in my dream I drive myself to hospital. in the moment it makes sense and this is where I'm meant to be. the ladies at reception smile and say it's good to see me, checking in like a hotel for getting better. the nurses still know my name and though they're warm as I remember I can sense their shock at my return. they weren't expecting me and I quickly start to wonder if I'm meant to be there.
through the doors I see the ward has changed. the hall is darker now: high ceilings lowered, windows smaller than before. the noise that underscored our every meal is lesser too. what was once a battlefield of broken minds and argument reads more now as a library. a solemn cloud of silence washes over empty couches, chairs, tables and abandoned games of cards and chess. tortured ghosts and soldiers limp around the furniture, eyes fixed ahead in medicated daze. the space feels strange without the shouting, the speaker-phone calls, the worship music spilling from the rage room. all I hear is quiet muttering and the gentle scrape of sneakers on the vinyl.
a new nurse shows me to a room without a bed. she tells me I'm welcome but the psych doesn't have time to see me. I try but have no luck remembering why I've returned. no time passes and a bell rings, calling me to breakfast. passing through the dining hall the nurse leads me to a smaller, darker room, lit only by tall candles and light recycled from the passageway passing through the door. the table is longer than before, with more seats and more consumers.
I take my place between a friend from last time and a child who can't stop shaking at the site of toast. my friend places a hand on her shoulder as she starts to cry. I ask if she'd prefer corn flakes. she nods, looking up towards a nurse who shakes her head and says we're out of cereal. the stop clock watches from the head of the table. looking down at my plate I laugh at my meal. I've been served dinner for breakfast.
I carry the distance between us like an anchor on my shoulders. traversing streets we've crossed together I commit to being outside of my head with other people, making my way to the park. friends share food and drinks and cigarettes. some ask about my arms. some ask about you. there is laughter and tangible joy in different shades and sounds. a chance to forget myself for a while.
but even here I can't forget you. worry persists like a black hole in my stomach, leaving me far from fit for care and conversation. and so, on someone's pillows on the grass, I rest my head and close my eyes. the afternoon sun sulks as I pretend to sleep, cradling myself in broken wings. in the dark I listen to and distract myself with other people without being there at all. I let their conversations fight for my attention, two tides stretching me out of too familiar shores of my self doubt and loathing. they talk about their dreams and medication and my furrowed brows. somebody kisses my forehead goodbye.
when I choose to wake the sky has changed. I can see half of the moon under the clouds. the sun is being swallowed by the pretty terrace houses. a beautiful goodbye before the night. even while you let the space between extend I hope you get to see it too.
and with a breath
earth opens
the Titanic sinks in my stomach
I become a black hole
and nothing else
taking and taking
patterns in repeat into tomorrow
I will cry and dry my eyes again
and when I sleep I leave a body vacant for the night
I am a vessel for the things that happen and the ways they make me feel
they enjoy the shade of being hidden
and escape
I am left to take up space
exposed
unconcealed
with every layer lost
pulsating heart and other vital organs hanging on the walls
in glass cases and your afterthoughts
words are not enough
come see and believe
and so the old ghosts haunt the gallery to laugh and stare and take their photos
‘do you remember when…’
knowing the display
a joke awaiting punchlines like a sentence still withheld
what you wanted (blood on canvas)
assorted hopes and tricks that used to work
deconstructed for what?
echoes of affection
I remember
when what we said was what we meant
and you use words like strings to pull me with or without knowing
does it matter if you mean it if it works?
on the eve of her birthday the mystic holds a picnic by the creek. friends and followers lounge on blankets in a circle round the food. the air is warm for this time of year and afternoon, but gentle under overcast skies promising a storm. I arrive a little late for liking with guacamole and a mask. having spent the morning in my head it's good to try to be outside.
tomorrow's birthday girl dictates a ritual for her congregation, willing us to scribe our secrets onto paper: something to let go of, something to hold onto, something to bring to life. I sit on the trunk of a fallen tree and write what sense I can draw from the well:
hiding what and how I feel (for fear)
the ears / hearts that listen / ask me to believe that I am not too much
the belief that I have no reason to be scared.
being a fire sign, the mystic instructs me to burn my paper. I exchange my secrets with a stranger. we share a lighter, holding on until our words are only flames. the earth signs bury theirs in the ground.
the storm never comes. I wash dishes in the sink and tell myself that nothing's wrong. I wash my face and brush my teeth and listen to your favourite song.
if I am to be
and as I am (it seems)
how am I to help but want
between being and my dreams?
if you are for now
and as you are (with me)
why should we be scared to glow?
