You probably understand. Or maybe you don't, after all. Either way, it is jumping around inside me and if I don't let it out soon all my carbonation will fizz up and run over the side of my glass and I don't want to waste all that sweetness.

I want to kiss you underwater.

I want that kiss to be the only thing keeping us alive. Down there we are foreigners, aliens. Grasping, I want to feel your flesh in stark contrast to the smooth wetness all around me, like a secret.

All that life where we cannot live. Exotic, forbidden, so lovely. I am sick with love.

For once I'm letting myself entertain the concept.
I'm mulling it over.
Because, I'm the glass-half-empty type.
It's not that I don't want a refill,
it is simply that I cannot get the attention of my server.
In the meantime,
the soda goes flat and the ice melts into it.
But unlike most, I have realized that drinking it leaves you with less.
I can be glass-half-empty, knowing that there is still some lukewarm liquid souping in the glass.
The problem is that I simply refuse to experience even the watered-down aspects of life,
for fear that that **** waiter never does show up.

pencil-thin shoulders
mess of dyed blonde hair and fake
strawberry grins
lost in movie ticket stubs stuck
to crowded multi-coloured walls stuffed
bears hidden under bedsprings, pent-up
energy like carbonation in sugary soft drinks
unsteady hands on composed aged shoulders,
unsure feet find their way on moving
slabs cleaning out bright blue backpacks
filled with words forgotten on
pages dried up like pens or discarded acquaintances
discovering heart-shaped cardboard tokens of February
infatuation pure unlike clandestine Friday nights,
pounding nervous with blood in pink seashell ears

The soda can rumbles in the bowels,
tumbling into the gaping mouth
into which I enter a hand
to protrude my sugar rush.

sssni-kah, then the slurp of an obnoxiously pleasing sip.
I let the carbonation tickle my tongue,
reveling in the effervescent sensation.

The smell of old tires,
malodorous oil and gasoline,
and stale cigarettes fill the air.

My vexatious sips go unperturbing the dense atmosphere
that thickens outside the small air-conditioned office
and into the gas station,

where the mutters and sputters of drills,
kakadoo, kakadoo,
the squeaking and squawking of rotors and axles,
the interjections of swears and grunts
fill the air.

I peek through the ***** smudgy glass window in the door
to see grimy overalled ants meandering
under the body of our red mini-van
hiked up into the air like a figure skater,
suspended by the rusty clawed accompanist,
not a tremor of strain, unflinching,
letting the greasy men crawl underneath, hiking up her skirt
to examine her anatomy.

I walk outside and sit on a dusty tire stacked with others
on the side of the building--
some growing forlorn in tall grass
weaving in and out of the aperturous rim,
the fingers latching onto fissures and pulling it down
into the hungry earth.

Another slurp and I set the can down
to step onto my skateboard--
rolling across the gritty pavement,
snapping ollies and pop-shuv-its
to add my timbre to the cacophony
leaping out of the open garage doors.

I look over to the barbershop adjacent to the station--

The off-white single room squat allowing the cylindrical swirl
perpetually pirouetting atop the door-frame
to dazzle in a placid manner.

It is there I get my close trims
and pull a lollipop from the cavernous bowl
sitting atop the counter.

The barber, working silently behind his dull gray mustache
and dull gray eyes.

Outside the barbershop to the left,
Leicester Highway ambles onward,
diverging at a fork just ahead of the lot,
and the road adjacent that winds down my neighborhood,
Juno Drive.

I've never embarked down either divergent,
and I wonder which one is the less traveled.
(Frost, guide me.)

I go to the mailbox teetering on the edge of the highway
and hastily grab our mail,
the wind slapping at my *** as the cars whisk by
in their infinitesimal haste.

I feel like time slows once you step onto Juno Drive.

I turn around and saunter back to the station to see Billy,
my Working-Class Hero,
who I mostly see strolling up to the driver's side window
of our dull red mini-van
to loosely rest his arms crossed atop the window frame,
resting his sweaty forehead on his sticky hairy forearms.

Leaning in,

his blackened hands with his greasy smile
behind a scruffy scattered beard caked with dirt and grime,
atop a dark red leather face--
but eyes bright and merry.

His laugh, a phlegmy two-pack-a-day sputter
hacking and pummeling through the van,
all the way to me in the backseat peeking around mom's shoulders
to catch a look at this superhero anomaly.

