I have
good
things
for a
little
while
then I
choose
com
-placency

rotate / circle pt. II

crazy --
bathroom cupboard
topside down
inside up-down, out
bottoms off first
feels backwards
rushed
photo-esque
bottom out
bottomless
next door neighbour thinks you're beautiful
is meddling
is jealous
is watching you yogayoga
'cross the road
curtains never shut
windows open like usual, if I could
bury us all
bury this
bury all
burial
running to cunt-mouthed lyrics
dancing to filthy rhythms
running, to dancing
running is not dancing
everything is dancing
"Everything. Is dancing."
dancing, is dancing
running to the world
from the world
the world is running, round
round itself
like a dog chasing its own tail
this planet never stops

"I'm ok with doing bad things sometimes," he said.

I am starting to believe
that there are not good and bad people
only good and bad actions.

circle

I am

the only constant

in my scattered, winding life line

I think I am confused because you feel like a summer thing in the winter time.

CPR

plastic-coated
chest-clicking
antiseptic-smeared
unlegged, unarmed
danger-spied
flesh-eyed
hole-eared
"practice-makes-perfect"
unresponsive/unconscious
tatter-bagg'd
schoolboy-battered
tube-veined
hinge-necked
"for training only"
Dummies

wed 9 - 8 - 12

Slightly second-hand morning pages (I don't know what this means - I'm tired, this morning). On six and a half - the usual, but breaking two goodnights' trend. "You look fresher," she said...

Grey day, outside. Looks like dead-centre winter becoming night time.

I can feel that I am overflowing with one of the first regular attempts at new life. Was it the spinach I ate? Insides trying desperately to escape, flushing themselves out from between my legs. Little bubbles falling out of me. 

Feels like it might rain.

Door-knocking.

Sad glove-bandage curled up in a bed as I arrive back from too-skinny-legged, shorts-wearing, blue-jacketed, power-meter-reading, "have a top day!" Mister.

And a text from Johnny.

More bubbling through the legs.

Get up. Change yourself. Change.

Oh students, new household - why are you so routine?  I don't like being alone. I want to be alone, but with company. Other pulses and bloods flowing through neighbouring brains and exchanging of ideas through the walls.

Curled up like a munchkin under a blanket. Trying to write warm things to be comfortable.

I'm living with someone I've never met. I have slept next door to a stranger. 

Don't act so shocked. 

And now, the other end.

Good morning.

no ballet, just curtains

There is drool all down the left side of my face. My sleep was that good.

No dreams with an alarm - only resent.

Pelvis is tipping involuntarily with full bladder and damp underwear - the bubbling out of me apparently stopped but the night's emptying still sitting there.

I can hear everyone else getting ready for the day. Feel like this is my one chance to be with them, these new busy bodies. GET UP! Haven't seen Mikey in a few days, I should text him saying "Are you alive?!" Words which instantly bring a Blindspott song to my head.

Everyone's heading to Australia for Soundwave. And I say, why? Which instantly brings Tahi's dialogue from Awatea into my head.

No ballet, just curtains. What is going on.

Good morning.

Get up now.

accidental composition

1,000,001 thinkings before we even get set up
before pen hits paper
before blanket sealing head warmth is...
before revolutionary discovery
that angling towards writing hand --
is easier

Found yourself in a poem, did we.
I guess stream of consciousness
has some mild, pre-determined arrangement.

saint kevin's

I just sat in your place, David. I hope this is ok with you. I'm not buying a book but you don't have any to sell. It's ok, I'll just write my own.

Just worried, is all, that my stockings might rip on your unfinished edges. They're my last unholy pair, you see.

I'm next to your friend. He's knocking back and beyond the point of pretending to hide it. "Don't worry," I looked to him. "I'm not condemning it."

"goodnight"

I want to
have:
your
eyes, set
three-to-five meters in front of you
cutting sharp
perpendicular lines past me, in
front of me

next to my own vision
your height is lightly settled into that
small
gap between us
thinking about something unsaid
and very certain of it
that vision of
wise
integrity, which
cuts through the multi-toned floorboards
the pensive furrow
I don't
see, but
feel
which speaks of some other
generation

most of them
(when looking)
flash
between
boy-and-man ...
you had others, but
more like
this part
and that
part
myself morphing, too

you are a good colour
sort of like the floorboards
how they are all shades of earthy
and of another time
but equally
present

body

like someone has
stuck
two thick
38mm
rigid poles
inside
the
outsides
of my legs, one
horizontally through my
back
and turned them all
80 degrees
counter-clockwise

atomy

same old
left-handed cracking
complaints from the joint which is
quick to accuse

I consulted the book
it said,
"refusal to move with ease."

here again, with Sunday

towel smells
vaguely
of you

turn over

turn over:

new faces
new furniture
new bottles in the shower
new food on the wonky shelves
new names on the post

re-arrangement, re-placement, re-designating, re-designing

so that the last four weeks
seem a flicker of fantasy
that vague recollection of dreams which might be reality

all the spirits in the sock graveyard resurrected
worms from the under-earth wriggling up into this world

the only clues of the immediate past:
the rubbish bins overflowing

Quiet down now baby. You didn't really think you could live that rockstar lifestyle forever, did you?

after you left

After you left, I left our half-empty teacups in my room. For a bit. One and a half days – until it killed me to have them out of place any longer.

