Thursday 31 August 2017

1

Francis slept late in the day and woke to a sun filled room and an empty house. The dog was sleeping in a ball at the foot of the bed, Francis pulled her closer and curled around her small, warm body. They slipped in and out of sleep and had dreams of being by the beach; in a house they had stayed in once with their family. Was it in Sydney? Or up in Queensland somewhere, perhaps. In the dreams, there was a dark hallway and voices coming from behind closed doors. It left them feeling melancholic. They got up and stood in the bright room.

It was a long walk from the house to the supermarket. Francis listened to Kate Bush and wandered the tree-lined streets. Neighbours were tending to their plants, walking dogs, pushing strollers. Men at construction sites raised their voices above the drones of their various machines. Walking between the aisles, Francis kept their sunglasses on and earplugs in, hoping not to engage with any stranger.
            They bought potatoes, carrots, eggplant, garlic, rosemary, sweet potatoes and a lemon. They caught the bus home, bumping limbs with the masses of faceless teenaged students, who congealed into a singular representation of hormonal youth and anger. Francis smelt their sweat and felt the meaty intimidation of their presence.
            At home they put on eyeliner, and chopped vegetables for roasting. The house caught the afternoon sun and filled with yellow, Francis felt the yellow run through their veins and slip in peacefully behind their eyelids. The lounge room had a set of French glass doors that opened onto the back porch, shouldered by fly screens and navy blue curtains. The inside couch was brown and velvet, the couch outside was green and firm, and could be pulled out into a bed. Francis moved through the rooms and felt the peacefulness of someone directionless but not at all displaced.
           
 2

The second time she left this earthly realm, I guess it could be said that I was more equipped to handle the departure, being an adult and no longer in need of the kind of motherly care on offer and perhaps in a way it was more favorable to forgo the journey called life alone, or at least, without her as confident/friend/guide. Once she was gone I wondered why she had ever come to begin with. And decided I would probably be stuck in wonder for the rest of my life.

 3


In those days I would walk through the city with some sort of fearlessness I don’t remember ever possessing in such palpable amounts. I felt like I’d broken free of a barely perceptible web that draped like an intimate blanket over every sentient being, and held us in a state of not knowing. I can’t really explain it but maybe you’ll get to know what I mean, one day. When you experience something so not from this world, and your life – already on the fringes – feels plunged into a deep, cool pool. And you feel safe, powerful, and separate. In those days I would walk through the city and feel entirely detached from other beings around me, and yet so so connected to the core of their souls, I felt I could touch them and relate to all they had ever felt. I guess it was cockiness, or a type of gratitude to the universe that lacked any humility. As you get older, you realise how much there is to fear. And effortless confidence feels out of reach – or something of fiction, you can’t remember ever having had it. Maybe it's dangerous -- in fact, yes, I think it's dangerous.

Saturday 26 August 2017

Things I was trying to explain to you the other night but I lost my voice


 I crawled under your childhood doona (where we both were having weird dreams)
                                                                                          yours were in and out of this earthly realm
                                                                                          and mine, I think, a past life
we talk about our paper skin and wonder~
if all people are like this // I guess we made a soul pact back then

yesterday your bedroom looked as sore as my puffed up eyes
something kinda empty like a crust
where there was no bed anymore just clothes and a bunch of pens
+ + that weird porcelain face I bought you
was looking back at me like it knew
I was getting nostalgic, tonight
it's cold for the first time in a while
                                                                        and I can feel my skin prickling like a plant
                                                                        and maybe the way I extend to you is like leaves growing                                                                             towards sunlight
                                                                        I think there's
warmth in all the melancholy,
cause we've made a cosy nest in it for years now, and the other day
when it was raining I felt
like my house wasn't real, the way the floorboards
sink in places, it's just parts people have put together
                                                                        and it doesn't have a meaning,
                                                                        and I dissociate sometimes, with people,
                                                                        and my body feels like a hologram of my creation.
                                                                        there's a power in it, in the implication
                                                                        it can be turned it off

——— Tonight, it's like the first day of the week or even season,
                  and I'm getting so sentimental that even my
+/ chipped nail polish is reminding me of the impermanence of life
+/ and time - a loose concept, a story to navigate and navigate, tomorrow,
+/ I might wake up with you and it will feel like last week, and last year,
                                                                        {and I think we've definitely said that paper skin thing before}
I wish it were raining outside while we're spooning
so I can pretend we're in my old room for a bit
but I can't trick my mind without soundscapes
sometimes seb chops veggies in the other room
and I feel like I'm home from school
waiting for mum to call out Dinner
sometimes you hold your breath in your sleep
it's probably bad for you or something,
                                                                        but it helps me feel like we're on that single bed
                                                                        with pokey springs and i'm excited (for once)
                                                                        to get older

Tuesday 22 August 2017

2 poems

poem 1
I swim ‘round & emerge an aliEn of latex boots n g string
we all sp!t in our hands and decide to stik it out
plug ourselvs into the stormie ether////

+grate when ur living it up^
n the boys are driving fast, we put on sunglasses
 ((sip tea and spit the remnants into unknown handbags))
busy later, I have plans, they’re apocalyptic

l8r, night time, find myself picking locks and chEwing
plastic bottle caps. we sit down a sec to catch some air n smog
suddenly you’re pouring urself
down drains of rusty metal, I try to stop u
or at least find out Y
but once again I’m left with nothing but a void
                  //// things were better back on earth

to b candid it’s about time you fess up
about the hole you made in the space/time continuum
its not like im incapable of piecing things together, but whatever
at night it’s nice, I guess, to dream and be flung
                  into other heads
                  fr a while i was a baby, then I was time itself

__ tbh it’d be great if u could call me
from the other side of real
but take ur time ive still got heaps
most of this lifetime, and the next___



poem 2 
on the box home I was scrubbing different names
off my innards and complaining
about the weather n shit. Ur a good listener, thanks for hearing all that
                                    nd I hope a cool change comes
                                    to address this fiery rage
cause rn we’re both burning up to tell
                                                                                          everyone to fuk right off
people don’t listen. O well. Tomorrow
lets for fr a swim, ((I’ve got
some ideas about past life revenge))
+and maybe some time soon we’ll book in a chat
+with my mum and get the scoop
+on our crushes and also what is up with the 6th dimension

//we’ll probs look back n laugh about it all//
about       the          insular                    rotating hypocrisy              of              the          internet and        our          reclusive                nature

and all the rocks we look under tryna find some answers
                  it’s a good thing to question and challenge
                  the fabric of reality, it’s a good thing
                  to crush those brittle lies we’re told
                  between ur steak teeth and send that spittle
                  soaring outta our atmosphere cause we’re so done rn.

later ill make some pasta and gurgle up the soda stream
dw i’ve been really on top of the ice cube trays

god knows we need some kinda consistency