I miss your colours
they keep changing
what don’t you want to be?
following the sun I walk along the stream, taking what I can from what remains of the day. lost boys serenade me through golden hour through my phone. the waves are warm and gentle on my face. the melodies are melancholic and familiar in a way that forges momentary comfort.
the river leads me to a lake I used to run around. by the water fountain stands the playground I could swear keeps moving inches, the one we climbed to glow in on the night we didn't want to sleep. I watch the sun kiss the window of our tower on its way into tomorrow. the boys sing about writing the worst love song in the world like a spell or anti-curse. I think about the poetry and what I dim in fear of being too much.
you leave me guessing in the gaps. I care too much to not play along for now, though I wish we could see each other a little better like before. it doesn't have to be as heavy in my head. it isn't when you're here. ibis hang from trees like plastic bags over the creek. if I had their wings I swear I'd be doing other things.
I exhaust myself with the privilege to revel as a goldfish in my brain. what I know of the world beyond the windows and my fingertips will always be waiting. the fears and tears I jerk are almost always from my own imaginings. in spite of the headlines I live in the mirror. with my ears closed I only hear myself, deaf to the cries of a world deluged in rivers of blood, a world that once made me scream. I watch the bombs drop on my own time. they fall like rain and scorch the earth regardless.
hope and dread linger in the wings. at this point they have made themselves at home, colonising every other moment. too often I feel like their child. under their influence I think about caring and compromise. in the process of trying to open myself to you I begin to remember that currency is held in keeping caring quiet. this truth challenges the way we've been, how playful and open and willing to see each other as we are. when I think of you I don't want to play the game. when I am with you I don't want to hide.
but what do you want? is it foolish to hope you might want this more than keeping up appearances? is it better to play along the way we're taught? dread urges me to conceal my care, a wound you don't really want to see. but I miss you and mean everything that I've said. I am the statue of a mother holding her son limp in her lap, looking into his eyes. he is the hope and dreaming I know not to resurrect. can I really help wanting to try?
the street light flashes on at 6:13pm. from the bus stop I am watching traffic passing under skies tired from crying. a woman sings with one hand on her heart, the other steering off into the right lane. the rattle of the pedestrian button underscores the humming of engines and her rubber tires sliding on freshly watered asphalt. I relish the remains of the clouds, drifting over powerlines away from us into the gold.
petrichor paints the puddles a little softer. pigeons bask in the glow of the taco truck, pecking at their own reflections. I think about your necklace sitting in the shell by my bed. I open the locket to my own reflection. if only I could hold yours just as close in my hands. we choose costumes for birthdays in different states. I bet you look amazing. please take a photo for me.
and I am the boy on the train fixing his hair in the mirror. I stand safe and secure, warm in my coat of white noise, eyes open only when I want to see. I wear my mood on my ring finger, and I am married to the feelings I conceal on command. my alarm is the same every morning: sirens screeching ballads from the bedside of old ghosts I used to know. clawing my hands through the stream of my subconscious into ink through hair under water in the morning showers. I fuel the engine over headlines, a hopeless afterthought of an attempt to jumpstart that part of my heart. the orange man throws his words and bombs around. we watch when we want to between the boulder and the mirror.
