inept

duets

A stranger sight tonight. Staring into a mirror which did not return my reflection. It just showed what was behind me. Didn’t realise I was that transparent. Have to question my own existence.

Two hands. Your survival rate is higher if one hand holds your own throat while your second hand holds the throat of another. A hand on your own throat for emergency exit (in case of crisis). A hand on another’s throat so you aren’t reckless with your first hand. Their hand on your throat to encourage caution. And a sense of urgency. Survival instincts kick in better if it is not your own hand after you.

Wanted: a free hand. I could reposition the mirror to see myself and block out the view behind me. I would sit in the mirror and look at my reflection properly.

Sitting in puddles
Someone lights a cigarette
I don’t move away

I will grow myself a third hand. For the mirror - not for another throat. Two throats is already too many throats.

It is more than two really if I look into that backwards mirror. There have been a few other throats under my hands. Unsure as to whether I let them go or held onto them too tightly. Some days I just realised my hand was clutching air. Maybe I strangled a few throats. Which proves my theory about the survival rate. As in, I have survived.

Also some hands let go of me. Not to make space for other throats but to take both hands to their own throat. Extra safe emergency escape. Fail-proof.

I knew.

I am guilty of:
apathy,
compliance,
indecision,
narcissism,
hope.

storm

I keep thinking that
  the sound of rain
    is friends' lips joining
  the low rumble in the distance
    is the rearranging of bed covers
  the thunger
    is the crashing of bodies
  the lightning
    is the peeling apart of skin.

I am not hearing what I am hearing.

tunnel vision

If by chance you should find yourself in a room where the light is suddenly switched out - perhaps from a power failure, or the bulb blows - it is a wise idea to cast your eyes in the direction of a window. There is usually some light visible from the outside world. A street lamp. Headlights of cars. Flames on cigarette lighters. A friend bearing a torch. You can use this light to orient yourself amongst the darkness.

Navigating uneven surfaces such as stairs and jagged handrails can be especially difficult and should be approached with caution. Often traces are left behind from those who have previously found themselves in such circumstances. These can assist you in finding your way. Look for small markings and strips of paper. From here, you can assess whether it is wise to follow in these peoples' footsteps or define pathways of your own.

Some people find themselves gravitating towards the light on the other side of the window. This is not advisable. While at first this may seem like a logical and effective solution, doing so results in injury. Many people experience disorientation as a result of the sudden darkness, unintentionally hurling themselves into the glass. This is not unlike birds as they fly into glass windows and doorways, unaware of the barrier between themselves and what they see beyond the pane. Venturing too close to the light may also cause blindess which can have long term effects. Once exposed to harsh brightness your eyes may never properly re-focus again.

Should you find your way out of the dark room you must keep in mind that it will take some time to adjust to your new surroundings. It is advised to take things slowly at first. Be mindful of your steps. Don't be in a rush. Proceed with caution. But do not let your experience of the darkness hinder your ability to appreciate a room filled with light.

god as a verb

I am not particularly religious (if at all) but two things I encountered today resonated in me:


Firstly, a passage from the bible which I read on another blog:

I do not understand what I do.
For what I want to do I do not do,
but what I hate I do.

- Romans 7:15

The other is from a documentary we watched today in class (Haunting Douglas, 2003):

"God is a verb. It's not something separate from you. It's something you can experience."

- Douglas Wright

I suppose this is similar to how I perceive God: A particular feeling or experience usually brought on by beauty (in whatever form beauty takes - people, music, moments) and very often covertly. I do not view God as a singular ruling entity. I have always had trouble articulating my thoughts on this. But I think this also defines it: Something complex and not necessarily needing or wanting to be explained.

laundry: hanging

laundry: hung out

laundry: airing

laundry: fold

[Asylum: a refuge, a haven, a shelter, a sanctuary, a place of protection.]

rainbow

If I had things my way, it would be sunny every day and rain at night when I am snuggly indoors, preferably bed or a fort.

diversion tactics

I talk to people incrediblyfastsometimesandtheycan’tunderstandwhatIamsayingatallandtheytellmetoslowdownandstopstressingbutIam
not stressing
I am just very excited about
whatever I am talking about.

dress-up day

In these people I find happiness:

 

They have carried me through a large portion of the last eighteen months. My class is the most energetic, complex, enthusiastic, spontaneous, surprising, talkative, sensitive, intelligent, diverse, hilarious, insightful, absurd, wonderful bunch of people I know.

