Cosmogony

And the cosmos, which was born first in shades of bright red, then darker red, then purple, then near-black, finally fawn buried under layers of atmosphere, was split in two, because it wouldn't fit pretty on a map all at once;

and each half bled from a great stone pot filled with matchsticks and potent roots;

and they say, if one overturns the pot from which the stars of two skies flow, each half will invert itself, and the cosmos will take the form of a giant cuttlefish, and all its parts and processes will be that of the cuttlefish.

I

Sometimes I think I want this smell to linger on me forever. In context, this though is so absurd that I must laugh. Maybe that is why I do it. Maybe that is why it is so absurdly beautiful to me. "Before it had a name"--that is the phrase of interest.

II

Every time I try to use words like 'health,' 'normal,' or 'truth,' something goes wrong. Something bitters in their speaking--or yelling, as I sometimes do before I can remember not-to-do. I think I will stop trying to use them, as if they are things that existed in this world.

III

There are many songs in my Grooveshark I no longer listen to, or cannot, at least, without infecting the organs with a certain strangeness. In Morel, the recording of his hand cost the criminal his original limb; perhaps, unintentionally, I have left too much beat in another sort of beat, and now the sound, played over, confuses and confounds the original.

The point of interest for me is that this has never happened with a classical piece. It is only songs of vox that confound the fox.

Or dog.

IV

It is not that it is any better here than there; it is just that...that my dreams are fuller. What is a zombie there is allowed to be a vampire, or a ghost--something whole--here. There are dreams that are so pleasant that one wakes unsatisfied; there are dreams so terrible that to wake is pleasure. And there are, between these, leaning toward the first, dreams that are quite impossibly pleasurable by every rule of the waking world (that is, the same arrangement of artifacts would not evoke the same response), so that one wakes with a strange, concave satisfaction--the knowledge that these are the closest one will come to living such things, and so one may count them as close to living as they should like, and it is no trouble at all if you are the only one to believe in whatever distance is chosen. I am not afraid to let these things live on. Not at all.

V

I am a competitor. I am a sore looser. I am sick of my lack of critical rigor lately. SLUGGISH FIRE ROOT: I have grown old and young again and am determined now to do everything by your hungry laws. I am sick of stupid shit and I want a godfucking drink.

Wait

In the corner of the enclosure there is a hole.

We cannot say how long it has been here, because we have until now mistaken it for one of the entrances to the tunnel system.

It is wandered to and stared into; we are sure it is not a well--there is not enough water here for that. The occasional flash flood may fill it, but whatever gathers soaks quickly back into the thirsty dirt.

Whatever it is, it has lost its function. Or else, this is its function, though we cannot possibly see how. No--we are certain there must be some part withheld. It is in the tensing of the limbs, and then the resting of them when they stiffen. There is a waiting. Sometimes, hands clasped at the edge, it almost seems as if the wait is for a nonexistent (or endlessly patient) god. Accounts vary as to whether the hands are clasped in prayer or wrung together, but these gestures (and their attributed meanings) exist outside of quarantine. Well aware of the distortions that occur within the test field, we try to avoid such quick connections and remember that we are foreigners here. What is initially recognizable are remnants, only, here, and from there, our study must build blindly.

CONFI%#@&^D ENT%!

17.17

F i v e 7 C h o r d

S w e a t b r o w n f r u i t

[ s i c ][sic]

Behavior #21

She abruptly abandons whatever she is doing, wherever she is doing it, and walks fourteen measured paces forward. At the end of fourteen paces, if she is able to complete them, she begins again, from scratch, the task she'd left behind.

But this only when she completes the steps, and this only a meager 30% of the instances we have observed; it should be noted that since observation of this particular behavior began, this percentage has decreased substantially. More often than not, given the point of origin, she will run into the desk or a wall before completing the set. This is when the behavior we are most interested in emerges.

Rather than turning to redirect or retrace her steps that way, she will walk backwards, exactly as she came. Her pace is still measured, but quicker, and she exceeds fourteen paces almost every time--indeed, the only things that stop her are the cell walls or, in those cases when less than fourteen paces are recorded, the tunnel outlets. Often, in this backtracking, she steps on and damages the task she departed from. Once stopped, by wall or outlet, she sits and, rather than restarting her task, sits only. This goes on for some time. On those occasions when she faces the camp, it has been observed that her eyes are closed; the only sign that she is both alive and awake is the sound of her breath, which is too pronounced for sleep.

In these instances, the task that was abandoned is rarely taken up ever again, perhaps suggesting (very tentatively) that the link between the task behaviors and the pacing behaviors is not arbitrary. If this is true, then those tasks that are abandoned are those that do not function; those that are returned to must be those that prove worthy of further investment and work. It is possible that these same tasks have later been tracked over and scrapped when their potential has been exhausted; as the pacing was expressed to be the behavior of interest, records pertaining to the tasks have been kept brief. Perhaps this fledgling link will encourage more study in that direction.

CONFISCATED ENTRY

12.12.

i t i s l i k e b r e a t h i n g i n t i m e

e a c h b r e a t h

a c e n t u r y

Bets

Private journal

My colleagues have begun taking bets on which part of some poor animal will be found first here in Quarantine. The head of a hare? Slashed coyote ribs? They are good men, really, and I know none of them would let such trivial thoughts interfere with their work. They are bored; that is all. Still, their conduct makes me uneasy. Boredom leads to a strange sort of desperation; have they not observed this themselves?

Not one of them dares to bet on the sleepers, those humans that wander outside the enclosure. I see the thought in their eyes, but it goes unspoken. Forbidden. Instead, they bet the life and limbs of the desert animals, perhaps in the hope that her tastes, at least, have retained that particular refinement we will call human.

Today, as I am sure has been recorded, blood was found. I wonder if they now curse even those thoughts that went unspoken.

Artifacts

One crumpled-up carton

Four cans, four more cans

A half-empty packet of tawny granules

Two blankets, tied together

The empty impression of an evergreen

Seven bits of foil, some smashed into a ball, some intact

These are the things we have found around the outlets of the tunnels, lately. Today we found blood near the fourth corner, where the desk is wedged. It is dark, dried, and makes a long strip from the edge of the desk leg to the center of the enclosure, about a foot in length. It is approximately four inches from the wall. The subject bears no injury, and no other source has been found. The sleepers come and go as before. We will continue watching the tunnels with special interest.

Hypodermic

The enclosure is not terribly large, but we would not call it small, either; it is the sort of average size that always grows when one feels small and shrinks when one feels large and restless. Erring on the quaint side, perhaps. You must understand how astounding it was, then, that in such a place, we should find a network of tunnels. They took her five days to make. The dirt is packed tight, but even still, they are so close to the surface it is a wonder they do not cave in. Some of them must go quite deep, and we suspect some empty into small rooms, for we have witnessed the disappearance of a good portion of the enclosure's objects and furnishings and where could they have gone but into the tunnels? We do not consider any of this too peculiar in light of the arid climate here.