I think about the child that didn’t know. he still worried before the sky first fell through the ceiling of the bus. how many times would he use the toilet before bed? remember when he’d calm the anger of the fates using the magic number on the light switch. the fear takes different shapes now, subsisting even still in big boy clothes. he’d like to know a little better, being older and a little longer now. between flashing green lights and another spring’s arrival nothing much has changed. any morning can still spring the first day of the end of the world.
you call to tell me you're waiting at the front door. I've been cooking and cleaning and trying not to think too much. on the porch you greet me with a haircut, the difference I can't quite appreciate as much as the hug in the dark. the candles in the kitchen fill the gaps. it's nice to see you smile again.
in my room we play your music and laugh into the way we were again. I release my relief into your embrace. the rhythm returns and maybe we both remember why we started to begin with. I didn't think I'd see you again. you say you didn't want to leave things vacant. I missed you and you missed me too. and so we are where we are, willing each other a little closer with questions and answers and the warmth that comes with holding onto something. our towels hang side by side on the rail above the blinds.
we both have train dreams, like the title of the movie that last made a stranger cry. on his way out of the house he told me I had to watch the film, that it felt like watching poetry. I dream of losing you on trains / in transit, finding you on the platform making the conductors laugh. they are sad to see you go when we board the right train to wherever we are going. track works shoot us all over the city. in the afternoon sun we're nearly caught coming undone through the windows. at the end of the line I spy post with our names through the door before waking up. you dream of the long journey home on a train that never seems to end.
in the morning you stretch on the floor, telling me about your dream and plans for your adventure. before greeting the day you sing me a song about sending your heart to the moon. you kneel with my guitar and I am frozen on my pillow. hope lines the day with the sound of your voice. I look at you in the dark / when we glow / on the floor with your song and my guitar. I think that when you leave I will write something beautiful about this.
winter's ending spawns another spring and we wake to face September again. blossoms start to bleed a little earlier here in anticipation. I pass them on the ride to school wishing they would slow down / be a little more patient. they are beautiful but fleeting and I want them to last. back home our weeping tree stirs to life for less than a week, blossoming a soft pink that rains onto the unkempt flowerbed at its feet. my parents know I think of it and send a photo every year. I wish that time would fertilise a little slower.
dining outside at the laksa house on Lygon. the breeze is soft and mild. waiting for my friend's return from the bathroom I listen to a stranger lecturing a captive first date audience on climate change. I learn that winter will soon be a thing of the past. collectively we can't keep up with the planet or our own destruction. 'we'll be okay ... but winter is gone.' in my bowl I carve my spoon through the dregs of the soup.
I wait for the right words. they'll come only in time to commiserate the end of days. in the meantime you are busy, working with your fish and doing other things. it's my turn but I don't know what to do. I waste time wondering what you might be thinking. though you're not waiting for the right words to find me too I don't want to be a stranger.
you coloured your hair for the first time in years. I remind myself at every pit that grows in my chest at the sight of your natural colour on a stranger. the orange is soft and gentle. you want it to be darker but you've also said you're not feeling keen on anything right now. I told you it looks beautiful. you probably squeezed my hand or shrugged me off into a smile.
rereading the pages I breathe into the fact that I meant everything I said. I told you this once. we had been glowing and lost in each other in your room. the light was soft and you were warm and all around me. we smiled into each other's eyes, willing the glow to keep us safe a little longer. I could have drowned there happily, your eyes opening windows and blinds, letting light into rooms I'd left locked forever. you are beautiful and in your eyes I don't need to wonder what you think. I thank you and tell you I've meant everything I said. you thank me and say the same in return. I believe you without reason to believe anything else.
thinking in ink I try to map what might be going on, not wanting to push you any closer to the sink to wash your hands and leave. I wonder how alone I am in second-guessing. you told me you wanted to check that nothing had changed. the essence of the question and the way it sounds in your mouth grates against the way we've been since the beginning. I think about the way we glow and laugh and sing, the way we've danced and held and grown to know each other. this has changed. we were strangers not too long ago. do you know too many of my colours now? I remember everything is fluid and we are little more than clay or chemical reactions I don't understand.