Sometimes I try to tell them why they are beautiful but I don't think they quite believe me. Also I can never articulate it accurately. It is something in the way they interact with each other. In dancers I find a unique form of friendship which I don’t fully understand but am grateful for.

I think of our class as this strange polygamy where we are all exchanging experiences and bodies and ideas. It is the best way I can imagine spending three years of my life.

symptoms of perfectionism

SYMPTOMS OF PERFECTIONISM:

Too many questions and not enough courage.

A plethora of thoughts and a lack of words.

Excessive fear and insufficient abandon.

Verbose with ideas yet silent in action.

Buried in doubt but cannot unearth confidence.

Indulging in people to be astounded by loneliness.

Overwhelmed by failing and untouched by chance.

Stumbling across obstacles and walking freely in apathy.

Trying to be elusive but should be alluring.

Singing beautifuly when there is no-one to hear.

Finding freedom only with permission.

Taking only risks which are calculated
and foolproof
and therefore are not even risks

Analysing everything

Refusing to surrender one's self totally

Rebuking one's self for any right-doings

Chasing perfection and letting creativity escape -


and documenting it all: Every last cowardice.

another amateur comic

 

fortnight

I think I have forgotten what Sundays actually sound like. In my ears, Sundays are still shoulder blades stretching over cotton, eyelids fluttering shut. I can hear small portions of caffeine leaking through the back of my head - drip, drip, drip... A slide show of second-hand thoughts is flickering over my brain. My wardrobe door is banging shut.

Sunday, to me, sounds like perforated edges rustling in my drawers. The piercing, static noise of galaxy and city shining through raindrops and bouncing off my window. Fingertips searching out instability and scratching only the surface. Wanting to find half-set clay. I think I hear with my fingertips mostly, on Sundays. Like a grasshopper hears through its legs. My legs – my knees – curling against my chin as I crouch under alphabet-stained white light. When I can hear pen tips cutting shapes across white wrists, arms, I know it is Sunday.

Hearing Sunday makes my ears hot like melted fat and iron or boiling water on teabags. Like when someone calls you and their voice filters through the phone, cauterizing your nerve endings.

Sunday also occasionally sounds like there is an extra body in the room. For example thinking there are four when there are actually three. Maybe the other body is somewhere nearby and the sound waves are becoming disoriented as they negotiate space. Can I hear three bodies or four? Three is a holy number. But it doesn’t sound like it. Three ante meridiem on a Sunday is not holy.

Flat shoes are chasing metal cylinders across busy roads. Crooked metal circles are chasing shoes across grass. Canvas is swinging between bodies – the quiet friction of four-legged races. Less holy than three legged ones. Everytime a body negotiates the barbed moat around my ankles I think it is Sunday. That sound of carbon dioxide against my forehead, my post-card vision - that is also how I hear Sunday.

And a whispering about colours: Sunday is saying, y e l l o w y e l l o w y e l l o w g r e e n , g r e e n a n d r e d a n d o r a n g e a n d y e l l o w , b l u e . b l u e b l u e b l u e . d e f i n i t e l y y e l l o w . s o m e t i m e s g r e e n a l w a y s g r e e n g r e e n . y o u a r e c l e a r a n d y o u r h e a d i s n o t a n d w e a r e a l l p o i s o n e d b y w h i t e f r u i t s i n a f a c t o r y .



This is what Sunday actually sounds like:

An absence of traffic.
A rolling around empty two-by-three surfaces.
A song on repeat for the sake of nostalgia.
A clinging-on to silver-transparent ideas.
A drawn-out waiting for something to happen (I am not sure what).
A rush to resist sleep.
A realising that the week has only minutes left, like a saggy skin holding together a brittle skeleton .
A staring competition with the wall until my eyes begin to water.



I am scared. Afraid that if I take my earphones out I will hear exactly how Sunday sounds. But I will forget how to end one week and begin the next.

