I was at work, and three-fourths of the lights went out, and the customers didn't notice, and the clock started going really fast, like time-lapse photography, and the customers didn't notice, and nobody really tried to do anything about it. I said, "Oh well, at least the day will go by faster." and nobody thought that was really funny. 011314 #warmglowbox What are you putting into the box? Linux!!!!¡!! Now watch and be crazed as I skillfully Znupikste my fan control settings!!! 081613 #worm Flip, flip, flip, one glossy page after another; trying, for the sake of a stranger's dignity, to look normal. Trying to look as if she hadn't stumbled into a rude mess of secrets. 000096 #squirrel she just i duinnno shes kind of a slave to my butt you know i can wind her up and make her dso my bidding and i must have been snuggling up to her with my butt or something. and she just kinda started molestin me she chewin on my shoulder and stuff.like you really need to know all this i didn't know it was on a need to know basis 120813 #fox #controlroom Ain't it funny how you always want to do it really strongly when you can't really do it right then. Then when you're all spread out with space and time set up just so, suddenly it doesn't seem so appealing anymore. There's got to be, I mean aside from the psychosexual TV show of it all, a way to make use of that observation. 082713 #crow I saw myself in the window of the tracker, after playing the berimbau, and i saw a guy with a beard and some wrinkles and a black sock cap on, and i saw a capoeirista, and the memory of his limitless limitations was but a grace note, a humorous detail in a riverine storybook of love. that's right, asshole, i said "of love." amen. 090207 #eel It's the ocean, and a spray of tiny islands. People and children are swimming in the insanely blue waters of the nearest ones. The cerulean currents swirl in and around, and lead our vision from one perfect picture to the next. We sit right on the edge, joke about falling. He gives me half his popsicle. After a while, we climb back down. 000096 #squirrel and thinking too about letting go of what letting go of what hhhhh letting go of everything and just to rip off tom petty just free falling into the great unknown into the great wide open yeah kinda like a water slide' ha yeah only maybe i wont lose my top of my bikini at the bottom true story hahaha 051111 #martian 1. Aristotle! Huah! 2. The unrest is always lurking, right below the surface. 3. Pebbles of peace. Please don't let your life with your family be a dungeon. Please enjoy some moments. Today I said: "No yelling at the kids tonight." And it pretty much worked. Tomorrow, I'll try saying it again. Yes I'm terrified, but.... 082813 #elephant #roach 110604 One more smoke and then I god. It's hard not to think about tits in a cafe where that girl keeps walking by. I miss those kind of innocent mean tits. They don't give milk, they give exquisite pain. They are made of air and illicit machinery. They are rapier smart and they wear boots. I would actually kill to exist. 102913 #snail You get up at 4:42 in the morning and you sit the fuck down here and do this even though the gravity of the bed was jovian. That's fucking physical, my friend, and if you keep furrowing out that friction point, spiralling around and coming back to it every time it hides like a naughty clit, you will be pushing yourself in some way. 081013 #dog *ME doesn't really want to have this conversation. He's throwing up tumbleweeds, blowing smoke, trying at all cost to avoid this conversation. Why? Ask him. Ask Me for me, will you? Ask Me why I don't want to know the answers only Bnabe's ghost can provide. Read it in the smoke. Read it in the snoke: Third door on the right.* 092702 #eel Meanwhile, the mother of this other girl comes out of the cement house, out a sliding door, and tells my dad that his daughter would certainly like some help practicing her lines. Dad seems reluctant. I think to myself, I could help her. I know I could do it, too, and not just because I am gay--although that certainly wouldn't hurt! 022613 #human Posanski just doesn't want to see something. She always gets so hasty when dropping off Libby after a Lily play date. Says Lily doesn't do well on sleepovers but Libby could have one over there... May well be true, but.... Talks so fast, and then her emails are like normal speech. Leaves. Does not want to see what's in our... house.... 081413 #worm Ltiky's wife takes it all in, all the wiry length of Bnabe's cock. She had not known there were enough tears within her, to be as wet as she is now. He thrusts. Veins stand out on his broad forehead. The unused prophylactic dispenser gawks over his shoulder at her. For her pleasure, it insists. Her little pussy doesn't miss a drop. 081413 #worm You come on over, past my charcoal grill with frank caution. You come on over, over hard snow, and under the strung-up lights--an epic valentine of pine-needle proportions blooms out of each gaily coloured bulb. You are suspicious of my merriment. I am suspicious of your life. We size each other up. You come one step closer. 090813 #worm sun goes down and in between and thru a sieve of branches pungent with the smell of rain; i too study a little bit every day, in my hackneyed, slapdash way, sometimes rooting thru the dumpster, sometimes throwing things away, trying to learn the language so i can go on my trip next year, or maybe next year, or maybe the year after that. 030904 #eel We had the secret, we were on top of things the way a train track is when it is alive and thrumming electrically thru the night. We were having a good time together. Woke up, fucked her sideways from behind. Came right away when she said SHE had been dreaming of picking up some guy in a bowling alley while I looked on. Laughed. 061112 #human Neutrality is essential to nature's healing power. The trees, the cool hidden water, the buzzing weeds would not be a sanctuary had a God created them; the capital "G" implies an agenda. Ideally, the same can be said of a pub——hence the universality of alcohol. Getting drunk in the afternoon is like an unexpected urban forest. 081513 #worm How's the veil tonight? Tight? Like a pair of underwear? That could mean a lot of things. A delicate green comes to mind; not constricting but snug. A tiny hug. Thin? Like delicate beetle's-feet lace? Sweet, like a tiny, shimmering rose? Softly scented? Pressed against your rough-smooth cool-warm skin, in the secretly humongous dark? 081013 #dog *I looked where she pointed. It was an antique barber's chair, cracked leather on a tarnished pedestal. It looked inviting, and a little suggestive. I clambered aboard. The leather was cool against my thighs, and spoke silently to me of wistful summer, of radios and air-conditioners, chewing gum and torpor in the hot forgotten streets.* 111813 #meerkat #thekeyto opening doors is keys...but HOW? 041212 #human #bunny A cold front is moving in? The sky is once again invisible, the stars once more precise and scary. They look so fierce when the sky is wintry clear and stark raving invisible. I have a crush on Orion. His bearskin thighs make me quiver. How the mind flits. 