arcadian dreams

Why aren't you sleeping with your piglet?
You should be shitting in your silver bowl which matches identical to your other silver bowl - the one they keep your water in.

Your piglet is experiencing heatstroke.
Do you know that? No. You don't because you've abandonned your crate.

24 apple parts
growing out of straw
They should be strawberries

There's some collarbone in me
On couches and city ledges
In lounges
In old-blue and new-red
blankets
I've got to have sun on that open shoulder
Neck
Neck-and-crate

The wrong one's got his fingerprints out.
"You know what?" I say,
"No I
Don't
want to sign your petition.
And yes I do smoke occasionally. That's exactly why.
Take off your shirt, man. You're no better than the others. The only difference between you and them is that they've got gold amongst the green on their t-shirts."

But I save this for a hypothetical occurrence. Just in case.
I've always either planned everything or acted much too irrationally in a flash of sudden idealistic spontaneity.

Luckily he never approaches me. (Of course, this is New Zealand and I am blasting summer eight.) He just keeps circling, fins tucked into his ribs.

I'll have some other please.

So in number three I go and
stick my fingers into some man's cheekbones
wipe the fluid from his eyes across those
beautiful collarbones of mine
Saturation in holy water, I imagine
dripping off the side of what they call
a 'plinth'

I worry about you, darling ice skull
You're not centred
you're not balanced
(follow my advice, I'm a Libra, I know all about balance darling)
If you don't straighten up
your pretty little head is going to
tip right off and
shatter all over that well-sanded wooden floor.

Then the thirsty little piglet next door
trottles over
laps the ice skull all up
licky licky licky
laps up the melting eye sockets which I tried to
deepen with my fingers, but failing
let the ice seep out of my own cheekbones instead
(or collarbones).
No collar.
No alcoholics.
I'm going to leave you lying around.

Just outside the piglet crate, probably. You'll be fine for twenty four days, with twenty four apple-parts to ration.
Good things happen on the twenty-fourth day.
And after twenty four days I can do what I like. I can venture out of the piglet crate (or into it, if I decide I've never been into it in twenty years). Twenty. Only twenty.There are no add-ons. Pudding and pie,
jumping over the moon
and so on,
And cows. Lots of cows.
Bovine mysteries.
Or diseases.
Cows in crates. And on
teacups, and in
money banks and
t-shirts and
ice-cream scoops and
in breakfast
I just want to scream at everyone, "Yes, it's all true!"
But they say, "wonderful.
Stand-out creation."
I say defiantly, "Its not a fucking
script!"
And the older friends says, "Is that true?
Was that one true?"

"Bloody hell", sighs me dramatically. "Do you want me to write a dance about it? I'll draw you a fucking ballet if that's what you need."
I'm real patient now.
"I need taking care of!"
I don't think anyone read that part.
Unfortunate really.
Else they'd have cradled me under their skin
the moment I changed my stage skin.
Or else, I have forgotten to recognise cradling.

Instead they all say, "great, great." "Stand-out." That's a common one too. It's just like these campers though, right? And the news, and the charities. Everyone will empathise. Some will even speak. But no-one's going to do anything about it.

"So are you going to employ me then?" I say. And they look at me not saying anything for a while. And then they say,
"Well we've got to go home now even though we live just up the road. This space is just getting a bit too crowded for me
Too many ideas floating around."
I just cross my arms and wonder whether I should look at them (every night, I did that every night)
and say, "Yeah, three's a crowd huh"
even though there are four of us standing.
Amongst other numeric idioms.
Then I apologise.
Sometimes get reprimanded for apologising.
Sometimes not quite heard, apologising.

It's ok because
if you're lonely you can always go and sleep with the
piglet.
Or make out in public places
(avoid racist comment here).

"Your bicycle's going nowhere"
I tell Matt
- no, Marcus.
Neither of them know my name, but they invite me inside anyway.
"Ah, I read about this yesterday," I say.
"It didn't end up so good. There was blood and other bodily fluids involved."

"I've seen this twice before, actually," I tell them.
"What are you on about?" says Marcus.
"That bicycle's going nowhere," repeats me. "It's a bad omen. You should get out while you can."
"We've done this before," he says. "And there's seven more days to go. We'd be letting everyone down if we stopped."
"Naahhh," I insist. "Number two and the piglet's friend have already left and number three's slowly melting away. No-one'll even notice you're gone, trust me.
I try to talk all the time and people still don't hear me
They just clap their hands
So what's the point?
Take that typewriter with you and
go."

Then I leave. It's awkward being that intimate with people who don't know your name. (They'll probably turn up on a KFC ad in a year or two.)

As I'm leaving I read on his wall, with my fast and nervous eyeballs,
"Congratulations if you've read this far."
Which seems like an appropriate theft to insert here. Well done, Natalie. There's no prize but well done.
(Some more hand-clapping - which really is just self-abuse, isn't it? Just whacking one limb against the other like, "ffarrrkkk, you just did something better than I could conjure".)

Oh dear. She's losing the plot. Let's hit ourselves.

Well you can't hit me anyway, can you? That's against the law now. You can't hit the piglet either, that's socially unacceptable and will be Frowned Upon.

"When does this end?" everyone's breathing. Well, you know, you don't have to stay in it forever. You won't anyway. You don't want the end and
you don't want whatever this thing happening now is
So what do you propose we do?
I'm just going to say, "I don't know I don't know I don't know"
over and over again, which is fine 'cause
I doubt it will be
read anyway. I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know. There's things on here which maybe I am the only person to have ever laid eyes on in the world. Out of six billion! That's pretty special huh.

I don't know how you could say, "me too," that's pretty astounding. Though I guess when you make nine o'clock plans it's no suprise
In bed by ten
in love by ten thirty
or in 'like'
I thought I invented that one
but apparently not, the internet tells me.

Your fourth cigarette and your eighteenth cup of tea --
That beats me, even
and beat yourself
two limbs
unbeaten
"Unbeatable Cleaning Power!"
and prowess like collarbones
Poor piglet.

I keep forgetting about you.

No piglet, you have great collarbones too.
Yes, honestly.
No honestly, you do.
Noo!!! I'm not just saying that.
Piggy promise. I mean pinky.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah really.
Really. You do. Seriously!

Shut up piggy. Go back to your heat-stroke seizure zone.