But here is the strange thing:

As far as can be told, the tunnels do not seem to extend further than the walls of the enclosure. The walls are constructed above ground, so there is no reason they should hinder the underground network's extension; indeed, it would be difficult to ascertain these boundaries once one began digging, I feel. But we have only ever seen entry points within the enclosure (in the interest of variable control, we have researchers posted quite far out along the landscape), an sometimes, when it has not rained for some time and the soil grows brittle and dry, we hear her scrapping about the perimeter, as she often does, though these times, unseen.

We cannot say whether there is something that inhibits her leaving or if she chooses not to leave. These are perhaps not mutually exclusive.

Further, we cannot yet discern the purpose of the tunnels, unless it is something related to the removal of the sight of her (but we are certain she does not know she is being watched), or the shifting and moving of things in the enclosure.

ju ju be

jute lipped

weather brother

chestnut woodfur wedged against

fingernail, dried blood

rust cracked thumb,

ash pushed belly

this, your bondage

this, your season

stalwart

bridgeless

brain

hush now while I grow yah a name

The Medicine Cabinet

In the enclosure there is a medicine cabinet.

In the medicine cabinet there are: two bottles, one orange, one green; a piece of wet cloth; and a three day old mirror.

How do we know it is a three day old mirror?

Because it does not function as a one or two day mirror. But perhaps I should say, instead, 'a mirror that is at least three days old,' as I do not know that it is actually three days old. All mirrors function largely the same at and after the three-day point; the difference is so slight and negligable it is not worth mentioning, but I should at least leave this fact in the notes to avoid the chance of misleading any reader into believing that I know the exact age of the mirror in the cabinet.

The contents of both bottles have gone undisturbed since observation began, though they are occasionally handled. The cloth remains wet, and though we have often seen it removed, we can discern neither its use nor what keeps it wet. She begins fiddling with it at night, you see--the cabinet door has a very particular snap sound that cannot be confused with any other sound in the enclosure-- and so by the time she removes something and, we assume, uses it, we often do not get a glimpse of it. We do not know the strength or nature of the prescriptions, or the other objects; we do not know if those she indulges in are the strongest, or the weakest of the assortment. We keep full watch on the enclosure (it is very tiring), and yet there are still these things that are continually missed. The night observers are several and often changed (I myself have taken the shift), so it is not possible that one researcher has been slacking in their duties. Our books are numerous, but sadly lacking.

Sometimes I wonder if any of the other scientists notice this. Sometimes I wonder if this strange blank, this blind spot in our research has not somehow been crafted by some force determined to keep us from the end goal of our observations. I feel there is some intention out there, whether hers or one of my colleagues or only that of the sun itself, to keep-from-knowing.

It grows dark again. My shift is over.

Unnamed

The constant bending of the fence, as if she could not choose a direction, as if she fears the irreparable and definite damage that will come with choosing a direction, though a similar (is it more? is it less? This question is maddening, and yet, pointless) damage is caused by indecision as well--

Is it possible to wake up in such vastly altered places without realizing how one got there? We do not always remember how we fall asleep, but surely, after that moment of strangeness, we remember it is Friday, we remember, generally, what we did in the week, or what we must have done in the week, because it is what is generally done every week.

Is it possible to forget a whole week? Not the week itself, but a thready progression that runs through it like a smear--

I do not think this thought has any relevance to our subject, though I may have started with that intention. I must remember to tear this page from the study, too.

She moves, sometimes, in the enclosure, as if she intends to forget certain motions, certain actions; and we know she must, because the next day, she does them again, though each time, a little altered in order to forget. There is nothing in the actions themselves that suggest a reason for this peculiarity; it must be some motivation behind it, some thought that must constantly be acted through differently lest its origin be known; there is something disastrous in it, but it cannot be abandoned, and so these motions are cautious encounters with it, the alterations to keep it from knowing itself.

Sometimes she thinks of it as work.

Sometimes as penance.

Sometimes as sanity.

It changes from time to time, but always, it has function, whether one of the three or another to suit. That is why it persists--it is allowed to. It is given reason to, reverse ex nihilo. In return for its services, it is not named.

Awry

"Why do you do it then?"

She touches the twisted shape of the fence (I made this, perhaps she thinks with pride or disgust or calm disinterest) and this is the phrase that comes to her; we know this because it is occasionally found scrawled between the other symbols on the inside of the cell. The symbols that trace the outside perimeter of the cell have, after a few rain and dry spells, hardened in the clay; those written on the inside she often erases, a few hours later or a day, either intentionally with the sweep of an arm or unintentionally when she moves about the enclosure.

To this date, the aforementioned question has been written a total of 16--no, there were two more this afternoon--18 times. In only one of these instances was the question answered: "don't know," written with a quick, jabbing stroke. The question was erased two hours later; the answer hung around for six more hours before it, too, was smudged out (by a shuffle-walk that we suspect was intentional).

The writing of the phrase appears most often in conjunction with the feeling of the walls, either immediately before or immediately after. Sometimes, while feeling the metal, she will, with a sudden movement, bend them violently so that they cave in or bow out. The act serves no practical purpose, as the affected area is so small that it does not enlarge (or shrink) the enclosure in any significant way. Further, the same area is never bent twice, so it is clear she does not mean to weaken the structure (though the bending inarguably does weaken the walls, even we can see this, and if she continues long enough, we must assume she will start bending the same areas twice over, and thus begin truly damaging the structure in unintentional earnest).

We must conclude, then, that the bending is truly an impulsive gesture, perhaps a frustrated response to the unanswerable question that precedes or follows it. We cannot discern if the answer is known and ungivable, or ungivable because it is not known. For all the things we have set to paper in our hours of observation, this has been the most elusive. Not for lack of trying--there must be at least forty-two, no, forty-four pages on this already, and the script gets quite cramped on some of them. But in all these pages, we cannot quite say what is said. That is to say, our descriptions seem embarrassingly vain and hypothetical; there is nothing but cringing when one reads back on them. But strange thing--it is in these moments of realized futility when I think of the way the lone answer--"don't know"-- made its fleeting appearance in the dirt. And I feel very good, and very bad, and also, a desire to cast my pen down and write sharp, inconstant words in the earth that will not mean anything in the morning, that will beg, embarrassed, to be erased in the morning.

In these moments, I find the pen sometimes falling from my hand. But then some sound catches me, or some smell, or a movement at the side of my eye (the camp is often plagued by little desert lizards who seem to exist for the sole purpose of disrupting my reverie), and I continue writing where I had left off.

I must remember to tear these pages from the journal before turning them over to my colleagues, as they have nothing to do with the subject of study.

To Watch

Sometimes she feels as if she has spent her whole life watching things sleep--in envy, fear; in love.

There is a story that says "there must be someone to watch." But the story does not explain why. It is not the habit of this particular author to explain these sorts of things. It is not the habit of most authors, really, to explain the very point of their writing. This is not a little frustrating. Perhaps that is why Einos is a very difficult creature, or process, for us to study--it is not a speaking one, but a watching one, and so as scientists, watchers ourselves, this makes us feel very self conscious in our methods. We know she is not aware of us, and yet, this inclination to watch things that sleep--well, let us just say that it certainly has not encouraged us to happy, easy dreams.

