in change

Things were beginning in my head, yesterday
and then I flushed them out drunk.
I had lines piecing themselves together
post-death genius forming in me
and then I pissed it all out into a
rusty parking lot.

At some vague post-meridiem
shortly after shortly after
post death-genius
post shock horror
Mab slipped her profanities in me
thought-fucked inside a green plasticky portaloo daydream --
I heimliched her out.
I strung all her ideas down my face;
She sprayed herself through my lashes
infiltrating my bloodstream--

I stood still.

Capa-cha came after me.
Dragging his legs eight inches behind him
screaming my name at my ziplocked eyelids
(He thought I couldn't hear him
but I heard his words with the sides of my feet
which were dissolving through the earth
burning rivers through the concrete).

I looked up from my sinking
and saw
Leon's even eyes
glazed past me, past the city
(he knew better than to ... )
I thought, you are all educated.
And I wondered what in.
I wanted to know everything

Then I remembered.

Tralala's bloody snatch, the same blood
flooding my feet in a wave of Indochina
That picked me up viciously
threw me spine-length onto Auckland's spike

Skewered on this hyperdermic
I saw the world in Interlude
I heard the whole world sounding quiet because
only I was there

and I knew everything.
And I knew everything.

fish

Like a little bit of sandpaper

that flicks 

erratically

all

over

the show

flippity-flip-flip in front of my face

and then

breaks up into several 

little

pieces

and flicker-flick-flicks into my

hair and around my

ears and

past my eyes so that I have to

close them

protectively

and then I have to

close up my whole centre into a ball

and still the paper bits

flick-flutter like the snitch in Harry Potter

over my back and

threaten to cut up my back muscles

and I curl tighter

but still the cutty sandpaper scratches the air around me

"Fuck off," I say over and over

"Fuck off," screams my bolted face

The Skeleton II

The Skeleton asks for a nut.

"Just one," she says.

She leans forward and selects her nut carefully ...
-- A hazelnut that looks a bit sad; brown and wrinkled against the ivory cashews, caramel-skinned almonds and emerald pumpkin seeds.

She shuffles back to her seat and
bites it slowly.

2014

Berlin calls, thanks to father (or mother?!); or Hitler and history; or all these New Zealand dancers flooding the city right now, and ten years ago; or memories; or commodity -- whichever, Berlin calls.

solution

This room is public property
My door frame: the porch

The town's conversations are
leaking into my
bed sheets
I will get into bed tonight and
they will be
damp
with
small talk

I can't even shut my door
because
That requires interaction
Or at the very least,
Eye contact --
Nah uh, no way

I thought...
I assumed, that amongst these people
I'd feel
I'd feel, or
I'd feel
asylum

But as I
keep realizing
All people are the
same.
Always,
All where:
Boring, and boring.
Too interesting to approach
and so unique that it is dull.

They're all different to me
Because I'm as
isolated as them
And therefore boring
And depressing
And stuff

They're all talking about each other
And only listening to themselves
They're all listening to each other talking about each other to themselves

So I pretend that I'm boring
instead of appearing bored
I'm so sad I don't drink
I just think, and then I think--

I just want to cry all over everyone
And kiss up my tears
from their beautiful faces
to dampen my beautiful fears.

I wonder when you will first see me cry, and whether it will be awful or beautiful.

The Skeleton

Skeleton stands in the corner
with abrupt shoulders
pointy pelvis
noseless glare

Her self-possessing thoughts
leak out over the sitting heads
dripping tea-drops squeezed from her thin marrow

When I come out of the bathroom
she is waiting. She says,
"Don't forget about me."

trace

With today's lovely pains, I recall a conversation during my eleventh year of school. Seated backs against a heater in a tamely ocre corridor, struggling to stay warm, Sarah described to me the soft bruises. Underneath her hip bones, on the insides of her small, white thighs. She described the harrowing brown circles she held there surely, subtly; void of the concern with which I met her.

In the following months, I (as we all did in one way or another, at some point or another) became preoccupied with this sensation. It was not voyeurism on my part; not at all. It was a fixation with her. Sarah became a faded enigma. Instead, her physical frame was inhabited by stories set in bare-bar-mattress rooms.

I felt genuinely concerned about this fleshly toll that Sarah's stories imprinted on her. I felt sure that these green marks were signs of her lover's apathy; his self-fulfillment; neglect. Retrospectively, perhaps they were fitting gifts to the girl who marked the other side of her own legs, anyway. I suspect this was the case.

Myself? I've woken to both love and rebuke these aches. They feel like after dancing, when forgotten muscles are resuscitated into beautiful, practical use. While the dancing then (usually) continues for some time, and so dissipates the lactic acid, the settled blood; my year-practiced habit of one-off fuckings has upturned several morning assessments of reminder. Do I want to be reminded? Is this a wanted skin memory, useful to recall isolated moments after the person is gone? Or is it a reminder of the invented eighth game that held no benefit except for lesson?

This one, with freedom -- here comes a constant. More than memory.

Interrupted, perhaps.. Fearfully like the first; but I don't fear it. It is a gift: I get the lovely ache once, twice, perhaps four times. Then I get to feel it subside into familiarity.

It will be so nice when you are familiar. Like dancing.

A beautiful thing is closing one's eyes while listening to music.

Shani & Sofia

"Of course she did," Shani says matter of factly. "She thinks of everything."

I mark Sofia's height on the door frame, with a shoddily-measured amount taken off to account for her heels.

Michael

You bouncing out of the bathroom
Saying
"Natalie, I went dancing with the most beautiful girl last night"
I liked that
It was nice

Arriving home for a spontaneous hug
Grabbing me by the waist
At the sink
To tell me you're in love

And I am realizing that
Actions tell more of you than
Your whole
You are good
But you do bad things

new

sniffing says my room smells
vaguely
of you --
but it's (probably) placebo eyeballs

was woken sharply
by your
hiccuping/
arms/
though the curtains are pulled over to keep us asleep

there's an inherent sadness about you
that I like;
that concerns me
...
most because I fear I could exacerbate it
but I guess that's still, en route, for your sake ?

When we see each other, we see another time and place.

you.
me.