And his southern drawl wrenching out of lungs
caked in tar and exhaust fumes,
that torpid slur that executes like the garbled hum
of an Oldsmobile engine chugging restlessly--

His laugh, an engine that won't turn over, sputtering to life
but falling right back down into the dirt,
lying on the oil-stained cold concrete floors ***** boots slipping over
and sticking too like wads of gum.

The charismatic mechanic who knew the answer to all things,
always ready to flash me that crooked greasy smile
stretching across his ruddy leather face.

I step back onto my skateboard, with soda in hand,
mail in the other,
and silently say goodbye to my Greasy Eden
before making my way down Juno Drive
towards the first house on the left,

following the road as it snakes past the trees,
alongside the creek, around the bend,
and out of sight.

Bottles of carbonation
And bottles of tears,
Bottles of death wishes
And bottles of jeers,
I've bottled all the nasty looks
People've given me over the years.
Now all that's left to get over
Is all of my worthless fears.

Bottles of carbonation sit silently
Humming and buzzing beside me,
Sitting open on my nightstand as I
Avoid conversation with the
Other hundreds of people who try
Desperately to strain to reach
Me before my wounds ooze pus
And blood and Death comes to reap.

Drinks keep me alive through his pain
It now courses through my veins.
It's why I twitch when hearing my name,
One final desperate gasp of breath
Before I succumb to painful death.

Chatting cold conspiracies from across the coffee table.

Pangaea on the rocks - sweet, sober, civil silence.

When did the degradation become so severe?

Time ticks down and friendships fade to acquaintances.

Spine tingling tempo of the pitter-patter rain drop percussion.

Galloping triplets trickling down from the temples of thunder.

Hands of the clock clap in celebration of another hour killed.

Two o’ clock Coca-Cola to crown the king of carbonation *****.

Naming off artists to impress the drunken temptress.

Taunting the room filled with glimmer-eyed, lovestruck libidos.

All the kids are struggling to remember the horoscope they skimmed.

Brains drained to the point of puking in mouths, poisoning the passion.

With whiskey laced erections, this night chants a swansong.

Illegal lane changes and tiptoe key turning roustabouts.

The Hubble eye can’t detect the silent thoughts left hidden.

Dreams within dreams, lost in a cloud of exhaled acceptance.

Tonight, you fizzled, and tonight, you sleep alone.

These are the danger days. Timber!

at the chevron hospital to settle nerves opal squeaky teeth and mint clear nose of mint
at the chevron hospital the doctor comes to check my winter tongue
my eyes are soggy bark
a cloth is being wrung
a sightless worm is having a seizure in a washing machine filled with teeth, a sightless worm is having a seizure in a moist cavern clicking carbonation, wringing over saliva   to hiss, not saying a word
just ringing mouths
blinking at the chevron hospital through tangled

help, my eyes are soggy bark a cloth is being wrung a sightless worm is having a seizure and my nerves opal to mint and clear me

She was so bubbly
Saliva like soda
Her eyes were so bright you could hear them pop
You could give an audience to the sugary syrup in her voice
You could feel the carbonation on her lips
And you could taste the sweet fizz on her tongue.
She was so bubbly
Before you came
Now she tastes flat.

you are everything
you are everyone
you are every cliche
you are the sun,
you are the stifling heat
that cannot be escaped
you are valentines cards
misdirected and misshaped,
you are hotmail,
you are myspace,
you are my face,
hungover and exhausted,
you are lost kids,
you are something that was fun,
you are not getting shotgun,
you are beer
that's been in the sun
too long,
you are a sad song,
that's not been made better,
you are the hole in my sweater,
or my pockets,
you are the chalky sugar that's
passed off as rockets,
you are the first drummer of the beatles,
you are evil,
and i don't mean that jokingly,
you are choking me,
like turtlenecks,
or high stake bets,
made on the wrong team,
you are what seems like
a good idea at the time,
you are past tense,
you are jeans caught in the fence
preventing teens from sneaking in,
you are cold wind on a dry winter's day,
you are Coldplay's last two albums,
you are too much talcum powder
you are convenience store flowers,
you are forced,
you are hoarse
voices in place of song,
you are wrong,
you are the weakest link,
you are outdated references,
you are beverages,
that have lost carbonation,
you are hesitation
that leads to regret,
you are the new york mets,
you are first impressions
that i make on the elderly,
you are Beverly Hills Chihuahua,
you are foie gras,
you are aqua
and their music in my head,
you are cold beds,
warm beer,
empty freezers,
old tears,
fake appeasers,
new fears,
you are the moments
when it feels like no one's near,
you are searching for Waldo for hours,
you are any buildings "bigger" than the cn tower,
you are fake,
you are first date awkward silence,
you are last date awkward silence,
you are violence,
you are hybrid suvs,
you are bees,
you are black flies,
you are forgetting an event is black tie,
you are something nice to forget,
you are socks that are wet,
you are the slow driver in the left lane,
you are fame,
you are fleeting seconds
never to be recaptured,
you are the man on the corner
screaming about rapture,
you are actors selling out,
you are stains on a couch,
you are lost remotes,
you are failed attempts to save face,
you are everything
that has ever graced
this time and space,
here and above,
you are everything,
you are love...