081613 #worm Sometimes at a certain indefinite hour, if two men could smoke the same fag, they would. Two lights, two ends, one stick. It's the closest thing to kissing some of us clowns ever get. When we're dry, have clothes on, know which way is up, which, face it, is most of the time, even when we think we're all wet and naked and turvy. 081613 #worm But of course there's no cure for procrastination so effective as having absolutely nothing to do and noplace to go, so up she got, and she tightened up the laces on her stinky, cute boots, and she started walking up and down, and up and down, and up and down old Electric Node Ave, until she by gawd found herself a by gawd job. 000001 #eel I asked him if he had ever been in any wars. He said, "I was close to one once, through my own foolishness." Then as he narrated, the scene shifted so I was actually there, walking around in the story he was telling. There was a younger, rougher version of him, in an old green car with some kids in it, one of them presumably my dad. 083013 #treefrog 051308 It's not remembering how you felt when you were a kid--that alone won't help. It's understanding what it feels like to be a kid now. I doubt most parental generations go into their thirties planning to suffer from a generation gap. The gap happens because understanding is a moving target. Youth is not a static quantity. 010314 #jonquil But eventually cars get where they're going and you have to get out and do whatever it is you have to do next. Why is there always a destination? She hopped back down the creaky stairs once more, brushed her teeth, said goodbye to no-one, and let the screen door slam behind her. Clomp, clomp, clomp went the three porch steps. 081413 #worm A lone fly hassles the grimy venetian blinds. But there is another noise. 060911 #martian 1. Jaylyn said, "Whoopin your kids is child abuse." 2. Tasharra said, "Is whoopin your kids child abuse?" 3. Later, Heather said, "They raped him until his butt started bleeding. He was crying for his mommy. 'Mommyyyy!' It was funny." 031103 #eel A female human was renouncing because of her sense of duty the male human she loved. It was taking place on board a ship, right outside the bay. She was tall, tawny and lissome. He was deep brown, noble and solemn. When it was done and he had gone, she cast her gold necklace into the water‚ where I caught it with my long dolphin nose. 102913 #snail This is only to say that I don't feel like typing much tonight because I just want to keep reading 1984, I can't believe I never read it before, how could something so obvious and devastating be passed off, chuckled about, and tolerated in schools, don't people believe anything they read anymore? 081813 #treefrog 11/20/09 I was thinking I would ask myself, what's something I could give to Andrianna to show that I care, without seeming fake or patronizing or insulting, and now that I read the little bit of journal she gave me, I get it: the best gift from me would be a shot at passing English class. 010714 #gull Gulls used to talk more about your soul and motivation and all that jazz. Now they seem more concerned with the technical and semantic irkings of the teh-dsa itself. Oh. Okay. Whateva. Let them do their thing. Just keep them safe and warm and loved, and intellectually get out of her way. 120613 #fox #gull Are we not allowed to have black hypersexual characters then (etc etc)? Or is that a disingenuous question. Are we simply asked to try a little harder than skimming the stereotypical bubbles off the surface of the already-boiling pot, if for no other reason than to avoid insidious boredom? 000002 #human Why am I one of them? Why am I in their company? Hell I don't know. Need new gig. Need new infusion of daredevil smartness to find new way to provide for eucalyptuseating pocketpouch beautifulcute meggietot. Need to give her food and money and love. Love no problem. Food and money, that costs. 000006 #squirrel My friends, even though we appear to be a crazy bunch of Satan-worshiping eskimos... And even though last night was not exactly as expected... (I believe I will abandon all expectations from here on out) I want you all to know how nice it was to spend last night with you all... 120913 #human And then the little girl version of me would like to know, why are you talking to me in this disrespectful, attacking tone of voice. Oh, um. Because it amuses me, I guess. Remember? Just like the old days. Good times. Smart, sarcastic, self-deprecatory. Remember when we used to hit it like that? 081313 #copperhead Rain falls down from above; the river falls down from above. We are always somewhere in the middle. There is a subterranean world, access to which we are disallowed; there is an atmospheric world elementarily alien to us; is there no world to which we can legitimately claim denizenship? 000097 #human I'm playing the part of a loser because I'm not ready to face the whole world. I'm playing a part, anyway, that much is true. Actually many parts, and the different parts are also reminders that I don't have to look at everything as a two-bit flow chart of inevitability from certain points. 000096 #squirrel when scott realized what i was doing,mhe said, "it's kind of creepy. you typing everything i say." and i laughed but i think that is related. because what an individual says is very personal, immediate, and real. and not just a version of a literary theme that has already been expounded. 091506 #treefrog I think it was Kalarose, in Afr. Am. Lit--Ms. Christy was saying, "This goes in your Class Notes section," and Kalarose kept looking at me, pointedly, and asked me, "Does this go in class notes?" and I said yes, and she said, sort of to Ms. Christy, "I just wanted to hear him say it." 121513 #human still dreading the resolution of this christmas gift debacle i just don't do it the way people do it i think it will be okay and maybe a bit necessary to relinquish a bit of control around that let them think and suggest and react and ask whatever they will then just be patient and honest 102913 #snail ...To go deep, to get real, to open up my raw, naked soul in and among other people, whose failings I have recoiled from, whose lack of fantastic perfection has so rankled by illuminating my own exact same lack, to do this is the work I need to surrender to, to accept the interdependent nature of. 080913 #seeker Him in his solidity, always a little untouchable, always giving off an air which I could breathe but shallowly, a little in secret perhaps, always just vibrating there, taking up space, implying that, pathetic, absurd, and ultimately desolate as everything was and is, it is all, also, all right. 090813 #worm Before, much younger, falling in leaf piles with sweatshirt on, less consciously uncensored, some copied, some borrowed, some dreamed, some simply rhythmically tapped out, the barbed-wire fence of clickclack words along the railroad track go tie, gravel, tie, gravel, tie, gravel, tie.... 111112 #copperhead home. The realization that whatever happens now, it happens *now*, and not before, and not tomorrow. *Now* the world is perfect. *Now* my friend holds out his hand, and what he's holding is for me; he proffers and I take, and it's a perfect, fragrant, sultry, steaming cup of *perfect* coffee. 081613 #worm I am looking at all my mistakes. Mistakes just stay on the page, even if there is no page. Just like they tell you at that one place, how every sound uttered just keeps going out and out and among forever and ever amen; well mistakes are the same way. Once made, they are the fabric of reality. 