stares of into space.

I put my pen down for a second and was about to perform my own tutorial re-reader impersonation; that’s why I’m continuing to write – I’m devoting my creative energy to looking busy in a more believable and mysterious way. I am interesting.

Out of the corner of my eye I’m glimpsing a few strained attempts to see what I’m doing. I’m considering concealing what I’m writing but I don’t want to give them the impression that it’s important – because it isn’t. I’m just biding my time like Ms. Tut.

Metaphor

2006-08-09T04:13:00.000+09:30

How can you understand without asking? Perhaps observe and assume? Make an assumption and base an answer on nothing more then a series of speculations. If you're too lazy to assume and speculate just use your imagination to write a story and file it in the non-fiction isle of your head.

I want to be understood without questioning. I want no words to be exchanged. But understanding can’t come through speculation and assumption alone so words will have to come into the equation.

Now ask me a question please. Ask me, but never question me. Do you understand?

Some questions are really hard to ask though. Like being held; it’s one of the simplest things in life yet one of the hardest things to ask for.

Hallucinate

2006-08-08T17:18:00.000+09:30

Good times.

Absent Prosperity

2006-08-08T00:20:00.000+09:30

Take this machete and use it to cut a path through to my inner most thoughts and feelings.

Her idiosyncrasies were like obscure anonymities standing as telepathic vessels for announcement, like an outreaching hand trembling for answers to a yet unasked question. In a shrouded silent gaze where no words were spoken more was revealed then during the most arduous of interrogations.

It was behind her sunshine smile that I could see the fear and sadness in her eyes though. Her smile markings of disguise for the gloom and dreariness of an unfathomable future.

Find

2006-08-04T17:23:00.000+09:30

My resemblance to unreality manifested in the reflection of a bathroom mirror this morning. Jagged edges conveying and surrendering themselves in search of an indefinable translucency.

Who you are and what other people think you are varies as much as my sleeping patterns of late. Mold back to a daily chain of predictable life and we’re once again definable, translucent to the peers we seek acceptance from while under the rule of an ambiguous authority.

Facade

2006-08-03T00:34:00.000+09:30

Like a distant hello. Like a foreseeable goodbye. Like contemptuous humming of thoughts as audible as a loudspeaker blaring out across a quiet street. Feet shuffling. Frenetic pacing. An echo of silence. Silence that says more then a million words could ever convey, no matter how lucid and expressive they were. Misinterpretation knocking on a door. Answering a call. Answering to a flaw.

The world is such a large expanse of never-ending opportunity. Opportunity comes and goes and it's always as it passes by us that we realise it was there in the first place. People fear opportunity for the change it brings. You're afraid to step out of your comfort zone. To delve into a new experience. To hear new sounds. To taste new food. To smell new smells. As opportunity passes us by it's our own interpretation of it's facade that instigates a reaction. Judgment. Prejudice. Fear or flight.

She's being used. She is a sock puppet. A mannequin who's actions are controlled by a hand that over thrones the stage that is life. I am the audience. I am the watcher. What goes on backstage is unforeseen. You are like a mannequin come to life in search of opportunity. Pinnochio. Weaving lies. Searching yet misinterpreting all of life's facades. Rape suddenly becomes the norm. Then you move on.

Inside Outside

2006-03-14T23:29:00.000+10:30

I meant to tell you so many things today. I wanted to tell you I had a dream. That everything was whole. That there was a chance. At any moment torn parts could combine and be complete in themselves. In the meantime everything is practice, pain and all.

What makes you walk against your better judgment is something cold. You make an offering. What you get in return is your return. Everything you have risked seems better in the wake.

Three times around. Making wider circles each. Faster. Wider. I had myself convinced that someday the sky would sit in our hands as we stood side by side. That the very light of day would be nothing compared to the things we would make together. Love is not about interchangeable parts. It's about the sudden expansion of your dreams. Dreams doubled by someone else's.

Inside

2006-03-14T00:51:00.000+10:30

It was cold last night. I pulled a red plaid blanket over my bed and watched it breath. I heard the sound of sobbing as my mind raced where it didn't belong. What came first? Words or pain? I am only my ideas. There is a body that has folded somewhere beneath this blanket. Wet with tears and deranged enough to keep wanting to be saved.

Yearning grows like humidity in wood.

Sky. The word has taken over reason. A gust of wind and I am a million shards flying up to the blue bed. Your voice. Somewhere calling me to come apart. My eyes are dying. I can tell because they only see what I tell them. Time exposed to itself. Touching only itself. Stuck in reverie of a place where yesterday is as incurable as tomorrow is inevitable.

Open The Curtains

2005-12-07T22:22:00.000+10:30

I begin giving things away. A long time resident of my head, I tidy up, fold the past away, and gather what feels like a new method of thought—to admit that we just don't know, never knew, where we are going. Passengers waiting for departure.

A sense of the invisible in the corner of my vision, a glint of gold. A
secret life is moving between the trees; they are always whispering.
In the solitude, behind the rocks, in the tall grass, and below the
surface of water, meaning passes silently.

This is not dreaming. It's watching yourself in a dream. The way children play. Draw the curtains. Open the curtains. Vanishing or fusing? What course will this take? When the time comes that I can't feed myself or get up from where I lay?

To Find Words

2005-12-07T02:45:00.000+10:30

I have nothing to say. There is nothing to say is another way to say it. Or, still another way, there is so much to say, and so many ways, should I begin? May I begin? Do I need to ask your permission? I promise you delight. I promise you a real good time. I promise you the best. This will be the very best, the best you've ever had. I am a ride, a roller coaster, the fun house. I'm what frightens you in the palace of horror. I'm pleasure. I'm a drive in the backseat of a car late at night when the moon is full and everyone else is asleep. I'm sex. I'm compassion. I'm the tears on your cheek when you say goodbye forever to that handsome but pitiful character in the movie you love. Now I'm anger and outrage, fire engine red inside your brain. I'm choking you with rage. I'm the pain that dwells in your gut which you cannot express to anyone. I'm the ache in your heart. It hurts. You hurt. You cannot speak. Lie down, make yourself comfortable, adjust the light. I'll speak for you.

So many stories. So many voices. All in need. In need of comfort. I am your comfort. I hold you. I let you go. I am true to you. I am a secret. I explain everything. I seduce you. You lose yourself. I am what you have lost. Your elusive past. Your fleeting present. Your irresistible and horrifying future. I am the little things in life. And the big things. I am lyrical. I am logical. I am steady. I am faithless. I am prosaic. I am hard. I am tender.

Here

2005-12-05T00:33:00.000+10:30

Somewhere. Over there, in the dark, under cover, out of range, around the bend, on the floor, against the wall, through the night, off the cliff, inside out, near the end, far from true, close to you. . .

Is somewhere only where there is some symbolic exchange – the context of I’m here, you’re there and somewhere is elsewhere? Or, are we somewhere now, and what we have yet to experience is elsewhere?

What is out there? Others in their “hereness.” What about way out there – where space squeezes itself so thin that there is a slit in the horizon calling all life to come in and cease.

Or, there is a station for thoughts parting, leaving in paragraphs, leaving in single words, going on journeys to find the unnamed, preprejudiced responses to this question,
What was it i was wondering. . . .