I've kept the mirror in my room since your last visit. we lay it up against the bed to dress and paint our faces for the aliens. I took a photo of you colouring yours. it hangs in a library of others I want you to see. evidence of memories that shouldn't exist in a world that moves so quick, too quick to care for kissing in the pantry or glowing through the playground in the dark. I contemplate leaving us where we are, preserving the gold in the vault. do I let you run like water? is it better to speak or keep you safe in memory? what do you want me to do?
under the shower head I let the water drown my face. I want to exorcise the way I feel, to thaw and disappear into the drain. but the shape I take won't change. there is no substitute for crying. I let the water hold me knowing it is futile as any other feeling. this warm embrace will end with just the turning of a tap. at least I hold the handle.
in the mirror I shave my face as though it matters. too many mornings without laughing. a little too much care and second guessing. I listen to a song that makes me feel a little less alone. I wanted to play it for you last night when we sat at the piano. the foyer was all but empty, everyone else patient enough to stand and smile through all the speeches in the gallery. we improvise something new, doing our best to play in harmony. you played as a child and I just don't want to get in the way. someone takes a photo. your hair looks redder from behind.
I didn't play you the song. I couldn't remember the chords, though I couldn't forget the feeling if I tried. for it to underscore your company doesn't feel quite right. in the car you change gears. I do my best to navigate and keep up with your appearances. the whiplash is a little jarring and in the moment I struggle. words dwarf and discredit. you use yours carefully and I should thank you, though I can't tell which was real: the way we were or this respectful distant language. is this display or have we just been playing dress-ups? a little much for you for now.
in bed I melt into the words and sounds of other songs that know me. I feel a fool for letting you do the same. it felt right in the moment. we saw each other and you didn't run. tonight the blanket isn't warm or big enough to cover the clown. you've read his poetry and heard his voice. tonight he wishes you hadn't. but a feeling is as futile as the water.
disconnected from the feeling
fear of being
living through my dreams
alone
meet me in the underpass
rain on the roof at night
tying up your shoes
smooth as silicon
I’d like to sleep forever
your afterglow
into tomorrow
please
the doctor asks me what I want to talk about. I ask if she can remember what was worrying me last time. she takes notes so she can and I can pick up what I want to. we had started to talk about my habits and where they came from. no luck finding any answers yet. today I want to ask for help. dread dooms the day; a lighter to a gas tank. empty time and space is only room for fire to fester. I build a funeral pyre of dreams from my own misinterpretations. nightmares run on tap and scare me into corners in the dark. I scream at myself in silence.
she tells me to list how I knew I was anxious. I watch her write along on the whiteboard on my screen: inability to focus, shaking, tightness (in the arms, the jaw, the chest), headache, the pit in my stomach, inability to sit comfortably, feeling hot, restricted breathing, catastrophising silence. there are no surprises here. from offscreen she presents a sculpture of the brain, which she breaks in half to show the plastic layers in their artificial colours. the changes I've mentioned all make sense to her and she has an explanation.
a lesson in biology: anxiety is charged by the amygdala, which only wants me to survive. to do so all eleven systems in my body change at once. according to design my body is doing what it is meant to. on the whiteboard she draws a scale, explaining that every response I make exists on the spectrum between recharge and survival:
0 calm
1 aware
2 present
3 performance
4 the zone
5 the edge
6 change
7 wobbly
8 holding on
9 panic
10 survival
too often the brain rushes to the past to predict the present. in the rush it struggles to reach the logic that protects us in less dire situations. control is an illusion. in uncertainty stakes heighten and my conscious self is lost to the amygdala. according to the whiteboard autopilot will not hear sense. the rib cage tightens to protect my vital organs. muscles tense for action. the body is ready to run from the beast.
the doctor reminds me that anxiety lives in the gut. she ties it all back to me and my habits. we can only digest when we feel calm. survival mode changes every system in the hopes of giving every chance to survive the given threat. digestion takes a lot of energy. anxiety asks us to prioritise. if I don't refuel, the body starts to feel as though it's under threat. anxiety continues to simmer. but I can reclaim the respiratory system with deep breaths. keep them slow and long. climb back to yourself gently. anxiety keeps us alive. oxygen keeps us living. I think about the end and I think about you. I wish they taught us this at school.
but morning comes to church
the sounds of choir hymns
over traffic
under you
I study your face in the light through the blind
we make dreams under stars but I want to see you in the sun
are we the end of winter?
breath that feels a little warmer
the first blossoms start to bleed from trees crying over asphalt
pink in the morning
I pass them on the ride to school
I hope you see them too.
and I worry about ending something good with my own hands, spoiling what I dream of with the fear of that same loss. the gold is fragile. feel it ripple gently in the cups made with my fingers. mesmerising enough to never want to look away. intoxicating sunshine through the skin. I know the before: a steady rhythmic pulse through cool tones tasks and screen time. there is laughter and music, though it never lasts half as long as the boulders in between. the liminal is cold. I much prefer our hologram.
preempting the end I flounder in the well and nearly spill the gold. you're somewhere playing dress-up making other people laugh. I think about your eyes and I don't want to know the after.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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 the 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.