From inside the wire cell, she can still see the forms of those that wander the desert. Some perhaps looking for her; some perhaps just wandering. When night comes on, they sometimes lie down alongside one of the walls of her cell to sleep. She creeps, then, over to that wall and, crouched down on her knees or balanced on her toes, she will watch them sleep all night, as if expecting them to stir (they occasionally do), or making sure they will not--we cannot really be sure of her intention (her face is always shadowed in these dark hours), only of her curiousity. Perhaps she does not herself know why she watches these strange, almost-visitors who come close to her only in sleep.

But they, unlike us, do sleep, and if not easily, completely.

After the wanderer has woken and left, she most often goes directly to her desk and writes, here eyes fixed a little unnaturally wide, looking not a little disturbed. Sometimes we catch a shining line tracing from her right eye to her chin--we never see or hear it, but it must be that she sometimes cries, though only from the right eye, it seems.

Ex Nihilo

Her name was Ella, like Eleanore, "like the president's wife," she used to remind herself, and she would shorten this to "like the president." And when she forgot that it was the name of his wife, she began saying "like the king," sure that somewhere along the way, she'd crossed symbolic wires, and this was what she'd meant. But she didn't remember any king with the name Eleanore. For two months, she did not speak her own name, but let the sounds mingle and brine in her brain, always followed by "like the king, like the king," as if to try and remind and bind them into some kingly form. The sentence came one day as easily as if it had only been waiting for its discovery: "Einos--like the king." She said it six times over to make sure it was good and right. And it was. It was wet and prickly on her tongue, like tannin, like how she imagined it would taste if someone held a piece of metal there until it was warm.

So she was Einos, formerly Ella, like the president, and perhaps, upon leaving Quarantine, she would again be Ella, and perhaps, to those outside, she was, still, Ella. But knowing not only both, but intending to know so intimately the second, should we call her Einos or Ella? The creature in Quarantine is objectively known as Ella; but the processes we will familiarize ourselves with begin with Einos. But is this name too close? If we use it, is there the chance she will hear us, gnaw on the noise and be distracted from her work, which is crucial to our work? There is a reason scientists do not speak of bears in bear tongues, or even man tongues--"ursus arctos," they write in little black scribbles, so that should the mentioned ursus find it, they should not know they are being written about. Their handwriting is probably intentionally bad for just this reason.

But we are far from her, too far to be detected, I think, so let us perhaps dare to use Ella and Einos both where it is appropriate, for it may be argued that they describe two different things, and there will the two different names be handy to us.

Einos was born in a self-created cell of scrap wire mash and sticks at 14:00 on a Wednesday; our observation of her did not start until two hours later. On the third day she surrounded the cell with symbols drawn counterclockwise in the dirt. On the fourth day she uprooted a succulent and replanted it inside the cell. After this she journeyed outside the cell no more.

Wander

I will pin myself to the backs of their late legacies.

There are certain authors I've wanted to talk to with tears in my eyes--not because I'm overly sentimental (though I may perhaps be), but because such would be the nature of the conversation. The deepest of secrets, dark only like night blooming flowers or the pinched eye of anise stars. But every one of them has died before I had ever even heard their name. My dialogues hop on one leg

Stretching legs, dark knit like a bug's

This is something only yellow, orange lights can do

If I am lucky, I will have what some of them had; If I am diligent, I will attain what all of them did; and if I am unlucky, and this the more likely, I will not have what most of them also did not have.

The softest part of the enclosure is dirt, then hardwood, then iron. There is a wasteful amount of iron in that place. There is little between the very soft and the very hard in that place.

I like to think of eternity in the terms of turtles and Odradek and labyrinths and hidden places, and honey crystallizing in blue-black nostrils. It is somehow easier this way--like walking in someone's footsteps, footholes, when the snow is very deep. I only regret that I could not ask them where it was they were going, because, strange folk, they have left such wandering and winding paths...

Patient Xerox

Sometimes, when she got very tired, she also got very angry, and she wasn't quite sure why, and was aware of how silly it was, really, but that realization didn't keep it from happening, and besides, she didn't even know what had started its happening.

Which isn't to say that it hadn't happened before. There was indeed a period of her life when she had looked for fights which she knew she would probably lose. Not physical--never physical. Everyone knew to not leave marks, even the far-gone sick, because marks are ways back to places, marks, like words, are some solid shit that must be acted upon, except worse than words, because they cling to the skin for days and days, purple and nervous and wanting.

So it had happened before, but that didn't explain why it was happening again, a done thing trying to be done again. There wasn't any reason for it.

She covered her hands and her shoulders and her brain because that is where it began, this strange, childish rage. She clipped her lips so she would not be tempted to bite strangers (and most everyone slipped in and out of her strangeness at that point) for this reason, this perfectly-no-reason-at-all reason. Later, she would skirt around such things entirely, fearful that even the sight or sound would irritate the constant nausea of her gut into a violent case of vomiting.

And whatever she had, she didn't want to pass it on.

So she avoided things that she suspected made her sick, as well as things she feared she would make sick.

And the world she inhabited was called Quarantine.

It was not often described, because its actualization in description broke many rules and pissed off agencies. What agencies? Just agencies. Inciting panic--this is against the rules of the just-agencies. The agencies themselves did not know of Quarantine, because making them aware would, still, require description, and there were no allowances to the rule: description led to trouble. People like to believe it leads to good noise, but more often than not, it leads to bad noise, because bad noise isn't necessarily 'bad noise,' it's simply everything else but good noise--it's just noise. You need not announce your presence to a zombie; make a sound, any sound, and it is the wrong one, because all are rendered down to "here I am/ come fight me."

There is a way to bypass this reduction of meaning, she suspects, and she has been trying to figure it out in all the long hours of her solitude. But she is no scientist--the work is slow. Sometimes she becomes frustrated and grabs the nearest thing to her and chews on it. Sometimes this is a pen; sometimes it is part of her lunch; often it is the first segment of her first finger. This is a distracting habit, and sometimes she forgets which it is, of the two, that she is supposed to be focused on; is it the chewing that distracts her from her work, or the work that distracts her from her chewing? It is slow work. She is determined, though.

Those that are immune were those with very good heads on very good shoulders and those who did not speak the language (as mentioned, it was not physical, but a sound disease). And this is very good company in Quarantine. And this is very good company in any world, really.

Something something something a copy machine on a coffee table something something covered in beetles.

"No fixed abode"

If this is not the calling card of the atemporal, then there isn't one.

They are hard to imitate because they are hard to find; even time travelers have a place, a time, to which they go back to, from which they first came, and which most owns them. But these, these they, are as much at home (which isn't to say that they are) in one time as any other.

And what is more: because of this, where time traveling things slip back into their time period when they are no longer points of interest for those in other times, atemporal things seem to disappear completely--out of mind, out of sight. Out of everywhere, until it should be summoned up again; not constantly, not on a whim, but risen, like the dead, through ceremony and necessity (it is extremely rude to wake the dead without reason, of course).

