#bunny We drank, we smoked, what can I say. We didn't fuck. Okay? We laughed, we played music. We drank, we smoked. It was a good life, mercifully brief. 051806 #eel I kept asking, "What did I do to you?" but couldn't get an answer. I was frustrated but open to the fact that I may not have been completely innocent. 081613 #worm Sit down, settle my gelid thighs into a jiggly old easy chair, the rivets are showing through, and wait. Real, real, real, real, real, real, real, one more time again. 101406 #eel then later talking with some old-ish, mischeivous, white-haired grinning guy about how "You can't stuff them back in there once they're out, can you?" 000097 #human Howcome every time I try to explain this stuff I feel a little like I just hit a drum head and it went Splat instead of ringing out clear and true? 010514 #bushmill The silence in the car is underlined by the low sound of the engine, the white noise of the heater, and outside it actually starts to snow. 081613 #worm Dude, one of the boys has brought his alarm goes off girlfriend. Now, if you know me, you know that's good and bad. And if you don't know me, well, fuck, as they say.... 101313 #dolphin Another learned behavior was discovered among river dolphins in Brazil, where some male dolphins use weeds and sticks as part of a sexual display. 090913 #meerkat WHAT HAPPENS WHEN TWO OBJECTS INTERACT? new object(s) one or more objects destroyed one or more objects' data changed one or more objects' identity changed 103113 #trout He was obviously being very careful not to like me in any way. I don't know if he remembers the time he tried to get me to take my pants off in a kiddie pool, but.... 080913 It's three-dimensional with a hidden dimension curled up on each point of its space. Does that merely mean it's four-dimensional? I'm honestly not sure. #gull 081413 #worm She looks at him as one looks at a file cabinet with which one is alone in the office, at night, not quite ready to face what waits for one at home. 110301 #eel Even as I was asking her name, I knew the answer: Megan. I said, Whats your last name, darlin? She said, Hmmph! As if were going to tell you THAT! 121913 #robot #trout The nanobots could make, say, *change the sheets* appear to scroll in shades of luminous amber over every available surface in your house. 010314 #human the unutterable luxury of a few limes, sitting casually on the counter, waiting to be used on a whim to brighten up someone's late-night great draught of sparkling water 082313 #crow 3/12/02 The conception that an artist must be drunk, insane, or ineffectual is yet another poison fed us in our corporate milk, to keep us weak. #human I never thought there'd be a time when I said to myself, I actually kind of like this Bjork song and can identify with it! I think it's my gay self being allowed to talk. 100812 #human Oh god the sea. It is so full. So relentlessly empty and full and full of salt. I love the sea and I love the men who go to and are from and part of the sea. As I am. 090913 #roach go together down by the river go. go, go, go. go back out through the door go to the lake go outside? go in; go a little ways behind the counter go go go do something else. 090913 #crow You must learn to scavenge what you need from mud, an antique grain of dust, impermanence, and unicorns at play, He said. Other people's lives. 090813 #worm While I stand there trying to think of what to say, frozen, as it were, in time, they all start to notice me--and then they all start to leave. 111812 #human Oh Fuck it, I don't know, I'm going to bed and masturbate and stretch my back. Sucks to get old but I'm still kicking like a degenerate mule. 081313 #copperhead I didn't want to take the canoe in the first place. It's aluminum, it's heavy, it probably leaks, it's ugly, it's not even ours, and— 091413 #trout So there he was, behind his enormous broom, in front of his best work, clothed in the daily invisibility of hiding from an arbitrary dream. 052713 #human Nevertheless I am grateful. For lima beans and corn and the late hour of the sunlight and children who are relentlessly beautiful and trying. 080913 Right now there are a SHITLOAD of pigeons living on the 11th floor. I'm wondering how/if/when they might start moving around. When will RULES or GAMES begin to evolve? #gull 081613 #human #crow Never let it be said I didn't drum face to face and shoulder to shoulder, intense stare to intense stare with an angry Brazilian mestre. Cuz I did. And it was good. 091313 #worm I appeared to her in what had to be a dream Chicago; Milwaukee had left me bereft, old, abashed; she was giving a talk in some building on some campus. 