neutral-dick-hotel
i think of several words and phrases. i, of course, trip on them more often than i walk over them. there are only tree roots under my feet now, no flat ground. there are only hills with slick paths and fields with no more rocks. there is no more tread. there is no more friction. so my words trip and kick eachother until he doesnt want to correct their step anymore. and it is okay because i put the roots there. i let them grow and twist under my heels. so we both fall down the path
i stacked the plates and they were still wet. they clattered and spilled over each other and i knew just how upset i had made it. i made the noises that spat all over the floor. the saliva spilling between cracks in the tile, eating it from within. I knew how upset i made the walls- they had to bear witness to my mistake and all of its noises. so in turn, i cried and wailed silently in the floor of the kitchen. this was all because of me. the china in fragments, the walls holding the echoes, and me in a drunken stupor.
i dont really know how to do this. my brain is wed to the idea of my misery. i write the same thing everytime i write. maybe i am a shitty writer. why cant i write today, it all sounds so cliche. all my writing does. fuck this day into oblivion.
i could talk for hours of the silly ways my heart has adapted to the weight, the heavy and unstoppable squeezing on my arteries and in turn, my cells. i swear to you, it takes my breath away when certain looks meet my face. strangers and lovers bring those looks to the dinner table. they are salt and pepper and the basil in your soup. this makes no sense, none of it does. the brain is syrup and oats and the heart is just lemons and pears. the legs are milk and orange peels.
my voice is just rice and pasta and my soul a bruised and dark berry. none of it makes any sense. none of it. but we keep putting the compost in troughs and feed it to the young. we serve it all on fine china, throw it all in the sky and watch it fall. we are the pigs, the bottom feeders, the algae and the top of the food chain. we are the sense that just can't seem to be made.
ring the dinner bell and you will see how they come running. starved, and deprived, thirsty for melons and juice. we need the nutrients and the schools of fish. we require the bones and skin and all of the parts of the puzzle. we need the overarching theme, the big picture, the orchestra. without it, we are brush strokes and beans.
we walked to the cinema together, our ribs were interlocked like heavy chains made of gold and copper. each link made an echoing noise as we stepped. it was a beautiful ensemble of orchestra and man, everyone was listening. ears turned to the music, eyes fixated on our bones.
i am walking photos. scars that have stuck with me from past lives as slaves and martyrs are now the ones that put me on the front page of the editorial. my stance and wide shoulders do too. my back with its bumps and my face with its discoloration. my teeth like pomegranates and my hair like pasta left on the stove for hours and hours on high heat, my legs like splinters that shed from tree trunks and my hands like spiders that spin webs during the night and sleep during the day in huddles. we are the new feature, our gaps and shortcomings are the new idols.
he said i was a controller, something with many buttons to be pressed and many codes to be encrypted. so he pushed those buttons, all of the good ones and bad ones- making sure to confuse my brain and, subsequently, dismantle it completely. he said i was complicated, though he knew my programming like he studied it in class, like i was a piece of the curriculum or a phrase in a textbook.
she spoke to him like the low notes of a cello. mild symphonies like b flats and deep dark gs. she spoke in one fluid motion and never stopped until the conductor in her mind lowered his hands. she made the music that soothed his ears when as he sat in the audience, a mere spectator of her performance. but when the lights came back on in the theater, she was no longer at peace or in tune. she was a wooden instrument robbed of its strings.
she spoke to him like the low notes of a cello. mild symphonies like b flats and deep dark gs. she spoke in one fluid motion and never stopped until the conductor in her mind lowered his hands. she made the music that soothed his ears when as he sat in the audience, a mere spectator of her performance. but when the lights came back on in hte theater, she was no longer at peace or in tune. she was a wooden instrument robbed of its strings.
it was just so muddy, the whole situation! i mean who walks in with a straight face and demands something so precocious and ridiculous? i mean, who has the nerve to ask something like that? the answer seemed to be, as it usually was, Jane Amsterdam. she was a woman of complexity and longing as well as full and entire attitude. she carried herself like a bronze trophy, not gold of course.