I have begun thinking the phrase "I apply no such criteria." I do not think I meant it (or knew how to mean it) at first. It was just a thing I heard in a book in a place. But the more often I say it (think it--I always mean to say it, but I never do. I think saying it would turn it into a criteria, somehow), the more it seems to..function. It is difficult to describe. Moral arguments are more quickly identified--and more quickly abandoned or skirted. If it is a bad idea, it will be killed; if it is a good idea, it will be fed. But still, we have not asked what it is. What a strange thing, this inclination to protect or destroy before just...sitting and staring. Before touching.

I do not know how not to do; I know only how to do and undo. I lose much time in this fashion, much more than if I knew how not to do. I will not say it is good or bad, but it is not very efficient.

The dogs that wander the cities, certain cities in particular, maybe, must live the strangest lives, I feel. In unpeopled areas, it is clear what will probably eat you, and what you should probably take a snap at yourself; in houses, your greatest worry is keeping your nose just far enough away from the table to entice the hand to mediate between the two. But outside of these houses it is a very strange. Who can say where kindness or cruelty will come from? If man cannot read the intentions of his own fellow men, what chance does anything born outside of a house have? It may perhaps not be very difficult to live (survive?) as these dogs do--perhaps there is enough food in some places, enough shelter, even companionship--but even still, it must be very confusing. Even interactions with other animals, half or wholly or not at all as acclimated as he, must be very confusing. I wonder how he makes meaning of these things. If he ever presses the soft top of his head into the asphalt and thinks of a peach tree.

Very small loops, I was told. Gad, if only you knew. But eventually, they are escaped, I am also told, though because I cannot remember the source of this one, perhaps it is only something I have told myself.

"This poem is one that's sort of haunted me ever since I first read it"

I don't collect these things like I used to, like a Mike Rose-Richard Rodgriguez sorta scholarly kid. But some of them I write down, or keep, because it..it's important to be understood sometimes, or at least think you're understood sometimes, if only because constantly feeling as if you are not quite probably leads to some sort of deep neurosis. Or boredom. Or something or other.

"I'm sure it means something"

"And I don't get it"

Hearing this (and..I don't quite know why I wrote these down too) is nothing bothersome in and of itself--not at all. It is just a note. But a single note, over and over, ceaseless, is--

Can you imagine? an island, filled with a single voice? A single song?

This is why criteria does not matter; context, the notes around, can do anything to anything. I do not care if it is good or bad. But if I have haunted someone, if I have scared someone...there is function to that.

I am very tired.

I am very tired.

I am very tired.

When I can think of nothing else (which has become increasingly often), I think of some, or all, in any order, of these things:

4

2

2

clockface

Palimpsest

Atemporal objects must be hopeful things; I can ascertain little else as of yet, but this must certainly be true of them. They have no place in the past, and their ties to the present are tenuous, at best, made to rely on the object permanence of weak brains. Such a well of hope they must keep, then, for future days which will again raise them to life...

Devil Console

"What are you listening to?"
No time to lie-
"Backstreet Boys," she blurts out. Her voice is her sister's. It happened sometimes.
He smiles, and, though small and placed without intention, this gesture is, nevertheless, placed just so as to scatter him out into a collection of particulars: a name, caught and bagged; a way of leaning without slipping, precarious tectonic laziness; hair kinked from being pulled from history, prehistory; a certain ease--


But perhaps this is also just what we call human: a collection of particulars, always. It is only the distances between them that we busy ourselves with agreeing and disagreeing over.


The secret to chopping quickly and efficiently is to forget you have fingers. This way, when you think of the knife, which you must in order to use it, you will not think of the knife in terms of fingers, in terms of the inevitable bloodsliceslip (because this mindset is not meant to keep this from happening, it is meant to economize and make efficient) and you will cut as knife, only, and not as man--but let us not forget what tools are for: the knife will cut faster, the apples will cook sooner, and the man will be fed sooner, and this is better, certainly. All roads lead back to the flesh; most especially those of polished metal; most especially those grafted in.
And perhaps this is what we will call posthumanism in the kitchen.


Devil console gunn cum fuh me
gunn cum fuh me wen no utta lookin
wen no utta dea tuh see dem bright devil e-yuhs
no utta but me
it lookin at me
wit dem ten windeh e-yuhs
an I kno
gunna take-uh me 'way
an wen yoo fine me in deh mornin
yoo not fine me
I be taken
yoo not seein me--
yoo seein wutda devil console dun decided tuh leave uh me.


/hurderp


Behind me
a boat
with sails made outta
bedsheets
handkerchiefs
and
...
snot.
/can'ttakeyouseriouslyworthtwoshitslol.

Mistake

Angel hair pasta spilled and looping over a mossy carpet

Broken bowl, broken planet

woops woops woops

Yours, just a little lighter

The sorta curly green stuff that grows at the crumbling edges of peat fields

Training me alive

Training me alive

Gomapda, little face

I'll try harder next time

The first time I read what is now one of my favorite short stories, for a class, it scared me. Not the story itself, but the day after in class. Everyone very clearly, very decisively spoke of the main character as crazy--and she was. And a part of me knew that as I read, but most of me did not. And so I wrote questions in the margins of my paper and my class members kept ending their comments with "because she's crazy."

After the second reading of this story (I've read it in at least three different classes now), I stayed behind after class and hesitantly asked the teacher if she thought the character was crazy. She told me she thought the character was responding to the situation in a way that made sense to her, and no, not really--though here, I think a faltering in memory leads me to paraphrase this a bit incorrectly.

This is a thing of great importance in my head, though I'm not entirely sure if it happened the way I think it did.

Taking some good advice.

"Someday I gunn go crazy, Jim. I gunn go crazy and you can't come 'cuz you the only thing that keepa me sane."

and

I remember lying

against your black and tan belly and thinking

I don't know how I lived without this

But here I am

steam filled organ sending rust to my knees,

costing my shoulders into

cheap

chop shop windmill blades

This is called living thoughtlessly [Iamtold]

In the present [itiscalled]

Because memory spurs desire

Wants for future

And in this form

I cannot afford

Tell yourself:

That memory's a dream

That picture's a lie

and you didn't die--

you're just sleeping

just sleeping.

I hate that my first inclination is to apologize for shortchanging out a bit on social interactions today. No, I don't hate the inclination--but if I were to actually apologize, I'd hate that. But I won't. I spread myself thin and if the fails went unseen then they didn't happen so there.

I remember precisely two things about today, and they happened within ten minutes of each other

A text and a touch

Everything else ran together like the weather

Today was entirely orange, I realized; and that is not an allusion or a metaphor, it is just a sense.

I am tired of thinking of waste and money and little toys screeching and going in circles when the lights go down the volume goes up my flesh curls right off my arms, I feel, and my ears do not know how to save themselves and I cannot bring myself to cover them and show that I hear sounds that are notsounds and

in the hospital a child with sooty eyes peers around the thin blue curtain that divides the beds. He looks at me. He looks at my legs. He looks at my brain. He looks at me.

"There is a way," he whispers, small sound, but it finds me and stings me and stays within me. I look at him. His fingers crunch up the curtain and twist at his side. I look at his hands. I look at him. I look at his hands.

"I can't hear," I say. "I hear everything." He nods quickly, looks away, at passing things, and back at me, my legs, my brain, back at me.

"That's alright. it's a secret anyway."

I watch his hands. Fingers curling.

