blue

I saw your contours in the clouds

passing through to hide the stars

pale and blue and out of reach

a thought of you

in different shades

beyond possibility

no more than an echo

or an afterthought

I’ll take what I can get

waiting in the rain

clawing through what I recall

the sound of my name on your tongue

how it felt to hold someone

before I knew tomorrow

or the weight of lacking after knowing

stories I can’t tell

hints of memories shared

treasure now diluted

a fortune spoiled by time and questions

past lost to tomorrow

buried in the gaps

between thoughts I can’t control

in the cabinets I can’t reach

and shouldn’t think about

sea-stained volumes

useless and unbound beyond repair

memories or dreams

on the breeze

swallowed in flames

reflecting the sky you won’t see

blue as goodbye

look up

a sky without clouds

your words in my ink

on the letter you wrote

the walls of my room every day since you left

the bed in my head built from stone and regret

a door left unlocked

hinged on unfounded hope

come home to me when you can (if you want). 

how to burden

I sleep through my alarm and wake a little later than I'd like. the day feels wasted although there's still a lot of it left. I tell myself I'll write and hate myself for trying. at this point I specialise in making excuses to not bother trying. when I make time to stop and sit with what needs fixing I'm no closer to knowing what to do than I am happy with the way things are. I fill empty time to hide from my reflection: running, reading, taking out the bins. any chance to turn from what it is I should be doing. I go to the movies alone and listen to the people laugh. the Russian boy makes a mess with lots of money. running from his problems only causing more for others. we both know how to burden but he has a private jet.

my friend talks about setting goals to work towards. we eat Chinese where they do $5 drinks all night. he wants to get better at French and plans to sit a test in November. I'm glad he has something he wants.

before bed I pray for more dreams. it's all a lot of thinking about myself, without ever going anywhere good. I still read the news (still just as sickening) but seem to think about it less. rich people lying and more people dying. collective anger wanes, and I am just the same as every face and smoothie bowl on my phone. is my heart shrinking? apathy spreads, no longer locked away in the cell just for me myself and I. I care a lot less than I have and I should. what a shame.

I try to write until the tea is cold and I've lost an hour to disappointment. no words I find reflect the way I want to speak about these things. easier to listen than to live and tell.

sugar

working for tomorrow: the snake that coils to eat itself. blue. the boulder to roll up the hill to the shops (when they have what you need). sore hands and empty spaces between thoughts I can’t control. I dress for the weather and drink enough water. sugar to dilute the poison in my brain. step between cracks in the pavement. you know what you’re doing. work to sleep and dream of something else.

limbs too long

I pay someone $180 to ask how I plan to take responsibility for the life I’ve been neglecting. my responses are unconvincing but she listens and I believe her sympathy (it costs more than enough).

a friend I love tells me I owe myself more. I wonder what more I have to give. already so much time spent dissecting myself - I would have hoped to have reached a point at least a little closer to satisfaction by now. I want to get over the reflection in my mind and the mirror. I want to exorcise the parasite. I want to care again. my boulder is nothing in the face of so much I see on my phone. the world can be much worse. the spiral winds with or without me.

I wake from one dream into another. asleep in a cinema to lie by the side of the road, waiting to watch the neighbour’s car flip over. the playwright asks me to infiltrate a cult for his birthday (who am I to let him down?) we break into the old church at night, pulling apart the bricks to find my grandfather’s tombstone. a night guard comes to say hello. wake to sweat through sheets round limbs too long and empty time to spoil with thought. 

between alarms

I don’t think I know

cannot find the ends I connect to

please keep me in dream spasm forever

limbs too long for skin and sheets

plug the life in

wake for more thoughts

are we dystopian yet?

another night online

the rain comes while I hang my washing on the line. I run my housemate's bedsheets to her room and take mine to the laundromat up the road. the dryer spins for half an hour. I input phrases from one cell into another and make faces at the posters on the board across the road. concerts and albums and perfumes you should smell. more rain. heavier than before. the curb is a river. umbrellas and grey clouds over every window. midday looks like dusk.

spineless thinking spoils another day. restless fingers claw at curtains wilting into ambiguity. I chase the tail of vague ambition nowhere. open tabs to close them. check the forecast for tomorrow: 28 and overcast with a high chance of rain and disappointment. hope for change and settle for another night online.

patterns

the body wakes to work

and works to sleep and wake again

pressing buttons through the day for pay

and saving up for hell

loyalty is sworn

to the creed of my routine

hopes are dropped for cheques and balances

off the streets and on the screen

pressing the right buttons

I can build a home in spreadsheets

far from any fear of thinking

of the people I could be

sucking the thumbs of the machine

that pats my back

doing nothing for the world I used to want

forgetting care

or hope for change

protected from compassion for the people on my phone

numb to worry and the war

and every fight that isn’t mine

from the subway to the West Bank

wash my hands and lock the door

fill the fridge with shit to eat

I eat the shit so I can breathe

smell the traces of potential on the time I still have left

count the days until the weekend

like the weekend is enough

to warrant more

another week

of empty tasks and other stuff

I sit on the bed with regret

we toast to ourselves

and to more life tomorrow

a cocktail of neglected dreams

and tablets I can’t swallow

crushed to powder by routine

a plague that cradles me to sleep

I spill the glass of what I wanted

through the boards of what I have

use my claws

and try to snort

the grains of glitter on the floor

diluted by the sweat of tasks performed for the machine

still they glisten

between pages and buttons and under my nails

dimming but still bright enough

to pull me to my knees

and back to work

to sleep and wake again

in baseless hope of change

that tomorrow could be different

if I try a little harder

only work a little more

I could creep out of the shadow

of the hopes I cannot reach

and the dreams I cannot swallow

so I wake to work again

wash myself and board the train

work to work for more tomorrow

leave my thinking at the door

I shed my skin

and I’m the same

I will do as I am asked

there is nothing to explain

press the buttons

say the words and send regards

wait for orders

circle back

smile at authorised decisions

work to make yourself a winner

not the junky with an itch

for spoiling every chance he’s given. 

