the shape of forever

the mirror starts to laugh and who can blame him? we’ve been here before and should know better. a home can’t be made from hope or a dream I can’t keep between sunrise and sleep. the lesson never changes. will the student ever learn? I am the snake in the shape of forever that coils to eat its tail. 

here comes the rain again

time fills emails and cups from the kettle on the stove. I fumble through tasks and the ads on my phone til I’m free to try to recall how to think. an open window does its best to let the light in. I chase the breeze out the door to the creek I’d like to show you. run past an old jail they’ve turned into a mall. you can buy groceries or shoes or even catch a film within the walls they built for locking people up. I wonder what the ghosts think. some places change more than others. I guess it’s just another kind of prison now.

they play a song in the warehouse I remember from a movie. karaoke classic from a time I never saw. our parents would have stayed out late to dance along another life ago. I twirl down the aisle to the chorus. think about my dreams and nothing of importance (for a moment). ignorance today; waking up tomorrow. 

sweeping the beach

there are patterns in the rings around the eyes in the mirror. I move cities and make a stranger of myself. we’ve done this before. play the child a while and look for wonder or a landmark. give me a couple years and I’ll get too familiar and run away again. close my eyes and try to listen for a pulse drowned in pink and white noise. sweeping the beach in the wind. there is so much sand and such little sense in the act I can’t drop. I dream of running for my life through tunnels beneath the pyramids and waiting in traffic for my brother to finish a drawing. we watch my flight leave the island from the car. there’s also one of the bikes we rode to the party somewhere. they’re not so common here.

I wake in a bed I built overnight to the choice to do and be more. the house is quiet and unfamiliar. my room still smells of cardboard boxes. I load the washing machine and hope it works this time.

patches of green in the shade

the map expands. I run on the path up the creek into a lake that belongs on a postcard. there’s a playground on the other side with a tower I’d like to climb. I imagine racing you to the top under a full moon. the afternoon sun is warm enough but gentle through the trees. I follow the stream by the path through nature strips and unfamiliar cul-de-sacs. pass benches and patches of green in the shade by the creek where I can see myself wasting time with you. photos can’t quite capture the vision. I wish I could show you.

they bomb another hospital and I watch HBO. the death tolls rise and I can check out when I like. I turn away to friends applauding my boundaries. wash my face and apathy into the bathroom sink. say ‘I’ll do more tomorrow’ and lie to the mirror again.

distant highway

there is movement every day. I find new furniture and put my pictures on the walls to build a home. the room is quiet and still and when I stop to think I hear the crickets through the window harmonising with the distant highway. from my pillow I steer my thoughts from who and what I miss with lists of tasks I need to tend to. my desk needs a chair and a lamp. I should find a plant to sit by the window. the light fitting needs changing. so much left for me to do without opening the box. I check the news to wake up and tune out when I like. there’s always something else to do.

thunder of fireworks at midnight celebrating who knows what. I think of someone somewhere watching wishing they could go to sleep. savour the sound of your voice on the phone and close my eyes to dream. maybe I’ll see you soon.

nails in the walls

I sleep on the floor of an unfamiliar room. the bed is soft and twice the size of any I have ever owned. disemboweled bags at the foot of the door. nails in the walls for pictures I should hang to make myself a home. this is where we sit for now. close your eyes and dream of empty space and time to fill.

beds and desks

in and out of making sense of steps I need to take to build a home. there’s a room with my name and no furniture yet. I tend to tasks and look for beds and desks to dream on. sounds of songs I used to know keep me fragile in the limbo between end and beginning. crying in the face of uncertainty I cling to for escape from this gradual decay; from dreams to dust to afterthoughts.

news rolls every morning; they broke the ceasefire and martyred half a thousand overnight. children and their parents seeking refuge in a school. I brush my teeth and go to bed to sleep through what comes next.

we use big words

the outro: longer and much more confusing than expected. I board the bus with twice as many bags I had come with, all much heavier and harder to contain than they should be. there are faces and names I’ve grown fond of and collect to decorate my memories and dreams. we make promises about keeping in touch. we use big words like love and forever and I don’t mind not knowing what they mean to each of the mouths they come from. I kiss the hands belonging to the hearts I want to cradle in my arms (forever).

cry into a teacup in the face of goodbye maybe meaning something now. is there space to grow without letting go when the bags are all so full? is there room for today on the freeway tomorrow? sliding doors smile open as I pass them at the lights. I look for answers in the leaves of a second pot of chai. 

for a moment

I buy a lightbulb from a store I’ve passed for years but never entered. the light in my ceiling stopped working half a year ago and I quickly adapted to the lamp on my desk in the corner by the window. I have to shift the table to the centre of the room for standing to be tall enough to swap the bulbs. clouds of dust roll gently cross the boards with the motion of the breeze and moving furniture. I test the switch and it’s sorted with a night to spare before becoming someone else’s problem. the room is their’s tomorrow and I’ll never haunt these walls again. the paint is charged with memories and dreams before my time: my joys and woes are little more than fading etchings in the story of an empty bedroom between tenants who will never know the space that was before. whatever mattered to me never happened to them. isn’t that a little wonderful?

smile on the street at a stranger who smiles back a costar I used to know. take the train to the train to the bus to the beach and the water’s still warm enough to swim. sun stretches cross the sky over your face and for a moment you’re the only thought I have. a secret lost and now remembered like a smile I want to keep. make me laugh again. I don’t know where you came from but I’m very glad you did.

class of 2006

the pulse of the clock punctures every empty moment. two sleeps more in a bed on the floor of a house I’ve haunted far too long. people ask me why I’m leaving and I’m meant to have an answer. I dwindle on the fence and fold the clothes I used to wear into the purple suitcase. fishing for space for stationary to find receipts for car rentals in Paris and photos of strangers posing for graduation (class of 2006). I was seven years old. I wanted to run faster than my cousin and grow up to be the pope. when did I stop dreaming? 

but look around the corner: there is always something more. water wishes as I sleep. wake to flowers in the stream. 

intersection

everything in the air. a little much all at once after too long hiding from the sun. I smile at the stranger waiting at the lights and the moment makes a monument. something about sliding doors and timing and for what? there’s a punchline I’m missing and it’s all a little late. but we can queue whatever songs we want and dance in the green and the pink through another night of breathing somewhere else.

tears make a pool of my bedroom floor stripping the walls of postcards never written back. tend to tasks to hide behind the thought of where I should be going. forget to check the news and wake from dreams of days I’ll never spend.

through the window

dreamless nights are empty rooms in different shades of blue. I glide through or they pass around me like the seasons I cannot control. with no choice there is no resistance on my end. they say the body recharges regardless. I wake to darkness in a room I’ll be giving up soon. dusk gives way to overcast greys and time to play another day.

change pulls at the rug til the furniture flips and I fall from disregard into pillows and uncertainty. rain fills the well gushing in through the window to wake me up again. close my eyes and dream til the bed starts to float. I escape from the storm of thoughts and empty time into phone calls and walks to the shops.

without words

listen to the rain wet my washing on the line. lose my faith in the headlines; find salvation at the checkout. the blood bank didn’t want me when I couldn’t pass their test. apologise for wasting time to spend more staring at the wall. making sense til we let our mouths open. dream of talking without words and an end to wanting more. maybe someday I’ll run out of thoughts to terrorise myself. I have everything I’ll ever need. is everything enough?