These things should not be so tiring

Shiranaiyo--I don't understand

Even the things that are good decay into this

Fuck entropy

When I was really young I used to have a blinking tic. I didn't remember until my sister told me recently--I'd never thought of it as a tic, as something I did involuntarily, and I still don't quite. There were just always these...sets of things that I had to finish. There were others. In hindsight, it was pretty weird. I wonder if I was trying to swallow a clock. Just...doin' it wrong.

No crime has been committed And so Unforgivable unforgivable unforgivable and yet-

we shall yet call Kafka's servant a servant in the absence of his service; but should the master of the house appear and still-

unforgivable; he traitorizes his title and bastardizes his place in that house; his words become unbelievable and so he becomes unbelievable. He is not believed in.

I do not want to go back--I just..want to stop going in this direction, maybe. One-winged derp.

I am sick of kitsch I am sick of cruelty Stupid petty cruelty

If you're gonna do it, do it where it's deserved Where it'll mean right

Of repeated sounds and things that do not replicate with purpose

(EVEN THE REPLICATORS HAD A PURPOSE RAAAAAAAHHHH I miss me some stargate)

Sometimes I think my heart has grown two extra chambers

These, exclusively reserved for boiling

Connected to the main four by stiff ventricles

Sometimes I want to sigh like a steam engine

Sometimes I want to hiss from every cracked valve and vein

FUCK THE FUCK OFF

Virtual memory low--increase RAM

It don't remember most things

It don't remember headaches

It don't remember six-point pains splattering across its chest

Ain't got no ram just a buncha chew-necked sheep, Babe

Don't want nothin' if it won't be mine

Take what I get so don't go and give

Done

Out

Done.

Pinspine

But there is still the matter of a pin that wants pulling

A grainy knob that wants twisting

The opening and closing of the face
S n a p s n a p s n a p
Is not enough

This is the problem inherent in all relationships between proper time devices and compulsive owners.

His small, orange foot on the curved step of her belly

Silent, O Moyle

BibimMaum

"It's surveillance," he said

Gap toothed grin

Wide as a broken bridge

My mum surprised me with a visit

She brought whole wheat raisin date bread she'd made, a small tower of oatmeal, two gorgeous bell peppers from Winco, one red one green, and concord grapes.

I ate the grapes and drove. I miss driving. I take corners really hard.

We went for groceries. I told her I was going to get eggnog. She looked at me like I was crazy but said alright. I didn't get the eggnog. There was a little kid crying on the tarmac. We lol'd.

On the drive back, I started eating the skins of the grapes.

In the parking lot, she gave me the oatmeal, the peppers, the grapes, the groceries, and some winter clothes saran-wrapped together. Hugged me twice. Told me she was proud. She doesn't tell me how long we'll be able to keep the house. I didn't take my coat off. I didn't take the little jar of kimchi she offered.

Strange thing--despite it being filled to the brim with moving numbers, keeping it there, against me, there, I am not tempted to count. I stare at the numbers and they are like another language.

I am learning to move without counting, just as I had to learn how to draw people without first drawing sticks and knobs and structure. When first I drew torsos, I drew blind shapes--a concave, or else a convex, or else a straight drop through the legs to the feet (I had no conception of the complexity of legs and thighs). Later, I would structure the flesh around a cursory knowledge of bones--here is the ribcage, here are the hips, here are the shoulders--and mark them out, as if to go "look--this skin follows bones, and bones are real." But the arms looked so stiff and angular. I still draw angularly--there is a pleasure in it. But I only occasionally think of bones now--more often, I think of the flesh that pinches behind the legs and where muscles bunch when the hips are twisted away from the ribs or crunched up to the torso. I do not draw these things before I draw the skin layer--I just try and think about them as I draw the skin.

This is what I am learning to do with time and, more generally, numbers and shit.

I want to tell a story. Long. Chapters.

I want to draw. Bodies. Palimpsests.

Squash

Chased a bus today

Almost missed it

More exciting than it should have been

One clock

Three calenders

like a tripod but not at all like a tripod

Derp

My sister called yesterday

"Why do you sound so weird?"

Existenz Proj Notes

Here's the list of talking points/stuffs I have on my notepad from tonight:

-concept of "grotesqueness"

-color--blue/red

-softness/femininity/Allegra/"the demoness"

-mediation-the waiter- "hallucinatory imagination" Flusser 65

-Free will/lack of within the game

-Port lick scene "I wouldn't do that, not here"

Sections

1. Introduction

2. Discussion of scenes in particular

3. accents

4. "Perky Pats"

5. WoW

sex + machines (analyze pods deeper, why they're fleshy, what that means, how does it compare w/our consoles)

sex vs machines

existenz and supermale

Flusser p 48 + p 123

The rest is just a bunch of quick stuff I jotted down the first time we watched the movie, mostly quotes. This just where I keepz them.

"It's not just a game."

The console is grooooss. fleshy. But it's strange flesh--awkward sexual flesh, birth flesh, light colored and slightly transparent; it's simulacraunreal flesh. It isn't disturbing because it's real; it's disturbing because it's at that uncanny cut off point, where it's still just not quite real enough. Which makes it CREEPY AS SHIT.

You start playing by pushing, prodding, agitating the console in your lap.

oh shit the threat of old technology; very cronenburg, weird lookin' gun.

"Death to Allegra Gellar."

"Hey how did you know my name?" Her: "You're labeled."

That's how they can find us; anybody.

TOOTH GUN. Human tooth. All flesh and bone, to get past any sort of metal detector. The organic trump card. What does it mean to turn the body into..that sort of weapon?

"Where were you just now?"

"Wandering through existenze," she says with a lazy smile as she strokes the console.

What she says afterward is important but I miss it.

Lots of...blue. Blue school bus, blue night through the window.

He's never played...any game. Dying to play, but a phobia of being penetrated (surgically).

"Too freaky."

Stares at a blue...rollarblades? Hm?

"Once you're ported, there's no end to the games you can play."

"slave pods." the ones attached to Allegra.

"I have to play existenz with somebody friendly. Are you friendly, or are you not?" To prevent corruption.

"This is a cage of your own making....break out now."

BLUE BLUE BLUE MOTHERFUCKIN BLUE. But the tools for the operation are in a red tool box.

She is almost childlike--almost like Juiliana.

The mechanic's life is changed by Allegra--by her games.

Why don't bioports get infected? Allegra sticks out her tongue--it's as natural as a mouth.

You neural surged and blew my pod. PREMATURE EJACULATION HUR HUR HUR.

"In this pod is the only, the original version of existenz. And I'm locked inside my own game. I can't get me in or it out."

Gas--blue blue blue sick eyed blue

"That's two people in one day that have actually wanted to kill you."
"I've never been more popular."

"Come on Pike, nobody actually skis anymore."

So what is the significance of using the boot? Kind of like cutting out the center of a book and using it like a box? Marked obsolescence.

"Ports into you--you're the power source."

"It's not infected. It's just excited."

But by the next time he ports in, it's dark out again. Blue.

In existenz, her hair is entirely krimped; out, it's only partially.

"You have to play the game to find yout why you play the game. You'll see how natural it feels." AS OPPOSED TO HARDWARE WURR EVERRTHIN RAPES YUH.

