I should have said, "and wet ones!"

Hahahahahhaaaa

superlative

sitting in septic sepulchre
solo
spectre
in solitude
solo, or solitude
there is a difference
what is the difference?
scepticism or cynicism, I've
no idea
who knows

unforgiving and unforgetting
I can neither forget nor forgive
I give, and for what?
I get, and for what?
I slumber, the most
sound somnabulent, and
for what getting?
For no giving
for only some solitude
without solace
"come and be more sociable" she tells me
what, so I can bequeath my silent soliloquoy?
no thanks
sorry
(and yes, I still say that).

It doesn't have to be good. It just has to be familiar.

cornwall park

Whenever I go here I think about your decrepit body wandering around between the trees. The trees are all women, split in two by flash-phallic lightning. I think about you being alone and quiet. You are an observer. And when you speak it is a small, steady utter which carries across the crater. The newly-shorn sheep gather around you but don't come too close. They are fitter than you and wary. You are wary of the other people but like the sheep. So because you are wary of the people, and the sheep are wary of you, you are alone.

This is my imagined version of you.

urban blues

first kiss shorts
they are the oldest piece of clothing I own*
they are quite ripped on the left side
they still fit me
I still wear them
they have seen eight summers
and five countries
the insides of six wardrobes
they have made multiple memories
they must stay, they must
stay
until they eat themselves open

they have seen midnight sand dunes
the seats of bicycles
tropical storms
the underneaths of summer dresses
their own reflection shining back at them on stage tarketts
caravans and campervans and tents
austrian mountain tops
sulphur-drenched gondolas
they have been a closer companion to me than most humans
these shorts -
is that weird?


*I have not held onto them because they are my first kiss shorts, it just so happens that they are the only thing I owned then that still fits me and that I still like. 

YES!!!

What are you?!

ghost arm

Yesterday I had a girl come into work with most of the lower half of her left arm missing. I asked her if she wanted to put a puzzle together (before I saw this) and she said she did. It was amazing because since she still had her elbow joint her arm moved as if there was a ghost lower arm and hand. I assume she once had a whole arm because of the way it moved and how the end stub looked (folded and tucked skin as if it has been surgically put like that rather than the skin neatly grown over in once piece).

She was using her little elbow stub just like a hand. she picked up pieces with her right hand and turned them with the little arm. It was actually incredible to watch. How it kind of rotated and moved around like a thick arm antennae. I wondered, 'why is it moving so weirdly' and then realised it must just be normal except looked heaps different because of the lack of length. I kind of wanted to touch it (don't worry, I didn't). It was like a creature on its own or a robot with an purposelessly manufactured limb. This girl was amazing. I think she was 9 or something (I asked her but I ask most of the kids so it's a bit vague).

I also noticed the elbow stub had the faint remains of blue pen ink on it and I guess she must write memos on it like most people do with their hands. I don't know why but I really liked/was intrigued by this. I really, really liked watching how she had learned to accommodate not having her whole left arm in order to still be able to do things. Like, I felt like a bit of creep watching so intensely but didn't feel rude or wrong. And I did actually look at her face when I talked to her.

She was wearing a pink scivvy with sequins and had a bit of a belly peeping out underneath at the bottom. I wanted to be like, 'your arm is awesome and you are awesome and I hope your life becomes many wonderful things'. But I just said, "awesome!" and smiled when she finished the puzzle.

bed

only just realising how many memories are held in this same bed
the friends who've stayed over
and all the books that've been read
how many cups of tea have been consumed
dreams spent
or sleepless hours
upside down
draining
diagonal bedsheets, rarely made after first placed
how many ideas have been birthed from my head
the words scrawled
suddenly upright
I forget what came before my bed's current home

I am trying to forge new memories
I am remembering and creating
I am imagining
I am talking about these plans
I am drinking several additional cups of tea
but forgetting to scrawl ideas
and forgetting upside down
too upright
current book is coming to an end
the pens I have left I don't like

ghost birds

Drove through Khyber Pass yesterday with the flatties and saw a bunch of people putting up posters. But looked kinda strange because: 


1) There were four or five people pasting, usually there is just one person on their own;
and
2) There was a photographer and a guy across the road filming too. 

Mucho curiosity.
Thought it'd probably become public what it was.