041902 #eel An old, comfortably sagging and slightly dusty upstairs. Antique. Dark wood. Bannisters. Secrets. Ancient patterns in the rug. The era of ink-black manual typewriters. 000003 #human A sad saggy costume I had to wear, wrapt in double layers of contradiction, just for the sake of impersonating myself. How ridiculous. And yet, 081413 #worm Hey, let me play, says the blond boy. His army jacket's cuffs are even more ragged now than when the lion cub wrestled with him. Truth, he says. 022508 #treefrog #crow At some point, you have to decide whether or not you care about cheating. Hell, at some point, or points, you have to decide whether you care about anything. pet fish 051311 #martian 1. My angel came back to tell me to keep going. 2. Half a leg is not good enough, she said. 3. She said "God is good," and I guess I can't disagree. "What was that?" he said. "What was that?" he said. "What was that?" he said. "What was that?" he said. "What was that?" he said. "What was that?" he said. 011414 #warmglowbox What are you putting into the box? The idea of the great, clean, pure, admirable, revitalizing thing I'm going to be doing *tomorrow!* 081213 #farmer she has round hillocks buttocks holly hocks in the kitchen my dear Alcea, what else you got in that big old wide white fridge? 102502 #eel With you helping to translate a bit, I gathered that he/she was telling me that if I continued to avoid the mud I would have a much greater fall than any of those people had. 081613 #worm I am looking at the perfection of this typeface on the screen. It is round, it is square, it is the root of all clarity. It is produced by an evil corporation; so what. 102912 #human #crow We build and learn. You are in a precarious place. But you can do it. Make the fantasy real. Somehow this tiny bright thread is real. 081313 #copperhead We are as vulnerable—more vulnerable than those snails. We are ridiculous animated corpses inhabiting a cosmically undetectable membrane between two states of being. 090913 #roach go? go to bed skip out of the way, go. go blasting off into the moonrise go before you're ready. go into the fire. go in the front door. go in the accidental light go 081613 #worm Why is this jail? Because eventually, he's going to leave, and I am not. It's that simple. It doesn't matter if he's a social worker or a frog. 081413 #worm But after walking past the point at which idle chatter becomes more festering than amenable, Me turns to Him and says: This is really fucked up. 081313 #copperhead Somebody loses it in a box in an office they are moving out of. The new guy has to find it, and he doesn't even know what he's looking for. 000097 #human Feel the need to let go. Time is coming; even though we have crossed the first line, there is another one coming that we will not cross. Not yet. 120512 #human We've been through this before. But every time thru i see some parts of the town, the grit, the sidewalks, the faces of the citizens, that i had not fully noticed before. 112813 #festivaldrumschant I miss you. Your lips. Your thighs. The clear air and stars. The smell of the sidewalk. The friendly aggression of the rhythm. 000005 #human Or maybe it's a personal crisis. It does seem to be moving me to examine some of my own hypocrisies and convenient or unfinished thoughts. 081613 #worm Break, heart, and beat, mind. The brain doesn't know what to think. But somewhere in the lung, a separate piece goes, he'll be back, and breathe out, and breathe in, and 121512 #copperhead He said, "I'll be a poet until the day I die. That's my curse and my blessing. Everyone who's really alive has a blessing and a curse!" 010314 #jonquil No. Fucking. Way. The delight, plain on Mary's face, was like a payoff to Gwen. There. It had been worth going through the whole story. 081413 #worm Me starts--I hadn't! But the funny thing is, he had. Anyway, now he's trying not to, and he's trying too hard, and -- No, she says. That does it. Some part of Me says, Yes. 081413 #worm the people at the round table their eggs and bacon and chunks of bread. The man who lit his cigarette on the candle relights it now, scrapes back 083013 #treefrog 060310. Megan, on everyone talking while waiting to be let off the bus in the morning: "It's like a big pile of pigs, all snorting at you." 081413 #worm Others approach the gathering, cautiously, invisibly. Sparks hurl themselves at the night. The only one definitely still missing is, of course, the one we're doing all this for. 081613 #trout "And here I am," she said. "Loneliness is lovely, isn't it?" I walked the dog and went to bed. The covers felt good around me like a forest. 081313 #copperhead There's a roundish rock two and a half feet off the port bow that's not completely dry and not completely wet. I guess you could say that's the edge of the river. 