salvation over coffee

a breath in a break from myself and other places too much time is spent. I spy young Christians scrawling scripture on the avenue in chalk through early afternoon sun. free drinks enticing passers by to stop. many indulge in exchange for a taste of momentary evangelisation. salvation sounds good over coffee. south lawn is plagued with pagans in dire need of liberation from their phones. ‘he actually lived a pretty normal life’. we’re all willed to life without a say and every story ends the same. how many of us get the chance to live again? 

forgetting how to talk

at the cinema we forget how to talk to each other. I try to remind myself that we are relative strangers, despite the sounds and colours underscoring this brief intersection of orbits. the movie doesn't really matter, though we'd both hoped for a little more from the vouching of our friends. you eat the biscuits I've baked from your favourites. I relish your proximity. it feels wasted somewhere I can't see or hold you. I wish we were alone.

credits roll offscreen with our plans. things feel strange and you need to get home. you board the next bus when it comes. I wander the gardens round the dome I've told you I want to climb. I wonder if you've had enough. you didn't take the biscuits with you. at least I got to hold your hand.

my subconscious takes me shopping

whilst I sleep my subconscious takes me shopping. at the supermarket I search for my breakfast cereal but the aisles all seem a little confused. no shelves carry any kind of order, though they're all overflowing from the ceiling to the floor. some passages and aisles seem to fade in and out of render with my approach. each door is flagged by staff waving giant blue hands. they all wear vacant smiles with teeth. I don't quite understand this simulation. unable to find anything I need I can't help feeling like a misplaced child and far too scared to ask for help. arriving at the checkout empty-handed I want to leave although I came in for a reason. if only I remembered.

I wake to the sound of a new day a little too loud on the phone by the bed. the sun waits behind the blind in a line on the floor.

fear and dreaming

my brother calls me from his evening. I ride my Monday morning to the sound of his answers to my questions about the future. he is scared and uncertain and the first blossoms of Spring hang a little early under vacant street lamps. we talk about maybe living together again. everything is far from certain but I miss him and wish we could know some things for sure. I think about sharing solitude with him, how long it's been since last we shared a home in each other's heads. when we are together dread and disappointment matter less. when he hangs up they return like neglectful friends overcompensating for an absence they want me to forget.

I fear the rug being pulled with the curtain, being exposed for what I am and left in the dark with other toys you've had enough of. I fear the space between knowing I am worth what I hoped or felt I had been for a moment in your eyes. I fear this fear and his tentacles, a self obsession that dwarfs the heart that pulsed for something more. the world doesn't stop burning for my sulking into myself. that I think about being forgotten more than the rivers of blood on my phone is the greatest nightmare I have willed to life. I fear forgetting myself and what I taught him to stand for. I fear the day I choose my petty tears.

but there is fear and there are dreams. no matter where I am there are never more than hours between dread and falling into lifetimes I don't understand. each breath is one breath closer to letting go. tonight I dream and leave myself. tomorrow when I wake I only wait a little while to do the same again.

pigeons over Sydney Rd

you are water

anything but still

translucent and futile

and how I want to drown

you are the flock of pigeons dancing over tram wires under overcast Fridays

effervescent

forging scenes I’d only dream in echoes of the silver screen

I am a child in the pram

who hears the roar but cannot see the traffic

facing the sky

watching you shift shapes like clouds

cheering in my head

without the words to tell you how it makes me feel

laughing til it rains and you are gone

you’re making jokes for strangers out of oceans and the gospels

I know about the Bible

tell me more about the fish that live forever.

spinning top

I feel tense for no real reason. it's nothing to do with anything that has happened. I think it comes from the anticipation of what might be waiting down the hall. when I think about and feel the dread in my fingers up my arms into my chest as I type I want to laugh into the mirror. to take my fear so gravely is the ego manifest. I'd call myself silly but I do that a lot and you've started to ask me to stop. and I want to do as you say, to keep you around. all I can think about wanting right now comes from you. approval? maybe. you're yet to give me cause enough to warrant all this second guessing. I hug a stuffed toy like I have most nights since I first learnt how to hold onto anything.

what scares me is the futility of joy, though it shouldn't. few of us face the day dismissive of the fact that nothing lasts, that every feeling passes like the clouds and sales and changes into something else. if the sun never left when would we sleep? futility makes something special. flowers matter in their momentary beauty. I guess we are the same. there is just something scary about the lack of knowing when things change and what shapes these changes leave behind. though beating constant our hearts and minds change more like stocks than tides. you matter now and we have for a moment. and you are beautiful forever.

strange how we find new religions. I can't remember searching though I am never left without some kind of altar. where am I to put my love? big words. love is time is thought is dreams and other things I can't explain. love is something different every day. what is constant beyond change? what can anybody trust for longer than a piece of string?

when we are alone together there is no doubt. not, at least, in your arms or the dancing stardust of your laugh. I bury my head in the crook of your neck where I would live forever if I could. when we are alone together we don't need our words, though I love the things you say to me and the sound of my name on your tongue.

to feel things is a privilege and to know you is a gift. I don't know if the fear of your washing away can be helped. there's a bus stop near my house, a little too far to walk. sitting on the nature strip I wait for mum to pick me up. it's a hot December evening and I'm about to lose a friend. there's a song about a nightmare soon I'll wake from, like a phone call with a young psychologist I used to think I loved. he tells me we don't really know each other, he's not what I remember, and it's time for us to grow up. I know how I feel but bite my tongue. there's a scent that pierces like a dagger from a friend I loved before I knew what it was. it passes by as rarely as the 29th of February. we laughed and held each other once for the last time without knowing. I don't know why he left and doubt I ever will.

you don't know these things. you are new and clean like water running through and over me. it's not for you to worry, though I think you do. I feel fragile in anticipation. this is lovely but I know that nothing lasts. I am a spinning top on the table, dread and hope watching over for some date night pre-meal entertainment. you spin me and the world blurs and isn't it wonderful? 

missing census questions

did you have any dreams?

how often do you think about death?

how often do you think about the Bermuda Triangle?

what is your coffee order?

what are your doomsday plans?

who do you trust?

do you have a desert island disk?

do you want more than this?

what makes you laugh?

are you (currently) more afflicted by dread or hope?

what (do you think) needs to change?

what do you wish more people knew?

cowboys or aliens?

how is it going to end?

is there something else you wish we asked/want to say?

                thanks for your time.