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?
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.
when I have finished folding laundry and myself I take the final light before nighttime by the creek. plugging my ears with someone else's voice I try to be alone. though I can't hear the stream I can't escape the shriek of my own thinking. birds invisible in shadow watch from branches hanging over a path I can still believe in without seeing. their laughter pierces through whatever silly score of songs I chose for comfort. I call my parents, terrified by my inability to be alone. they join me on my walk. we ask and answer the same questions we will ask tomorrow. our daily census means so little yet it's all I know for sure.
on the stream I ebb and flow between hope and dread. too much of one is dangerous, too little can be foolish. both have the sway to drown me where I drift. I think about moderation and how much better I should be at sitting still. each cloud is different and not every day warrants monuments. I smile at your name when it lights up my phone. maybe the moment is enough.
hope and dread are angels on my shoulders. both imply each other and seem to want me well. I wish I could know them both a little less.
how happy can I be living in perpetual fear of my own apathy? the people on the news start to scare me less. I scare myself with how much more I seem to think about the end of something that has hardly just begun. clouds run heavy with dread for the inevitable, waiting for the fates to pull the rug and send me falling back to earth into my shell. I remember I forgot my glasses crossing tram tracks in the rain. the whole world looks a little softer in the fog. by the window falling into blue light and white noise. I pour a little too much time in finding you a song. perhaps I should have saved some for the census.
the tram back home is packed with sardines craving space / to be anywhere else. I want to be riding my bicycle. golden hour washes through the glass over statues holding vigil on their phones. one woman stands facing the open window she is locked to with her fingers. we watch the sun descend into the suburbs.
so lovely to hear from you.
I'm sorry to hear about the food poisoning. I'd never heard the term octogenarian before (it's great). that's a wonderful revelation about sleep as an escape. on reflection I feel the same. with or without dreaming we breathe brief relief from ourselves (or at least the linear narrative of our piece of string) each night.
nice to read that you've made a decision that you're happy with. I hope that the coming weeks of exploration are helpful and kind to you, with pleasant colours and sensations.
all flowing fine over here. on the advice of trusted friends I am trying my best to trust my feelings and each day as it comes. Amy visiting for the uni open day next weekend.
thinking of you lots and wishing you everything you need and wish for yourself.
lots of love.
in spite of every headline
fate
and feeling words neglect
night and day subsist
you and I
still here for now
earth
home
each other’s arms
whichever space we take
forever
til it ends
with incense and a tombstone
tears
a mushroom cloud
or just a change of heart.
my brother treads the streets of old America. he is breathing air none of us have ever known, writing me from eleven thousand feet above the sea. this is the first time he's been alone in months. he says he's feeling strange. loneliness has been patient and I think they're shy to reunite. it's been a while.
we miss each other more when we're apart. to miss each other is a gift. I ask for his thoughts, receiving love and photos from his window in the clouds. he watches theatre in a foreign language. he had no idea what any of the players said or what the action meant. we both think it's kind of wonderful. anything can be absurd to ears that cannot understand.
we talk about coping. there is no cure and so we're left to choose to live. the doctor asks me to consider what I do to try to keep control of myself and every day that beckons I voyage further. I think about the tools I use to manage, the tools that often have sharp edges. how much of this makes sense in words beyond the realms of my cerebrum?
we write the words together: exercise has been a form of self medication. this has been the case for over half a lifetime. I still indulge and this makes sense. even in illusion control can keep me warm. in the long term this needs changing but with grace and calculation. before we take away the poison we should find out why it was needed in the first place.