051111 #martian 1. I'm about ready for that drink now. 2. You are solving the wrong problem. 3. I didn't really teach anybody anything today. That's not completely true. 000000 #eel I looked into your brain and found some lumps there. It didn't matter; some grey-green globules of information--rotten thoughts and bad ideas--w 022305 #eel sucking his cock, humbly, gratefully, after a slow, quiet process of revealing the inevitable through an exchange of wordless, meaningful looks 081413 #worm Breakfast leaves me hungry. If I have a possum bone of smarts left in my innocuous head, I will remember to cherish my loneliness. Once killed, it doesn't get up again, friend. 101503 #trout She's got whatever she ordered. She walks, she walks over to his table. He stops pounding on the little drum. She stops walking. They stare. 081313 #rollercoaster a linear dimension snaking through our normal space you can stand next to it and be nowhere near it screams emanating from a wormhole 092013 #human god, tea is so good. "I like going to sleep hungry," she said once and I laughed jealously but now, now--I'm going to have some apple cinnamon chex. Gluten free, you know. 080913 This feels so much more real than once again trying to dredge out the contents of the old attic I don't live in anymore. Beautiful as it was. #gull 081413 #worm Yes, yes, says Barp. And then, as if he can't think of anything else to add, and as if silence now were not sufficient, he adds, Yes. 081313 #copperhead Do you ever have strange thoughts, not thoughts but sentences, that crash like broken airplanes out of the sky for no reason at all? 000096 #human why does everything gotta have two sides the wall between them and me. for instance, and who is knocking on it and why. 142739 060104 #gull There's the amusement park, itself somewhat dilapidated and abandoned, with the massive, sprawling junkyard of chaos on the way there.... 060007 #human Talk about twin pillars........ you get the most intense shame and the most sublime forgiveness when you witness your past obliviousness. 081013 #dog HIM: [later] Is this going to change anything? ME: Doesn't it always? HIM: Ah, it's the old answer a question with a question game, is it? 052694 #eel I had to pretend to be Japanese, because I wasn't really supposed to be in the elevator; it was part of some research project or something. 081613 #worm Normal people are all made of secrets these days. Normal people don't have much dignity left, and what remains is usually tattered and puking. 000003 #human I should take advantage of rejection from schools, and go ahead and be somebody else. Somebody really fucking cool, though. What the fuck. 081413 #worm Yeah, but not in a good way. You were charred and distorted. You were like an exposed, damaged lung, pulsing in the darkness. And your face -- 000096 #squirrel what i think is evil? is anything i can't fight. or me stanin in my bra in your kitchen thats not evil, i can fightt that. haha. 083113 #elephant 0911 Will she let me lick and suck and clean her out? Right about now, I am depravity's child. I am as near to singleminded as I can be. 031513 #copperhead I still think of him, sitting there in his trailer, wise, aloof, stoned, detached, superior, completely invisible to the larger world. 000004 #human I guess I'm just waiting for something to break. Same way I take care of my car. The fuck. I'm going to go to hell to get an oil change. 091313 #trout My girlfriend looks at the man while I look at my girlfriend and try to figure out what she just said. I figure I had better start smoking. 082313 #crow Who is to say, besides me, which fights are mine and which are not? I'll let you know which ones are mine this way: I'll be fighting them. 092301 #eel I said, look isn't it beautiful! and it's even better when the words come! o please come, words! And they came again, and so she got to see. 081613 #worm And flernched. Call me subacute. Call me hypercritical. But I died in there, and then where I went, she warn't exarctly hebbin. He glowers. 091313 #finch big indian standing up with boots on he revs it up, rides to the end of the driveway and back, works on it some more 070704 #eel I wasn't sure I was supposed to go up the spiral stairs, but I went up anyway. There were tons of old props and fascinating junk up there. 081013 #dog *ME goes, not as a dog to a treat, nor a cheap novelist to a spurious literary prize, but to his castle, his love, his thousand summers' home.* 081313 #copperhead One moment you're an albatross with gravel shoes, and another moment you're a curl of cream across the surface of a cup of coffee. 