Carbonation
In the perforations
Of my pupils
Pops
Like one million little
Tiny bubbles
Swirling to the top
And I am lit

Just like a lantern on the lawn
I sway with wind 'til
Night is gone
Tumble with you
Toward the dawn

I like to snort coke
The feel of carbonation
As it's in my nose.

Transit garbled messages
From beings unprepared
Train-wreck waves of sound
Divine noise and ***** static
The foul breath of humanity
Tattered pieces of mentality
**** flavored carbonation
Steeped through alienation
Morbid tears of laughter
Plastered on demonic brick
Thrown through windows to the soul

Flabs upon *****
of excessive skin
flock towards the sands
to soak up the rays of
the day light hours
and delude themselves
in the roped off
safety zone waters
of the seashore.
Benched from lack of participation,
sober and observant,
you can't help but overhear
a conversation about the salty tastes
and textures of boys *******
between four teenage girls
who look like they just entered
the early stages of middle school
and should not know anything,
at that age,
about that topic of discussion.
Seagulls slowly glide overhead
waiting for the perfect moment
to bomb white droppings in the
******* mouths of the hodads
and steal their bacon while they
quickly scurry off and guffaw
on the inside.
Young ladies *****
hang proudly out of their
skimpy bathing suits and stare
into the sunken eyes of perverse old men. Socks and sandals roam the shores
like tyrants to detect metals
in the sand with their hiked up baggies, buttoned up blue Hawaiians
and fisherman hats.
They'll find god before
they find these treasures.
Unsupervised children puke peaches
and use plastic shovels
to pour buckets of sand
down the backs and cracks of rubbernecks with discourtesy and no remorse.
Adults shaded, relaxed and
nose deep in books
leave the responsibilities
of their parental duties
with inexperienced lifeguards
to babysit their youngsters
while they doggie paddle
and submerge in the undertow
along the waves of the oceanside.
Concession stands serve
delicious yet unhealthy,
deep fried grotesque of
appetizers and entrees
to the potbellied roly-poleys
as they wash it all down
with a fountain of syrup
and carbonation.
Bare footed beefy **** diesels
and their skinny minis
walk hand and hand
over the broken beer bottles
and sharp rocks buried in the sand,
unscathed and luxuriate
in teenage love
and summer fun.
Dorks and dweebs
play sand sphere
with bunnies and honeys
while Gremlins and grommets
hunch like Quasimodo
on their surfboards
and ride the ankle busters
and pounders til the end
as they hit the bone yard
at point break.
The sun shines down on all of us
leaving that warmth and radiant glow
as you watch the mythical creatures
and sea serpent shaped clouds
slowly overpass.
What a lovely day at the beach.

i hate technology, its automated typo system, i write one thing and then it starts playing hide & seek with me... i rarely make mistakes, but this a.i. automated typo system makes me look stupid, or neurotic in the least, i hate this automatic typo signification as if i am teaching someone!*