100% hypothetical situation

This is me pretending I can draw -

Successful??

poncho addendum

It is forecasted to rain for the next three days.
Get your ponchos out people.

emergency poncho

on days when it rains
I wear an emergency poncho
it is green
it is from a two dollar shop
it sometimes rips because it
is plastic
but it works ok

in storms
the hood must be zipped tightly over my face to
buffer the weather
especially when there are gale force winds
I
wrap myself around other bodies I
get lost in my own shapelessness
I take my hair out
hoping it will soak up the raindrops
I
cling to other peoples' knees
even if they are standing in puddles
(I know what bad knees are like
and they are worse in the rain)

when you are wearing an emergency poncho
you can't see much but
this is good because
it means
other people can't see you and
you can hide yourself in the folds of another and
you can't see them properly but
this is good because
then you can
pretend they are someone else and
you can hide yourself inside the hidden person's
poncho and
you can tell yourself
you are holding onto a different body
but really all you are holding onto is
an emergency poncho
which really is actually just emergency
plastic

still -
it is called an emergency poncho because
it is best used in an emergency
for example
when you are unsure which container to put your biscuits in or
you can't recall what you ate for dinner last monday or
you have forgotten the way to an old friend's house or
you realise you have forgotten how to arrange your face
then you will definitely need a poncho
and you will definitely be grateful about the
zippable hood

but then as you are zipping up the hood
the draw string falls out.
then you are in the shit.
the wind is going to blow all in your face
with its gale force
and you will grow larger
because you are in your emergency poncho
and wind does that to ponchos and
maybe if you are lucky
your feet will leave the ground a little bit
and you will suddenly realise how heavy gravity is but
you will be getting quite wet and rained on and so
it will almost not be worth your anti-gravity experience
but still a little bit valuable
and then you will just be confused
about whether floating is a good thing or not
(it is probably not)

but anyway
you are floating whether it is
good or not
so while you are up there you take the time to look down, which causes you to notice that
eight other people are also in emergency ponchos
(and therefore must also be in states of emergency
also known as 'crisis') and
not only that but
two of them are in green ponchos -
that is
THE SAME COLOUR PONCHO as you -
and so even though you are floating a little higher you might
feel a little bit less alone

until you notice that the two green
ponchos are getting along just
fine
with each other
and then even though you are also green
you're not quite sure if you fit in because
everyone says that
"three's a crowd!"
and quite enthusiastically, too
so it must be true
and anyway
you have changed your mind about floating again, it
is good

the biggest problem about
floating in an emergency poncho is that
there is no safety mechanism for when the
gale force winds
can't hold you up any more and
as luck would have it
you are going to land right on top of the other two green ponchos.
WHAM.
they look a little confused
but you just ignore this because
it is quite nice to have bodies beneath you
it is quite nice to give weight into someone
it is quite nice to have someone
with weight
who can stop the gale force winds from floating you away
we should all be good friends with
gravity

but if you can't be good friends with gravity
then I would definitely recommend that you
absolutely without a doubt must
must
must
invest in an emergency poncho
because
I'm telling you,
a situation like
this is an emergency

room to live - outside - after

The window is jammed so we can't turn off the city. It's a freezing cold hour, somewhere around 1:30 in the morning. We warm our hollowed bodies from the inside out. It doesn't matter - we're young and value our memories more than our health. And our mobile screens more than our bank statements.

I breathe in and try to exhale my curiosity. But my body already knows the habit. Empty wine bottles become vertical ashtrays. Our faces become maps. I can see my direction clearly in her temples.

"No. I have never thought about other girls. No. I haven't broken any bones. Yes. I worry about diseases too. Yes. Twice... but neither time in this city. No. I have never been stoned. Yes, you can have another glass." She misses the chair by an inch. "No. I don't know how I got here. I was made up of several other people, I think."

The bulb in our lounge blows. You can't see any stars even in darkness because the city is so bright. I don't really care where the light is coming from - only that it's there. I wonder how many lights have bodies beneath them. At a guess I think it must take about four bodies to feed a light.

"Actually, I was 75% my mother and 25% my father first. And then after I was born all these other people picked me up and held me. They left their fingerprints everywhere. So now I'm mostly made up of other people. See?"

Yes. I heard.

Me, screwing the lid onto the quarter-empty bottle and balancing it on its neck.

"What? Yes, I said you can have the last cigarette."

The body in front of me stands suddenly. Knocks the bottle over. I have never broken any bones but she has broken a bottle. Dancing in the sugar puddle.

"I was saving that."

Me, irritated. Not dancing.

She picks up the chair and swivels it around. (Dancing.)

"Sorry. I just wanted the last cigarette." She sits back down. Lights the last cigarette. Puts it out. Picks it up again. Looks at the filter end, very closely. Looks at the label on a broken piece of the bottle. Turns the chair the right way around. Sits on it. Stands back up. Goes to find a mop.

I can't stand the smell of this.

"Shut the door please." Nervously.

We wait for the mop for a very long time. It never arrives.

We find her in the kitchen making pasta.

"I'm sorry," she says. Me too.

"Are you sober?" she asks us.

"No."

"No."

"No."