081613 #worm Oh shit! I'm still in here! I'm still in mother. Fucking. Jail, you ratshit batshit cage-fucks. And you're drinking my mother fucking tea!!!!! The fish should learn how to walk and breathe air rather than spend all his resources on taking a small amount of water with him when he colonizes land. 100712 #squirrel dude i'm a whole teenager older than you. I was 17 when you were born. :) I so don't feel my age you dont look it either aw thanks 000096 #human what does patty know about what the fuck i believe? "you think there are things you can and can't do. that's the way you were raised." 000096 #squirrel he had a month pass for greyhound and was traveling anywhere he wanted to with a small berifcase a clean shirt and a bottle of booze 010614 #bushmill is saying what his name is but he has to say it again, because Mel was starting up the engine when he said it the first time. Pete. 000000 #human Or visit a UFO like the one Katy comes from, the weird torus-shaped metal world where they smile at you and everybody else knows why but you. 120913 #fox You could go on like this for hours. Some nights, you probably will. And that's okay. **You will get through the spillage.** - Trust me. 082813 #finch Somebody said, hands expanding, "...the biggest thing in it was all the choke-cherry things...." For that I am awesomely grateful. 081013 #dog HIM: Oh. ME: He's right, of course. HIM: Yep. Right again. ME: So what do we do now? HIM: [lamely] We just go right out this hatch here. 091413 #worm Like that, it's fun again. My head, isn't it. Organic memory is massive, compared with synthetic, but I'll say it wasn't any other thing. 131343 012114 #roach #finch Also there is some streaks on the vestibule window. The wan sun from the southwest 132321 082313 #finch Need Music Need Rocks Need Moss Need Stones Need Water Flowing Down Hill Naked Love 120913 #mistress #bunny But before that, before he had let himself get to that point, that exquisite nadir, it had been the nose that had stopped him. 000010 #human Fabulousness is dead. I do not want to read any more stories about anyone in TV or LA. Rain, whiskey, pot, and 9 songs. I'm a rich man. 000094 #human Afraid it's all just a parlor trick, and if you let go of it once, the game will all be over, and you won't get any easy attention any more? 083013 #finch The smell of going out. Chewing gum, leather, vinyl, cigarettes, make-up, perfume, a hint of stardust and cold, moonlit cement. 081013 #dog HIM: I thought you were really going to tell me something. ME: I was but I I I I I I HIM: What? ME: Just can't HIM: Oh. That's okay. ME: No it— HIM: Isn't. 010314 #jonquil She always wanted a girl, Mary explained, shaking her head in disgust. What did you want to show me? Gwen asked finally. 091413 #trout Dude. What the fuck. There's someone in here. She looks at him. She's pointing something steel and charcoal deadly at his face. 000096 #human Soon I'll get another pin-up girl, another whale, another dolphin. It's almost March. It all passes away. The cold, the piss, the moss, the meetings at Lava Java--ENJOY. 020008 #eel it doesn't seem to have a whole lot to do with computers, except that computers are everywhere and only the old ones are on your side 010314 #jonquil Let me brush your hair, she said. Not until that moment realizing she had been longing for such attention, Gwen said okay. 081013 #dog *They stare snake-eye-ball juice at each other for exactly five minutes twenty-one seconds, and then they begin doing something else.* 082913 #crow 042607 What good is an army of pigeons & little stones against a hulking, totalitarian blimp/glacier/brain-fuck-net? We'll see. 102913 #snail I really want some popcorn, but to get it I would have to go right past him, practically close enough to brush against his knee, between the corner of the bar and where he sits. 081413 #worm Maybe it's a little silver box, on a quiet basement shelf. Maybe the box is lined with purple felt. Its tiny hinges squeak. Then squeak again. Someone's walking around upstairs. 081013 #dog ILELE: Yeah, I'll be transferring out of this class. ME: It's not because of me, is it? ILELE: No. You're cool. You wear cool shirts. 010614 #bushmill Another hit. The butt goes down the tubes like a tiny turd, and I wash my hands and look at myself in the mirror. I look okay. 081413 #worm You're going to remember that you're mine. Krim fucks her. And he's mine. Fucks her. You're mine. Fucks her. And he's mine. Fucks her. 101013 #treefrog the time at early view when katina called on me to pray and i meandered and obviously didn't do it right and they all laughed at me 223436 011914 #robot #gull #deletethis When I do "open a bit in VP", a page I was on a while ago keeps populating the $fromPage$ value. Why? 081413 #worm Let's say it's all of these. Let's walk upon a cloudy breeze into the Aviary. Brush up against the veil with whispering lips. 082313 #trout I feel that...the preference of the majority of the persons inside the home is that...we would prefer it if you would not do that. 000096 #squirrel the only thing that i see that could even be remotely construed as female or feminine is are your small tendernesses. 