081413 #worm The smallest butterfly grows up to be a dragon. Wagoning like thunder over the heads of the villagers, he bellows flames out of his mighty snout. Thank you, says another little girl, and she lowers her arm to retrieve the marshmallow from the end of her pointy stick. It is perfectly toasted. 111812 #copperhead I don't even drink anymore. Weird to think of it that way, but pragmatically true. What's to drink? We have water. That's what I drink. We're always on the water, sometimes in the water, never farther from the water than near the water, and the water is in us. We drink it, we become it. 081413 #worm binding? She looks up, over her glasses--you feel scolded. Dude! that guy's taking your wife! So you burst out of the bathroom, your pants foppishly flopping open, little dabs of pee soaking into your tighty whities, and chase after him, down the stairs. You've really lost it. He exits by the silver 020012 #treefrog Is it that I don't care or that I don't have the energy? Or does one of those cause the other and if so which? Or do they cause each other, viciously? Do I really want to quit? Besides the obvious yes, I mean. Every time I am tempted to stand behind that sentiment, the other voice says, Baby. 102913 #snail #featherwoman And when we went apple picking I watched you tell the girls and me what to do a few times, and I watched myself watching that and how that felt, and I disappeared a little bit so that I was there, jouncing along with everyone else on the hayride, but also I wasn't quite there. 010314 #jonquil Ooh, can I go upstairs? Gwen wasn't a hundred percent sure there was no trace of mockery in the girlish enthusiasm, but she was too giddy to stop and worry about it. She let Mary lead the way up, and watched again from below. Those calves. The steps here creaked, unlike at Mary's house. 090813 #worm The softest rain in the world and the pages that pour out of the press rain onto the white world their little black letters and fill up the glasses of the world with their fizzy colored graphics that are this wide and this deep, deep, deep, so you can drink it all in and here comes Olivia. 081613 #worm When I get back, they're playing pin the teabag on the jail cell wall, like a bunch of fucking sophomores. That's so cute I think I'm going to pile. Strike another match, lite another fag all up on fire, like, so's you can suck it. I got in trouble for smoking. That's one of the reasons I'm— 060212 #human #crow Care. Know your mission and who you are. Make expectations clear: communicate the heck out of them. Be consistent and provide a predictable, safe environment. "If you can act like adults, we will treat you like adults. But at this time, you can't handle it, so we'll help you handle it." 010314 #jonquil Gwen said hi quietly and ascended the porch steps. She trailed her fingers along the smooth white bannister as she ducked past luscious \*\*\*\* plants, and dodged chaise longues and little round wicker tables. But before she could get inside, the rich girl's mom asked, How's your mom? 030004 #human It's like, you're not forcing anything down. You're not nailing anything down. Even if you're trying to fly, and you try to force yourself up, you're still forcing yourself down. It's not forcing, it's releasing. You can apply quick quips of force, then, at your leisure, when you need to. 082513 #finch but he did one day all of a sudden jump into the swamp. When he emerged, cattail fronds and goo stuck to his face, a phalanx of geese flew over his head. One of them took a crap on him. That hardly ever happens. He should consider himself lucky. 012697 #squirrel wow man, can't believe you stood us up... we had big plans for you... (wink wink) too bad... we will have to get someone else to fulfill our needs... perhaps at the corner bookstore... maybe someone that can offer us a discount?? see you at 6.... wear something pretty, just for me :) 081413 #worm The front door clangs for Him and Me once more. Me thinks about mistakes, and hopes the old dumb wisdom is true, about how they help you out. The gnawing in his guts is quickly eclipsed by stinging in his face when the winter attacks with little bits of frost, escaped from the nighted rooftops. 010314 #jonquil Can I—? Go ahead. Gwen traced her fingertip lightly, just as she had with the undergarment earlier. It was almost the same, rough against silky. She wanted to ask why, but sensed that it would be a stupid, pointless question. She didn't want to be the one who just said stuff like why. 111213 #snail And then the little girl version of me would like to know, why are you talking to me in this disrespectful, attacking tone of voice. Oh, um. Because it amuses me, I guess. Remember? Just like the old days. Good times. Smart, sarcastic, self-deprecatory. Remember when we used to hit it like that? 081813 #treefrog The 9th graders are happy and chipper; the tenth graders are just sort of normal; the seniors are half dead. We should not be blaming them for being disrespectful. We should be asking ourselves why the hell high school is killing them. (Or, to be fair, if it's something else, then what....) 090813 #worm "So sorry, sorry to bother you..." "Of course you'd rather drink alone..." "We thought you were going to be gone a while..." "Sorry, didn't mean to intrude..." "Uh, gee, thanks for the liquor and all..." "I'm sure you've got to get up early..." "Gosh, don't let us interfere with your plans..." 081213 #splitrock weeds round rocks mosquitos sunset typing in the tent wake up unzip let go go out the shipwrecked tower taut and stretched my naked chest scraps newspapers herring gulls big wind high cairns gray stone not drunk not down just really really high and standing on the ground 010614 #bushmill The freeway was behind them, a steadily humming backdrop in the darkness. The gas pumps and convenience store were stage left, and to the right of their struggle were a scattered handful of cars, luridly glowing in various shades of orange. And I guess we were the audience, me and Mel. 014532 012414 #warmglowbox, kathekrone I am Edgar Kathekrone. Powerful, influential, established and respected in the merchant and landed classes, a notorious adventurer and underwriter of important activities, Addicted to the sweet surpluses of our time. Without my phials, I start to shake. 193451 120413 #gull #fox Instead of writing a certain number of words or stories or other units or items or even a certain amount of time, you could simply say *don't* do anything *besides* writing for a certain amount of time, and then see what happens. Yes, the dreaded negative. Twist it to your advantage. 081313 #copperhead His girlfriend calls and wants to know what's holding him back. She sounds lonely, angry, and confused, but right at that moment he finds the message and he's like, look, I'm really sorry but I have to call you back. That whole situation is just not going to end well, you just know it. 110613 #squirrel #fox When u wake from a dream and still groggy just type fast to talk to a tape recorder just to get the images and events and feelings down as accurately and clearly as possible -- that's the nearest thing to it, I think. No art, more like a very personal honest intriguing reportage. 