In the room with the dude, everything is vaguely blue again, but outside it is FOCKIN RED.

"I didn't mean to say that."
"It's your character...don't fight it. THere are things that must be said to advance the plot."

The ski shop is green, some blue, but largely neutral green.

They have bioports in the game as well--two levels of wtf?

Also this is all insanely relevant to .hack//infection.

"That wasn't me--it was my game character. I wouldn't have done that--not here, anyway." So how much of the character are we?

Sexy sex scene is sexy. But all done to advance the plot? So awkward.

"I'm very worried about my body. "Where are our bodies? Are they alright? What if they're hungry what if there's danger?...I feel really vulnerable. Disembodied." She's the dominant one in this relationship and blue is the dominant color this is the antithesis to Hardware what does it mean to be dominated by blue

what does it mean to wake up holdin' a frog in a factory?

"You might be new but you seem to know what you're doing." Repeated moment. Nature nature. "I've been trained by the very best."

This is it--this is how you train the metal; this is how we learn the shape; nature nature math in nature, math in art.

Why the anal sex tilt instead of vaginal? That's an interesting shift, Cronenburg.

"Everything here's so dirty, grotesque. absurd." In the frog factory.

Greeen in the chinese food place, another strange place of half neutrality.

"I MEAN ALL GAMES CAN BE PAUSED, RIGHT?"

"I'm feeling a little disconnected...losing touch, losing texture, having a bit of psychosis."

Allegra ays "yes, this is excellent..yur meldin' with the game proper, or somethin.'

wakin' on a red bed.

"There;s nothing happening here. You're safe. It's boring." Isn't that ironic? Thought we were safe in games. But games are getting more dangerous--the realer it gets, the more dangerous it gets.

The special is grooooss. "New and previously unimagined taste sensations." from mutated amphibians. Grotesque grotesque like the movie itself--is all cronenburg saying... "at least try it?"--Bill

THERE'S A GUN IN YO FOOD WTF. ohshit HOW YOU GET A GUN OUTTA DUH GAME.

So..so wtf is happening to time here?

And then he loaded the gun with teeth he never had.

"Death to the demoness Allegra geller."

"But you know, I do need to kill someone. I need to kill our waiter." That's right, kill who serves you. Not the thing you're plugged into. Not you.

"Free will is not really a big deal in this game."

He shoots--and the gun bleeeeeeds. Is it still his flesh? smoking gun=bleeding gun.

And the dog takes the bone gun and off he goes, clever beast.

A waiter has many opportunities for betrayal.

The server, the creator, the maker--those who make photoshop, run youtube, vs those who use it.

"I don't like it here." Just stumbling around, no rules, always on the verge of being killed. Well...yeah, that's kinda life too.

And then they found a diseased pod.

Points of Pointness

multiple levels of games, of plugging in--

"I'm going to cut you free." At the umbelical cord.

"DEATH TO REALISM." But shit, you can't kill it--yuh just spread the bugs.

And in the end, him too-- "DEATH TO THE DEMONESS."

Ohshit. What did you bring back home? Your pod is diseased. Yur gonna lose your game, betch. What does this mean?

"A very weird bleed through reality effect goin on here."

"I think it's ok to let this one, this pod go, it's not real." So...but...wut?

"You can see everything from up here." "What is it that we're seeing?"

"No---I murdered your pod, your game is happy and healthy."

"You copied existenz?"

"He's only a game character," she laughed as she killed him. "What if we're not in teh game anymore?" He was in the way of the plot. Just...the literal plot.

"Why would I understand what I'd have to kill?" What does...nonunderstanding mean? What does it signify then?

"You guys were great--like, game divas." Celebrity is like a game, hm?

"Death to the demon Tedd pikon" she laughes, throws her hands up wild. blue on her hands head. "have I won?" blue blue blue. OH SHITS. IT RLY WAS ALL JUST A GAME.

It tried to tell them by introducing the theme of disease in the game...foreshadowing little thing..

"It's a butt plug." --Sarah

WHAT DOES IT IT MEAN that she was just a tester? Not a master? The demoness unhinged? What does it mean that we don't find out much about them even at the end?

"I was very disturbed by the game we just played; it had a strong anti-game theme." Huh.

"I mean I actually feel like there's an element of psychosis involved"--in the restaurant, why he wants to pause the game.

Flusser 65
"They may come to constitute an imaginary world that no longer mediates between man and the world, but, on the contrary, imprisons man."
"There is in images, as in all mediations, a curious inherent dialectic. The purpose of images is to mean the world, but they may became opaque to the world and cover it, even substitute for it. "
"HALLUCINATORY IMAGINATION"

The Loss of Mediation

hiding the grotesque

The game stops with Allegra the demoness, yelling she won, she won--the demoness won.

"I found this in my soup and I'm very upset."

"We can finally agree you're the world's greatest game artist." THE CHURCH IS SO GODDAMN BLUE.

Allegra's hair is entirely straight.

"Tell me the truth--are we still in the game?" No shot fired, even. Just godfrakkin credits.

Yakseok

Naneun bonginya?

It's not a very good plan; kind of eclectically patched together from various sources small remorses if I offend in my theft. A condition from yours; a leaf from the screen; a dream I shared with a kid (goat) back when I used to draw some stuff and before I started seeing kids and lions and gods and monsters everywhere.

Mianhae; jongmal mian.

Last night I thought, "in eight hours, I will wake up and forget how badly I want to be normal right now."

The time past; the feeling not entirely. I woke up and thought a bit, which I assure you, is the worst thing you can do after something dark and smoking reaches for you in your sleep. Well, not really, I guess. Nothing's ever really that bad, ya know? Most things taste quite good, actually. Especially pine nuts.

Barthes says:

Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.

Keunyong...oosun mal? Odi? Malhae-ani, ani, malhajima; a mutt without language must first learn it, or learn to live illiterate. In 442, we learn that it is possible to live as an illiterate in a literate society; one must just live...differently. They live with varying degrees of success depending on the kind of society and the kind of literacy the society demands of them.

This concept perhaps becomes condensed when it is applied to dogs, where words and sounds and scratchings all run together; where literacies all darken and sharpen to a single claw point.

Thank you for talking very quietly to me under stars we couldn't see with the lights off.

It makes me believe I have...a pidgin to work with, at least.

And that makes me happy.

Maybe curious?

Mostly happy.

So maybe

I'll stop

There's this long back and forth thought, maybe dialogue, in my head, and it went on for quite some time, streamed over and around and under everything else and kept going, but then it ended, I'm not sure on whose side, or who even is speaking if that is relevant at all, but the point is it ended just like that when one of them said

"So maybe

I'll stop"

Notes

From 335. Thoughts and quotes and paraphrases and hopefully none of the kitsch I left in the margins.

"Sometimes I feel like I have no right to be where I am."

Little lost corn boy in boots

Green and hungry as monsters

She is-

Beautiful. It was the first thing I thought when I saw her, and the notion only increased as I saw more of her. I wasn't looking at the subtitles when they said what happened to her. But I think I want to be like her. Maybe. Maybe that's a bad thing to say before the watching the whole thing.