i love that drinking wins over writing sometimes,
like this strange neo-left asking me to top it all off
with my communist grandfather living under stalin
completely in agreement with them girlies weeping
when he stank the dog off the grave in terms of bio-tech
completion; he wouldn't be dear to the left epitaph,
he'd be like voltaire & the priest: given the devil
in the sickbed there was not time to choose enemies...
he'd be branded a ****... worded... the worst kind...
a pseudo pacifist of some sort... couple economy
and atheism and you get a darwinian exclusion
where the ants aren't oblivious to lions but exclude them
for their species so well organised, god can take
the hangover route and make the "self" less sellable;...
(economy of a species and darwinism
demands communism - exclusive economisation;
not inclusive economisation...
that's some sort of theological branch
of personification where man minds spider above
another man, etc.)...
there's no self included, esp. a (")self(") worth selling...
which means exactly that (the opposite of now)...
NO TOURISM INTO THE REALM
OF CELEBRITY LITERATURE...
WHICH IS ONLY BIOGRAPHIES....
GET YER **** OUT GIRLS!
YOU'LL WRITE A BOOK SOMETIME!
god this culture is barren, and to think i dressed up
in uniform for school listening to jethro tull once...
this ain't the same country...
it sold out to the arabs... charles iii
is a ******* traitor!
traitor!
charless the iii is john ii... character assasination
you like you did with diana...
diana's revenge... yeah i believe you
were wearing silk straps of safety and the
driver survived and the parapazzi blinded the driver:
one thing about jealousy... it has dwarf legs.
they pass into the political realm they do....
easier come easier to take on in politics...
economic migrants (we'll see about that,
your philanthrophy just took to faking flight
via an invisible magic carpet flapping its trims)...
i told you once that democracy is like inverse voyeurism...
mark the x on paper, ***** an ****** into jugs for
pale ale... excess carbonation... it turns all fizzy...
the geese marched into winter...
the swans marched right into a royal edict...
the neo carta was never crafted...
but i got the hang of the diacritic marks...
i was walking drinking a belgian cider...
C DER.... in belgian french there's an accent,
stress the c, makes the vowel missing...
cídre - not really acute i, but an acute c...
c         dr. dre, i.e. dre, c dre...
it's the acute stressor of c that makes the vowel
disappear... not that a vowel can actually
become acute... vowels like women wear
mascarra to look pretty, the consonants are
serviced for a complexity... via hebrew original...
c                        dre
not
               si                        ahem...               dre.
in passes on the pompom for expected pomp -
i can't believe it took a bottle of belgian cider
to get that across.
oh sure they can hang me... by the snout...
for i won't be able to march into a field of truffles...
but hey... big snout worthy... never mind
trying to wear leather shoes given the hannibal
treatment for tacky snakeshoe leather.
most say that difficult literature is literature unread...
there's no other difficulty in literature...
difficult literature is simply unread, that's why
it's difficult... simple literature trickles down as easy as water...
and that's why it's easily managed by what
the chinese done already, having no hollywood and
damning india's bollywood... their phoneticism
is lodged in ideograms... pictograms...
european phoneticism is lodged in a skin to number,
B akin to 8, e.g., we get rich owning ovens
televisisions and satellites... but we also own
watiers and cooks who are mechanised...
and have no richness of thought...
who cares if beijing is clouded in smog?
we have 15 more years of carbon emission to wait for
before our idealism is profitable!
ah but the arab girls will migrate to london every year
between may and august... i should be so lucky lucky
australian girl pop lucky with them shopping
in only one hot spot, a grieving egyptian's legoland
of tacky known as harrods!

I remember
                    one night we got so drunk
         on our porch under blankets
     I systematically
covered
     in cigarette
                   ash.
              dusted off
and started again
                                                      I swear
that night, under twinkle lights
                               I always think cast such a warm
                    glow,
          and drip golden,

I swear,
               that night,
Our Passion
                      bubbled like the carbonation in our bellies
And I stopped myself
                                      from saying I Love You.

I remember
                     on Christmas,
we laid on the couch
                                     all day
and didn't see or speak
                               to anyone else.
Watched movie
                        after movie
                                  after movie
Until we both sunk    
into each other
so deep    
                                 half asleep with commitment
              to laziness
      Until I couldn't tell
where my body
                   ended and yours
           began
It was the best Christmas I've ever had.

And I remember
           how you looked
       the night you told me
                              it was over
My breath
                                            caught
and cracked
                             like
                                       ice
Stuck
           between esophagus
                                                 and lung
like our bathroom pipes.

You must have said
                                                  "ex-lover"
hal­f a dozen times or more.

I remember
                     thinking how inappropriate
it was that as I was listening to you
             And all I wanted was
to kiss the anger
             from your lips

I'm not sure why I ever stopped myself
             from loving you until
the very last second,
But I think you're right.
       I thought I couldn't deserve you
and instead of fighting,
                      I put my hands up,
threw down
           a white flag.
In the end, I didn't deserve you
Your quiet power,
                                  Your Moon-child Grace.
If nothing else,
                           this time,
I will learn
      from my mistakes.

my feet had barely greeted california
when my face matched the new summer,
cheeks blooming uneven,
eyes green as moss
and every face i glared upon
avoided looking too long.

walking through my least favorite airport
chin high, silent and ugly and wet,
i grieved for myself, i pitied my future, and mourned my past.
something lodged in my throat screamed with more assurance
and clarity and confidence than i have ever known
"this is not where i belong!"