Here's the answer:

http://j.mp/uOJbpZ

"and even when we make a cup of tea...

...we are still performing."

naivety

I was just thinking about naivety and how it is probably actually a good thing. Because it seems to me to be the absence of fear, or at least more courage. Some people call this ignorance. Maybe ignorance isn't necessarily bad. I mean, if it makes you more likely to attempt things without inhibition, and therefore more likely to succeed, then surely it doesn't matter if it is naivety or ignorance. If you gain from it who cares.

industry night speech

She said to us,

"Another person's victory is not your loss."

I am not the worst if I am not the best.

to be expected when it rains on the first day of summer

After quite a few loops, walking, walking, behind the rehearsal rooms. I don't know how many. Lots. Every time I think I'm breathing again I can hear my jaw clicking stubbornly. It refuses to move. One of our choreographers once said that the jaw is directly related to the hip joints and so you must hold your mouth slightly open to breathe while dancing. No tension in the hip joints. Free legs. No tension allowed.

I know things need to change when it gets all gristly in there, in the sides of my face. Sometimes it's more like cracking, even, than clicking. About twice I've been sure my lower jaw might just crack right off from my face and be hanging all loose in the bottom of my head-skin. It's not like that tonight. Still at the clicky stage.

I try to go back inside but now people are sitting eating dinner in the doorway. So I cross past them (so composed) and think that the workshop door might be open, but it isn't. I get angry that I don't know this place well enough to slip through a doorway around the side somewhere (where?). It is familiar and not familiar enough. I feel betrayed. By the venue? By people and by myself. By locked up buildings. I lie down on the concrete at the other end. It's right by Gillies Ave. Friday evening. There are cars going past parallel to my linear posture very near me. Two lanes in each direction. I turn my head to the left to see the drivers. They are all looking straight ahead at the road.

Then I am thinking about the fact that I am right by a metal gate. It is made of vertical bars. About ninety minutes ago it was open and a truck squeezed through and pick up a huge bin. So then I think about the cars going past diverting and coming in through the gate like the truck, but except while it's closed. I feel my head turn sideways to the road, through my neck and all the tendons in there, which I imagine as taut and brittle although they're probably quite tough and malleable. Like extremely thick wire or a plastic shoe-horn that's been sitting in a car for a while on a hot day. I feel the sun on me and especially on a small gap of skin between my too-stretched singlet and shorts. I'm lying on a diagonal slope and I feel uneven. I imagine a car coming through the gates as I hear them going past. They seem quite fast but must only be going around sixty. I know I get slower when I'm not good though. I keep imaging the stray car quick and sudden and loud and me on the concrete and then I am surprised at myself but I still keep playing the scene over and over in my head. It's a little short film on loop. There are no consequences of the car coming through the gate because it all ends then, there's nothing more in the movie after that. That's the end.

You are not allowed to watch that movie anymore, I tell myself, and I turn it off and turn my head back to the centre of my body. And then I turn my head to the left again and play it some more. I turn it off again. I listen to the sondtrack of cars going past instead but I don't see anymore images. There is no more sun anymore either but my eyes feel less stained than before.

'I could not do this', I think. I have no idea what the time is. I'm anxious. I don't feel capable. I feel like I am running out of time. I have things I need to do before seven o'clock.

My eyes feel sun-dried now but I don't feel real. And standing backstage I don't feel real. The audience don't feel real, they are so far away. The other dancers aren't real, I don't know them. The costumes aren't real. I would never wear that. I might wear that colour, I do, red. I have something in front of my face, I can't see anyone, I'm on my own.

When I try to keep up I can't. I'm in the middle. There's people in every direction around me to follow but I'm still going on my own. I have to slow down. I have to speed up. I'm just right for a small second. I miss out, I add on. I hurt, I'm depleted. I've gone too far in to this thing.

In the bathrooms there's still music. The same music in my head. It's in the changing rooms. It's on the stage. It is following me around and I could compose myself, I could if it weren't there. Go away sad song. I can't want you right now. I don't want it.

I know that if I could empty myself things would be better. But there isn't an end this time. This one feels longer and much more passive. It's passivity scares me. It seems infinite. I know it won't be. But it's settling in quite comfortable. I don't want to be so receptive anymore. I want some time. I don't want to sleep it's so uneventful.

I just want some time.