000096 #squirrel you know ,m and you never know, i mean,m think of all the dreams youve woken up from, how many of them did you see it coming 081413 #worm Another lament clings, syruppy, to the jukebox; lets go in the final strains to drip all over everybody. It is officially night. 081413 #worm He likes to think he's an artist, Barp continues. He goes to coffeehouses, sits, smokes, pad-pad-pads on his little drum. I love him for that. I can say that without hesitation. 100305 #eel "You're a dead man!"--almost as if i felt obliged to make it seem as though it was a big deal. But it wasn't, really, not so much. 110301 #eel As I was getting in bed, he made himself comfortable on the floor. Surprised and gratified, I gave him pillows and my grandma quilt. 081013 #dog *You mylop. And frankly, you looked jalap. You didn't win any klobe. You didn't set any fadyl. Oh, wylimin noticed you, all right.* 102903 #human Lula's gotta find her wallet--somebody musta packed it in a box or bag at random--before she drives the huskies to Washington. Maybe she'll have a fling with her old ex there. 050004 #human A large part of "making ANY movement fun" is connecting your hips to all parts of your body, and letting the whole assembly sway! 090913 #elephant My back was cold, but your front was the fire in the barrel over which I hovered for my life. Making love was pure survival. 040513 #longwalk The lone voice is back. It speaks infrequently compared to the others, but when it speaks, I have to listen. It echoes an emptiness no amount of savory contentment can dispel. 081413 #worm Barp must have picked up on the tits thing, subconsciously, or sub-etherealy or something, because he's humping the floor. Don't watch. 100413 #human recognize the different kinds of chaos & noise; a lot of kinds are actually okay. They're playing. They're having fun. Don't be scared. 081013 #dog *SHAKESPEARE and FEMDOM are sitting at a picnic table at a rest area off some highway in some state. Cars, as they will, whizz by.* 051111 #martian 1. You are exactly where you are supposed to be. 2. Whenever you arrive, you're right on time. 3. I could be wrong, but I feel I may have done some good today. 110413 #gull #fox #treefrog continua of [self-]awareness and [self-]consciousness in personal ritual, [self-]discipline, workflow, and habit 060113 #human Millie's making a picnic lunch for her and her sisters. She's doing it because she wants to (I think), but I'm still grateful. 081013 #dog I know we haven't chatted much lately, but I thought it worth asking anyway: is nothing so beautiful as that which i dare not imagine? 083013 #finch 080710 Fruitflies. They will be gone in the winter, and you will not miss them. And yet, you will miss them. 030004 #human Love of course makes anyone great, as great as they can be. Love is the great extractor of the essential contribution of anyone. 081113 Make an alternate-universe version of an existing location. (Inspired by how Rose & Jayden live in the "same" apartment as we do.) #meerkat 120813 #gull Is there any point to typing when you have nothing to say: yes, especially if it is a way to train your mind to resist commercials. 081013 #dog *HIM must be sleeping or something. A small bunny, outside in the rain, perks up its ears for a moment, then, is quiet, moves on* 081413 #worm Really? Him says under one eyebrow. He's more interested than he sounds, but altogether just a hair less interested than he's trying to sound as though he's pretending not to be. 081613 #worm There is a parcel of silence, wrapped up in clover and history, delivered to the space, dwindling, between you and the man. His chest. 081413 #worm Wake the fuck up! yells Me, now truly alarmed as well as merely annoyed. He budges Him with his foot. We're drunk. Let's smoke. 081413 #worm The willow-haired girl led you to a room. You had the feeling it had been her house once, but now she was its ghost. She pushed you down on the planks and you waited, breathless. 081413 #worm Oh shit, Dorbi. Hanad lets down the veil; the tears flow; her breath leaps out. Dorbi catches it, nurtures it, lets it down easy. 120313 #human September I cut out alcohol--just for a month, as an experiment. November I added in daily writing. Now, December, I'm cutting out post-bedtime snacks. Just to see what it does. 081413 #worm One more hatch opens in the wall. An oversized boxing glove juts out on hinged extensors, and pounds Him in the face. He goes down. 081913 #human #treefrog Okay. Okay. Okay, okay. Okay. I give up. I admit it. I am supposed to be some sort of teacher. Just. HOW? WHERE? WHO? HOW? 081013 #dog *Enter MISTY. Her nails are voraciously fake, as her smile may also be. And yet, she has a definite appeal, leaning lightly pelvis-first against the back of the old wooden chair.