i cried for my feet no longer squishing silica on white beaches
old skin disappearing in tiny fish
or kissing rainforest mulch, under-dressed in flipflops
taunting flora and fauna and fate

i cried for my skin, abused and bronzed
exfoliated in world heritage parks, the first shower in days
and oiled from water crossings in a run-down four wheel drive
a beard of blemishes i didn't bother to hide.

i cried for my ears, robbed of every accent,
of the crashing waves and roar of waterfalls,
or the same six songs played in every club in cairns
and the pterodactyl screech of flying foxes.

i cried for my hair, for my hands, for my nose.
i cried for my mouth and my tongue and my legs.

mostly, i cried for the death of laughter that started in the
pit of my stomach and rose up like carbonation
to my chest and my lungs and my neck and burst
like floodwaters in dorrigo
the elation and exhilaration and euphoria of being alive
that spilled out of me in screams and shrieks
and bubbled and flushed and insisted
so fiercely so strongly so urgently
that to relent was not even a choice but a right

and then half a year later
i sat dully in a fluorescent corridor at my transfer terminal
feeling my heart retreat, defeated
dreading the long months ahead
promising nothing but drudgery and boredom
letting the tears drip onto my boarding pass
black ink lamenting, too
and not a single person approached
or spoke to me
until i asked to wash away the moment
with a diminutive bottle of ***
a mile from the surface.

The streets were not as mean as history
said they would be,
especially after a night out
at the bier haus,
where we filled our grosse steins
with litres of hops
& barley
& natural carbonation.
It really wasn't a nation full of crazies,
but rather
one full of serious frunken fun
& frolicking amoungst the bauchnabels
with liebe.

Sweet,
with a subtle carbonation.
Forefinger and thumb
running up the length of the stem of the glass.
Palm at the base of the bulb.
Swirling
Clinking
"Cheers."

Cold,
but warmed by the wine.
Touching lips.
Touching tongue.
*Kiss, kiss

Your sitting in the cabin of woods, far from old sighs and tribulations.
Like saliva, your current dame forms through a process of aural nothings on the couch most adjacent your heart.
The cabin is attempting its second suicide this month; burning itself from the inside, kitchened soul, out.
The dame says nothing but thats not what you need.
Your needs exceed the gritting anger of blue and orange flame.
You feel the delicate hairs of your foot dissolve from these blues and oranges; the horror of human carbonation is a 90 year rainbow.
The dame says nothing but thats not what you need.
You need the dame to cough up bricks and sea of vocabulary that bring you back to your nostalgic rave.
The mute dame is louder than the fire and this is your current muse.
Your most current scar tissue to be.
The fiery cabin will bend around you like bark, and this is what you need.
This is the blanket you've been waiting for.

lightning bolts are striking through my body. my adrenaline is as fresh as carbonation and i feel bittersweet.

discarded instant ramen bowls
left airing in the dark
sitting next to sprite bottles
devoid of their fizzy carbonation
clothes heaped on the floor
collecting dust with homework papers
the glowing screen of the computer the only light to be seen
a figure
matted hair, dark circles under their eyes
so used to their own scent they do not realize their stench
abandoning everything besides their computer
their fingers tap quickly on the keyboard
but their eyes are dead and void
they have lost their path
they cannot find their way.

O, my dearest and most enticing caffeine
Without you, the world would be grey
For each time you reach for my heart
It both flutters and beckons the day
So generous and giving, thou doth art
The simmering sound of your can intoxicates me
Carbonation so sweet; you give me motivation all week
To continue this molecular love story

there are countless moments
when i know i could've done it
where i know i could've taken it
where i know there would've been an end
there are countless things i cannot say
things that would bring me to a basement
things that would bring me to the church
things that would make me seem crazy
things that they would never believe
things they'd be embarrassed about
things they'd be disappointed in

lately its felt really bad
everything is coming back
things i used to feel are reappearing
worse
worse
worse
worse
worse
its drowning and exploding all in one
i'm bursting with everything bottled up
a shaken bottle with carbonation boiling inside
spewing out every time

words aren't enough anymore
there is no escape

Why is all the world light, and I am small underneath?
Just a black bottom under this apple tree?
Why am I in the limelight, the foreground?
The light pours no citrus drink, but a cyanide fruit pit pound!

The over-saturated curtains tail my frail feet.
Much busier than a yellow-black bee, bumping till its stinger gets caught in a fabric hemming
and it dies with no one noticing.
The girl who reads, the tree that sifts its rotten leaves;
they care less, less for a discoloration that unfortunately eats at me.