nonsense

regret stalks the early morning train to work: a grizzly looking man stumbles through the carriage yelling nonsense in a language only he knows, lugging a plastic bag of plastic bottles. he shouts demands for answers at nobody in particular. every zombie holds their breath and phones to their stoney faces. nobody moves. his anger is unpleasant, too loud and scary for this early hour. I hope he alights at the next station. he does.

fill the fridge

there are buttons at my fingertips and insects crawling up the walls. close your eyes: without trying you'll find sound in every moment. what do you hear? I'd have an answer for you if the dog would stop barking. when it does I'll listen to my breathing til it's louder than the thoughts I count for nothing. they sulk; parasites on the margins of my vision, hanging over every day like moths rotting against lightbulbs for attention. I charge the day with tasks that take me nowhere but the shops to fill the fridge. on the phone we talk about where it is I need to be because investing matters. there are emails and catalogues of ways to play the game and find the key. I know where to go and still I cower in the corner. potential taunts me like the dreams I'll never wake to see. dust collects and spiders spin homes in the crook of my neck. I am good for them, if not myself. but there are buttons and a key under the mat. tomorrow was never a choice. wake up. get moving. there's more you have to hear.

due for more tomorrow

rain came. I was on the way into the city to pick up a friend. it was getting late and the streets were packed because it was a Saturday night and people have things to celebrate. the rain is different here, or at least not like what I grew up with. at home the rain comes gently and often enough that we are familiar and know what to expect. the showers never last long, though if they do they're almost always soft and sleepy. here, the rain is charged with anger, as though the clouds have given in to screaming about something they've tried to avoid for too long. rivers quickly form and rush down gutters by the curb. pedestrians lose sight of wherever they were going and the traffic on the road. the lingering heat of a cloudless day is diluted in a matter of seconds. thunder trumps even the sound of planes on their descent. usually, the storm continues for a while, sometimes on and off for days. the forecast says we're due for more tomorrow through to Friday. by time it leaves I'll welcome the sun not long ago I prayed to disappear. in a matter of days I'll beg for rain once more. satisfaction is a friend that never stays for long. momentary peace for now. temporary everythings forever and a half.

the gap

I can't commit to more than a few words. thoughts are empty at the moment. listening and watching a lot easier than being. I'd like to write and understand the gap between in which I sit. I know it doesn't last and I'll find a voice again. maybe learn to draw and want to be. I've managed before. everything is only for now. the sale ended and I left the store with something else. the bombs that stop will start again. I can't sleep until I can. the lamp is on until it isn't. I go to bed to hide in my phone from who I could have been. look at everyone else. listen to the fan. think about the pixels. forget and pray for rain.

8pm in the park

reading naked lunch on the grass in the breeze at dusk:

‘did you hear what he said? that man is a menace! everything he touches goes to…’

‘well, you know. remember like the character’s proposal to kill…’

‘so I just found that out…’

‘there’s you, and then there’s also gluten free, who’s like…’

‘but he was pissed off….’

‘she’s like “let me see what I can do”….’

‘if it’s not a yes, it’s a no…’

‘and I would…’

‘it depends what you’re having…’

‘yeah, underneath the table, or…’

‘someone was competitive…’

‘but that’s probably a gimmick, right?’

‘they all love you…’

‘where do you want to sit? next to them?’

‘are they more important to look at? absolutely…’

‘oh, a little bit of money, yeah…’

I find my feet to the path. *death to the colony* on the cemetery wall.

only dishes and news

the boulder is heavy with groceries and dreams I once believed in. my will is weaker than the arms that roll the stone.

I should be trying harder than I am. there are steps I need to take to find my way back to where I should be going. I am offered help and signs by those I worry. I am told I can change and that changing takes time. we have been here before.

waiting waters what rain cannot reach. resentment fills the buckets spared for gifts that never surface: no storm, no reply, no end of days. only dishes and news I choose to blame for my mood. I brush my teeth and wash my face and tell myself tomorrow is another day until it never comes.

not enough

I have been flailing for a while now. waiting in the same spot for far too long, knowing I need to change. stagnant like the heat that hangs heavy through the streets of the city I've fumbled. disappointment waits at the foot of the mattress. I sleep on the floor and dream of people and places I may never see again. in my head I count through the list of things I need to fix. the list is long and heavy on my shoulders. I want to light it with a match, or fold a paper plane to catch the wind and fly away. there's nowhere left for me to hide.

every problem leads back to this fickle assemblage of thoughts and organs at the keys. we've known this all along. and though he knows he needs to seize the reigns, he doesn't move. does he expect someone else to do the work? watch him limp in circles through the labyrinth he waters with his own self-pity. what will it take to get him moving? he protests quietly, a pathetic mumble about this time of year and the heat. he says he's trying as he continues to do nothing at all to get over himself. growth is a hopeful memory left at home.

the days keep coming. I open my phone to blame something else for how I feel: a tyrant, a war, an idea, a reply that never comes. sitting on the sidelines, my presence is passive. when I open my mouth there is less to say now. the voice I once claimed collects dust on the shelf by empty bottles of care. I shirk responsibility for the map I should be drawing. the lines make such little sense. the reflection is a nightmare they say I could change if I really tried. my parents love me and I love them too. there is food in the fridge and a chance of showers in the morning. is this not enough?