mid day

Fucked up
just to
occupy myself.
It's a somnambulant place
otherwise -
this world.

yeah

It's like
I mean, like
like...
like, y'know?
Like, we all just--
We're all like
...

and then, like
like
I like
like, people, y'know?
like I like things like
people things

like, people
Oh!
People
like, they're like--
and just like--
woah.

People.

I like
and you like
like, we're all like
Oh, I like !
and then we all like
and then we all, like--
like
just like, like each other

...
y'know?

everyone else is where I want to be and I'm doing it better

Your eyes
are sunk like
blue-yellow-green
inside seashell
dusk storm
mac monitor light
colour

Or like
you haven't eaten red meat for a month
and not taken supplements
and stayed up all night watching YouTube
(you have, you do, do you?)

Like,
let's go run around the globe
a quick jog for tired under-eyes

I don't want this sleepy country.

No, I want this country, but I
want it awake.

of tribes

The problem with this job is that I become married to the characters. I have seen Sylvia's hand dance over her head like that -- with a slight lilt back and closed eyes -- eight times. Still, even this last time my forehead creases with empathy. She says, I have no empathy. I have so much empathy for these fictional people.

I can shape my consonants properly but I also feel like I am not heard. Though I do choose (at times) not to hear.

So when it comes to the divorce - Closing Night - I can't help but be a little overwhelmed. Three weeks feels like forever, in the theatre world. I quite sincerely begin to believe that this play will perpetually show in this theatre.

When it comes time for a new season, I become anxious about the change. I'm not sure what it is about the change that concerns me. Generally, I'm not one to choose familiarity.

But there is something alluring in repetition. Of reciting the lines over and over with the actors. Knowing where they will stand next, sitting with the pace, eyes and ears bent through the audience. Waiting for that perfectly formed expression or cringing more and more than the last night when they are off. I come out either loving or hating them. There is no middle ground here. This world is black and white. I photocopy your face; the mute usher in the back row. I wear it out. 'Til there is no colour left. I see you in the street and try to figure out how I know you. And realising I've never met you, I feel exasperated that I can't go up to you and talk.

One patron going in for Act II says, Are you signing? "No!" I say. But I have noticed that of late I have become even more articulate with my hands.

334 on 22.6 /2

The edges of me feel yucky. In that brief moment before "No", I was slurped up by the foul lips of the immediate future. Within that single second, everything which would have happened after a "Yes" happened anyway. In hyper-speed. Condensed. And therefore with unbearable intensity.

I was put into a situation which gave me two detestable options. So that, regardless, I was left with a diseased conscience. No illness from poorly chosen actions, but from that pause lingering in me. That hesitation itself had a voice which screeched up and down the long, narrow cavity of the broken bus and gluttonously ate my footsteps along Beechcroft Avenue and accompanied me to bed. A putrid companion.

Sincerely, I asked because of your props, not because of your blocking or your delivery.

Strangely, no fear from me. Rather, some pity.

But still, a yucky feeling... One which leaves me hovering at the window suspiciously, wondering whether to break the ritual of open curtains. Questioning, too, how Christmas can be mid-winter. Not in this country, I suppose. Though maybe in your native land. Which explains the back-to-forwardness.

It feels invasive knowing society allows for such encounters. I am not a movie. I am not your vehicle to spontaneity. I am Natalie Maria, trying to go home.

334 on 22.6

arbitrary bus questions
(second, and seconds)
Sam, Sam I am
when six months prior drags itself back into your life
the one who the almost-note was not intended for
...still sitting in my christmas stocking
the un-judged chance to be awful
the chance to lift your eyelids
a chance to fulfill your unwanted wantings
and wantons
squirming and worming its ways
into your home street
(luckily, soon to be left)
like year seven and eight
he is at my window
my imaginary bathroom window
"go away, go away" I think--


I am ashamed at the part of myself which walks with
proud of the self which walks in power
but not so proud
not so proud that I will be an open invitation
so proud as to decline
here I exercise the number eighth
tomorrow being my un-Saturday
and you, with another face
might find your irrational question answered
and, "should I have worded that differently?"
(yes)


but a six-month hiatus holds no validity
or does, in some other place--
Wellington, for example
I would return there, yes, without regret
for toothy gaps
but not for ten day sales
in my now hometown
those are reserved for Julians only
a union, in fort
and even then I let it slip by
cautious as ever
assertive without courage
thus are the two ends of my Self.

with heart

It's as if, when I touch them, little shards of stability drop out of me - specifically, from the inside of my left leg, from the base of my spine, from the edges of my jaw, from between my eyebrows - culminate in my wrists and forearms, and are sucked up by their hot, sticky, broad and bony backs.

My first thought when the tears came pushing through was, "I need to take my hair out."

how to make friends

try to match me
you'll find compatibility
I'll find in me your opposite, and draw it out
you'll see that which you chose not to
I'll play the rescuer
(what's new)
and what I knew:
we'll both be caught.
I ought to know better
than to offer up my head
before the rest of me

a recurring feeling

the voice
said, go
down to the end
there'll be
someone
you know there

I
got there
and I
was by
myself