Robot blue, eyes bright as the lights go out, lookin' at you, kid, lookin' at you

"Did he talk about me?" She waits for an answer, fearless, in purple, swatches of schizo color on the walls behind her

"I'm always tired," she says outside the shop, her coat the color of the walls. "No, not always. Sometimes."

She runs her fingers along the blue fabric of the couch and talks about a girl she met in the hospital. "You must love something," the doctor said. But that wasn't it. That wasn't it at all.

"Did you come back after you heard of your wife's accident?"

"No, the doctor said I didn't n--why, did she complain about that?"

"No; no, not at all."

"I try to do right by my conscience." She smiles because she is dazzled by his heart. But does she have a conscience with which to match him or has she lost it in the sand? It is very difficult to not reach when one stretches

Why don't you ever see it the other way around?
There's an Asimov story about a broken robot.
He does beautiful things with light.

Wild red machines built to hear the stars

"I'm used to it," he yells down; no more fear

How boring, I feel

Too much light pollution, anyways

The belly full moon is enough for me, anyways

Perspective

"Ohei. 'Sup?"
Dayum, look at those legs.

I am beginning to find your words in my mouth

They taste like...marmalade

And maybe the thoughts behind them are the same, too

(God, what a thought)

This is not really something I want to understand. You are not really something I want to understand.

It is too bad, though, that I am not quick enough to keep up.

In other directions, maybe, but you got a moat o' molasses 'round your feet now baby.

One should be leery of rhyming creatures;

One should never take seriously a creature whose first interest is

A sound

A skip

A beat

They have likely learned to rhyme up their words by first rhyming and riddling up their hearts.

Ha

Don't believe in me.

But laugh with me, maybe. It's the only way to get flying dogs to ground, drag 'em through the mud a bit maybe, but hey, it don't hurt 'em much, and it's the only way to get any fun out of 'em.

But even after all that fun, don't you take nothin' that ain't fur seriously. Not feathers. Not nothin'.

The left eyeball plucked,

The right wept

Not for the new found knowledge of ten million futures and ten thousand wisdoms of the world

But for the one knowledge that it should never see binocularly again.

The world stretched out like a book before Odin then, one he could read with ease

But a very flat
fucking
book.

The right eye wept on the pages; maybe for sadness; maybe for spite.

I crouched down by six fat, purple starfish that got caught out in low tide. Poked em a few times. I couldn't stay until the water came back, but I stayed for awhile. I think it is against some rule to grab a starfish and huck it back into the water, and also, I think it would hurt their feet. So that is why I didn't do this thing. But I stayed for a little while like that.

I was born in a valley of kings

Mountains full of blood oranges and suns

But-

Well, I dunno. Whatever.

Hard to unwind a brain, harder to unwind a brain full o' burs.

But I dunno. Whatever.

This

under the premise of that

Can I get away with this?

That?

Where there is art I breathe

Where there is not, I do not

I think it is because-

Well, when you steel yourself for a punch in the gut, you hold your breath

But if you don't know when it's coming-

Shit gets boring when you can't breathe, is all.

Which is why I'm glad-
I'm fond-
Well, whatever.


Chest feels like a strange-breathing barnacle

I do not entirely believe what I am told; not because it is not true, but because how could anyone believe such a thing? It is the denuding of a rule (from your mouth, at least). It is like saying "book, you are a book" or "Odradek, you are a whatever-the-fuck." It is unnecessary; it is known, if only in the sense that each of these things would not exist as what they are (and what they are is significant here if nowhere else) if this fact, rule, whatever, was not in effect.

Malus
Malus wake up
Malus

A Certain Place in Hell

If enough sinnin' is done in the right direction, I suppose. This was described to me in much the same way as I tell it now. Except without the pronoun issues. Fuck pronouns.

It is a well furnished house with many rooms, perhaps endless rooms. Naturally, when one finds themself on the couch of one of the rooms, they will stand and begin to explore the others. There are things to look at, things to touch, though nothing of particular or lasting interest. But every now and then, at least three or four times per room, the individual will catch upon the edge of a smell. They will lean closer to what they think is the source and breathe deep, filling their lungs like a ship taking on water. Every smell is of something known or familiar; perhaps from each sin that brought them there; or perhaps each individual's house, world, hell, is layered over every other, and the smells are the ghosting presence, trails, of their unfortunate comrades. Either way, all that matters is that the source, the thing itself, is not to be found in any of the numerous (or infinite) rooms of the house and, worse yet, each eager breath eats away the smell until it too is gone, the empty room is yet emptier somehow, and the individual, dragging a hand over the counter top in a strange daze, passes like a ghost or a smell into the next room.

Derp De Drupe

I want a heart of fruit stones

White peach torso

Speckled pluot hips

Plum shoulders swinging cherry string'd limbs

Stones stones stones

Free at the elbows, ankles, wrist

Cling at the knees, neck, chest

Little saturn donut peach to cover my eyes

And a few not stone fruit things;

Gotgam between a horangi's lips

Blackberry bloodied palm and half digits

Behind my eyes

A cracked open cranberry and

Absolute zero

Endless multiplications of imaginary numbers by

Absolute zero

Or

At least

Apparently

So I'm told

Apparently

herp de derp derp derp ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

I want to learn

(speed)

I want to teach

(patience)

And if done right, those two things'll meet at the edge of the world

And that-

Is that something I have a name for yet?

Is it really what I think it will be?

Hm.

The Girl

So there was this girl once who lived in a city. Small city; old town, really. Tempo Demento, on the side of a hill, every house and apartment wedged into the earth like a tetris piece with bright, peeling paint.

Behind the town, dilapidated but sweet, there are several temples; some with fresh offerings on their steps, some covered in moss, prayed to by only the animals.

This girl comes from a family of many; a family of loud, of love, of laughter, and fighting. A few have left the family; some have joined since. Sometimes, she is the youngest, everyone's kid sister, walking barefoot with milk creased between her lips. Other times, when some have died or drifted, she feels herself stretch into the eldest, her skirt pulling up to her thighs and her arms moving in deft designs. This is the way her family functions, or at least, she feels it is.

One night, she is out with them at the temples. There is a bonfire; it is beautiful, it is hot; it cooks warm foods for them that night and the smell of burned cornsilk and scorched fruits draws dizzy moths to death. Amidst the trading of bowls and stories, a piece of bread is dropped. It crumbles a small path along the hard earth out of the light and into the bushes and when she pushes through the foliage, she sees there is nothing larger than a crumb to salvage. She looks up, because that is what crouching, investigating things do before they turn around.

In front of her is a stone head; it does not look back, it's eyes are closed, but still, she feels watched. Six arms wind down the figure and into the earth, pulled down by the ivy climbing up; the seventh arm is broken beneath the shoulder. The monolith is quiet; her ears prick at the sound of breathing. It is her own; how strange she should not have heard it before, she thinks.

The way her chest feels, boneskinbridge, alarms her, then and now, though in different ways, each.

The ways her legs feel beneath her kid sister frock and woman's skirt feel strange, then and now, though in different ways, surely; she runs her fingers along the sides of her thighs and calves to try to find the meaning.