* 081613 #worm I am looking at the onset of what they really mean but don't ever say when they talk about "middle age." I am looking at my knees. 110113 #human #fox "move on, we guess you don't need his permission", and yet somehow I never let myself let it be important. 111813 #demons I can't be the first person in the world ever to have deceived himself about the potential of an artistic career. 111313 #meerkat Boutique antique attack music stomach garlic drumstick graphic hammock homework monarch notebook topic unique 000000 #human "Let's go," say the haughty voices of the so free they don't even realize the amazement of what they're saying. 120913 #human #elephant *For I'll be here* *in sunshine or in shadow* and yeah, my motherfuckin ghost, *I love you so.* 081013 #dog *This pause glows with its own pregnancy, fat, oily, golden, wet. Sweat beads on the slick slick surface of this pause.* 010714 #jan What are you afraid of? my friend asked, and it didn't seem so much like a challenge as just a factual inquiry. 081413 #worm I'm yours, Ltiky, for real this time, she says softly into his shoulder. She looks up at him. Tears brighten her eyes. 081413 #worm I fold, she says, and opens her legs. Her stockings grip flesh midway up her thighs. Ltiky kneels under the table. 000094 #human Finally I think I understand why Leetah tried to heal Winnowil instead of just killing her. I didn't understand that before. But no one should end up pathetic; it doesn't help anything. 000009 #human If the poetic impulse drives you (tangentially?) to something non-poetic but essential, then so much the better. 000097 #human Part of me thinks that's weak and pathetic, part of me thinks it's forgiveable, and part of me thinks it's just fine. 050702 #eel Just as we're getting ready to go upstairs, I hear a choked, muffled scream from somewhere higher up and deeper in. 081313 #copperhead The tributary is youth rushing green and golden in the sun and dappled shade toward inevitable dissolution. #meerkat New fun game. Stock the lake with outrageous instructions. Fish. Follow the instructions no matter what. Try it! 022613 #human My god there are so many clues always! DON'T GO BACK TO SLEEP DON'T GO BACK TO SLEEP DoN'T GO BACK TO sLEEP 120813 #ant I was doing some nice brush strokes in the kitchen while avoiding my actual work. We accidentally skeletalized a cat. 081613 #worm I can tell by the way he takes it he's not really a smoker. But I don't find the pretense irritating. I find it— 000096 #squirrel i know byut see your not an android thank god you are human and you are learning to live your life 082113 #vulture the question is who is still going to be here when it wears off huh who? who? who? who? 082313 #trout His alcohol breath scared me, the crinkled brown paper bag full of cash scared me, the whole weird story scared me. 060212 #human A professional in any field needs the ability and willingness to find materials, create tools, and make decisions. 000004 #human I'm comfortable, more or less, except for the times when my soul aches. Pesky motherfucking inventions, those souls. 081613 #worm It's coming on the cold part of the year. I know they have a word for that part, but I can't think of it right now. 083013 #finch the brushwork of a slowly building storm paints the windows with something like possible joy. 000003 #human hey! I fine-tuned the dream-catcher, finally! One of those things he accomplishes only when she's gone, or something. 010314 #jonquil She's fine, Gwen said after a barely perceptible pause. You know, she's just pretty much the same as always. 081413 #worm Damn, this is a thin coat, Me thinks. Damn. Him gives him a look. You know, if you're scared, you don't have to go. 000002 #human Just drink the wine you like. Don't say yes to something when you mean not now, maybe, no, or anything but yes yes. 081313 #copperhead Why *did* he just *have* to go to the grocery store right then? [In (4) you reveal that he works there.] 082102 #eel "And now it's just hanging there on the end of the couch like a ----," he said of his real or imagined faux pas. 081813 #treefrog Part of the problem with so-called "discipline" is that, as adults, we're rather afraid of energetic movement. 