‘one way to avoid emotions we can’t deal with is to make our body lack the energy to hold them’. I think about the proverb from the pixels on my window. is physical exhaustion a plea from the subconscious for protection from the self? was the exercise for exorcising anger from my bones, releasing out into the wind from which it came? this is more than just a habit. this is how I build my armour. wringing anger / growing / needing more with every push. and the snake sinks her teeth into her tail. her scales are greedy and she knows no moderation.
there are things we share
often without choosing
common currents in our coding on the runway straight to hell
being as we are
unconsenting shards of stars compounded into breath and taxes
we wake into the day at someone else’s whim
in the light
in the morning
we are screaming for the cradle
of the matrix
for our mother
weeping for a shell
the dark and quiet of the being before breathing
but there are archangels and fates
to pacify
to cut the cord
measuring the thread
they sew our costumes in the patterns and the colours we will want
as our screams are tamed with sense
to ask for milk
to say hello
we learn to move
rolling like the trolleys over asphalt to the shops
we learn to listen
to the radio and wisdom
taller people tell us all the things we need to know
what is wrong and what is less
news and stories
which ones matter
what we think
they talk about the day
and all the ways it can be spent
and so we work
and so we pray
all the king’s horses and men
to be a little older
to grow up into someone
before too long we find our reasons
strong enough to dull our demons
making use of precious hours dancing for some other powers
milking purpose from a treadmill
as we learn to love the boulder we can only move so far
stop to eat and shit and listen to the people on the screen
between static and our dreams
watching doomsday from the sofa
or the spring/summer collection
sirens singing us to sleep
because the day is long
and needs our energy to run
I dream of sardines in a box
trapped like heroes in a trick that didn’t work
screaming silently to gods that never cared
the joke was on us
I dream of eyes I never kissed
and an angel on the subway goes to work and takes the stairs
when I wake I greet the ceiling of a day I never chose
I brush my teeth and wash my face and spit my dreams into the sink
find the path back to my boulder
like a goldfish in the mirror
silent
smiling without thinking
and tomorrow and tomorrow
with the clouds
and breath and taxes
on and on
until the sun decides to set
and the day begins to end
and the fates sharpen their scissors
and it’s time to scream again.
before I wake we're hiding from the rain under an awning on the doorstep of a hotel. we came here to listen to an author once. your dad is with us incognito (without his guitar) and I can't tell if we're kids again but we're waiting for a poetry reading from our favourite of his bandmates. Murray Street runs a river against traffic shooting for the green light out of town. across the road your brother emerges from the arch of the cathedral by the financial planners. he waves and manages to reach us dry.
the sky cries louder. your father yawns and leaves to take a smoke. in his absence your brother bets you can't beat him down to Collins and back. I hold your coat and watch you run into the rain. he's bigger and faster and I want you to win.
the artist talks about exit culture. this idea is new to me. already confused by his sculptures I open my ears a little wider. he paints a picture of communities emerging across the globe committing to another way of doing things / rejecting death and taxes / our Western capitalist / consumer-minded existence. there are people cultivating new shapes and shades of civilisation under stones and glass domes in the desert. new states forging different futures. some grow rainforests and harvest their own goods. others are not yet manifest, existing in theory and chat rooms filled with strangers willed to feel like-minded in resentment for a world they can't escape.
prompted by the curator, the artist talks about the tasks facing those that choose to leave and build a new world out of nothing. though he indulges in the optimism and excitement of the worlds he traces (all fixed on improving current ways of being), he refrains from painting newness any which colour or way. I sense his doubt in the words he bites on his tongue. how can anybody guarantee that an attempt to improve won't echo the mistakes they wish to run from? can anything new be anything more than a frankensteined shard of the past?
after the talk before looking at his work again I ask what led him to think about the exit. he tells me he visited some of the new worlds himself. we look at photos on his phone of vast abandoned boulevards. rows of roads curated with hedges and sculptures. grey walls glistening with patterns and stories like some dystopic vision / Cold War Sistine Chapel. there is a glass pyramid cradling an aquarium in the Arizona desert. he tells me I should visit. they love to show the old world what they're building.
his paintings trace passing light like sunset through kaleidoscopic frames abstracting into nonsense. strange shapes, colours soft and layered in oil. stained-glass glimpses of a church for some future religion. hidden electronics spin lazer cut gingham shapes in plastic lifetime tables. I watch them moving through holes framed through plastic painter's palettes.
and I don't recognise the part of me that you draw out without trying. though this body is his puppet he moves and sounds in different ways, lacking reason and patience with an ear only for you. you don't seem to mind the company. you dance with him so well.