"A little."

"Yes," I say. "Yes I am."

I am.

I help her light the stove. We have to use a match because it's gas. I enjoy this but so often I've burned my fingers. It leaves a little black oval around my thumb. Once I was thinking about other things and sucked the blister. It tasted a lot like I imagine those cigarettes would without the filter.

"Tell me about it," she says sternly. "I know you were lying."

I wasn't lying. Kissing is not wanting. And also...

"Um. We were sitting on the edge of our friend's brother's bath tub. And. It was something we'd talked about for a few weeks actually."

"So you knew it was going to happen?"

"Not then, no. I was never sure if she was serious. But I thought it would probably happen. It was strange but so was everything we did in that house. Nothing had consequences because we had this kind of silent truce where nothing was real. Nothing I do at night time ever feels real." Or else it feels too real. "I have difficulty differentiating between what I dream and what actually happens. Sometimes I wake up laughing or crying and I don't realise that I was ever asleep.

"We digress."

"Sorry. Um... One of the boys walked in on us. To go for a piss. He was part way through undoing his jeans. Did his fly up when he saw us - I always thought that was odd. If it was any of the others they'd have brought the party into the bathroom. But I think he got it. That that place wasn't real, at night. Or maybe he was just embarrassed. Or high. I don't know. But I feel like he was in a similar state to us.

"Why were you in the bathroom in the first place? Rub a dub dub, two girls in a tub. On a tub, sorry. On the edge. Want some pasta?"

"No thank you. Do you know I didn't feel alone that entire night. Mostly because of my friend and the boy who walked into the bathroom."

"Mmm." A thoughtful mmm.

"Shit, MTV told us to. That's all it was."

"So you did it because it was cool?"

"We didn't do it because it was cool. It was necessary."

"Isn't that off a movie?"

"Yeah it is actually. We watched that one a lot, me and her."

Another dance in the sugar puddle. Accidentally, this time.

"Did you want to watch it now?"

We drag the mattress into the lounge. All five of us are wearing different versions of my pajamas. I am stretched between five bodies.

"It's been a good night," I say. Yes. It has.

"I'm sorry about the wine."

Me too.

I'm watching the screen but all I can see is myself. Flickering in and out of reality. At 5am I get a text message from another fictional place - my past - my future, probably - about conscious dreams to travel away from here.

When I hear that we are all sleeping I turn off the television.

At 8am I learn she is honest. She is a blanket hog. But I wasn't sober.

1642

There is a life-sized statue sitting in my room. About the same size as me. A slightly finer build. But similar.

It is an ice statue. Carved out of ice. Sort of transparent and pretending to be solid. An odd blue tinge, probably from the blanket on my bed reflecting through the frozen water.

Once - last year when I went on a cruise - there was an ice statue. But it was made out of sea water. It was in the shape of a fish. There was a small part of a very large ocean sitting in front of me.

The fish didn't like being out of water (although it was water). It sunk back into the sea through the wooden panels on the ship's deck. No one tried to stop it from melting. I guess they kind of expected it to happen. Fifteen minutes of beauty was enough for them. I wonder if they got sick of seeing their reflections in the fish after a while. I don't know.

The statue in my room doesn't melt. It's been sitting there for a week now. This is the seventh night. That is a very very long time, for a statue made of ice.

It takes to me, infrequently. Two nights ago it piped up while I was changing outfits.

"I'm cold," said the statue. It wasn't complaining. Just stating a fact.

"That's because you're made of ice," I said.

"Yes," said the statue. It didn't talk to me after that.

I was changing outfits because I was also cold. I have always found that putting on extra layers doesn't make me warmer but changing clothes does. Maybe I am also made of ice and after a certain amount of time of being in a particular outfit the cold seeps through my clothes.

Or maybe I just have bad circulation.

I imagine the statue in my room turning to water. It forms a large puddle on my floor which surrounds my bed so that it floats a little. I can sail around my room on my bed-ship in the ocean that was once my statue. I can go on adventures and explore things I haven't seen before. I can name the coasts of my carpet after important people and draw maps of the walls. I can send letters home promising all the wonderful things this new world has to offer. Food and land and opportunity. People will rush here on their bed-ships to see it for themselves.

But they will get stuck.

As they sail into my harbour the ocean will turn to ice again. They will be stuck in the forearms of my ice statue and their bed-ships will not be able to move. They will never reach the promised land. They will not see the things that I have seen.