110004 #human Pierre is here, dammit. His sublimely annoying voice cuts thru the air. Shut up, you stupid mother fucker. Shut the fuck up. What if you slip, one of these days? Then it's not going to be so funny. Then you won't be a holier-than-thou. Okay, point taken. But I don't think you're funny. 090913 #roach go back to slashing at the couch cushions. go to the lake? go home soon, go, go over and pay it for them, go. go ahead, look. go see if Ella's home, go. go. go with, go to the Cafe. go. go to work go back to the tavern. go through the third door on the right, go in the final strains go. 091313 #human And not just eye contact or vocalizations but also whole body language, carriage, positioning--I start to shrink or fade out of the way when anyone's coming, long before the actual moment of proximity. I'm certain people sense that; their consciousness of it and responses to it certainly vary. 021802 #eel I tried to help a teenaged girl named Fern do her homework. It was related to physics, fractals, chaos, the patterns of sunlight raking across the edge of a dried-up oak leaf held at arm's length. She said, didn't you pay attention in your physics class? I said, Honey, it's been a lo-o-o-ng time! 081413 #worm Me hesitates a microminute; chooses a faint pink settee by the wall opposite the glowing cigarette. Over his head is a rectangle of two glass blocks; it lets in an inkling of light the color of moonlight or a dime-store display case. He shuffles one foot--barely--and it makes a noise on the carpet. 000002 #human We were watching a movie on dvd and every time I pressed pause, a good photograph was on the screen. Is that ideal cinematography? Every frame a good photograph, AND the whole being a greater movie than the sum of all the frames? I guess that's one way I could like the teh-dsa to turn out. 081413 #worm Who was Bnabe? The two of you wrestled with gravity's caprice for control of the wriggling mass of him. You hauled him to the top of the serpentine hill, you and the willow-haired girl. She's stronger than she looks! you thought. And she was. Though she bent like a willow, she was smart like a whip. 121112 #human #crow Good living is like good writing. The words come first. The blank page comes first. The magnet always comes first. Today, now, in my new old wise young exhausted excited life, I get to choose to listen to my magnet. And this time, FUCKING NOBODY is going to take that away from me. 121212 #copperhead I read somewhere that if you get a heart transplant, your personality gets more like that of the person whose heart you get. So like if they rode motorcycles and had a dog and were sanguine and optimistic and gentle, you could become less of an uptight, controlling, clenched asshole. 112013 #stargazer You misspelled things and didn't know what other things were called. You hadn't read most of the books I thought I had to talk about. You weren't a scientist of any kind. But years later, surrounded by bookshelves, I felt a powerful urge to call you up and tell you how much you had taught me. 090213 #squirrel #crow There was not a single thing that you could have done differently, love. You are here now for a reason---to love and nurture your girls, to teach the unteachable, to write, to meet the man you will have a life with. We don't know yet, but the universe has amazing things in store for you. 103012 #eel I woke up and felt chills because it felt as if she had surely really heard me when I said, I commend you for not giving up. But did a repentant soul hear me? Or a maniacally laughing demon, whose laughter was mirthless, whose regret was a calculated ruse? Or was I actually talking to myself? 030004 #human oh I was young then and entranced by a virtual country more real than the real. And it still is. That's the amazing thing. Even though I have to keep reinventing it, keep surrendering to it, keep remembering how to forget to outthink it, it still is the Place of the Way after all. Granpa was right. 000096 #squirrel i have a suggestion and it is probably not a very good one but it popped into my mind, and that is just to wait. i mean, keep doing what we;re doing and having conversations like this and see what we unearth that way i mean its already differetn for me than it was and here is an example of how 010314 #jonquil On their way through the kitchen, Mary grabbed a double handful of miniature egg rolls off a heavy-duty baking sheet sitting on the range top. As she led the way up the wide, carpeted stairs, Gwen watched her thin, strong calves flex under black leggings, and the lean high arches of her bare feet. 050013 #human There's nothing romantic about longing. Longing is the imprisoned soul who feels helpless to escape. Longing is the great gross undercurrent of wrong that haunts the consciousness. Longing is the dullness that remains when the pain of daily failure, of separation from the true home, becomes second nature. 010614 #bushmill Pete's coarse, knobby hand grips her elbow, hard, it looks like to me. She wobbles as they go past my bed to the other one. A fresh swirl of perfume, mint gum, leather jacket, and alcohol engulfs my senses, makes me sick and aroused. They do a messy pirouette, and fall onto the bed, him on top. 101503 #trout Desperation is the device driver of the cock. Sruky would be sexy if he wasn't such a git, Faye thinks, rubbing shit off her boots onto the mat. The door says "Bang! jingle, jing." She clomps daintily up to the counter. To order something or to order someone around. Lord how I wish I still qualified. 010314 #jonquil Then suddenly, Damn! said someone, a different voice, the wrong voice, and the equilibrium was disturbed by footfalls. There was the scuffling of soles on wood floor, a pause. A loud clank as the salad bowl was dislodged from its slanted balance point, and fell the rest of the way into the sink. 081413 #copperhead My main reaction is a hypnotized disbelief. I do have a slight tingle in my crotch, but it's almost overwhelmed by my awareness of the obviousness of the lechery of the situation I didn't even ask to be in. For some reason, I don't want my friend to see this. He'll ruin it by talking about it. 081313 #copperhead #roach That was this morning, in the pellucid post-rainstorm sunshine, before we stashed the canoe and tromped up the hill to this little town, the only part of which we'll probably ever really see is this little cafe in this little square; this little slice of someone else's whole reality. 081413 #worm The elevator moans and wriggles. It feels as if it is going sideways or diagonally more often than it is going up or down. But unless it is the vehicle of a well-crafted illusion, it is definitely going somewhere. None of its passengers speak any language you've ever imagined, until its door opens again. 102913 #snail #elephant ...days begging for your forgiveness, for the slightest recognition from you, for the smallest indication that you might ever glance at me, breeze past me, laugh at me, kick me, beat me, honor me with any indication that I may be granted even a moment's existence in your terrible world. 010514 #stranger The silver sedan scrolls to a stop in front of a side street near the edge of town. It's hard not to be near the edge of town here, of course, but this one is close enough to have corn in the backyard and a clear view of the silhouttes of silos and the rusting structures of the petroleum works. 