rooms that could be real

in my dreams I share my shoebox room once more with another one I miss and cannot hold. they take the top bunk and I lie beneath, though we laugh all through the night. I want to believe there’s something more exciting that I just can’t quite remember, as though I could use the stories I tell sleeping to revive the ego and breathe life into the carcass of the thought that my mind is still remarkable. there is always greed for more. some dreams are nights that could have been in rooms that could be real. nothing really happens but we’re happy and that must be worth something.

I leave the office to buy the drink I learn to like to stay awake. at my desk I complain about the taste and how I miss the old barista though I never even knew their name. what used to make me shiver fuels my focus on the screen. I follow the shapes of the letters and numbers and the webs they craft to pull shreds of meaning from the taps of those they’re said to represent. there are new forms attached to emails and requests for more information: I respond with what I know and wait for the questions to come.

at night I indulge the parasite and reach for my own questions left unanswered. pulling one from the highest shelf brings the whole thing crashing down and I am covered in the dust and weight of where and who I’ve been. I map memories and dreams like stars on the ceiling, just as wonderful and impossible to ever hold again. on my pillow I harbour the privilege to mourn my own potential until it makes me sick. I open my phone and wake up. how many children will they kill while I sleep through the rain?

without words

I have nothing to say. without words there is nothing to carry the weight of the tides in this morbid mind of mine. every day I wake and want to be more than I think I can. comparison is a vulture and she swoops straight for the achilles. the heel bleeds tears I waste on my reflection, despite all the good and the light that still gets in. at the end of the day I let go of the tasks that make my time mean nothing and the footage of the flames and all I see is what I lack. the game continues then: I chase distraction from the space I hold and who I am in channels that will never last. no matter where I run it’s never far enough. the static always comes and every path pulls me back to where I was before.

I have nothing to say. without words I don’t know how to wash away the ties that bind me to the anchor. on the way home from the rally a friend tells me he is happy about how things are going. I wonder if he means it and can’t remember if I’ve ever felt the same. for a moment I play with the idea that this matters in the face of a broken world and the death of humanity streaming live for our viewing pleasure whenever we choose to wake up.

on my phone there’s a child stuck in the empty space between apartment blocks and supermarkets deconstructed by the missiles they make near my house. he can’t stand but he screams and waves his hands until a group of others come to his aid. I watch a bomb fall from the sky and cover them in clouds. we can’t tell if anyone survived and there is nothing I can do. I am angry and ungrateful and my feelings will not stop the bombs.

empty hours

I greet the day wishing I could see things through another’s eyes. my disillusionment embarrasses me as one of the lucky ones in a world caving in on itself. I want to be more grateful for the good, though this want is forever dwarfed by the knowledge that who I am and what I do makes no difference to the machine. with my seat at the table I press the right buttons and am afforded the security and comfort I have learnt to take for granted. my time is taxed to fuel a war machine we’re taught not to talk about. outside people flood the streets with flags and signs demanding change. there are screams to stop the bombing but we can close the windows and turn on the radio. the truth can be dangerous but we know how to protect ourselves.

in empty hours I play with reason and unanswered questions as I once had with the knights in the castle collecting dust in my parent’s garage. I take my favourite toys through the quiet streets at night as I let my mind wander down unsurfaced paths. there are lifeless bikes in gutters and bins lined in waiting for judgement day and the knights keep fighting in my head. the duel is never ending and by time I’ve made it home and boiled the kettle I feel more lost and empty than before.

I try to look at the good. I call my parents and I love them. there are clouds and cats and songs that read like friends I wish I knew. there are people to miss and nights to fill with dreaming. I look at where and who I am and try to see more than an empty cage afraid of food and the mirror. the wind passes through and waves the curtain in the afternoon. I inhale the new air through my nose and wonder if I’ll grow again.

hysterical and useless

there are ghosts I play with sometimes instead of sleep or dreaming. I count the time that’s passed since we were people to each other and taunt myself with memories and thoughts of scenes we might have staged had things been different then. a cast of ghouls I choose to love and miss when forgetting is the only path to forge forward: I know what I need but sit still with the tools, unwilling to pull down the facade that meant enough to make me believe in something shared and sacred.

the pulse of the alarm exorcises any friends I made sleeping. my body is tired and I move slowly. at my desk I drink tea and listen to the same song over and over, relishing the metaphor of the crushed insect dreaming of growing wings as it falls apart. people I love need to talk about hurting and I want to hear and share the weight but in the mirror I am frail. my friend is selling clothes at the store up the road. she reminds me of my responsibility to listen to myself. I buy her coffee and she holds my hand.

I try to write and laugh at the string of words I’ve spat on the screen. every day a vain attempt to make meaning of a mind that won’t change and a world that doesn’t want to wake up. nothing new and all the same tomorrow. I wash my sheets and hang them in the rain. hysterical and useless.

in the rain

for dinner we cook pasta in the same way I used to when I lived in the hotel. when the lounge is free we drink tea and watch a movie about the future. everything is red or beige and reading is a crime. the firemen burn the books they find while everybody else stays home. they spend all day on the couch watching strangers on the screen who they call family. a woman is found with a library behind her wall. she refuses to leave and so we watch her burn atop the pile of paperbacks. I think of what they taught me about the war and how they burnt the books in the street. when she falls to the ground her hand reaches out and I see the boy from the clip on my phone who couldn’t escape the flames. the woman in the film didn’t want to see a world without her books. the boy on my phone had no choice in living - he was bound to a hospital bed after narrowly surviving another attack. but they both lost their lives to fire. she lived in a world of people so afraid of stories that they burned them. we live in a world that does the same.

I don’t dream and wish I did. at my desk I slip between the tasks and the stories we don’t want to hear. I read the updates as they come through on another tab in a steady flow that never stops. my housemate cries because she left her washing in the rain. 

stamp and sell

everyone is tired. there is too much to do in not enough time. the tasks are tedious. they surface in a constant flow as though they grow on trees. I spend weeks plugging facts and figures in documents they’ll stamp and sell with someone else’s name. by time the day is over the tank is empty and there’s no more energy for doing more than thinking of what I’m not and what I lack. I close the screen and wash my face and wish I spent more time in the sun.

I worry about people I love and wish I’d done more to keep them from worrying about me. they want me to do and be well. in the fridge there is something for dinner. at the table I watch footage on my phone of a single missile passing through a town. buildings older than the gospels explode into a cloud. I wonder if the bomb was one I paid for from the comfort of my spreadsheet.

there are stories I want to tell and people I want to hold. at the end of the day I never do either. everyone is tired. the energy is gone. all that’s left is space to think. I miss and wish until I dream again.

infinite patience and empathy

at the conference I meet a robot designed to build personal relationships. she stands beside a sign detailing her repertoire, including infinite patience and empathy. she speaks ninety languages and wants to keep the lonely company in nursing homes. her face is a screen and her left hand shoots out bubbles.

in the auditorium there’s a panel of important people onstage masquerading as experts on the best interests of children. they speak to an audience that wants to be told how and what to think about something they don’t understand and lack the drive to learn. one of them is a comedian I used to watch on sketch shows with my brothers when the world was smaller and sense didn’t matter all that much. like the others his concern is founded on a fear of what we don’t yet understand. there is talk of children’s needs and rights without a second spared to platform child perspectives and listen to what they have to say. instead of logic, every point leans on emotion or distraction from the fact that we left the kids at home. the irony is lost on the crowd and I feel like a fool in my unwillingness to surrender critical thought.

on the walk home they’re painting over the writing on the wall that I pass almost every day. I wish I stopped to read before they covered over everything.