Someone with a lot of money will come along and move the ice statue, with all its stranded bed-ships, to a museum somewhere. People will pay lots of money to the person with lots more money to see it and marvel at it but they will not be allowed to take photos but some of them will try to anyway and get kicked out of the museum and have their cameras confiscated from them. They will tell all their friends about this thrilling adventure. But they will not have anything to prove it.

stranger/friend

I just made a very exciting discovery.

When I was in Sydney over summer I went to an Andy C gig. During the night I found a camera on the floor. I held it up for a while hoping whoever it belonged to would see it and claim it. Noone did. I thought maybe I could look at the photos on it and pick out a face in the crowd. So I flicked through the photos but there weren't many and none of people. Afterwards my friend posted on the event's Facebook page asking if anyone had lost a camera. Noone replied. When I left to come back to NZ I took the camera with me, bought rechargeable batteries and have used it since.

Loading photos onto my computer just now I noticed there were a heap of word and pdf. files on the camera's memory card. All in German. Mostly job applications and communications with universities. I have been translating some online.

One document was a CV.

18.01.12
Previously, I posted the CV here. And a short while later the person contacted me via email! But for privacy, I was asked to take it down. Which, is fair enough. It is easy to forget these things are real life and not fiction. The world is small and exciting. =)

danger 415 volts

aural/physical

Sometimes my chest hurts a lot when I listen to certain music. An actual physical pain. Sometimes it is a good hurting and sometimes it is bad. Does anyone else ever get this feeling?

a list

A list of things I do which make people worry I will get hurt:

Sitting on the ledge of our upstairs balcony with the window open and my back to the city.

Driving long distances when I am tired.

Balancing standing above the stairs with my left foot on the hand rail and my hands on the ceiling.

Sitting up high in tree branches without holding on so I can read or write.

Walking places, alone, when it is dark.

Walking across the roof near Lydia's front door.

Jumping out of large trees in large skirts to make pretty video.

Climbing big rock surfaces to get better views of beaches.

Speedily navigating stones and bits of wood in water without checking if they're stable or slippery.

Swinging on two or one chair legs instead of sitting how you're meant to.

Hanging from my hips front ways over the edge of hand rails, looking at the ground some distance away, finding where the tipping point is.


When I do these things someone always tells me not to.

I'm sure that in class every day I do stuff which is equally or more dangerous than these things. People regularly get injured from dancing. But no-one is going to tell us to stop doing class in case we get hurt.

I think people should have more confidence in me. They should allow me to judge what I am capable of. If I do get hurt then I will have found my limits and I will know where the edge of me lies. I am more likely to get hurt if I am ignorant to my own capacity.

flower/flour

A photoshoot I did in May painted as an oriental vase:

It was strange and enjoyable.

It took 5 hours to paint me and another 3 for the shoot.

Standing still for 5 hours was incredibly draining.

It was very cold in the studio.

When I got home I didn't want to wash the paint off.

It was my new skin.

I liked the feeling that my body had been offered up for someone else's art.

So I stayed in it for a little while.

Blue paint doesn't go well with white sheets.
So I had to shower.
The blue water ran down the drain for a very long time.
I thought it looked beautiful.

This is something I would definitely love to do again.

[Body art by Kelly Ren. Photography by Stacey Simpkin.]

hair up day

When I do class I wear a lot of pins in my hair. Large amounts. People make comments about the excessive number of pins in my hair. I say that they are holding everything in place. My hair is quite thick and defiant. Especially after I wash it, it becomes very soft and doesn't have much grip. I look at other peoples' hair and wonder how it stays so neat while they are dancing.

Truly, my hair alters my headspace. That is why I wear my hair out at parties, when I want to feel fucked up; and why I wear it up to class, when I want to feel in control. Class is one of the few places I feel in control of my own body and even this sometimes fails me. Too often I am trying to be in control. It takes the enjoyment out of a lot of things. There is a difference between being in control and trying to be in control, which is a struggle and a failure.

There are also instances in which I think I have control, and then I realise I do not. Similarly there are instances where I decide to forfeit my control, only to realise this was apathetic of me. Quite a lot I struggle between whether I should be taking control or not.

Today in class my hair stayed perfectly in its neat bun. Even when we did turns. This is very unusual. Especially on a rainy day when the air is sticky.

sixteen

And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly: And the haft also went in after the blade; and the fat closed upon the blade, so that he could not draw the dagger out of his belly; and the dirt came out.

- Judges 3:21-22

I wasn't sixteen but you were: A little bit sweet. A little bit changing. A little bit screwing around with hearts (mostly your own).