000920 012114 #robot #gull This is cool. Keep it simple. You're in a room, or a node, or a locus, or whatever you want to call it. You're ready to go. But where's the elevator? *Oh, there it is!* Anywhere you decide you want it to be. Just draw the button on the wall, then press it. *Write yourself a door.* 130545 102913 #snail #featherwoman #sialia And it reminded me of when Katy said in Seattle that she had wanted to cry because she had looked over at me and Dexter crouching side by side with our paws up on the windowsill looking out, and she had realized that she would never be as close to me as that dog was right then. 111812 #human #crow #water The thing about the river, the always-disappearing river, is just how ephemeral it is. Tangential. Insignificant. You have to be able to navigate the unnavigable bits. The droplets. The spray. The trickle under the refrigerator. But ALL THE WATER IS CONNECTED, DAMMIT! I'm SURE OF IT! 081613 #worm Everyone's here; my gang. My friends. I feel so warm and cozy, I could be basking by a hot-springs sauna, redwood all around. Two of the witches are already having an irreverent debate about checkers. I smile. Then something else from that cloaky closet, memory, rustles out of hiding.... Sobering thought. 133728 012114 #znupikste And that was the last we saw of Znupikste for a while, but of course we didn't know that yet. We didn't of course know what had been going on over in the part of town by Foxglove Avenue, because we never listen to the news. I'm all like, what's a TV? and she laughs. At least we have each other. 102913 #snail #controlroom It has something to do with the meshing or releasing of gears, I know that much. The meshing, for gently lurching into motion, across the parking lot at first, awkwardly jerking at first, across a continent later, smooth as a bottle of applejack and the surface of a rocky mountain tarn. 010414 #warmglowbox What are you putting into the box? Obsession! Slow, crawling, panic that eats away at your heart. Because the notion of relinquishing the box, of standing in the stark, starry air, can make a man go truly mad, like drowning in the invisible, icy perfection of a great black northern sea. 120913 #fox #buronkatshodn I'm thinking getting paid to do what you live is not always just an accident. Has diverging to do with how you do the thing. Whether it's all about you and your previous talent or at least some about the thing itself. And THINGS tend to be ABOUT other creatures outside your own little world? 081013 #dog HIM: [delighted] Look! you can zoom in and out, and pan at will around this virtually infinite universe! ME: [coming over to check it out] Hey! You can! Dude, that is so fucking cool! *HIM and ME zoom in and out, and pan at will for a long time, enjoying. This is the future of not only computing.* 110713 #squirrel Particularly with Borderline Personality Disorder, I can say that at the height of my illness---I was oblivious to all but the story my thoughts were telling. For me it became a way to cope when things hurt or I felt scared or lonely or unlovable---be in my head with someone else's fantasy life. 010614 #bushmill The doorknob pings as the lock unlocks, and I go outside into the sunlight. It's like coming out of a movie theater; which world is real? The sunlight is a three-dimensional transparent paint blob suffusing everything with nostalgia. The sunlight feels like something that has come from very far away. 041902 #eel I walked to the end of the hall. To my left: an open space, a railing over which you could sense downstairs. To my right: a wall, then finally a door leading into the kitchen and everybody else being active this day. Straight ahead of me: an old, hazy, full-length mirror. I looked in and saw myself fat. 051111 #martian 1. Malcolm asked me if I was all right spiritually. I said I was about eighty percent. He said he'd pray for me. 2. Seven geese flew by the small grey rectangle of window. 3. Kenishia and Jamica had me try on their glasses, since mine were destroyed breaking up the girl fight the other day. 120213 #human Regarding the clinic, Peggy--there's going to come a time, and I think it may be coming really soon, when it's going to start not feeling right, because you're growing out of that particular skin. No need to freak or get righteous or disrespectful or reactionary. Just gracefully grow into the next thing. 040505 #eel At first I feel a little like a dancin fool, but I can see the guy is taken off guard. I wham him one in the nuts with a kick, and while he's discomfitted, my heretofore silent ally, who was asleep or drugged or depressed and generally out of service before, comes up and buffets the guy a few times. 081413 #copperhead There's a tall, pale-skinned, long-necked girl with a dark ponytail that bobs neotenously every time she moves. There's a shorter, rounder, misty-faced, doe-eyed girl with a faint spray of freckles across her cheeks. Both of these girls are in seventh grade, tops, definitely no older than eighth. 091313 #squirrel It must have been horrible when that happened, I said. She said, yes, I'm sure it was. But it's character building, you know. It makes you stronger. People that have it too easy, they don't know how to handle things. This life has trials. If you can get through this, you can get through anything. 031813 #crow Oh yeah. And remember to do something good for somebody every day. Like the other day when you shoveled Jackie & Marcie's driveway and suddenly you weren't so consumed by the fire of impotence and rage towards Mr Lexus-driving Smug-ass You're-a-second-class-annoyance I-just-don't-get-it-at-all Lang. 090813 #bunny Let me tell you something about our relationship, he said, he actually used that word relationship, and didn't even flinch. It's physical. He said, It's physical like candles, wood, and kerosene. Like manual typewriters and barnboard shelves. Like lipstick. Cock-shaped bottles, perfume. Sandalwood. 081413 #worm Krim becomes the meat of a meat sandwich. The slender man faces her in front; the husky one presses up against her rear. Together they pulse in a ritual fuck. Krim's mouth opens. Her eyes close. She melts like prime rib as the men push harder and harder with their hips. The drumming rocks on steadily. 000096 #squirrel well not well sort of but not really ive never lked thelook fo pointe4d breasts like jane russels i think theyre meant to be a bit softer andf a bit more round i think the pointed thing is a definite statement snort its a statement all right. dont fall on my breasts you could puit out an eye. 121413 #skeleton # therapist ### me I feel like everything I do or say in here is basically an act. ### therapist ### me Like you know a performance. ### therapist > What the hell is the matter with this therapist who doesn't fucking say anything? > I don't know. > I don't either. this is poetry 021511 #human I just looked over at Jimmy and thought, Dude, you really don't need the jogger to jog those. And then it hit me--the great, silently gasping hunger for things you can measure with your eye, appraise wih your hand. Earthly things. Things of the thrust and the rut. The things our metaphors strain toward. 