I wish I had the words for all the worlds I want to give you. exposed by lack of language I am shaking, unprotected from the elements and feeling. being where we are is all it takes to spit me deeper into danger. through the eye of your storm I sink into the sea orbiting the pupils staring back. in the well I breathe some secret sort of spell I tell myself I shouldn't see or think about: some remnant of the stars from which you came before the clay and taxes. I tell you I don't understand your eyes. you tell me one is bigger than the other.
in my room you want to explore the pictures on my walls. I start to notice more and fall a little further. when we open ourselves to each other / where we are the moment feels like home. in the feeling I start to melt again under your orchestra and we are all that matters for a moment. when I open my eyes I fall into yours without a say in the matter, pulled into a dream by the ankles. we move like sound. we sound like finding dolphins in the fountain.
in the back seat I watch the lights of traffic pass over your face. the night casts you holy in new colours like a moving painting. I can't wait to learn you better.
there is something in your eyes
I didn't see until I did
if words would work I'd find the one that this belongs to
though they don't and so I won't
and I am captive to this something
in the waters of the irides
aquamarine
or some other kind of blue
cursed to change a little with the light
the dark
and sensations of your skin (on mine)
fingertips and open lips
your laugh
and other sounds that seas would part for
there is something in your eyes
I think you see it too
if words would work would we will them to our waters?
cast a net into the sea?
are words worth wasting precious time spared for this something and your arms?
I breathe the air between us
you hold my face as though it matters
let me melt into my cotton
rise and fall and melt the same
and I don't know where you came from
but I think I like this fish.
and I can let the days run over me like water. without stopping to catch a moment / tie it to a page with ink the current is quite capable of taking everything that matters. my pen and paper are my only defenses in the face of forgetting and being forgotten by the spaces between being and not. but sometimes I am too tired. and sometimes the words don't come, or what is / has been remains beyond definition / the scope of any shape or symbol drawn from our lexicon.
words are strings of symbols. we spit them into air and ears and paper in pleas to make sense of a moment / feeling / ourselves. we try to agree about what they mean. but even when they work they are rarely enough. they only matter when we want them to. words are shapes and sounds we teach our children. feelings are evasive as the clouds. cameras and pens are fickle tools. our minds aren't any better.
if I open my eyes to see through the mirror
there are beautiful things in beautiful rooms
when I open my hands to the sky or tomorrow
there is light and dark
dreams open with doors and laughter and spit
then I open my mouth
to taste something new
and remember these songs were never about you
(dream, live, dream again).
and I could not give you the moon
though I see her every night
looking back at me through glass
crying stars into the dark
if words would work I’d ask her why
but words mean less to giants
I wonder what she thinks
looking down on us to death
condemned to witness every fault and flame
silent and lonely
undersung after the sun
almost beyond utility
a truth-knowing god without hands
left to spectate our decline into the clay from which we came
a little closer every day
a matter of patience
she waits with little else to do
sick of pulling tides and glowing
watch us dance
watch us spinning out of reason
through the veils of vice and virtue
making tombs of our tomorrows
at night
judgement day on the horizon
she would laugh if she could
if the moon had a mouth.
trawling the panopticon they made for art / for fun / you didn't like until you did
you count the floors we climb past ghosts and strangers
I count the sleeps before you go
people pose in shades by headless angels
partners take their portraits
you feel in ways I can't explain from one container to the next
I list the things that make the chamber
wishing I could write your thoughts as clearly with my fingers.
Kiefer's prison: concrete, shipping containers, barbed wire, rolls of film on zinc, plaster, hay, reinforcing bars, timber, tin, glass floor, cables hanging lightbulbs, assorted sticks, old palms, dried sunflowers, water (stagnant), shards of glass, memory (perhaps).