Back to the kitchen bench the teacups went. Water emptied out (for in this instance they were cups of water, not tea: the pragmatic markings of dry Sunday-morning mouths; the coarse mouths markings of Saturday nights becoming such mornings; and such nights, mornings, implying everything blurred inbetween). Swished through the soapsuds and into the un-shutting cupboard.

I imagine some stranger entering the room might assume the teacups were deliberately placed there. To catch mid-winter drips from the flecked-white ceilings. This is the story they would invent from the left teacups. Dust mote, post-exhale drips into the teal-rimmed china.

But actually, just left distractedly in unconfigured locations. Then left longer for nostalgia’s sake … But not much longer. Just. Barely.

I left the sheets twisted through each other. A heap of linen shoved against the wall. Redundant. For a bit; one and half days … Then, I washed one sheet and re-dressed the other. I didn’t change the pillow cases. I thought about it, but I didn’t. I thought about bringing the red blanket inside from out of my car. But I couldn’t be bothered. Yes, I underestimated how cold it was going to get.

For a few hours I left Thursday lunch's unused serviettes in my bag. Then I threw them out. These don’t have a story, I told myself. You can’t hoard everything.

I went to work and ushered for Awatea. The actors talked about “Gisbourne” and “Auckland”. Sitting alone in the dark, I thought matter-of-factly: These two places Hold Meaning for me now. I imagined going home and feeling Very Alone, so after work I phoned a friend. I went home, washed my face, changed out of my work clothes, ate a piece of toast (white, yours, with tomato and Olivani), sat on my bed briefly, re-did my make-up, re-packed my handbag, re-analysed the situation and realised –

I don’t actually need to be with anyone in this exact moment. Or want to.

(The same feeling as being a-top Mt. Eden, alone. With a take-away dinner after dance class. Alone, by choice. Alone with the city.)

But I went out anyway. Got petrol. Avoided buying coffee. Felt out of place, felt frustrated that nothing operates on the same schedule as me. Regretted not getting coffee. Re-considered the coffee. Found myself unable to buy coffee (or anything for that matter, as the only bar open had closed service – at which point a drink had become a redundant desire anyway) … made myself at home, felt at home, felt like I wanted to be at home, felt good about being with my friend, felt infatuated, felt young and silly (are they the same thing?) … felt selfish, felt sleepy, fell asleep – almost. Declared it was home time, was simultanesouly ushered home by the bar staff, drove dangerously, distractedly, erratically. Felt out of place, felt frustrated that nothing operates on the same schedule as me (including my body which by that point was refusing to keep up) … arrived home, felt simultanesouly out of place (out of order) and content and – much to my surprise – less lonely than anticipated. Heard a knock on the door, answered it. Stood in the doorframe and watched my (remaining) flatmate eat hot chips, briefly. Put myself to bed between one clean sheet and one recycled sheet. Slept.

When I woke up I stepped over the teal-rimmed teacup and marked through my morning routine. Worried passively about how settled I felt. Went to work. Recalled you several too many times, while still feeling reasonably unaffected. Wondered if the weight of your absence would cascade into me later. It didn't.

Went home, walked to other work – Awatea, again. Thought about you, again. Felt like I wanted to stay up all night being productive. Did. Went to sleep at 3.35am. Slept through going to class. Didn’t feel guilty. Woke up to sunshine. Vaccumed your empty room and removed the bed. Used it as a make-shift dance studio. Anticipated going away. Anticipated “dancing”. Anticipated “The Future.” Felt young and not silly. Felt like being productive. Felt like it was nearing Christmas, despite it being July.

And then I left. Not like you left, but I left. Drove down to the coast opposite yours. Well, not exactly opposite, but on the opposite side. Twisted back into twelve months ago. Fifty-four months ago. Christmas Day 2009 (so, that is why Christmas is resurrected in my mid-winter mind). Executing my own version of time-travelling (I don't think I like it). I knew how cold it was going to get so I came prepared. I wore something once yours.

The wooden floors here remind me of my new room. And it’s not a big deal, but all the teacups are much too small for my liking.