102913 #snail #featherwoman When you were sitting on my bed with your laptop and I asked what you were doing, you laughed and said watching a movie because you never stop running around.... So I climbed over your blanketed legs, kind of making contact but mostly not, and got in there and watched a movie with you. 051111 #martian 1. Tasharra said, "Finally we're learning something." 2. Randle said, "I don't like you right now." 3. I said, "I still like you." 062413 Muzzle blackened with mud, he flops down in the weeds. A giant joy-filled heartbeat is his breathing. The nearby humans laugh and learn. #trout 082813 #gull 061605 A sin is anything you wish you hadn't done. Hindsight is the only prophet. 082713 #gull Make the people talk (or rather, let yourself listen to them), but don't consign them to a cardboard-cut-out arbitrary hell. Let them have full run of the ship, let them wander [in]visible dimensions! 011114 #human The girls don't know any better than to love me for it: we ate and ate and watched movies and stayed up late. I feel very thoroughly distracted. My eyes even hurt a little. But I didn't have to sit quietly and face anything. Oh wait: I am now. But I still don't have to. I'm choosing to. At least for a moment. 081413 #worm Tiny, cream-colored, real tiles cover the floor; the walls are similarly covered but with champagne and black trim. The sinks are many and marble. The fixtures are white gold. Gone are the buzzy fluorescent lights, replaced by gently rose-scented candles, flickering quietly in the steamy air. It's warm. 122113 #mrgrenache I have been poisoned by the constant craving to buy objects that promise to make my life worthwhile. 081813 #treefrog Nobody's going to take you by the hand and tell you how to do it. You're supposed to be a professional, and professionals make their own decisions based on informed principles. 081413 #worm Try to get out. Test your restraints. You're naked. But you're not completely helpless. A pumpkin light shines down. You're back against white sheets. She has left the room. Pull, nakedly, against one cuff. Then the other. Try your ankles--no? Can't get out? I'm sure you could if you really wanted to. 081313 #copperhead And yet he also said, as the canoe started spinning languidly around as he was standing pointificating and I was sitting, paddle dripping radio waves onto the surface of a slow, deep, opaque snake-green pool, he also said, "You know, you don't get a scar from a wound. You get a scar from healing." 082613 #trout You mostly remember the smell of the salt marsh grass. The knobs on the barnboard. The wizened river. The feel of quartz & agate & granite & limestone as the rocks wear away the softness of your newly bare feet. It's getting cold; run faster, feel your heart gasp! as we make for the trail of cinammon smoke. 041594 #eel There were these militarily-dressed men sitting across from you, though, and with increasing uncomfortableness, one of them, a guy about thirty, with dark hair and a mustache, florid features, finally said, "I would like you to shave your pits!" You said, "O.K.," with a shrug and we kinda laughed at them. 081413 #worm The inside of this particular hut looks for all the world like a romantic, unpretentious, comfortable bistro. There are plenty of pink candles in here, flickering shadows into the folds of the bamboo walls. Burgundy and maroon rugs ensnug the dirt floor. Omsatigo's three whores are seated at the only table. 000002 #human Hey! Sign me up! A nation of monks and sidewalk eroticists! Someone's gathering rainwater for a project down on Compton Street. Someone's taking a trip up the river, with stops every hundred feet downtown for speechifying and sporadic music! Someone's being a doctor in exchange for being taken care of. 020003 #human "If I could find five people like me, I'd be a fuckin millionaire." (Then the lady at the table with him says something, laughs at herself.) "If I could find five people like me, I'd be a fuckin millionaire." (with exactly the same tone and emphasis as before) (As it is now, you're still just an asshole.) 010514 #bushmill I'm almost but not quite getting sick of these anonymous little main drags, all so similar and all so different. There's an enormous bag of candy corn on my lap, and each time Mel or Pete reaches in to grab a handful, they act like they don't know that their fingers are inches away from my crotch. 091313 #elephant #trout I should be able to say, I should be somewhere. I should feel the pleasant pang of rebellious guilt. But I have no job, no life, and too many items inside my stupid little fuckhole apartment, and so I am denied that pang. O, triviality! I stare at her some more. 000004 #human #meerkat do this: say, "it seems like we're kinda goin down," then drink some coffee nodding. whatever she says then say, "you know the thing of it is," as soon as she gets back to the table you're both leaning on you are making love to her know it because it is fleeting 090813 #worm Why'd you get into this business? asks my new partner. Cuz, I wanted to be in the business of being a consolidated protective association for the protection of widders and orphans an' weak humans generally, I quote, but my partner has no idea what I am talking about. 081413 #worm In pursuit of the ultimate item, Krim voyages abroad. She dallies with women who want to become her, men who don't recognize her power--more people who want to use her to get someplace else. She gets lonely. She goes into a phone booth, and the whole sick calypso begins again. 081613 #worm Door rings. It's the owner. He's "caught" her sitting idly by the counter, playing with a spider. But if he cares, he makes no appearance of it. When she starts like a sexy horse, supple as a rubberband, he simply says, I wanted to make sure you had, uh, found everything all right. 030004 #human some comfort a prop for your neighbor's feet an old gentle ghost a ponytail hanging down someone's flannel-shirted back the arm-length tattoos of the not exactly unfriendly coffee girl the specific shades of gray "it" is outside and getting grayer by the moment 090913 #gull Evaluating a sentence based only on grammar or structure is like standardizing herbs to sell miracle cures. In your effort to isolate the miracle, you strip away the synthesis, the synergy of the whole organism. Connotation then is like naturopathy. Except with less bullshit. 060212 #human Why do I feel as though I can't do this? Cant be like this guy? He's scrippy. I'm a slob. I'm half awake, dull, slow, and out of touch. What happened? Who am i? Why am i here? Why do i feel like a big crybaby looking for a way out? Looking for someone or something to blame? 081413 #worm Him and Me are skinny-dipping. Have you felt how delicious the water is? When it brushes your astral skin unspeakably? When you're free. Who's all down here tonight? There's a bonfire. We're burning the pallets of cast-off industry. The knotty pine goes up fast, with a crackle. 090913 #human what's the sunken, aching, distant feeling in the morning? money spent, opportunities passed, love withheld, fear of strangers, time hurried and busied through, a thousand eyes turned inward? all the joy sucked out of things come back to haunt you? Just plain adult loneliness? 