Every day for some odd time, she visits this peculiar place, away from her family and their love and their fire. When she returns to the house at night, she fills her belly with cold water from the well and the leftovers from the bonfire. In the morning, she cooks, and the pots and pans listen, and she shakes them all morning over the fire, filled with eggs, breads, birds, soups.

"Why does she move like that, Adda?" One of her siblings asks one day, peering around the cabinets at her swaying skirts.

"She is ill, perhaps," an elder says, staring at the marks on her neck.

"It is beautiful, I think," the child croons, watching her dark skirts sway and smelling the meat cook.

"It is not beautiful to be ill," the elder replies severely.

Good food is made that day.

A chicken, to be prepared for meal, is slaughtered; its brother is let loose in the forest.

The elders shake their heads in disappointment, perhaps. She doesn't know, or give a shit, probably.

Feathers are stuck in the earth for the fun of it.

One day the forest catches fire.

she is in it at the time.

There's a pond for her to hide in until it is over.

"You alright?" She spits up bubbles and surfaces.

And that's all, really.

The monolith remains; the scorched parts rub dark on her skin. Irritated patches of red wind up her arms.

She does not go back there for awhile, maybe

But eventually, she does

Weird creature

Another day

she is leaning against it, thinking of things. Small and boring, probably; but perhaps large and profound. A bit of the damaged rock falls and hits her. It stings. It teaches her something about rock formation, probably. But also gravity; also her own free fall speed; also conservation of momentum.

"What's your plan?" The golem asks.

"I don't plan," she mumbles, rubbing the sore spot on her neck. She tries not to, at least.

Another day, she is leaning, again, because she is tired. Or maybe she is trying to push it over, see if she can.

"I am pretty much invincible."

Something, anyways; she doesn't know anymore. She never knew many things, only what her hands and heart knew to do on their own, sometimes.

She says many things. Perhaps to it; perhaps just..just to the air around it. She wonders if it will breathe her breath and talk back sometime. But it does not answer her questions.

One day she places something small and warm along the shoulder of the monolith. Perhaps it is a chick; she still saves some from slaughter. She cups her hands around it as it walks precarious paths.

"Are you afraid it'll drop and break?"

"No. It won't break. But the sound it makes when it hits the ground is just so...ugly. It's the sound my head makes when it hits the pillow. And so it makes me tired, too."

Some days she goes; some days she stays at home and rubs her arms. Some days she is not aware of them, because someone in the family wraps them up in their own. Those days are her favorite; but so are the ones in which she wipes ash along them again.

She is much altered by this thing she cannot alter; strange, one way road, it is.

She says many irrelevant things and thinks even more of them.

Or something.

So there was this girl who almost did.

No--she did. She does. She's doing--awful, too-late-tensed things. Irrelevant things. Idealistic things? No, that's bullshit is what that is. But it might be true, too.

And then there was a fire, and a lot of water, and gravity.

But I hear this girl is still around, doin' stuff, I dunno, trying to stay focused but trying to lose focus of a bad habit, somethin' that don't need her as much as she seem to need it.

Koleid

Spinning colors

Heads dropped back

"That's an order," gravity says

Quiet corn is warm

Warmth is

I find myself falling asleep before I can properly describe this

Perhaps that is as best a description I can provide for now

Colors spun to the sound of the sun

A spottish sound in the sun

Substitution

Blood for oil

The food is altered

The dish is changed

Is it even edible now?

Palette altered or tongue burned?

I fall asleep before I can-

I am not afraid of the dark

I am not afraid of most people

I am not afraid of bugs

I am not afraid of awkwardness

I am not afraid of germs or colds

I am not afraid of gross things

I am not afraid of being yelled at

I am not afraid of seeing what I can survive

Because I will survive, godfuckingdamnit

I am afraid of falling asleep while I walk; literally and figuratively

The tides of Saturn are pulled by two orbits, most often

One leaves the starfish curling on the beach

The other gives them time to get to deeper waters; the sands do not want during these times

This is the difference between the low tides on Saturn

I don't know about high tides

Maybe there aren't any

Maybe the ocean is just pulling itself up into the sky

like somethin's drinkin it dry

Ha

And I should explain, maybe:

In this universe, Saturn is a moon, one of three, its brothers being Som and Fuzz. The planet they orbit is unseen and unknown; they themselves are often obscured behind whatever it is that obscures their planet for a good portion of their orbits. Atmospheric something or other. They are pulled by the planet; they pull each other. But Saturn has been showing its face more than its brothers; the planet is pushing it more than the others, perhaps. It has even seemed to leave its orbit, maybe, taking over quadrants I did not have numbers for. Star eater, maybe.

This...this isn't a very good explanation, maybe.

"If you hold it to the light and shift it just right, you can get a single, small point of color right in the center--the best color to surround this one is usually yellow, the color of custards and cremes--and if you pinch your soul and push it through this point like a needle, if you can, you'll have it: you'll have the universe."

But it's good to just watch the stars, ya know?
And watch the watching of the stars

Don't have to rain every night, ya know?

I think I got some business with Everyday Music tomorrow.

There is a head in my head it's a head

I try to remember this

Because when I forget, I see things everywhere

Things that are really just this head

That's in my head

Back to back, shoulder blades matching up

It's a beautiful idea, isn't it?

I think

I could almost draw it

But that desire eats itself

And that gesture, the eating, is more beautiful than the eaten

And left behind is the space where something might be, or might've been, done or drawn.

Sometimes it blows my fucking mind

How expensive pine nuts are

How the mind pines and

blows to pieces

over things with hooded eyes

The bread didn't rise

It wasn't warm enough

It is a poor, flat, dense thing now

But it pleases me to pieces in this form

I do not know why

I forgive it for not rising

I gave it only an hour or so, a few snatches of heat from the burner or warm water

When I have had weeks

And still

I am relearning how to regulate my temperature

Some very warm words spoken

I did not have the heart to repel them

Nor the strength to take them in

And so they linger at the level of my eyes, nose, lips

I deal in declivities; this warmth is strange, like an ephemeral something, or a thick nothing

I do not understand it

But I do not much mind it

There is much a dog does not yet understand

But there is also time in which to investi-

Why is this what I come back to?

Samsara

Samsa

S

Unfinished business with that man and his stories

There are some books I will finish without ever knowing

So slowly will I read them

So fondly will I forget them

Sometimes I-

I read again because it feels too good to deny (that feeling is the lie)

Other times

I read again to drown a little

Force some facts

Set things straight

Hope is easier to move in pieces, ya know?

If I was born here

I wonder if somewhere else, close or far,

There's a kid that was born in a spring

On a mountain surrounded by moons

I wonder if we'd make sense to each other

Or not

I wonder if it's alright to live like this

Or not

Fever creamed in coldwetwind

This is the heart of the weather brin

Wheat and corn

Fine and ground

These are the amusing comparisons of a tired mind

Semolina spice

Oranges

Never rye, but a little shy

Sourdough

And maybe

the backs of bees

pressed through

brown sugar colored cotton with

sandy palms, callous crowned

I do strange things to people in my head.
I hope it is pretty because I think they are pretty.
Tired thoughts are tired.