091613 #crow #meerkat Call & response. The call is inevitable and old. The response is as close as you come to free will. 000012 #treefrog telling J that he needed to face his fears or else the bulldog would get bigger and the yard would get smaller 080004 #human #roach People fear the tough guy and the fag: one might tear up the cafe, the other might tear apart society. 000010 #human You know, "Fuck it. I can sit here and drink if I want to," sounds like defiance, but I'm not sure it really is. 081413 #worm A stainless-steel salad bin in the kitchen, equilibrium disturbed by Him and Me's earlier footfalls, clanks in annoyance. 120913 #human #arena You fucker, I'm right over here! Why can't you see me? Why can't you hear what I am saying to myself? 081313 #copperhead I am hungry. 072203 #eel I was sad, it was a sad thing but I said goodbye to her. I said goodbye. 081413 #copperhead "Well, yeah." It sounds a little ridiculous when he echoes it back to me like this, but I guess that's okay. 081413 #worm Music. Music comes from somewhere, like rust from a pipe, like dirt from a tomb. And Bnabe! Bnabe is here, too. 090113 #squirrel #treefrog #crow Everyone's story is both tedious and precious, and needs to be told in their own words. 000096 #human Just a civilized agreement between two civilized people, coming to a civilized end or rather change. Right? 081413 #worm The clunky old milkshake machine remains stubbornly silent, defying anyone to clean the sour gook out of its innards. 082813 #elephant Let's fuck under the stairs by the riverwalk, even if we don't really feel like it, just so we can say we did. 081413 #worm She's sitting in the passenger seat of the old station wagon, sheafing through a small collection of seed packets. 051102 #eel i ended up outside the zoo because i kept having to avoid detection. i ended up on the new jersey turnpike or something like that, and hitched a ride with some people back to the zoo. 080913 #tonahutu it seemed profoundly *good enough,* so you carried on, because you wanted to get the wall done all the way around 121413 #skeleton # bedtime ### bedtime voice 1 > normal bedtime talk ### bedtime voice 2 > normal bedtime talk ### dad > normal bedtime talk > > Repeat above as needed for full bedtime ritual. ### bedtime voice 2 > after you think it's all over—pat—just so When's Christmas? > Scene ends with just that hanging in the air. 010514 #bushmill Well, what about you? I asked, getting brave. Pete's wiriness, his rough face, his smell of smoke and outdoors, were all still intimidating to me, but I guess you can only be intimidated for so long by somebody who has spent hours mashed up against your thigh eating candy corn out of your lap. Did you ever go to college? 081613 #worm Y'all set doon on a binch in front of the ice cream establishment. But you don't get any ice cream. Other people do. Other people walk in there, disappear, come back out galaxies later wearing iced cream all over their nannies. But choo—don' ge' no cream. Why? B'cuz y'already had a falafel today. You don't have much pennies left. 070112 #human Sitting in the half-lit kitchen, the sweat of a mountain of laundry drying on my forehead, listening to Millie teach school to Libby & Celi, I'm getting the feeling. You know the one I mean. I'm just going to sit here and concentrate just enough on reading & writing--just enough to stay tuned to that feeling, for as long as I can. 032804 #eel you & I were in some kind of class together. Everyone sat at tables arranged in a big circle. You were looking thru some old LP's. You had never heard of The Band, which I thought was funny, but I didn't make fun of you. Later, we just sat by each other, leaning on each other's shoulders. I stroked your leg under the table. It was nice. 040004 #human You smoke to kill restlessness. But another word for restlessness is creativity, which is a dorky, moony-eyed word for life-force or something like that. So yes, it's going to hurt to stop smoking, but once you burn through those layers of habit, you're going to find something a little younger and greener underneath. Like 1994. 000096 #squirrel i just didnt really think youd be all that interested so i never really said anything is that really why you didnt say anything yikes. [sound of water tap making hideaous shriek] what? i mean is that really the reason yeah! well, part of the reason. plus i i i i i didnt' i dont want to scare people away you know. yeah. 000001 #human I miss my Lover. He needs to wake up. I need to wake him up. Enough of this stalking around trying to pick a magazine to emulate, I am I, dammit, and I have such a lot of love to give. Words rust. Under the dust of the crumbling Dodge in the reedy field: he is sitting there tasting the impossible brilliance of south dakota mountain sun. 081413 #worm First he'd take a bite, then he'd have a smoke, then he'd have a drink. Then he just had to look around for a little while. When there was nothing else to do. It's so hard to break out of the conventions of space and time, he thought. I know there's something else, but it's--something else! This is the loneliest place he's ever been. 081013 #dog *Dawn streaks into the cave-mouth in bloody ribbons. ME awakes first, in some kind of pain.