010007 #squirrel #treefrog Concerning just life in general--I don't know. I'm a little numb, I guess. Or just really tired. Apprehensive about future career. I think I've been learning a lot of -- something -- during this semester, but I'm not sure what. Maybe just this: teaching is hard. 111813 #celeste it's not so much I love you as i love us, what we were then, a photograph being taken right this instant-- my daughter points to a line of blue jugs, bright in the light of a grocery store window. There, she says, one two three of them, take the picture right there! 121913 #treefrog #ednaobrien She could never tell the outcome of each plunge; she never knew how it was going to be or what thoughts would suddenly obstruct her. But each time he said, ‘Lovely, lovely,' and in his exuberance she found consolation. This is teaching and parenting. 040004 #human Tall Stump was the source of much drama in my adolescence. If you wanna go and live with your daddy, you go ahead. ...laid your ass out all night... I'll pin him to the wall and let the people see what kind of man he is. ...your mama... The source of much information about dogs. 000002 #human you were right about one thing: it sustains you but you missed another part of it (until now): even if no-one else gives a rat's bald ass, it still sustains you. I mean, who appreciates the apple more, the orchard or the lumberjack? does anything really "pop" into your mind? 070509 #squirrel accidents huh? haha yeah well you know, i mean to a certain extent you mean like to no extent. haha like oops I came in you oops I came in you oops... etc 060005 #human Love IT while you've got IT. (You can love with or without IT, but still....) 000096 #squirrel #znupikste i dont know i hesitate to specualte (n ice rhyme) because i dont wnat to jinx it, but, i suspect that we could trravel farther. and emotionally how does that feel somewhere between panic and inspiration [flick of lighter] well stated i think 133039 000002 #human proximity of numerous bodies is no guarantee of a house with people in it (neither is the appearance of solitude. neither is loneliness.) absence of guarantee is no guarantee of absence (however) heartburn and having to piss is (unfortunately?) more real than any of this almost all great books 060711 1. She's going to meet Tom, a cowboy, tomorrow. 2. She'd like to ride him. 3. Yes, I spent most of the drive home off-and-on hard and teeming, but it's still not exactly like being eighteen again. Nothing is. #martian 1. or 24. 2. or 27. 3. or 31. 010614 #bushmill My stomach's already in knots because they made me stay here in the motel room while they went somewhere and they wouldn't tell me where. Then when I hear them laughing like parents on the conrete steps outside getting closer, it flips and twists like a fucked up mackerel. 101204 #human 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. It proposes the absurd. I have always loved the absurd. To continue to deny it makes me want to smoke. 180407 011914 #human #celeste Now every time I make green tea, I think of her saying it tastes like dirt. And I get a little frisson of quiet pleasure, same as I can get sometimes driving along a wet street with snow glistening in the headlights, focusing on a particular patch of white. 000096 #squirrel werll were really pushing the boundaries of porper discussing here arent we my my pig boy yes well. aint that what its all about. i guess. see. here's the thing. your probably going to no i want even apologize i will just tell you. i have this little dilemma. 102903 #human As I was looking at her animated face, shining in the blue neon, I realized (again; what is it about that place) this is Esriel. This is Olivia. This is even Erputiba, god bless her fragile heart. I'm sure even Sruky was lurking, somewhere behind the broken daisy coffee maker. 040004 #human Instead I have to compensate for my physical mediocrity with philosophical prowess and good god damn sportsmanship, which, I must point out, is not such a bad deal, all things considered. At this almost-late stage, gulp-remaining-bigger-than-was-thought, etcetera, etcetera. 081413 #worm #roach You know, the old days. Before all this hazy, uncertain moving around. When all we had to do was go to the cafe and eat and smoke, go home and drink, occasionally go out and flirt with strangers just to make our own lives in relation to each other seem more, I don't know -- 102512 #human #bunny just masturbated for the 2nd time today, and it wasn't a weak one, either; and I didn't cry & I don't feel depressed. It was a video of a hairy bear. I just imagined him kissing me, the inevitability & welcome intrusion and roller-coaster fear & force of it. Of him. Him. 031894 #squirrel Somehow, this last semester—maybe because it is the last semester, I don't know—has been my best one yet. My classes are hard and stimulating (wow, that sounds pretty good, eh?). Anyhow, writing is my true profession , so I'll do whatever it takes to be able to do that. 081413 #worm They pass a piano, overgrown with the dust of past music. The piano follows them--yearns physically toward them as they pass; but because Him and Me don't notice, it falls back, in their wake, to its previous state of motionlessness, which is the only way an old piano knows to cry. 081613 #trout #gull Full of shopping malls, searing chrome, open all night, quiet buzzing eddies, aisles, hiding places behind displays, everywhere lit all the time but some anonymous places in the anonymous sea; specificity is personally created an hour, a minute, an instant at a time 081413 #worm Looking backwards, they can see through walls. They can see through to the bathroom they just left, and to the one adjacent to it. The two apartments' bathrooms are arranged as mirror images. The wall between the two is virtually one-dimensional from Him and Me's perspective. 010314 #jonquil You're so pretty, Mary said softly. Instantly the tingles swirled and centered around Gwen's left ear. 081013 #dog HIM: Yes-man. In confidence, I'm blowing it in front of something good to eat right now! [unzips throb, shows perturbed machinery] MEADOW PLANTS: Wow. 091313 #troutr #crow Wait, shit! I blurt suddenly. Who's going to let my dog out? We have to go back! Someone's got to take care of my dog! They stare at me. I stare at them. Well, someone's got to take care of the dog. They have an argument. Finally, the green car turns around. 081413 #worm Tits. Me is thinking of tits. But then in a segue of unfortunate proportions, he starts thinking about the little blond boy again. Who? And why? And he starts to cry. But he stops, because it's hard to cry when people are watching. He wobbles fawnlike over to the window, looks out. 110000 #human i bang listlessly, painfully on the drums, trying to summon? or conjure a force beyond my comprehension. there is no-one on the island but me. my shack is built up against the elements, preserving me only for my own preservation, not because a ship might come or anyone cares. 000096 #squirrel well, i just mean, the universe the universe is just there to be my lover and for me to do this dance with but then why do you so often speak so disparagingly about other people? are they not of the smae universe maybe cuz other people scare me. yeah that makes sense 081413 #worm Dare, you say. Okay. I dare you to step out of the fire. I dare you to stop pissing on the fire, first. Shake it off, and let the fire-dancers roar. Slip sideways out of the subterranean dimension of Him and Me, and show yourself within the bonfire's uncouth light. It's almost time. 092411 #elephant She shoved my head in the toilet after I licked the piss from her pussy. "Thank you, *who?