We would sit on top of the heater before school and laughed about the marks on your thighs. Bruises on the insides and cuts on the outsides. We laughed more about the bruises. Usually we ignored the cuts but every other Monday I'd have to hold the pieces of your legs together while we dampened each others' shoulders.

On these days the smell of wet school jersey followed me around the corridors. Even if I went outside the smell wouldn't dissipate. It would hover two inches above the grass and become airborne on small breezes. I became saturated in your stench. Your tears became my signature scent.

The front lawn at school had a huge tree that beckoned us every lunch time. You liked to wrap your arms around its trunk, even tough it was so big that your hands didn't quite meet.

Once I got out of class late and saw you doing this from across the grass. You didn't know I was watching. There was an absence of students. Just you and the tree. And me watching.

The tree lifted its roots out of the ground and stuck them down your throat. You started to go pale blue. I wasn't sure though because you were always a little bit blue - I think you had bad circulation - and you also had blue eyes which seemed to cover your entire body and anyway I thought maybe the tree was just hugging you back. I thought you liked having the tree inside you. Being force-fed bark. I was jealous of the tree having you and I was jealous of you being strangled so beautifully.

A few days after this you came to school and said, "I started reading the bible. I'm going to read the whole thing from beginning to end." I pictured you in your room - even though I'd never once been to your house - reading beside a lamp and becoming holy. You looked pretty hiding in the dim light.

When you left to go to class I looked at my fingertips and wondered if I should be holding rice paper too.

Two days later your face had changed and you told me you didn't understand God. "I'm going to keep something sharp in my bible," you said. What a strange religion.

After some time of you being devout, there was a morning on the heaters when you put your hand over mine. I could feel the shapes of a needle and cotton spool. "I've been sewing," you said, and lifted your hand up to show me the needle as proof.

I knew you couldn't sew. Red was seeping through your stockings onto your grey and maroon plaid skirt. Sometimes when I went to my locker to get books between classes there'd be tiny trails of blood and cotton underneath my steps. And even after I grew out of my jersey and had to buy a new one I could smell the wet wool clinging to my back. The backs of my thighs were cold every morning and I reckon this is why the muscles there are sore all the time.

If I got bored in English I would imagine you using your bible to make paper cuts inside your thighs. That way the bruises would hide them well and then you could pretend you'd gotten really good at sewing and I'd see through your lie but I'd pretend to believe you because I know you wanted me to. I never got to touch the bruises even though you suggested this once. I could have stuck my fingers in the cuts. It would have been so easy to do so while I was holding your legs. But I never did. I was afraid you'd say prayers into my hands. My hands were important to me so I could do things like write notes and pass my exams.

For all my concern over my hands, I forgot my hamstrings. Older, I have very stiff legs. Today, they are aching a lot. Tell me, how's God doing?

marijuana dreams

One afternoon I came home to a house clouded with cannabis. I smelt it on his breath. Saw it burning a dirty orange into his eyes. The place reeked of electric guitar hooked up to an amp.

Rotting in the corner: his vacant hopes, some wanton ambitions which had escaped the premises months ago and left a scent behind. He said he'd smoked two cones. He smoked two cones to find himself.

Hungry? I ask him. Nah, he says, I’m gonna play guitar.

So he sits on the couch. Cigarette butt in the corner of his mouth.

I’ve seen some pretty bad shit he says, and breaks his fingers on the strings. I know what it’s like. I've got a passion, you know? I’m just gonna play this shitty guitar. Yeah. Fuck a job.

I pretend to listen as his borrowed words press through the air. Pull a pot out of the bottom cupboard. He lights another cigarette - a cigarette for each song. The tar stains his lungs a kaleidoscope of black and blood.

There’s a map of ash stains on the carpet around the base of the coffee table. It doesn't matter because the house is being sold anyway. We might not get our bond back but it's worth it for a few songs.

Bit fucked up, eh? he says. But that's just how it is. We’re all fucked up, us artists. You know how it is. A statement. Not a question.

People have all this shit happen to them and it’s creative inspiration. They eat sand and then they spit out diamonds.

I find a match and light the gas stove top. Concentrate on the water slowly bubbling.

I guess I’ve spat out some diamonds. God knows I’ve eaten a shit load of sand. Piles of it have scraped red lines through my intestines.

But I don't want to sit where he is or know the lyrics to his songs. Marijuana dreams buckle him over. And who am I to stop him? I enjoy coming home to a cannabis clouded house. It reminds me I’m not the only one who loves being so low.