walking, outside, everything around you, surrounding you; you are in it. my feet hit the sidewalk again & again. something falls out of a tree, its back arched downward, arms still reaching out for the lost limb. i can't find the escape hatch, the safety switch. flashes of reality blinking on the inside of my eyelids. my arms are outstretched in front of me like a somnambulist or superman. i want to grab it, pull it towards myself - everything.
the brilliancy of the skin reflecting shimmery - it was a sheen of sweat - gloss of the pores. white flesh like a flashbulb. light rising making deft half circles of ankle rotations. little pale hairs coming out of (protruding from) the surface of the skin in fair waves. an ocean crashing upon foreign shores. the four oars in eyelets clasped clanking, rowing o'er. my skin like a mast, stretched in wind, catching. my body flayed by the casting rays, pulled over the ribs of my self-made boat, i transport, support, contain.
clouds, my hands. running down the middle of the street w/ no cars, only a gang of teenage boys chasing me. some of them had rocks. i was not a good runner. there was sweat on my forehead pouring into my eyes. i remember the hammer. the claw end of thor. everything quickly settled down. the husk of a shelled insect. you can smell them hiding inside the walls. clouds like mountain ranges. i started on a long path up into the foothills. my hands clamoring over the coarse rocks were bloody. the bicycle tire circling its own zero.
i am sleeping & the green of the leaves of trees is still, unmoving, detached from its source. the green of the leaves leaves the leaf as the tree stood still in the wind. it is driving past, the wind, carrying the tree & its branches & its leaves w/ it, but not the green. the green stays, in the same shape of the tree's leaves, after it has left. & i am gone as well.
the sky, a vast flat plane w/ occasional dreams projected on it. i see myself reflected upon that screen, amplified so that my face's surface stretches across the horizon. someone is throwing a stick at the sky, trying to tear open my face. i am watching them, wanting them to. i see the stick come closer, but it never reaches me.
the glass of the front door of the apartment complex is clear. slightly hazy. tinted transparent. seeing through it, using it to look through. from the inside. the stairs, leading down, in a series of descent. i didn't believe in anything, the concrete of it, hard, objective. running down in a straight line from the entrance, lined by shrubs, to the steps leading down to the sidewalk. i stood watching people pass on the sidewalk unaware of me. i thought, maybe. the sound of voices reaching through the paneling of glass. i couldn't touch them or be touched.
it came out the mouth of the tube as i pressed the abdomen of it like some kind of disgorging small animal. the soft, pastel-colored paste curled out through the beveled lips where the cap screwed on & bent over from the force of its own weight, down to the coil it was making on the sink's counter. the curves of its body was piled up on itself in loops & race-track shapes defining a topography completely void of angulation. i kept squeezing until the tube had become flattened out and empty. all of the toothpaste lay splayed out like the inverse of shed snake skin.
1.
a star. an asterisk is a star. it neither shineth nor twinkleth. to concentrate upon the focal point where all the lines run together like some kind of catastrophic car crash. to hone in. to bury oneself alive under the soil of it. 2. the flame of desire dances on the wick. burning ember glowing orange bewildered. how it is hot like a murder under the fingernails. how it enrages red when you blow upon it. just before eternal darkness. a makeshift wanting, the making of candles, wax like a face melting. it harrows the skin or flesh of it. practicing smiles in the mirror of some unwanted backwards unknown grasping. like a bottle of fire poured out. like an arc perpetuated. the tiny teeth of it biting. 3. unmooned, wandering vagabond. desolate whistling mongrel hoping. you limp after it tumbling into a sea or palace. it soothes the burning with a bitten tongue. the crystals of geometry suspended achingly, a conspiracy of monsters eating the afterbirth. a forehead menace, a penetration of unbelievable susceptibility. you torpedo your phalanx into an onslaught of jettisoned recalcitrance. all hope dances shimmering & forgotten. the long escalator carrying a basket of rotten eggs. your mouth, your mouth. & the blackness of it a reverberating unconjugated verb. 4. today you held it all in one small palm. where the lines of your hands met when they fell folded together lopped off at the wrist. the edge of it, the stark delineation & what came after. hot searing lion's breath. a mamed sequel to something that never was. breath held, punctuated. 5. a laugh. a ragged exhalation extinguishing crossed stars. with tears in them. folded in half carelessly without expectation. the jagged corpselike landscape with craters eclipsed by no light. the vaunted ceiling with dust and plastic glow-in-the-dark laughter, some number of candles on a cake. you purse your lips over a star that has just stopped shining. every step is a stair. in the kitchen, from the freezer, i took out a blue tray. an empty ice cube tray. the blocks of frozen water stuck to my fingers when i touched them. i thought something was going to happen. water was running from the sink faucet. i held the tray under & filled it up. put it back in the freezer in the grooved plastic shelf made for it. i held six ice cubes in my mouth, feeling them burn against the inside of my cheek.
a caterwaul of infants, infantry. teeth gelid. she stood like an alabaster statue being transported. the skirt of her hung blue or green from the shoulders, a mannequin's hanger. looking out the window at the passing scenery. she turned her heel; i spoke to her. she wore a purse and a watch. i held her wrist; the clock struck my face. she watched me die, caught under the wheels.
|
AuthorI write short stories. This is my blog. I'm going to write whatever. Archives
October 2014
Categories
All
|