*," she demanded. "That's right. Thank you, Ann. Your *wife*, who you can't even *fuck*, because you're such a pathetic loser. Who's going to make you *not* a pathetic loser, *Mat*?" 184703 011914 # And now for the sublime pleasure of typing a little bit, staring into inner space a little bit, but mostly carefully-calibrated-background listening to the littles play and make the stuffed animals talk. The murmuring, pebble-beach rhythm of it with an hour to go til bedtime. 083013 #treefrog 2008 9th graders are so odd. Their regular clothes look like pajamas (the girls, that is; the boys are not so interesting, though odd-faced). Their smiles look as vulnerable as five-year-olds', but their curves, though slight, are almost as dangerous as the fully fledged! 081413 #worm Him barely has time to skip out of the way, as robot arms shoot out from previously concealed hatches in the baseboards, and whisk the remains of his clothing out of sight. Shortly he hears a hard-edged whining noise, as that of hundreds of blades scissoring in concerted action. 090913 #roach go back into the underground dimension. go. go there, go with respect and admiration go with sex. go slinking into anonymity. go. skip over. go, go anywhere go there. go. go back go out in public, go. go down to the lake go, go home. go! go into the fire go, go, all the time, 081413 #worm Me turns around. Suddenly he feels as though he looks girlish. Walking back to Him, he tries to toughen up, the way you do when you have to get your mom's or your girlfriend's purse, and you act conspicuously as if you don't know how to hold it. You resist the comfort of it. 081613 #worm An embarassed forelock gets swooped back on her lovely, round, faintly sweet-sweat-smelling head. She busies herself with the business of sudden forgiveness. Almost shaking, she flips through a magazine. Tomorrow comes. I'll wear my boots next time, cunt, he says. He's gone. 010012 #human Dabbled in marijuana; dabbled in adventurous sex. Dabbled in working hard; dabbled in knowing secret things. Dabbled in the occult & in the upright. Dabbled in righteous poverty. Dabbled in savior-faire. Still don't know, because I dabbled in philosophy as well, "who I am." 081413 #copperhead So that's why today's tributary, a mucky, sodden green mass of leaf rot and snake tangle, reminds me of when I would have just wanted a beer without wanting one. It's hot. It's after noon. The sun is beating down like a blanket. The water is green and thick, untold depth. 000096 #squirrel mmm what kind of car god a 19 o lets be wild and say 79 convertible chevy impala drab green? drab green perfect and the drivers door doesnt work so you hagve to climnb in from the other side or climb over i would climb over of course thats a given 102913 #snail #elephant of her putrid perfection, yes I am, yes I am, I really am a piece of shit under her shoe, and always will beg to eat lick suck and smear myself and fill my eyes with her shit and be raped by her and utterly submit and debase myself under her, earning not even her 082613 #gull 100703 What is the difference between {provisioning, maintenance, cleaning, husbandry, mending, organizing, etcetera} and {dumping an entire bag of flour on the floor, blowing it around, watching little curlicues of air blow it further, in ways you may never have imagined} 081313 #copperhead I am old, I am old. My hands look old. Not quite liver-spotted yet, nevertheless they're veined and white and blue and rough and red and I haven't figured out yet just what has happened to get me here. I know. Ridiculous. Pathetic. Clichéd. And yet. And yet. And yet. 102513 #human Within the realm of rock-bottom resides the sweetest high; this is what you actually have to recover from, and you will never, quite, not completely. 081013 #dog HIM: I love you. ME: I love you. HIM: What does it mean? ME: What mean? HIM: This rock. ME: [feeling rock] Oh. It means— HIM: Yes? ME: It means— 010314 #jonquil I was— Gwen couldn't even remotely begin to think of any way to finish that sentence, as she dropped Mary's underwear back into the basket at her feet. 120913 #snail Desperate rains call for desperate glass-smashings. Easter eggs of cacophanous doubt rain down bloody-knuckled all over the medium chai of your stupid face. 120313 #snail Congratulations. You're real enough. The danger is real, comfort is elusive. You're asking yourself "would you go through all this for your art" as if you had a choice! 111813 #thousandsummers she comes up from under the greenblue water, slick like an otter, smiling like an eskimo, pokes out her tongue and there, bright as treasure, is my ring 010314 #jonquil Gwen could hear the goth girl's music as soon as she got past the stately screen door. It was coming from upstairs, but she had work to do down here first. 042713 #human Or little things like allowing myself not to obsess over hypothetical emotional commitments that in physical reality would probably be misplaced or misused. 120313 #snail #bothy 'This was home now,' Libby read. & it is. Deciding to be happy, glowing in this coal-black, antique-green, tungsten-brite den. We are alive, and growing. 000096 #human so like, say i go to ma fishers to meet Estheir tomorrow and i show up with this daisy in a pot and a big red strap-on phallus on the outside of my jeans... 092712 #human I undulate on a beach of peanut shells and pretzel crumbs. I am a great barrel of spongy, reeking pathos near a sea of redemption i can never hope to swim in. 082813 #vulture 2005 Oh god. Help me. Thirty-five years ago, I started to succumb. I'm approaching the point of religion. God help me. 121512 #elephant #holly God, and her teeth! Her straight, white, big, soft-focused teeth when she smiles one of her wistful, ironic, glittery, delicate, biting smiles! 081413 #worm Well, let's see. There's not that much to tell. The Snoke is a translucent book, a pillar of smoke. There's nothing more to it than exactly what you see. Except -- 080913 #princess the magicians brought the roda to the princess. she liked it--the sweaty men, their shiny backs, toppling and tumbling and astonishing one another! 022813 #crow Fuck the hotshot contemporary "movement" with its titillating tough-guy pose hysteria-- plain honesty is what fucking Bukowski was doing all along. 110413 #fox Voice. Yours. It works. Amazingly enough, it's more than one person/character/story--it's flexible. Like an instrument. But still yours. Use it. 010514 #tinker #meerkat Build something to improve your mood. However, calibrate it to a longer throw than the usual mood repair around an anxiety-arousing event or task. 022104 #eel i gave him some poems and he handed them back with all these comments like "foolish" and stuff. anyway, all these corrections, but then he gave it an A anyway. 000008 #human I hate it don't ever do it it's not like you're 12 or anthing it'sn ot like you're a workld traveller or time traveller or anything, it kjist makes you stupid. 000096 #squirrel you know i have a certain aversion to being a mouse.