I want to kiss you as we watch the world disintegrate through someone’s big glass window
with a view of the city
we can see the flames and mushroom clouds
and listen to the sirens
as you hold me in the last light
your fingers in my hair like flowers
your scent and my lips in the curve of your neck
we sing and we sway to the thunder of hooves
the sky as it falls
and the beast at the door
when not a boulder remains
in the moment we choose to be as we are without question or doubt
the heavens descend
and there’s no better way
to waste precious breath
to greet judgement day.
and we sing to each other. our songs write a testament: a subtle score, fleeting and secret and sacred only for a moment / to us. an amalgamation of misremembered tunes from childhoods never shared apart. together weaving something palpable from and into songs that seem to say what we should and won't.
we sing in the car / as we walk / drift with trolleys down the aisle for fresh and processed produce. we sing by the kitchen sink / across the table / through the walls to one another. we sing in secret / each other's ears / arms / on the floor by the fire in the dark.
each night is a song / has a pulse we share and keep until we can't. you're as constant as you like. I'm there whenever you want. how many more songs can we write this way? friendship can only be so much.
another winter night in red: the masses colonise the city / split the bones of a former department store for fun. mum used to buy her cotton here. you lose your scarf on the floor at the rave, where once they cut our curtains. lights and smoke and music to forget to. caring less every breath I’m still wearing your shirt. a dead end is a vision of the only way we’ll ever go. we dance between strangers I’d like to get lost in. you pull me back closer. for what?
we clear the table in the dark, washing dishes and our hands of whatever games we've played / shreds of clarity we've forged from second guesses. candles are extinguished and the water runs to cover over everything. from the door I watch you hunch over your camera and the table. some kind of fly caught in the wax of a dying tea light. who could blame your pause to take a photo? we live for spectacle to keep us from the mirror / doubt / ourselves. but I think about the scene in the candle through your lens / the way we are.
I am the fly and you are the wax. you make of me a funeral pyre. I'm trapped and slowly burning at your whim. your flame is warm and beautiful.
on the back of a Kiefer postcard
of a painting you said you liked
I drew a map of home
Tasmania
with your face sketched on it twice
penning your name
thank you > sorry
as constant as whatever you like
my name
I hide it in the book you read all week
you’ll find it on the plane
we’re being grown up when it matters
saying goodbye in the rain.
watching robots telling stories and their makers wash their hands. 'over the past year AI models have learnt to self regulate'. we don't know where we're heading but we probably can't keep up. convenience is dangerous and keeps us on the couch. the brain becomes redundant with the cuts in cost and layoffs. less spending and thinking. more hypnosis and dictation / bluelit oracles online.
what happens when we lose control of our favourite toys? 'ask the apes the risk of humans really taking off'. the tea leaves say extinction isn't off the cards. it hasn't ever been. the only question is which mess we've made will bring us to our knees.
in my dream I follow a friend downhill towards a playground. we are riding our bikes / laughing like kids with nowhere else to be. I want to dream like this forever. if I could wake without my phone...
after church we walk down the rivulet. the platypus are hiding but there's at least a little wonder in knowing they're around. the mountain looms over everything in sight: monolithic and defiant to the elements of change. we follow the path through one of many valleys absorbed in our own significance and the current moment. I feel winter on my nose and think of the fire.
sun fights through the clouds and trees. the leaves of one glow tall and golden against the mountain and the grey of rain to come. we talk about the fall of empire and how it's going to end. there's a good podcast I should listen to about tech giants / the spread of the digital plague / humanity and critical thought slipping down the drain. I think about my ignorance and this privilege to sit back and watch the it all burn. our ancestors went looking for America to forge a new world. they did so with poison, we reap what was sown. the masses choke and splutter. we keep scrolling while we can.
in my dream dream I wake at 2 am to sterile sunshine streaming through lounge room window. a housemate lies horizontal on the couch a mask covers his eyes headphones in singing himself lullabies. the sky must have fallen whilst I slept. the world outside the house is silent like the theatre after death. not even the trams can be heard. am I the first to wake to see that night’s been stolen? I sit on my bed wondering what to do about the fall. without the stars without the dark how can I ever reach the moon? I think about the tides and hope they’re going to be okay.