Even when the elders waltz the foxtrot dance so that even my dwarf legs can follow suit,
I will never be quite slow, or fast enough? for all of you.
I disintegrate daily into almost nothing.
I stare, but no one stares at me.

Oh, haven’t I written a piece about shadows and light?
What’s with me! I use the same machine work!
Metaphors, imageries, diction, diction mutating to a deeper fiction. Unoriginal it is!
The masses cling onto clichès with their pointed teeth;
why can’t I, I lodge into that all-inclusion?
Why do I repeat my own themes? Have I never learned critical thinking?
I depend on repetition: same old, same old (did I mention the old ‘same’?)
thing to grasp any new concept!

Maladaptive daydreamer
who cannot conjure up any ink
of fresh difference! What purpose do I hold
in this awful, spineless world?
I am too awfully, awfully simple and dumb
to succeed in any other playing field!
Reality, what foreign entity is she?
Maybe a solemn quiet would do it for me.
(So maybe I’ll have an extended vacation,
and revisit my only talent some other day.)

What do the (sappy) honey-loving poets write on?
The (sawdust) stardust in eye pupils, and
igniting our hearts alight (till it guzzles that red stream and we become only such, and the carpet gets a free dye job).
Apparently, everything pure and worthy is atomized into
(carbolic soap I allow carbonation of its soda acid in my eyes) diamonds.

On the subject of atomic level substances,
let's rehearse the Compton effect:
Heat me up to a hundred keV
like cheap microwave dinner, so that I propel—
whoosh!— tink against metallic beings
till I decrease, and I am powerless.
Each new orbit of opportunity I seize,
I result with less, and the opportunity snatches from me.
Glistening shoe shiner whose price tag appeals to the average Joe,
then I swipe: scuffing up my rounded toe.

She tattooed those other girls’ arrow on herself because:
“I’m pulled back to soar farther,”
yet this stretching has lasted for… months?
Compare this not to a crossbow, but to that of a
medieval rack, that gruesome torture device!
My tissue is tearing asunder, but this is polar from breaking bread!
I ache, I ache, I ache! Isn’t yoga supposed to tranquilize you to a grounded state, not death?

Why is the world so light when I am so heavy?
Why must I “lust for a life” that lusts not for me?

my love for you fizzled up
like soda left on the counter
like a fish with no water
slowly inhaling what kills it

i don't know when it happened
im not even quite sure why
but sometimes you stepped on my emotional mines without even realizing they were there
exploding inside my heart
ripping me up inside
i know you didn't mean it
but i didn't need someone else making me feel like i wasn't good enough
maybe that's why i pulled away
maybe i was the air that ****** the carbonation out
maybe i drowned myself
i'm sorry i couldn't be what you wanted
i'm sorry i let myself get in the way of our beautiful
i often do that
my emotional scars can be quite fragile
the stitches are still in place
the wounds barely healed
i'm sorry you couldn't make me feel good enough
maybe because you are so much greater
maybe it was just the wrong time
i'm not sure
but i'm sorry

I haven’t written in ages he thought as he sat down at his desk and stared at the blank piece of lined white notebook paper that stared equally back at him. He grabbed a pen from its holder and noted all the bite marks on the cap and wondered if all were from him or if some of the marks were from former flames, ones that had stood over his shoulder and peered down while he was writing.

He shook the thoughts from his head. It had been a long time since there had been any spark with anyone, hardly enough for a flame.

Ben put the pen nib to the paper and began writing. Words were forming on them but they were not his own and they did not stay. They would fade. They would crumble. They would be as if they never were.

He rubbed his head, paying attention to the bridge between his eyebrows as if the massaging of that one area would elicit an idea.

It did not.

He continued to stare.

The paper continued to stare.

He heard the carbonation fizzing in a gin drink he made before sitting down but could not motivate himself to lift the drink and take it to his lips. He was at a loss and knew there was no way out.

The end of the pen cap rolled onto the floor. The pen followed. Ben slumped down in his seat and rested his head on the paper. He fell asleep and dreamt of robots hunting with Ted Nugent, of swimming in obsidian clouds as the planet below obliterated itself in war, of a girl he knew in college that he had a crush on but never had the guts to talk to. Ben dreamt a thousand dreams and a thousand stories but when he woke up his mind remained blank and full of static.

He stared at the paper.

The paper stared back.

Ben closed his eyes.

The paper continued staring.