iv 5-2-18

wrest the black tang the cosmic vacuum of background static and an ungainly dream of walking down a mountain path with my father we descend the silent belly of campus seats filled with mounted bodies lolling the inside stench anna walks ahead of me her voice cuts the waking body of midnight shuttles a hydroponic plant and the sparse parking lot of a supermarket radiating cold.

the fright, the nervous flesh, the stuttered pace of cars, the empty lot, the empty hour, the empty admission of make-belief, collapsing into precession at the peak of worthlessness.

ii 22-1-18

An endless stream, the back of an apartment block, fingers twine across the powder red of brick and sunlight.

I try to catch a glimpse of myself in her eyes, but beyond recognition there is nothing.

I see my father behind a sliding door. He moves further into the kitchen to take pictures from a tripod.

Clothes litter the ground. Nothing fits.

iii 4-2-18

the cracked linen STOP the momentary arrogance STOP the surfacing violence STOP the weathering STOP

A YELL torpid stultifying CRASH cruel ******* trace of the same

and all i can do is shrink as green tea soaks the tablecloth.

i 31-1-17

The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human. The problem is you were born human.

They keep the air cold to slow the spread. A pale light draws you into existence, a bloom of city smoke and glass. I watch the shadow of your wrist thin as the sun dies. You turn your head away.

Everything thins. Houses shrink. Streetlamps burst. Organs wither. I walk for hours along the wharf. Rain trickles through broken windows and falls into the black harbour. Dust clots the waterways. Skin sheds.

The problem is you were born human. Turned away, you obliterate.

A woman swears at her crying child. She pulls his arm violently. Existence floods the air. A miasma of confusion, fear and hatred. The mirror turns outwards.

You rise with your bed. A fold in a sea of whiteness. It was your spine, they said. The thing holding you together. It was disintegrating, flattening to infinity.

There is nothingness. A flood of it. A pitiless swell that never ends and threatens to crush the world with every breath. Bated wait in a heart white as bone.

Years pass. The loop breaks and I reform it. You lie in a bed of stone. You sink beneath the nothingness of reality. Years pass. The loop breaks and I reform it. You lie in a bed of stone. You sink beneath the nothingness of reality. Years pass. The loop breaks and I reform it. You lie in a bed of stone. You sink beneath the nothingness of—

The IV fluid is imaginary. So is the taste of cold water beneath your tongue. It is a fractal world. A reality formed from a fragmented possi—haven’t I written this before?

There is a traffic accident. I am not there and neither are you. They pull you out of the wreckage, smoke rising from your chest, breast alight with hatred. You gaze at me, a stranger, and I break into shards, each one capturing you like a memento, a death drive.

Ash falls from the sky. I gaze up until I am blind. I reach my hand out and find the neck pulse of the earth. I find you.

I sit in the common room. I shuffle through pieces of myself. There is nothing here but you. Where am I? Where the **** am I? Where is the nothingness between you and I? Someone addresses me. I look up and find myself incapable of speech. I reach out but my arm fails to follow. I listen but cannot catch a word. The bell rings but you aren’t here. I look down. The pieces reflect nothing.

Reality collapses. Hypodermic crash to the libidinal economy. Desire and lack the same. Anticathexis sublimates into worthless ******* words on a document. Wren bursts black particles across the pavement, like cancerous soma running fingers through a spinal column. You smile. I sink. I sink.

The mind is sick with existence. Ganglia, myelin, dendritic sprawls. It all functions. It all works too well. Purpose, connection, reaction. I envy you. I *******—

Winter is here, bright, empty winter, almond grey and silent.