* ME: Fuck! HIM: [waking fairly immediately] What? ME: Don't talk to me! Don't look at me! Don't touch me. [this last in the lame tones of the obviously ridiculous, as there is no denying they are both still in the one sleeping bag.] 081313 #copperhead And here's where I'm almost embarrassed to admit how perfect everything becomes. The naked forest air across my chest. The disappearing color of the sky. The sostenuto sighing of the leaves; a white-noise crescendo as the breeze picks up. The disappearing of the river around the bend. The sinking in: I'm here; I'm not going 000002 #human * our next door neighbor, the guy who works for the beer company, comes home while i am taking the dogs out. He likes Dexter. He says, "Where's my dog? There he is. Hi, baby!" Dexter wags. Orion is high and clear in the sky. Then our neighbor says to me, "Have a good night, will you?" and I thank him, and wish him the same. Warmth. 081413 #worm Drink. Pass the applejack around. Him and Me and the willow-haired girl, all wrapped up in each other's denim jackets, hooded sweatshirts and smiles, feeling the exquisite dryness of the recently great-lake-wet, sit and drink. Bless them. Lend their circle a blessing, will you? It's the last time they'll ever sit like this. 081413 #worm I feel the snap of my bra against my bare shoulder, when Dunpul teases me. I feel the summer swish inside this skirt. I trim my pubic hair. So my fresh-shaved legs would emerge, long and svelte, out of my rose-scented bath. I be brave and kind. I click, click, click down Fainyr Street at night, and spark the sparks in the hot pavement. 061705 #squirrel I now have over 15 students and it seems to keep growing. Why? I didn't even do anything. Things are so peaceful, non polital, and No violence. Except for wanting to slap that John guy in the head, who is not even part of our group, but feels he can send an e-mail to Mestre filled with garbage. Nice guy, good heart....but a moron. 010703 #eel I was being sucked into something, or so it felt, and I didn't like it, and I wanted to prove I didn't deserve this censure, and without consciously trying to do so I made a noise come out of me, deep, inarticulate, almost like a roar but silent at the same time. And I swear to god, as I was staring at her face she had three eyes. 000001 #human Weird how I can go to a site, click a button and waggle my finger, and it (they—who?), without direct human supervision, sends digital signals I can't even detect directly into this little busy box so the little bits get arranged in such a way that I get a hard on and start stroking myself. Weird. Nam-shubs, indeed. Well, let's do it. 082613 #human the bothy is hovering in the corner of my big rectangular eye; i'm puttering and taking care of business at home. The HVAC guy came over to look at the AC (busted; getting a new one tomorrow!), and I am glowing in one more instance of the silver lining: I'm no longer embarrassed to have people come in the house, even the basement! 081313 #copperhead It is as if we breathe underwater. We are an anomaly. Grey dissipation of water and air surrounds us in infinite randomness. The canoe glides over several snails in peaceful slumber under the protection of the six inches of water they will never know are all that protect them from the searing fierceness of the utter universe. 080913 #human Libby just came in, asked if these berries were edible or should they just pretend, asked what we were having, and, after I said meatloaf, rice, and squash, said Yum! and what kind of rice? and I said brown and she said okay, and if I have to explain how that is perfect and sublime, then I don't know you and you don't know me. 102913 #snail But we escaped, there's no shame in escaping when you're not the alpha but your sprogs survived, there's actually a ragged kind of glory in that, you dog, you kat, you moaning at the mirror-dark window on an autumn's moon-fucked morning, you just awake from dreams of razor-hot girls and stubble-musky men, you old fucker, I love you. 000096 #squirrel sex. and the whole life/death thing. and power. not just power as power, like powre over a third world country or you know power ovber you r employees. i mean in a more subtle more dvious sense. havingness and doingness definitely outweighs beingnesss i think havingness & doingness are what keep people from beingness, you know? 020397 #eel